In the spirit of spending time with my mother, I decided to show her my signature dish that I've been trying to perfect for years (well, two years) ever since I had it at a mate's wedding.

In the search for the perfect recipe, for the past few attempts, I've been using Dave's Temporary Insanity Sauce - a well known spicy sauce. In my error and without realising it, I added too much - something which became rather evident upon tasting the dish prior to serving.

We tried it anyway and found it's a tad too spicy. I like spicy food but not when it ruins the taste of it. Of the portion I'm normally able to consume in ten minutes, it took me thirty minutes to eat half of it, using three cups of water and a bread roll to try and neutralise the heat on my tongue.

So....current plan is to reheat the remains with some more of the basic 'curry sauce' or base I made in order to dilute the entire thing.

But....what I want to know is if there is a 'quick-fix' method I could use for future reference?

Yogourt, works 90% of the time in the kitchen

Yoghurt / cream etc will work.

Also, lemon / lime or even just sugar is pretty good at neutralising the heat.

I concur. Just avoid water as it clears the tongue for more spices.

Lemon +1

Cream +1

Prefer the above to Yogurt, never seem to like the taste afterwards, but that's just a personal thing.

Freeze it in small portions and use it like a curry paste for future dishes.

Clarkson writing for The Times had a similar issue.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... 860067.ece

Without seeing the rest of the answers, my immediate reaction was Yoghurt.

It does a good job of neutralising the burning.

But it does depend on what the dish is, yoghurt might not go with everything, but it is probably the quickest and easiest neutraliser.

Saw a good tip on the TV earlier ths week about adding yoghurt or cream to a dish. Warm up whatever it is first then turn off the heat before you add the yoghurt/cream. This should reduce the chance of it curdling and going a bit grainy (although it doesn't really matter to the taste if it does)

I posted a comment on that when I read it the other week. But they never published it.

Yeah the yoghurt thing crossed my mind but we didn't have any. Sugar would be inappropriate for the dish. Lemon/lime we have so may try that tonight. Thanks for the tip peeps.

Red Wine works as well.

Okay so this week, I attempted my hand at dauphinois potatoes. Generally impelled by Come Dine with Me, which seems to resort to this in prolific measures. Or maybe it was just because of repeats. Either way it's not something anyone in our family have ever had so no benchmark to compare to.

The potatoes IMO weren't cooked enough and there was far too much cream/milk. But as stated above, I can't compare it to anything so anyone know what it was supposed to be like?

On the plus side, my roasted veggie lasagne was awesome.

<pedant>Actually the it covers the receptors so the capcasin can't bind. Capcasin isn't water soluable which is why the glass of water won't work.</pedant>

Before someone else gets in: <pedant>it's Capsaicin</pedant>

Thinly sliced potatoes that are properly cooked and covered, not drenched, in a creamy garlicky sauce all with a nicely glazed top. yummy.