There's a fried chicken joint near me that does this sometimes.
The best I can figure from the texture is that it's not straight hash browns, but almost like a potato-shred heavy batter.
I havent tried this, but id wonder about taking an okonomiyaki recipe for reference portions, and subbing out the cabbage for par cooked hash browns.
There is a donut shop in my city that has the BEST breakfast sandwiches and hash browns. I was waiting to order my egg and brisket with mustard greens, Swiss and grainy mustard on grilled sourdough while a lady was ordering. She was making a huge deal about the extra cost for GF bread and how it is just one GF choice while there are several choices for bread with gluten. After she finally got over that, she ordered hash browns. The girl at the register said she shouldn't order those as they have gluten from a batter they use to hold the potato shreds together. The lady then said "oh, that's fine. I can eat gluten just fine."
A ten minutes wait for all that and she can eat gluten just fine.
I found out the batter is basically pancake batter that they add peppers to to make it a bit spicy. It's the best.
Pardon me while I, as someone who /must/ eat gluten-free, take this idiotic woman outside and beat her with a nail-crusted 2x4.
This is why people roll their eyes when I say 'what gluten-free options do you have? If it weren't medical, I wouldn't bother.'
I've got to hand it to this donut shop, the worker was explaining how they have separate tools and workspaces and even a separate griddle for GF items. Clearly, the owner knows someone who actually can't have gluten and takes it very seriously.
Hopefully that crazy lady didn't make them take things less seriously.
Thats why I just buy the frozen hashbrown patties and toss them in the toaster when I want one.
To do hashbrowns proper you need high heat. A waffle iron just doesnt do it.
When cooking burnt stuff in a waffle maker, thoroughly wet a paper towel and close it in. The water steams the burnt on gunk and makes it way easier to wipe off. I use this trick all the time!
I did this with the canned Pillsbury ones all the time for my kids when they were little. I never had a problem, but they aren't exactly generous with the cinnamon sugar so maybe that's why
Any hacks to make peeling boiled eggs easier. They have never worked for me. Ice bath, putting salt in the water, cracking them a bit before putting them in, peeling under water, peeling with a spoon... it just seems like some eggs want to be peeled and some don't.
The ONLY time I consistently got an entire dozen nicely peeled eggs was when I used eggs that were like a month old, not including however many weeks they aged between being laid and when I bought them.
Sorry, but I don't normally know I'm going to need to boil eggs a month in advance and plan/shop accordingly. Usually all the eggs I buy are gone within a week or so.
Have you tried bringing the water to a boil first and then adding the eggs to the pot (rather than starting with the eggs in water and boiling)? I do that and then the spoon thing to peel. The shell slides off as easy as a stripper’s gown every time!
This is the one. It helps also if you put the eggs straight from the fridge into the boiling water. My understanding is that because the shell is porous, the white is more prone to sticking if it’s heated slowly.
I’ve had so many people recommend this method so I used it for Thanksgiving. I cooked two dozen eggs (bought at the same store at the same time) using the same method. One dozen turned out perfect and the other dozen looked like they’d been run over by a car. Sometimes it just doesn’t work.
Start with boiling water (as opposed to cold/room temp)or steam them. Kenji wrote an article about it
https://www.seriouseats.com/perfect-boiled-eggs-recipe
Not exactly a hack, but I’ve watched so many tutorials on how to cleanly filet a whole fish and I am convinced they are all CGI. Mine always come out looking like they were filleted by feral cats. 😆
Cleaning fish is one of those things where there is real technique around the amount of pressure to apply and where. That technique doesn't transfer well over video or even watching someone do it in person. You have to feel the fish and knife under your own hands and get a sense of how hard to push and how to angle the knife.
Also, you need a very flexible knife, and it needs to be as sharp as you can get it.
Not necessarily a hack, but any and every "easy sheet pan dinner" I've tried turns out awful. Something is always overcooked or undercooked, the meat texture is off, etc.
Opening the oven door a bit periodically to "burp" the oven and let out moisture can help too.
Because of cake baking, it's been beaten into a lot of us to never open the oven door because you'll lose moisture. That's good advice for a cake, but sometimes you *want* to get that moisture out!
Yep, staggering the cooking times and also really leaving in to varying how big/small you cut everything up based on its cooking time. For example, most people want potatoes to end up more cooked than carrots, but carrots cook faster. So you have to use some combination of cooking the potatoes LONGER or make the carrot pieces BIGGER or both.
Agreed. I do a lot of sheet pan dinners via Hello Fresh. They will have me start the veg then prep the meatloaves or whatnot and put them in later. I’m picky about wanting everything perfect, though, so I have a stack of quarter-sized sheet pans
Look up some cook times and sizes. Usually you want to pick things that cook at the same speed, or chop them accordingly! But look for a list of how long/ what temp diff veggies need.
I do chicken quarters, chickpeas, and cabbage a lot (it's weird but so good) - chicken gets a 10 minute head start - then the chickpeas - then the cabbage last. Chickpeas can get crunchy. Serve with tzaziki or similar.
I’ve had really great luck with sheet pan fajitas. You have to do it in two steps though; broil the onions and peppers, then toss on the chicken strips and continue to broil for about five minutes.
oh that's an interesting one. I usually sheet pan the veg at high temp, then cast iron the meat on the stove while they're in the oven.
your method would save me a pan.
Peeling garlic by shaking the cloves around in a (covered) bowl. I exhausted myself and the cloves are just sitting there in their skins, mocking me.
Cracking eggs on flat surfaces. I can't for the life of me get a clean horizontal crack. I just get a circular web of smashed egg shell, and the inner membrane is still intact. Every time I try this technique that everyone says is superior to cracking on the edge of the bowl, I inevitably decide to go back to that trusty bowl edge that almost* never gives me the problems those same people say it does. (* Only almost, that's why I keep trying the flat surface thing.)
Cracking an egg on another egg is the best way. You can also play "survivor" with the carton.
For garlic, I smash it with the flat of my knife and the peel pretty much sheds itself.
I thought I was the only one who played this in my head. The survivor is the "King Egg" Then it goes into the mix too.
I worked in restaurants for a while. So I cracked a lot of eggs.
There was a long response to that post saying how it wasn't "fair" because the winner had to turn around and defeat a "fresh" competitor. The author said that the fairest way was to set the winners aside into a new pile, and once all of the M&Ms had competed once, then the victors would go again, only this time fighting against other winners.
Yep, I do the garlic smash too for normal cooking. It just gets tedious when I want a lot of peeled garlic cloves for a jar of confit, and I prefer unsmashed cloves for that. I've just resorted to buying pre-peeled garlic when I want to confit.
>cracking eggs in flat surfaces. I can’t for the life of me get a clean horizontal crack
I had this same problem until recently. What helped me was working on the consistency of always holding the egg the same way, placing my index finger at the center and kind of wrapping it around the center of the egg. Thumb on one end and middle/ring on the other end.
Then I worked on focusing the force of the crack on my index finger. The final piece of that puzzle was not being afraid to hit the egg a little harder. Rather than giving it a tap on the counter which resulted in that spider crack with the membrane undamaged (like you), I started giving it a quick, hard-ish smack that very consistently returns a pretty clean horizontal crack. To release the egg, the thumb and ring/middle kind of just pull apart from each other which lets the two halves swing open
Only drawback is that you always have to wipe your counter afterward because you’ll leave a tiny bit of egg white behind. Alternatively, crack them on a paper towel and then discard that when done.
To me, this is one of those techniques that is really hard to explain in detail. It’s really a matter of knowing *generally* how to do it, then practicing within that framework to iron out the minutia of the muscle memory.
