I'm willing under ANY context.
Are you kidding me? Branston Pickle is fucking fantastic! On a deli sandwich, on an omelet, on a steak, hell, by the tablespoon, that shit slaps! I am 100% curious what you dislike about it. It's basically A1 sauce with crunchy chunks because heartburn should crunch.
I took many years to appreciate branston pickle (or its local derivative) but when coupled with roast beef, good cheese, tomato and toasted on sour-dough is *chef's kiss*
Yeah, that. That right there is what I dislike about it. I don't like A1 either, although I wasn't getting an A1 vibe when I tried BP (hmmm, yeah I'll go with that abbreviation.) It tasted to me like someone had made a jelly out of mixing brown gravy into cherry jello and then put raw chunks of turnip and rutabega in it so the texture is 3/4 goopy and 1/4 tooth-breakingly dense. But lets go with your list and see what I do put on those things. Deli sandwich... I'd go with a good spicy mustard. Omelet, generally nothing (or at least no sauce). If anything, demi glace when I had omurice for the first time was actually pretty good. I had anticipated I'd have to scrape it all away. On a steak... once again, nothing. A pan sauce, like an au poivre, can be OK. But if a steak can't stand on its own, then it wasn't worth cooking in the first place. In a tablespoon? I don't know... Cholula?
To each their own; I guess but my palette is no where near as particular as yours. If something tastes good, it's good by me, and Branston Pickle is one of those flavors that doesn't necessarily make a thing better, but can be enjoyed additionally.
The one thing I don't get with steak at all is those that like it well-done, that totally kills the steak. That's how my mom always cooked steak when I was a kid and I hated it, I thought I didn't like steak (until I had one cooked not well-done, my mom probably cooked it past well done). I think that maybe where putting ketchup or A1 comes from to a degree; parents that cooked steaks so bad you needed to put something on it. I have at least 2 other friends with the same exact story on how they also thought they didn't like steak because their mom cooked it well-done at home. I personally don't care for ketchup or A1 on steaks but stuff like garlic butter or mushrooms or some cheese and shrimp, go right ahead.
Can't necessarily relate because I ate steak so seldomly growing up, that I don't recall ever having a preference. It wasn't until early adulthood that I started eating it enough to have an opinion. In my 20s, I was "well done" because I equated a pink/red middle with "raw," and being a finicky eater as it was, "raw meat" didn't appeal to me. But as I got older, it got me curious why so many people opted for medium to rare steak, and I started edging towards the cliff. My first medium steak wasn't mind-blowing, but it didn't kill me either, so I bit one day (in my 30s, I think,) and ordered my first medium-rare steak. I winced when I cut in and saw the blood, but I bit in and, oh my God, I wasted so many steaks in my life.
I guess I did really enjoy this sauce (I guess Korean BBQ sauce) on my steak at a Korean BBQ place where you cook the meat yourself. They give it to you in this tiny, shallow dish and I'm instantly in my head like "This is all you're giving me? I'm gonna need more in a few bites". But this sauce was like magical and never ran out
One of the weirdest things about this, I'm not really a steak purist. I'm actually not much of a steak fan at all. At a restaurant I'll often go for a chicken or seafood option rather than steak. And my own requirements for what I consider a good steak, outstrip my own skills with a grill. So the only times I even have steak is choking down my friends' (or even worse... their wives) attempts at grilling a steak. Or going to a place with very special steaks, like hitting a Teppanyaki place and getting something with wagyu.
I don't think Gordon Ramsay would attach his name to anything he didn't believe in, so I'd say it's worth giving it a shot. Maybe start with a single pan to try for yourself before spending hundreds to replace everything in your kitchen. But yeah, my limited experience with nonstick (however limited) has not been "as advertised." I recall a commercial that showed someone caramelizing peppermint candies down to a melty nightmare, and wiping the goop out with a paper towel like it was nothing for like $100 or some other ridiculously low number for such an impressive set of cookware. Yeah, I doubt it.
To me, barbeque is getting some smoked meat and trying a bunch of different bbq sauces with it. Also, not a fan of ribs; give some brisket, pulled pork, turkey, etc.
I'm a dry rub person myself. I find that sauces tend to make the meat a vehicle for flavor rather that the reason for the flavor. And that's fine with a good, thoughtful sauce, but if you're buying grade-A meats and just slathering generic store-bought sauce on it, you're wasting your time and meat. I don't mind BBQ sauce, but given the choice, I'll go for a rub every time.
I don't prepare/cook it myself and I assume the sauce is made by the bbq place themselves vs just store bought. One place around here does a different sauce every month, their pineapple sauce is awesome.
I looked for years, trying to figure out the whole non-stick cookware thing. And what I eventually learned is it has nothing to do with material, shape, composition, price... It is all about proper seasoning. In my kitchen right now I have a copper pan and a big copper pot. I have 2 stainless steel skillets and a big cast-iron frying pan and stew pot. And I can do the whole "crack an egg on it and the egg just slides around with nothing sticking" on every one of them. And it is all because I have about 6 to 15 layers of oil seasoning baked into every one. It does leave them a little grungy looking, but the fact that nothing sticks to them and I've never paid more than $40 of any of them (and most were decidedly cheaper) makes me absolutely hate all the treated and coated garbage that I bought over the years that never worked. Any google search will tell you how to season a pan with oil. But most say 2 or 3 coats. Don't stop there. The more coats, the more coverage... the more non-stick it becomes. Then you just have to worry about not destroying the seasoning. It is a little hard to give up using dish soap to clean a pan. But properly seasoned, all it takes to wash a pan is a paper towel and some hot water.
Having a good Jamaican restaurant around is a real blessing. Closest one to me closed during the pandemic and still can't find a really good one nearby. And to add injury to that, my town's best Indian restaurant just closed. Our only restaurant serving African food closed down (I miss Jollof rice now) and I found out the hard way that the Peruvian place that just opened up is super expensive and not really that good.
