If you haven’t yet watched Chris Young’s video “World’s Best Air Fries” you will want to check it out. The overall process he demonstrates is complex enough to make it a little awkward for every day use but one thing involved that I have adopted every time I air fry now is this:

Put oil (not cooking spray) on the food AFTER it has cooked and you have seasoned it.

When you put it on at the beginning the oil tends to get stripped away by the steam coming out of the food and ends up dripping down into the pan.

But when you put it on after it warms up with the heat of the food and gives you the “just out of the deep fryer” hot oil taste, the thing that has always missing but you couldn’t put your finger on.

EDIT: It seems a lot of people are struggling to understand the concept here. I’m not saying you can’t use oil at the beginning, just that in my experience it really doesn’t affect the outcome as much we believe it does. And I’m not saying drown it in oil, just a spritz. If you don’t like vegetable oil then use what you do like.

Before you dismiss the whole concept take one or two of whatever from your next batch of air fried food and try it to see what I mean.

After 20 years in professional kitchens vodka sauce is one of those dishes that instantly shows who is paying attention to technique vs just following steps. Most home versions end up as pink cream sauce because they skip or rush the parts that actually build depth.

Here is what nobody explains well. Vodka isn't there for flavor. Its a neutral solvent that extracts compounds from tomatoes and aromatics that water and fat cant reach. Those compounds stay in the sauce after the alcohol cooks off. That's where that rounder deeper taste comes from. Skip it or rush it and youve got tomato cream sauce.

Mushrooms are the other big miss. Most recipes ignore them or undercook them. I use about 12 oz cremini mushrooms quartered (sometimes I use sliced portobellas) and sear them hard after building the base. You want real color and fond on the pan. Those browned bits are umami bombs and add more depth than extra cream ever could. This is so important.

For the base its 8-10 oz diced pancetta, 2 shallots minced, 2 tablespoons garlic, the mushrooms, quarter cup vodka, and a tablespoon of crushed red pepper (we used to use a red pepper infused vodka in the restaurant). For the sauce 16 oz good tomatoes, salt, 8 oz heavy cream, and fresh peas at the end for brightness. Finish with a pound of rigatoni and fresh grated parmesan. USE A GOOD QUALITY CHEESE. That is a must and always fresh!

Start pancetta in a cold pan, low heat, render the fat before it crisps. Shallots go in to soften, then garlic for 30 seconds max. Mushrooms next, higher heat, let them sit and sear for real color.

Vodka goes in off heat. If you are using a gas stove - make sure you know what you are doing - Vodka is very flammable. Back on the flame, let it reduce fully. I always ignite mine, if cooking on electric you can use a lighter, just tilt the pan away from you. Tomatoes in, salt NOW not before, simmer and reduce, then stir in the cream. Peas last minute.

Here is the part they dont tell you. Do not drain your pasta. Use a spider (preferred) or slotted spoon to transfer it straight from the water into the sauce. That starchy coating is what makes everything cling and emulsify. The second you drain it you rinse all that off. Once you start doing this you wont go back.

Parmesan goes right on top of the hot pasta in the pan. Wait 10-15 seconds for it to start melting then fold everything together. Let the pasta finish in the sauce for another minute off heat.

Anyone else swear by spider transfer over draining? Still draining out of habit? What is your non-negotiable twist on vodka sauce - mushrooms, peas, protein add-in?

I own a large wooden cutting board that is too big to easily wash in the sink, not impossible, just a pain. I always wash it with soap and water when it touches raw meat or I have some very wet vegetables like a juicy onion.

How often do you guys wash or should I wash my cutting board with soap and water when cutting normal vegetables? Should they be washing it after every use or a couple times a week?

I don't know if this is just a me thing or not, but every time I watch a cooking video and see them squeezing out the roasted garlic, I just want to scream "stop wasting the garlic!". I can't do it myself. After it's done roasting, I always peel each individual clove to ensure no wastage. Anyone else?

