Kitchen Myths

Facts and fiction about food and cooking, by Peter Aitken

Category Archives: Techniques

Flip a steak only once during cooking

Leave a comment Posted by on November 25, 2022

It is an article of faith among many steak lovers that a steak should be flipped only once, whether being cooked on the grill or in a pan. Turns out that this is a myth. Single flipping certainly won’t ruin anything, but multiple flips–say every 30 seconds– results in more evenly cooked meat with less overcooked meat at the edges. Try it yourself, you’ll see!

Ingredients, Techniques

Fresh herbs are always better than dried

Leave a comment Posted by on June 13, 2022

Most chefs prefer their herbs to be fresh, and the fact is you cannot go wrong this way. But for some herbs, dried can be just as good for cooking. The difference is in the nature of the flavor compounds. For some, the flavor compounds are volatile and are removed by the drying process. Basil is an example and adding dried basil to a dish provides no flavor, just green flecks! Other herbs, typically those that grow in hot, dry climates, have flavor compounds that survive drying and work just fine in cooked dishes (as well as being cheaper and more convenient). Here’s a guide:

Best used fresh:

  • Basil
  • Chervil
  • Chives
  • Cilantro
  • Dill
  • Mint
  • Parsley
  • Sorrel
  • Tarragon

OK to use dried (in cooking):

  • Bay leaf
  • Marjoram
  • Oregano
  • Rosemary
  • Sage
  • Savory
  • Thyme
Ingredients, Techniques

Garlic powder is a good sub for the fresh stuff

Leave a comment Posted by on June 12, 2022

Garlic powder–or its kissing cousin granulated garlic–is sure convenient. Lasts forever in the pantry, no peeling or smelly fingers. There’s just one problem though: it does not taste like garlic! Seriously folks, the chemicals that give fresh garlic its unique flavor are destroyed or removed by the drying process.

This does not mean garlic powder is useless. It has its own flavor that I find good in BBQ rubs. And peeling can be avoided if you buy pre-peeled whole raw cloves. They must be refrigerated and do not last as long as whole dried heads, but the flavor is fine.

And avoid garlic juice, paste, and pre-minced garlic. The unique garlic flavor is created via a chemical reaction that occurs when the clove is cut or mashed, and this flavor starts dissipating immediately.

Ingredients, Techniques , ,

Poach eggs in water with vinegar for a better shape

1 Comment Posted by on June 2, 2022

Eggs set up when their proteins denature, typically when exposed to heat. But acids–such as vinegar–also can cause egg whites to denature. Thus, some people add vinegar to the poaching liquid on the theory that it will give eggs with a nicer shape.

Nice theory, but it doesn’t work. The problem is that acid denatures egg proteins slowly, and by the time the vinegar has an effect the eggs are already set up from the heat. And the vinegar can make the eggs a bit tougher and, of course, add a vinegar taste. So, skip the vinegar!

What about salt? It has no effect on the cooking but can help the flavor.

Ingredients, Techniques ,

For best results, salt scrambled eggs at the end of cooking

Leave a comment Posted by on May 25, 2022

My usual technique was to beat the eggs with salt (and maybe a touch of milk) and cook them immediately. The other day I got distracted and the salted, beaten eggs sat for about 30 minutes before they went in the pan. They were unusually good! So I did some research and turns out I was not imagining it.

When eggs beaten with salt sit for a while, the salt causes some physical changes. You can see this in their color–after sitting, the salted eggs take on a deeper, richer yellow color. It also leads to particularly moist and tender curds when cooked. Beating in the salt just before cooking gives fine results too, just not quite as fine! And adding salt near the end of cooking gives tougher curds that may be watery. So, salt early when you can!

Ingredients, Techniques ,

The best mashed potatoes are made in a mixer

Leave a comment Posted by on December 9, 2020

Sure, it’s easy to throw cooked potatoes, milk, butter, etc. into your stand mixer and whip them up. In fact, some people ever refer to whipped potatoes! But this is actually the worst way to do it. You see, potatoes contain tiny starch granules, and if they stay intact they do no harm. But if they are burst by the mechanical action of a mixer, they make the potatoes gummy. Mashed spuds should be fluffy, and gummy is yucky! So, what to do? Fortunately you have several options.

The hand masher is the old stand-by, preferably the kind that has a plate with holes rather than a serpentine wire. The result with this will not be perfectly smooth but that’s OK with a lot of people, myself included.

A ricer works really well. This is essentially a huge garlic press with a piston that forces the potato thru a perforated plate. A food mill does much the same thing, using a rotating blade in place of a piston. They both have uses other than making mashed potatoes.

