Washing Raw Chicken Before Cooking
Picture your grandmother running raw chicken under cold water, convinced she’s making it safer. She probably taught your parents to do the same thing, and they might have passed it down to you. During this year’s study, 26 percent of participants that washed raw poultry transferred bacteria from that raw poultry to their ready to eat salad lettuce.
When you wash or rinse raw chicken, you are likely splashing chicken juices that can spread those pathogens in the kitchen and contaminate other foods, utensils, and countertops. Some estimates say the splatter can spread out and land on surfaces up to 3 feet away. According to a USDA study, 1 in 7 people who cleaned their sink after washing chicken still had germs in the sink. The only way to actually kill dangerous bacteria is cooking chicken to an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit.
Keeping Bread in the Refrigerator
Your fridge might seem like the perfect place to make bread last longer, but it’s actually sabotaging your loaves in ways you never expected. Recrystallization happens more quickly at cooler temperatures (unless it’s below freezing), so bread will go stale much faster when refrigerated. This happens because of something called starch retrogradation – a fancy term for bread becoming rock hard.
Keeping bread cold only makes it stale faster because it promotes starch retrogradation. This process causes starch molecules to realign and form a crystalline structure, making the bread dry out and harden. If you put your bread in the fridge, it will stale three times quicker because you’re drawing all the moisture out of the loaf. Instead, freeze your bread or keep it in a bread box at room temperature for much better results.
Searing Meat to Lock in Juices
This might be one of the most persistent cooking myths that refuses to die. Every backyard grilling expert swears by it, and cooking shows have repeated it for decades. According to Harold McGee, food scientist extraordinaire and author of On Food and Cooking, searing meat actually forces it to lose moisture, making the meat less juicy.
Searing meat to “lock in juices” by creating an impenetrable barrier does not actually do anything. In fact, according to an experiment on Serious Eats, cooking a steak on a lower temperature and then finishing off with a sear will actually result in a nice, charred exterior with a juicier interior. What really keeps meat juicy is temperature control and proper resting, not some magical juice-sealing crust.
Rinsing Pasta After Cooking
The logic behind this tip sounds reasonable enough – shocking pasta with cold water supposedly stops it from overcooking and maintains that perfect al dente texture. But here’s what really happens when you rinse your noodles. Rinsing pasta actually does some damage by removing the starchy coating that helps the sauce stick to it.
But that starchy water residue that too often gets rinsed away is actually good for your pasta dish and can help sauce and seasonings stick to the noodles. It also adds a little desired “oomph” to the flavoring and texture. The only time you’ll really want to rinse your bowl of pasta in cold water is if you’re making a pasta salad to avoid a gummy consistency.
Adding Salt to Make Water Boil Faster
How many times have you heard someone say that adding salt makes water boil faster? It’s become kitchen gospel, passed down through generations of home cooks who swear by this trick. The reality is quite different from what most people believe.
Adding salt raises the boiling point of the water, so it does make your water hotter but it’s not going to boil any faster. When we conducted an experiment (bringing 4 quarts of water to a boil with and without 1 tablespoon of salt, or the amount of salt we use to cook 1 pound of pasta), we found that salted and unsalted water came to a boil in the same amount of time. The main reason to use salted water is to season the food you’re cooking in it.
Using Marinades to Tenderize Meat
Walk down any grocery store aisle and you’ll see dozens of marinades promising to make your tough cuts tender and delicious. Food magazines constantly feature elaborate marinade recipes claiming they’ll transform cheap steaks into restaurant-quality meals. Unfortunately, most of these claims are based on wishful thinking rather than food science.
It’s true that acidic ingredients denature proteins (change their structure), but most marinades don’t actually penetrate deeper than the meat’s surface. While acidic ingredients do weaken collagen, their impact is confined to the meat’s surface – and if left too long, acids turn the outermost layer of meat mushy, not tender. The real reason to use a marinade is to flavor your food and help it retain moisture.
Adding Milk to Scrambled Eggs
This tip gets passed around like gospel among breakfast enthusiasts who insist that a splash of milk creates the fluffiest, creamiest scrambled eggs imaginable. The reasoning sounds logical – milk contains dairy fats and proteins that should theoretically improve texture. However, science tells a completely different story.
According to Eat This, Not That adding even a splash of milk to your eggs will just make the egg mixture more runny. Milk also evaporates quicker than the eggs, so it will just leave you susceptible to overcooked scrambled eggs with a rubbery texture, which is definitely not what you want in a perfect breakfast. The key to real fluffy scrambled eggs is to use low heat and turn it off earlier than you think.
Removing Seeds from Tomatoes
Professional chefs and cooking shows often demonstrate the elegant technique of scooping out tomato seeds and jelly, claiming it creates a cleaner flavor and better texture in dishes. This practice has become so common that many home cooks automatically deseed their tomatoes without questioning whether it actually improves their food.
We found that the gratin with the intact tomatoes had a richer, deeper flavor. This is because the seeds and jelly actually contain three times the amount of flavor-enhancing glutamic acid as the flesh. (Also called glutamate, this is the compound that supplies the savory quality known as umami in many foods.) Sometimes removing seeds may be necessary, but it should be a last resort.
Believing Alcohol Completely Cooks Off
If you’ve ever made beer can chicken, coq au vin, or bourbon-glazed salmon, you’ve probably been told that all the alcohol evaporates during cooking, leaving only the wonderful flavors behind. This myth has allowed countless family dinners to proceed without worry about serving alcohol to children or pregnant women.
A study published by the USDA found that in cooking various recipes that listed alcohol as a major ingredient, the alcohol retention percentage was more than 40 percent. In the experiment, only a pot roast Milano dish simmered in a pan for two-and-a-half hours burned off approximately 95 percent of the alcohol. A Grand Marnier sauce boiled with hot sauce over a hot flame retained 83-85 percent of its alcohol content. If you want most of your alcohol to burn off, you’ll want to bake it in an oven for at least two hours.
Using Potatoes to Fix Overly Spicy Food
When disaster strikes and you’ve made your chili too fiery or your curry unbearably hot, well-meaning friends often suggest dropping a few potato wedges into the pot. The theory goes that potatoes will somehow absorb the excess heat and save your dish from the trash can. Generations of home cooks have relied on this emergency technique.
We tried adding potatoes to foods to tame spiciness, but it simply doesn’t work. There is another solution: Add ingredients from the opposite end of the flavor spectrum to balance things out. Depending on the recipe, you can add a fat (such as butter, cream, sour cream, cheese, or oil) or a sweetener (such as sugar, honey, or maple syrup) to counteract the offending ingredient. The potato trick is basically useless – you’re much better off balancing heat with dairy, sugar, or other neutralizing ingredients.
