Share your biggest cooking disaster story's old and recent?

I dont often post in belowtopsecret but I thought I would create this thread for a bit of a laugh and too see if I am one of the only people who has done this or if my cooking mistakes are minor compared to anothers

I am hoping some of you will share your culinary abominations that were created either from mistakes, lack of knowledge or some other means.

Here is one of the things I did back when I was a sixteen year old, finding myself out of the family home and in my first home by myself, in other words the first meal I ever cooked on my own that consisted of two things at the one time

Scrambled egg with toast.

I called a family member who told me to get two eggs, put the eggs in a bowl, add a little portion of milk and put in the microwave for around 2 minutes, when its done, give it a stir and repeat.

Off I went, put toast in my grill at high heat, got two eggs, added them to the bowl, put some milk into the bowl and put them in the microwave at full power for 2 minutes.

I was sitting in the opposite room when I heard a massive noise almost like a gunshot, I ran through to the kitchen, dived under the kitchen table in fright as the other egg exploded sending the door flying open and splattering the egg everywhere. I completely forgot about the toast as I was trying to clear up the mess, set the smoke alarm off as by this time flames had started to come from the bread and that too ended up all over the floor when I grabbed the tray from the grill (wearing no oven gloves) and threw it to the floor burning my barefeet in the process.

Anyways, lesson learned, dont put eggs in a microwave unless they are out of the shell!

Anyone else had culinary disasters that they would like to share and if not I hope that brightened up your day. I can cook now that I am older but I must say, I learned the hard way but its been interesting

Cheers







[edit on 13-11-2009 by XXXN3O]

I found some interesting pieces of wood in the forest and decided that the shapes would lend themselves to some artistic arrangements.

I turned the oven on and put the branch pieces in the oven to kill the wood lichens to properly prepare the wood.

My SO came in, opened the oven door, and wanted to know if I had gotton this dinner idea from a Euwell Gibbons cookbook.

I once made some chips (French fries) in the deep fat fryer. After I had eaten them I had a cigarette. I was sat watching TV and I could smell smoke. I thought it was from the cigarette id just smoked after eating my chips.

It wasn’t.

I went into my kitchen and the chip pan was on fire. I thought to myself ok be cool. Damp the t-towel and lay it over the pan and everything will be safe.

The t-towel was too small for the chip pan so it didn’t put out the flames. I decided to move the chip pan off the hob (id already turned it off what do you think I’m stupid) onto the metal sink drainer to cool off while I was going to go to the bathroom to get a bigger towel.

When I moved the chip pan to the sink the flames caught the Curtains and they went up in flames. I moved the chip pan away fast, too fast and spilt ½ of it on the floor. By now my curtains are blazing, my floor is a sea of fire and I’m stood there with a boiling hot chip pan in my hand shooting up 3 foot flames.

So thinking quickly I rushed to the back door with the flaming chip pan and put it onto the grass to burn its self out, while I went back inside the house to tackle my blazing kitchen.

I managed to put the fires out. But to this day I will never use a deep fat fryer again.

New kitchens aren’t cheap.

Oh and I phoned the fire brigade, because I didn’t want them to waste their time coming to my house, since id put the fire out. Id noticed people in the street on their phones pointing at my house because of the fire, thinking they were on the phone to the emergency services.

I was wrong no one had phoned in a fire to my street.






[edit on 13-11-2009 by Agent-ATS]

reply to post by Agent-ATS

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That was a close shave.

Im lucky enough to never have had that problem and hopefully it will not happen.

I find it quite amazing that the normal reaction is most often the one that will make it worse when in panic.

You are lucky you never did what most unfortunately do, put cold water into the blazing chip pan oil.

Pretty amazing that everyone points at fire and assumes a call has been made.


[edit on 13-11-2009 by XXXN3O]

Ive never tried that one myself

An indoor Barbecue indeed

Did you actually manage to cook something or was that brought to an abrupt halt?



[edit on 13-11-2009 by XXXN3O]

reply to post by XXXN3O

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I cant belive you put the eggs in the microwave whole.

EDIT: How did you think they was going to scramble?


lol

[edit on 13-11-2009 by Agent-ATS]

I actually called my father and said I fancied something for breakfast that was not cornflakes, he never said it was scrambled egg. I thought it would be something different.

When I look back I get a red face to this day, I mean I honestly do not know what the heck I was thinking.

This is probably my the biggest Doh moment of my life so far

Hey, it could have been worse, I could have salvaged it and eaten it thinking that was meant to happen so its not all bad

I was not very common sense orientated in my younger days as I spent them buried in books if you get me.

[edit on 13-11-2009 by XXXN3O]

reply to post by XXXN3O

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My mother loved to decorate cakes. Occassionally the equipment would sputter and a ribbon would end up malformed. It was through this medium that she taught me the technique to alleviate despair.

She said, "When you make a mistake, just put a rose on it."


Truth be told, if I am making a new dish or it's an experimentation...and something goes awry....I just give it a fancy French name and then everyone just raves about it!

A name for your breakfast could be something like "Ouefs a' la Napalm".

I don't really have cooking mishaps.
The one I can think of was awile ago.I had this girl who used to cook me dinner every Monday on her day off.She found a cool recipe for jack daniels bourben sauce for ribs and wings.
She bought some of that liquid smoke stuff for that hint of bbq taste.
I never used the stuff before and had no clue how strong it was.
She asked me to put some on and I put waaaaay too much without realizing how strong the stuff was.
To me it tasted like it went thru a fire.
I couldn't eat it but thankfully she still was able to enjoy it.

I sure miss her cooking.

Bacon + No Shirt = Bizarre Burns.

Cookies + Inability to Cook + Home Ec Classroom = Food Poisoning.

I cooked a Beef Wellington for Christmas dinner last year.

When it was ready I was faced with the dilemma of how to get it from the oven onto the serving dish (8 hungry mouths to feed ... the thing was huge).

So, bright spark I am, I decided to remove it from the baking tray using two spatulas, one at each end. And as I gingerly carried it across the kitchen from the oven to the serving dish ... the beef in the middle dropped through the pastry and onto the floor, bounced and landed into the cats water dish, with all the pate & mushroom sauce going everywhere.

The professional I am took over.

Simply stuck it all back together, cut it into portions and served it to the waiting guests ... and no one noticed.

Vile but true.

huggs everyone,,,,

Its scary to think about these accidents,,,,

we can laugh about it now cause we are ok..

I luv cooking,,,,and I also have had some close calls...

for awhile,,,Id bake pizza's alot,,funny thing is I had a terrible habbit of forgetting them in the oven..
baked to the point it looked like a peice of charchol..

also one time I was boiling some water in a pot to make some noodles,,it was an electric stove and I had it set on high,,,

well,,silly me again,,,I forgot I was cooking...6 hours later I smelled a weird smell,,,,

My eyes poped with fear!!!

I ran to the kitchen and noticed my kettle 100% melted into the burner,,

funny thing is,,,after I shut it off and it cooled down,,,the bubble blob of metal lifted easily off and there was no damage???

I was lucky,,,

I now have 2 super loud times for cooking and also a fire extingwisher and a smoke alarm,,,


silly me!!!


huggs everyone

Haha

Some great replies to this thread so far although I will say that some of them have been close calls and I'm glad no one's been hurt.

I've never had a dangerous cooking experience really but when I was in my teens my parents were coming home late from work and asked me to put some chicken kiev's in the oven.

When they arrived home 45 minutes later the chicken kievs were still frozen solid, I hadn't shut the oven door ....