Equipment, Techniques ,

For better results, let steaks rest at room temperature before cooking

Leave a comment Posted by on August 2, 2020

Some folks think that letting a steak sit out at room temperature for 30-60 minutes before cooking leads to better results. The reasoning is that bringing a cold steak up to room temperature results in more even cooking and a better crust. It just ain’t so. For one thing, the steak warms up very little during this time. And even if you let it sit out a lot longer it does not, in tests, make any noticeable difference in the results.

So take your steak out of the fridge ahead of time if you wish–it does no harm–but if you forget, fret not.

Ingredients, Techniques ,

It is unsafe to refreeze meat

Leave a comment Posted by on February 20, 2019

It seems to be a common belief that once frozen meat has been thawed, freezing it again is unsafe. This is false. There may be some loss of quality and texture, but the refrozen meat will be perfectly safe (assuming you always follow the usual precautions regarding meat).

Health, Techniques

You should not cook tomato-based foods in cast iron

Leave a comment Posted by on December 9, 2018

It’s true that acidic foods can react with iron, but who uses a cast iron pan that has not been seasoned? The coating of seasoning protects the iron from the acid, so you are OK. If you have an unseasoned pan, than that’s a different matter, but even brand-new pans are almost always pre-seasoned.

Techniques

For hard-cooked eggs it is best to start with cold water

1 Comment Posted by on February 23, 2016

For years I have made hard-cooked eggs by putting them in a pan covered with cold water, bringing to the boil, then covering and letting sit off the heat for 20 minutes. The eggs cooked fine but they were sometimes very difficult to peel, particularly as I always use very fresh eggs from the farmers market. The problem was that the thin membrane just under the shall would sometimes stick to the egg white like glue. I recently found out that the problem with this technique is the relatively slow heating of the egg, which encourages that membrane to stick to the white. In contrast, rapid heating lessens the sticking, so putting the eggs into already boiling water is better from the peeling standpoint. But boiling like that can cause cracking because the eggs bounce around, so better yet is to steam the eggs.

Bring 1 inch of water to a boil in a saucepan. Put the eggs in a steamer basket and lower into the pan, then cover. Steam for 13 minutes then cool as peel as usual. I think you’ll appreciate the difference!

Ingredients, Techniques, Uncategorized

Removing bones is called “deboning”

2 Comments Posted by on December 31, 2015

I wince to hear some people, including a lot of people who should know better, use the term “deboning” to refer to removing the bones from a fish, chicken, or whatever. Do you “depeel” a banana, “descale” a fish, or “dehusk” a coconut? No, duh. The correct term is simply “boning” – the “de” prefix is an unneeded and incorrect prefix. This may sound like “grammar nanny” crap, but why speak like an ignoramus if you don’t have to?

Techniques, Uncategorized

In recipes, all salt is the same

Leave a comment Posted by on August 22, 2015

If only it were so! Salt is an essential ingredient in so many dishes, that’s just the way human taste works—we like salt (but not too much). With too little salt, savory dishes just taste flat and uninteresting. But over-salted – blech!

The problem is that all salt is not the same. Some salt is saltier than others when measured by volume, strange as that sounds. This is because different salts have different size crystals, and smaller crystals pack tighter than larger ones. So, a tablespoon of standard table salt (the stuff in the cylindrical container) weighs more than a TB of Morton kosher salt, which has larger crystals. And a TB of Diamond Crystal kosher salt weighs less than the Morton’s. It’s the weight that matters, of course. Sea salts vary because they are all different. So, here’s a guide to equivalents:

1 TB standard table salt equals:
1 TB + 1 scant teaspoon Morton kosher salt equals:
1 TB plus 2 teaspoons Diamond Crystal kosher salt.

So what do you do when following a recipe? Some just specify “salt” while other specify “kosher salt” without saying which brand (and I am sure there are other brands I have not tried). It’s best to play it safe and undersalt—you can always add more but it is deucedly difficult to take it back! For dishes that are difficult or impossible to salt later, such as terrines, sausages, and meatloaf, it’s worth the trouble to cook a TB or so of the mixture to taste for seasoning before completing the process, and then adding salt if needed.

Ingredients, Techniques

Stock and broth are different

Leave a comment Posted by on December 29, 2013

Both the terms “stock” and “broth” refer to a flavorful, savory liquid made by simmering ingredients in water for a long time until all of the flavor is extracted, then straining and discarding the solids. Meat is usually part of the recipe, but not always. Some people will insist that the two are different. Stock is made with bones, they say, and broth is not. Broth is for drinking, they claim, and stock is for cooking. It’s true that some cookbook authors make these claims, but they are not consistent–what one famous chef says is stock is another chef’s broth. Let’s face it–who cares? Good stock/broth is essential to many kinds of cooking. Bad stock/broth should be fed to the pigs.

