#1

#2

I cook rice the way most people cook pasta: Boil it it a big pot of salted water, and drain in a colander.
I have been absolutely *pilloried* online for admitting this. One person actually called it "sacrilege."

But my rice comes out perfect every time. Cooked to a turn, lovely discrete tender grains, no starchiness, no gumminess.

When I tried to cook rice the "right" way, for years, it seemed to always come out either crunchy in the center or tapioca.

Now I never worry about my rice.

#3

#4

Burnt hot dogs. I love an over cooked grilled hot dog.\

MAK3AWiiSH: The only way I can eat a hot dog is if it’s charred to a crisp as if it just ascended from the depths of hell

#5

#6

Eggs. I grew up eating overcooked eggs and somehow settled into that modality?

I hate hate hate eating out for breakfast because it doesn’t matter how many times I tell the staff that I want them OVERCOOKED, nor how many different ways I order them, I always get soft, somewhat liquidy eggs.

Sorry to everyone that may be offended, but there is absolutely nothing appealing about a clear snot/mucus that surrounds a barely cooked yolk. “Fluffy” scrambled eggs that still jiggle and have the texture of hot jello? Absolutely not.

Please, just please scramble the eggs until they’re browned. I want texture and no snot.

#7

#8

Salmon. I hate Perfectly Cooked Salmon. I prefer it the texture of canned fish.

fraochmuir: Same. I like my fish to what most people would call overcooked. Otherwise it grosses me out

#9

#10

Bacon. I like more of a chew to it than a crunch.

Intelligent_Break_12: Crispy bacon is fine for a topping but if I'm eating it as a side or even on a sandwich of some kind, I don't want it so crispy that it falls apart. I want to chew through that fat and have a crisp edge

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#13

I love to make pizza at home from scratch. Make the dough, too. But I do one thing wrong intentionally. Italians, cover your ears. I use a rolling pin to roll out my pizza dough. It works, it’s fast, and I can get it to fit the pan pretty easily. I’m sorry.

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#19

I don't wash my rice. I've literally done it batch washed/unwashed side by side when arguing this point with my wife, she finally agreed. I must be missing something, but I can't figure out what it is.

Yet there are so many sources that say wash your rice, and so folks even do it like half a dozen times because they want the water to perfectly clear.

#20

I use salted butter for everything. It has a longer shelf life at room temperature (where butter is most useful) and the extra salt has never meaningfully changed a recipe aside from making baked goods a million times better.

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#23

I pan-fry my gnocchi although this is becoming an acceptable thing now. And i also like my pasta on the softer side!

#24

Oatmeal as a kid and still sometimes as a treat now. I'd put random amount of water with my packets into the microwave until all the water was totally absorbed. Poor in milk, break the solid oatmeal into chunks with my spoon and I've got myself a much more literal hot cereal.

#25

I dont peel potatoes and carrots. That's where the flavor lives. Nutrition too.

#26

Spaetzle. Mine are much bigger chunks than traditional and I love it that way.

#27

Ratios for vinaigrettes - I’m not doing 3 to 1 oil to vinegar. Depending on other factors it could be anywhere from more vinegar than oil (in sweet dressings) to equal parts to at max 2 to 1 oil to vinegar. I also love adding a little water to vinaigrettes instead of more oil to bring out the water soluble flavors and temper acidity.

#28

I "overcook" asparagus to most people's standards. No crunch, but not mush. It's a fine line.

#29

I guess on the pasta front, I don't salt my water nearly as much as they say to. The one time I did, the pasta was absolutely disgusting.

#30

I use fried over easy eggs with eggs benedict. My wife and I don't like poached eggs

#31

French fries. I like mine soft and floppy, kind of like fried mashed potato sticks

#32

Listen, you can have a hard cooked egg, slightly chalky, without it being gray 🤢 there's a stage in between jammy and gray where it's just hard cooked and yellow.

#33

I cook my scrambled eggs within an inch of their life. I HATE any sort of moisture in scrambled eggs, and prefer them the way most people would describe them, rubbery.

#34

I like to slightly char some things, like veggies. I justify it by saying it’s a real cooking method, but actually I am just intentionally burning things a little bit. I like my sausages like that too.

#35

I hate this new trend of serving crunchy green beans. I want mine soft, and preferably with some ham or bacon in to season them.

#36

I overcook my ramen noodles by a good amount. I prefer them really really soft.

