15 ridiculous cooking tips from your parents

Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the gourmands at online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat it and what to cook. This time our cheffies serve you: ridiculous cooking tips from parents.

In my mother's cookbook, it says you should boil Brussels sprouts for forty minutes, and some people learn at home that you should wash before it goes in the pan. In short: parents don't know EVERYTHING. Here are fifteen examples of ridiculous cooking tips that people got from their parents.

It makes quite a difference whether your parents can cook or not. Did you think you didn't like mushrooms just because your father always stirred them in almost raw everywhere, then you're in for a surprise when someone fries them nicely golden brown for you in butter.

Gray yolk
‘This is how my parents cooked of eggs: start with cold water, let it boil for fifteen minutes, and then wait until the cooking water has cooled down. Yuck, those green-gray yolks.’

Mushroom al dente
‘My father taught me that you should add mushrooms, like champignons, at the last minute to a dish. Then they are practically raw. I always thought I didn't like mushrooms. Until I once ate fried champignons, I went completely crazy! So delicious! Much better when they are cooked.’

Well done
‘When I still lived at home, I didn't understand why everyone was so crazy about steak. My mother had to cook for eight children, she bought cheap meat and cooked it until it was as dry as cardboard. And then we heard how lucky we were that we could eat steak! I really didn't like it, but as a child, you just eat what is put in front of you, without complaining. Only when I lived on my own and once got steak during a dinner did I realize that I just hadn't understood anything for 18 years. It is now my favorite meat.’ konden eten! Ik vond er echt niks aan, maar als kind eet je gewoon wat er voor je neus wordt gezet, zonder mekkeren. Pas toen ik op mezelf woonde en een keer tijdens een etentje steak kreeg, kreeg ik in de gaten dat ik er gewoon 18 jaar lang niks van had begrepen. Het is nu mijn favoriete vlees.’

Snotty
‘Vegetables should always be boiled. But: I do like grilled and roasted vegetables.’

Looks the same
‘My mother is a gem, but she really can't cook. She did her best, but it was a disaster every time. If she found a nice recipe had found, she immediately adjusted it. If it needed 200 grams of grated cheese, she thought that was too much and so she used half. And 100 grams of grated carrots ‘because it looks the same’.’

Well cooked
‘According to my parents, meat had to be really well done, let's say: shoe sole. Only when a piece of chicken was completely dried out and overcooked did they want to eat it. Steak with a little pink? No way, they wouldn't touch it.’

Restaurant secret
‘We always ate margarine. I thought restaurants had a secret technique to make butter taste so delicious, it turned out to just be salted of butter to be.’

Not poisoned
‘My parents always pre-cooked the meat for the barbecue before it went on the grill. They were afraid it wouldn't be cooked otherwise. That's why I hated barbecue chicken: dry, gray, and tasteless. A few years ago, they came to barbecue at our place. My father thought I would poison him with chicken or pork that went straight on the barbecue. Later I heard: the best chicken he had ever eaten.’

Charred
‘After I had barbecued myself for a year, I understood that you don't have to grill the meat pitch black, like we used to at home.’

À la crème
‘Almost every week, we had fish sticks, canned spinach, and rice on our table. I had no idea that spinach could also be tasty until I once had a salad with fresh spinach at my in-laws a salad with fresh spinach.’

Spud
‘If there are no potatoes, it's not a meal. Not true, but my parents didn't know any better.’

Sand rubs the stomach
‘My grandmother had some eh... interesting views on food. For example: eating foreign dishes was the same as treason. She never washed the vegetables because sand scrapes the stomach. She is the only one who knows how to make a dish, and it's unforgivable if you put your own twist on it (an insult to my mother). If something was spoiled she didn't throw it away but cooked it completely to pulp. And then offended if no one wanted to eat it.’

Tasteless
‘According to my mother, I always had to leave the salt out of the recipe.’

Too sweet
‘My father was really offended when my fiancée put carrots in her bolognese sauce to make it a bit sweeter. His mother is from Sicily, so he knows how it is. I looked it up on the internet and what turns out? The original Italian recipe also includes carrot. I always make it this way now, much tastier than with sugar in the sauce.’

In the mash
‘As a child, I didn't know any other way than that mashed potatoes came from a packet.’

Source: Bored Panda