What "secret recipe" foods do you cook and get "right?" (ingredients, restaurant)

[blktoptrvl]

There are many foods that are so called secret recipes or lets say - hard to reproduce well by the average cook. My questions are:

• Are there any replication foods that you cook so well that no one would know the difference between yours and the store bought version?
• Do you consider these foods easy to make? As in so easy that it makes it worthwhile - as opposed to spending too much time in the kitchen to get it right?
• Are you willing to post your recipe here?

As an example, I'd truly like to have some Chicken George (defunct restaurant chain) Chicken with 5 Guys Fries, washed down by either Bo's Cherry Soda or Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino, and followed up with Chili's molten lava cake.

What can you cook and get the flavors so right, it tastes just like the chain version?

[Dirt Grinder]

My recipes are good enough that no one wants the "chain version."

[magicshark]

Gee I hate to sound like a snot but....I put so much effort, so much love, joy, etc. in my cooking. I think I might cry if someone thought it tastes like chain restaurant food.

[in_newengland]

I'm not that great of a cook but I know the secrets of a great Yorkshire pudding. Like the previous poster, I hope my food doesn't seem like chain style stuff. The other thing I make is good pot roast, so I've been told.

[mainebrokerman]

not only am I a decent cook,,,i'm very handy and if you like fresh and local..
I can bring you to a farm to pick out your own cow...and i'll do the rest cut it all up and have a prime rib waiting in the oven,,,i even do dishes and pick up if the dessert is worth it

foods I get right???

I grind my own burgers and make my own sausage ..... and have a freezer full of wild game..

but my specialty is cooking beef and pork.... I can easily make a pork crown roast to a Florentine to rolled stuffed roasts and marinades..

I'm pretty handy on a grill too


lobsterbakes....lobsters, mackerel, clams and corn cooked in seaweed has an awesome smokiness ..the meal is an adventure..

[jay5835]

My cakes and pasta dishes are much better than what you get in chain restaurants or supermarkets. So are my chilis (not that I've had much chain chili).

[Dogmama50]

I like Five Guys fries and I don't have a deep fryer at home so I will give them the nod on those, but like the others here I'm a pretty fine cook and take care an pride in my ingredients and techniques being compared to a chain would be horrible.

I don't make chocolate lava cake much anymore but when I did it wasn't based on Chili's it was based on the US original by Jean-Georges Vongerichten, pretty easy and well worth it if you want to try..

[Miss Hepburn]

I worked at a restaurant that was voted as the best Key Lime Pie,
and IT WAS!
Well, naturally I learned how to make it. (Oh, in Key West years ago.)
I also can make a great $10 Spanish Coffee. Like a local cool restaurant here.

[Aery11]

When I can beat some of the best chefs and restaurants in the world, or that little old lady on the back streets of a small Thai village in the jungle, I will report back with the recipes. Getting there. I have the heart and the love down pat now. Presentation can sometimes be a little off and/or my speed and consistency a little under par.


I mastered/bettered the chain stuff a long time ago now (I worked on it every day for years when I was working full time, had a child in a school 20 miles away who had to be driven there and back every day, caring for my aging and ill parents, going to night school and taking care of a household) but I no longer cook that kind of fare if I can help it. Too heavy for me mostly these days, and I guess there is that btdt issue too.

[blueherons]

Some things have so many ingredients, it's almost impossible to replicate. Cheesecake Factory's Shrimp Summer Rolls come to mind. The Rolls have about 27 different ingredients not to mention the sauces.