Cooking Mistakes Everyone Makes

Mistakes in the kitchen are bound to happen. Even if you've been a chef for 25 years, you're still going to split the hollandaise or overcook the chicken at some point. But not me though. I'm a pro. But it's okay because today I'm going to show you how to fix them. 20 mistakes, 19 solutions. Let's get stuck out. I mean in. Mistake number one. Your roast potatoes are soft instead of lovely golden and crispy. So there's probably a few things you did wrong to get yourself into this situation. So right here at this point is one of the ways you can go wrong. People often will pull their potatoes out at this point and they're not cooked enough. Cook them for longer. We want it to be so soft that you feel like you're going to break them when you put them in the roasting dish. The next thing people don't do is that they don't let them sit here and steam for long enough. What that does is dries up the outside. The dry outside helps you get a more crispy exterior. The next thing people don't do enough of is shake them. If you shake them absolutely bejesus out of these things, you're going to rough up the outside which is going to have more crevices for the oil to stick to, to make crispy roast potatoes. The next thing people do wrong is they don't let the oil that they're roasting their potatoes in, or their duck fat, or their beef tallow, whatever they're using, they don't let it get hot enough and they don't use enough of it. Don't panic. The potato is only going to absorb as much oil as it's going to. It's not going to absorb any more and what's left over you can use again. You've got to make sure you get this really, really hot before you put your potatoes in. So get your roasting tray, get your fat in there of your choice, into your oven that's set to 180 degrees celsius and leave it in there for a good 15 to 20 minutes. Then very carefully put your potatoes in. When you put your potato in like that, it should sizzle like it's going into a deep fryer. But now we're here, I'm going to show you how you can fix it. So what's happened is you haven't, you also haven't kind of stirred them up enough. So you can look underneath here and that's not too bad, it could be better. But I think the best way to fix this is to carefully remove the potatoes. Now we're going to cut them open and once we're halfway cut we're going to break them apart. I'm going to put some heat underneath this tray to make sure the oil stays nice and hot. We're going to get them back in flesh side down. Now we're going to give them a little shake, season with salt. We're going to go back into a 200 degree oven, 10 minutes, another shake, another 10 minutes and they'll be good to go. There you go, lovely crispy roast potatoes. They're not perfect because I think one of the best parts of the crispy potato is that fluffy interior which you have lost a little bit of needing to open them up and get some more crispiness on the exterior. But I'll take a crispy potato over a fluffy potato any day. Mistake number two, my mince is grey and watery when I cook it. I'm going to show you how to fix it but first let me show you where you went wrong. People do not heat up their pans enough. They take a lot longer for that big mass of metal to get properly hot all the way through. Even if it's on high heat and you touch it and it's hot, it's probably still not completely hot. So let it get hot for a start and then what people do is they put a bit of oil in. They don't even let the oil get that hot and they dump all their mince into the pan and basically it boils, it stews. No sizzle. No sizzle Caleb, well done. So what should you do? Preheat your pan properly, put the oil in, let the oil start to smoke and then cook in batches. Let them get good Maillard reaction before you start stirring it. The other thing people do wrong is that they start mixing it too early. Just let it sit there, it's not a steak. We don't have to flip it every two seconds. So how do you fix it? Well all the water has come out of the meat and it hasn't evaporated. So the first thing we need to do is to evaporate all that water. High heat, you don't need to move it, just let it evaporate. Now our water has evaporated and you can tell that because the sound changes from a boiling sound to a frying sound. That's a good thing. What's left in here is the beef fat that we're going to use to now fry our beef mince and get good colour. Don't worry, you're not going to eat it all. That fat's not going to get absorbed into the meat, it's just going to fry the outside and then we can leave it behind when we remove the beef from the pan. See the things I'm doing for you guys? I'm putting my life in danger. Ready to stir that one over here. There you go, lovely brown mince that you can pull out and leave all the fat behind if you don't want it in there. But fat is flavour so leave a little bit in there. Mistake number three, you've made your gravy lumpy. No one likes lumpy gravy. So where you've probably gone wrong is you haven't cooked out your roux enough once you've added it to your pan juices. You've also probably added your stock far too fast. There's two methods, they're the old school method. Whisk like your bloody life depends on it. If you whisk over a medium to a medium-high heat for four or five minutes you should work all those lumps out. But it doesn't need to be this hard. You can either A, do it properly at the start like I just talked about, or B, use one of these. Delicious smooth gravy. Hot tip, a little bit of sherry vinegar in your gravy does absolute wonders. Mistake number four, your hollandaise is curdled. Now this is different from splitting, we'll talk about that in a second. But when it's curdled all that's happened is that you've overcooked your egg. You're basically creating scrambled eggs instead of a lovely emulsion. Now I'm going to show you how to fix it but first I'm going to show you what you've probably done wrong. So often why your hollandaise curdles is actually at this step and you won't notice it. But if you do like I'm doing here and you have a too much of a rolling boil in your double boiler and you cook your egg yolks too fast you want to bring them up really slowly. The water in here should only be just ticking over. The other mistake people make is that they should be taking their sabayon or their cooked egg off the double boiler once they start adding the butter. I always see people continuing to add the butter while it's still on the double boiler and there's no need to. The eggs are cooked you