Do-it-yourself cuisine: Chain food you can cook at home

Years ago in a different decade and a different city, I was a reporter for a newspaper in San Diego when Todd Wilbur wrote his first book of “Top Secret Restaurant Recipes.” A copy of the controversial book, which was mostly fast food fare, landed on the desk of the food editor, who decided to feature several of the recipes in Wednesday’s food section.

I was skeptical the story would benefit readers. “Do you mean to tell me you wouldn’t want to make a Wendy’s hamburger at home?” she asked me, incredulously.

“Well, now that you mention it,” I replied, “sometimes after working 10-hour days I am too tired to drive through Wendy’s and pick up dinner, but not too tired to go home and make it.” She didn’t laugh. A food editor would consider it less trouble to go home and make the food from scratch. For a busy reporter with three children at home, however, the only time my family had food from scratch was when we used the winnings from a Lottery ticket to pay for the Big Gulps and hot dogs at 7-Eleven.

So I was feeling a little nostalgic when the local St. Paul paper carried a story about “Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2.” This time Wilbur cloned recipes from chains such as Romano’s Macaroni Grill, IHOP, T.G.I. Friday’s and California Pizza Kitchen. I was suddenly curious to find out just how much trouble it would be to make Joe’s Crab Shack’s Garlic King Crab Legs or Applebee’s Santa Fe Chicken Salad.

I enlisted Foodservice News Office Manager and Conference Planner Gayle Strawn to help me. Our plan was to first visit the restaurant and eat their version of the dish and then go home and make it using Wilbur’s recipe.

She made Chili’s Chocolate Chip Paradise Pie and when she showed me the pictures of hers versus Chili’s, I couldn’t tell the difference. “My family loved it,” she gushed.

Not being the cook Gayle is, I chose Joe’s crab legs because only four ingredients were involved and all you had to do was crush a few garlic cloves and throw them in the water when you steamed the crab. My plans went up in smoke, however, when I discovered the Joe’s Crab Shack in my neighborhood had closed its doors. Plan B was Romano’s Macaroni Grill across the street.

I ordered the Chicken Scaloppine (page 364 in the book)—nice presentation, delicious, and fairly uncomplicated according to the cloning manual.

So after a 10-hour day, I stopped at the grocery store on my way home. I had the book in hand and shopped carefully. I have a bad habit of substituting whatever I have on hand if I discover halfway through meal preparation that I don’t have an ingredient the recipe calls for. For this experiment I had to replicate the dishes exactly, so none of my creative substitutions were allowed. It took 40 minutes and $42 to purchase all the ingredients for the scaloppine and Chili Queso. I had sampled that dish (page 110) at Chili’s the previous night.

The queso dip required four spices, Velveeta cheese, milk, lime juice and Hormel beanless chili. I had trouble locating Velveeta and was too much of a snob to ask for help upscale Byerly’s. I envisioned the clerk, microphone in hand, announcing I was looking for Velveeta and everyone in the organic produce department sneering at me. I finally found it myself near the real cheese in the unrefrigerated part of the dairy section.

I had already made an executive decision to skip the tablespoon of white wine in the cream sauce for the scaloppine because it seemed a waste to buy a bottle of wine for one tablespoon. Plus, knowing my waste-not, want-not nature, I would be tempted to drink at least one glass, and I couldn’t—I was working.

I made the chili queso first and despite all my careful planning, I was half a cup of milk short. I thought about running back to the store, but vetoed the idea. It was already 8 p.m., and I did have vanilla soy milk handy which is pretty close to milk. I actually think it made the dip taste better. I might pass that tip on the next time I dine at Chili’s.

I had just started the chicken scaloppine when I discovered I had forgotten the cream. Resigned, I drove to the closest gas station and bought heavy cream and 2-percent milk—in case I ever cook again.

My next problem was pounding the chicken to a one-eighth thickness. I couldn’t find my kitchen mallet. When we relocated to Minnesota, we moved into a townhouse while we waited for our house to be built and I unpacked only the bare necessities. Five years later, I still haven’t unpacked all those kitchen boxes, so I was forced to use the potato masher. One-fourth-inch thickness was the best the masher and I could do.

When I got to the step where I poured the sauce over the artichokes, mushrooms, capers and prosciutto, the sauce separated exposing the incredible amount of butter—two sticks for four portions.

It was delicious, however, and if I had left well enough alone, I would have called the experiment a success. I may have even tried cooking Applebee’s Crispy Orange Chicken Bowl (page 23), or Tony Roma’s Maple Sweet Potatoes (page 386). But, unfortunately, after eating the chicken scaloppine for lunch and dinner, I looked up the nutritional information on the Web. One serving has 1,110 calories, 71 g. of fat and 2,870 mg. of sodium.

It was at that moment that my husband reminded me he was going in for his stress test at the heart clinic the next morning. I didn’t share my findings with him, and I just pray he doesn’t talk about his personal life with his doctor. I could get arrested for spousal abuse.

According to the book’s author, the chains don’t mind him cloning their recipes, and some even help. They know people like me may fix the dish at home once, but it’s too much trouble to recreate a recipe that cost less to have someone not only cook for you, but also serve and clean up. My advice: Stay with the restaurant version, just stay off the nutritional Web sites.