I'm sick of all the "I KNEW I was supposed to let this cook for half an hour, but I just lost track on time and now it's burned/my kitchen's on fire" stories I hear from my family and friends. Just set an alarm.

I also don't get the "but it doesn't always cook properly in the time it says on the recipe" excuse. Set an alarm, check it, and if it's not cooked leave it a little longer. Next time, you'll know exactly how long to live it. You won't, however, if you just go by eye and never even register how much time has actually passed to make it perfect.

I'd rather have un-fresh, dried out, edible leafs than rotten, rancid ones.

I’ll start- Beef Wellington.

What an absolute abomination of beef to remove any kind of Maillard reaction and enjoy some steamed meat.

My god I have never understood how tomatoes are considered a staple in most sandwiches. Yeah, adding a wet, gushy vegetable with overpowering flavors, non of which complement anything else that goes on sandwiches typically sounds like a fantastic idea. This goes for hamburgers as well, though at least a fatty beef patty can somewhat stand up to the taste while everything else you put on will assuredly be drowned out.

The only really exception I can think of off the top of my head is a BLT, as the point of that is obviously a high quality tomato, but outside of this you might as well just dunk your perfectly good Italian into a tub of water.

Why do youtubers or online guides make it out to be complicated? It’s not that hard, I don’t even have a rice cooker at home and I make rice daily.

Most important step is to get the right type of rice:

Jasmine Rice

1. Rinse rice

2. Add water in 1:1 or 1:1.5 ratio (you can measure the rice in a cup before rinsing it to make it easier for you to portion the water). Alternatively, do the finger method.

3. Cover and cook on medium-high heat

4. Once water starts to boil/bubble up turn the heat to low

5. Give it maybe 5 minutes or once the water is gone, turn the heat off.

Voila, fluffy white rice.

Also, this is easier to do on a pot with a glass lid. Once you get better at cooking rice, you can also learn to do some troubleshooting such as adding hot water if too much water has evaporated.

I made a comment earlier today that was insensitive, insulting and misdirected. Someone was proud of flipping an egg without breaking the yolk and my dumbass made a joke about hoping they were 10.... It was uncalled for and rude.

I grew up with a self driven passion for cooking. I freaked out my single shift working firefighter of a father by burning toast and making some messed up version of eggs at 4.... After that I was taught how to cook at home. Then in mandatory home ec classes.

So because I was a holy terror as a child and was taught the basics of cooking at a young age I made a very distasteful joke about someone proud of an accomplishment and I'm sorry

Hi:) i really hope its okay to post this here. Exactly what the title says, how?

I have been vegetarian for 2 years. For a while now ive been feeling tired constantly, and a lot of other symptoms related to lack of vitamins and nutrients found in meat. Ive been trying to convince myself to eat meat again, but Ive read about how conscious farm animals really are and how they form relationships with eachother, that just made it so much worse.

If you have any advice it would be so helpful! (Thankyou to everyone replying, i know its dumb to ask, i just cant think of what else to do)

So my husband grilled a perfect New York Steak for us for Easter. After resting the meat, I spooned a little of the juice onto our steak slices. After dinner was over, I tore a piece of bread in half, sopped up the rest of the juices and sprinkled it with a little bit of salt and pepper and ate it over the sink. It was the best part of the dinner. Does anyone else do this?

I forgot what stage of capitalism we are in and thought I'd save a couple dollars buying the cheap chicken breasts. They all have that awful texture that cheap, poorly raised chicken has sometimes. I really can't stomach it. I hate to waste them. Has anyone found a way to disguise / help the texture of cheap chicken breasts?

Hey all, I'm new here so I'm sorry if this isn't the right place! I am looking for some rules of thumb to help me make healthier choices while cooking. I eat pretty much everything + can follow recipes. Cooking is one of my special interests.

I am autistic, and I'm trying to lose some weight. I'm currently 230 pounds. However, I don't want to count calories or do a specific diet like keto because I think it would devolve into an eating disorder pretty quick.

