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Cooking is so much fun, and it will nourish your body and your soul, too. The interesting part is that people always share all kinds of amazing cooking hacks that are supposed to make the process easier.
The problem is that not all of the hacks are good. Some of them are pretty unnecessary and might even make cooking more complicated. That’s why when someone online asked about the weirdest food hacks that don’t make sense in real life, many netizens were quick to share.
More info: Reddit
Cooking can be extremely fun or tiring, depending on whether you enjoy the process or not. A Gallup and Cookpad study of cooking across the world found that Northern, Southern, and Western Europe cooked the most, with an average of 7.8 home-cooked meals a week. That’s a lot of tasty dishes being prepared!
A survey about cooking habits of people in the United States found that 50% of the respondents were okay with spending 30–60 minutes cooking a weekday meal. Creating a meal from scratch can be time-consuming, especially if you have to wash the dishes afterward. Culinary hacks can make your life easier, but this list shows that not all tips are useful.
Peeling garlic by shaking the cloves around in a (covered) bowl. I exhausted myself and the cloves are just sitting there in their skins, mocking me.
Cracking eggs on flat surfaces. I can’t for the life of me get a clean horizontal crack. I just get a circular web of smashed egg shell, and the inner membrane is still intact. Every time I try this technique that everyone says is superior to cracking on the edge of the bowl, I inevitably decide to go back to that trusty bowl edge that almost* never gives me the problems those same people say it does. (* Only almost, that’s why I keep trying the flat surface thing.).
>And, don’t get me started on microwaving potatoes. A microwaved potato will never compare to a real, baked potato.
To my mind they’re 2 different things for 2 different times. A microwaved potato is for a quick Wednesday dinner when I’ve got zero energy, I’m absolutely starving, and I wasn’t to avoid ordering takeout. Potato in the microwave, tin of baked beans heated up, some grated cheese. A hot, filling, reasonably nutritious dinner in under 15 minutes.
But if I want a baked potato as a show stopper or as part of a bigger, nicer meal then it’s going to be done in the oven.
I tried making one of those viral recipes for pasta that involved putting a block of Feta in a baking dish, with cherry tomatoes, garlic, thyme, and enough olive oil to make the US Military invade my apartment on the pretense of harboring WMDs.
Well…the feta didn’t really melt too well. I kept adding pasta water, mashing…no dice. It looked like vomit, had the acidity of vomit, and smelled like garlic and thyme flavored vomit.
Of course I tried to still eat it. Of course it tasted like salty, oily, lumpy, chunky vomit with pasta in it. It was revolting!
I relented and had a hot pocket for dinner.
Bored Panda reached out to Eb Gargano, the creator of Easy Peasy Foodie and a professional blogger and foodie. She shared examples of food hacks that didn’t work for her, along with great cooking hacks and tips to make the process simpler. One tip she didn’t like was: “Peeling ginger with a spoon: It’s super fiddly, and there’s absolutely no need – just leave the skin on and grate your ginger on the small side of a cheese grater! (Much cheaper than buying it pre-chopped, too!)”
Another interesting example that Eb Gargano shared was, “Removing the stone from an avocado with a knife: I’ve nearly sliced my hand so many times trying to do this until I realized that you can just cut lengthways down the middle of the remaining half avocado and the 2 avocado quarters just come right off. I reckon I’ve probably saved myself a trip to A&E (The ER) by avoiding this hack!” It’s shocking to note that there have been 50,413 avocado-related knife injuries from 1998 to 2017.
Not exactly a hack, but I’ve watched so many tutorials on how to cleanly filet a whole fish and I am convinced they are all CGI. Mine always come out looking like they were filleted by feral cats. 😆.
I don’t see the point of keeping a bottle around to hoover up egg yolks to separate eggs. We don’t have soda or bottled water around usually anyway, and any tool that was made to do this is now an extra thing to clean. Using the shell or my hands is just fine w/ me and faster tbh after do so often and with lots of eggs in a bakery when I was younger.
After you boil chicken breast you can throw it in the kitchen aid mixer to shred it.
Makes a mess, the chicken clumps up, and you end up with more dishes to wash. I prefer to shred by hand and/or using two forks.
Eb had a few more examples to share with us, like: “Peeling chickpeas to make smoother hummus: Who on earth has time for that? Just invest in a decent blender, use canned chickpeas, and follow a good recipe… and you can make really great homemade hummus in 5 minutes.”
“A garlic press: Just why? They are so annoying and fiddly to use… and just about impossible to get clean! Again, just grate it on the small side of a cheese grater. Much cheaper than buying it pre-chopped, and you can just throw the cheese grater in the dishwasher afterwards… and it actually gets clean,” she stated. If you love cooking, you’ll probably also agree with most of the examples she shared.
Not necessarily a hack, but any and every “easy sheet pan dinner” I’ve tried turns out awful. Something is always overcooked or undercooked, the meat texture is off, etc.
