Kitchen Disasters

There are cooking disasters and then there are kitchen disasters. My cooking disasters happen a few times a year when I make a bad pot of rice that's either mushy (too much water) or dry and hard (too little water or I forgot to put the lid on and it was tooooo late).

My kitchen disasters are far and few between, except for the times that my friends mistakenly unscrewed the blender bottom and a whole batch of margaritas and banh xeo sizzling rice crepe batter went on the floor. Those were two separate occasions. Oh, then the times when I left the deep freezer door slightly ajar for 1 week or so. Oops. There's a "PLEASE CLOSE" sign on the door now.

This week, I had a doozy of a disaster. I was working on a recipe for a little mung bean dumpling that needed to get deep fried. A number of recipes said to blend it with a minimum of water to grind it up. I did that and the batter was lovely. Or so it seemed. Then I dropped a spoonful of it into hot oil to fry.Things were going well enough --lots of gentle sizzling noises and I had a 5 minute timer on. I stepped away from the stove to jot down some notes and suddenly, there was a loud noise and oil all over the kitchen.

The dumpling had exploded and hopped out of the pan onto the floor. There was oil on the exhaust, cupboard, counter, and floor. I had just cleaned the stove the night before. After waiting for things and me to cool off, I cleaned everything up. My husband encouraged me to go for it again, seeing as how I'd become dejected quite suddenly. He actually didn't believe me, I think.

So I heated up more oil and dropped several spoonfuls of batter in. This time, he was in the kitchen with me.  What happened? Another explosion. But I had a witness and also a helper to clean up the mess. Unfortunately, I was standing over the stove observing the frying process when the explosion happened a little oil got on my face. Ouch for a few hours.

I was totally thrown off my game. Slapped in the face by a 1-inch mung bean dumpling. It was an I Love Lucy kind of day. I didn't just make explosive food once, but twice. Indeed, I had my Lucille Ball moment and greasy dirty clothes to prove it.

What happened next? I went off to my office and sulked. Then I read more books, Googled around, and slept on it. The next morning the solution was simple: add water. Duh. If you're wondering, I'm still working on the recipe but there have been no other explosive moments.

Tomorrow is the 4th of July in America and we traditionally set off massive fireworks displays to celebrate. Mine won't be in the kitchen. At least for a while.

Care to share your kitchen disaster(s)?

Comments

[Natalie Sztern]

I am married 31 years this june having met and married my man while in first year McGill, so we are relatively young and modern. While renovating my kitchen about 10 years ago i fell in love with a Jennair: rotisserie and all the gizmos one truly doesn't need including a self-clean button. Well, three years ago i was preparing my traditional passover meal for 25 and having finished all my cooking by 7pm I went straight to bed; leaving the table setting for early the next morning.

Hubby who has no idea how an oven even works decided that night to put on the self-clean button thinking he would surprise me. Surprise he did: not knowing that I had in mind to first clean out all the fat drippings before hitting the self-clean element...well at 4 am in the morning the entire family was woken up with the fire trucks: all five of them! Hubby, at this point working in the den off the kitchen, saw an enormous amount of smoke and the oven was on fire from all the grease.....I ran down the stairs knowing they were going to hack open my front door and got there first; about 10 of the most gorgeous young firemen stood around my kitchen waiting for the fire to die down (thank god when the self-clean element is on, the stove is on automatic lock and cannot open) and then proceeded to take apart my Jennair from its vents and throw it outside on the balcony: snow and all. This during my tirade that I was having a huge passover dinner that night to which the lead fireman told me in a not-so-nice way to basically F*** Off (tho he didn't use those words) and so, that night we took many hours to eat because each dish had to be microwaved at least past its frozen stage.....

To the credit of the Jennair stove:two days later I had it re-installed into its place: hoping and praying it would still work. After scrubbing for hours all the remnants of the fire: it worked and still works to perfect temperature to this day: however I have never put on the self-clean again and the convection has become noisy : but in the long run that I can live with.

A story for a lifetime and thankyou for giving me another outlet to tell someone else.

[Andrea Nguyen]

Natalie, that's a precious story. Well, 10 hunky firemen showing up at your home -- that's quite something! Now your hubby knows how the oven stove and oven works!

