Stupidest Cooking Mistake

[Bill]

Robwhite said:

Nearly as good as my sister in law some years ago when we had "boil in the bag" fish and sauce - she opened the bags and emptied them in the boiling water

Ah, that reminds me of my biggest disaster - never having used a microwave to do anything other than defrost stuff I didn't appreciate what happened if you forget to puncture the bag

[Airbag]

Ages ago, the first time I made risotto a la Milanese when adding the Parmesan I neglected to taste and just added as much as the recipe called for, turning a lovely delicate risotto into what tasted distinctly like saffron mac and cheese.

Oops.

[missdiane]

When I was much younger, I made a carrot cake with no recipe, made a sponge mix- no problemo, then added the chopped up cooked sunday lunch carrots. Vile stodge wasn't the word.
Think I have been scarred for life!

[Mobile Chicane]

I bought a proper old coq in France and tried to au vin it using a recipe I often make with chicken.

Big mistake.

Two hours later the meat was like wood... Four hours later the meat was like wood... Eight hours later the meat was like wood...

In the end I gave up and threw it out for the foxes.

[Shaolin]

Many years ago I shared a postgraduate house with some overseas students, I don't think any of them had ever had to cook anything for themselves in their lives before, amongst the everyday boring and just annoying messes were:

2 boiled eggs left in pan and forgotten about - pan dried out, eggs exploded a fine eggy mist over the whole of the quite large kitchen/dining room. The set of footprints that went up to the cooker and away again took the piss though when I found it, later <Nigerian accent>"A woman will come and clean it"</Nigerian accent>

Grill pan arranged on top of cooker with 2 rings on to heat it up and about an inch depth of water <American accent>"It was the only pan I could find that was long enough to fit the spaghetti in"</American accent>

Nothing to do with cooking but I've just been reminded <pakistani accent - VERY worried>"There is a storm outside, should we not head inland in case a tidal wave comes?"</pakistani accent>

First time a friend and I tried to make macaroni cheese as students it started to go a bit thick and lumpy, we decided that more cooking would sort it out, 15 mins later we had a large glob of chewing-gum like material stuck around the wooden spoon floating in a sea of yellow milk.

[smack]

I was over at a mate place one day. Another mate, Martin, who was there, decided he wanted a cup of tea, which sounded like a good idea. He filled the posh stainless steel kettle with water and put it on the gas hob.

About 5 minutes later, the kitchen started to smell of something burning. It was an electric kettle, and failed to notice the cordless base when he picked it up....

[dazco]

thatone1967 said:

my ex brother in law put a pizza under the grill and turned it over halfway through cooking....

You may laugh, but I do this.

It is a good way to re-heat cold pizza that you have left. Put it upside down under the grill, wait for the bottom to get hot and turn it over to melt the cheese. I invented this, no hints or tips just me . And it gives perfect crispy pizza every time, even if the base was soggy originally.