Five Things TV Chefs Do That Are Wrong

• I keep telling Delia about this but she won't llisten. Silly tart. MarillionFan

• The oil in the pasta water may not prevent sticking but it does reduce boiling over.

• I tried making burritos with cold tortillas once. The tortillas cracked very easily.

• *nods* Oil is a last-ditch effort ONLY when you're not paying attention & realize your pot's boiling over. #fb

• I'd say Sandra Lee far surpasses Rachael Ray in revolting recipes.

• I saw an episode once where she made mac and cheese with sweet potatoes or yams as some of the base "for nutrition" and to "get kids to eat veggies" - its not a vegetable if you blend it with a pound of butter, cheese and milk. DUH Rachael Ray!

• I don't add a drop of oil to my pasta water to keep the pasta from sticking, I do it to break the surface tension of the water to prevent the water from boiling over. Bring a pot of water to a steady boil, dump your pasta in, add a pinch of salt, a drop of oil, and move on while it comes back up to a boil. Reduce the heat and let it cook till al dente while you make salad or whatnot. Sounds simple, and it is when you don't have company over and your kids aren't fighting with their kids. In that scenario, the spot of oil gives a little more flexibility. So, holding the knife by the handle is wrong, even if your index finger isn't sprawling across the back of the blade? Why do knives have handles?

• You can't turn an electric hob down like you can a gas hob... so oiling the water is better than having half the starchy water ending up all over the hob in a mess.

• Just a thought - adding oil to pasta water isn't usually done to stop it sticking. It's actually done to stop it boiling over if you can't afford one of those massive "proper" pasta pans.

• Agreed and rolling-boiling pasta ( which is mostly steam ) cooks it in half the time.

• Half of the people using it ARE NOT CHEFS WITH TRAINING. They are real people, without time to cook like they are on a freakin' tv show. Relax and mind your business and let people do what they want. If they want to be lazy while cooking (maybe ohhh I don't know...they have KIDS, or PETS, or just many things going on), as long as you aren't eating it, you have no reason to be rude to strangers about their cooking preferences.

• 1. The japanese method of holding a knife is with the finger along the spine. The western way of holding a knife is as described in, what I think is, a pretty poor article.

• There's a lot of shit going on in a kitchen. Putting oil in you pasta water buys you time to not have to deal with an overflowing pot. Do you what you want to do, I'll stick with keeping my water boiling and my pasta cooking.

• The tone of your article makes you sound like an ass. Some of us put a little oil in the water to cut down on the foaming of the protiens that float to the surface.

• Kenji at Serious Eats did a lot of testing to figure out the best way to cook pasta. http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/05/how-to-cook-pasta-salt-water-boiling-tips-the-food-lab.html Don't bother oiling the water, and definitely don't oil the pasta after it comes out of the pot. Oil in the pasta water just floats on the surface. It's a waste, and does nothing for helping the pasta stay separated. Besides, we've also already shown today that given a good stir at the proper moment, you should have no problem with pasta sticking anyway. Oiling the pasta after it comes out of the water is a good way to ensure that your sauce won't stick to it properly, which takes us to the next point... Sauce your pasta immediately Have your sauce hot and ready in a separate pan right next to the boiling pasta. As soon as you drain the pasta, transfer it to the pan with the sauce and immediately start tossing it to coat, adding reserved pasta water as necessary to adjust the consistency.

• Alton Brown ran a bit on this, and actually measured the amount of oil he put in, and measured the oil that ran out with the water when he drained it. The amount recovered was minuscule - not nearly enough to lubricate the pasta, but also not nearly enough to affect the ability of the sauce to stick to the pasta.

• Well said.