Ingredients, Techniques , ,

For the best tomato sauce, always use fresh tomatoes

1 Comment Posted by on September 27, 2013

This seems to make sense, right – I mean, fresh is always better than canned. Or is it? It turns out that canned tomatoes often beat out fresh for making sauce. There are several reasons for this:

  • The makers of canned tomatoes can grow multiple varieties with different taste characteristics and blend them for an ideal taste profile in their product.
  • The tomatoes are grown for canning near the processing plant, so they can be left on the vine until ideally ripe and at the peak of flavor – no need to account for transport time.
  • The tomatoes do not have to be bred to transport well or to look pretty on the shelf in the market. As long as they taste good, they can be delicate and ugly.

This is not to say you can’t make great sauce from fresh tomatoes–of course you can, but only if you have the ideal locally grown and perfectly ripe tomatoes. My point is that you should not dismissed canned tomato products just because they are processed. And, you do not have to buy the super-expensive imported and/or organic varieties. In fact, one of the US’s major brands beat all of those out in a taste test held by a notoriously fussy cooking magazine.

Here’s an interesting Mark Bittman article on this topic:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/not-all-industrial-food-is-evil

Ingredients, Techniques

When steaming clams or mussels, discard any that do not open

1 Comment Posted by on August 25, 2013

It’s widely believed that when you are steaming clams or mussels, any that do not open must be discarded. Turns out it is usually a waste of perfectly good shellfish. An unopened clam may be bad, or the shell full of mud, but in my experience they are usually fine. What I do is set the unopened ones aside and deal with them separately. In almost all cases they are very easy to open with a blunt knife and the little feller inside is just fine. When you do find a bad one, out it goes. If you find more than a very occasional bad one, you might want to buy your clams elsewhere.

As an aside, fresh clams/mussels should always be stored in the fridge in a ventilated container, never a sealed plastic bag. They are alive and use some oxygen – not much, but a sealed bag will suffocate them and then you will have a bunch of bad clams!

Health, Ingredients, Techniques , ,

Sharp knives make cutting your fingers more likely

1 Comment Posted by on August 18, 2013

A sharp knife cuts more easily, so this make sense – right? But, it is not true. With a sharp knife, cutting is easily done and nothing needs to be forced. And it’s the forcing that causes cuts, when you have to press down hard and the knife slips onto your finger. Ouch! With a really sharp knife, your cutting can be smooth and relaxed, with less danger of cuts. So, keep your knives sharp!

Equipment, Odds and Ends, Techniques

Roasting coffee at home is difficult and not worth the effort

4 Comments Posted by on August 17, 2013

To the contrary! Since being turned on to coffee roasting a while back (after a visit to an organic coffee plantation in Nicaragua), I regret not having started sooner. If you want better, cheaper coffee for little effort, read on. If you like Charbucks – err, I mean Starbucks – coffee, don’t bother.

  • Process: A coffee roaster can cost as little as $130. It looks sort of like a blender and works by blowing hot air up through the beans to agitate and roast them. Add the green (raw) beans, turn on, and forget – it’s that simple. You can vary the type of roast (light, medium, dark) by varying the roasting time and/or temperature. This process will generate some smoke, particularly when making a dark roast, so be forewarned. There are also drum smokers that heat the beans in a rotating drum.
  • Savings: Green coffee beans, easily available over the internet, cost in the $5-7 / pound range with a few exceptions for super-premium beans like Jamaica Blue Mountain. Beans lose 15-20% of their weight in roasting, so a pound of roasted beans ends up costing $7.00-$7.50 / pound. Compare that with the $12-15 that high quality roasted beans cost. Your savings will soon pay for the roaster and you’ll be saving money.
  • Variety: My favorite source of beans, Burman Coffee Traders, currently lists green beans from Costa Rica, Hawaii, India, Brazil, Colombia, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Indonesia, Jamaica, New Guinea, Tanzania … the list goes on. Decaf beans are available as well. Plus, you can experiments with your own blends.

So, if you love coffee – good coffee that is – you might want to try roasting your own.

Ingredients, Odds and Ends, Techniques

Adding salt makes water boil faster

Leave a comment Posted by on August 12, 2013

In fact, the opposite is true – dissolved salt raises the boiling point of water. For the amounts of salt used in cooking, however, it is a tiny amount, a fraction of a degree, and you needn’t be concerned about it.

Ingredients, Techniques ,

Slamming the oven door can ruin a soufflé

2 Comments Posted by on August 11, 2013

A soufflé is a delicate creation that rises due to expanding bubbles in beaten egg whites. A sudden shock such as the oven door slamming will, supposedly, cause it to collapse. While this may be a nice plot twist, tests show that it isn’t true – your soufflé will survive a slammed door just fine, as will delicate cakes.

