I may have mentioned before, but I work in the restaurant industry and I have for over fifteen years.
You would think (you would be wrong, but you are welcome to think what you like) that I am an expert on cooking by now.
My entire career is built upon lies, deceit, and trickery to make people think that I know what I am doing. I am less a chef and more a con artist.
There are aspects of food preparation that I have mastered, which is how I fool people into thinking I am competent.
The way I cook at work is very different from the way I cook at home. At work there are very specific standards and practices I follow, and I have a militant, pedantic adherence to the rules and procedures of the cooking process…
….and then I go home and all of that immediately goes out the window, haahahah pssh I’m not getting paid for this? Hellooooooo?
Cooking at home is an entirely different story. Off the clock I do things I would absolutely flip my shit if I saw my employees doing. I should really know better, but laziness or apathy generally wins out.
And chances are, you are guilty of some of these bad habits too-that’s why I have compiled them together in one place.
Here are some of the kitchen sins I get away with at home that I would never let fly in my professional life:
Using Expired Oils And Seasonings
This sin is more of a quality control issue than a safety issue, but it’s a really simple fix and it’s worth mentioning.
Should you use expired olive oil when you’re cooking? No. Will you die? Probably not.
I have recently been reading Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, and author Samin Nosrat mentions how common it is for people not to be aware that their olive oil has gone rancid.
Rancid olive oil will have a waxy, almost crayon-like smell to it.
Are you gonna die? Nah. But stop using that. Invest in a fresh oil, it’s definitely worth it.
The same thing goes for seasonings. Go in your cabinet and look at the dates of your dried herbs. I bet most of them are expired. Are you gonna die? Nah. But over time those herbs have definitely lost some of their potency and flavor, and your cooking will suffer for it.
One of my goals is to invest in a kitchen garden set up where I have continuous access to fresh herbs. Sure, it requires keeping a plant alive, but I’m willing to give it a try.
Eating Raw Dough
Most of the bad habits on this list are things that I will strive to improve on, but nobody, not even the CDC, can stop me from eating raw cookie dough.
I should really know better but the siren’s call of raw cookie dough is just too strong and I am a weak and hungry sailor with no impulse control.
Eating raw dough means that you are consuming raw flour and eggs, which can potentially harbor E. coli and salmonella.
E. coli and salmonella can cause severe digestive distress symptoms. These infections can be disastrous and even fatal to at-risk populations like the elderly, children, pregnant women, or the immunocompromised.
You would think that would be a good enough reason for me to cut that out. It’s not. I have zero self-respect.
Make sure that my obituary states that I was taken out by a raw batch of cookies. YOLO.
Leaving Food Out For Too Long
Speaking of having zero self-respect, I am a prolific eater of food that has been sitting out for hours because I have the impulse control of a toddler.
I’ll order a pizza at noon and leave it out to nibble on all day until midnight, or I’ll make my employee meal at work, get busy, forget about it in the office, and eat it four hours later when it’s a cold soggy mess.
If you really want the whole picture I want you to know that I don’t eat like a civilized human with table manners and stuff, I eat standing over the desk hunched over like Gollum, snorking that thing down in three bites.
Food left at room temperature is an absolute playground for foodborne illnesses. The danger zone is between 41- and 135-degrees Fahrenheit, where these pathogens breed and thrive like crazy.
Apparently I have the ability to digest toxic waste because I haven’t gotten sick yet.
You’re probably thinking, oh, Alyssa, you are so gross! How can you eat food that’s been sitting out for hours like that?
Yeah? You ever go to a PARTY?
And then you go to a party and eat sweaty, crumbly, room-temperature cheese off of a charcuterie board that has been sitting on the table all afternoon.
You do the same thing, only it’s classy when you do it because it’s a charcuterie board at a party that everyone’s fingers have been all over. Shut up.
How long have those cold hot wings been sitting out?
And don’t get me started with that potato salad with the flies bouncing in and out of it.
When this covid crap is over we are going to have a nice long chat about how to properly cater a party so that your guests don’t get sick. Good idea? Good idea.
Cooking Everything on HIGH Heat
I have a very short attention span, which means that I cook everything on the highest heat possible because I like to speed-run my dinner.
I also have a short attention span, which means that when I cook things on the highest heat possible, I tend to get distracted and burn stuff.
And because I also have a short attention span I have a history of using the smoke detector as a timer while I am cooking. My neighbors love it.
I also forget to turn the vents on over the stovetop.
