This pin test was originally posted on CraftFail.
Friends, I sometimes suffer from aspirational food cooking. Do you know what that is? It’s actually a thing. Oprah says so. It’s when you make foods that you hope will turn you into someone you’re not. Anyway, one such aspiration is that I will learn how to cook foods from a variety of countries and flavors, and it will be delicious, and my Southern born-and-raised spouse and I will absolutely love it. So I tried veggie laksa soup, which is a coconut based noodle concoction.
Image from Zen Family Habits
In hindsight, I realize that the coconut-based part should have given me pause. That actually sounds sort of revolting to me even now. But I wanted to be zen and worldly, and maybe even eat that shit with chopsticks.
So I made some.
Probably the first problem was that I could not find anything in the grocery store labeled Singapore noodles, so I got something that looked sort of like Ramen noodles except without the flavor packet, and figured it was close enough. Probably the second problem was that I did not have laksa paste. Or Thai curry paste. But I did have Indian curry paste. And, again, I figured it was close enough.
I’m not going to tell you that this soup was the worst thing I ever ate. It was not. It was actually edible, for the first few bites. But it was very, very sweet. I mean, like, picture Elf spaghetti.
And so, after a few bites, both my spouse and I abandoned our soupy syrup noodles in favor of just eating the noodles without anything on them. (We looked just like Hugh Jackman and Ashley Judd. Promise.)
So, this is not so much a recipe fail as an aspiration fail. I will probably never be the kind of person who appreciates flavors from all over the world and gets all zen about noodles with ice cream on them.
To see more of Pintester’s tests (most of which are also CraftFails), check out her blog at Pintester.com.
48 Comments
Yikes, I read “aspirational food cooking” as aspirational food CHOKING, and started getting teary, thinking how brave the Pintester was to share her non-period-related medical issues with the world! Ah well, she’s still brave enough to substitute in recipes Like A Boss.
Aww, Laksa is awesome! But it is hard to make if you don’t have the right stuff, If you are ever in Chicago come over I ill make it for you! We could also fuck shit up together!
Wait, did you use “cream of coconut” instead of “coconut cream?” Because that stuff is sweetened, and would be downright disgusting.
OOO I actually made this too!! But the curry paste we used was so spicy it brought tears to my eyes. The creamy coconut sweetness was a welcome flavor. Next up: Bok Choy oyster sauce noodles. Once we have hot water again so we can wash dishes.
Any post that shouts out to Elf is a win in my book. Are you the primary preparer of meals in the Foust home? If you ever have kids, I can’t wait to see you get into the homemade babyfood tests. Of course, I pulled rutabaga, avocado, spinach and beets on my babies, but that’s because I’m a Pinteste and I rule.
I made this, and I usually don’t F*** up pins, but this one was a FAIL! It was so gross. And we used the peppers like they said to with the red and green ones and curry paste and coconut milk. NASTY! I couldn’t even get past the first bite. My husband wouldn’t even eat it and that’s saying something. He is like my garbage disposal for inedible food. The only thing that he has absolutely refused to eat that I can remember was a creation when we were newly married, dirt poor and involved chicken, scalloped potatoes and really strong onions… It was a disaster!
Apparently there is a Pinterest recipe involving cooking salmon in the dishwasher. That screams “PINTESTER” to me more than anything else I’ve ever seen.
agreed!!!!!!!!!!
omgosh please do that.
I think you must have used “cream of coconut”, which is sugary coconut flavored syrup. It should be canned coconut milk, I’m guessing, which doesn’t contain any sugar at all.
I made this too…although it was a slightly different recipe with same picture. It was coconut milk and a red curry paste and rice noodles and red pepper. It was the most bland, boring, tasteless thing ever. I jazzed it up with some fish sauce and srachai which helped a little but it was still a big old fail.
You can’t really blame the recipe when you don’t follow the recipe or the directions…if you can’t find the right ingredients, don’t make it. You do this with all your recipes you try…I appreciate your blog and humor but it just isn’t fair to blame a recipe when you aren’t even following it. JMO.
Blanket response: http://pintester.com/oh-you-dont-like-it/
I like your response 🙂
You ma’am win the internet. All of it.
that made me laugh so hard I spit all over my keyboard 🙂
Holy crap! I’ve been (lazily) following you for a couple months now and just learned you live in Durham! So do I! If it’s not terribly creepy, I would totally test pins with you. Like, in person.
Jillian, that’s why this is funny. If she followed the directions and still ended up with crap it might be a little funny, but it would also be at the expense of the pin.
When she makes liberal substitutions it is no longer about the pin but about her. It’s called “self-deprecating humor”, and she’s really good at it.
I really don’t see how you can appreciate her humor but not like this integral part of it, but we are all different. I like the blog just the way it is.
It literally sounds like you copied and pasted this from her responses to past comments that were exactly like this. For the sake of my own sanity I will call this comment failed sarcasm and no one will convince me otherwise.
I think you are joking right??? Right?? Oh my goodness… Well either way…. This recipe sucks. This coming from someone who used EXACTLY the right ingredients. Although mine wasn’t sweet. Sweet would at least have been interesting 🙂
If you don’t appreciate the blog, a quick fix that will take you somewhere better (if you’re running windows) simply press windows key + L.
I always assumed part of the humor of this blog is that we all substitute either out of need or laziness and are surprised the recipe isn’t quite what was pictured. mid recipe out of sugar try some corn syrup or confectionery sugar… I am sticking with this notion and giggling all the way.
