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If the kids are pushing for a Big Mac or Chick-fil-A spicy deluxe chicken sandwich, but the budget can’t support it, there’s a hack for that.
It’s in a soon-to-be released book.
The 101 recipes can be found in the latest and 13th book of recipe hacking guru Todd Wilbur, who has made a career of deconstructing popular restaurant recipe dishes and pre-packaged foods and candy to make for about half the price.
“I want to create one that is uniquely new,” he said of the recipes. “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”
Wilbur writes in the introduction to “Hack that Dish,” that “food hacking isn’t just a culinary skill — it’s an occasionally absurd adventure filled with trial, error and moments of triumph that make you feel like a cross between Sherlock Holmes and Julia Child.”
Referring to himself with words like spy, detective, gumshoe, Wilbur pulls all kinds of sleuth-like maneuvers to find out ingredients and amounts used in the recipes.
The book will be available April 28 for $24. Wilbur is considered a pioneer in the field, since his first book in 1993 took the world and the talk show circuit by storm, making him famous.
Among others, he brought the public a recipe to make at home that tastes just like Kentucky Fried Chicken and that was the big chain of the day. He even figured out Oprah Winfrey’s request how to make TGIF’s Jack Daniels grill glaze.
“I thought it was time to open my secret book and let the secrets out,” said Wilbur, who lives in Las Vegas. “I never would have thought in college I’d be reverse engineering food.”
But here he is, having sold 5.5 million books, appearing on television and selling merchandise such as special copycat sauces and spices that make food taste like the real deal from the popular restaurants.
Wilbur said he always loved figuring out secrets as a kid and did magic so he could figure out the tricks, eerily in keeping with the profession he never expected.
He has three college degrees, one in theater, studio art or photography and journalism. He became a news reporter and anchor for a network affiliate, but the money wasn’t good enough, he said.
About that time the famous Mrs. Fields cookie recipe story of the late 1980s was all over the news.
As the story goes, a customer went to a Mrs. Fields and asked an employee is she could buy the recipe. The clerk said it would be “Two fifty,” thinking that was $2.50 but got a bill for $250. The buyer was so upset about the price that she shared to recipe all over for free. But it wasn’t the correct recipe and it had spread so far that Debbie Fields put a disclaimer up in stores about the recipe being incorrect.
“I thought if I could clone a Mrs. Fields cookie I could crack this thing ,” he said. And he did.
“Then I did a Big Mac,” he said, noting it’s in the sauce.
He enjoyed the mystery and every night when he finished work he’d get home and work on that first recipe hacking book.
“I never would have thought in college I’d be reverse engineering food,” he said.
When he had a book of 42 recipes he quit the news job and sent out 30 copies of the manuscript, so small, it was more like a pamphlet, to try to get it published.
He got five offers and took the one from Penguin Books at the time because he had heard of it and that’s who Stephen King was signed with them.
“Let’s call it a leap of faith,” he said. No one had ever seen a book like it before and “It became a pop culture thing.” The book became a bestseller and he was invited to appear on every news and talk show.
“It changed my life ” Wilbur said of the book. He never went back to journalism.
Soon he would star in an eight episode reality television show, “Top Secret Recipes.”
His techniques for figuring out recipes are varied and rooted in common sense. They are also legal, although he admits to some “petty thefts” and “dumpster diving” along the way.
In restaurants he often gets initial clues from servers by asking about ingredients while praising the food. Servers are trying to make customers happy with money tips in mind and share freely what they know, he said. Then he orders a second of the dish to go so he can deconstruct it in his kitchen.
If a place has an open kitchen, he will just watch the chef at work. Some famous open kitchens include Panda Express, California Pizza Kitchen, and Carrabba’s Italian Grill.
At Panda Express if they aren’t making anything he’s interested in while in line, he’ll order two large boxes from a dish that’s almost already out, so he triggers the process of them making more.
Often he’ll videotape the workings of an open kitchen, an act that doesn’t faze chefs because so much promotion is about social media.
For KFC he spoke with a lot people associated with founder Colonel Sanders.
He learned the 11 herbs and spices used to give the chicken its taste are shipped half from part of the country and half from another, then put together in secret. The key to the spice blend taste, he learned from a Sanders’ associate is tellicherry black pepper, he said.
To deconstruct a salad recipe he puts out little cups and separates the ingredients to get a clearer picture of them and the amounts.
He said the stacking order of items on a burger make all the difference, noting the cheese on a Big Mac is on the bottom.
In addition to saving folks money, hacking at home allows people to stay home or allows them to make national brand foods that are located elsewhere, such as being able to have an In-N-Out Burger in Connecticut.
Some of the 101 recipes in the new book are from: Chipotle, Bonefish Grill, Olive Garden, Cheesecake Factory, Red Lobster, Smash Burger, Five Guys, IHOP, Capital Grille, McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, Chili’s, Crumbl, and many more.
He said regarding the food analysis, it’s important to get the dish home ASAP because the flavor, texture and look will change quickly. Sometimes he’ll pop it in the freezer and do the flavor detective work the same day.
“You’re working against the clock in getting a dish home to start the analysis,” he said. “You don’t want them to change.”
Wilbur never worked in a restaurant or went to culinary school, he said.
On pre-packaged foods, the ingredient list is on the package so he just has to figure the measurements.
Wilbur said he has a nice, big kitchen at home for testing, but no fancy cooking equipment, as he wants the average person to be able to make his recipes.
Wilbur makes public appears and sells items on his website associated with famous recipes he has put out there.
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