Safety
To your hand – Burning your hand usually comes in 3 ways:
- The pan/pot handle
- Hot liquid
- Microwaved plate.
Lets take these one at a time:
Pan/ Pot handle: You would expect the pan or pot handles to heat up from the stove flame. However, they may also be associated with positioning. Let me explain. Lets say on burner left front you are cooking rice in a pot. No problem right, you know the pot handles will be hot. What about the pan that is front right? It’s not even on the flame, right?
So you reach to move it and burn your hand, why? The handle was facing inwards, and heated up because of the rice flame. Always face your panhandles outwards. If it’s on the left, pan handle to the left. If it’s in the right, panhandle right. This way the handle will always stay out of flame distance.
HOT LIQUID: You know not to put your hand in hot liquid but this can happen another way. When you take things, like a roast or chicken out of the oven, fat has melted out and into the pan. If you move too quickly and whip it out, when you stop, the liquid can overrun the pan onto your hand. You will instantly drop the pan if that happened reacting to the hand burn and now hot liquid splashes everywhere. Avoid this by moving slowly when pulling things from the oven or off the stove.
MICROWAVE: You put it in cool and turned it on. Microwavable safe doesn’t mean it doesn’t get hot. It means it won’t crack or melt. When you put a bowl in the microwave, slide a plate underneath. This way you can use a kitchen towel or oven mitt to remove the bowl by grabbing the plate edge, which is much easier to deal with.
BURNS TO YOUR FACE: Burning to your face most often happen with either lifting a pan / pot lid or opening the oven to check on something. When lifting lids, do it with a long arm. Once the lid is off, don’t stick your face down into the pot to smell. Instead, pull the steam vapors by waving your hand over the pot towards your face. You will be able to smell it, and do so safely. When opening the oven, long arms again. Let the oven open completely, releasing the first blast of heat, and then check your item.
GREASE SPLATTER: When anything is in the fry pan it has the ability to splatter but it’s often surprising that oil in a pan is not as dangerous alone as it would be if water is introduced. So, when the oil is in, and you just washed the veggies that you’re going to sauté, dry them off before going into the oil.
UNSAFE CUTTING BOARD / EXPIRATION DATES: Biggest safety issue is cross contamination. If you and others are constantly having diarrhea and /or vomiting after eating your food, there are two areas to check and change – Expiration dates and cutting surfaces. It takes only 4 hours for something to build up bacteria. It’s undetectable to your nose and you wont be able to tell if it’s bad until after you eat it. You can’t put shellfish on your cutting board and then make a sandwich for your hubby to take to work. You will kill him! So, cut on a plate that is then washed or keep your cutting board clean. Also use plastic cutting boards instead of wood, as wood grain will hold onto bacteria easier. As far as expiration dates go, look at the package and adhere to the “best used by”. We chef’s say “when in doubt, throw it out.” It’s better to lose a $4.50 of ground turkey then spending 48 hours on the toilet. If you cut yourself, you cannot serve the food that got bled on. Bandage up and start over.
I ASSUME THE FOLLOWING:
You know how to turn on a stove or oven (and turn it off after use!)
You know how to be safe in a kitchen (don’t try and catch a falling knife!)
You know there are measuring cups for dry and wet ingredients.
You know the difference between boiling and broiling (it’s not just the “r”).
You know how to keep food from contaminating other foods (specifically meat blood and vegetables in the fridge) or work surfaces.
You know how to have fun and laugh at yourself when you screw up (and you will – like I still do) and you don’t quit.
Cooking is a lost trade that was handed down from generation to generation, if it missed you like thousands of others, don’t worry, we can make you faster, stronger, better. You can do it, and we will help.