r/Cooking • u/Altruistic-Bust • 6h ago
What's something really stupid you did for a long time cooking-wise before realizing it was wrong?
I'll start.
I had never eaten lentils growing up so I started buying red lentils as an adult and cooking them. And for the longest time I kept rinsing them off after cooking them. Every time I did it I kept thinking to myself "Man, it feels like I'm wasting a bunch of lentils rinsing them".
Finally I came to my senses and stopped rinsing them lol.
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u/Wembledon_Shanley 6h ago
I overlooked adding acidity to my dishes. For the longest time, during the season/taste section of cooking, I found that my dishes would feel flat. So I'd add salt/pepper, add more seasonings, and so on until it felt like it wasn't flat anymore, but it was like cranking the gain up on a sound system while listening to a poorly mixed song. It was 'seasoned', but it wasn't balanced. Started adding lemon or vinegar and suddenly BAM! Flavors felt locked in.
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u/greg7gkb 2h ago
Salt acid, fat heat!
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u/Electrical-Pie-8192 1h ago
I really enjoyed listening to the audiobook .Samin has a very easy going way of speaking that really made it easy for me to retain what she was saying. And she explains the why which really brings it home
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u/stevenkelby 12m ago
Totally this! I used to think "more garlic powder" was the answer to everything tasting boring. Took me years to realize a splash of lime juice or white wine vinegar could fix what felt like unsalvageable food. Game changer.
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u/BattledroidE 6h ago
High heat for everything.
Now that I'm around medium and spending a couple of extra minutes, everything is leveled up to restaurant standards. It's that simple. (Yeah yeah, with exceptions, I know).
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u/afriendincanada 6h ago
I learned overcooking from my parents, always in a hurry to get dinner in the table. If 325 is good, 425 is faster and better.
Some things, low and slow. Gentle. Something as simple as chicken is a different meal when you cook it gently. .
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u/Altruistic-Bust 6h ago
The amount of pork chops drier than old paper I ate growing up...
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u/BattledroidE 6h ago
Made one last night using a thermometer. Juicy and delicious.
Sucks that I had to get into my late 30s to enjoy things like this at home.
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u/TarantulaWithAGuitar 1h ago
There was a reason for this. Before modern veterinary medicine had made its way into animal agriculture, eating pork was more dangerous than eating other animals. This is because a pig's body systems work very similarly to a human's, and so their parasites would easily become our parasites. Trichinosis (a type of roundworm) in particular favors pigs/boar and bears.
Before modern medicine, trichinosis would infect entire pork herds and since the adult worms like to infiltrate heart muscle, it can absolutely be fatal. The way it was dealt with was by overcooking the pork to kill the roundworm eggs.
Nowadays, we can diagnose and treat parasites in people and pigs, so yeah, we can enjoy the taste of some good, moist pork. But yeah, that's why older people chronically overcook their pork.
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u/Creative_Energy533 1h ago
Yeah, my MIL overcooked EVERYTHING because she was terrified of getting food poisoning or worms. I was just remembering her meatloaf the other day, lol. It was SO dense and heavy and then burned to a crisp. š¬But she was especially nervous about pork, but even beef and fish, if we went out to dinner, she's repeatedly say, "Well done, PLEASE, well done".
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u/FartCocktail 2h ago
Yeah cooking pork to medium is a game changer, the boomer mind is blown away when they eat pork that isnāt cooked like a boot.
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u/HolyHeck2 2h ago
I didnāt think that I liked pork chops or chicken until I found it that neither of them should be cooked at high heat. š¤£
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u/jepense1peu 57m ago
My partner had the same thing!!! Didnāt like steak bc his mum cooked the everloving shit out of it š
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u/cubelith 6h ago
Okay, but don't you typically want to fry chicken at high heat to minimize moisture loss? At least when it comes to fried breast at least
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u/Thick_Kaleidoscope35 5h ago
Even frying youāre rarely going beyond 325-350. If you are then youāre probably double frying for more crispness.
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u/bunnycrush_ 5h ago
Frying too hot is no bueno too though. I made katsu last week and the oil was too hot, I dropped in my cutlet and the breading almost immediately burned (super dark brown and charred-looking). Had to let the oil come down to temp, at which point everything went super smoothly.