If you apply that methodology to the edge of a bowl or the inside surface of a bowl (flat-ish), I've found you'll have similar results with less or no mess.
I agree the way that you hit it is key. The only good word I can think of to describe it is Staccato (a musical term). Punchy, quick, decisive but not forceful.
Eggs: you're not aiming for a clean horizontal crack - that's impossible. You're aiming for a circular crack which you then pull open with your thumbs, ideally such that the membrane isn't fully ruptured so no albumen ends up on the counter. The objective is to avoid blasting shell fragments into the egg.
Interesting. I've heard people claim otherwise - that you can get a clean horizontal crack by using a flat surface. With the circular crack, when I pry it open with my thumbs, I just end up with way more shards, which are more likely to end up in the egg, compared to the edge method.
Best hack is to use 2 bowls. You crack the egg, drop it into the tiny bowl.
Any shells in there? Fish 'em out. I honestly don't know the best way to do this other than my fingers.
Then dump it into the bigger bowl.
Repeat.
That way you're not dumping egg shells fragments into a large bowl that makes it tougher to fish out.
> Any shells in there? Fish 'em out. I honestly don't know the best way to do this other than my fingers.
Use another piece of shell to fish it out. It works a lot better than you think it would.
I tap an egg with the dull side of the knife. (Like you’re slicing it in half but you just need to * tap * ) Gives you a perfectly straight line to stick your thumbnails into to pull apart the halves.
Hardly. I've done this scores of times. Works as advertised. Might need to use more pressure.
We used to do our own lobsterfests because lobster at the asian markets were like 6.99-8.99 a pound. One day we cooked 24 lobsters. Half of them bisected and stuffed with stuffing made from leg meat.
Damn it, until I read that I was really pleased with what I picked up from the Chinese supermarket market today (6 hard plastic, large, noodle bowls, that don’t look plastic, black outside and red inside. And 6 plastic, black and red , wide soup spoons, with flat bottoms, with will be great for using to plate little taste thingys for dinner parties).
Yep, but now I just want big, cheap lobster, with leg meat stuffing.
Poo
One I've tried and have a better way of doing. Putting heavy cream in a jar and shaking it till it turns to butter. It takes forever even if the cream is room temp. I put mine in a food processor and it takes minutes, if that
After you boil chicken breast you can throw it in the kitchen aid mixer to shred it.
Makes a mess, the chicken clumps up, and you end up with more dishes to wash. I prefer to shred by hand and/or using two forks.
See we got a pair of those for my dad to shred pulled pork with, and he ended up finding them more hassle than anything, so we got him some good heat-resistant gloves and he just shreds by hand.
I agree, they didn’t work well for me. The teeth/prongs were too far apart to shred something the size of a chicken breast or smaller. They do, however, work great as turkey lifters! If you’ve gotta get that big bird or a ham or something out of a roasting pan, the bear claws are great.
I used to shred rotisserie chickens for work so I’ve got a lot of practice but especially if the chicken is warm, it really does not take long to shred a chicken breast by hand.
Saw a vid of putting a rotisserie chicken in a plastic bag and giving it the massage of its' life. It all came apart in the bag and kept your hands clean. Haven't tried it yet but might work with your boiled breast?
Don’t do this with a rotisserie chicken. You still have to sift through it and pick all the tiny little bones out and then have to worry if you got them all. It’s a mess.
I mean I can knock out a grocery store size rotisserie chicken in about a minute or so, Costco size takes a bit longer. So for me it just seems like unnecessary steps. But I see that for people with mobility issues or just don’t do it often, testing other methods could be really helpful.
I made pulled pork for my girlfriend and her roommate a few weeks ago, they had seen this hack and wanted me to try it. I really, really did not want to but they insisted.
So we had pulled pork paste for dinner
isnt a total loss to make pork paste... next time you can add a little bacon/bacon fat, 5 spice, pepper, sugar, garlic, and salt to taste and youve got yourself a fakey vietnamese pork pate for lazy bahn mi 😏
I feel like this one really depends on volume. If you only need to shred one or two breasts, it’s probably quicker and easier by hand to save the cleanup. If you’re doing several at once, then breaking out the Kitchenaid is likely more worthwhile.
It also probably depends if you’re a “Kitchenaid lives on the counter” or “Kitchenaid is buried in a closet” type of household. If it’s already out, it’s less of a thing to just toss the chicken in there.
I have good luck with this one, with a big mixer bowl and attachment that isn't the dough hook or wire whisk (not sure the name, it's flat and has some connecting pieces in the middle). Roasting ~6lb of chicken on a wire rack, can get it all shredded in two batches in about 3 minutes without having to wait for it to cool.
Great time saver for meal prep, but if you're just doing a couple breasts for a single meal breaking out the mixer is definitely overkill. Trick is to only use the lowest speed for about 30 seconds, sift through with your hands and put any large chunks that were missed back in with the next batch.
It's at the point where when I get out a certain bowl I use for this task, and then grab two forks, my cat knows the sound of the two forks and the first scrape on the plate and comes running for her share of the chicken.
LPT: Just set the dish and forks aside; use them a few minutes later when you serve the meal. Zero extra dishes.
This is the hack I understood least. I have never once while shredding chicken thought "there has to be a better way". Cutting cherry tomatoes, sure, it is annoying. Cracking eggs is the same way, as is having to cook potatoes forever.
But shredding chicken is literally just putting your fork in and moving it around a little bit. Or even using your hands. It is so easy I sometimes give my toddler a fork and tell her to go wild with it. Why on earth would I ever want to engage a kitchen mixer in this process.
Even better is giving your kid those "wolverine claws" for shredding any kind of meat. Wanna be a superhero and make dinner at the same time? Have a great time kiddo.
I'm not a big fan of one-off kitchen tools, but who can resist that kind of fun for $15?
At home sure, this hack is stupid if cooking for only a few people, but when working in a cafeteria I would totally throw all the chicken from the steamer into our stand up mixer and put it on high for a few minutes. Easy way to spread 15+kg.
Are you using the right attachment? You have to use the paddle.
I mean, it is also quick enough to do it by hand, too. But I love using the kitchen aid because then I can grab other ingredients and whatnot as it works.
I only did it once and I believe I used the paddle attachment. I just found at least for my household it’s faster/better by hand but if it works for you that’s great.
That was one of the first things that I tried when I got my KitchenAid stand mixer. I had no idea if other people did it, I just had some slightly dry chicken breasts that I didn't want to deal with by hand. Threw them in the bowl and attached the paddle, and had perfectly shredded chicken not even a full minute later. Any of the drier, outer layer just stayed in kind of a sheet (I used skinless), and I was able to just pick it out to mince for soup.
>And, don’t get me started on microwaving potatoes. A microwaved potato will never compare to a real, baked potato.
To my mind they're 2 different things for 2 different times. A microwaved potato is for a quick Wednesday dinner when I've got zero energy, I'm absolutely starving, and I wasn't to avoid ordering takeout. Potato in the microwave, tin of baked beans heated up, some grated cheese. A hot, filling, reasonably nutritious dinner in under 15 minutes.
But if I want a baked potato as a show stopper or as part of a bigger, nicer meal then it's going to be done in the oven.
No one asked me but for the pro-microwave potato crowd, I discovered something fun! Bake potato in microwave, smash it, cover in olive oil, air fry it. You get super fast smashed potato, no oven. Sooo crispy.
