Say you want to cook some delicious stir fry for dinner, right? And you have an electric skillet. And say you plug in that skillet to heat up while you chop chicken and broccoli and mushrooms, but you get it too hot. Like way too hot. Like, 'why in the hell did you turn that on high 15 minutes before you planned to use it' too hot. I strongly suggest that when you look at it and debate the best way to cool it down, you go with the logical option of 'just unplugging it and giving it time'. DO NOT, under ANY circumstances, put in water first to cool off the skillet. Then, as a second 'do not', DO NOT then add the oil while there is still some water in the pan because you are "Sure it will be fine".
Trust me. IT IS NOT FINE.
If you go with the water then add oil option (AKA the dumb option... AKA MY CHOICE), you will very nearly burn your house down. The water will boil and the oil will go crazy and you will think your skillet is possessed as it spews oil and steam in every direction. You will be forced to grab the lid as your only form of defense, but will be too terrified because 350 degree OIL will be shooting out at you. Screw that. You aren't going in there!
You will yell "I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!" and your husband will have to run in, take the lid and go in and fight the beast on his own while you stand there wide eyed and horrified.
And then... when he looks at you after he has gotten the near disaster under control you will say "I don't know what happened..." And then he will remind you that you don't currently own a fire extinguisher (it's on the Christmas list. we are nothing but exciting around here) So lets be more careful with flammable things between now and Christmas Day.
Right.
So the lesson of the weekend is that oil and water do not mix. Like at all. Especially at 350 degrees. I think I remember somebody mentioning that in school at some point along the way...
I had to giggle because I've done this before. And had the same reaction. I now own a fire extinguisher.
ReplyDeleteAnd this is why I don't cook. Glad the house didn't burn down :)
ReplyDeleteI haven't done it, but I can imagine doing it. Glad everyone's okay!
ReplyDeleteIn the space of a week I broiled hamburgers made from 80% beef (so high fat) on high, causing the whole house to smell like burned hamburger after the extra grease caught fire in the oven, then after cooking the turkey didn't clean the oven of all the grease it spit off before heating the oven to 425* creating another huge smoke cloud. There were probably about 3-4 other times the smoke detectors went crazy in that time frame as well.
ReplyDeleteAll that to say you are not alone. Adventures in cooking are so exciting, aren't they?!
You remind me....we need a new fire extinguisher. Ours died of old age sometime ago. Thanks for making me think of it and BE CAREFUL! Don't want anything to happen to my precious niece. Don't feel bad. I've had many kitchen disasters and some very near misses with a fire. It happens to us all if you cook often and especially if you are experimental in the kitchen.
ReplyDeleteHey, we all learned cooking lessons this weekend, eh? I learned that I cannot substitute Splenda for sugar when making fudge--and I used an electric skillet for the peanut butter fudge and burned myself stirring the not-looking-so-good fudge...while the Splenda burned badly. Yep...things we thought we already knew--relearned! :-) Glad you got it under control. (We have a fire extinguisher--um...somewhere...I think upstairs in a cabinet...yeah, getting that thing installed on the kitchen wall this weekend now...)
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