• The article title,"Five Things TV Chefs Do That Are Wrong", is inappropriate. It's not really as much about right or wrong as it is about best practices. For instance, it's not really "wrong" to oil your pasta water, but a cook who's aiming to make the best pasta in a traditional sense, will not oil the water. It's not "wrong" to salt the outside of a piece of meat and ignore the inside. There are no hard and fast rules about keeping the application of seasoning and flavorings consistent throughout a piece of food. Marinating and brining are two other and different methods for infusing moisture and flavors into food. As far as holding a knife properly, common sense should prevail (it IS sharp!) as well as efficient and ease of use. Regarding tortillas; they're pretty tough and soggy if not pre-heated and traditionally, they are warmed. Generally, putting hot food into or onto something cold is not good practice. As far as tasting baked goods right out the oven, if you don't want to burn the inside of your mouth, you'll wait and I'm sure the TV chefs do or they taste a precooled sample instead. Cooking is pretty much a "taste" thing and taste is a very subjective thing. Cook so it tastes good to you. If you enjoy eating and cooking, then you'll practice and try to improve your methods and study and learn the various traditions of preparing food so you can be freer to alter them to suit your taste. When all is said and done, what most TV cooks are trying to do is encourage you to get out there a make yourself some "good eats".

• Well, in my experience, searing, if done correctly (that means that you don't break through the seared crust), does "seal" in the juices. When I make burgers, for instance, I warn my guests to pierce the burger first before taking the first bite, otherwise they get a burst of very hot juices in the face and on their hands. When I sear a steak, a nice crust is formed and when properly rested only releases a small amount of juice with most of it nicely locked into the meat for maximum succulence.

• Mario Batali might have a heart attack because he's a fat pig. He is also a fake Italian - New Jersey style.

• Iceman - You're exactly right, but that was my point. Rachel's show is for the simple home cook. My point was she's not a chef, doesn't claim to be one, and has recipes for simple home cooks. So here's my defense again: If she opens an occassional can, who cares? Obviously, you do, but why? Why are you so militant about what other people do with their food?

• It's an Italian word. Pronounce it correctly, or call it something else. It's just pretentious to use a foreign name if you don't know how to use it correctly.

• Batali makes a lot of mistakes with the Italian language.I think he is a disgusting pig.

• 1. There is no one perfect way, but some are better than others. The technique this article suggests is better than most. 2. Whether or not the oil prevents the pasta sticking is moot from this article's point of view: the author always finishes cooking his pasta in the sauce. 4. Read more carefully: he doesn't say to not season meat. This article has merit.

• if youd ever worked in a restaurant you'd know that unless they use fresh pasta, pasta is cooked before hand in lage batches. That pasta is then put in to large containers with oil so the pasta doesn't stick together. That pasta is then dropped in water for 30 seconds, before being plated.

• Salt is used for a number of purposes in cooking. Among them, and probably most important, is seasoning. Salt when used as seasoning, brings out flavors in food and affects the way we taste food. Salt (and pepper) have been used for centuries to more fully realize flavors and the experience of tasting. Seasoning food with them is fundamental to our eating experience. Period! Salt is also used to help foods release water (or other fluids) either during cooking or in other ingredient preparation. That's also why it's used in a lot of curing and preserving processes. The use of the best and freshest ingredients possible permits a more judicious use of seasonings and the best and healthiest eating experiences.

• 1. Different people have varied knife techniques. There is no 1 perfect way. 2. Oil in pasta water does help stop the pasta from sticking. 3. I've worked in restaurants for years and have dealt with many tortillas. Cold isn't optimum, but most people don't keep tortillas in the freezer anyways. I worked in one kitchen where we did. It wasn't a big issue. 4. Yes marinating is a great way to flavor meat. This doesn't mean that seasoning a piece of meat is wrong. You always have to season un-marinated meat. 5. Noone on this entire planet who watched cooking shows believes they are pulling the pie they just prepared 30 seconds ago out of an oven, and having it fully baked. Terrible terrible article.

• No you are right Matt, Alton dispelled that myth for us, for those that claimed Julia said they use salt volume for the camera I guess never noticed in her day she was using the little girl with the umbrella salt and pouring it out of the metal spout. She, like every decent chef today, said to season every layer for the best flavor. The holding of a knife is true but there is a right way, a wrong way and then how everyone else does it. By the way you should never try to catch your falling slicing knife. I gree it should never have to be said but when mine fell off the board I tried to catch it and though the cuts were nice and smooth they did get a little deep. Canned veggies are not bad and nobody ever said they were. The process they go through to package them does change the flavor a little. Frozen veggies don't have the additives that are found in canned food but I notice that never stopped many chefs from grabbing a can of beans and washing them off and cooking with them. Julia made finished products in advance to show them off and seasoned her food and sometimes even held a knife wrong. Let's go into your kitchen and collect hours of video on you next and see what we find. A double dipper maybe?

