Horizontal cuts when dicing an onion. I’ve concluded that this is some kind of virtue-signal that says “see, I went to culinary school.”
Cucumbers.
Doing cucumbers seems pretty effective.
Effectiveness in dishes is up for debate
Become convinced that purchasing an expensive knife and spending half of your life fucking around to keep it sharp and protected is a good investment of your time.
Buy a $10 German steel chef knife on sale, get a rada QuickSharp and a (e: Victorinox 14 inch) chef hone and get on with life.
First hones are worthless if not activity bad for a knife edge. 10 dollar German knives are trash unless you win the lotto or something.
You don’t need to spend hundreds but a good knife will last a lifetime and stay sharp 10 times as long.
I never spent a fortune on my knives or a lot of time maintaining them but I had a decent set of knives and a chef’s knife I’d sharpen once in a blue moon. Thought I was very smart.
One day I bought a $5 cleaver at the dollar store and it’s basically replaced 75% of my knife work and I abuse it like a redheaded step child.
Partially agree:
Having nice knives is nice, some of the cheap stamped ones are awful and a good knife will last forever.
Equally, having a set of sharpening stones is also really useful to rescue knives, however you should only be using them once every few years, standard knife sharpeners are fine.
They are tools, not your hobby.
Adding olive oil to boiling water before putting in pasta. Oil and water don’t mix, you’re just wasting oil that sits on the waters surface until you pour it down the drain.
Now if you drain the pasta and THEN add olive oil to it while it’s still steaming hot then it will get absorbed. The only thing you should add to boiling water for pasta is a heavy amount of salt. Those two actually combine and will be absorbed by the pasta.
The oil isn’t for flavor. It’s to prevent the starch from the noodles from forming a foam that boils over and makes a mess. Alternatives to the oil are using a bigger pot, and/or setting the heat lower for a less rambunctious boil.
I am ashamed that I fell for this stupid idea 10 years ago.
Olive oil use in general i’d say, other oils are better for cooking. A good olive oil is a finishing oil.
Abundantly agree! It’s a waste to fry olive oil, you’re just destroying the flavor. Canola is my goto for actually cooking, olive is best reserved as a dressing or occasionally a core ingredient in cold dishes like hummus.
Olive oil goes in if there’s a chance I’m going to taste it. If I don’t want to taste a hint of fruity oil in the final product, why the fuck am I using olive oil
@inb4_FoundTheVegan @psion1369 I add some oil to pasta just so it dont stick to the bottom of the pan… I didnt believe it before but I think it really work
Okay but water and oil don’t mix, none of the oil ever makes it to the bottom where the pasta would be sticking. Even if you push it down with a spoon it will immediately rise to the surface. The way you prevent sticking is be stirring, you need to disrupt it during the boiling process so the starches don’t form a bond with the metal.
I promise you, olive oil in in water doesn’t help.
Are we talking about boiling pasta? I wonder how one can have a problem with pasta sticking to the pot while boiling. Is that user frying their spaghetti?. As you say you can add oil after it’s drained to add fat or to it sticking to itself
Mis-handling ingredients that will be ‘cooked anyways’, and therefore should be handled with unwashed hands, knives, etc.
I do that, but have in no way got that from videos. Just from standard fecklessness.
Do “pros” really do shit like that?
I remember watching some TV chefs handle raw meat, give their hands a quick wipe with a towel on their waist, and then handle all sorts of other things. It works on a show because it’s all just for the camera but if it’s for human consumption, you’d just be turning every handle and knob you touch into a possible source of contamination.
Probably didn’t learn it from YouTube and it’s not exactly cooking related either but tapping the lid of a carbonated drink can before opening it does absolutely nothing.
What actually reduces the fizz explosion you’re trying to prevent is tapping the side of the can multiple times while rotating it so that the bubbles stuck to the inside of the can rise to the surface.
I can confirm people have been pointlessly tapping soda can lids since decades before the existence of Youtube.
It was sort of proven more than 40 years ago that there’s no point to do any of these rituals. You’re just have to wait for the gas to reabsorb. The tapping rituals basically give time for that to happen and act as a placebo for the person so time can elapse.
But then it would be less carbonated, right? So what would be the point?
No. They’re called nucleation sites. These are microscopic imperfections on the inside of the can. When you shake the can a small gas bubble might form there and after that more CO₂ can diffuse into it until the bubble grows large enough to detach and rise. A small pocket is however left behind, so the same site keeps making a steady stream of bubbles. These are what cause the can to immediately overflow when you open it. Tapping the sides before opening causes these small trapped gas bubbles to detach and rise to the surface and then it can be safely opened. If it haven’t been shaken, then there’s no need for this, though there’s no harm either.
