The 17 Hardest Dishes To Make From Scratch

To the uninitiated, consommé looks like an unassuming clear broth. But for chefs, even highly trained ones, consommé is a hard soup to master. The foundation for consommé can be simple such as beef or chicken broth — or it can be more elevated by using veal or seafood broths. However it begins, consommé is a time consuming, complicated soup.

The difference between broth and consommé is predominately appearances. Broth is cloudy with visible fats whereas consommé is crystal clear. While the soup should not be cloudy, its origins are — it is said King Louis XIV of France wanted to see his reflection in the soup. However the dish originated, consommé is equated with luxury and fine dining because of the skill required to produce it.

To create, chefs "build" a raft as part of the cooking process. A raft is a mixture of egg whites beaten into soft peaks, a protein of choice, and mirepoix. The stiffened egg whites sit on top of the broth like a little puffy meringue boat, thus the name. The raft absorbs impurities, then is discarded once the solids have been soaked up. The broth is then strained to further absorb any unwanted fat.

While this may seem like a lot of work to make a clear broth, this process is one of the reasons consommé is important as a part of a chef's repertoire. To make a truly beautiful consommé takes time and patience to create a flavorful, clear, rich bowl.

Stuffed cabbage is another one of those dishes that has been around for centuries as cabbage rolls, or as a whole stuffed cabbage. Various incarnations of stuffed cabbage recipes date as far back as the 14th century with the Tartars in Eastern Europe, into parts of Scandinavia and the Ukraine. The Jewish Simchat Torah has included stuffed cabbage for more than 2,000 years.

What makes this cabbage dish difficult is not the availability of the ingredients but rather the time it takes to prepare. Lou Fassum utilizes the entire head of cabbage, a "farce" or filling such as ground pork, seasonings, mushrooms, onions, and garlic. Depending on the region, you may also find dried berries or lemon juice soaked raisins included in the farce. In France, the cabbage of choice is savoy because the leaves are beautifully crinkly, tender yet can withstand being bent and folded.

The full head of cabbage is first boiled until the leaves are malleable, then rinsed. The leaves are laid into a bowl where a layer of filling is spread into it. This process is repeated until the filling runs out. Think of making a lasagna but using cabbage leaves. After shaping, the dish is frozen. Several more steps later, including poaching and baking, the dish is served in slices like a big cabbage cake.

Since we're speaking about stuffed birds, our next dishes are extra level for extravagance and decadence. In the world of pies, game pies are quintessentially British. In the Tutor courts, game pies were all about opulence, containing fillings like lamprey eel, swan, peacock, pheasant, or more typically, wild boar. One of the most notorious and demanding to construct game pies is the Tudor Christmas Pie that makes the turducken look easy! To top some of these elaborate pies, a whole swan or peacock, peasants, or other birds were stuffed and placed on top.

Although many of these pie fillings were rarities, it is not only fillings that makes them challenging, but the crust itself. The crust is difficult because whereas most crusts need to be kept chilled as they are being made, hot water crust is made by adding fat (usually lard) to hot water, bringing the mixture to boil, adding flour, then mixing together. As you may have guessed, this results in a sticky mass. 

Hot water crust is used because it is thicker, more pliable and sturdy enough to hold dense, heavy fillings like meat and gravy. The more dense dough is used to create game pies that were either free standing or formed into molds, then typically filled with a savory filling. A free standing meat pie is most difficult because there is nothing to support it.

Puff pastry is considered a laminated dough because both are made by layering fat with dough then folding. The difference is puff pastry is rolled until all of the dough is thin whereas laminated dough is kneaded.

Puff pastry is considered less complex because it requires less folds and does not include yeast. The absence of yeast results in a flakier dough best for recipes like Napoleons or mille-feuille, ("a thousand leaves)." What makes puff pastry difficult is the dough should not be over handled, kept chilled, and never, ever roll to the edges. Smushing the edges mashes them together and the puffed pastry won't puff.

Another difficult dough is choux (pronounced "shoo") pastry or pâte à choux, the basis for dishes like croquembouche or eclairs. Choux dough is considered challenging because it is about precision and timing. The ingredients are simple. Milk, butter, sugar, and salt are combined in a saucepan and simmered. Flour is added and mixed together. Eggs are then stirred in until the dough becomes a pipeable consistency. Getting the correct consistency is partially why pâte à choux is tricky.

If you really want a challenge, try Gateau St. Honoré. This impressive dessert combines five elements including puff pastry, choux dough, caramel, and two types of cream. Yikes! If you aren't up for that kind of challenge, grab some frozen puff pastry and make cherry turnovers. We won't tell anyone you used frozen dough. We do too!

Because we haven't talked enough about stuffing meat into other things, a galantine is yet another example. What makes a galantine different from a confit, but equally difficult is once the prepared dish has been poached, it is allowed to gel in the poaching liquid and served cold. The dish can be served warm, but is called a ballotine. Either sounds delicious right?