Odds and Ends, Techniques

Don’t store fresh corn on the cob in the fridge

30 Comments Posted by on July 20, 2013

Fresh corn on the cob is, of course, best cooked as soon as possible after picking, but that’s not always possible. How should it be stored? Many people say not to refrigerate it, but that’s a myth. Put it in the fridge – after all, the chemical reaction that causes corn to lose its sweetness is slowed down by cold, just like almost all chemical reactions. Corn can still be wonderful after a day or two in the fridge, although not as good as really fresh.

By the way, an easy and energy-efficient way to cook corn is to put the husks and trimmings in the bottom of your kettle, pile the ears on top, and add an inch of water – instant steamer! Cover and boil for 4-10 minutes depending on the corn and your preferences. By not bringing a full pot of water to the boil, you save time and energy.

Ingredients, Techniques

Breathe through your mouth to avoid crying when cutting an onion

2 Comments Posted by on May 26, 2013

The crying response to onion vapors has to do with your eyes, not your nose. Using a sharp knife, to reduce the tearing and bruising caused by a dull one, may help, as will refrigerating the onion ahead of time. Keeping your eyes closed will help, but you may lose a finger or two!

Ingredients, Techniques

Adding a raw potato can reduce saltiness in a soup or sauce

1 Comment Posted by on May 17, 2013

A potato will absorb little or no salt, so this just does not work. Adding more unsalted liquid and other ingredients is about the only solution to this problem.

Techniques

Acidic marinades make meat tender

8 Comments Posted by on October 19, 2012

Many people believe than an acidic marinade – one containing wine, vinegar, or citrus juice – will make meat tender. In fact, the opposite is often the case. Acid interacts with the proteins in the meat, causing the protein molecules to pack more closely together and thus squeezing liquid out of the meat. The result? Tough and dry steak, chicken, or what have you. What’s more, extended exposure to acid can cause the surface of the meat to become mushy because the proteins start to break down. The rule, then, would be to keep acidic marinade periods short, but then of course the flavor won’t get into the meat very well. My approach is to rely on non-acidic marinades.

The fact is, marinades in general don’t have nearly the effect that many people think because the flavors just cannot penetrate beyond a millimeter or two at the surface. Salt and water in a marinade can penetrate deeper, and the benefit of most marinades is the result this factor.

Ingredients, Odds and Ends, Techniques

Tear basil, rather than cutting it, for best flavor

4 Comments Posted by on August 21, 2012

When a recipe calls for fresh basil, you’ll often hear chefs saying to tear it with your fingers, rather than shredding it with a knife, to get the best flavor. Sorry, but nope. The flavors in basil – like any herb – are primarily contained within the cells of the leaf. If you tear it, it tends to come apart between the cells so that less flavor is released (because it stays in the cells). If you cut the leaf, you will break open the cells (some of them, anyway), releasing more flavor. This makes the most difference when you are using the basil raw, as in a tomato salad. In cooked dishes, such as a sauce, it does not make as much of a difference because the cooking gets the flavor out of the cells.

My technique is to wash the basil, pat dry with paper towels, and remove the leaves from the stem. Stack several leaves together and roll into a cylinder, then cut crossways into thin strips.

Ingredients, Techniques

A pinhole in a raw egg will prevent cracking while boiling

1 Comment Posted by on July 7, 2012

This myth is based on the reasonable idea that eggs crack, when being hard- or soft-boiled, because the air in the shell expands from the heat. The pinhole is supposed to release this pressure. Reasonable, yes, but tests show that a pinhole really does not reduce cracking. Rather, cracks occur either because the egg already has an invisible crack in the shell, which expands during cooking, or because the egg is being knocked about in the pan by too-active boiling.

Odds and Ends, Techniques , ,

When making a meringue, you must not get even a tiny speck of yolk in the egg whites or they won’t beat up properly

Leave a comment Posted by on April 20, 2012

There’s a kernel of truth in this one. When you beat egg whites until they are stiff, you are actually creating a foam in which the egg white proteins form bubbles with the air you are beating in. Fats tend to collapse foams and an egg yolk contains a lot of fat, hence the origin of this “rule.” It may have had some validity when people made meringues by hand, but with today’s power mixers you’ll be able to make a perfectly good, stiff meringue even if a bit of yolk gets mixed in.

Ingredients, Techniques ,

All ice cubes are created equal

5 Comments Posted by on February 12, 2012

Most of us use cubes made with tap water, using either an ice cube tray or a built-in ice maker. They tend to be cloudy and sometimes don’t last as long as we’d like. But, ice is ice, right? Not necessarily. Home-made ice freezes from the outside in. Air that is dissolved in the water, plus any minerals (worse if you have hard water) are pushed to the center, last to freeze, where the create bubbles and haze. The resulting ice cubes contain less actual ice than bubble-free ones of equal size would, and when they melt you may find a sediment of the previously-dissolved minerals at the bottom of your glass.