There is possibly one clown who copied BS elbow-salt non-ironically.
Salt is better sprinkled from higher up though, it’s more even.
But you don’t have to look like a complete prat when doing so. That’s a choice.
Also, just dumping salt from high up give you a slightly larger dusting in one spot. If you’re trying to spread it evenly, you only need to go like 3-4 inches up and move your hand around as you sprinkle. lol.
No, you don’t have to do that, but a sprinkle from a foot or so up is better when cooking.
I am entirely convinced nothing bad will happen if you don’t pre-click the clackers.
I’m almost afraid to ask, but what are clackers? All I could find is the 1960’s children’s toy with two balls on a string. But that can’t be it, can it?
I think they’re describing the kitchen utensils more commonly known as Tongs.
The test clicks are so you get an accurate feel for the spring tension. It’s not the end of the world if you don’t do it, but you’re more likely to drop something.
Sorry, no. Non-clickertation of the clackers is one of the leading causes of early clackers declickeration. Clickeration of the clackers warns of problems early, when maintenance can be applied to the clackers before ongoing misaligned clickeration can have catastrophic effects on your clackers. Remember the old saying: Nine clicks is a fine thing.
The click is not for the clacker, it is for the cook.
You’ve clearly never grilled.
Not prepared to take that chance…
Every power tool I pick up has a quick vroom-vroom before I use it properly, just like the tongs. It’s tradition.
Agreed. Also, I switch it from reverse to forward every time after use even if I have more screws to unscrew.
Every power tool I pick up has a quick vroom-vroom before I use it properly
Gotta confirm that the battery is charged and/or that it’s properly plugged in and powered before you go to use it and then look like an idiot when it does nothing.
I do that with all the power tools too! One time I did that with my circular saw and it made a rattling noise, the blade was starting to come loose and needed tightened. A couple of times I’ve somehow just completely forgotten to tighten drill bits and found out during the pre-use vroom. So I think it legitimately helps get a quick safety gauge before diving into using something
It’s a sign we all yearn to be a crab.
Washing chicken
Iodide free salt
Cooking with seed oils
(Unless you’re allergic) gluten-free anything
Poking holes in steak to “let the marinade in”
gluten-free anything
There’s a 2023 randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial published in The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology where they gave adults who self-reported non-coeliac gluten sensitivity gluten-free bread but said it had gluten in it and around 40% of them got matching symptoms. However actual gluten intake, by itself, produced little additional effect once expectancy was accounted for.
Iodine free salt does matter in some applications, like pickling.
Also for some things you want coarser salt, which doesn’t really have anything to do with iodine but most of that is going to be iodine free.
For general table salt and such though, yeah, doesn’t matter.
And for gluten-free stuff, in some cases, the macros might just be better for your dietary needs/goals. My wife has occasionally gotten gluten free stuff because of that, not because of any issue with gluten.
What’s wrong with seed oil?
Nothing it’s ‘influencers’ and poor outdated studies that stated they were. Rapeseed, sunflower and corn oils are great for heart health.
Do you trust foods invented in living memory?
nothing. many countries’ nutritional guidelines recommend consuming sunflower oil, because it’s high-oleic.
Ignore nutritional “guidelines” - look at the nonsensical food pyramid, which even a diabetes doc from 1930 would call bullshit.
What’s largely important with oils is the Omega 3,9,6 balance.
There are other considerations after that (GLA/ALA), but it’s a good place to start.
My therapist gave me shit once for saying that the pyramid was bullshit.
Were they also a dietician?
Where I live we use sunflower oil because sunflowers are growing here while, let’s say, olives – don’t. I suppose Italians would use olive oil as a default variant.
Olives aren’t a seed oil though
Yes, that’s my point.
That’s the other thing that is never mentioned in these food debates, people from a place with a given genetics that have adapted to eating specific locally available foods can do poorly eating what is considered healthy elsewhere
And it’s not just genetics that are local. Gut microbes matter a ton for how you digest food, and it’s determined by where you live and what you eat. The immune system matters too, this is why travelers diarrhea is a thing. And that is also diet dependent: one who doesn’t regularly eat seafood will easily catch viral gastrointestinal infections from eating clams for example.
So there is no single global “healthy diet” for everyone, you got to start from what’s available locally and what your people eat, and tweak that as necessary.
AFAIK based on my own myopic experience, they also use seed oils for frying and alike, except from few very specific oil-based sauces and dishes (e.g. cooking garlic).
Then there can easily be some random Italian Chef that will swear seed oil is the devil and it’s turning us gay.