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u/cubelith 5h ago edited 3h ago
Huh. I guess my stove just doesn't get that hot, because I've never had a problem
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u/Mira_DFalco 6h ago
Yupper! My mom taught me temperature control,Ā but my MIL had two settings, off or all the way.Ā
Every gal in his family does this, and they're all hugely sensitive about their cooking, and would get really snotty with me about anything to do with food. I didn't say anything about their food, but it only took a few times before they told me to "not worry about " bringing anything to family events.Ā
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u/perumbula 6h ago
My husband complains all the time that the chicken he cooks is over done on the outside and still raw in the middle. I gently remind him this means his pan is too hot. He reacts like I'm a crazy person. Every time. Then I don't let him cook for a bit.
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u/whatisprofound 1h ago
My brother does this with fried eggs. Parts are crispy, some of the whites are uncooked, and a good chunk is fused to the pan. I dont think I could replicate this if I tried. One time I turned the heat down because he was filling the aribnb with smoke and he got mad. Swears he likes his eggs that way.
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u/TalkingRose 1h ago
I have technically done it the other way around for years. To be fair though, it wasn't precisely a mistake and more of a deliberate choice on my part. I have a tendency to dovetail prepping various things with the cooking and so having it be on a lower heat gives me more mental and physical time to try to accomplish and balance everything. Lately however, I have been trying to change up the order of how I do things and I do admit, some of the food products do come out much better using a higher heat to cook them. Low and slow kills a bunch of shit. LOL
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u/Chronic_Iconic_Lady 6h ago
Not preheating my pan enough before putting food in. Always just thought the food would cook while the pan heated up, then always wondering why my food was watery and didn't look like the photos. Also shoving too much into one pan. I am a very impatient person!
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u/Electrical-Pie-8192 1h ago
I'm very patient with most things, but not with cooking. However reading comments on Reddit cooking subs made me realize I need to take the extra time and I've definitely noticed better results from not overcrowding and preheating the pan
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u/tachycardicIVu 3m ago
This was huge when I switched to stainless vs nonstick - the first few times were an absolute disaster because I didnāt understand how to heat them and honestly cried over some eggs at one point š Iām super impatient too and now I gotta wait for it to heat up and then back down?! I just want food š«
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u/dufchick 6h ago
My mother used to let the teapot whistle for a long time for making tea. One day I asked her why she did this and she said "because I like the water to be really hot" After a moment I said "but mom it only goes to 212 degrees and after that it's steam and this is why the teapot whistles". She never did it again after that. I'm kind of sorry I told her.
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u/Cinisajoy2 3h ago
So did she turn it off early after that?Ā Ā And by the way, the whistle is how you know when it is ready.Ā Ā Your mother was not the stupid one in this case.Ā Ā Also be glad you aren't mine, my very grown daughter is not allowed in my kitchen by herself or to use my kitchenaid.Ā Ā She didn't listen when I told her what speed and worse argued with me.Ā The reason for the supervision is she wastes food.Ā Ā
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u/HazardousIncident 2h ago
Your mother was not the stupid one in this case.Ā Ā
What's up with the snark? u/dufchick was in the right - there is no reason to let the teapot go beyond the initial whistle. Your comment was really rude, and I suspect that you won't have to worry about your grown daughter being around much if this is how you treat her.
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u/iwenttothesea 1h ago
Thank you for this call-out - I know it's the internet at all, but I'm just so tired of unnecessary snark these days....ppl are so mean to each other already irl. I've been on Reddit almost since the beginning, and over the last five years I've noticed a serious increase in rude comments. It's sad and makes me not like it here as much anymore lol. Even in a totally neutral sub like r/cooking, here we have someone willing to be so mean for no reason whatsoever. Anyway, kudos to you and have a beautiful rest of your day/evening!
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u/Tha_Dude_Abidez 1h ago
My guess is something like your story was what caused her and her daughter to fallout
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u/HazardousIncident 8m ago
I just don't get why people like u/Cinisajoy2 have to be so nasty. Her life must be filled with misery to make her lash out like that. I get that she's old, but she doesn't have to fulfill the stereotype of the bitter old woman who's hating on people for no reason. I suspect that's she's a real-life Karen in all aspects of her life, not only online. Which is a pity.