To avoid this, use distilled water (no dissolved minerals) and bring to a boil briefly, then cool and freeze (the boiling drives out most of the dissolved air). You’ll get clear, sediment-free cubes that last a good deal longer. Worth the effort? Maybe only for special occasions!

Odds and Ends, Techniques

When baking muffins, fill empty cups with water for even baking

11 Comments Posted by on December 10, 2011

Suppose you have a 12-cup muffin tin and enough batter for only, say, six muffins. This myth says to fill the empty cups with water or you’ll get uneven baking and your tin might warp. It does no harm, but it’s a waste of time and has no effect whatever on the evenness of cooking. Why would it? Even with all 12 cups full of batter, most of them are not adjacent to another cup on one or two sides and things cook perfectly fine. If your tin warps, that’s a sign of low quality, and maybe you need a replacement.

There is one scenario where putting water in the empty cups makes sense—if you have already greased them. Baking an empty, greased cup makes for hard cleanup!

Equipment, Techniques ,

Eating grilled meat increases your chance of cancer

4 Comments Posted by on December 6, 2011

Sorry, it just ain’t so. I say “sorry” because there are some people who seem to want grilled meat to be unhealthy—beats me as to why (perhaps it’s the “if it tastes good it must be bad for you” syndrome?). Anyway, this myth got its start because grilling—like some other cooking techniques—produces heterocyclic amines (HCAs), which are “reasonably anticipated” to be carcinogens in humans. What this means is that there is no evidence that they actually are carcinogens in humans, but someone thinks that if they keep looking long and hard enough they will find some evidence. As an example, a recent prospective study in 120,000 women found no relationship between breast cancer and eating red meat or the way the meat was cooked. “But but but,” the worry-warts will say, “HCAs cause cancer in rats and mice!” Yes, but we are not rats or mice (most of us, anyway) and what’s true for them is not always true for us. There is evidence, for example, that early humans adapted a digestive system to safely eat cooked food while rodents did not.  Also, just because a high dose of something, like the high doses of HCAs that the experimental rats and mice were given, causes a health problem does not mean that the very small doses we get in our food will also cause a problem.

Health, Techniques , ,

Don’t wash raw mushrooms because they will absorb water

1 Comment Posted by on September 16, 2011

Mushrooms naturally contain a lot of water, up to 90% by weight according to some sources. This makes them difficult to sauté properly because they will give off that water and end up stewing, at least until the water cooks off. But, they won’t absorb more water if you wash them. Of course, some water may adhere to the gills, but that can be shaken or dabbed off.

Ingredients, Techniques ,

When grilling a burger, flip it only once for best results.

4 Comments Posted by on August 20, 2011

I am not sure where this one originated, but I hear it frequently. In fact, flipping the burger several times during grilling gives more even cooking and a more evenly browned surface. You won’t get those grate marks, but who cares? It’s going in a bun anyway. It is true that you shouldn’t press on the burger with your spatula during cooking—this just squeezes juice out, and we all love juicy burgers!

Techniques , ,

Rare hamburger is dangerous

Leave a comment Posted by on May 27, 2011

It depends. A lot of attention has been given to the dangers of eating a burger that hasn’t been thoroughly cooked. There’s good reason for this. Commercial ground beef is made in factories in huge batches, and a single burger can contain meat from dozens or hundreds of individual animals. The chance of bacterial contamination making it into your supermarket package not insignificant, and this is a risk that many people don’t want to take. In fact, some states have banned restaurants from selling burgers that are not well-cooked. Too bad, because real burger aficionados know that the best tasting burgers are cooked to medium at most.

Is there a way around this? Yep—grind your own beef. If your ground beef comes from a single chuck or sirloin roast (or a mix of the two, my favorite), there’s a vastly smaller chance of contamination. You must observe proper procedure, making sure your grinder is spotlessly clean and keeping everything cold, of course. Buy your meat from a reputable, high-turnover retailer. There’s no absolute guarantee against contamination, of course, but the risks are much, much lower this way and your can enjoy a juicy, pink-in-the-center burger again.

Ingredients, Techniques

You cannot do serious cooking in a microwave

3 Comments Posted by on April 4, 2011

This is one of the very silliest myths but it refuses to die out. There are a lot of people who use their microwave for nothing but boiling water and reheating leftovers and they are really missing out on a lot. I suspect that this myth got its start when microwaves were a new tool and a lot of awful microwave recipe books were published. Some people tried to use their microwave as a general purpose stove and oven replacement rather than as a more specialized tool that is well suited for some jobs but not at all useful for others. For example, you would not want to use a microwave for a roast beef, fried potatoes, or baking bread, but it works just great for things like rice, poached fish, and steamed veggies. I find it particularly handy for making polenta and risotto, with results that are every bit as good as the stovetop with much less work and worry. If you want to expand your microwave repertoire I highly recommend The Microwave Gourmet by Barbara Kafka. Another excellent book is The Moghul Microwave by Julie Sahni (Indian dishes).