That depends on who you ask. Some people say they contain excessive omega-6 acids, linolenic acid, vitamin E, and other stuff that negatively affects insulin absorption and contributes to inflammation in the body.
Others claim they’re a super food, they make fried food good for you, and you shouldn’t use anything else. These people are usually regurgitating dumb/useless things they heard on a trendy cooking channel.
The truth, of course, is likely somewhere in the middle.
I mean omega-3, 6, linolenic acid and vitamin E vary wildly between different seeds’ oils so I’m sure as an informed consumer one can just leave that flame war alone and figure out by themself that the aforementioned criticism is true for sunflower oils for example but rapeseed oil has a fantastic fatty acid composition and is great for cooking while linseed oil is even better but not really suited for cooking and should instead be limited to cold dishes. To blanket “seed oils” as bad for cooking is just braindead.
To my knowledge, it’s specifically sunflower oil that’s really high in Omega 6, which is why you shouldn’t consume it when you have rheumatism.
Many seed oils are toxic to consume. Okay oils being avacado, coconut, and olive. Coconut looks to have many health benefits too
No. Don’t listen to influencers for food science. Seed oils are not “toxic” like you say. In fact, if you hear someone describing food as “toxic” you can almost guarantee they are a quack.
Calling people names to try and discredit them is not an effective way of communicating why toxic foods seemingly don’t exist or whatever it is you’re trying to say. In this day and age of so much information at our fingertips you have to want to stay ignorant of food toxins. I wish I could say that being that way would only hurt oneself but that mentality allows poor food quality to persist across the industry
If it walks like a duck… You can stay ignorant of food science if you choose but food “toxins” is a term almost exclusively used by quacks and grifters. Listen to people that have been trained, went to school, and have a degree in food/dietary science instead. It’s probably a lot more boring and doesn’t confirm your biases as much, but has the advantage of being factual and true. You also won’t fall for bullshit and buy into possibly dangerous woo that can hurt you to magically “get rid of toxins” too.
This weird food rabbit hole you’ve gone down to convince yourself of “food toxins” is almost assuredly an echo chamber of bullshit. I’m asking you very nicely, with kid gloves on, to actually go out to a library and read a book about actual food science instead of engaging with influencers and social media about it. I think you’ll find out pretty quickly that they’re all full shit and should be ignored.
The only food stuff off the top of my head that’s toxic is pink curing salt :) It’s designed to be used in such small portions that it doesn’t matter, but it’s dangerous enough to keep out of children’s reach.
What’s wrong with washing chicken? You never know where it has been.
The issue is that the chicken bacteria (potentially salmonella or campylobacter) gets splashed around inside and outside the sink.
Is that a realistic problem?
You can splashbraw chicken juice all over your kitchen, but you don’t have to and it accomplishes nothing. Would you like to continue to splash raw chicken juice all over your kitchen?
100 % that the meat is already tainted so you’ve got to get it up to temperature anyway.
It’s best to keep that mess contained and let the heat kill off all the baddies.
Is dirt and shit on the chicken a realistic problem?
I’ve never once seen anything on a store-bought chicken that required washing it.
I don’t know. I am aware of this argument and I still wash chicken and pork, and pat dry with a paper towel before cooking. I never wash beef unless it’s packed wet, because I don’t want to ruin the searing. I wash chicken because I find it gross otherwise. I never noticed that this habit of washing caused any problems.
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We do this all the time in asia, no widespread food poisoning despite science claiming it will. It’s always the westerner claiming it will, or you guys just have some of the weakest sauce stomach.
Trust me bro, I do so of course 2+ billion others do with no problems.
It’s an entirely unnecessary step. If you practice decent food hygiene it probably doesn’t significantly increase your likelihood of contaminated food, but it very easily could especially if you arent following other best practices.
Do whatever you want, and make fun of me all you want. I’m not going to do extra work to increase my odds of shitting myself
Unnecessary for you, necessary for a lot of place. Or not, nobody care. I’ve seen more people making fun of others for doing so than those who make fun of other for not, so i’m not sure why you think i’m making fun of you, i didn’t even demand you to do so(while the other way around is true, look at your other comment). Again, there’s no widespread of food poisoning happening for those who washed their chicken yet the moment someone mention they did people coming in being hysterical about the potential food poisoning. At this point it’s just superiority complex.
You literally were making fun of westerners.
Instead of washing it, just cook it.
Hair, sand, etc?
How are you storing your chicken?!
If you don’t see the insides of meat factories and market warehouses it doesn’t mean they are nice. Bet the refrigerator of your nearby supermarket was thoroughly cleaned in 2019.