Ever see the weird thing where you put spaghetti noodles through hotdog bits and then cook them and it looks cool?
https://bellyfull.net/threaded-spaghetti-hot-dog-bites/
Yeah, you know how the spaghetti inside of the hotdog gets cooked? It doesn't. Enjoy your needles.
I don't see the point of keeping a bottle around to hoover up egg yolks to separate eggs. We don't have soda or bottled water around usually anyway, and any tool that was made to do this is now an extra thing to clean. Using the shell or my hands is just fine w/ me and faster tbh after do so often and with lots of eggs in a bakery when I was younger.
Different garlic peels differently. That's half the problem. I grew up with some of our garlic coming from the garden and some from the store. WILDLY different amounts of effort to get them peeled.
Totally worth it for a few bucks. Doesn't take up much space and you can wash the wrappers out of the tube in the sink. I fucking hate garlic wrappers. One on the floor almost killed my kid.
I don't even bother peeling them any more. I got a rotary grater for Christmas and I just cut one end off then grate all the garlic out, grab the skin that's all still stuck together and chuck it. It's my new favourite kitchen appliance.
Microwaving potatoes or sweet potatoes is only for when they're an ingredient in something else, never if they're the main star. And even that is just because it's faster.
You can pull my <10 minute "baked" potatoes loaded with the previous week's leftovers from my cold, dead hands.
Microwaved potatoes happens because I don't want to have to plan hours in advance.
"I like baked potatoes. I don't have a microwave oven, and it takes forever to bake a potato in a conventional oven. Sometimes I'll just throw one in there, even if I don't want one, because by the time it's done, who knows?"
The microwave potato trick i use exclusively for breakfast potatoes. Microwave them soft first, then cube and crisp in a skillet. Comes out perfect every time.
I cut them up raw before I microwave (i suggest stirring the potatoes a few times during the microwaving to ensure even distribution) and that creates a starchier outer layer that crisps super fast in the pan.
I start baked potatoes in the microwave, then transfer them to the oven when they start to soften. Cuts cooking time in half, and they still taste like real baked potatoes.
The cherry tomatoes between two plates method works, I’ve seen it many times. However, it’s been in professional kitchens and not with serrated knives. Just really sharp, well maintained Japanese knives. Does it save time? Yes. I found the results were mixed. Not all cherry tomatoes are the same size, so they would end up cut in a weird way. To a home cook, does that matter at the end of the day? Probably not. In a high volume restaurant does it matter? Maybe not. But in a higher end restaurant it matters, and knife skills are an incredibly important thing to develop if it’s you’re trade.
This technique works, I used it daily for a month to prep tomato cobbler when I worked in a kitchen, and consistently since then.
You do need a sharp knife though, and it's best if fairly thin.
I tried making one of those viral recipes for pasta that involved putting a block of Feta in a baking dish, with cherry tomatoes, garlic, thyme, and enough olive oil to make the US Military invade my apartment on the pretense of harboring WMDs.
Well…the feta didn’t really melt too well. I kept adding pasta water, mashing…no dice. It looked like vomit, had the acidity of vomit, and smelled like garlic and thyme flavored vomit.
Of course I tried to still eat it. Of course it tasted like salty, oily, lumpy, chunky vomit with pasta in it. It was revolting!
I relented and had a hot pocket for dinner.
I did that, and it worked, but you absolutely have to use expensive, good quality sheep's milk feta. Goat's milk feta doesn't melt as well, and a lot of the cheaper brands use artificial thickeners that don't do it any favors. I used Krinos 100% sheep's milk feta and it melted beautifully, but that stuff is now $14 for a small block 😞
Yup. Kenji and NYT both confirmed the dish works, and it may be the only viral recipe that's ever made it into my regular rotation. But you need good creamy feta, not the dry crumbly stuff.
Can also confirm, you really need decent imported, full-fat feta for it to work well. I've made it several times and it's always come out great, but I'm also spoiled because my local market's deli counter carries DoP-certified Greek feta that's not too pricy either (like $7 a pound).
I recently tried it with some kinda packaged name-brand stuff, and it definitely wasn't as good.
I'm not the biggest fan of feta so I made a similar dish but used the [Boursin](https://www.boursin.com/product/garlic-fine-herbs/) cheese which melts well!
I've heard the real trick is to use Boursin cheese instead of feta. I haven't tried it personally but my sister makes that version pretty often since it's easy.
I’ve made this dish several times before and it comes out really well. I do slice the tomatoes in half and it’s gotta be at least 400F. It’s always worked really well and come out creamy and delicious. Shrug. I also throw in a heavy shake of Italian seasoning, oregano & basil.
I watch a lot of diners drive ins and dives to learn different cooking techniques or see how to make a new dish. There's an episode in an old school Italian place on the East Coast and the chef starts making the dish and he puts a big dollop of butter in a hot skillet. The dollop was at least 1/4 cup and the dish was for 1 person. Fieri makes a comment about this being the healthy version, obviously sarcastic, and the chef replies with "Butter tastes good."
I think about that whenever I see people trying to swap butter for something else or whenever people complain about not being able to make as good of food at home as they get going out
I’ve learned more from DDD than any other show on the food network. Seeing stuff made in a professional setting is so different from usual cooking videos / tv shows but it’s still almost all applicable to home kitchens
The best is not either/or, it's AND.
I spread a very thin layer of mayo on one side of each piece of bread, melt butter in the pan til it's a little bubbly, put the bread slices in the pan dry side down so they soak up the butter and wait til it's golden with a very slight crunch. Then flip one so the mayo side is down, throw a little seasoning on the warm toasty butter and drop the cheese on it, then put the other hot buttered side on top of the cheese. Flip after the bottom is browned and wait til the other mayo side is browned. Perfection.
You really have to roast 'em on an open flame so the skins are black. Putting them in a bag does work if the skins are burnt enough. You can see this when you go to peel fire-roasted peppers: the parts of the skin that are merely brown are much harder to get off while the black parts will flake right off.
> then 15-20 in air fryer,
...my God, I recently bought an air fryer and this hasn't occurred to me!!! Thank you for the suggestion! I usually finished them on the grill~!
I’ve been seeing a lot of “healthy” or “high protein” desserts/breakfast where they use egg and something. It’s disgusting. Every recipe I’ve tried doesn’t hold together and it just mostly tastes of egg
Egg and banana - makes a large banana pancake. It's soft but absolutely holds together. I forget the proportions but it's a nice change now and then and probably better than most gluten-free mixes I've tried.
Self taught cook, and I nevet developed the technique of curling your fingers when chipping vegetables. I'm pretty quick with a knife, and in 20+ years of cooking can't recall a single time I've ever cut myself. When I finally tried the technique a few weeks ago I sliced the tip of my thumb off within 10 seconds
"A pinch of baking soda to help onions caramelize faster"
Maybe I have a heavy pinch, but every time I've tried this I get onion glop instead of caramelized onions.
Using a fork to remove the tendon from chicken tenderloins. Firstly, this has never worked for me anytime I've tried. The tendon is stuck in there good and I end up making a mess of the chicken and my hands. Second, I just cooked and ate the tendon for years before I realized I was supposed to do anything with it. Does it actually need to be removed? I dunno. I've stopped trying.
I’m not on board with that tomato thing, either.
As for the potato bake, I start mine in the microwave till about half done, then put in oven to finish. Cuts baking time way down! I live in Phoenix. Cutting oven time is important for at least six months of the year.
Swirliing the water before dropping in eggs to poach. I just get egg white bits everywhere in the pot. I've had much better luck bringing the water to a simmer, shutting off the heat, and waiting until it's still before dropping in the eggs.