don't you don't need to cook them anymore. Now to fix it you're going to take a spoonful of hot water. Sounds a bit counterproductive but the other thing that's happened is that you've got your sauce too thick. You're going to whisk that out until you reach like a saucy consistency. So for me that took about three tablespoons. Next there's nothing wrong with this emulsion it's still completely intact all that's happened is that we've got little bits of egg in there so we just need to pass it through a sieve. There you go beautifully silky hollandaise. Now if you're wondering how do I fix it once it's split mistake number five your mayonnaise or hollandaise or any emulsion has split and gone all watery. So where people go wrong is that they try and incorporate their fat too quickly. Once it goes all watery all that happens is that you have a split emulsion. Now to fix it pour it back out of the container two yolks in a bowl with a little bit more Dijon give it a whisk then slowly start pouring in the split mayonnaise and make a new one. If you get to the end and it tastes too eggy for your liking then just continue adding oil. If you're trying to fix a split hollandaise then obviously you're going to need to make a sauvignon first by whisking your yolks over a double boiler so that they cook out. Hot tip if you find that your mayonnaise is getting a little bit too thick you're going to risk it splitting also. So just add a little bit of room temperature water just to thin it out a little bit. Mate my forearms are not what they used to be. There you go problem solved nice emulsion mayonnaise. Number six a skin keeps forming on your soup sauce or custard just like it has done here on me gravy. I'll show you how to prevent it first. Just made this lovely hollandaise we're going to make our friend fallow's favorite thing ever a cartouche to put on the top take a piece of parchment paper and fold it in half turn it around fold it in half again take note of where the centerpiece of the paper is for me it's this piece down here you know fold it on that axis once twice three times take your cartouche find roughly where the center of the bowl is mark it with your fingers use a pair of scissors or a sharp knife you should have a perfect round piece of paper before your skin forms add the pit the cartouche to the top making sure you push it down and there's no air bubbles there you go no skin will form on your sauce so how to fix something if it does have a skin well depends how particular you want to be to be perfectly honest and it also depends on what you're doing if you've got something that's high in gelatin like a red wine sauce something like that you're going to easily be able to peel that skin off no problem at all same with milk if you have a hot milk it gets the skin on the top you'll be able to peel that right back but something like a gravy it's a little bit harder you can definitely do it but it's gonna you're gonna end up wasting quite a lot of it so what i'll do in this scenario if you can't peel it back you get it back on the heat once it's come to temperature you're gonna whisk the skin into the sauce really vigorously for about two or three minutes over a pass it through a sieve the sauce is perfectly fine there you go perfect silky gravy again no lumps to be seen mistake number seven your sauce is too thin so thickening your sauce is going to be different depending on what you're trying to thicken if you're trying to thicken something wet like this curry here or a stir fry sauce or your gravy then you can use this this is what we call corn flour in the us it's called corn starch but any starch will kind of work all you need to do is to dilute your corn starch with an equal amount of cold water give it a mix till it's completely dissolved make sure you do this step do not just dump it in there you will end up with a lumpy mess pour it in and over the heat while it's cooking give it a stir and as a guide if you've got half a liter liquid that you're dealing with i'd start with one tablespoon of corn starch and equal amounts of water and you can go from there depending on how thick you want it don't forget you can always add more but you can't take it out the other way you can thicken sauces is by simply reducing it if you're thickening something like a gravy if you continue to cook it all you're doing is evaporating water and it will thicken naturally however you can be really careful when you're doing that but as it reduces it's going to get saltier and then you run the risk of it becoming unbalanced and talking about balance mistake number eight the dish tastes flat and bland even though you followed the recipe definitely wasn't an Andy Kilts recipe then there's a couple of ways you could have got into the situation and i think it usually starts with the fact that you either haven't toasted your spices properly or you've used the wrong spices or you've used old spices we all have spices in our cupboard that have sat there for too long if you're not making a dish that doesn't rely on a lot of spices then obviously that's not your problem but we'll start with those if you get to the point here it tastes bland add more it's as simple as that the other thing you think about is balance acid is going to bring flavors out salt is going to enhance flavors msg is going to enhance flavors if you don't have msg think about other things you can use instead if you've exhausted all those options and absolutely bang some more spice in there taste as you go a little bit at a time but don't forget if you add spices at this point of the cook it's not going to do the same as if you add it at the start because you're not layering those flavors and it won't have enough time for them to really bloom so you're probably going to have to add a little bit more than you think and if it's really flat and bland you feel like you're going to have to add a lot of spice then toast your spices in a dry pan over a low heat first that will help them open up and bloom especially if you think that your culprit of your bland tasting food is because your spices are old mistake number nine you made it too spicy if it's just a little bit too spicy a little bit of sweetness will help counter it if it's even more spicy than that one of the easiest ways to counter it is fat things like yogurt butter even or any kind of dairy cream will help it as well next solution you add a couple of potatoes that'll help soak up the spice and finally if you've completely overdone it and it's absolutely destroying your taste buds