I’ve been in the factories and supermarkets as a worker and an inspector. It’s very rare (I don’t say impossible, because there’s always a chance) to find hair, sand, and other foreign objects in meat processed in registered factories - the cleanliness is pretty high up there because the fines are also high up there.
But if you’re getting meat from an unregistered butcher/retailer, you’re on your own. You can also see/inspect the meat in the display case before you buy.
on the beaches of greece apparently.
You’re more likely to spread germs around your sink and kitchen by washing it. If they splash upwards onto the tap and then get splashed downwards into the bowl where you’re rinsing your salad greens, the salad could make you sick. Whereas the germs on the chicken will die from cooking.
Edit: if you must, I suppose you could set up an outdoor chicken washing place. But do you also wash your other meats?
Everybody knows that chicken water is gross. Maybe the people who insist on washing their chicken also bother to wash their kitchen?
This is one of those areas where restaurant and factory food safety standards are being misapplied to the home cook. The risk of food born illness cannot be eliminated, only mitigated; it’s a statistics problem. And the formula changes dramatically when your serving 200 people vs when your serving 4. Or when your washing 1 bird vs 50.
If you take the chicken out of the package and drop it on the floor, the odds probably change to “rinse it without splashing, put it in the cooking container and IMMEDIATELY scrub your hands and the entire sink area, then put the scrubber in the dishwasher and don’t use it again until it’s been sterilized.” But in general the less you handle it the better.
Funny thing, most people who wash chicken wouldn’t think of washing a steak.
Side note: one thing people often forget is they touch their spice jars with their chicken/meat/fish hands.
Why do you want to become dumb and useless?
Well, the more charitable interpretation would be to identify things that they might’ve picked up that are bullshit so they can stop doing those things. lol
But that’s not how the human works. In general, you go where you look at, and you become what you spend time with.
Well, I tend to agree with that statement as a generality, but not specifically.
If you study WWII history in Germany, do you somehow become nazi? If just learning about something or discussing it made you become the thing, we’d all have a much more careful approach to the internet.
So in this specific instance, I wildly disagree that’s how “the human works” and I find that statement to be nonsensical in this context.
If you study WWII history in Germany, do you somehow become nazi?
The topic is broad. For what reason, or purpose, do you study that time? There are many possibilities.
You could develop an interest in soldiers. Or in Nazis. Or in their counterparts, the resistance. Or international politics of a time when that looked so much easier than nowadays…
Of course you could develop an interest. That’s a radically different assertion than “you become what you spend time with”.
Okay, I’m done with you.
Maybe they want to start a big YouTube channel.
Cracking eggs on the counter instead of on the edge of a bowl.
I crack eggs on the bowl edge, and have for 50 years, literally since I was 10 years old and my mom taught me to make scrambled eggs. Maybe one in 50 gets a piece of shell in the egg, no big deal, just pull it out.
Well, if you are a counter cracker you might use too much force if you switch to bowl edge. The bowl edge is pointier, the counter is flat. But it’s just a calibration thing.
I don’t get any shells when I crack it on a flat surface but do on an edge of anything. Learned that this was the case for me back in the 80s.
As long as it works it works.I crack my eggs on my ear. Haven’t heard any complaints about shells.
Sometimes my bowl wobbles and the egg doesn’t crack, so I whack the egg with the edge of my utensil. And yes, any shell bits are easy to remove.
While I do agree both are viable, and mostly just doing what you are used to works best, I have to disagree in a vacuum.
I find that cracking on the edge of a bowl tends to push the shards of the shell inside and rupture the membrane if you hit a bit too hard, and then the egg takes it with it for a ride. When you do it against a flat surface, it’s easier to get an even cracks you can pull apart without the membrane breaking, which keeps the shell together. Honestly, just gives you more of a margin of error if nothing else; if you’re super used to it, as you said, it’s probably not a problem worth trying to fix.
I don’t know if doing it one handed makes a difference. just my two cents as an ex-professional baker.
I feel this may also be a thing dependant on egg quality. I grew up on eggs from well-fed, backyard chickens and the strength of their shell was high compared to most store bought ones (bar a few organic farms).
I cracked store bought on the bowl and ended up fishing shells out of the mix for a few months after that before I switched.
I crack on the counter because with the bowl edge it gets on the counter and drips down the side of the bowl. With the counter it only gets on the paper towel that I set there to contain the shells.
You do you, and agreed even worst case is a really minor inconvenience, but 1/50 is significantly more common than what I get cracking on the counter. I’ve gotten shell in my food once in the last several years. Plus when done right it won’t break the membrane so you don’t get any egg white anywhere until it is above the pan
Anything Jamie Oliver does
Model Juliette Norton?