Does anyone have suggestions for rules of thumb I can follow daily in my cooking that can help me? So far, I really only have:

-use substitute sugar when possible

update: thank you all for the comments! I will read through them and see if I can piece together some rules for me to follow! I appreciate it!

I know i may get downvotes and accused of being judgey and thats ok!! i deserve it. i think there is much pro crock pot bias, that the other side must be heard.

1. Crock pot cooking promotes flavorless food: my former MIL would throw in a 5 lb frozen roast with some chopped veg and let it sit in the crock pot for 12 hours. If your goal is food with flavor, you must prep it before and not "throw everything" in raw.

2. Crock pot cooking does not save on clean up: you must brown the roast, the onions, whatever. What about deglazing? Cant do that in a crockpot. you end up with two messy dishes.

3. crock pot takes up space: not ideal for small kitchens.

4. .crock pots are unsightly.

5. Your oven is a crcok pot: many crock pot enthusasts like the set it and forget it feature. You can get that by putting your oven on its lowest setting. The lowest setting on mine 170 degrees F.

6. crock pots cant handle dairy or pasta: the low temps at a long time just curdle the dairy. it doesnt get hot enough to cook pasta right.

7. crock pots heat unevenly: all a crock pot is is a "crcok" with an electrical coil around it or under it. when the coil doesnt heat evenly, you get burnt food.

In sum, a good cast iron, enameled dutch oven and a conventional oven can do everything a crock pot does and then some.

It's fall and beef prices are ridiculous (Thanks Trump). So instead of cooking chuck roasts, I'm working to explore other avenues.

Has anyone slow cooked pork butts or shoulders and topped them with gravy instead of BBQ sauce? Gravy is such a comfort sauce and I'm trying to identify recipes to incorporate pork in the dish.

So, I wanted a KFC, but that’s expensive and not particularly healthy. I had the idea I could recreate it, googled the recipe for the herbs and spices and came across a reddit post.

In the comments of this post I saw a comment by a user and it quoted a bloke called Jay Masor who is a reporter for the Chicago Tribune (no idea who he is or what what the Chicago Tribune is, a newspaper I am guessing). The comment stated Jay had posted the recipe he had some how acquired in an article and the ingredients were stated and their measurements.

I thought I’d take this as gospel from this reddit user and bought the ingredients and tried to make a healthier alternative of KFC.

The first hurdle I came up against (which I now regret) was the measurements were in table spoons. As an English man I don’t want to use this as I want to work in metrics. I googled how many grams in a table spoons and told me 15g is around a tablespoon. A solution I would soon find to be a problem.

Measuring the ingredients in grams really warped the physical amount of the ingredients. A table spoon as a being a size like measurement over a weight measurement is a far better idea. Because 15gs of oregano is quite a lot, compared to what 15g of salt looks like.

I measured and divided as advised in the recipe. And made around 200g of this supposed “KFC” recipe. To make this healthier I opted to use it as more of a seasoning or a rub for my chicken over a crispy skin. I diced a chicken breast and coated it with 1kal spray and covered it in seasoning. I wanted the flavour of KFC over the oil and grease of it. I stuck the chicken in the fridge for an hour to marinate in its dry rub.

I also opted to air fry over pan or oil fry the chicken. I chucked it in for 14 minutes at 200 degrees as I do with the chicken I eat every single day and it’s nice and juicy snd faultless everytime.

The chicken came out well cooked, and smelled okay. It smelled nothing like KFC. It tasted nothing like KFC. It did however taste very nice in general, but not what it was intended to taste like. I have no complaints, but disappointed in myself.

Moral of the story, if your recipe says 3 tablespoons spoons of black pepper, don’t put 45 grams of pepper in as a metric, because that’s a lot of pepper.

I have plenty of the seasoning made and will be using it. I also have plenty of spices and will give this a V2.

I will post the recipe I used and try and take the user that posted it. I will also put in brackets the metrics I used, just for awareness, and will advise if you want some tasty chicken that’s peppery and seasoned well, to try my messed up KFC attempt.