• This is not true. Not only do you need salt to live but it makes food not taste bland. The whole salt fear thing is bogus unless you have high blood pressure problems.

• Agreed...I don't rinse pasta in cold water. You shouldn't need to be so worried about cooling it off unless you're boiling it too long in the first place. I cook it al dente or even remove it from the heat before that if I'm going to finish it by adding it to pan to cook for a minute along with the sauce. And yes... always reserving a little of that good pasta water.

• Welcome Lifehacker readers. http://lifehacker.com/#!5772315/keep-your-index-finger-off-the-bottom-of-your-chefs-knife

• The pasta water has lots of starch in it. Have you ever used a cornstarch/water slurry to thicken anything? Same idea.

• How about where they say the seering meat seals in the juices? It doesn't! Searing meet creates flavor, creates a crust but it does not cauterize the meat.

• you THICKEN your sauce by adding water?

• I gotta say a lot of the comments in here sure make a number of you out to be elitists. Who cares what ingredients people use as long as the food tastes good, in the end that is what really matters. Oh god forbid someone use a canned vegetable! Blasphemy!

• Yup, Prima donnas I think.

• So, the dictionaries list both pronunciations... which is correct?

• Finally, iceman4444, here is a post with some substance! Please stop harping on the pasta issue! You are correct in your asseveration concerning oil-on-pasta water, but; PLEASE!!! We all have our methods and practices when we cook; there are relatively few fiats when it comes to food and cooking - oil in pasta water is not one of them - it's OK... Now, cross-contamination and "celebrity"-chef-censure should be. cheers all!

• I have repeatedly heard Mario Batali mispronounce bruschetta with the "sshh" So 'splain dat! Is he talking down or dumbing it down for the plebes? El Coche anaranjado.

• Wow. So much jealousy! lol

• From Wikipedia: "Originally, in general film-making usage the term "money shot" was a reference to the scene that cost the most money to produce;" But you are right - most people think of the porn version, because porn in what we think alot about.

• Yes, but she's quite attractive; I'm not really interested in what she's cooking.

• Well, if we're going to be nit-picky, it's try "to" replicate, not try "and" replicate.

• Cooking olive oil reduces its flavor. You'd be better off using good EVOO and putting it raw on the finished pasta.

• And her stuff is so unhealthy, yet the Food Network doesn't seem to care that she describes over-fatty dishes and salty recipes as "heart healthy!" and "calorie-savers!". Seriously, it's verging on malpractice when she talks about nutrition.

• Mainly, with the exception of America's Test Kitchen, TV cooks just all say the same thing -- especially the Food Network cooks that are more celebrity than chef. You literally hear them saying the same things, verbatim, at times. It's just entertainment and a ratings game that pretends to be about cooking, for an overweight audience that is probably never going to actually cook anything. And look how grossly overweight and unhealthy many of the "chefs" are -- Paula Deen, Mario Batali, Ina Garten. Yuk. Plus, I realize how weak their recipes are when I watch the amount of salt they have to add sauces and things. Good cooking doesn't require that much salt or butter, but bad cooking does.

• No, the solution is to turn down your burner.

• Borderline? I'd say she's way over the edge.

• One other mistake - one included here - is the amount of salt used by professional cooks on TV and in many restaurants. Most of know by now that this is not needed, actually blocks the natural flavors of the food and is unhealthy, to boot. Unfortunately, when one is used to large amounts of salt in food, the salt acts almost like an addiction: you need more and more of it to taste it at all.

• OMG TV is not real life?!?!?

• iceman, you have to cool down a bit. you're clearly overreacting. as others told you, oil added to pasta when cooking DOES NOT ruin the texture (or maybe it does if you're using sh..t pasta, which I know little about), sauce STICKS to pasta which was cooked with oil just as well, believe me. don't be ridiculous just to make a point - you're wrong!

