Foods you prefer cooked "wrong"

Cafe Society
1

I just put some pasta water on to boil, and started musing about the “right” way to prepare pasta vs the way I like it, and other foods and other people’s opinions on that sort of thing.

I completely understand pasta cooked al dente, and will approvingly eat it in a restaurant. But my guilty pleasure at home is pasta cooked extremely soft - that’s what makes it comfort food!

I’m reminded of some comments from Paul Prudhomme in one of his cookbooks - he flat-out stated that he wants his vegetables thoroughly cooked, none of this slightly-raw-crispiness for him! I’m not in full agreement (I like my veggies to be, well, al dente) but I certainly understand where he was coming from. And truth be told, I’d rather eat very well cooked vegetables than undercooked ones.

Are there any foods you prefer to consume in a condition that the Arbiters of How We Must Cook Things disagree with?

2

I grew up with dry turkey that we put gravy on, as god intended. The first time I tried moist turkey, I thought “Why is this so slimy?” I still like relatively dry turkey to this day.

3

I usually prefer my steaks closer to well-done and I absolutely don’t do rare. Slightly more than medium is the coolest I’ll go. And I don’t want any pink in my hamburgers, no matter how sterile your kitchen is.

Speaking of hamburgers - absolutely no cheese for me, unless it’s crumbled bleu cheese.

4

I can’t stand ground beef at any less than well-done. The texture is icky.

5

Oh yeah! My mother liked her turkey dry and occasionally tried to cook it less dry, but was never happy with the result. So I am 100% with you. Moist turkey is slimy.

6

I understand, from the other end of the distribution: my son adores rare meat and whenever a server asks him, “so how would you like that burger/steak cooked?” his stock answer is: “as rare as you are legally allowed.”

Well, I likes me some rare meat, usually, so for a while I tried to match him in his rarity. But after a few disgustingly mushy burgers, I stopped. Meat that is rarer than you want it is blecch! So if you want yours well done, go for it!

Unnecessary footnote: I did eat steak tartar in Africa while I was breastfeeding my son, something my more educated self (yeah, I read one or two books about anthrax in the intervening years) would never do now. But maybe he picked up that passion for rawness from my consumption while he was a baby. (I don’t think I ate raw meat in Africa while I was pregnant - it has been more than 2 decades so I can’t say for sure.)

7

I’m constantly bombarded with recipes proclaiming “Tired of rubbery scrambled eggs? Use this one simple trick for perfect scrambled eggs!”. What’s shown in the picture is, to me, as appetizing as a slime mold. And yet that appears to be the “gourmet” way of doing things. Give me the rubbery scrambled eggs.

8

I think that what you read assumes that the American palate wants French-palate scrambled eggs. AFAIK, the perfect scrambled eggs in France are creamy (or what we cloddish Americans would think of as runny.)

Americans generally don’t want runny/oozy parts in their scrambled eggs, or so I have been led to believe. In that case I plead guilty to being American; rubbery beats disturbing gooeyness.

9

Well, i enjoy raw meat, and mostly only cook it due to health concerns. But i kinda like my vegetables fully cooked. Especially green beans. Also carrots. I actually like both of those raw. But i didn’t like them slightly cooked and still kinda almost crunchy. If you are going to cook them, finish the job, please. (And add some butter and maybe dill for the beans.)

10

Hmm. I’ll eat rubbery scrambled eggs, but i like them better if they are creamy.

11

Gordon Ramsay’s perfect slime mold eggs, according to the internet:

I agree that this seems to be the French fashion.

12

I want my scrambled eggs to be thoroughly cooked and there should be distinct white and yellow pieces. Basically I want it cooked over hard, but mixed up into thumbnail-sized bits. I hate that pale yellow lump they bring you in restaurants.

13

I’ve watched Ramsay’s video guide to making scrambled eggs and they absolutely look underdone and like you’d have to drink them. I want something that I can pick up with a fork. I can’t imagine making, say, a breakfast burrito with that slop.