Day-um! That sounds wretched from the get-go. Think I’ll stick with my Kung Pao and soba noodles…that’s about as “Asian” as it gets for me. I would appreciate a test of Indian food as I would like to try that (after you’ve worked out the bugs).
I’ve made this actually and it was super delicious, although a bit spicy. I used Udon noodles and found thai chilli paste in my local grocery store. Although I can see how it wouldn’t end up too great without the spiciness of the chilli paste!
And here I thought the “angry reader” comment you posted in “Champagne Jello Shots” was made up. Turns out, it was Jillian R.
at least you try recipes….i get as far as pinning them! btw love your blog and tests!
I love that you make substitutions. Who really finds all those weird ingredients at the local grocery store, and who has time to go to a specialty store? I have better things to do with my free time.
I want to encourage you to try this again with unsweetened coconut milk. The recipe should have specified that.
Yeah grocery stores need to specify that. Put a label next to the sweened coconut milk that says “Yes they also make unsweetened shit but we don’t sell it” 🙁
You cooked a foreign dish (which happens to be from my culture, wa-hey!) because you wanted to seem zen and worldly. Really?
So if I made mac and cheese I’d be zen and worldly because it’s a foreign dish to me. Fantastic.
So great to see that racism and xenophobia are over.
Racist…really? Grasping for straws there….
Oh yeah, because the orientalist notion that anything from Asia is ‘zen’ and ‘worldly’ is not based off of racist perceptions from the 17th century.
It would be so great so see my culture portrayed as something that isn’t alien or barbaric or a tool to find yourself or be more cultured.
I see no where any mention of “your” culture being refered to as barbaric on this thread. Furthermore, anything that is from a region or culture that you are unfamilair with is alien. Not a criticism, simply a fact. But if you want to cry in your Laska because someone on a website made a dish from your culture that didn’t turn out well…be my guest. I have bigger & better things to do in my life than cry victim.
I’m confused. Did you come here to troll or were you really seeking a Laska recipe? This site seems to be a humor blog. You read the tagline “fucking things up so you don’t have to” and decide to take a stand about your heritage here? I don’t understand what you hope to gain by putting down Pintester on her humor site. Please explain that? No, seriously. I’m curious.
Well if we’re being *that* sensitive, guess I’ll have to start calling everyone that says all Americans are fat and stupid racist. Seriously, you need to get your panties out of that giant twist they seem to be in.
wait..what? of all the negative comments I would expect from this post, “racist” wasn’t one I expected. Not seeing the connection there…
and really, this just reinforces my opinion that “offended” is an internal thing. In other words, someone who is offended, really just offended themselves. People don’t have control over other peoples emotions unless you let them. Someone might think “fuck” is a bad word and is therefore offended, but what makes a bad word? Who decided fuck is bad? People who are offended by the word fuck, probably never even thought about why they were offended. Anyway, I’m off topic. Getting off my soapbox now…
Did you notice that the photo (and recipe) are from a site called “Zen Family Habits?” And that Sonja explained aspirational food cooking right off the bat? She’s satirizing the idea that cooking “traditional” Asian dishes will somehow automatically make white American cooks zen and worldly, when that’s obviously ridiculous.
I get what you’re saying, but your anger would be more properly directed at Zen Family Habits and/or Oprah…
This reminds me of the Asian girl on the Tyra Banks show about discrimination. The Hispanic woman had trouble being pegged as a cheap thief with drugs, the black girl an untrustworthy gang member with no education and the Asian, through tears, explained that she was pegged as a “genius.” Her whole life was so hard because of this and she’s extremely offended about this stereotype. Zen and worldly aren’t exactly offensive terms. Does it offend you when you go to a Thai restaurant that only has floor seating with pillows and chop sticks? If the owners are American, are they racist for embracing a cultural idea with their cultural food? I can picture you walking in there and saying, “Oh, wow, they think that just because it’s Thai food we have to sit on the floor? BURN THE PLACE DOWN THEY’RE RACISTS!” No one is out to get you and insult your culture. Your life will be 100 times better once you realize that.
@google-57c167df9feb61eafb40e0dcb9544df3:disqus Do you ever browse the How-To’s in Pinterest? Look up “How to remove a stick from an ass”
[…] am apparently a racist because of my Veggie Laksa Soup post. See the comments for an interesting discussion […]
I made this and followed the directions. It was really good. Unfortunately, you cannot substitute curries – they are too different. Sometimes substitutions are a bad idea – especially when it comes to ethnic food. A recipe is really meant to be followed, so this was obviously not “Pintested” authentically.
[…] made some veggie laksa soup and was then accused of being a racist because I said that Asian food makes me feel zen. Perhaps I […]
Pintester, what the fuck did you put on top of your laksa??!! Is that an exploded cocktail frankfurt?
I think its one of those ‘baby carrots’ that are actually just large carrots whittled down into a pellet. They crack sometimes if they’re old or you overcook them
seriously tho – this shit cracks me up.
I made this too! Except I substituted all the shit in the recipe for a pizza. It was delicious!
Hilarious post – almost as hilarious as the butt-hurt individuals calling you racist.
I’ll make sure to never say I feel “zen” next time I take a yoga class, or say I feel “worldly” next time I go travelling. But seriously though, that shit is wiggity-wack.