Anyway, that’s a bad habit that I am working on fixing. If the recipe says thirty minutes at 400 degrees, I won’t try to cook it for ten minutes at 1200 degrees. The math is solid but in my experience food doesn’t work that way.
And while on the subject of patience:
Many people don’t preheat the pan on the stovetop before adding oil, and they don’t allow the oil to heat through before adding their ingredients.
Your pan is ready for oil when a few flicks of water sizzle and evaporate immediately. Your oil is ready when the ingredients sizzle softly as soon as they are added. If the oil doesn’t sizzle take the meat back out of the pan and wait a moment for the oil to catch up.
Another note about oil, you realize that when they say things like “a tablespoon of oil” in a recipe, you’re supposed to be coating the pan with it, right? Not just pouring a tablespoon of oil into the pan and just adding stuff on top. Pour the oil, swirl the pan a bit to season the heated surface, let it heat through, then add your ingredients. The oil isn’t just there for funsies, the oil itself is a tool for cooking, and the flavor profile of the oil you choose is the ingredient. Use it properly.
And when they say “a tablespoon of oil” to coat the pan, you don’t literally have to measure out a tablespoon of oil. The purpose is to have enough to coat the entire bottom of the pan, and that tablespoon is an estimate of how much oil is necessary to coat the size of pan you should be using.
Oh yeah, measuring things:
Not Measuring Your Ingredients/Not Following Directions
Yeah, I don’t do that. I have a lovely set of measuring cups on display in my kitchen for decorative purposes only. My husband hates it. Why am I like this?
I plan on practicing the self-control necessary to actually follow recipes and measure ingredients.
If you think of cooking as more of an art, and baking as more like chemistry, you understand how you have much more freedom to experiment and throw the rules out the window when cooking up a pasta dish than you do when baking a cake. One requires general ratios of ingredients, the other requires very specific conditions for the proper chemical reaction to occur.
Supposedly also if a recipe tells you to add ingredients in a specific order it can drastically affect the outcome. I have not played with this concept yet, but that sounds exciting.
Another failure of following a recipe properly would be
Not Having All Of Your Ingredients, Tools, And Supplies Prepared Before Starting The Cooking Process
I know you know exactly what I am talking about. Everyone has had to dive into the trash can for the packaging to re-read the instructions.
Just last night I was making smothered porkchops and I was grabbing my supplies and ingredients *as* I was cooking instead of, I don’t know, being prepared?
I forgot milk. I didn’t have milk. No milk. I need milk. There is no milk. I had to scramble into my cabinets for powdered milk and a shaker bottle to make milk as fast as I can (because I was burning my gravy- you see, I was cooking on HIGH heat….)
But when I am at work I never make that stupid mistake. There is the concept of mise en place, having everything in its place.
Before you begin any part of the food preparation, you go down every step and ingredient of your recipe like a checklist and set it all out ready to go in the proper portions and in the order you will be using the ingredients and tools.
This means you are cooking much more efficiently, you won’t accidentally skip an ingredient, and you won’t burn your gravy.
Not Preparing Your Workspace Before Starting/Not Clearing Your Workspace After Finishing
This is something that I would never allow to happen at work, but I am the worst about this at home and I am sure you are too.
Cooking on a kitchen counter that you have to keep moving things around as you need more space as you progress through the recipe? Spilling sauce on something that was in the way?
Part of preparing your mise en place is having ample work space to use, and that means moving that stack of mail out of the way before you break out the blender.
Clear the counter. Wipe down your surfaces. Empty the dishwasher and sink. Then start cooking.
Preparing your workspace also means identifying potential safety hazards.
Am I going to trip on this rug?
Are my knives sharp enough?
Is the vent hood on? (No, it’s never on. Ask my neighbor.)
If I am preheating the oven, did I check that I removed any cookie sheets that I was storing in there?
Is there anything nearby that can burn if it is too close to the heat?
Another sin of mine is not “closing the kitchen”. Ideally as you finish with each part of the cooking process you will be clearing up as you go.
You’re done with the cutting board, rinse it and stick it in the dishwasher. Wipe the counter as you drop debris. Kick those dropped ice cubes under the fridge.
And when you are done, perform your safety checks again.
Are my knives stored safely?
Is my food properly stored to prevent spoilage?
Did I turn that burner off?
Last night, no, I did not. Surprisingly I am still alive and I didn’t burn the house down, but I had accidentally left one of the burners on overnight.
Don’t tell my husband.
Originally published at https://filltheskillet.com on March 8, 2021.