Equipment, Techniques

Hot pan, cold oil to prevent sticking

12 Comments Posted by on April 4, 2011

This mantra is repeated by many people as the best way to prevent food from sticking to the pan when sautéing or stir frying. The idea is that you heat up the pan first then add the cold oil and almost immediately add the food. This works of course, so it is not a myth in that it is untrue. It is, however, false to think that this is the only or the best way to prevent sticking. What you really want is “hot pan, hot oil” and that’s what you are actually getting because the cold oil heats up almost instantly when added to the hot pan. You’ll get the same results if you heat the oil along with the pan rather than adding the oil at the last minute. In fact some cooks prefer this technique because the appearance of the oil in the pan can give you some indication of when the pan has reached the proper temperature.

There is one situation where you don’t want to heat the oil in the pan, and that’s when you need a super-hot pan for searing a steak or similar tasks. It has nothing to do with sticking, however, but with the oil burning. Your pan is likely to reach 600 degrees and that is well above the smoke point of any cooking oil, so your oil will start to smoke and decompose well before the pan is ready. My approach is to not add oil to the pan at all, but rub it on the steak – patted dry first, of course – just before putting the steak in the pan.

Equipment, Techniques

You can’t make a good cup of tea in the microwave

1 Comment Posted by on April 4, 2011

Some people claim that you cannot make really good tea by boiling your cup of water in the microwave and then putting in the tea bag. The problem is that only the top layer of water is boiling – water in the lower part of the cup is not hot enough yet and so the tea will not infuse properly. Perhaps—but the problem is easily solved by letting the water boil for 5-10 seconds before removing it from the microwave and adding the tea bag. This ensures complete mixing and heating of the water and your tea will be just fine.

Note, however, that some tea experts claim that you do not want to use actively boiling water (212o) because it damages the flavor of the tea. I was informed of this by a reader named Erik Lynn – for black tea you want 195 degrees, for green tea 175 degrees, and for herbal tea 205-210 degrees. To be honest, I really can’t tell the difference, but apparently some people can.

However, be aware of a potential safety issue. Water can get superheated in the microwave. In other words, its temperature goes above the boiling point but it does not actually boil. This is usually the result of using a container with a very smooth surface that lacks the minute rough spots that trigger boiling. When you then pop your tea bag into the water it boils all at once and can leap out and burn you. Of course if you wait for the water to boil in the MW, as I have advised, this will not be a problem, but you should be aware of it.

Techniques

Don’t salt meat before cooking

9 Comments Posted by on April 4, 2011

The idea behind this one is that the salt will draw out juices from the meat, removing flavor and preventing the surface from browning properly. In theory salt can draw out moisture, but in the real world it does not seem to make any difference. I have salted meat before cooking innumerable times, including steaks for pan frying or grilling, roasts, and briskets headed for the smoker. I have never once seen any juice being drawn out by the salt. In addition, there are innumerable cooks ranging from at-home amateurs to professional chefs and cookbook authors—including the super-fussy people at Cooks Illustrated—who direct that salt be put on meat before cooking. It’s impossible to believe that if the myth were true, all these people would be blind to the supposedly dire effects.

If you use enough salt and let it sit long enough you will draw out moisture. But the real question is: does this reduce the quality of the final product? Not in my experience. Of course you must pat off the accumulated moisture with a paper towel before cooking if you want the meat to brown properly. In fact, drawing off some moisture may well concentrate the flavors and lead to a better result.

Techniques

Myths about dried beans

12 Comments Posted by on April 4, 2011

There are three “facts” you’ll often hear about cooking dried beans, such as kidney and great northern beans. It turns out they are all myths.

  1. You must soak beans before cooking. You can soak beans of course, but the only advantage it provides is to shorten the cooking time. There’s no reason not to start cooking dry beans directly as long as you have the time to simmer them long enough.
  2. You must not add salt to beans during cooking or they will not soften. Tests show that the only difference between beans cooked side by side with and without salt is that one is salty and the other is not. Some people feel that salting during cooking gives better flavor because some of the salt ends up inside the beans.
  3. You must not add acid, such as tomatoes, to beans during cooking or they will not soften. Acid does in fact have an effect on beans, tending to keep the skins intact, while alkaline substances (baking soda) help the skins to break down. In both cases however the beans cook perfectly well. You can use this to your advantage, adding tomatoes during or after cooking depending on whether you want whole beans or mushy beans.