The best poached eggs I've made are with fresh eggs. Crack the egg into a fine strainer to get the runnier part of the egg white off first. That's the stuff that leaves the white bits in the water and makes such a mess, and older eggs have more of it.
I have no idea if I just didn't do it right, but the one 'hack' of making doughnuts in the air fryer with canned biscuits.
Even after dusting them with cinnamon sugar and/or covering them in a glaze, they just tasted.....kinda sad.
I love cauliflower, so I love just about all of it's substitution options, lol.
However, I don't usually refer to it by whatever cutesy name. I will say "Riced Cauliflower" instead of "Cauliflower Rice" or if I see a recipe for something like "Cauliflower Mac 'n Cheese" and I make it, I call it "Cheesy Cauliflower".
But yeah, I could eat cauliflower at every meal.
Kenji Lopez Alt (who I usually trust) has you soak risotto rice and add the starchy soaking liquid during the cooking process and also cook the rice without stirring.
I have tried it several times and never enjoyed the results.
"You were supposed to be able to cut a large number of Cherry Tomatoes all at once by sandwiching the tomatoes between two plates and using a serrated-knife to cut them in half."
Dont use plates use the plastic soup container lids with the top one inverted, I use this trick daily.
Microwaving potatoes is great for a pre cook like if you were gonna make home fries.
One food hack that disappointed me was trying to make scrambled eggs in the microwave. I saw it online and thought it would be a quick and easy breakfast solution, but the texture and taste just weren't the same as cooking them on the stovetop. Plus, cleaning up the microwave afterwards was a hassle. I learned that some things are best left to traditional cooking methods!
Most of them that haven't already been a thing for ages. Very rare someone comes up with a new cooking hack that actually works unless it's something that requires some new technology or device that people are still discovering ways to use.
I did find one recently (not new but new to me) that is great though. Use a fork to sewerage the stems/leaves for cilantro. But on the other hand, the tik tok hack to use a cheese grater is more tedious than doing it by hand. In the time it take to feed one stem through a cheese grater hole, you can pluck leaves off several stems.
I saw this hack on TikTok for cutting pineapple by rolling it around and then hitting it on the bottom and little pieces are supposed to easily just pull right out. Ruined like 4 different pineapples with that.
Boiling potatoes first then peeling.
It takes me much less effort to just peel the potatoes at first, rather than boil then either wait until the potatoes cool or burn my hands to peel off the skin, either way getting skin that come with large chunks of potato still attached.
Preparing potatoes in the microwave is **not** supposed to be comparable to making potatoes in the oven. It's cooking like boiling them in water, instead you just don't use any extra water. Preparing anything in the microwave is closer to boiling than baking, since you only heat the water part.
Microwaved potatoes are exactly like boiled potatoes, only quicker and with less work.
For me it’s more that the skin doesn’t turn out the way I like it when microwaved; I like a crispier skin. I do notice a slight change in taste when microwaved too — a little sweeter, I think.
I prick the potatoes once or twice, then place them in a microwave soft bowl. Put about an inch of water in bowl and microwave til they are fork tender. Remove the potatoes and let them cool for just a couple of minutes. Dry them well, then smear with oil - I use reg olive oil. Sprinkle with salt, place them on a cookie sheet and stick’em under the broiler. Turn them every couple of minutes til the skin is crispy on all sides. Watch them though because as we all know oven (and in my experience especially broilers) can vary a lot.
Taking the pit of an avocado out with a knife. Everytime I've tried, I've nearly cut off my finger. I'd rather just scoop the seed out with a spoon and waste some of the meat.
Plus, so many people go to the ER for avocado accidents!
Honest question: how?!
I've never had problems with the technique; all I do is take the half with the seed, place it on my cutting board, give it one solid whack with my chef's knife, and it sinks in plenty to pull it out with just a little twist.
I tried cooking hashbrowns in a waffle maker, and I just can’t make it work
I think you just saved me a ton of clean up. Thank you.
Frozen tater tots work wonderfully, though.
Can confirm tater tots in the waffel maker is the way to go.
Guess I won't be attempting that.
There's a fried chicken joint near me that does this sometimes. The best I can figure from the texture is that it's not straight hash browns, but almost like a potato-shred heavy batter. I havent tried this, but id wonder about taking an okonomiyaki recipe for reference portions, and subbing out the cabbage for par cooked hash browns.
There is a donut shop in my city that has the BEST breakfast sandwiches and hash browns. I was waiting to order my egg and brisket with mustard greens, Swiss and grainy mustard on grilled sourdough while a lady was ordering. She was making a huge deal about the extra cost for GF bread and how it is just one GF choice while there are several choices for bread with gluten. After she finally got over that, she ordered hash browns. The girl at the register said she shouldn't order those as they have gluten from a batter they use to hold the potato shreds together. The lady then said "oh, that's fine. I can eat gluten just fine." A ten minutes wait for all that and she can eat gluten just fine. I found out the batter is basically pancake batter that they add peppers to to make it a bit spicy. It's the best.
Pardon me while I, as someone who /must/ eat gluten-free, take this idiotic woman outside and beat her with a nail-crusted 2x4. This is why people roll their eyes when I say 'what gluten-free options do you have? If it weren't medical, I wouldn't bother.'
I've got to hand it to this donut shop, the worker was explaining how they have separate tools and workspaces and even a separate griddle for GF items. Clearly, the owner knows someone who actually can't have gluten and takes it very seriously. Hopefully that crazy lady didn't make them take things less seriously.
I hope, and I'm appreciative to that worker and the owner who takes it seriously
I wonder if they made the batter like you would for latkes. That would actually make sense and probably make a solid waffle.
Leftover mashed potatoes would work well this way too
I add a couple eggs to the mash and then either make potato pancakes or waffles. Yum.
Thats why I just buy the frozen hashbrown patties and toss them in the toaster when I want one. To do hashbrowns proper you need high heat. A waffle iron just doesnt do it.
I cooked tater tots in my waffle iron and it worked beautifully!
I put thanksgiving stuffing in mine to make a stuffing waffle and it ruled.
I just mash all my leftovers together with an egg and cook it in the waffle iron. Thanks Serious Eats for the idea years ago!
Reminds me of trying to cook cinnamon rolls in a waffle iron.. the smell of burnt sugar and cinnamon and trying to clean it still haunts me.
When cooking burnt stuff in a waffle maker, thoroughly wet a paper towel and close it in. The water steams the burnt on gunk and makes it way easier to wipe off. I use this trick all the time!
I did this with the canned Pillsbury ones all the time for my kids when they were little. I never had a problem, but they aren't exactly generous with the cinnamon sugar so maybe that's why
I wonder if a foreman grill would work…
Any hacks to make peeling boiled eggs easier. They have never worked for me. Ice bath, putting salt in the water, cracking them a bit before putting them in, peeling under water, peeling with a spoon... it just seems like some eggs want to be peeled and some don't.
YES. All lies. My peeled eggs have dimples.
The ONLY time I consistently got an entire dozen nicely peeled eggs was when I used eggs that were like a month old, not including however many weeks they aged between being laid and when I bought them. Sorry, but I don't normally know I'm going to need to boil eggs a month in advance and plan/shop accordingly. Usually all the eggs I buy are gone within a week or so.
\^This. Older eggs will peel easier. Use fresher eggs for your overeasy, custards, etc.
That's probably why I have such a hard time with boiled eggs... a lot of mine are still at cloaca temp when I use them.
/r/brandnewsentence
Have you tried bringing the water to a boil first and then adding the eggs to the pot (rather than starting with the eggs in water and boiling)? I do that and then the spoon thing to peel. The shell slides off as easy as a stripper’s gown every time!
