prevents the noodles from sticking."

This is definitely not true.

Hi, I'm Catherine DeOrio.

I'm a formally trained chef;

I trained here in Chicago at Kendall College.

Worked at various restaurants, staging in Chicago,

and I am here to debunk the most common myths about cooking.

We're doing this via Skype, because, like many of you,

I am stuck in my house as well,

and I know all of you will want some tips on how to cook

while you're indoors and trying to find things to do.

"Only flip your steak once during cooking."

This is absolutely not true.

A lot of people say that because

where all your flavor comes is from the browning,

so people feel that if you're flipping your steak,

you're not gonna get a proper brown

and then all of that flavor.

But the most important thing for a good steak

is actually the temperature of your pan.

You make sure you get it really hot,

and you can actually flip it multiple times.

So, if you flip it about every 30 seconds,

it's going to not cool down on the top,

so it will continue to cook, you'll flip it,

it will cook, and then it's almost like

being cooked simultaneously on both sides,

so you're actually gonna get

a faster cooking time on it,

and it will consistently cook

from edge to edge of the steak.

"Adding vinegar to your cooking water

makes your hard-boiled eggs easier to peel."

That's not exactly true.

It's kind of a placebo effect.

So, a few things.

The age of your egg is gonna affect

how easy it is to peel.

So, an older egg is more alkaline.

That's gonna make it a little easier to peel

after it's boiled.

The next thing is, it's really important,

is to stop that cooking right away

and submerge it in an ice bath.

So, nothing fancy, just a bowl of water

with a bunch of ice in it, nice and cold,

submerge it in it, let the cooking stop,

and then pull them out.

The other way you could get the shell

to not stick is by steaming them.

So, what happens when you steam the egg

is the proteins from your egg whites

are gonna separate from the membrane from the shell.

It's gonna give you a little bit of space,

therefore making it easy to peel when you're done.

"Wear goggles, chew gum, etc.,"

all of the myths you've heard to avoid

your eyes from getting watery

when you're cutting onions.

Um,

no.

So, I guess you could wear goggles,

aside from making you look very strange,

but the reason our eyes water

when we cut an onion is

there is an enzymatic reaction,

and the gases come up from the onion,

and that's actually what gets into our eyes.

It causes them to burn, and it causes them to water.

So, interestingly, that gas comes out

because it's a defense mechanism for the onion

so little critters underground,

as it's growing, don't eat it.

The best way to really

mitigate the gases coming out

is to use a really sharp knife.

So, if you use a dull knife,

you're crushing the membrane of the onion,

and it's gonna cause more gas to release.

If you cut it really,

just with a really sharp knife

and you slice through it,

it's going to damage less of the membranes,

and so less gas is gonna come up,

so it's gonna be a little easier.

Also, cut the root last.

A lot of gas is kind of concentrated in that area,

so kind of that little hairy part at the end,

so to speak, always cut that off last.

"Whipped cream flattens when you stop whipping it."

So, that's not true.

It's not the whipping that will keep the air in your cream,

which makes it fluffy, it's actually your temperature.

So, again, temperature is really important.

If it gets warm, that's when your whipped cream

starts to flatten.

So the tip is,

before you whip it,

don't only chill your cream, which,

obviously you wanna get that as cold as possible,

but I like to put my bowl and my whisk

or whisk attachment in the freezer,

get it really cold,

so when you whip it then it stays cold,

it won't flatten during the whipping process,

and then when you're done,

you can store it in the fridge.

If you're going to go to a party,

let's just say you make a cake,

and you frost it with a cream

and there's a whipped cream element to it,

you could stick it in the freezer for about 30 minutes.

It will make it a little more stable

if you're, for instance, taking it to a picnic

or somewhere where you're gonna be outside,

it's gonna be a little warm.

That will help to keep the whipped cream

nice and airy and fluffy.

"Adding oil to pasta water prevents

the noodles from sticking."

This is definitely not true.

As an Italian, this is just the one thing

that just really irks me.

So, if you put oil on your noodles,

it's actually gonna make the surface

of the noodles impenetrable to your sauce.

