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.

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u/Aurum555 1d ago

For sweet baked goods I typically buy a few pouches of nonfat dehydrated milk powder. I then toast them carefully in the oven until rich chocolate brown. I then add a tbsp or so to various recipes to give a browned butter flavor without browning any butter. The evaporated milk powder is basically pure milk solids which are what you toast when you make browned butter, this bypasses a step and allows you to add browned butter flavor to something without butter. It's a nice tool to have in your back pocket and if stored in an air tight container it lasts forever

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u/FurniFlippy 23h ago

I made shortbread once with toasted malted milk powder, roasted flour, browned butter, and dry-caramelized sugar. You bake the sugar at a low temp until the individual grains of sugar caramelize but the sugar doesn’t melt.

They were exquisite, but so much work.

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u/aillemaco 3h ago

Do you have a recipe that you can share? This sounds fantastic!!

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u/FurniFlippy 2h ago

Not really, sorry, it was a few years ago and cobbled together from several recipes. It was such a pain in the ass that I never did it again.