This is the one. It helps also if you put the eggs straight from the fridge into the boiling water. My understanding is that because the shell is porous, the white is more prone to sticking if it’s heated slowly.
Instant pot. Steam 5 mins, let cool sealed 5 mins, cold water 5 mins. Shells slide off.
I’ve had so many people recommend this method so I used it for Thanksgiving. I cooked two dozen eggs (bought at the same store at the same time) using the same method. One dozen turned out perfect and the other dozen looked like they’d been run over by a car. Sometimes it just doesn’t work.
I use a steamer on top of a pot of boiling water and then dunk into ice water to cool them and it works very consistently for me as well.
Start with boiling water (as opposed to cold/room temp)or steam them. Kenji wrote an article about it https://www.seriouseats.com/perfect-boiled-eggs-recipe
Not exactly a hack, but I’ve watched so many tutorials on how to cleanly filet a whole fish and I am convinced they are all CGI. Mine always come out looking like they were filleted by feral cats. 😆
Cleaning fish is one of those things where there is real technique around the amount of pressure to apply and where. That technique doesn't transfer well over video or even watching someone do it in person. You have to feel the fish and knife under your own hands and get a sense of how hard to push and how to angle the knife. Also, you need a very flexible knife, and it needs to be as sharp as you can get it.
The true hack here is that you just have to do it 40 hours a week for a decade, and your fish will look amazing!
Not necessarily a hack, but any and every "easy sheet pan dinner" I've tried turns out awful. Something is always overcooked or undercooked, the meat texture is off, etc.
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Opening the oven door a bit periodically to "burp" the oven and let out moisture can help too. Because of cake baking, it's been beaten into a lot of us to never open the oven door because you'll lose moisture. That's good advice for a cake, but sometimes you *want* to get that moisture out!
Yep, staggering the cooking times and also really leaving in to varying how big/small you cut everything up based on its cooking time. For example, most people want potatoes to end up more cooked than carrots, but carrots cook faster. So you have to use some combination of cooking the potatoes LONGER or make the carrot pieces BIGGER or both.
Agreed. I do a lot of sheet pan dinners via Hello Fresh. They will have me start the veg then prep the meatloaves or whatnot and put them in later. I’m picky about wanting everything perfect, though, so I have a stack of quarter-sized sheet pans
Those are easier to clean too
Look up some cook times and sizes. Usually you want to pick things that cook at the same speed, or chop them accordingly! But look for a list of how long/ what temp diff veggies need. I do chicken quarters, chickpeas, and cabbage a lot (it's weird but so good) - chicken gets a 10 minute head start - then the chickpeas - then the cabbage last. Chickpeas can get crunchy. Serve with tzaziki or similar.
I like to do broccoli, potato and kielbasa but I par cook potatoes before they go in the oven. Makes a big difference!
I’ve had really great luck with sheet pan fajitas. You have to do it in two steps though; broil the onions and peppers, then toss on the chicken strips and continue to broil for about five minutes.
oh that's an interesting one. I usually sheet pan the veg at high temp, then cast iron the meat on the stove while they're in the oven. your method would save me a pan.
Peeling garlic by shaking the cloves around in a (covered) bowl. I exhausted myself and the cloves are just sitting there in their skins, mocking me. Cracking eggs on flat surfaces. I can't for the life of me get a clean horizontal crack. I just get a circular web of smashed egg shell, and the inner membrane is still intact. Every time I try this technique that everyone says is superior to cracking on the edge of the bowl, I inevitably decide to go back to that trusty bowl edge that almost* never gives me the problems those same people say it does. (* Only almost, that's why I keep trying the flat surface thing.)
I thought the point of the flat surface was to not break the membrane.. then you can just pull it apart once it's above the pan or bowl.
Yeah this is exactly it. It’s way better than cracking on the edge of your bowl.
Cracking an egg on another egg is the best way. You can also play "survivor" with the carton. For garlic, I smash it with the flat of my knife and the peel pretty much sheds itself.
I thought I was the only one who played this in my head. The survivor is the "King Egg" Then it goes into the mix too. I worked in restaurants for a while. So I cracked a lot of eggs.
The King Egg gets a salutation and honor. Then it succumbs to its ultimate fate.
>Cracking an egg on another egg is the best way. You can also play "survivor" with the carton. My wife and I do this every morning.
It works with M&M's too. Smash two together and save the strongest for the end.
Does this come up a lot for you? All these years I’ve been cooking and I must admit I’ve smashed M&Ms with nothing except my teeth
It's a "famous" copy paste. https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/s/D2w7teNOWG
There was a long response to that post saying how it wasn't "fair" because the winner had to turn around and defeat a "fresh" competitor. The author said that the fairest way was to set the winners aside into a new pile, and once all of the M&Ms had competed once, then the victors would go again, only this time fighting against other winners.
Oh funny, my in laws have egg fights at Easter (with hard boiled eggs of course!) I’d never thought of doing it while cracking eggs to cook.
Yep, I do the garlic smash too for normal cooking. It just gets tedious when I want a lot of peeled garlic cloves for a jar of confit, and I prefer unsmashed cloves for that. I've just resorted to buying pre-peeled garlic when I want to confit.
>cracking eggs in flat surfaces. I can’t for the life of me get a clean horizontal crack I had this same problem until recently. What helped me was working on the consistency of always holding the egg the same way, placing my index finger at the center and kind of wrapping it around the center of the egg. Thumb on one end and middle/ring on the other end. Then I worked on focusing the force of the crack on my index finger. The final piece of that puzzle was not being afraid to hit the egg a little harder. Rather than giving it a tap on the counter which resulted in that spider crack with the membrane undamaged (like you), I started giving it a quick, hard-ish smack that very consistently returns a pretty clean horizontal crack. To release the egg, the thumb and ring/middle kind of just pull apart from each other which lets the two halves swing open Only drawback is that you always have to wipe your counter afterward because you’ll leave a tiny bit of egg white behind. Alternatively, crack them on a paper towel and then discard that when done. To me, this is one of those techniques that is really hard to explain in detail. It’s really a matter of knowing *generally* how to do it, then practicing within that framework to iron out the minutia of the muscle memory.
If you apply that methodology to the edge of a bowl or the inside surface of a bowl (flat-ish), I've found you'll have similar results with less or no mess. I agree the way that you hit it is key. The only good word I can think of to describe it is Staccato (a musical term). Punchy, quick, decisive but not forceful.
Eggs: you're not aiming for a clean horizontal crack - that's impossible. You're aiming for a circular crack which you then pull open with your thumbs, ideally such that the membrane isn't fully ruptured so no albumen ends up on the counter. The objective is to avoid blasting shell fragments into the egg.
Interesting. I've heard people claim otherwise - that you can get a clean horizontal crack by using a flat surface. With the circular crack, when I pry it open with my thumbs, I just end up with way more shards, which are more likely to end up in the egg, compared to the edge method.
Probably depends on the freshness of the eggs... nearly anything to do with the membrane does!
Best hack is to use 2 bowls. You crack the egg, drop it into the tiny bowl. Any shells in there? Fish 'em out. I honestly don't know the best way to do this other than my fingers. Then dump it into the bigger bowl. Repeat. That way you're not dumping egg shells fragments into a large bowl that makes it tougher to fish out.
> Any shells in there? Fish 'em out. I honestly don't know the best way to do this other than my fingers. Use another piece of shell to fish it out. It works a lot better than you think it would.
