Reddit user ThatSpyGuy asked
"What commonly repeated cooking tip is just completely wrong?"
I love garlic. It's my go-to seasoning. But y'all can't tell me I'm wrong about this garlic ice cream thing.
Too much garlic is real and I'm gonna need everyone who makes garlic ice cream to please stop.
Here are some of the food myths that Reddit stresses itself out about.
Golden Brown
"Cookies: 'bake until golden brown' "
"Your cookies will be overdone if you do that. 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."
- Celestaria
"I used to bake my cookies until they were golden brown, and the bottoms would always end up burnt."
"I started removing the cookies from the oven when the edges begin to turn golden brown, and they usually come out perfect most times."
- Gunner_4224
GiphyHigh Heat
"Myth: high heat is like fast-forward for cooking. It is not. Still working to get my dad to understand this one."
- EatLard
"Mine is opposite. Every time I use high heat to sear he thinks I'm about to burn the house down. Same goes for entrapped water/moisture that makes a lot of sizzling noises when it comes into contact with a hot pan."
"The noise makes him freak out a bit, even though I know exactly what I'm doing."
"Bonus points when he complains about lack of crispiness of his food after demanding do turn down the heat."
- LoopyPro
"If I'm supposed to bake something at 150°C for 20 min, I can also bake it at 600°C for 5 min. That's just basic math."
"I'm being sarcastic, please don't try this."
- Berserker-Hamster
Onion & Garlic
"Starting to saute onion and garlic at the same time. So many recipes treat onion and garlic like they're conjoined twins and you should just do everything together with them."
"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!"
- hbwd
"Yes! Just figured this out."
"It’s odd because I’d learned early on, add the veggies that take the longest to cook to the pan first - but because I’d been ingrained to cook garlic and onion at the same time for so long, I didn’t even think how garlic takes like 30 seconds to cook whereas onion takes on the order of minutes to cook."
- kgriff112
Clumping
"Adding oil to your pasta water to prevent it from clumping."
"Oil floats in water - as in it's above the pasta and doing exactly nothing."
"Just stir it."
- dancingbanana123
"BIG pot of water is what will prevent clumping the best, with mild stirring to separate everything initially. The roiling motion of the water will then keep the pasta from clumping as long as the pasta has the space to move."
- GreenLurka
"On top of that, you get oil on the noodles as you drain them, which will reduce any sauces ability to stick to your pasta."
- EndoShota
" 'May your marinara sauce never stick to your pasta!' - Sophia, Golden Girls"
- LadyBug_0570
GiphySpreading Salmonella
"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."
- CreepyAssociation173
"I think this is more commonplace where/when the meat wasn't cleaned prior to sale. If your meat has feathers, dirt or rocks on it, you would need to wash it."
"But commercially produced meat is clean (in this way, at least) so the fewer surfaces your raw meat touches the better!"
- mcoon2837
"The first time I heard someone doing this, I thought they were insane. I’ve seen people use bleach to do this…"
"Ensuring your chicken reaches 165F is going to clean it of all dangerous bacteria. Washing it is going to do absolutely nothing but spread bacteria around and poison people if you're using bleach to do it."
- P0ster_Nutbag
Grated Butter
"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. This method isn't the best way to get it."
"Instead, get 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. Also works great for biscuits."
"Seriously, I use the same dough recipe I always used and the results are just staggeringly better because of this technique."
- Terpsichorean_Wombat
Oven Pizza
"I have spent years, years I tell you trying to perfect home-made pizza."
"Most recipes I've seen so far say 'bake at 350 degrees F' which is utter nonsense."
"Pizza ovens bake the pizza at around 800 to 900 F. So I finally found out I could get a decent result at home by putting the oven on the highest temp - 500F, and put the pizza on the oven's lowest rack (my broiler is located in the bottom.)"
"Then when the bottom crust is done I put the pizza in the broiler rack below and cook it about 3 mins to get the top done."
- mistmanners
GiphyMicrowaved Nutrients
" '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."
- antistitute
Salty
" 'Salt your pasta water always.' "
"Sometimes, the sauce is plenty salty and no need to add even more salt to the food."
"It's ok to salt pasta water if your sauce (or lack of sauce) doesn't add sodium. But tomato sauce has so much sodium as is, lightly salt the water at best."
"Your Pepe e cacio or Pasta a olio, sure salt away... But not tomato sauce dishes."
"And definitely never your water 'as salty as the ocean.' How the f*ck people eat that much salt is beyond me. At this point, don't make pasta, just eat salt."
- GuardianOfTriangles
Grill Marks
"Grill marks."
"Watch just about any cooking show, they go on and on about turning the meat exactly 90 degrees, once only per side to get that lattice pattern."
"Yes, it looks pretty. But the grill marks are flavor because of the maillard reaction. More marks = more flavor. Why are you trying to minimize the flavor just to get perfect stripes?"
"I get we eat with our eyes to an extent, but I'd much rather have haphazard and excessive grill marks vs the 'perfect' look."
"Think about it - we cook steaks in cast iron pans to get the entire outside sizzling and crispy and flavorful. Would you want them to put chopsticks or something under most of the steak so only tiny strips get turned dark brown?"
"I know this is more unpopular opinion than 'completely wrong,' but I stand by it. Grill marks are flavor, and more flavor is almost always good. 'Perfect' grill marks just make me sad for missed flavor."
- jtclimb
GiphyAlright Redditors, it's your turn to get in on this food fight.
What's a food myth you really need people to let go of?
See you in the comments!
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