Cooking is as much about breaking the "rules" as it is about following them. That's why you taste the dish you're preparing even if you're following a recipe.
Even some restaurant chefs might be deemed as anarchists for abandoning convention but still have their tables booked.
So to find out what practices people have thrown out their kitchen window, Redditor ThatSpyGuy made a post on the platform, asking other users, "What commonly repeated cooking tip is just completely wrong?"
I think it's important to highlight that intention is what matters the most around cooking pots. The ability to recognize precisely what you want on your plate and how your actions impact the end results. We can't really categorize all of the replies ThatSpyGuy has received in terms of "bad" and good". What we can do, however, is appreciate the thinking and experimenting.
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Caramelized onions - 5 minutes. wtf... I see this everywhere. it's takes 20 - 45 minutes to do that
Starting to saute onion and garlic at the same time. Onion takes a lot longer to cook and adding the garlic too early can burn it which can ruin the entire flavour of the dish. So many recipes tell you to do this and I just don't get it!
The prep/cooking time in that recipe you're using is a bald-faced lie.
"Don't cook with a wine you wouldn't drink." I swear this is a rule made up by lushes planning on drinking the wine and using cooking as an excuse to buy it. What I want in a wine to drink is very different than I want in a wine to cook with.
Yeah no on this one. Fundamentally you should only cook with a good tasting wine otherwise you may have a flavor you don't want in your food. There are strictly "cooking wines" and they make my food taste so off I stopped and would buy just a simple wine.
If you don't like a wine in a glass, why do you think you'll like it on a plate?
Cooking wine is seasoned for a reason. Good booze does not equal good food.
You're right that there is a reason for cooking wine being seasoned. That reason is *not* to make it better for cooking with, but to make it undrinkable, so that it gets a different legal status and you pay less taxation on it.
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I always thought that rule seemed off. It's not like the wine is going to taste the same after being cooked anyways.
If you only like sweet wines then you're probably right to think that. But the point is to not use a cheap, bad, wine when decent wines are available at very reasonable prices. Never use cooking wine or sherry, both of which are loaded with salt.
This is more to do with preference of taste - neither way is BS. If you like cooking with a good drinking wine, do it. If you like cooking with wine you wouldn't drink, do that. If you're not into cooking with wine at all, that's cool, too. Nobody is necessarily wrong here.
If you want to do a food-wine pairing, then cook with whatever you'll be drinking during the meal. Otherwise go for a nice and good value for money wine that you don't mind leave on the counter and forget to use again for a week and then needs to be thrown away. I work in a wine shop in Italy and a nice bottle of tap wine its around 4$. And you'll drink it happily even if it doesn't fit perfectly with the meal.
So true. I love having some of my meats soak in red wine, but I absolutely can not drink red wine by itself.
Cooking with a shyte wine is usually not great, but you certainly want a robust wine and it really doesn't have to be as fancy as the stuff you like to drink.
Yet another moronic thing on here. One of the reasons that tip exists is because a bad tasting (to you) ingredient can ruin a whole dish
How much wine are y'all cooking with anyway? Most I've ever needed was a few splashes to deglaze the pan. The platitude translates as "don't open your best wine to cook the chicken".
When I buy a bottle for cooking, I always look for a bottle that's good enough to drink but cheap enough to use for cooking. Most of my recipes call for 1/2 cup to 1 cup of wine, which is wasteful if I'm not going to drink it. I usually just serve it with the meal for my husband and I. The good stuff gets saved for other meals.
I think that this means that if the wine is so gross that you can't drink it, it's too gross to cook with. And for the most part, I'm totally in agreement. I received a bottle of red wine that was utterly disgusting, and I thought I could salvage it by making a stew with it. It was wretched. The worst stew I have ever eaten.
I tend to use cooking sherry but I'm not really liking the flavor. One time I used a splash from a box of wine (still cheap but much more drinkable). I did like it a lot better. I think this one is down to personal preference. And I'm sure there's other types, brands, flavors etc of sherry and other cooking wines that I'll like better or form a preference for. Pretty mixed opinions. I dont actually have much experience cooking with wine. I only started using to deglaze about a year ago. Figured i was just getting used to new recipes and flavors. But there is a huge difference in my experience
Never heard this rule ever. Been long out but was chef for ten years ...
“Cooking” wines often have a good bit of added salt to extend shelf life, and make is such that it can be sold in grocery stores in states that don’t allow alcohol sales in grocery stores. Plan accordingly
Uh... you don't have to be a lush to sample the wine while you cook. Just saying.
Everyone knows that food takes better when you've got a good buzz going. That tells me they know their food sucks and use the wine as a way to camouflage that fact.
The difference is salt. I use real wine. Don't need more salt. I get those little bottles that come in packs but are real wine.