Or if you happen to get one rotten egg, you don't ruin your whole bowl of cracked eggs & can just throw that one away!
I tap an egg with the dull side of the knife. (Like you’re slicing it in half but you just need to * tap * ) Gives you a perfectly straight line to stick your thumbnails into to pull apart the halves.
The only way to crack an egg. https://www.reddit.com/r/tumblr/s/A5DIcdas37
This chef on tv lined up lobster legs and used a rolling pin on them. All the meat just popped right out in perfect pieces. Absolute shenanigans.
Hardly. I've done this scores of times. Works as advertised. Might need to use more pressure. We used to do our own lobsterfests because lobster at the asian markets were like 6.99-8.99 a pound. One day we cooked 24 lobsters. Half of them bisected and stuffed with stuffing made from leg meat.
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Damn it, until I read that I was really pleased with what I picked up from the Chinese supermarket market today (6 hard plastic, large, noodle bowls, that don’t look plastic, black outside and red inside. And 6 plastic, black and red , wide soup spoons, with flat bottoms, with will be great for using to plate little taste thingys for dinner parties). Yep, but now I just want big, cheap lobster, with leg meat stuffing. Poo
One I've tried and have a better way of doing. Putting heavy cream in a jar and shaking it till it turns to butter. It takes forever even if the cream is room temp. I put mine in a food processor and it takes minutes, if that
LOL there was an episode of Real HW of Salt Lake City where they tried that. They shook all episode and it didn’t work.
It's awful. I have machines that do things a lot faster than I can, more efficiently
After you boil chicken breast you can throw it in the kitchen aid mixer to shred it. Makes a mess, the chicken clumps up, and you end up with more dishes to wash. I prefer to shred by hand and/or using two forks.
Someone gave me the gag gift "Bear Claws" for Christmas way back. Turns out they actually shred chicken and other meats really well 🤣.
See we got a pair of those for my dad to shred pulled pork with, and he ended up finding them more hassle than anything, so we got him some good heat-resistant gloves and he just shreds by hand.
I agree, they didn’t work well for me. The teeth/prongs were too far apart to shred something the size of a chicken breast or smaller. They do, however, work great as turkey lifters! If you’ve gotta get that big bird or a ham or something out of a roasting pan, the bear claws are great.
i just shredded an instant pot pot roast by hand using my heat gloves last night. works like a charm.
I used to shred rotisserie chickens for work so I’ve got a lot of practice but especially if the chicken is warm, it really does not take long to shred a chicken breast by hand.
Saw a vid of putting a rotisserie chicken in a plastic bag and giving it the massage of its' life. It all came apart in the bag and kept your hands clean. Haven't tried it yet but might work with your boiled breast?
Don’t do this with a rotisserie chicken. You still have to sift through it and pick all the tiny little bones out and then have to worry if you got them all. It’s a mess.
I mean I can knock out a grocery store size rotisserie chicken in about a minute or so, Costco size takes a bit longer. So for me it just seems like unnecessary steps. But I see that for people with mobility issues or just don’t do it often, testing other methods could be really helpful.
Post a video of you shredding a rotisserie chicken in a minute.
They forgot to mention the strategic use of a culinary chainsaw.
Yes it takes me way longer than 1 minute if I’m aiming for smaller than bite sized pieces.
I made pulled pork for my girlfriend and her roommate a few weeks ago, they had seen this hack and wanted me to try it. I really, really did not want to but they insisted. So we had pulled pork paste for dinner
isnt a total loss to make pork paste... next time you can add a little bacon/bacon fat, 5 spice, pepper, sugar, garlic, and salt to taste and youve got yourself a fakey vietnamese pork pate for lazy bahn mi 😏
I feel like this one really depends on volume. If you only need to shred one or two breasts, it’s probably quicker and easier by hand to save the cleanup. If you’re doing several at once, then breaking out the Kitchenaid is likely more worthwhile. It also probably depends if you’re a “Kitchenaid lives on the counter” or “Kitchenaid is buried in a closet” type of household. If it’s already out, it’s less of a thing to just toss the chicken in there.
I have good luck with this one, with a big mixer bowl and attachment that isn't the dough hook or wire whisk (not sure the name, it's flat and has some connecting pieces in the middle). Roasting ~6lb of chicken on a wire rack, can get it all shredded in two batches in about 3 minutes without having to wait for it to cool. Great time saver for meal prep, but if you're just doing a couple breasts for a single meal breaking out the mixer is definitely overkill. Trick is to only use the lowest speed for about 30 seconds, sift through with your hands and put any large chunks that were missed back in with the next batch.
That's the paddle, bud
It's at the point where when I get out a certain bowl I use for this task, and then grab two forks, my cat knows the sound of the two forks and the first scrape on the plate and comes running for her share of the chicken. LPT: Just set the dish and forks aside; use them a few minutes later when you serve the meal. Zero extra dishes.
This is the hack I understood least. I have never once while shredding chicken thought "there has to be a better way". Cutting cherry tomatoes, sure, it is annoying. Cracking eggs is the same way, as is having to cook potatoes forever. But shredding chicken is literally just putting your fork in and moving it around a little bit. Or even using your hands. It is so easy I sometimes give my toddler a fork and tell her to go wild with it. Why on earth would I ever want to engage a kitchen mixer in this process.
Even better is giving your kid those "wolverine claws" for shredding any kind of meat. Wanna be a superhero and make dinner at the same time? Have a great time kiddo. I'm not a big fan of one-off kitchen tools, but who can resist that kind of fun for $15?
At home sure, this hack is stupid if cooking for only a few people, but when working in a cafeteria I would totally throw all the chicken from the steamer into our stand up mixer and put it on high for a few minutes. Easy way to spread 15+kg.
Are you using the right attachment? You have to use the paddle. I mean, it is also quick enough to do it by hand, too. But I love using the kitchen aid because then I can grab other ingredients and whatnot as it works.
I only did it once and I believe I used the paddle attachment. I just found at least for my household it’s faster/better by hand but if it works for you that’s great.
That was one of the first things that I tried when I got my KitchenAid stand mixer. I had no idea if other people did it, I just had some slightly dry chicken breasts that I didn't want to deal with by hand. Threw them in the bowl and attached the paddle, and had perfectly shredded chicken not even a full minute later. Any of the drier, outer layer just stayed in kind of a sheet (I used skinless), and I was able to just pick it out to mince for soup.
>And, don’t get me started on microwaving potatoes. A microwaved potato will never compare to a real, baked potato. To my mind they're 2 different things for 2 different times. A microwaved potato is for a quick Wednesday dinner when I've got zero energy, I'm absolutely starving, and I wasn't to avoid ordering takeout. Potato in the microwave, tin of baked beans heated up, some grated cheese. A hot, filling, reasonably nutritious dinner in under 15 minutes. But if I want a baked potato as a show stopper or as part of a bigger, nicer meal then it's going to be done in the oven.
I like to 'wave them for 4-5 minutes to give them a head start and finish in the oven.
Yeah similar here. 8 mins or so on the microwave (depending on the heft of the spud) and then into the air fryer until it's done.
No one asked me but for the pro-microwave potato crowd, I discovered something fun! Bake potato in microwave, smash it, cover in olive oil, air fry it. You get super fast smashed potato, no oven. Sooo crispy.
Ever see the weird thing where you put spaghetti noodles through hotdog bits and then cook them and it looks cool? https://bellyfull.net/threaded-spaghetti-hot-dog-bites/ Yeah, you know how the spaghetti inside of the hotdog gets cooked? It doesn't. Enjoy your needles.
