Common Cooking Mistakes and How to Fix Them
Here's how to recover from—or just plain avoid—the classic kitchen gaffes that often happen in our race to get dinner on the table.
By Lynn Andriani
Original Content | February 24, 2012 
Photo: Thinkstock
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You probably know how long it takes your oven to heat up, but many of us overlook the amount of time it can take a pan on the stove to get hot enough to, say, sear a steak. The rushing cook's strategy is usually to turn the burner on high, place a cast-iron pan on top and hope that within a minute or two it'll be ready for the meat. But Michelle M. Warner, class coordinator at the Brooklyn Kitchen, says a flaming blast for two minutes will just heat the center of the pan. Carrie Bradley, who oversees classes at the Chopping Block in Chicago, agrees and notes that heating a pan abruptly can damage it. Instead, put the pan over a low to medium flame as soon as you get in the kitchen so it can warm up while you prep your ingredients (and Warner says cast-iron pans are sturdy enough that you can even wait 20 minutes before adding ingredients). |