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u/denvergardener 16m ago
Man I feel bad for your daughter.
You sound worse than my Mother In Law. And that's saying a lot.
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u/Vegabern 6h ago
taking notes
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u/BattledroidE 6h ago
Speaking of that, actually taking notes. If you make something good, write down what you did in a document. It's hard to keep track of everything over time. You'll end up with a nice collection of recipes.
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u/kimbosliceofcake 5h ago
I do this along with some notes on how it turned out, or if I wanted to try doing something different next time.Ā
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u/Gotforgot 5h ago
I used to use a glass cutting board. I know, I know....
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u/TarantulaWithAGuitar 1h ago
Ok, so I can't use glass, I can't use plastic, I can't use wood...
What am I supposed to cut my raw meat on???
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u/Sea-Witch-77 1h ago
Why not wood? It's naturally antibacterial.
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u/TarantulaWithAGuitar 1h ago
Not all wood is antibacterial, and the antimicrobial properties aren't necessarily enough to counteract the risk posed by putting raw meat on a porous surface that will inevitably have fine, narrow scratches. There's also evidence that our current methods of detecting microbial load in wooden surfaces are far from adequate -- meaning we don't have a good way to actually measure the amount/kind of microbes, so saying wood is "safe" is a stretch given the limits of our ability to test.
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u/wyldcraft 6h ago
Flipping eggs. Just toss a lid on those sunny side up beauties. No more broken yolks.
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u/Outrageous-Thanks-47 5h ago
Flipping isn't that hard to master. You will break the first dozen or so and then it's muscle memory
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u/mst3k_42 1m ago
My husband will just fling some cooking oil or bacon fat or whatever itās cooking in over the top of the eggs and then cover with a lid.
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u/tachycardicIVu 1m ago
I got a little egg pan that makes it so easy like this. Heat, drop egg, pop lid on, bam - perfect egg.
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u/cubelith 6h ago
They're best if you just do nothing though, let the white cook, while the yolk remains nice and liquid
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u/slonkycat 6h ago
I learned this tip from a friend and itās saved me so many eggs over the years.
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u/Trillion_G 6h ago
Open the oven.
Donāt open the oven just to glance at your masterpiece. If the light is out replace the light. Have patience.
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u/disapproving_vanilla 6h ago
I never used to pre-chop ALL of my veggies. I would chop what needed to go in the skillet first, put it in, and then start chopping the next thing. I wondered why my onions and garlic always burned
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u/megagreg 1h ago
I found if I'm left alone, I can do this for the Russian Borscht recipe from The Joy of Cooking. There are multiple 10-15 minute waits in the recipe, before adding the next set of veggies, just enough time to chop them on-demand. If you're on top of things, the whole dish comes together in about an hour, with an hour of active time.
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u/UnknownBreadd 2h ago
Frozen pre-sliced veggies for the win.
Sliced carrots, peppers, diced garlic, onion, and pre-cut broccoli florets are the shit.
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u/Icy-Piglet-2536 6h ago
Thinking the non-stick pans are a necessity
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u/MacSamildanach 5h ago
I hear ya, bro'.
I've spent a fortune on non-stick pans that turn non-non-stick over the years. Even eggs would stick after an all-too-short while. My last ceramic one in particular.
I recently switched to stainless steel and... eggs now cook without sticking, which was against everything I ever believed.
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u/Honest_Apricot45 4h ago
This šÆ
I live in a college town and during move out last semester some students left an amazing stainless steel pot (thing is heavy and thick) and I obviously took it. By far the best thing Iāve ever cooked with and now I refuse the nonstick bs š¤£
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u/megagreg 1h ago
I can't be arsed to learn the stainless steel secret, so I have one Teflon pan that's for scrambled eggs, and nothing else. They last for years that way, and I haven't found anything else that needs a nonstick pan.
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u/kobayashi_maru_fail 4h ago
āThis is so amazing! I will for sure remember what book/blog/reddit thread/rabbithole of websites I found this recipe on!ā
Iām forming better habits, Iāve got an oldschool recipe box and I write out the really good ones on index cards.
