Stop These Bad Cooking Habits Immediately!
I am someone who loves learning new tips and tricks for the things I love. I could sit and read sewing books and blogs all day every day and same goes for food. I love learning all the tips and tricks I can find. Just like with sewing or any other hobby one might have, one reason I love cooking so much is there is always SO much more I can learn. Every meal or treat I make turns me into a better cook, even if that particular meal was a fail, there is always something to learn from everything you make.
Here is a fun roundup of some tips from a Buzzfeed list of bad habits a lot of people have in the kitchen and why you should ditch that habit immediately. Let me know how many of these you have been an offender of in the comments (if you dare!).
Bad Habit #1: You pretty much only cook in nonstick pans. Nonstick pans are great for eggs, but not so great for too much else. They don’t get as hot as other pans and don’t have the best distribution of heat either. If you need a good sear on something like steak, or you need consistent hot heat for something like stir frying, ditch the nonstick!
Bad Habit #2: You only season your food at the end. To get properly seasoned food that tastes the very best you should be adding your seasonings, at the very least salt and pepper, throughout the cooking, not just at the very end.
Bad Habit #3: You don’t preheat the pan before you heat ingredients. It might not seem like preheating the pan is a very big deal, but it really is. Take steak and stir fry for examples again. If you add your ribeye steak to a lukewarm pan, it will defeat the whole purpose of getting a good sear on it and it won’t happen at all. As for stir fry, if you add veggies to a super hot pan, if it is hot enough it will evaporate a lot of the moisture and keep the veggies crisp tender. If the pan isn’t hot enough, a lot of that moisture will remain in the pan and steam the veggies more than you wanted.
Bad Habit #4: You never reserve any of the cooking water when cooking pasta. Saving a cup or two of this starchy water is perfect for adding to sauce to make your sauce silky and perfectly delicious. Draining that precious salty, starchy water right into the sink apparently makes professional chefs cry. We wouldn’t want to make chefs cry, now would we? Eh, it wouldn’t be the first bad thing I’ve done they’d cry over, I’m sure.
4. You forget that acid in food is just as important as salt. Salt gets all the limelight and love for transforming dishes but adding a splash of vinegar or squeeze of lemon is another great way to enhance flavors, especially in a dish like chili or stew.
5. You never read the directions and ingredients list all the way before cooking. Does it ever seem like to you that meals always take longer than you think they will, even with years of cooking under your belt? This happens with me quite a lot and one of the reasons could very well be because I don’t always read all the directions all the way through before starting on the meal or dessert. You might not realize that your chicken was supposed to marinate for several hours before you grill it, or your no bake cheesecake had to set in the fridge for at least 4 hours before serving. It happens to the best of us and you can save yourself a lot of headaches and disappointment by reading these all the way through so you know exactly what to expect for the results you are expecting.
That’s all the tips I have for today. I’m sure I will be back for more because I am always learning new tips and tricks in the kitchen to become a better cook and baker. Please feel free to share any tips or tricks you might be thinking of that you can share with our readers in the comments below.
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Here is a fun roundup of some tips from a Buzzfeed list of bad habits a lot of people have in the kitchen and why you should ditch that habit immediately. Let me know how many of these you have been an offender of in the comments (if you dare!).
Bad Habit #1: You pretty much only cook in nonstick pans. Nonstick pans are great for eggs, but not so great for too much else. They don’t get as hot as other pans and don’t have the best distribution of heat either. If you need a good sear on something like steak, or you need consistent hot heat for something like stir frying, ditch the nonstick!
Bad Habit #2: You only season your food at the end. To get properly seasoned food that tastes the very best you should be adding your seasonings, at the very least salt and pepper, throughout the cooking, not just at the very end.
Bad Habit #3: You don’t preheat the pan before you heat ingredients. It might not seem like preheating the pan is a very big deal, but it really is. Take steak and stir fry for examples again. If you add your ribeye steak to a lukewarm pan, it will defeat the whole purpose of getting a good sear on it and it won’t happen at all. As for stir fry, if you add veggies to a super hot pan, if it is hot enough it will evaporate a lot of the moisture and keep the veggies crisp tender. If the pan isn’t hot enough, a lot of that moisture will remain in the pan and steam the veggies more than you wanted.
Bad Habit #4: You never reserve any of the cooking water when cooking pasta. Saving a cup or two of this starchy water is perfect for adding to sauce to make your sauce silky and perfectly delicious. Draining that precious salty, starchy water right into the sink apparently makes professional chefs cry. We wouldn’t want to make chefs cry, now would we? Eh, it wouldn’t be the first bad thing I’ve done they’d cry over, I’m sure.
4. You forget that acid in food is just as important as salt. Salt gets all the limelight and love for transforming dishes but adding a splash of vinegar or squeeze of lemon is another great way to enhance flavors, especially in a dish like chili or stew.
5. You never read the directions and ingredients list all the way before cooking. Does it ever seem like to you that meals always take longer than you think they will, even with years of cooking under your belt? This happens with me quite a lot and one of the reasons could very well be because I don’t always read all the directions all the way through before starting on the meal or dessert. You might not realize that your chicken was supposed to marinate for several hours before you grill it, or your no bake cheesecake had to set in the fridge for at least 4 hours before serving. It happens to the best of us and you can save yourself a lot of headaches and disappointment by reading these all the way through so you know exactly what to expect for the results you are expecting.
That’s all the tips I have for today. I’m sure I will be back for more because I am always learning new tips and tricks in the kitchen to become a better cook and baker. Please feel free to share any tips or tricks you might be thinking of that you can share with our readers in the comments below.
Sources:
- www.commons.wikimedia.org
- www.stocksnap.io
- www.pixy.org
- www.pixabay.com
- www.buzzfeed.com
Mary Richardson
Weekly Newsletter Contributor since 2014
Email the author! mary@dvo.com