So, the thing that's gonna give your noodles flavor

is not gonna be able to get in

and actually flavor them or stick to your noodles.

So, that's kind of not what you want, right?

Pasta is, even, like, in Italy,

the shapes of the pasta are designed

to hold certain kinds of sauces a certain way.

So the last thing you want is, you know,

these slick noodles where all of your sauce is coming out.

So the best way to get noodles to stop from sticking

is, again, add your pasta to boiling water,

make sure it's a full, rolling boil,

and then stir it every once in a while.

Make sure that you're continually stirring

that pasta as it's cooking.

This is gonna keep it from sticking together

during the cooking process.

"You can season food at any time

during the cooking process."

No, no, no, no, no. [laughs]

Season as you go.

So, if you just season at the end,

all you're gonna have is kind of a

superficial seasoning.

There's gonna be,

the top layer of your food

is gonna have some flavor to it,

but it's not gonna have actually

penetrated your food and give you

that kind of consistent flavor throughout

and that depth and complexity,

which is what you really love.

And so that's why a lot of times

you'll make something at home

and you'll just kind of at the end be like,

oh, season to taste, and just throw some

salt and pepper on it, maybe some herbs,

and you're like, "Why didn't this turn out

the way it tastes at a restaurant?

It's a simple dish."

But it's because you are constantly seasoning as you go.

"Milk makes fluffier scrambled eggs."

No, no, no.

So, scrambled eggs, it's about temperature.

It's about, think slow and low.

So you want low, medium heat,

and you wanna just cook those eggs slow,

and just once they start to coagulate,

take a spatula and move it around

so you'll keep getting those curds.

If you add milk to it,

that milk is gonna separate out from the eggs

as it's cooking, and you're gonna probably

get rubbery, colorless,

a diluted flavor on your actual eggs.

So, slow and low.

Also, before, kind of almost right before

your eggs seem totally cooked,

so they're not runny anymore

but they seem a little wet, take them off.

There is gonna be some carryover cooking,

and they're gonna cook a little bit more in that pan

as you're transferring them to your serving dish.

"Sticking a potato in an overly salty dish

will absorb the salt and make it less salty."

No. Again, no.

So, yes, will putting a raw potato

into an overly salted soup

absorb some of that salt?

Yes, but it's also gonna absorb

a disproportionate amount of the liquid,

so you don't want to do that.

The first thing you should try before anything

is try to balance out the flavors.

So if it's saltier, maybe just a hit of acid,

so a little dash of sherry vinegar

or a little bit of a squeeze of lemon

might balance it out, a hit of sugar.

So, just kind of think.

What makes something, a dish, taste good

is that balance, that sweet and salty and spicy.

So just see what it might need.

Try that first.

If it doesn't work, move on.

So, "storing bread in the fridge prevents staleness."

Actually, storing bread in the fridge

will make your bread go stale quicker.

So, it's gonna pull some of that moisture out.

But there are ways that you can keep your bread

for a bit longer.

So, one, you can freeze it.

Wrap it in plastic and then freeze it

and then defrost it at room temperature,

and your bread will pretty much stay

close to what it was when you bought it.

Now, if the bread's already gone stale,

is there anything you can do?

So, yes, there's a few things.

If it's already gone stale,

one, just heating the bread a little bit

will actually soften it up.

Also, you can put that bread in the fridge.

Now, when you take it out of the fridge,

it's not that it's gonna

be back to its original state,

but it will just keep it edible

for a little bit longer.

It will keep it from going bad or going moldy.

"Keeping a pit in your avocado

keeps the avocado from browning."

Again, no, this is not accurate.

It will keep the avocado underneath the pit from browning.

So, the browning process happens,

it's an enzymatic reaction that causes

the flesh of the fruit to brown.

The best way for a full avocado

is to either swipe some lemon juice on it

or some type of acidulated water.

Acidulated water is basically just water

that has some acid in it.

You could also do a swipe of olive oil.

That will keep it for a little while,

'cause again that's gonna create a seal on the top.

"Cooking with frozen vegetables doesn't provide

the same nutrients and flavor as fresh vegetables."

Absolutely wrong. In fact,

in some cases you'll find

that it is better to buy frozen vegetables.