I always thought of that piece of advice about my not choosing a wine to cook with that I don't like...as in, if I don't like the taste, when I cook that taste will intensify, meaning I won't like it even stronger.
If you've decanted wine, but haven't drunk it all. That makes it a great base for stewing meat.
In the 60s and early 70s stores sold cooking wine. It was cheap, disgusting and had a lot of added salt...there's a reason it should be drinkable.
My ex mother in law was working sometimes for her rich neighbors as a maid and once she used an "old" wine bottle to cook a beef stew (Boeuf Bourguignon). It turned out it was an expensive old Bordeaux...They were not pleased, but the meal was really good!
I will absolutely drink cheap wine that I cook with. Cabernet for roasts or steaks, sweet red for mincemeat pie.
No it's promoted by the 'deep' wine industry that want you purchasing expensive wine!
Rinsing off chicken. I know you don't want to get salmonella, but rinsing off chicken just spreads it. Cooking it solves the problem automatically.
Break the spaghetti to cook it faster. All you’re doing is breaking someone’s Italian nana’s heart.
I never heard the cook it faster reasoning. I break it for convenience, easier both to submerge and to eat.
Not washing/cleaning after you cook because of X amount of reasons. Clean as you cook is the way.
Not a cooking tip but a drinking one: Don’t put too many ice cubes in your drink because it will melt and you will end up with too much water. Wrong, the more ice cubes you put the longer the ice will stay and not melt. If you put only one or two, they will melt VERY quickly.
(Ofc exceptions has to be made for “on the rocks” spirits)
Me and my re-usable ice cubes never have this problem :D ETA: double bonus because you can stick them in every nook and cranny of the freezer that is empty. Freezing empty air costs a fortune -and is bad for the environment- Putting some bottles of water in and sticking re-usable ice cubes in small empty spaces really helps
Myth: high heat is like fast-forward for cooking.
Still working to get my dad to understand this one.
"Add seasoning to taste" is a great tip to someone who's already a competent and experienced cook (i.e. a person who doesn't need that tip to begin with).
It is a TERRIBLE tip for an inexperienced and/or infrequent cook. Give a suggested amount of seasoning in your recipe or description.
"Cook until it's ready"
IF I AM NOT PROFESSIONAL HOW CAN I UNDERSTAND THAT IT IS READY? WTF? PLEASE GIVE ME INFORMATION HOW LONG SHOUD I COOK IT
Using extra virgin olive oil to cook. EVOO has a lower smoke point than regular olive oil, so regular olive oil is better for cooking.
When making pie crust, rubbing the butter into the flour or using a fork/knife/pasty blender to achieve "pea-sized" crumbles.
Pretty much every recipe will describe it this way, but the expanding water from the butter drives that beautiful flakiness. Use a cheese grater with moderately large holes. Use very cold butter, and handle the butter lightly so that it doesn't melt into your hands. Grate it and toss it into the flour about 1/3 of the butter at a time, tossing it to coat it with flour. Then make your dough. It will be light and flaky and heading in the direction of puff pastry.
Seriously, I use the same dough recipe I always used and the results are just staggeringly better because of this technique.
ETA Yep, this works for biscuits too.
Cookies: "bake until golden brown"
The cookie sheet will stay hot after it leaves the oven and keep baking the cookies for a minute or so. If you want soft cookies, it's better to take them out when only the edges look golden brown and let them keep cooking outside of the oven.
This is a good general cooking rule - food continues to cook after it's removed from heat, unless it's immediately cooled.
Not really a tip, but a recipe complaint.
Don’t measure flour(or other compressible powders) in volume! Use weight, a cup of sifted flour can be half of a cup of compressed flour.
Leave the burger for a long time, then flip it once.
Lots of people give this advice, including web sites and even chefs.
But then the labs who actually test this stuff find that the burgers are better, and cook faster, if you flip more often.
Yup, I flip every 3-4 mins for 15 minutes otherwise you end up with dry burnt exterior and undercooked middle.
Adding oil to your pasta water to prevent it from clumping. Oil floats in water. Just stir it.
That mayo is superior to butter for grilled cheese. It's not. Yeah, it also gets a nice crust and is easy to spread, but butter tastes way better.
Putting in the garlic first. That's a good way to burn it.
Unless you put the garlic in the oil to flavor it. You must remove the garlic though.
“Microwaving food will destroy nutrient molecules”
Microwaves are far too long-waved to cause any molecular changes. All they do is make molecules vibrate faster. They don’t directly break up molecules.
To actually split chemical bonds you need much shorter wavelengths. UV light at least. It is true that Microwaves can INDIRECTLY cause chemical reactions because they will increase the temperature of the food. But that is no different to any other heat source.