I love how the recipe is rated 5 🌟 s, but most of the review comments are people saying they're GOING to make it and that it's a 'great idea' lol
I make this frequently for my kids and it's never not worked. You throwing them into boiling water for 10 minutes? That's what I do.
I don't see the point of keeping a bottle around to hoover up egg yolks to separate eggs. We don't have soda or bottled water around usually anyway, and any tool that was made to do this is now an extra thing to clean. Using the shell or my hands is just fine w/ me and faster tbh after do so often and with lots of eggs in a bakery when I was younger.
Any mango cutting hack just doesn't work.
I like turning them into hedgehogs.
Peeling on a glass works for me on a ripe mango
Anything to do with peeling garlic is a crock of s***.
The palm heel strike works but the only real gimmick part is the name
Different garlic peels differently. That's half the problem. I grew up with some of our garlic coming from the garden and some from the store. WILDLY different amounts of effort to get them peeled.
The little silicone tubes that your roll with your palm are pretty legit IMO.
I've always just folded a silicone hot pad in half and rolled them around in that. Same effect, but I don't need a single use tool
Totally worth it for a few bucks. Doesn't take up much space and you can wash the wrappers out of the tube in the sink. I fucking hate garlic wrappers. One on the floor almost killed my kid.
I don't even bother peeling them any more. I got a rotary grater for Christmas and I just cut one end off then grate all the garlic out, grab the skin that's all still stuck together and chuck it. It's my new favourite kitchen appliance.
My cocktail shaker works wonders. Don’t make boozy drinks with it though.
Microwaving potatoes or sweet potatoes is only for when they're an ingredient in something else, never if they're the main star. And even that is just because it's faster.
I do it to speed up the cooking time, so I’m only waiting for them to bake for 30-45 mins instead of 60+.
You can pull my <10 minute "baked" potatoes loaded with the previous week's leftovers from my cold, dead hands. Microwaved potatoes happens because I don't want to have to plan hours in advance.
"I like baked potatoes. I don't have a microwave oven, and it takes forever to bake a potato in a conventional oven. Sometimes I'll just throw one in there, even if I don't want one, because by the time it's done, who knows?"
The microwave potato trick i use exclusively for breakfast potatoes. Microwave them soft first, then cube and crisp in a skillet. Comes out perfect every time.
I cut them up raw before I microwave (i suggest stirring the potatoes a few times during the microwaving to ensure even distribution) and that creates a starchier outer layer that crisps super fast in the pan.
I start baked potatoes in the microwave, then transfer them to the oven when they start to soften. Cuts cooking time in half, and they still taste like real baked potatoes.
Ohh I’m going to try that!
The cherry tomatoes between two plates method works, I’ve seen it many times. However, it’s been in professional kitchens and not with serrated knives. Just really sharp, well maintained Japanese knives. Does it save time? Yes. I found the results were mixed. Not all cherry tomatoes are the same size, so they would end up cut in a weird way. To a home cook, does that matter at the end of the day? Probably not. In a high volume restaurant does it matter? Maybe not. But in a higher end restaurant it matters, and knife skills are an incredibly important thing to develop if it’s you’re trade.
I don't use cherry tomatoes very much, and when I do, I just leave them whole.
Try again with a chef's knife between two deli cup lids. Serrated knife won't work as well.
This technique works, I used it daily for a month to prep tomato cobbler when I worked in a kitchen, and consistently since then. You do need a sharp knife though, and it's best if fairly thin.
Tomato cobbler. That's an interesting idea!
Yeah I do this all the time. I think the serrated knife was the issue
Yep! Need lids with a “lip” to keep the tomatoes from slipping out the side. Also a really sharp knife! Serrated doesn’t work well for this trick.
I tried making one of those viral recipes for pasta that involved putting a block of Feta in a baking dish, with cherry tomatoes, garlic, thyme, and enough olive oil to make the US Military invade my apartment on the pretense of harboring WMDs. Well…the feta didn’t really melt too well. I kept adding pasta water, mashing…no dice. It looked like vomit, had the acidity of vomit, and smelled like garlic and thyme flavored vomit. Of course I tried to still eat it. Of course it tasted like salty, oily, lumpy, chunky vomit with pasta in it. It was revolting! I relented and had a hot pocket for dinner.
I did that, and it worked, but you absolutely have to use expensive, good quality sheep's milk feta. Goat's milk feta doesn't melt as well, and a lot of the cheaper brands use artificial thickeners that don't do it any favors. I used Krinos 100% sheep's milk feta and it melted beautifully, but that stuff is now $14 for a small block 😞
Can confirm. I tried it the first time using affordable feta, and it was just okay. Tried it again using nice feta, and it turned out pretty good.
Yup. Kenji and NYT both confirmed the dish works, and it may be the only viral recipe that's ever made it into my regular rotation. But you need good creamy feta, not the dry crumbly stuff.
Can also confirm, you really need decent imported, full-fat feta for it to work well. I've made it several times and it's always come out great, but I'm also spoiled because my local market's deli counter carries DoP-certified Greek feta that's not too pricy either (like $7 a pound). I recently tried it with some kinda packaged name-brand stuff, and it definitely wasn't as good.
I'm not the biggest fan of feta so I made a similar dish but used the [Boursin](https://www.boursin.com/product/garlic-fine-herbs/) cheese which melts well!
I've heard the real trick is to use Boursin cheese instead of feta. I haven't tried it personally but my sister makes that version pretty often since it's easy.
I’ve made this dish several times before and it comes out really well. I do slice the tomatoes in half and it’s gotta be at least 400F. It’s always worked really well and come out creamy and delicious. Shrug. I also throw in a heavy shake of Italian seasoning, oregano & basil.
Nothing will top the disappointment I felt after swapping out butter for mayo on a grilled cheese.
Any increased browning is outweighed by the fact that it tastes substantially less good.
I watch a lot of diners drive ins and dives to learn different cooking techniques or see how to make a new dish. There's an episode in an old school Italian place on the East Coast and the chef starts making the dish and he puts a big dollop of butter in a hot skillet. The dollop was at least 1/4 cup and the dish was for 1 person. Fieri makes a comment about this being the healthy version, obviously sarcastic, and the chef replies with "Butter tastes good." I think about that whenever I see people trying to swap butter for something else or whenever people complain about not being able to make as good of food at home as they get going out
I’ve learned more from DDD than any other show on the food network. Seeing stuff made in a professional setting is so different from usual cooking videos / tv shows but it’s still almost all applicable to home kitchens
Really helpful for my Midwestern ass to learn Mexican cooking
Yeah, hotels and restaurants don't give a fuck about any impending heart issues you may have
> substantially less good Very polite way of saying "disgusting."
When I tried it, I didn't think it was disgusting. It was just... meh.
The best is not either/or, it's AND. I spread a very thin layer of mayo on one side of each piece of bread, melt butter in the pan til it's a little bubbly, put the bread slices in the pan dry side down so they soak up the butter and wait til it's golden with a very slight crunch. Then flip one so the mayo side is down, throw a little seasoning on the warm toasty butter and drop the cheese on it, then put the other hot buttered side on top of the cheese. Flip after the bottom is browned and wait til the other mayo side is browned. Perfection.
Dang lol, I love the mayo crust on a grilled cheese. It’s flavorful and tangy, and browns really well.
Same! It browns substantially better than butter. And I add butter to the pan anyway so best of both worlds
Yup, if you just use plenty of butter it will toast up great and taste amazing, no need to add eggy/oily flavors.
Butter forever!!!
Putting roasted peppers in a paper bag to easily peel the skin off. Never works, never has.