The jellied part of a galantine is called an aspic which was popularized in America by Julia Child. Aspics and gelatins remained popular throughout the '50s and '60s with dishes like terrine. American housewives were suspending a range of ingredients in gelatin from the infamous pear and carrot green Jello, main courses of head cheese which is not cheese or tuna casserole with cottage cheese.

If you've ever made a Jello mold, you already know it is fairly simple to make theoretically. But when the gelatin doesn't set right, it's a mess. Where instant gelatin can go wrong, aspics amp up the difficulty because the dish relies on using a clarified stock the same as a consommé. A successful aspic should wobble, but you should also clearly see all of your shrimp and hard boiled egg salad. Every tasty suspended morsel of the dish should be visible in crystal clear gel. Unlike the cottage cheese tuna nightmare combinations of the '60s, aspic has returned to popularity and been elevated, being used as an art form and as a method to reduce food waste.

Chiles en nogada is a tasty dish made by stuffing poblano chilis with a pork and beef based picadillo, coated with a nodaga, or white sauce made from walnuts, then topped with parsley and pomegranate seeds. The dish is made to represent the Mexican flag and mostly served during Mexico's Independence Day in September. It is also available throughout August into early October in some regions.

What makes chiles en nogada a difficult dish is based partly on the ingredients, but primarily it is the production of the dish that is challenging. In Yuriria, a municipality in Baja, they traditionally include candied cactus (biznaga) which adds a level of difficulty. Biznaga can be substituted with other candied or dried fruit.

To make chiles en nogada, the picadillo is first prepared which consists of chopping and cooking the proteins, chopping the produce, then roasting the peppers to create a gorgeously grilled and charred skin. The peppers are deseeded after removing the skin. The nodaga sauce is also prepared. After gently stuffing the poblanos, smother with the walnut sauce, garnish with pomegranate seeds and parsley, then serve. Chiles en nodaga takes time and love to prepare but is worth the effort!

Homemade pasta may seem daunting to make because many things can go wrong like overworking the dough, or over or undercooking your pasta. Fear not, homemade pasta is easier than you think! The ingredients to make pasta are uncomplicated and items you should always keep stocked in your kitchen: flour, salt, eggs, and water will get you well on your way to an amazing meal.

While pasta alone can be challenging, cooking recipes like Pasta Cacio E Pepe, which translates to "cheese and pepper" can be difficult if not given time to prepare. The dish consists of pasta — typically long noodles like spaghetti or linguine — with a cheese sauce. What makes cacio e pepe tricky is the attention to timing and details required. The pasta should be cooked al dente, and the cheese sauce needs to be stirred until it emulsifies. Once the pasta is cooked, add the noodles to the sauce, gently stir together, plate and serve.

Ragù Napoletano takes a lot of time and patience to create. Ragù Napoletano is, at its heart, a meat and tomato sauce. The sauce is cooked at such a low heat that it doesn't simmer and is allowed to cook for hours. It's finished when tomatoes and oils have separated and cooked for at least an hour like this. The sauce is actually better prepared ahead of time because the flavors get to settle in together – it can be made days in advance.

While there are many soup recipes that require significant amounts of time to prepare, the one that stands out is Buddha Jumps Over the Wall Soup. Also known as Buddha's Temptation or Fotiaoqiang, Buddha's Temptation is a luxurious Chinese delicacy that can take at least two days to prepare. The dish requires upwards of 30 ingredients including abalone, duck, tripe, scallops, pigeon or quail eggs and various types of ham. Some recipes will include silkie chicken which has a black skin and white feathers. The black fowl will sometimes be served whole in the soup to showcase the bird.

It is not only the long list of ingredients, but some like the abalone or shark fin need to be prepared the night before. Once the actual construction of the dish begins, it is a two day process including grouping them together into three different dishes. This step allows flavors to develop. The ingredients are then layered together in a clay pot with stock and wine, covered with lotus leaves and cooked for four hours.

Legend says a traveler scholar kept his food in a clay pot. During a stop to cook his food near a Buddhist temple, the smell of the cooking soup was so tantalizing that the monks jumped the temple walls although they are vegetarian. A monk or poet said "even Buddha would jump the wall" to taste the magnificent dish.

Fugu, a Japanese delicacy made from a puffer fish, is so extremely difficult to make that the dish is regulated in Japan. In America, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has an advisory, warning restaurants and fish markets to obtain puffer fish from only known (safe) sources. Preparing fugu is challenging because the ovaries and liver contain most of the toxin. If either are punctured, poison can be released throughout the remaining fish. The flesh is filleted sashimi style. Diners have been served the testicles, but this is also when the majority of fugu poisonings have occurred. Fugu is incredibly demanding to create — but because the thrill of eating something that could kill you is intriguing to some people, fugu is an exorbitant luxury.

Never make fugu yourself at home! Since 2000, Japan has reported 23 fugu-related deaths. Most of those deaths resulted from those who caught and attempted to prepare the fish at home. In the United States, both recreational and commercial operations catching puffer fish is allowed in some states like Rhode Island or Florida. There are various types of puffers, and not knowing the difference can be deadly. Only trained chefs should prepare fugu. The poison in a puffer fish is more toxic than cyanide. If done incorrectly, serious illness or death can result.