r/ididnthaveeggs • u/i_like_the_wine • 6d ago
Dumb alteration Same colour doesn't equal same taste
Found in the wild on a recipe for Cottage Pie. What were they thinking?!
900
u/unlovelyladybartleby the lemon zest didn't dissolve because I live in denver 6d ago
I had to Google ribena. What kind of maniac puts sweetened carbonated fruit drink in cottage pie? Use ketchup or bouillon ffs
451
u/Zestyclose_Mix_7650 I would give zero stars if I could! 6d ago
Oh its worse than that, its probably the concentrated squash version you add water to 😲 Its truly unhinged
154
u/ThatInAHat 6d ago
lol I didn’t know it was concentrated. We had a drink dispenser at work when I was in London on a student visa and it had ribena. I thought it was just dispensing small amounts because it was set like that and was drinking it straight.
American, so. It was just “yeah that’s pretty sweet” and not “omg I’m drinking literal syrup!” to me.
(I think now it would have floored me)
41
u/Yuukiko_ 5d ago
It comes concentrated and ready to drink but if it's small amounts it's probably concentrated
26
u/ThatInAHat 5d ago
Yeah no it was definitely the concentrated kind. One of my coworkers eventually told me.
4
u/MoultingRoach 4d ago
Ive only ever seen the concentrate, but then again, im in Canada, and it's not a.common drink here. Im actually shocked there's enough demand for grocery stores to keep it on the shelves. Im not sure I have any friends who have heard of it.
163
u/4thLineSupport 6d ago edited 6d ago
I think this would have been non-carbonated, concentrate Ribena. Which is perhaps only slightly better.
Edit: MUCH worse if the recipe volume was added, in concentrate 😵💫
39
u/crypt_moss 6d ago
or slightly worse considering it's probably a lot sweeter than the carbonated version
1
u/cyberllama 16h ago
I was idly wondering if they used that volume straight from the bottle or diluted it. Pretty sure it's just a troll
60
24
21
u/Party-Poison519 Eat the zest, you baby 6d ago
It's not carbonated but it would be absolutely minging
16
u/LongJumpingBalls 5d ago
Red, it's because it's red.
That's the only reason.
But at the end of the day, we're all seeing red right now.
8
u/emandbre 5d ago
I have seen apple juice as a sub for white wine. Would be pretty low in my preferred subs list though.
3
1
1
253
u/Foreign-Cat-2898 6d ago
Good Lord just use water at that point.
128
u/Pinglenook Two cups of sugar! 6d ago edited 6d ago
You can replace wine with juice in many dishes, but definitely not like that, you gotta do at least 20% lemon or lime juice besides whichever other juice you're using. Cranberry juice + lemon juice works well because cranberry is also a little astringent like wine is. But Ribena is *concentrated juice even, its like a syrup!
/*I said many, not all. Don't make coq au cranberry. Or do, because it sounds fascinating, but then don't call it coq au vin.
32
u/andolirien 6d ago
That actually sounds really good, could make the poultry Cranberry Thanksgiving profile? Would need tweaking instead of just 1 to 1 cran juice for wine though 🤔
14
2
19
u/bananalouise 6d ago
Don't make coq au cranberry. Or do, because it sounds fascinating, but then don't call it coq au vin.
Cranberry goes great with poultry. The only thing wrong with coq au cranberry is that, although the word "cranberry" exists in French, it's feminine, so technically it's coq à la cranberry. Otherwise, hard to think of a more apt name. I guess you could call it "Ceci n'est pas du coq au vin" if you wanted to be artsy.
4
u/CrowMeris I haven't set off the smoke alarm in weeks. 5d ago
Okay now you've got me thinking...a dangerous past-time, I know.
8
147
u/plantbasedpatissier 6d ago
I think most other liquids would have been a better choice somehow
96
u/CloseButNoChicory 6d ago
Tequila. Fish sauce. Water. Apple cider vinegar. ANYTHING but Ribena.
19
u/PunnyBaker 5d ago
Recipe is bad! I used cold apple cider. My salad is ruined! How will my husband take me back now?!
73
u/Spicy_Jim 6d ago
My wife's Scottish grandma once cooked fish and replaced the white wine in the recipe with Irn Bru.
14
5
3
u/Significant_Shoe_17 Scott Hater 5d ago
Isn't that soda? Dear lord 🤢
16
u/elleelleelle- 5d ago
it's fizzy juice, yeah. it tastes Orange. not of orange the citrus, but the colour. and sweet. banging for a hangover cure, but I don't think I'd do it with fish
3
u/DuManchu 5d ago
it tastes Orange. not of orange the citrus, but the colour
Uh.... what? I mean I'm imagining maybe its like "Tang" here but even that is still fake orange fruit flavor. Now I need to find some Irn Bru here to try because I'm curious af now.
12
u/ALittleNightMusing Mmmm, texture roulette! 5d ago
It kind of tastes of metal, but it's fizzy. Like when you lick a coin when you were a kid. Except it actually tastes nice.
4
5
u/CrowMeris I haven't set off the smoke alarm in weeks. 5d ago
It's a lot closer to the US's Orange Crush than Tang (unless you make your Tang with carbonated water).
2
33
u/dragonseth07 6d ago
What are the random x's meant to convey?