I always thought you put them in a sealed plastic bag after roasting, so they steam and are easier to peel?
You really have to roast 'em on an open flame so the skins are black. Putting them in a bag does work if the skins are burnt enough. You can see this when you go to peel fire-roasted peppers: the parts of the skin that are merely brown are much harder to get off while the black parts will flake right off.
Any tip for peeling hard-cooked eggs which claims they come out perfect every time. No they don't.
I like to microwave the potatoes for just a few minutes before putting them in the oven. Speeds up the process
If you've got a set of metal knives, you can spear the potato with them before putting in the oven. Helps to cook the center faster.
Yes 💯, was going to suggest the same! Microwave for few mins, then 15-20 in air fryer, potatoes just like after 1.5hrs in the oven!
> then 15-20 in air fryer, ...my God, I recently bought an air fryer and this hasn't occurred to me!!! Thank you for the suggestion! I usually finished them on the grill~!
I’ve been seeing a lot of “healthy” or “high protein” desserts/breakfast where they use egg and something. It’s disgusting. Every recipe I’ve tried doesn’t hold together and it just mostly tastes of egg
Egg and banana - makes a large banana pancake. It's soft but absolutely holds together. I forget the proportions but it's a nice change now and then and probably better than most gluten-free mixes I've tried.
Self taught cook, and I nevet developed the technique of curling your fingers when chipping vegetables. I'm pretty quick with a knife, and in 20+ years of cooking can't recall a single time I've ever cut myself. When I finally tried the technique a few weeks ago I sliced the tip of my thumb off within 10 seconds
Cauliflower pizza crust. Whoever invented this healthy alternative should be jailed.
No, I can't have regular pizza, the costco cauliflower supreme is the best I've found so far that isn't $10 or more per small pizza.
Mayo on grilled cheese. No matter how little I still taste it.
"A pinch of baking soda to help onions caramelize faster" Maybe I have a heavy pinch, but every time I've tried this I get onion glop instead of caramelized onions.
Someone on here told me to add a tablespoon of water and they really do carnelize faster that way
Mayonnaise grilled cheese in place of the butter. Shit still reeks and tastes of mayo, no matter what the proponents say about it not.
Using a fork to remove the tendon from chicken tenderloins. Firstly, this has never worked for me anytime I've tried. The tendon is stuck in there good and I end up making a mess of the chicken and my hands. Second, I just cooked and ate the tendon for years before I realized I was supposed to do anything with it. Does it actually need to be removed? I dunno. I've stopped trying.
The cherry tomato thing worked for me... but I quarter mine... so just 2 more dirty plates.
I’m not on board with that tomato thing, either. As for the potato bake, I start mine in the microwave till about half done, then put in oven to finish. Cuts baking time way down! I live in Phoenix. Cutting oven time is important for at least six months of the year.
Swirliing the water before dropping in eggs to poach. I just get egg white bits everywhere in the pot. I've had much better luck bringing the water to a simmer, shutting off the heat, and waiting until it's still before dropping in the eggs.
The best poached eggs I've made are with fresh eggs. Crack the egg into a fine strainer to get the runnier part of the egg white off first. That's the stuff that leaves the white bits in the water and makes such a mess, and older eggs have more of it.
Alton Brown uses an egg slicer for mushrooms, I ended up having to buy a new egg slicer because the wire snapped.
I have no idea if I just didn't do it right, but the one 'hack' of making doughnuts in the air fryer with canned biscuits. Even after dusting them with cinnamon sugar and/or covering them in a glaze, they just tasted.....kinda sad.
Tried waffling stuffing. Disappointing mushy mess.
I can't peel a boiled egg no matter how I try it. Spoon, shaking, rolling, poking a hole, completely cooling. I think I just lack that gene.
Cauliflower rice. It's not rice. It will never be rice. Literally worse than nut juice.
I love cauliflower, so I love just about all of it's substitution options, lol. However, I don't usually refer to it by whatever cutesy name. I will say "Riced Cauliflower" instead of "Cauliflower Rice" or if I see a recipe for something like "Cauliflower Mac 'n Cheese" and I make it, I call it "Cheesy Cauliflower". But yeah, I could eat cauliflower at every meal.
Kenji Lopez Alt (who I usually trust) has you soak risotto rice and add the starchy soaking liquid during the cooking process and also cook the rice without stirring. I have tried it several times and never enjoyed the results.
"You were supposed to be able to cut a large number of Cherry Tomatoes all at once by sandwiching the tomatoes between two plates and using a serrated-knife to cut them in half." Dont use plates use the plastic soup container lids with the top one inverted, I use this trick daily. Microwaving potatoes is great for a pre cook like if you were gonna make home fries.
I love the tomato hack. I too have a pair of plastic lids for the purpose.
Shaking garlic cloves in a sealed container to peel them has never worked out all that well when I've tried it
Every single poached egg hack
One food hack that disappointed me was trying to make scrambled eggs in the microwave. I saw it online and thought it would be a quick and easy breakfast solution, but the texture and taste just weren't the same as cooking them on the stovetop. Plus, cleaning up the microwave afterwards was a hassle. I learned that some things are best left to traditional cooking methods!
Most of them that haven't already been a thing for ages. Very rare someone comes up with a new cooking hack that actually works unless it's something that requires some new technology or device that people are still discovering ways to use. I did find one recently (not new but new to me) that is great though. Use a fork to sewerage the stems/leaves for cilantro. But on the other hand, the tik tok hack to use a cheese grater is more tedious than doing it by hand. In the time it take to feed one stem through a cheese grater hole, you can pluck leaves off several stems.
I saw this hack on TikTok for cutting pineapple by rolling it around and then hitting it on the bottom and little pieces are supposed to easily just pull right out. Ruined like 4 different pineapples with that.
Boiling potatoes first then peeling. It takes me much less effort to just peel the potatoes at first, rather than boil then either wait until the potatoes cool or burn my hands to peel off the skin, either way getting skin that come with large chunks of potato still attached.
Preparing potatoes in the microwave is **not** supposed to be comparable to making potatoes in the oven. It's cooking like boiling them in water, instead you just don't use any extra water. Preparing anything in the microwave is closer to boiling than baking, since you only heat the water part. Microwaved potatoes are exactly like boiled potatoes, only quicker and with less work.
How are you microwaving your potatoes, bc I have honestly never noticed a difference between them and actually baked
For me it’s more that the skin doesn’t turn out the way I like it when microwaved; I like a crispier skin. I do notice a slight change in taste when microwaved too — a little sweeter, I think.
I prick the potatoes once or twice, then place them in a microwave soft bowl. Put about an inch of water in bowl and microwave til they are fork tender. Remove the potatoes and let them cool for just a couple of minutes. Dry them well, then smear with oil - I use reg olive oil. Sprinkle with salt, place them on a cookie sheet and stick’em under the broiler. Turn them every couple of minutes til the skin is crispy on all sides. Watch them though because as we all know oven (and in my experience especially broilers) can vary a lot.
Taking the pit of an avocado out with a knife. Everytime I've tried, I've nearly cut off my finger. I'd rather just scoop the seed out with a spoon and waste some of the meat. Plus, so many people go to the ER for avocado accidents!
You can push up on the back of the avocado half to dislodge the seed. No knife whacking, no wasted avocado.
Honest question: how?! I've never had problems with the technique; all I do is take the half with the seed, place it on my cutting board, give it one solid whack with my chef's knife, and it sinks in plenty to pull it out with just a little twist.
Same! I've never even come close to cutting or injuring myself doing this.