Likely, microwaves preserve nutrients BETTER than boiling/steaming because the heat is delivered faster and the food spends less time in a high temperature state.
Great homemade salsa has to have cilantro. Half of us don’t like cilantro. You can substitute:
Celery Leaves (this is pretty good)
Parsley
Mint Leaves
Leave it out all together
Myth: Using flour makes chicken the crispiest.
Truth: Using Potato Starch makes it WAYYY more crispy.
“When cooking a hamburger patty, press down on it with your spatula to make it cook more evenly/faster.” All this does beside flatten your patty is make all the juices escape, leading to a more dried out burger with less flavour.
Every baking recipe I've seen has you add spices with the dry ingredients. It's so much more flavorful if you add them with the butter and even more so if toast or gently fry them first. You can even use the microwave for this, cook just until fragrant.
Also, all my chocolate stuff got better when I realized that cocoa is a spice. Oil-soluble flavenoids.
That you can't ever have too much garlic. I’ve heard this so many times. My wife made a babaganush one time with so much garlic it burned our mouths. Too much garlic can be a thing.
This one is cooking related.
Myth: never use soap on cast iron.
Reality: you absolutely can use soap and scrub a well seasoned cast iron. Just don't soak it.
No this is not accurate. If you use soap you lose the seasoning. Seasoning is oil that coats and gets in the crannies of the cast iron. Soap dissolves oil, ergo it will remove the seasoning. If for some reason you want or need to put in a drop of soap it will not harm your pan, but it will remove some seasoning. A properly seasoned and maintained cast iron pan will wipe clean under hot water (and a little elbow grease if needed). If you clean with soap you will need to reseason the pan regularly. I've seen this 'myth busting' claim many times here and it's BS. Follow it at your pans peril.
People think you can just use eggs and butter at fridge temp for baking but it’s so much better if you do room temp
Use aluminum foil shiny side in.
Reynold's says the shiny side is a result of the manufacturing process and not intended to speed up cooking. The impact of having the shiny side in is so minimal and negligible you will not notice a difference.
This one has been disappearing lately but ...
Don't overcook mushrooms and don't rinse them.
It's nearly impossible to overcook mushrooms. Chitin is hard to break down so just keep cooking them. Rinsing may add water, but it's just more liquid to cook off and may in fact help steam them which helps them release more water. Besides, you should wash all produce before use, especially mushrooms. Doubly so if they are wild.
More heat cooks things faster.
Used to believe it but found out the hard way when shallow frying chicken schnitzels. The outside was burnt and the inside was raw. Now I cook them at the lowest heat and always perfectly cook them.
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Always use a temperature probe or thermometer. Many recipes tell you to cook for a certain time but I take the temperature and it's undercooked. I make an air fryer meatloaf that says it's done in 20 minutes.it always takes 45 minutes till it's cooked in the middle.
One of the best things I ever bought for cooking is a probe thermometer on a cable that attaches to a programmable timer. Thermometer in roast, cable gets closed in the oven door and attached to the timer. Set the temperature and the timer goes off when that internal temp is reached.
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I'm kind of a new cook myself (single guy in an apartment), and I always try to season my food before cooking or while cooking, but I always feel the need to season afterwards. Maybe it's because I'm not using enough salt/pepper. I also don't really tend to use much olive oil when pan-frying my food. I usually lean more towards butter.
The one thing that my mom taught me that his stayed with me is that you can always add more seasoning you can't take it out. This is especially true with salt.
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You DON'T wash chicken as raw chicken within the water it is washed in gets splashed elsewhere which can contaminate other food. Raw chicken whether in water or not is still not something to mix with other food.
Always use a temperature probe or thermometer. Many recipes tell you to cook for a certain time but I take the temperature and it's undercooked. I make an air fryer meatloaf that says it's done in 20 minutes.it always takes 45 minutes till it's cooked in the middle.
One of the best things I ever bought for cooking is a probe thermometer on a cable that attaches to a programmable timer. Thermometer in roast, cable gets closed in the oven door and attached to the timer. Set the temperature and the timer goes off when that internal temp is reached.
Load More Replies... I'm kind of a new cook myself (single guy in an apartment), and I always try to season my food before cooking or while cooking, but I always feel the need to season afterwards. Maybe it's because I'm not using enough salt/pepper. I also don't really tend to use much olive oil when pan-frying my food. I usually lean more towards butter.
The one thing that my mom taught me that his stayed with me is that you can always add more seasoning you can't take it out. This is especially true with salt.
Load More Replies... You DON'T wash chicken as raw chicken within the water it is washed in gets splashed elsewhere which can contaminate other food. Raw chicken whether in water or not is still not something to mix with other food.