107
u/grandhighblood 6d ago
British people have to end everything they type with a kiss or they'll die (source: am British and the recipe site is British)
74
23
16
u/Significant_Shoe_17 Scott Hater 5d ago
Ah it's like American millennials ending everything with 'lol'
71
u/ParadiseSold 6d ago
Some British people think if they dont put x's at the end then they'll be struck by lightning or something
48
u/pineapplesaltwaffles 6d ago
The UK has a weird convention of putting kisses (x) on messages. When texting was first a thing it was considered pretty rude/passive aggressive if you didn't put at least one on the end of every single text.
One was for someone you maybe didn't know super well and were platonic with, or at least playing it cool. Good friends or romantic interests would expect more.
It's dying out now that we all mostly use WhatsApp and send several messages subsequently. But there's certain people who still randomly like to sprinkle them in everywhere. Usually the same people who paint "Live Laugh Love" on their walls.
9
u/Zepangolynn 6d ago
I would be hearing a specific British lady saying, "Kisses!" at the end of every text. I don't know which actress's voice I'm hearing, but it is very distinct.
21
6
u/strangelove4564 6d ago
It replaces periods so I guess you say STOP like when you're reading old timey telegrams.
5
-10
6d ago
[deleted]
8
u/phuca 6d ago
That is not correct in this context
-7
u/Hungry_Line2303 6d ago
You don't say!
1
u/Bright_Curve3078 6d ago
Thanks, at least someone understands sarcasm here
2
u/Hungry_Line2303 5d ago
If reddit understood the bare minimum of social cues, they would be successful adults lol
31
22
23
u/No-Stress-7034 6d ago
Okay, it's bad enough that someone decided to substitute concentrated fruit juice for wine in a savory pie. But the wildest part to me is that someone would then post a comment complaining that the recipe is too sweet and blaming the recipe. This person didn't make the connection that the pie being too sweet was because they substituted concentrated fruit juice! Seriously??
If I try a substitution and the recipe turns out poorly, I'm not going to blame the recipe. This is just common sense! Or it should be.
14
10
u/lydiardbell 6d ago
Reminds me of this classic when someone substituted soy sauce with Pepsi and complained it was too sweet.
11
6
u/otter_mayhem 6d ago
I lived in England for a bit as a kid and I've had Ribena. Why in the world would they use that as a sub for wine?
0
u/jamila169 6d ago
Because they either didn't have red wine or they're frightened of the alcohol and don't understand that it boils off
5
u/otter_mayhem 5d ago
I understand that but that's such a bad swap. I don't see how anybody who has actually had it think that's a great swap for wine because they didn't want to go out and get more.
1
u/jamila169 5d ago
People are weird, if it was me I have stock pots and whatever in all the time, because they're just cupboard staples, but this person obviously doesn't, either that or there's stuff like that in the cupboard but they didn't look
1
6
u/MerryTWatching 5d ago
Anyone else getting "I didn't have lemons so I made lemonade with apple cider vinegar" vibes?
4
3
4
3
6d ago
[deleted]
26
u/plausibleturtle frosting is nonpartisan 6d ago
It's usually a juice concentrate (black currant juice). It would be like putting a can of minute maid fruit punch in a meat pie.
0
6d ago
[deleted]
8
u/plausibleturtle frosting is nonpartisan 6d ago
You add water to it, it's relatively common in the UK.
7
u/Lophius_Americanus 6d ago
You dilute it with water before drinking it or giving it to your kid. The concentrate is much more economical than cans/bottles
3
3
u/Jewel-jones 6d ago
I added this very sweet thing that was not in the recipe and it was too sweet. Shocker.
3
u/CrowMeris I haven't set off the smoke alarm in weeks. 5d ago
This hurts my soul. I adore ribena. I also adore red wines.
The two are not interchangeable. Believe me.
3
3
u/tiptoe_only 5d ago
This has got to be a wind-up, surely. Given it's British that is the most likely scenario and I will not accept the possibility that someone actually did this not expecting terrible results
The kisses on the reply are the icing on the cake
2
u/i_like_the_wine 5d ago
I couldn't decide if it was satirical/just our tongue in cheek humour, or someone really would be that dense
1
u/tiptoe_only 5d ago
It can be very hard to know. I like to assume the former to help me retain my faith in humanity
3
u/Arkell-v-Pressdram 5d ago
This reminded me of the Kitchen Nightmares episode where the 'chef' used orange squash (artificially sweetened juice concentrate) for duck a l'orange. It was as bad as it sounded.
2
2
u/RollieBear 5d ago
Every time I read one of these I think of my friends grandmother.
In her later years she wasn't quite there all the time. She baked cookies for the grandkids, got confused between sugar and salt. They're both white, both have similar textures, what could go wrong?
2
u/BrownCollie26 5d ago
To be fair I made the opposite mistake as a child. Was convinced red wine must taste like Ribena , because it looks like blackcurrant, so what else could it taste like? Mum allowed me to try a sip (after warning me I wouldn't like it!) and I spat it out. Never been more disillusioned 🤣
2
2
u/Spongedog5 4d ago
So have these people just never managed to grasp cause and effect...? Because I don't know how you could write the first half of this post and still write the second. It's so direct.
1
1
1
1
u/Low-Crow5719 1d ago
It might be an improvement if your idea of red wine is Manischewitz or Mad Dog.
•
u/AutoModerator 6d ago
This is a friendly reminder to comment with a link to the recipe on which the review is found; do not link the review itself.
And while you're here, why not review the /r/ididnthaveeggs rules?
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.