• of course the oil will stop the boiling over, but it ruins the pasta!!! Any chef with any type of training knows this. If you do this you don't know what you are doing and are being lazy. If you oiled the pasta in an Italian or French restaurant they would fire you on the spot. Just watch your pasta and put it at a proper temperature so it won't boil over. You shouldn't just walk away and think all is good. Watch the water, get it to a rolling boil, and turn down the heat. It amazes me how so many don't even know how to make pasta. NEVER EVER EVER OIL THE PASTA. your sauce will not stick properly to the pasta, and it will ruin the texture.

• Giada is over the top trying to be sexy. She acts like a 18 year old rich party girl at a girl at a girls gone wild taping. Her slow tastes and moans, and licking the spoon slowly and then widening her eyes super wide is so sophomoric it's ridiculous. Her shows are a joke.

• I use oil every time I cook pasta, not to prevent it from sticking or from overboiling, never have any of those problems - all you have to do is use good quality pasta and adequate pot. I use oil (olive oil to be precise) only to add a bit of additional flavor to my pasta. ruined texture or sauce sliding off is absolute boll..cks!

• Most smart shows Iron Mike do something very genius; THEY MAKE A PIE EARLIER!! In fact many shows have the assistants do it. IT ISN'T ROCKET SCIENCE! The old shows did it all the time. I agree about this being about image, and not about cooking talent. Even Tony Bordain said he wasn't much of a cook.

• EA you are arrogant and ignorant. Try it the right way and see the difference. Your pasta sucks if you put oil in it and run water. Yuck

• AGAIN; NEVER EVER EVER use oil in your pasta water. It will ruin your pasta. You want the starch so the sauce will stick to the pasta. You will also ruin the texture. Turn down the heat and bring it to a rolling boil or even put a wooden spoon in it. If you are oiling it to not boil over, you are just lazy.

• lol; stan are you serious? it takes 1 minute to heat tortillas in a microwave. You then can keep them warm in a tortilla warmer. All you have to do for pies is make another one hours before the show. Many shows do this and in fact assistants do it. I've never heard Julia Child make that comment and I think you are wrong. I've worked in restaurants and they use a TON of salt and a TON of oil and butter. That's why it tastes good. If these are trained chefs they will use a ton of salt. your explanation is ridiculous in my mind. Baking 2 pies is too expensive? Cooking tortillas in a microwave for a minute? using salt? I think your explanations are really ridiculous.

• ...with your comment being the first!

• using oil in the pasta is defeating the purpose of cooking pasta. Your stove top temp is too high. Turn it down. Just putting it on high and letting the water overflow is ridiculous. Turn the temp down. Oil will ruin the pasta and the sauce will slide off of it and also ruin the texture of the pasta.

• You are right dave; if you can't cook fresh veggies and fruits in a short time you have serious issues. Her recipes borderline on gross.

• dwayne she is the highest paid tv cook on television. Seeing rachel ray open cans is a joke. You can make 30 minute meals without opening cans. So to be fair your defense of her is wrong. Like Sarah Palin, people could care less what she does and says because she is 40 going on 16, acts like a cute girl, has cute catch phrases and people love it. If you cant' cook vegetables in 4-10 minutes in a skillet, you are not that good a cook. Jacque Pepin is one of the great chefs and his techniques are simple and easy to use. I'm sorry; if you are opening canned vegetables and fruits you are a pathetic cook, or a simple home cook. Another thing many do is not clean the bowls of batter with spatulas, double dip when they taste something, and ridiculously touch the tops of oil or vinegar spouts to fish, raw meat, or even raw chicken. If you do that it's contaminated and should never be used again. Americans love celebs more than any other country in the world. It isn't even close. And image is over substance every time.

• Lets face it; tv chefs are all about catch phrases and how cute they can be. Rachel Rays recipes are ridiculous. I also see chefs putting strawberries or even pomegranate seeds in risotto and everything else they can find. Putting oil in the pasta is done by rank amateurs. You want the pasta to keep the starch so the pasta sauce will stick to it. If your pasta water is boiling over the temperature is too high. Also keeping a wooden spoon in the pot will break up the surface tension of the water and keep it from boiling. NEVER put oil in your water.