#37

Explaining to the clerk at the Asian market how the way I eat Buldak 2x isn't as spicy because I like soup and eat it with a Better than Bullion broth instead of as a stir fry, I thought she was gonna fight me.

#38

The ‘experts’ say sausages should be cooked in a frying pan over a low heat. But it’s impossible to get an even colour and you end up with brown stripes mixed with pale wobbly skin.

I like my sausages cooked in the oven and dark brown all over. No trace of pale wobbly skin thank you.

#39

I prefer to make toast using a pan or my convection oven. I don’t like toasters because they’re a waste of counter space.

#40

Chewy bacon > crispy bacon.

#41

Smoked ribs. I love it when they're so tender they fall off the bone.

#42

When I make scrambled eggs, I salt them when I beat them. The "don't ever salt eggs before cooking" is some kind of old wives tale. A reasonable amount of salt doesn't affect the texture or make them "tough". If you want really fluffy eggs, use a fair amount of fat (butter, back grease) and cook them slowly over low heat.

#43

I definitely prefer oatmeal to just be heated up in the microwave. On the stove is too gooey for me.

#44

I saute all my veggies at the same time. No one gets preferential treatment.

#45

Pre-mixed things. Never follow the recipe on box Mac n cheese. It’s terrible. For some Knorr sides, I change the milk to water ratio to be 1:1.

The worst one is that I cook pancakes on a higher heat because we like crispy edges. That also means using an oil instead of butter.

#46

I don't like to put egg wash on pastries or breads when the recipe calls for it. I just leave them bare.

#47

I always undercook cookies. I don’t like crunchy at all.

#48

I like my oatmeal to be undercooked and very soupy.

#49

I make biscuits and gravy with bacon instead of sausage and I will die on this hill.

#50

Well apparently we weren’t supposed to be microwaving cup noodles all this time. So yeah. That one. I did a LOT of that.

#51

When making fried rice I take it to the point of crunchy rice.

#52

Often skip the "puree" step at the end, especially soups. I enjoy vichyssoise, but when I sit down to dainty potato cubes and leeks set off in their broth, I can only wonder that the "mashed potato" soup version is so much more common. :)

And, unlike some weighing in, I really like most veggies lightly cooked to retain more of their own fresh flavors and form. So I tend to add them "too late" or may just incorrectly sautee them, for salads, etc, instead of the roasting that's supposed to change the flavor, don't *want* them sweet, etc.

#53

My favorite way to cook hot dogs is to microwave them for a bit too my, until they get weird and chewy.

#54

I eat egg sandwiches with mayo and ketchup.

#55

Kraft Mac n Cheese. The milk is completely unnecessary. Butter only.

#56

I occasionally stick bagels with cream cheese into a pressure cooker to pressure steam them for a minute. They turn soft as donuts.

#57

My most controversial take: all cookies are to be baked until crispy.

I also like to make thin, overcooked pancakes (but not crapes) that don't fluff up at all for the sake of those crispy edges.

#58

Salmon in the microwave! Put a bit of water on a plate, the salmon fillet and a good sprinkle of your preferred seasoning (I love TexMex on it), cover with MW wrap. Cook on 50% power for 3-4 minutes. Tender, juicy and flavorful.

#59

I keep my potatoes in the fridge. You’re not supposed to because it turns the starch into sugar which gives them just that slight sweetness I like so much.

#60

I put beans in my chili.

Edit so I don't have to keep answering the same couple of things:

* I'm in Texas and beans / no beans is a very big deal among chili purists. The definitive book on chili history, by Joe E. Cooper, is even called 'With or Without Beans'. * [This is a good all around, no-beans-included, traditional chili con carne recipe.] It's like a spicy pot roast, usually more *warm* spicy, not Hot Ones Last Dab spicy. The ancho / poblano chile peppers that usually make up most of the chile flavoring are not terribly spicy though they are delicious and pungent!

(As I understand it, the chili queens - that's what they called them! - of San Antonio served frijoles as a standard side dish with chili con carne. When cowboys and other folks were out on the trail, the chuck wagon cooks would do the same, but since the cowboys weren't eating off of cafeteria trays, the beans and chili would just get all mixed together and lots of them learned to prefer it that way! That's almost certainly apocryphal in whole or in part, of course, but it makes as much sense as anything.)

* Cincinatti chili is it's own separate thing, and is just a name that an otherwise tasty meat sauce got saddled with.

#61

Tender brisket and fall off the bone ribs, that competition bite isn’t for me and the fall off the bone ribs always goes before the competition bite one does, always.

Steak. Well done :-).