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.
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.
Nowadays campylobacter is as much of a threat. Something like 1 in 3 UK chicken carcasses were found to have it. I got an infection years ago from a chicken tender and it was awful. Always cook your chicken well!
Always ALWAYS wash your hands after handling raw chicken. And chuck any utensils that touched that chicken straight in the dishwasher.
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Right, don't rinse off the chicken. But DO wash your hands after handling raw chicken, and watch what utensils you are using. Food poisoning often comes from cross-contamination.
Washing chicken is to remove the slimy coating that develops, not to remove germs. As for spreading germs, you understand I can wash my sink afterwards right?
😉 retired farmer here. Your chicken should not be slimy. That has something to do with additives used to make it look fresh longer- part of the packaging process. A lot of places don't allow chicken products that are processed like this into their countries.
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I think washing chicken is a cultural thing. I know many people from Caribbean or Surinam origin who wash their chicken.
Lol I was raised in Suriname. I can taste when someone hasn’t cleaned the chicken
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I don't get this new rule - I wash everything I'm about to cook. Things get stuck on that chicken from packaging for example. If you wash it directly in the sink and then clean your hands and sink then it's all good. Think about other meat and fish that chefs prepping. They always clean like crazy after handling any meat/sea food.
People who are dealtly afraid of washing your chicken because your sink might get germs: do you not wash your sinks either? FFS.
It's not for salmonella but bone bits, blood and debris from the processing. Nobody's shooting water on the chicken ok...stop that.
Yuck, have you seen the milky liquid that comes off when it’s rinsed? I’d rather that goes down the plug hole than into my mouth. And who knows how meat has been handled before packing, I rinse all raw meat.
That milky crap is used to keep your chicken parts looking fresh longer and is added during packaging. It's not allowed in a lot of countries. It also leads to slimy chicken.
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I worked in a popular grocery store with a fresh meat counter and I saw the manager drop food on the ground and repack without washing on more than 1 occasion. The floor was FILTHY! When I tried to wash it he yells at me telling me to pack it. We don’t have time to wash every roast that falls! I quit soon after…. I always wash my meat AND cook well before eating …
I always rinse with either vinegar or lemon to take away that underlying raw smell/taste. Also use a bowl and lower the water pressure. Clean clean once done.
So you pull the chicken out the pack and just cook it? Do you even inspect it? The [usually from the yellow packs] skin has pieces of packaging on it, it's usually on drumsticks or wings. I'm CLEANING OFF my packaged chicken by removing unwanted things like that and feathers. I have never ever had salmonella issues, but have seen feathers on chicken from others/cooked at stores like Publix smh. Idk about y'all but I don't want to eat feathers...or yellow packaging in the skin... or whatever is used to help keep the blood from being all over the place...>.<
You're not gonna wash off salmonella. That's asinine. Once fully cooked any risk of salmonella is gone. Splashing chicken water around the sink area is doing nothing good.
You aren't supposed to use simply water to rinse chicken. You are supposed to use water and vinegar. The vinegar is what destroys the bacteria. You use water to base it out a bit so your chicken doesn't end up tasting like vinegar.
That sounds somehow even worse and more unhygienic
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I have been rinsing chicken prior to meal preparation for over 40 yes and have NEVER had any issues... Of course, I am smart enough to immediately clean the sink with soap, rinse, and then clean it again with bleach, rinsing well...
My dad almost died while stationed in Vietnam during the "conflict". He got salmonella poisoning so bad that he lost something like 50 pounds and was horribly sick. I never realized that we never had chicken growing up. Now I know why. He still won't eat chicken 50 years later.
You don't rinse your chicken with water, you give it a vinegar and salt wash to reduce the amount of bacteria before seasoning it. That also enhances the flavor
Thank God you mentioned vinegar! I am genuinely terrified that all these people in the comments don't know about this. My mom taught me to soak chicken in vinegar and water.
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I still see no reason to wash the chicken, unless it has gunk or feathers on it. The oven is what'll make the food safe.
So you actually think that people who rinse their chicken don't cook it? This is nonsensical
No one implied that. But yes raw chicken sashimi is a thing that does exist
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Are people washing chicken with soap and hot water?? What is a rinse supposed to do? I have never even heard of this.
Soak chicken in water and a bit of vinegar to clean it.
Load More Replies... I always rinse my chicken and fish and I use water and lemon. then use bal of lemon to clean sink after washing sink and hands with water and soap.
You should probably use bleach to clean your sink and surrounding counters, floor, maybe even fridge. All the surfaces within aerosol range
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This trash post acts like we eat chicken like sushi. Rinse AND cook chicken properly. It was handled by hands you don't know what it has been touching, using a knife you can't be sure are cleaned properly, packaged on some plastic bag or styrofoam you don't know been catching dust and dirt for how long. Let's put aside salmonella for a bit, if you don't like dirt, rinse your chicken. Unless you butcher your own chicken, friggin rinse it. THEN cook it properly.
I’ve worked in a slaughterhouse. Always rinse your meat. Not ground meat, but whole meat. If you splash the water everywhere you are spreading the raw juices, and kind of a slob, but if you run the water into the bowl of meat then it doesn’t make a mess. Seriously.
Clean your chicken ppl...be like Southerners or Caribbeans. Wash it, rub it with vinegar or lemons, hot water, pat dry then season. We never get food poisoning for a damn reason(I am both a Southerner and Caribbean)!
I always wash my chicken. You never know if the guy who is packaging that had just picked his nose, or scratched around his a*****e because Of sweat and then packed the chicken in the box. Always, always wash your fruits vegetables and meats from the grocery store. My brother-in-law was a meat processor in the A&P chain of grocery stores. He said routinely if guys were pissed off at the company for having to come in, or had to work an extra shift, they would spit on the chicken or even wipe the chicken on the floor and then put it into the container and wrap it up for you to buy.
I love how this picture is showing someone removing something they did not want to cook lol the picture contradicts the message you are trying to send but I also find it amusing how everyone loves the food of the cultures that actually do prepare their chicken but complain about it online.
You are not supposed to rinse chicken with water. You are supposed to use water AND vinegar. Vinegar is the key though.
ALLWAYS rinse chicken, then dry with paper towels, then oil and seasonings. I have NO idea where this nonsense came from. Been doing it for 40+ years and not one problem.
Washing meat reduces all bacterial counts. Yes heat kills bacteria, but washing reduces toxins bacteria can leave behind.
Omg people just rinse it off? My mom taught me to soak the chicken in vinegar and water. You do need to clean chicken before cooking it, but water doesn't cut it.
You Have to rinse chicken! When the meat is cut, small slivers of bone get on the meat! You Do Not want that in your mouth! I keep a spray bottle, mixed with bleach and water handy at all times. When I'm done preparing meat, during cleaning up I use it on everything I've touched, by the meat, or if my hands were unwashed. If I've rolled it in flour, and some spills, I clean that up too. You can get from meats: Beef-Ecoli, and Pork-worms.
There have been plenty of experiments done on this, with the results measured. What you say is not what those experiments found. Time to adjust your thinking to align with the facts.
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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.
Note: this post originally had 56 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
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.
