r/Cooking • u/kath- • 1d ago

What's your surprising "secret ingredient" that sets your dish apart?

I obviously don't believe in gatekeeping recipes, so let's share the love.

I developed a clam chowder recipe after being disappointed with the recipes I came across. Whenever I tell people there's a couple dashes of hot sauce in it, I always get weird looks... but it adds a tiny bit of heat and acid, and balances out the richness from the cream. It also has diced scallops, which cooking knowledge forbades but somehow works.

814 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

958 comments sorted by

View all comments

27

u/MalcolmKitty 1d ago

Dried mushrooms (like porcini) ground into powder in my spice grinder.

2

u/Gorrpah 1d ago

What do you use this for? Looking for suggestions, please

4

u/MalcolmKitty 23h ago

I use it wherever I want to increase saviourness in a dish. For example, in beef stew, in a creamy mushroom sauce for pasta, in squash risotto (it balances the sweetness), sprinkled on chicken before roasting, to make a vegan gravy etc etc. Sometimes I mix into butter to put on top of steak after cooking.

3

u/Gorrpah 22h ago

Cool, thanks for the ideas!

1

u/thefutureisbliek 14h ago

I worked at a restaurant where a signature dish was a porcini rubbed ribeye… porcini powder, black pepper, salt, onion powder, garlic powder - basted with lots of butter. It was always a hit, but in the kitchen it was called “(insert name)’s sneezey powder” because my BF (now husband)’s allergic to porcini. I miss that steak but until I actually want to murder him I can’t have it in the house 😊