What cooking "rules" do you regularly break?

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No lumps in my mashed potatoes please.

Salted butter. I regularly use regular butter. It had better be a very delicate recipe for me to use unsalted butter, and it's doubtful I do delicate. and no, I don't cut back on that tiny amount of salt in a recipe to compensate. Over-all I cut back on salt use, and if there are full herb flavors, may not add any salt at all.

Light anything. I use full flavor. If it is spelled "Lite", I find another recipe.

Whole milk, half and half and heavy cream. Pretty much interchangeable, depending on its use in a recipe. No buttermilk in the house?, add lemon juice or vinegar to some milk and let it sit on the counter a little while.

Dx is a Miracle Whip lady and I'm a mayo kind of guy. I keep both and may add a dollop of each to a recipe, like potato salad. Dx makes a terrific home-made mayo with a stick blender. Go figure.

Speaking of dollops. It's a valid measure. How much is a dollop. Depends on the spoon size and how far down in a jar you are reaching.

Some recipes say add dry ingredients to wet, and some say add wet to dry.
I almost always add Dry to wet. Exception is when adding alternate ingredients and mixing in some at a time.

Chix broth is a good substitute for beer in some recipes, however, beer is not a good sub for broth most times.

Ritz crackers do not indeed make a good mock apple pie. For proof, see Andy's posts.:yum:
 
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I am not sure what the recipe for Ritz Crackers is, but I do know that for me they are too sweet. Not only do they not make a good apple pie, they are lousy for a stuffing for lobster, turkey or any other food.

Salted butter and only salted.

I am not on a diet. Don't try to sell me on diet recipes. Through diet alone, I brought down my cholesterol, blood pressure and sugar levels to acceptable levels.
 
Another one is, if you are cleaning jalepeños, wear gloves, or wash your hands three times before touching anything "sensitive."

CD :LOL:

After prepping hot peppers, I "wash" my hands with vinegar (acid to neutralize the capsaicin which is a base) then scrub with soap and water.
 
Cooking rules are like the rules of gravity: they are self enforcing. Doesn't matter what you think, if you violate one you get bit. If you don't get bit then it wasn't a real rule.

More generally, if you like what your cooking resulted in then you didn't violate any rules, did you? Maybe you violated somebody else's rule, but they aren't around to criticize your food.

But let's say you violate the rule about not using your meat marinade for basting (without bringing it to a quick boil). You violated a cooking rule. That won't guarantee you will be bit, but keep doing it and you or a guest will probably get sick one day.

Another rule is to measure your ingredients when baking. Chances are if your ratios are too far off you will get a poor result. The rules of baking ratios are self enforcing.

For the record, I like lumpy mashed potatoes with the skins mashed in. That isn't a cooking rule. That's just a personal preference.

As far as naming things, IMO there is an implied "my style" at the end of anything and everything that you cook. Okay if you follow a recipe exactly, cook it exactly the way the original chef did, then maybe you cooked a traditional recipe. I find it difficult to cook recopies without wanting to change at least something and end up making it my way anyway. I never claim my creations are traditional.
 
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Another rule is to measure your ingredients when baking. Chances are if your ratios are too far off you will get a poor result. The rules of baking ratios are self enforcing.

To me, cooking and baking are two very different things, even though they both happen in a kitchen. You can get away with a lot more "artistic license' with cooking than you can with baking.

That is one reason I seldom bake.

CD
 
I cook scrambled eggs with high heat and have excellent results, see the breakfast thread for a recent picture. We don't have margerine in our house, except at Christmas for a recipe that doesn't turn out right unless you use margarine. There is very little pre-prepared food that comes in our house. Thus, we don't break many culinary "rules."
 
According to this, Julia Child's recipe for scrambled eggs calls for cooking them over moderately low heat after pre-heating the pan for a very short time: Julia Child’s Scrambled Eggs | Julia Child's Recipes


Trust me, I saw the Youtube video where Julia Child used high heat to cook her scrambled eggs. I couldn't believe how fast those eggs cooked! If I find it again, I'll post it.

Steve, I use my copper with stainless steel on the inside frying pan. I pre-heat it to high and then throw in some butter. The butter does coat the bottom and the sides. It cooks just fine and then about halfway through,the egg starts sticking on the bottom. I find I'm using the spatula to scrape down egg on the sides of the pan and using the pancake turner to scrape it up off the bottom. At some point, the pancake turner can't scrape up the egg anymore and what's on the bottom then starts to burn. That's all in about two minutes, because that's how long it takes the scrambled egg to cook.


Anyway, I thought of an important rule I usually always break, even though I have a scale. I don't weigh my flour before making bread or a baguette. I go by feel, but I'm also just lazy, I guess.

And I'm really bad about putting ingredients into a bowl one at a time and mixing them in. I'm usually throwing things into the bowl left and right and when everything is in there, then I start to mix them. Although I have to say, I'm not as bad as I used to be at it, now that I know more why things are done the way they're done.
 
Steve, I use my copper with stainless steel on the inside frying pan. I pre-heat it to high and then throw in some butter. The butter does coat the bottom and the sides. It cooks just fine and then about halfway through,the egg starts sticking on the bottom. I find I'm using the spatula to scrape down egg on the sides of the pan and using the pancake turner to scrape it up off the bottom. At some point, the pancake turner can't scrape up the egg anymore and what's on the bottom then starts to burn. That's all in about two minutes, because that's how long it takes the scrambled egg to cook.
Ah... the copper's more the problem than the stainless interior. Plus they're not really designed for high heat applications. Copper is an excellent conductor and will get screaming hot every time the burner cycles on. I have a couple of copper pots myself, and I love them. But I use mine more for slow simmering. Stews, and things like that.

If you're on a budget, I'd probably get something like a Teflon skillet to use for eggs. They don't take as much abuse as other pans, but are without a doubt the easiest to use.

If you're trying to avoid Teflon, then you might want to look at a small cast iron pan, or carbon steel - which is my favorite. Once properly seasoned, either works great for eggs.

Stainless steel is okay, too, but wouldn't be my first choice. They make great all purpose fry pans. However, they can also be very temperamental when it comes to cooking delicate foods like fish or eggs. I've found it takes some fiddling to find the right temperature for cooking those kinds of foods without scorching or sticking.
 
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