Note, however, soaking can help reduce the “gas attack” effect that some people experience after eating beans. Bring dry beans and water to a boil, remove from heat, and let sit for an hour. Drain, add fresh water, and continue cooking. This removes some of the chemicals in the beans that cause the gas.

Ingredients, Techniques ,

If you put the pit in the bowl, guacamole won’t turn brown

5 Comments Posted by on April 4, 2011

The surface of guacamole turns brown by reacting with oxygen in the air. The guacamole that is directly under the pit won’t turn brown because the pit prevents air from getting to it. Otherwise, the oxidation process turns the exposed surface brown, just as it does on apples and other fruits. You’ll have much better luck protecting the surface from air by pressing aluminum foil or plastic wrap on it.

Ingredients, Techniques

Microwave cooking destroys nutrients more than other cooking methods

4 Comments Posted by on April 1, 2011

It’s true that cooking reduces the level of some nutrients, but this is true of all cooking methods. It’s the heat that does it, and with boiling or poaching there’s also the fact that some nutrients are leached out into the water. Microwaves pose no special risk to nutrients and in fact may preserve more of them because cooking times and temperatures may be lower than with conventional cooking methods. Yes, I know that there are many web sites claiming that microwaves destroy nutrients, but they are wrong. Ask these people about their scientific background, may I suggest.

Techniques

You cannot do serious cooking in a microwave

2 Comments Posted by on March 31, 2011

This is one of the very silliest myths but it refuses to die out. There are a lot of people who use their microwave for nothing but boiling water and reheating leftovers and they are really missing out on a lot. I suspect that this myth got its start when microwaves were a new tool and a lot of awful microwave recipe books were published. Some people tried to use their microwave as a general purpose stove and oven replacement rather than as a more specialized tool that is well suited for some jobs but not at all useful for others. For example, you would not want to use a microwave for a roast beef, fried potatoes, or baking bread, but it works just great for things like rice, poached fish, and steamed veggies. I find it particularly handy for making polenta and risotto, with results that are every bit as good as the stovetop with much less work and worry. If you want to expand your microwave repertoire I highly recommend The Microwave Gourmet by Barbara Kafka. Another excellent book is The Moghul Microwave by Julie Sahni (Indian dishes).

Techniques

You can make a baked potato in the microwave

9 Comments Posted by on March 31, 2011

The microwave oven certainly has many legitimate uses, but baking potatoes (or anything else) is not one of them. Sure, you can cook a whole potato in the microwave, but what you get is a steamed potato. The crispy skin and fluffy interior of the genuine baked potato require a long cooking in dry heat.

Techniques

Heating a pan prevents food from sticking by closing cracks in the metal

Leave a comment Posted by on March 31, 2011

Most cooks know that you should start with a hot pan to prevent or minimize food sticking. You may hear a bizarre theory that goes something like this: food sticks to pans because it seeps into minute cracks and pits in the pan and then solidifies when heated, becoming stuck. If you heat the pan before adding the food, the metal expands and fills in the microscopic cracks and holes in the pan’s surface or at least makes them smaller. With fewer or smaller surface defects for the food to grab onto it is less likely to stick.

Unfortunately whoever came up with this idea knew nothing about the physical properties of metals. When metal expands due to heating, each individual atom vibrates faster and faster and thus takes up more space. The result is the same as if each atom simply got a bit bigger, and the result is that the entire piece of metal, defects, holes and all, gets bigger. Thus, if you heat a donut-shaped piece of metal, the outer diameter gets bigger and so does the diameter of the hole. You have probably used this fact yourself when trying to get a metal screw lid off a glass jar. Running hot water over the lid expands the entire lid and loosens its grip on the jar, making it easier to remove. So, heating a pan would cause these hypothetical surface cracks to get larger, not smaller.

Equipment, Techniques ,

Alcohol in a recipe all evaporates during cooking so there is none in the final dish

5 Comments Posted by on March 31, 2011

Here’s another “common sense” myth that turns out to be false. Alcohol has a lower boiling point than water so it should all evaporate first, right? Nope – that’s not the way it works. The alcohol will evaporate faster than the water but there will still be some left after even extended cooking. The text below shows just how much alcohol is left after different methods and periods of cooking.

  • Alcohol added to boiling liquid & removed from heat: 85%
  • Alcohol flamed: 75%
  • No heat, stored overnight: 70%
  • Baked 15 minutes, alcohol stirred into mixture: 40%
  • Baked 2.5 hours, alcohol stirred into mixture: 5%

The bottom line is that no one is ever going to get tipsy from alcohol in a cooked dish, but people who want to avoid all alcohol for religious or medical reasons need to be aware that some alcohol will remain even after long cooking.