On the other hand, I prefer blond soft-in-the-middle French omelettes to the browned style you usually get in diners, though I’ll take the latter if I want a complete meal since they’re much more amenable to being folded around meat and potatoes and peppers and such. Beth’s Cafe in Seattle makes a 6-egg omeletter folded up like an envelope around a filling of chili, cheddar, sour cream, and salsa that’s absolutely delicious but darn near impossible to finish (and if you think 6 eggs is excessive, they also make it as a 12-egg omelette, with all-you-can-eat hashbrowns;)

14

Exactly. If I wanted an egg smoothie, I’d have asked for one.

15

You know those scrambled eggs at every breakfast buffet? That’s my favorite.

I also like to undercook the last piece of french or pancake so it’s just warm in the middle. If I screw up and part of a cake is undercooked in the middle? Mine, all mine.

16

It’s not really “cooked wrong,” but I am so fed up with waiters and bartenders here in Canada thinking I wanted a Bloody Caesar, when I clearly asked for a Bloody Mary. I ask for a Mary, I get a Caesar. “Well, they’re very popular, sir, I thought you likely meant a Caesar.”

Let’s put it this way: if I ask for a Vodka and Tonic, I don’t expect a Whisky Sour. Bring me what I asked for, or tell me that you cannot because you have no just-plain-tomato juice. I’ll understand, and make another choice. But don’t think that I erred somehow, or assume that I wanted something other than what I asked for.

One of the great things about visiting the United States: when you ask for a Bloody Mary, you get a Bloody Mary. You don’t get a well-meaning waitron thinking you wanted clam juice mixed in with your drink “because they’re very popular, sir.”

Maybe not what the OP meant, but it’s one of those things.

17

I’ll eat Beef on the raw side of rare, but Pork and Lamb need to be cooked right through. Do it right and there’s no pink bits and it retains some juice, but I’d prefer it dry than pink.

I also don’t do crispy bacon. If I can pick the bacon up, hit it on the plate and it shatters, it’s basically burnt. If I can cut it with a knife and bend it easily, it’s just right.

18

Scrambled eggs, I’m with you guys on not liking them creamy/slimy, however, I do prefer it if we stop slightly short of ‘eraser chunks’. The best recipe I’ve found for scrambled eggs was was from Raymond Blanc and it has a whole backstory about how he was served it in a little bistro and fell in love with it; it’s really simple: crack the eggs in a buttered frying pan over low heat, season with salt and pepper, scramble the whites only with a small spatula - being careful not to break the yolks. When the whites are completely cooked, break the yolks (which are now warmed through) and remove the pan from the heat, stirring to coat the scrambled whites with the semi-runny yolk like a sauce. Serve immediately.
-It’s really good, because most of the flavour and richness of eggs is in the yolk, and that’s what hits first when you eat it (by the time you get it to the table, there is nothing ‘runny’ any more, but the texture is very tender).

I like smoked salmon lightly cooked - I’ll eat it as it comes, cold-smoked, but I prefer it lightly fried to firm it up and bring out the flavours - I’ve actually received hate-mail about this one. Don’t care; I paid for it, I’ll eat it any damn way I want.

19

I’m sort of with you on that one - I do prefer the centre of an omelette to be slightly ‘saucy’ - especially if there’s cheese in it, because the soft egg in the middle combines with the cheese to actually make a sort of sauce. I don’t mind a tiny bit of browning on the outside - I feel like the ‘blond’ thing with French omelettes is more of a technical challenge than an aesthetic one - it’s exceptionally difficult to do.

20

Probably my biggest divergence from ‘correct, according to the whole world’ is salt. I don’t always require salt on my food. Sometimes it’s nice and of course, my body requires a certain amount of sodium, but it’s simply not true that salt makes everything taste better, and it’s certainly not true that it’s always a ‘flavour enhancer’ that makes things taste more of themselves. Sometimes salt just makes things taste salty; sometimes salt covers up other flavours.

I sometimes buy salt-and-shake potato crisps (chips) and eat them without sprinkling on the salt sachet. If you do that, you can taste flavour notes from the potato that would otherwise be masked by salt, well, I can, anyway.