Peeling Back the Layers of Culinary Myths

We live in a world abounding with myths – some related to our daily lives, others related to our religious beliefs and some even connected to cooking. In fact myths are especially abundant in the culinary world. How many times have you heard that you need to salt the aubergines before you cook them, or you must prick sausages before you fry them? But is there any truth behind these practices that have been handed down for generations? Let’s find out and see if we can’t make your life simpler in the kitchen.

Prick Sausages before frying them

This may have been a truth several decades ago when sausages were made cheaply and you needed to prick them before frying so they wouldn’t burst in the pan. However, this is no longer true with modern day high-quality sausages that come with natural skins. In fact, if you continue making holes in them before you fry them, you are going to lose the juices that add the distinct flavor to them.

On Cooking Pasta

Another one that is a favorite among many is that you should add salt or oil to pasta water to prevent them from sticking. Well, salt works as a seasoning while oil does nothing more than float right at the top in big bubbles! They do nothing to de-stick the pasta!

Another one that is connected to the entire process of cooking pasta is that you should rinse the pasta after it is cooked to remove all the starch. Why would you even want to do that? Trust me it’s not going to help you lose weight at all, if that’s what you are thinking. Besides, less starch means there will be less sauce-to-pasta cohesion. Simply put, the sauce will not stick to the pasta as effectively which is essential if you want your pasta to taste good.

Washing Mushrooms Saturates them with Water

Yeah right. There is a speck of truth in there somewhere but hidden under so much nonsense that it is barely visible. If you put all your mushrooms into a huge bowl of water and leave them there for hours, of course it will produce little sponges! But, that aint gonna happen if you wash the mushrooms under running water and dry them immediately on paper towels. Besides, are you sure you want to eat filth-and-god-knows-what-else-covered-mushrooms?

If you salt your Beans before cooking, they will turn out Tough

On a similar vein people believe that you shouldn’t salt meat before cooking since it leads to moisture loss and makes the meat rubbery. Well, it’s not true – not for meat, not for beans and not for other foods as well. Culinary experts will tell you that meat/veggies that are salted before cooking tastes way more awesome before cooking. Besides, only if you dump a jar full of salt on your meat and leave it overnight do you need to worry about appreciable water loss. Not otherwise.

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