What are some of the dumbest, most impractical "facts" or advice you've heard on a cooking show?

[CharlieD]

When I was binge-watching cooking shows last weekend, I stumbled upon some truly bizarre advice. It made me wonder if the hosts had ever set foot in a kitchen!
"For a healthier option, substitute butter with mayonnaise in your baking recipes."
Because apparently, mayo magically transforms into a health food when it's baked.

It's mind-boggling how some of these "tips" make it onto cooking shows, but I guess we're all entitled to our kitchen experiments, right?

Well, do not know about healthy, but in some recipes margarine makes baked good a lot softer.

 

[Texmex]

Telling people to add a couple spoonfuls of Chipotle to a recipe. Telling people to use pepper jack cheese in cooking TexMex.

 

[dragnlaw]

Texmex
I'm not familiar with the go-to ingredients for texmex cooking so would you might explaining to me why those are so wrong?

 

[caseydog]

Texmex
I'm not familiar with the go-to ingredients for texmex cooking so would you might explaining to me why those are so wrong?

I know TexMex well, and don't see anything terribly wrong with pepper jack, although I'd add Jack cheese and jalapeños as separate items.

As for chipotle, that is used often in TexMex, both as a dried powder, or canned in Adodo, which is a sauce.

CD

 

[BAPyessir6]

One I have seen written a lot and in a few amateur cook videos is to "seal" the meat by searing it. Nope, that has been debunked repeatedly.

I dislike when any recipes say "The best". I don't mind someone calling it "my best" or "my favourite" or similar. But, "The best", hmph. I might know a version that I think is better.

I know that there are other "facts" that I have seen or heard stated in cooking shows/videos/online recipes. I can't think of any others at the moment. I'm sure something will come to me.

I just remembered one. "You should never fry with olive oil." Why? Just because it's good in salad dressing? EVOO is fine to at least 350°F. I use it all the time for frying. It's not a problem. I used to be sparing with the EVOO, but it didn't get used enough and would start to smell wrong. Since I started using it for frying, that never happens.

On the "sealing" meat myth, wouldn't searing it technically do the opposite (kind of), as searing damages the meat fibers?

On frying with EVOO, do you mean shallow frying/sauteing, or deep frying? Can you deep fry with olive oil?

 

[BAPyessir6]

POTATOES SUCK UP SALT!

On this note, I found it absolutely hilarious in the film Ratatouille (which I figure is supposed to be cooking accurate) that Remi the mouse "fixed" a soup that had at least 8 oz of salt in it by simply adding a negligible amount of chicken broth, a splash of cream, and a few mouse-sized fistfuls of herbs. Movie magic!

 

[caseydog]

On the "sealing" meat myth, wouldn't searing it technically do the opposite (kind of), as searing damages the meat fibers?

On frying with EVOO, do you mean shallow frying/sauteing, or deep frying? Can you deep fry with olive oil?

The searing of meat is primarily for flavor and color, due to the Maillard reaction. It does not prevent juices from escaping, as the myth states.

EVOO would not be good for deep frying. It has too much of a pronounced flavor, and not high enough smoke point. You want an oil with a higher smoke point and neutral flavor for deep frying. My personal favorite is peanut oil.

CD

 

[dragnlaw]

I know TexMex well, and don't see anything terribly wrong with pepper jack, although I'd add Jack cheese and jalapeños as separate items.

As for chipotle, that is used often in TexMex, both as a dried powder, or canned in Adodo, which is a sauce.

CD

Well, that's sort of what I thought.

 

[pictonguy]

On the "sealing" meat myth, wouldn't searing it technically do the opposite (kind of), as searing damages the meat fibers?

On frying with EVOO, do you mean shallow frying/sauteing, or deep frying? Can you deep fry with olive oil?

Yes you can deep fry with extra virgin olive oil. 300-350 is that range. In Italy there will be regional dishes that require deep frying and of course the oil of choice will be evoo. For example in Campania, Fritto Misto which is basically seafood is a traditional dish. Another is panzerotti which originated from the Apulia region that deep fried in evoo. There's also a long list of sweets that are traditionally deep fried in evoo like bombolini's from Tuscany. I've deep fried French fries, churros, and chicken for example where the evoo adds a lot of flavor and character, and so it should. Also the nutrients in evoo and antioxidants for example are not destroyed with deep frying, that's kind of a myth, but yes get any oil hot enough and it will destroy everything.

 

[Jade Emperor]

Yes you can deep fry with extra virgin olive oil. 300-350 is that range. In Italy there will be regional dishes that require deep frying and of course the oil of choice will be evoo. For example in Campania, Fritto Misto which is basically seafood is a traditional dish. Another is panzerotti which originated from the Apulia region that deep fried in evoo. There's also a long list of sweets that are traditionally deep fried in evoo like bombolini's from Tuscany. I've deep fried French fries, churros, and chicken for example where the evoo adds a lot of flavor and character, and so it should. Also the nutrients in evoo and antioxidants for example are not destroyed with deep frying, that's kind of a myth, but yes get any oil hot enough and it will destroy everything.

I am thinking that not using EVOO in a deep fryer is more to do with the fact that it will cost you more than the value of your house.

 

[pictonguy]

I am thinking that not using EVOO in a deep fryer is more to do with the fact that it will cost you more than the value of your house.

