Ina Garten Refuses To Cook These 2 Dishes

While there are a handful of foods Ina Garten doesn't like, the Barefoot Contessa is famous for finding workarounds and substitutions, even alternatives for cilantro haters. But on "Good Hang with Amy Poehler," Garten mentioned two dishes her friend hates — liver and onions and tongue — and she said, "You never, never need to cook either one of them."

While many cultures revere organ meat, American offal recipes largely came from needing budget-friendly meals during times when meat wasn't very available. During the Great Depression, whatever meat could be found was often cooked to shoeleather to remove any possible contaminants and parasites. After World War II, economic prosperity and new breeds of animals that provided more meat largely eliminated the need to eat classics like tongue and liver. These proteins quickly overtook American tables, so liver and onions and tongue didn't get much recipe development, leaving them with Depression-era cooking styles.

While Garten is no stranger to organ meat, her Jewish-Brooklyn upbringing led her to other dishes like chopped chicken livers instead. Both liver and onions and tongue are hard meats to adopt later in life, so if you don't grow up eating them, chances are you'll never really develop a taste for them. Garten instead likes to keep things simple, focusing on applying advanced techniques to more humble recipes that don't focus quite so much on time.

Ina Garten's husband, Jeffrey, may be lucky enough to have ready access to her cooking, but there's one dish he wasn't impressed by, and it's one of the biggest that Garten refuses to make. Bouillabaisse, a spice-laden, two-course fish stew, "takes forever," according to Garten on Amy Poehler's podcast, which someone running a cooking empire might not have time for.

Garten has no small amount of love for "set it and forget it" recipes like chicken stock, but whereas that only takes a few hours, Garten said a bouillabaisse "cooks for days." While it's possible to recreate much of its flavor and texture on short notice, some chefs still prefer at least 24 hours' notice. The key to this recipe is two things: long cooking times and bony, lean fish. The heat draws collagen and flavor from the bones, producing a creamy broth, so fattier, thin-boned fish wouldn't produce the same flavor and might even make it taste oily.

Even the presentation of the dish is a bit of a chore. After making the broth, chefs typically poach whole fish in the soup. The broth, plus any leftover shreds of meat from the bones and fish, is served over bread or with croutons and plenty of toppings. Afterward, diners finally get to enjoy the fish. Between the length of time it takes to prepare the broth, delicately poaching the fish, providing high-quality fixings, and plating everything appropriately, it's a lot easier to go with a simpler fish stew.