it's going to take a wee while but one of the best things you can do is make another batch leave the chili out and add the original batch to that fresh batch and it will equal out over the two it's like when you pee in the swimming pool what it's like when you pee in the swimming pool like and number 10 now you've made it too sweet easiest way to deal with that is with acid acid comes in many shapes and sizes the most common one is obviously citrus like adding a bit of lemon juice will help other things that will work especially um if you're not using asian food if you're doing like gravies and sauces is vinegars apple cider vinegar is great always have it on hand white distilled vinegar will work perfectly fine but i love vinegar but same as before if you've completely overdone it best thing you can do make another batch and add it to the original batch without adding any sugar to the stuff well what am i like mistake number 11 now you've made it too acidic add a bit of sugar honey maple syrup jam lots of ways to add sugar level up your sweetness number 12 your sauce is too bitter so what's the difference between bitter and acidic it is the flavor you get when you like burn caramel or burn garlic it's quite sharp it has its place in cuisine and it often comes from if you've caramelized your onions and stuff too much at the start acid on the other hand is that kind of vibrant zingy flavor that you get from citrus fruit and vinegar one of the best ways to solve bitterness is to use acid or spice now the reason i give you two options in that one is because often you don't want to add too much more spice if you're not super into it and number 13 well we've all done it what you cooked is too well if it's a sauce based dish one of the easiest ways to solve that is to add more stuff if you add something like a peeled and diced potato it's going to absorb a lot of that salt and should be better balanced you can also solve salt with acid works really really well and sweetness works well also but if you've completely stuffed up and something is really salty the best way and unfortunately the longest way is to make another whole batch and add the original batch to that batch but don't add any salt to the new batch how many times can i say batch in one sentence number 14 you got distracted i was watching the masters and i've burnt the bottom of my pot first things first if you even suspect that you've burnt this do not put your spoon in there if you put your spoon in and you feel that it's stuck to the bottom stop what you're doing the worst thing you can do is scrape the bottom of the pan right now turn the heat off let it just simmer out for a second get a fresh pan and pour it in do not scrape the bottom i repeat do not scrape the just get all the loose stuff out of there and leave that this is the worst part about burning your pot is having to deal with this in the sink after but that's a later job now it's in a clean pot have a taste and see how bad the damage is it should be fine you've caught it before it gets really bad what most people do is they scrape the bottom and then all you're doing is putting all that burnt bitter flavor through the rest of the curry if you have done that and then your curry becomes bitter guess what you refer back to number 12 and try and fix that bitterness issue mistake number 15 your stew or soup has a layer of fat on the top of it i'm not sure what the issue is fat is flavored just leave it in there but if you do want to get rid of it you got a couple of options if you've got a bit of a lumpy texture like this here curry a good option is just to put a piece of bread on the top and let it soak up all that fat the other option is to skim it off use a spoon put it just under the surface let the spoon fill up with oil and remove it just the same way we do so there you go all the fat removed that goes back there mistake number 16 you've undercooked your rice you silly duffer how did you get here well it's because you didn't put enough water in it is the long and short of it with jasmine rice like this you're looking at a ratio of about 1.5 to 1 so one cup of rice 1.5 cups of water but the old finger trick always works wash your rice cover it with water touch the top of the rice with your finger the water should come to your first crease it always works there's no if ands or buts if you do find yourself with rice that's undercooked and there's no water pretty simple add a little bit more water put a lid on it back on a low heat for another three minutes don't take the lid off turn the heat off another three minutes and it'll be better won't be perfect but it'll be better and if you overcook your rice there's not much you can do about it i'm afraid the best thing you can do is either eat soggy rice or turn it into rice porridge either sweet or savory number 17 your dough is too wet so if you get to the point when you're making your dough of any type you followed the recipe but you find that there's just too wet it's like slopping everywhere and you're already on the board just knead in heaps of extra flour it's pretty simple but like everything you can add it but you can't take it out little bit by little bit keep adding flour keep kneading it until it stops becoming sticky mistake number 18 my pizza dough will not stretch out anymore it just keeps springing back all that needs to happen is you need to relax leave your dough cover it in a dry tea towel leave it for 10 minutes go have a nice tea sit down relax let the dough relax and then come back to it and it'll keep stretching oh look at that now it's too stretchy perfect pizza mama mia is that racist mistake 19 and something i get asked about all the time you've overcooked your meat now the truth is there's not heaps you can do about this other than cover it in a sauce or put it in a soup whatever you do don't throw it out chicken's probably the easiest one to kind of cover it works really well with things like mayonnaise like i've already made so pull your chicken apart shred it and then stir it through mayonnaise no one's ever gonna know but if you've overcooked a steak unfortunately there's no bringing that back to where you want it so the best solution to not overcook meat is to invest in one of these numbers don't lie yum you never know it's overcooked ah and number 20 what do you do if you burn your garlic you throw it out and you start again that's gonna taste disgusting it's gonna ruin your whole meal thanks for watching legends we'll see you next week for another video peace back to doom scrolling