There are some dishes that are best left for the professionals. Don't try making these ones at home.
Cured meat
A meat and cheese platter is the perfect way to kick off a dinner party — elegant, easy to assemble and palate-pleasing. But if you’re considering taking the meat part to the next level by curing it yourself, stop right there, says Ellen Steinberg, a registered dietitian and food safety specialist in Atlanta. “There are so many potential hazards” tied to the meat-curing process, she says, since it involves precisely measuring the amount of moisture in the air and meat in order to prevent bacterial growth. Imperfection could set yourself — and your guests — up to eat mold or to acquire a bacteria like listeria, e. coli or staph.
(AP Photo/Richard Drew)
AP Photo/Richard Drew
Sushi
When Brad Farmerie, executive chef of AvroKO Hospitality Group, prepares a dish featuring raw fish, he knows the fish’s origin, (short) transit time from catch to kitchen and that it’s been kept consistently chilled to keep bacterial growth at bay. Everyday chefs don’t have that luxury, nor do they likely abide by the same strict food safety codes as Farmerie’s staff members in his New York City restaurants. In effect, non-pros are more likely to get sick from raw fish, which can harbor harmful parasites and other microorganisms. If you must go raw, opt for a homemade ceviche loaded with lemon juice or vinegar, since acid can help reduce the risk, experts say.
(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli
Deep-fried turkey
You’ve been warned about the risks of frying turkey at Thanksgiving, but the concept — be it deep-frying a bird or something else like a fish — is ill-advised year-round if you’re using a pot of oil and a thermometer, rather than a proper deep-fryer. “It’s probably going to be painful, you’re probably going to burn yourself and get hot oil all over,” says Farmerie, who’s watched a friend’s wooden deck catch on fire from a fried turkey attempt. “Just do it the normal way [baking] and have a delicious meal and don’t hurt anyone,” he suggests. Another (healthy) option: Using an air-fryer, or a tool that crisps foods without oil.
(Courtesy Mark Bucher)
Courtesy Mark Bucher
Steak tartare
If you like your burger raw, you better like eating out. Trying to prepare your own steak tartare — essentially spiced up raw ground beef — is a recipe for food poisoning, says Jackie Newgent, a chef and registered dietitian in New York City. “It’s best to start with the freshest cut of beef or lamb, for instance, and then prepare immediately after grinding using clean grinder equipment,” she says. But even restaurant-prepared tartare isn’t risk-free. And topping your dish with a (non-pasteurized) raw egg only adds to the risk, particularly if you’re serving people who are very old, very young, pregnant or otherwise have a weakened immune system, experts say.
(WTOP/Rachel Nania)
WTOP/Rachel Nania
Consommé
If chefs in the 1960s and 1970s wanted to show off, they’d prepare a consommé — a soup that’s been “clarified,” or cleared of sediment via a lengthy, very technical process. Today, there are far less tedious ways to impress your guests, says Farmerie, who recently prepared a consommé for a themed menu. Even for him, the whole process — which involves boiling egg whites in the stock in such a way that the proteins in each bind to one another — took four hours. “The result is a soup that does not match the effort,” he says. Make an easy (albeit — gasp — cloudy) bone broth-based soup instead.
(AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)
AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit
Baked Alaska
Speaking of showing off, making a dessert that’s sealed with a flame like baked Alaska will only impress guests if they depart burn-free. “It can be quite memorable, but the memory you’re probably going to leave [guests] with is your rug catching on fire,” Farmerie says. Homemade spun sugar candy or any other high-temperature sugar concoction comes with similar risks, since sugar doesn’t caramelize until it reaches a whopping 340 degrees (far hotter than boiled water), Newgent says. The process “involves heating up liquefied sugar to very high temperatures and basically splattering or flinging it, which can badly burn your skin if it splatters on you,” she says.
(Sara Moulton via AP)
Sara Moulton via AP
Mushroom risotto with truly wild ‘shrooms
Mushroom risotto with grocery store-bought, say, shiitake mushrooms, is a delicious, doable dish for home chefs to try out and enjoy. But the same dish with wild-wild mushrooms — i.e. those with an unknown origin or those you picked yourself (assuming you’re not a fungi specialist) — can lead to a particular type of food poisoning caused by consuming toxins found in inedible mushrooms, Newgent says. “[Food poisoning] is usually caused by eating wild mushrooms after they’re mistakenly considered a non-toxic mushroom variety or misidentified as one that’s color, shape or size resemble a variety that’s edible,” she says. If you must go wild, go out.
(AP Photo/Larry Crowe)
Phoebe Lapine’s dinner was supposed to include a shaved Brussels sprouts salad. Instead, it almost included a sliver of her partner’s thumb, which he sliced in the salad-making process. While emergency room doctors successfully glued the wound, the couple learned a lesson: Leave the mandolin — a super-sharp slicing contraption (not the instrument) — usage to the pros. Because the tool slices so fast, “you don’t realize how close your hand is getting to it,” says Lapine, a private chef and author in New York City. For amateur chefs, a knife works just fine to slice foods like Brussels sprouts and potatoes for chips. For your health and safety, avoid attempting these foods at home, too.
