An avoidable mistake is the one that happens to be the most frustrating kind! An avoidable cooking error, which barely seems like it could make the world any difference has the power of ruining hours and hours of work and dedication expended on one dish. Cooking mistakes are extremely common, and if you haven’t made one then either you have a luck trail that never fails you or either you are next to perfection! Rest assured, all of us have encountered common cooking mistakes, not only once, but plenty of times! Even if you can somehow manage your way out of a cooking boo-boo without a scratch, the real deal is when you are careful enough to avoid the cooking mistake to begin with!
Here are a few tips and tricks that can potentially come in handy in the kitchen and help you avoid common cooking mistakes that otherwise make our experience with cooking rather incomplete!
If your pan is too cold, ingredients such as onions that need to be sautéed will just get stuck on the surface because of insufficient heat. Furthermore, if the pan is not hot enough, it will not seal in the juices of the ingredients and brown the food or cook it evenly. So, make sure you preheat your pans! Heat up your pan for a minute or two before adding in the oil. When the oil makes a splatter sound you will know that you have successfully slain down this very common cooking mistake! Now, it is safe to add in your meat or fish for that perfect cooked feel and appealing looking texture that is essential to make the dish appetizing!
Another very common cooking mistake is overcrowding the pots and pans with your basic ingredients! Adding two packets of spaghetti in one small pot will not get your work done quicker! If you cover the entire surface of the pan, you will end up trapping steam, and steam can ruin the dish by locking up all the juices and the flavor of your ingredients! You do not want a tasteless bland dish now do you? Make sure you do not repeat this cooking mistake, cook in two batches instead or use two pans or pots! It may expend more of your energy, but it is sure to save your dish from a flavorless disaster!
One of the most common cooking mistakes we tend to make is not reading the recipe carefully enough. By not paying close attention to the recipe, we are likely to miss out on essential details! Imagine instead of adding room temperature butter, you end up adding cold butter to your cake batter? You are bound to end up with a lumpy cake!
In order to avoid this cooking mistake, all you need to do is pay more close attention to the recipe and keep it right in front of you at all times. Keep referring back to the recipe and see whether you have checked every instruction off the list or not! Take out all the ingredients and equipment you need before starting with your dish to avoid missing out on an essential part of the dish altogether. Now that would be disastrous! Also, make sure you get the prep done before getting started with your dish so that you have it all organized and it makes it easier to follow the recipe!
The greens need to be cooked in a very careful manner. This is what makes for another very common cooking mistake! Many times we tend to just throw in our greens in a freshly rinsed pan that is still not entirely dry. This can lead to the greens being cooked to look soggy and not appetizing at all! Make sure that you heat your pan for sometime if it is wet, to ensure that it has dried off completely and entirely before you can start sautéing your greens in it. This cooking mistake may be highly common, but just as easily avoidable too!
One extremely common cooking error made in the kitchen that we all have experienced in our lives is that of frying blunders. When you cook food in oil that is not hot enough, it is bound to absorb in too much, making it unbearably oil infested and reeking of it! Make sure that before you add in a batch-ful of the food you are trying to fry, start with small baby steps. Give it a little sample run! Try adding one little cut out piece of the item you are planning on frying and see if it sizzles immediately as it makes contact with the oil. If it does, you will know that your oil is ready to go! In case, you mess up and put in the food all too quickly and it doesn’t sizzle, take it out immediately. The situation is still salvageable as long as you make your move quick! Take the food out immediately, and wait for the oil to heat up properly, then dip it back and your cooking mistake can be undone!
