There are a tremendous number of myths and old wives tales that surround the home kitchen, and lots of well-meaning cooks make mistakes based on misinformation or a misunderstanding of some scientific process or another.<\/p>\n
Here are eight\u00a0common mistakes<\/a>\u00a0you might not even realize you\u2019re making.<\/p>\n For perfectionists, it\u2019s tempting to try stirring out every little lump in a bowl of pancake batter. The trouble is, baking is a delicate thing, and by doing that, you often end up over-stirring the batter, resulting in a chewy, dense pancake instead of the light, fluffy one you\u2019re going for. So just leave a few lumps in there. It won\u2019t hurt anything.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re making a batch of meatballs or chicken strips or something along those lines, you might figure you can just toss in as many as will fit in the pan, working in large batches to get the cooking done more quickly. But remember: Each piece of uncooked meat you throw into the pan will lower the temperature of the oil inside. If you lower it too much, you\u2019ll end up with soggy, oil-logged food instead of the crispy, light food you were hoping for.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re making spaghetti, by all means, cook your noodles al dente, or even more than that if that\u2019s how you like it. But if you\u2019re making a baked pasta dish like lasagna or baked ziti or something along those lines, you want to pull the pasta a little earlier. This is because it\u2019s going into the oven, with sauce, and it will finish cooking that way. Otherwise, you end up with a soggy pile of mush.<\/p>\n This is especially important with poultry, but it goes for\u00a0other meats<\/a>\u00a0too. Once something is done cooking, let it rest for five, 10, 15 minutes. The juices inside are literally boiling, and if you cut into them right away, they\u2019ll go spilling all over the cutting board before they make it to your mouth.<\/p>\n Tossing your pizza dough like they do in the movies is really difficult without proper instruction and lots of practice, so we\u2019re not saying you need to do that. It\u2019s just that the rolling pin smashes everything down and creates a dense crust that won\u2019t taste like the ones at the pizzeria. Avoid this as much as possible by gently stretching the dough with your hands. It\u2019s painstaking, but it\u2019s worth it.<\/p>\n The butter, sugar and eggs in your cookie batter need to be whipped into a cream, lest you end up with dense, heavy cookies. Beat them 3-5 minutes before proceeding.<\/p>\n Here is one case where fresh doesn\u2019t taste better. By all means, dice up a fresh tomato for your salsa, but if you\u2019re making Italian food, it\u2019s best to go with some canned tomatoes. They make a tastier sauce with a more pleasant mouthfeel than fresh tomatoes do.<\/p>\n Salt tastes good on eggs, and scrambled eggs are all mixed up anyway, so it stands to reason that it would be a good idea to just mix the salt right in there as you\u2019re mixing, right? No. Don\u2019t do this. Here\u2019s why: In addition to being the ultimate seasoning, salt has some pretty\u00a0interesting chemical properties<\/a>. It\u2019s especially effective at pulling moisture out of things. And what will happen, if you give it enough time to work on your eggs, is that it will turn them into rubbery lumps of egg matter that look like you need to cut them with a knife. Save the salt for after the eggs have cooked, when you\u2019re seasoning them to taste. They\u2019ll be fluffy and light that way.<\/p>\n Do you have any tips of your own? We\u2019d love to hear them. Drop us a line in the comments below, and happy cooking!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are a tremendous number of myths and old wives tales that surround the home kitchen, and lots of well-meaning cooks make mistakes based on misinformation or a misunderstanding of some scientific process or another. Here are eight\u00a0common mistakes\u00a0you might not even realize you\u2019re making. Stirring Lumps out of Pancake Batter For perfectionists, it\u2019s tempting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chesmar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chesmar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chesmar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chesmar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chesmar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chesmar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6090\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chesmar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chesmar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chesmar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Stirring Lumps out of Pancake Batter<\/h2>\n
Too Much Meat in the Pan<\/h2>\n
Overcooking Lasagna Noodles<\/h2>\n
Not Letting Meat Rest<\/h2>\n
You Roll Your Pizza Dough<\/h2>\n
Not Creaming Your Cookie Batter<\/h2>\n
Using Fresh Tomatoes in Marinara Sauce<\/h2>\n
Salting Your Scrambled Eggs Before Cooking<\/h2>\n