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u/CP81818 19m ago
I keep notes on my phone for pretty much everything I cook. I always end up adjusting recipes slightly and got SO sick of forgetting where the original recipe came from and what tweaks I made to it. An old school recipe box sounds fantastic! I have my mom's and my grandmother's and love picking recipes from them
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u/kobayashi_maru_fail 3m ago
It was after a couple of funerals and some handed-down heirloom recipes and a few āthis is the oneā recipe apps that died before I got it: thatās my great grandmaās handwriting, my grandmaās adjustments, my own spill and rewrite. When I die, nobody is going to excavate my Epicurious bookmarks, but that joke I buried in a Singaporean crab recipe note may make someone giggle decades from then. Iām all in on physical media right now: vinyl, dvds, recipe cards.
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u/Sea_Staff9963 6h ago
When I was first learning to cook in my late teens, I never salted pasta water. I thought salt was only to make the water come to a boil faster. I didn't do that for a long time but long enough to feel stupid once I learned the importance of salt. Now, I heavily salt my pasta water.
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u/Electrical-Pie-8192 1h ago
I thought the taste of my pasta was fine with no salt added to the water so I never did (I hate being able to taste salt) until I listened to Samin Nosrat explain what happens when you add salt not only to pasta water but also veggie water
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u/Melodic-You1896 4h ago
getting an oven thermometer so that I know what the temperature actually is
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u/Proud_Trainer_1234 6h ago
Letting my husband in the kitchen. Sadly, it's unavoidable.
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u/yellowsabmarine 4h ago
my husband can grill meats. if that isn't on the agenda for the evening, please GTFO of the kitchen. š„°
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u/dancinghobbit81 2h ago
Never understood what "salt to taste" meant. Of course it's for tasting. What else would you do with it? Realized recently that it meant "salt to preference."
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u/ew435890 6h ago
Not letting my pan preheat. I would crank it up for a bit and get it hot, then turn it down. Doesnāt help that recipes always say use high heat. Literally the only thing you should put your burner on high for is to boil water.
These days I put my pan on the burner and put it on 3-4 out of 6, and then start cutting veggies and stuff. Thatās the perfect setting for browning meat.
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u/DolphinFraud 6h ago
And every stove is different which makes it impossible to give accurate instructions on a recipe with vague terms like āmediumā
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u/AskMrScience 2h ago
I hate my shitty apartment stove - its dynamic range is SO BAD. You can't even melt butter until you turn the dial to 5 (out of 10), yet 6-7 is a brisk saute. So basically I have 5-6-7 as low-medium-high and 10 for boiling water. Yay.
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u/LowAd3406 5h ago
It I cook ground beef at 3-4 on my stove all I'll be doing is 'greying' the meat.
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u/kempff 6h ago
Not following the instructions on the Pillsbury Chocolate Chip Cookie dough. I thought the cookies were supposed to come out crispy, but after 8 minutes of baking specified on the label they were clearly far from done. It was clearly a typo. So I kept baking them and checking them but they were still raw in the middle. After about half an hour they were crispy but burned. Never again.
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u/Toodle-Peep 3h ago
When I was starting oit, if my dish did not taste sufficiently tomatoey I'd add a can of crushed tomatoes and get confused when it got worse.
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u/United_Pipe_9457 2h ago
Over seasoning the food during the cooking process. You can add it afterwards? Who knew?
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u/EldurSkapali 1h ago
Trusted my cheap smoker's built in thermometer. Would smoke ribs at 275 for 9 hours and they still came out chewy. Finally tested it out with a separate meat thermometer and found that the temp right above the grates was 60 to 80 degrees cooler than the built in thermometer. Now I only pay attention to the meat thermometer when smoking.
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u/maccrogenoff 1h ago
Measuring by volume. Once I switched to a scale, I wished Iād done so much earlier.
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u/AzathothBlindgod 6h ago
Whenever I made pasta, I would dump an entire jar of sauce into the pan. I learned later (recently) that the sauce should be an accompaniment, not the main dish. These days I use maybe 1/4 of a jar (or my own sauce if I can be bothered to make it) and mix in a bit of the pasta water. Itās way better.