[Robyn]

I've done the blender thing, with daquiries. When you're living where rum costs 50 bucks for a small bottle it's real painful to watch a mixed drink spread all over the counter and floor.
The other kitchen disaster - more like a recipe disaster, actually - is my mom's. The first time she made lemon meringue pie (my dad's favorite) she added lots of gelatin to the lemon curd and overcooked the meringue. The resulting pie had the texture of a beach ball (as she put it). She cut it into fourths and pushed the first down the garbage disposal, but when it touched the blades pieces bounced back out - and hit my dad, who was standing over the sink next to her, in the face.
(She overcame that disaster to become a fantastic cook, BTW.)

[Tuty]

My kitchen disaster happened this year while using a 14 year old pressure cooker! I was going to make oxtail soup for dinner. Those of you who have cooked oxtail will agree with me that it takes 3-4 hours to do it without pressure cooker.

The darn thing blew up because the red pressure stopper has served its time... and I had not replaced it when I should have (mea culpa). Luckily, no one was in front of the stove... It was like Old Faithful Geyser!!! The whole kitchen smelled like oxtail soup for 2 days. I had to scrub everything up to the ceiling.

Now, whenever I make oxtail soup I use slow cooker instead.

[Elaine]

While still a novice cook in high school, I made some baked lemon squares and added baking powder instead of baking soda to the lemon mixture, or vice-versa. Anyway, when I opened the open door to check it looked like the Seething Blob. I took it out and it eventually cooled to the consistency of cement. (My then-teenage brother subsequently devoured it -- the garbage disposal tendencies of a hungry, sweet-loving teen should never be underestimated!)

Otherwise it's mainly just been reheating something, forgetting about it, and coming back to the LaBrea tar pits and a kitchen full of smoke (no smoke detector until a month ago!)

[Elaine]

While still a novice cook in high school, I made some baked lemon squares and added baking powder instead of baking soda to the lemon mixture, or vice-versa. Anyway, when I opened the open door to check it looked like the Seething Blob. I took it out and it eventually cooled to the consistency of cement. (My then-teenage brother subsequently devoured it -- the garbage disposal tendencies of a hungry, sweet-loving teen should never be underestimated!)

Otherwise it's mainly just been reheating something, forgetting about it, and coming back to the LaBrea tar pits and a kitchen full of smoke (no smoke detector until a month ago!)

[Nate]

Ouch! I can imagine what a shock it is to see an exploding dumpling and then having hot oil splashed in your face. So sorry that you got hurt.

We hate to deep fry because it makes the house smell oily and we have to wipe down everything afterward. I guess we do it anyway because we figure it's too much work to get the deep fat fryer out of the garage and fill it up just for a small fry job.

Our neighbors have a big wok and propane tank setup in their patio for deep frying. Have you tried using a butane stove and wok outside?

[White On Rice Couple]

I had that happen to me once when making bánh rán (or bánh cam). The mochi-like ball kept exploding and my filling would lay on the counter or fizzle away in the oil. I later realized that I made the shell too thin and had to make it a little thicker. The same thing happened to my family when we deep fried our stuffed squid. Now we just poke holes in it with a toothpick to release the juices and air. The joys of deep frying, but the results area always so good!

My worst kitchen disaster memory was when I was a kid. Back then, my mom sold her fried springrolls (eggrolls) to the neighbors and I was the delivery kid. We made a huge batches of it and I went to deliver 2 dozen to the waiting customer across the parking lot. I held the platter firmly, but then tripped on a speed bump, fell and dropped ALL the precious fried rolls that the customer had paid for! OMG, the story then gets worse, but I'll leave it at that. Now, when ever I carry a platter of food, I make sure nothing is in my way.

[paul kwan]

>Hi, Andrea;

>Yes, the Asian Culinary Forum is approaching. I have a question for you, would you mind send me an e-mail directly, thanks.

paul

[Tram]

I love your story - I think sometimes Vietnamese food takes a lot of patience but oh so well worth it in the end! I made bun mang for my hubby the first time this year - bought the dried kind in the market and didn't realize I would have had to soak it for a few hours before using! I ended up boiling the heck out of it...2 hours later, still hard as twine....another 2 hours, eh, still not right. FINALLY, 6 hours into it, face red with the fervent boiling and feet hurting from pacing impatiently for all those hours, it's 10pm and my poor husband and brother are trying to not be hypoglycemic because they knew I was frustrated and feeling incompetent, it was done! And the best part? My brother, who hates all things bamboo/mang, LOVED IT! WHEW! That was my mung-bean dumpling moment :)

[Andrea Nguyen]

Omigod! I just made dried bamboo shoot the other day and you gotta cook it to death. In fact, you can't OVERCOOK the stuff. Thanks for sharing, Tram!