Italy is a very traditional and regional place and believe it or not "lard" was used mostly for deep frying for literally millennia until about the midway and more towards the 70's and 80's of the 20th century. They, Italians switched to mostly "extra virgin olive oil" for deep frying after that and suspect there's many Italians that more recently are using seed oils like canola and this all has to do with the basic gov't advice that saturated fat was unhealthy, then the shite hit the fan worldwide and canola became a thing along with other seed oils and the decline of traditional values that have been around from the beginning of time, very sad imo. Also the irrational overly hyped Mediterranean diet pretty much killed cooking with lard.

Anyway, I suspect that EVOO isn't used very much because of the cost now, although in Italy it would be more affordable and now they're using cheaper seed oils like canola, how ironic and how anti culture can it get, too bad really.

 

[Kathleen]

@pictonguy I so miss McD's fries that were fried in beef tallow....

 

[pictonguy]

@pictonguy I so miss McD's fries that were fried in beef tallow....

Yep, I agree. We use beef tallow in our restaurant and no plans to change, unfortunately it's not very vegan or vegetarian friendly but I can live with that. Saying that a lot of vegans and vegetarians still order foods that are deep fried, go figure.

 

[dragnlaw]

Perhaps they think the foods are deep fried in vegetable oil?

 

[pictonguy]

Perhaps they think the foods are deep fried in vegetable oil?

No, we let people know what they're consuming. But yeah, most assume veg oil is going to be used. I'm pretty sure beef tallow is not used very much to not at all. It is amazing when people do find out, they get pretty excited and it's really a non issue, which is a nice surprise considering I would never ever used a seed oil, but I would probably go with olive oil if it was a concern where people refused to order anything deepfried.

 

[Jade Emperor]

I’m thinking that there are customers, @pictonguy , who are like me. We remember how nice fries tasted when they used tallow. We prefer a really nice cut of beef, cooked to perfection with some roasted vegetables in butter and some veggies.
I actually have a preference to ignore the garbage media about what I eat and just accept that nobody is everlasting. Live and die in happiness, is my choice.

 

[taxlady]

No, we let people know what they're consuming. But yeah, most assume veg oil is going to be used. I'm pretty sure beef tallow is not used very much to not at all. It is amazing when people do find out, they get pretty excited and it's really a non issue, which is a nice surprise considering I would never ever used a seed oil, but I would probably go with olive oil if it was a concern where people refused to order anything deepfried.

I have tried to find out what is bad about seed oils. All I found was that they are extracted by use of solvents. Do you happen to know if the ones that are expeller extracted are also unhealthy?

 

[pictonguy]

I have tried to find out what is bad about seed oils. All I found was that they are extracted by use of solvents. Do you happen to know if the ones that are expeller extracted are also unhealthy?

Seed oils were introduced in the beginning of the 20th century which were primarily used for lubricating the industrial revolution until Proctor & Gamble developed a process to hydrogenate cottonseed oil, creating a solid fat that could be used as a cooking ingredient and was marketed as a healthier alternative to lard and butter. It was called "crisco" and as we know introduced trans fats into the food supply, which eventually has been banned in pretty much every Country and what trans fats do is promote inflammation and also some other nasty DNA


Seed oils contribute to all of the non communicable diseases that almost all Americans have at least one of, or more, most have more, a lot more and what seed oils do is they contribute quite a bit to chronic inflammation in the body and it's chronic inflammation that is the proxy for diabetes, insulin resistance, obesity especially with visceral fat, which is metabolically active and not in a good way, which eventually allows for fatty liver also PCOS, heart disease and stroke, the many neurodegenerative diseases like dementia, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, rheumatoid arthritis, some cancers like breast and colorectal, COPD a chronic respiratory disease and a 4.5 trillion health bill every year.

Anyway, the hexane gas part of extracting seed oils is not really that bad, it really doesn't translate into anything derogatory health wise. It has to do with the polyunsaturated oil content in seed oils, which are extremely fragile to the balance between our omega 6's and omega 3's.

I can go into more detail of you want, but if people want to use a refined oil I would suggest a fruit oil instead, like olive oil or avocado and coconut, these have much less of those very fragile poly fats and of course butter and lard have almost no poly fats, which is what I consume along with olive oil.

 

[taxlady]

Any suggestions for a healthy fat when the recipe calls for "neutral oil"? Yes, I believe avocado oil does that, but anything else? I try to avoid avocado because, they have become too popular. Rain forest is being cut down to plant avocado orchards and I just don't want to participate in that.

 

[pictonguy]

Any suggestions for a healthy fat when the recipe calls for "neutral oil"? Yes, I believe avocado oil does that, but anything else? I try to avoid avocado because, they have become too popular. Rain forest is being cut down to plant avocado orchards and I just don't want to participate in that.

Well if extra virgin olive oil is too aggressive then you could use a refined olive oil sometimes referred to as Lite or light.

There's also products that are called "High Oleic Sunflower Oil" or "High Oleic Safflower Oil" these are actually seed oils that were bred to be lower than regular sunflower oil in poly fats which have about 10g's for every tbsp where the high oleic is 1 g of poly fat and this is to address that omega6 to omega 3 balance I talked about and how that effects inflammation and of course higher heat and less susceptibility to becoming rancid.