• This is the 2nd dumbest article I have ever read on the whole internet.

• I use oil in my pasta water every time and run cold water on the pasta after it cooks and my sauces clings to the pasta just fine, be it a tomato base or cream base, or some other base.

• Putting oil in the pasta water is actually to reduce surface tension on the top of the water. As starches are given off by the pasta that is cooking, the water will bubble over if not monitored, but the oil stops the water from bubbling up and spilling over. And for the guy that says "If your pasta water is boiling over, either you have used too small a pot or too much pasta for the amount of water", you've clearly never made homemade pasta, which will have been freshly dusted with flour to keep it from sticking, thus leading to a good bit of extra starches in the water. Also, if all you're after is salting the meat evenly, don't marinate, brine.

• So when guy chefs take a bite of food at the end of a segment, what does that mean...

• Watch Giada de Laurentiis or Nigella Lawson take a bite of food at the end of a segment and tell me that analogy is not spot on.

• Nah...

• Why why why use the phrase "money shot"? Can we come up with a term not borrowed from porn?

• Except, when you add oil, your sauce will not stick to the pasta. dah???

• If your pasta water is boiling over, either you have used too small a pot or too much pasta for the amount of water. A big pot of water may take a long time to boil but it returns to the boil quickly after you put in the pasta. And no, I never, ever run cold water on pasta. It washes off the starch that makes the sauce cling. I boil the pasta until it's not quite done, drain (reserving a bit of the water to help thicken the sauce) and then finish cooking the pasta in the sauce. Oil on pasta means no sauce on pasta.

• You don't have to use a lot of water to cook pasta and keep it from sticking...

• 2) Oil in the pasta water is to keep it from bubbling over. 5) Most shows do not have the time to wait an hour until the baked goods cool before cutting into them. Wouldn't be such a big deal if they would explicitly say that the one they are cutting into was made prior to filming. What really cheeses me off is when a chef on TV says to "carmalize" the meat. Browning meat occurs because of the Maillard reaction. The thing to keep in mind about TV chefs is that most of them have never cooked in a production restaurant. Half of these "TV pros" have a bit of schooling, and maybe some boutique catering/personal chef experience. Then the other half seem to conveniently forget that most homes don't have a 6-8 burner gas stove, two ovens, and an industrial strength range hood. Most of the new TV food personalities are brought on for their personalities, not their cooking ability.

• Ditto on the oil/pot-boiling-over comment. I wasn't even aware that people thought it was to keep the pasta from sticking to each other. That's just silly..

• I thought it was common knowledge that oil in boiling water was to keep the foam down not to keep it from sticking. Also, when you drain it, the light oil DOES keep it from sticking even after you give it a cold water rinse to halt the cooking process. You DO that, right?

• "They want as few takes as possible and as " sb "They want as few takes as FAST as possible and as"

• Some of the the problem lies with modern TV production. They want as few takes as possible and as smoothly as possible. So aside from pronunciation, cold tortllas could be a time factor, and they could have said, 'you need to heat these forwasier rolling, but we don't have time'. TV chefs like Julia, have commented that they over salted on TV just so the camera could see the salt flying. I think the amount of salt used on most shows is absurd. As for hot pies, they would have to pay everyone to hang for another hour or have baked an third or fourth pie to have it cooled off, depending on how they sequenced the show. (rested pie dough, pie dough in tin crimped, pie dough blind baked, pie with top crust, baked pie - the most sequences that I can think of to do pie in 6 minutes). If you're cheap or don't know how to multi-task and recut segments to save on production costs, you are not going to have the staff hang around for a hour while the pie cools.

• Well to be fair, she never claims to be a chef, and her show is about getting a meal done in 30 minutes. She never claims that it's gourmet.

• I put oil in the pasta pot for the simple reason that it makes the pot much less likely to boil over. The reason is due to the proteins in the pasta breaking down into emulsifiers, which cause bubbles to form and ultimately boil over. The solution is to use oil to 'use up' these emulsifiers and prevent this from happening.

• This is why Rachael Ray sticks to opening cans of stuff.

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