Turning chicken, potatoes, and other numerous items?

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Cooking4Fun

Senior Cook
Joined
Jun 23, 2020
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I hate recipes that have me flip over a lot of something midway through cooking. Potatoes, chicken fritters, etc. Are there any downsides if I wanted to take two cooling racks to envelopes the items and just flip them all at once?
 
As you know, the point of flipping the items is to ensure even cooking throughout. Some of the items may take longer to cook so won't cook evenly if you flip all items at once. This depends on the recipe and the individual items. I recommend you experiment and decide if it works for you.
 
It seems like it would make more clean up and be more dangerous than just giving things a quick stir or flip with a spoon or a spatula.

I agree with Andy, experiment until you find your style of cooking.
 
As you know, the point of flipping the items is to ensure even cooking throughout. Some of the items may take longer to cook so won't cook evenly if you flip all items at once. This depends on the recipe and the individual items. I recommend you experiment and decide if it works for you.
I'm refering only to recipes that ask to flip everything over by time (often midway).
 
It seems like it would make more clean up and be more dangerous than just giving things a quick stir or flip with a spoon or a spatula.

I agree with Andy, experiment until you find your style of cooking.
Dangerous even with cooking mits? These are small pieces of chicken I have in mind. And they are fairly rounded so I worry there is little point flipping them because they might just roll back over. I figured pinning them in place to flip would make the most sense?
 
It depends on the item. Sure it will work for some, others not so much.
As already said, just experiment til you find what works for you.

To your specific question - if you have a safe and viable method for flipping them all at once, then yes, of course it works.
It is up to you to decide if it is viable or not.
You are washing an extra item.
You are getting them back into the oven faster, less heat loss.
Learning how to place the items so none sneak off the sides while flipping. 3 second rule applies here as long as the 1 second dog is not watching.
 
Dangerous even with cooking mits? These are small pieces of chicken I have in mind. And they are fairly rounded so I worry there is little point flipping them because they might just roll back over. I figured pinning them in place to flip would make the most sense?
I’m sorry, I’ll leave it up to you.

Good luck!
 
Dangerous even with cooking mits? These are small pieces of chicken I have in mind. And they are fairly rounded so I worry there is little point flipping them because they might just roll back over. I figured pinning them in place to flip would make the most sense?

If you have a pan full of small things that need to be flipped, flip them with the pan. If you do it often enough, you will get everything cooked. I can't imagine flipping a pan full of home fries, for example, one piece at a time. Same with bite size pieces of chicken.

CD
 
An option for those chicken pieces would be using two, parallel, bamboo skewers. Just burn or trim excess length for your cooking vessel. A single skewer allows for a single piece of whatever the item is to be difficult and spin back to the cooked side... This happens a lot with mushrooms...

At a penny a skewer, it is worth the additional cost to me for speed and convenience.

Don't forget to give them a twist, to free the food, for easier skewer removal.

If nothing else use the oven or an air fryer, I guess...

Good luck!
 
Turning food while it cooks is a necessary part of cooking. Just do it.

Tongs cost like $3 and will hopefully solve the problem.
 
If I am using the air fryer I put items in the basket so both sides cook at the same time. For flat stuff like burgers, pieces of meat or poultry, I use the George Forman, which cooks both sides at the same time.
 
I have a convection toaster oven. I have racks that can stack while there is food on them. For something like frozen fries or frozen breaded fish, I put that stuff on the racks and into my toaster oven with fan bake on. I am not turning that stuff over. That is just too much of a PITA.
 
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