Ingredients, Techniques

Lobsters scream with pain when boiled

41 Comments Posted by on March 31, 2011

It’s commendable that people do not want to inflict pain on animals, but this one is definitely false on the first account (screaming) and probably false on the second (pain).

As for the “scream,” there’s the problem that lobsters have no throat, no vocal cords, no lungs, so how could they scream at all? The fact is that the noise is caused by air trapped in the shell. When heated it expands and forces itself out through small gaps, causing the sound – sort of like when you force air out between your tightly clenched lips to make a rude sound.

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Ingredients, Odds and Ends, Techniques ,

Sushi means raw fish

13 Comments Posted by on March 30, 2011

Many people think that “sushi” is synonymous with raw fish. Not so – the term actually refers to the vinegared rice. This is made by dissolving sugar and maybe a touch of salt in rice vinegar and tossing with the hot, just-cooked rice. Sushi therefore refers to vinegared rice served with other ingredients which may or may not include fish (which in turn may be raw or cooked). The vinegared rice itself is referred to as shari. Raw fish served by itself without the rice is called sashimi.

Ingredients, Odds and Ends, Techniques ,

Use water instead of milk when making scrambled eggs

2 Comments Posted by on March 30, 2011

Some people will tell you that using milk when making scrambled eggs and omelets results in tough eggs – that you should use water instead. It’s puzzling how this myth continues to propagate because it is so easy to disprove for yourself. But if you require the pronouncement of some authority, tests by Cook’s Illustrated (the “America’s Test Kitchen” people) revealed that scrambled eggs made with water are less flavorful, do not fluff as well, and are not as soft as those made with milk. Cream is better still, but that’s another story!

By the way, this advice is for eggs cooked to be moist and creamy, the way they should be. I know some people prefer the dry, fluffy style but all we can do is feel sorry for them.

Ingredients, Techniques

You can’t wash cast iron cookware with soap

11 Comments Posted by on March 30, 2011

This myth seems to make sense—after all, you use fat to season cast iron and soap removes fat, case closed, right? It’s not that simple.

The seasoning layer on the surface of the pan is formed when the pan is heated while in contact with some fat or oil. This may happen during normal cooking or during a special seasoning process that many people use with a new pan. The result is a chemical reaction in which that fat polymerizes, meaning that multiple individual fat molecules join together to form larger molecules. It is these larger polymer molecules that bind to the metal of the pan and form the seasoning. And, guess what, the polymer is not dissolved by soap. So, it’s perfectly OK to use a mild soap on your cast iron if you are so inclined. Never use harsh detergent, put the pan in the dishwasher, or scrub with an abrasive, however, as these will take off the coating.

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Equipment, Techniques

“Real” chili cannot contain beans or tomatoes

23 Comments Posted by on March 30, 2011

You hear this on a regular basis, mostly from Texans. The fact is that many delicious traditional (and non-traditional) chilis are made with beans and/or tomatoes. There is in fact some basis for this myth. Traditional Texas-style chili is usually made without beans or tomatoes, and it can be great, but that’s just one regional variant.

What about “Cincinnati” chili? I used to think it was meant as a variant on southwestern chili, and a very poor one at that. I learned  later that Cincinnati chili is actually a dish invented by Greek immigrants in Cincinnati and meant as a spaghetti sauce or hot dog topping. It has some chili powder in it, but also more traditional Mediterranean spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon. Learn more on Google.

Ingredients, Odds and Ends, Techniques

Adding salt to the cooking water keeps greens green

5 Comments Posted by on March 30, 2011

Nope. You may want the salt for the taste, but it has no effect on the color of the final product. A pinch of baking soda could actually improve color by making the water more alkaline, but because most people have water that is already a wee bit alkaline to begin with, you may not notice a difference.

Ingredients, Techniques

You must/must not salt pasta cooking water

2 Comments Posted by on March 30, 2011

Now wait just a minute, how can one statement and its opposite both be false? This is because there are so many divergent opinions about salting pasta water, often strongly held, and none of them is “true” in an absolute sense. Salting does not shorten the cooking time by raising the temperature of the water (it does, actually, but by a tiny amount that makes absolutely no difference). The fact is that salting does one thing and one thing only: it makes the pasta salty (well, duh!). You have to add a good bit of salt to get any real taste effect because most of the salt goes down the drain. There you have it. You want salty pasta, add salt – otherwise, no.

But, there is one situation where I think adding salt is a good idea. For the common tomato-based sauces, the sauce can add the needed degree of saltiness to the dish. With oil-based sauces, however, we face the fact that salt does not dissolve in oil, so the sauce cannot add the needed salt (and the result is often the addition of too much grated cheese to get the desired salt level). Salting the pasta water in these situations can provide a better balance. The same is true of pasta that is destined for a cold mayonnaise-based salad.

Ingredients, Techniques

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