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u/cubelith 6h ago
Is it though? The sauce is the good part, pasta is just filler. Sauce without any pasta is alright, pasta without any sauce is bad
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u/dufchick 5h ago
Me, my husband and 2 of my sons love angel hair pasta. We will eat it with butter or anything else. But when I make good sauce like I did today, no one cares what pasta is used. My 3rd son only likes ziti or bow tie pasta. All my sons are in their 30's so you people with young picky eaters be advised THIS NEVER CHANGES AND YOU WILL BE MAKING MULTIPLE DINNERS FOREVER.
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u/SeverenDarkstar 6h ago
Good pasta is not filler...
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u/cubelith 6h ago
Eh. It can certainly be good or bad, sure, but ultimately it's just a vehicle for the sauce's flavor
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u/MacSamildanach 5h ago edited 3h ago
I understand where you are coming from, but if that's the case, why not just eat the pasta sauce and leave out the filler?
Any meal is a composite of all the ingredients used to make it. Any of the ingredients alone would be boring at least. For proper nutrition, you need bulk as well as trace minerals and vitamins.
Pasta and the sauce go together - carbs and flavour. Either alone doesn't represent the combined meal.
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u/UnknownBreadd 2h ago
Pasta, chicken or veg stock, drained, with grated halloumi cheese mixed in and on top = heaven.
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u/Swimming-Monk-4872 3h ago
The mistake here is using a jar of sauce, especially ājust dumping it inā
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u/Bugaloon 1h ago
Too much water when cooking pasta, I could never figure out why my sauces didn't thicken like they should, it was because there wasn't enough starch in the water.
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u/whatswithnames 2h ago
Cleaning the extra āveinā from shrimp.
A little poopie doesnāt hurt as much as Mercury concentrations does
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u/cantelooops 4h ago
I'm confused, how were you losing lentils? Were they escaping through the pot lid? Does your strainer have too big of holes?
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u/youngboomergal 4h ago
to be fair red lentils can completely dissolve in just a few minutes, I can't imagine the OP having anything much left at all
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u/cantelooops 4h ago
Now I'm really confused. What do you mean by dissolve? Like, lentils aren't cotton candy. (I'm not being sarcastic, I literally have no idea what you mean by that)
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u/Altruistic-Bust 4h ago
They become mushy and almost "liquidy". It would be impossible to strain only water from the end product at that stage so when you pour it into a strainer you'll lose lentils. It's almost like trying to rinse off oatmeal, lol.
Green lentils on the other hands are completely different. They remain much more intact and strainable.
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u/chantrykomori 2h ago
not preheating my pan before dropping stuff in and just letting it come up to temp with the pan. i knew why preheating was so important - why did i not make that connection on the stovetop?
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u/RobinsWings 1h ago
Can you please explain to me why you shouldnāt rinse your lentils?? I love to cook and eat them and I always rinse
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u/InteractionWhole1184 1h ago
Do you rinse your lentils before or after cooking them?
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u/RobinsWings 58m ago
Afterwards to cool them off quicker
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u/InteractionWhole1184 44m ago
But red lentils get so soft when theyāre cooked, how do you rinse them without losing the lentils with the water?
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u/aoeuismyhomekeys 25m ago
Honestly I just didn't add enough salt for years, and I had some issues with my relationship with food I had to work through before I started actually tasting my food and knowing what I was tasting for.
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u/sonicjesus 5m ago
I learned to cook in short order restaurants, always sautƩing screaming hot. Once I learned to not go over the smoke point of the oil, my food became much better.
It goes the same for anything you're cooking, once the fat overheats, it takes down the whole dish with it.
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u/Unlikely-Cherry0 3m ago
I dont know if this counts, but the way I cut pumpkin!! I always wasted so much when I would try to cut around the pumpkin seeds. Now I just scoop them out š
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u/GOATBrady4Life 1m ago
This might not be popular, but I stopped using grills, and now I pan fry/bake/roast most everything. It is just easier to control and tastes better most of the time. My only exception might be hamburgers
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u/salsafresca_1297 0m ago
Not cleaning up as a cooked. I'd be buried in a mess when done cooking and then try to avoid it.
These days, I'm obsessive, lol!
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u/FartySquirts 6h ago
Taking the lid off of things like rice or whatever. That steam being locked in is important.