Sometimes things come out better that way, so do as you wish. Just know that many things will come out leagues better if you do that extra bit of prep.
Only exception I found is bacon. Get one of those big metal baking sheets with 1-2" sides, and line it with baking paper. Lay your strips of bacon down, without them touching, and put in the oven. Set to around 425 and your bacon should be done in about 10-15 minutes once the preheat beep goes off. You figure out the time that works with your oven and bacon thickness. Memory is a little fuzzy.
I read that somewhere once and it comes out way better. Otherwise the top side never gets browned and then you try flipping them to make up for it and it sucks. This way you don’t have to mess with it and the paper absorbs most of the grease. Easy to clean up.
It was just amazing as I had been preheating like all the instructions said on various sites, but it never came out amazing. Found one random comment that said to NOT preheat and stick it in cold was the magic I needed. I never liked cooking bacon on the stovetop. Throwing it in the oven is easier for me and I can do bigger batches, especially with two baking pans.
Dunno what that is, but legit answer: no, like sabbath. In Judaism, or at least certain branches, you’re not allowed to operate technology on Sunday. This can include not turning on your stove but (I’m assuming here) not putting food into it. I’ve heard of a similar cosmic loophole for laundry.
So the thing with judiasm is that God is perfect, God made the rules, and the rules have loopholes (such as this one with the oven) therefore the loopholes are intended and exploiting them just shows how much attention you pay to the rules and how religious and observant you are.
I never imagined 196 being such a nasty place until I started looking through this thread. How many posts need to be made, each with dozens or hundreds of upvotes, all just saying “Then your food’s shit [you moron]!”
Like, damn, I’m pretty sure Stamets isn’t gonna beam into these people’s houses and force-feed them food cooked in a non-preheated oven. Maybe, I guess, but just stun him with a phaser if he tries it? This really seems like a non-issue of one person’s preference that doesn’t need a whole community piling onto it.
Am I the only one assuming they refer to the step at the start because the recipe will always take longer so I’d rather just wait for it to heat rather than set right away?
It really depends on what you’re doing. Consider a steak: If you put it into a cold pan and heat it up it’s going to be 110% done on the inside before you get to temperatures that cause browning – the protein is going to denature at ~70C, Maillard reactions occur at about 140-160C. So rule of thumb is if you want crisp or brown anything, you probably should blast it with some actual heat.
Then, when it comes to printed recipes: While every oven bakes differently they heat up even more differently, so if you want to give a baking time including the pre-heat is going to increase the error bar quite a lot.
And then there’s stuff that needs proper rituals to turn out good, bread is probably the best example: Preheat, steam, falling temperature. Sure you’ll get something edible if you put some dough in a cold oven but it’s not going to be nearly as good, raise strangely, have structural issues, and forget about having a proper crust.
Oh, coming back to pans: “Hot pan, cold oil”, as the Chinese say, is how you make iron pans non-stick: Without preheat not only is your steak going to be soggy, it’s also going to be glued to the pan. If you use a teflon pan at the temperatures needed for a proper sear you’ll quickly need to buy a new one while even bargain-bin iron pans are going to last generations.
You know what’s the real bullshit? Listing melted butter as an ingredient. Mother fucker, who keeps melted butter on hand? Make the ingredient oil, or make melting it part of the instructions!
I’m fine with melting butter, but show me where in the prices I’m supposed to do it.
The pancake recipe my wife likes me to make say something like:
Milk
Flour
Sugar
Egg
Melted, slightly cooled butter
add the lemon juice to the milk and let it thicken while preparing the dry ingredients.
Beat the egg into the milk then whisk in the melted butter.
If it was slightly cooled at the beginning it’s not whiskable by the time I get to the step. If it’s solid at the beginning it’s not slightly cooled when I go to whisk it in (it will be straight out of the microwave)
…
As someone else said, it’s an extremely small hill but I don’t think you’re going to push me off of it.
Lol. Not one I’ll try to push you off of. For reference il the recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of sugar compared to two cups of flour and two cups of milk.
I don’t even get how you’re supposed to do that without trial&erroring melting enough in the microwave. I know butter has the measurements written on the side (in Canada/USA at least) but it doesn’t help if you don’t have a fresh stick of butter
How’s that less convenient: You take the scales, take a bowl, hit tare, put stuff in, hit tare, rinse and repeat. Also just for the record milk and cream can be assumed to have the same density of water in the home kitchen, 1g/ml, oils get as low as 0.8g/ml which may or may not make a difference. Usually there’s plenty of tolerance.
Where things get awkward with common kitchen scales is spices and stuff in case you want repeatability with small batch sizes. OTOH milligram scales aren’t expensive, just don’t expect to use them to weigh out a whole bread they take like 100g or so max.
As much as I want to agree with @Stamets on the basis he’s a cool guy, this is an argument I can get behind.
Make the ingredient oil
As someone who can’t eat butter, 99% of the time you can make this move with a neutral-tasting cooking oil. Some folks are in love with how butter changes a dish’s flavor or richness, but there are many other ways to add fatty acids and glutamates to food. So it really is kind of bullshit - save time and reach for the vegetable oil.
The only exception are dishes that need the cooking fat to solidify in the fridge. Coconut oil and lard (suet too - but who has that?!) can work for those uses, but think ahead and beware of your melting points. You don’t want to deliver an oily mess of food to a friend’s house because it was warm out.
Remember though that butter is only 80% fat. Especially relevant for baking recipes where you have a ton of butter and if you replace that can make it denser and greasier. E.g. 200g butter you should replace with ~160g oil and 40ml water.
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