All of these food hack examples might seem absurd when you actually think about it, but there are certain gems that you should definitely try. For example, meal prepping is something that can save you time and energy so that you don’t have to constantly plan what to cook. Research has found that nearly 9 out of 10 Americans have meal prepped at least once, and 44% tend to meal prep on a regular basis.
Boiling potatoes first then peeling.
It takes me much less effort to just peel the potatoes at first, rather than boil then either wait until the potatoes cool or burn my hands to peel off the skin, either way getting skin that come with large chunks of potato still attached.
Self taught cook, and I nevet developed the technique of curling your fingers when chipping vegetables. I’m pretty quick with a knife, and in 20+ years of cooking can’t recall a single time I’ve ever cut myself. When I finally tried the technique a few weeks ago I sliced the tip of my thumb off within 10 seconds.
This chef on tv lined up lobster legs and used a rolling pin on them. All the meat just popped right out in perfect pieces. Absolute shenanigans.
Here are a few tips from Eb that you’ll actually find useful when cooking: “Traybakes: just throw a bunch of ingredients into a tray and then let the oven do all the hard work! Using plain microwave rice for egg fried rice: This saves so much time and palaver! You need rice to be cold to make good egg-fried rice, which means you either need to cook and cool rice or magically have some you made yesterday in the fridge… Instead, I use plain microwave rice, and it means I can have a really authentic-tasting egg-fried rice on the table in under 15 minutes.”
One I’ve tried and have a better way of doing. Putting heavy cream in a jar and shaking it till it turns to butter. It takes forever even if the cream is room temp. I put mine in a food processor and it takes minutes, if that.
Taking the pit of an avocado out with a knife. Everytime I’ve tried, I’ve nearly cut off my finger. I’d rather just scoop the seed out with a spoon and waste some of the meat.
Plus, so many people go to the ER for avocado accidents!
A poll of 2000 adults found that 31% didn’t have enough time to cook, 24% didn’t have enough knowledge of cooking, and around 15% worked too late to be able to cook fresh meals. People find it daunting to start cooking, and many don’t even know what to begin with. To help beginners in the kitchen, here’s what Eb advises, “Find a good recipe book or website (ahem, like mine) that has simple, straightforward recipes that are written in plain English and just have a go!”
“Start with simple recipes, like traybakes, soup, egg fried rice, pasta dishes and easy cakes. And don’t be afraid of making mistakes. In fact, don’t think of them as mistakes at all, but rather ‘experiments’… you won’t love everything you cook, but that’s part of the fun! You learn through experimentation,” she says.
“A pinch of baking soda to help onions caramelize faster”
Maybe I have a heavy pinch, but every time I’ve tried this I get onion glop instead of caramelized onions.
I tried cooking hashbrowns in a waffle maker, and I just can’t make it work.
Swirliing the water before dropping in eggs to poach. I just get egg white bits everywhere in the pot. I’ve had much better luck bringing the water to a simmer, shutting off the heat, and waiting until it’s still before dropping in the eggs.
Cooking is an incredibly useful skill, and you should enjoy it with the help of the right food hacks. Eb Gargano also shares “Cooking is like a muscle – the more you do it, the stronger/better you get at it… and the more you’ll learn about your own tastes and preferences. (And the more useful hacks you’ll pick up along the way!)”
Let us know what weird cooking hacks you’ve tried and which ones definitely don’t work.
Using a fork to remove the tendon from chicken tenderloins. Firstly, this has never worked for me anytime I’ve tried. The tendon is stuck in there good and I end up making a mess of the chicken and my hands. Second, I just cooked and ate the tendon for years before I realized I was supposed to do anything with it. Does it actually need to be removed? I dunno. I’ve stopped trying.
The cherry tomatoes between two plates method works, I’ve seen it many times. However, it’s been in professional kitchens and not with serrated knives. Just really sharp, well maintained Japanese knives. Does it save time? Yes. I found the results were mixed. Not all cherry tomatoes are the same size, so they would end up cut in a weird way. To a home cook, does that matter at the end of the day? Probably not. In a high volume restaurant does it matter? Maybe not. But in a higher end restaurant it matters, and knife skills are an incredibly important thing to develop if it’s you’re trade.
I’ve been seeing a lot of “healthy” or “high protein” desserts/breakfast where they use egg and something. It’s disgusting. Every recipe I’ve tried doesn’t hold together and it just mostly tastes of egg.
Putting roasted peppers in a paper bag to easily peel the skin off. Never works, never has.
I tried adding sodium citrate to Mac and cheese (following the SE recipe). Instead of rich and creamy it turned out hard and dry. Didn’t work *for me* but I’m guessing I accidentally skipped a step or something.
Kenji Lopez Alt (who I usually trust) has you soak risotto rice and add the starchy soaking liquid during the cooking process and also cook the rice without stirring.
I have tried it several times and never enjoyed the results.
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