I used to think putting bread in the fridge was a culinary sin because of staling, but I read about the scale of global bread waste the other day and decided to try it. With a tight bag clip to prevent dry-out, the fridge completely stops mold. When you want a slice, a couple of minutes in the toaster completely reverses the starch retrogradation and makes it taste fresh out of the oven.

I notice on this subreddit, and on recipes posted on tiktok and youtube, that some comments are like ‘where’s the garlic?!’ or ‘this would be better with garlic’ and the recipe is a carbonara.

i love garlic and often use more than is called for in recipes that include it but the sentiment that ‘everything is better with garlic’ is weird to me? there are some places where it doesn’t belong and it can overpower easily.

i hope i don’t get hate for this i’m just genuinely confused why it has to be in everything.

This is how I cook rice on the stove:

- warm up pot

- drizzle of olive oil

- add rice, coat in olive oil

- add water, add salt, stir a little

- let cook

I eat some after cooking, then leave the leftover rice on my stove with a lid on the pot for max 3 days. I’ve done this for about a year, never had any issues: rice looks, smells, tastes fine at three days, reheats fine, etc. Past two times in the past week, I go to look at rice on day 2 and there is about half an inch of water in the pot, the rice is all soggy and mushy and smells horrible. I’ve thrown it out both times. I’ve never had this issue before in my rice cooking. This is the only way I’ve ever cooked rice (used instant before a year ago), and to my knowledge I am not doing anything differently.

What is this about???

Bougie dinner party ideas. Cooking for a couple with more money than a celebrity at my 1400 square foot starter home. Needs to be gluten free and dairy free. I really want to impress but they own part of the fanciest restaurant in my city... HELP!

My husband (bless his heart) invited over his business mentor and wife to our house for a Tuesday night dinner. He wants it to be a special "Thank you" dinner for all the advice he has bestowed upon my husband over the years. Sweet, but I am freaking out!!! I am a pretty good cook. I have a sous vide, double oven, instant pot and slow cooker.

The menu restrictions are dairy free and gluten free. We want to impress but are also a middle class income. Furthermore, the night that my husband picked, we are both working until an hour before our guests arrive. Anything make-ahead or sous vide would be greatly appreciated!

The night is in two weeks but it is a big deal. I want my husband to be able to impress his mentor.

I’ve noticed a disturbing trend. Example: My father in-law made us spaghetti one evening. Sure ok, love spaghetti. He proudly declared the sauce was made from a packet. Just thin watery sauce packet, that’s it. No chopped onion, or veg. It’s a disturbing trend. My mom, who worked in the restaurant business and ran her own restaurant for years, hates anything green or vegetables, pours things out of a can if she is going to really be fancy. What’s with the older generation and their cooking/nutrition?

yes obviously i know that salt is essential to bring out the flavours of the food, but i mean i would need to add salt to everything, even if it's not a whole meal or cooked dish, like if im eating some fresh fruit, salt on that, if its a bowl of cereal with milk, still needs salt, a dessert like a scoop of ice cream, a slice of cake, a cookie, all get a good sprinkle of salt. any kind of beverage like my coffee, tea, whatever, also has salt added. i wouldn't say that it is enough to make the food taste noticeably 'salty', like the salt is not the dominant flavour but you can definitely taste it. i thought that this was something that everyone always does but apparently not, which i found out when discussing this with some others. any food without a bit of salt on it just tastes bland and 'incomplete' to me, like the flavour is almost 'boring' or muted . ironically i prefer sweet foods over savoury foods, but with salt added to the sweet stuff as well.

edit: i appreciate the concerns and advice. to clarify i rarely (if ever at all) have ultra processed packaged food products in my regular diet so i don't think it would be that but now that i think about it, dehydration might be a possibility, another potential factor i didn't mention is that i am an athlete (so a lot of sweating) and also live in a tropical area. and so perhaps those could be some of the reasons why i occasionally impulsively lick the salt lamp in my room