Worst cooking disasters?

cornish tigress · Post by **cornish tigress** » Wed May 09, 2007 1:47 pm

Many years ago I cooked for my boyfriend following a recipe for paella, and when it said add rice to pan, I added the only rice I had to the pan. Sadly it was a sachet of boil in the bag rice. He manfully picked his way through all the burnt plastic and rock solid rice pellets and said it was lovely. :oops:

Anyone else?

Lily Tigrinum · Post by **Lily Tigrinum** » Wed May 09, 2007 1:56 pm

my mum once burnt a jelly

chandler262827 · Post by **chandler262827** » Wed May 09, 2007 2:06 pm

A frozen Shepherds pie.

Instructions said 'remove all packaging and place directly on shelf'.

This I did, including the little foil bit in which it should sit whilst cooking.

Picking the bits of pastry and meat from the bottom of the oven 45 mins later gave me plenty of time to reflect on my mistake.

:oops:

This happened several years ago, and is still the cause of much grief (for me)/merriment (for them) amongst friends. Only last year, my best mate introduced me to someone who shook my hand and said "Tom? Shepherds pie Tom?" and I knew the story continued to spread....

.... mother always said I was special. ;o)

suesturgess · Post by **suesturgess** » Wed May 09, 2007 2:17 pm

i put a chicken in the oven for sunday lunch and went out came back to a house full of smoke i had left the oven on number 9 i had for got to turn the oven down. i kown chicken has to be well done but this was black :oops:

wills_#1fan! · Post by **wills_#1fan!** » Wed May 09, 2007 2:29 pm

Burnt soup... no one stopped me heating the pan up!

Rizzo · Post by **Rizzo** » Wed May 09, 2007 3:23 pm

I threw a party for some friends at my parents' house (no, not a MySpace trash the place party) and I did some pizza, which I reheated a couple of times.

My best friend observed thoughtfully "Jan, you're the only person I know who could turn supermarket pizza into ceiling tiles!"

I also once switched on the industrial food mixer in the pub kitchens where I was working. It was full of mashed potatoes which I was meant to be making "creamed mash" by adding butter, cream and whipping. I switched it on to high instead of turning up the level very slowly.

That area of the kitchen had a very tasteful dado rail made of mashed potato. Chef was actually quite amused (thankfully!)

I'm sure there are more from me, I am a lousy cook.

Lily Tigrinum · Post by **Lily Tigrinum** » Wed May 09, 2007 3:58 pm

I had a temp job in the market place Bakers Oven years ago after finishing college, usually on the take-out just serving teas and hot pies to the market folk. I got sent upstairs to help in the restaurant one day cos they were short staffed and ....

:oops: burnt every piece of toast
:oops: :oops: cooked each bacon, egg, sausage, beans separately
:oops: :oops: :oops: served a table of four ladies one meal at a time

I lasted about 3 hours before management decided I was making things worse.

Don't talk to me about multi tasking, I still need a list to boil an egg. Sorry if any of those customers were you...

Jess · Post by **Jess** » Wed May 09, 2007 5:55 pm

i cracked an egg on the aga once!

Sherpa2 · Post by **Sherpa2** » Wed May 09, 2007 6:07 pm

[quote="Lily Tigrinum"] :oops: :oops: cooked each bacon, egg, sausage, beans separately
:oops: :oops: :oops: served a table of four ladies one meal at a time[quote]

What, every bean, singularly - wow thats dedication!!

One Christmas 'we' took the Turkey out to defrost but put it in the Garage - come Christmas morning it was still frozen solid so had to have sausage and mash - even worse, it was still frozen Boxing Day so had cold gammon. (Notice the gallant use of we, please ladies!)

Kinoulton · Post by **Kinoulton** » Wed May 09, 2007 6:24 pm

Put our turkey in the freezer on December 19th. Got it out on December 24th and the poor thing had died.

Rizzo · Post by **Rizzo** » Wed May 09, 2007 7:53 pm

My first attempt at Yorkshire Pudding was very solid and heavy. We threw the uneaten part (most of it) out for the birds.
A bit later my Dad called out "Hey, come and look at these birds, they're having three goes at take-off!"

I also microwaved chicken pieces when I got my first microwave, and misread the timer in the cookbook. They were black and smoking when I got them out.

cornish tigress · Post by **cornish tigress** » Wed May 09, 2007 7:58 pm

I'm also quite good at setting fire to myself. I have gone up a few times now, normally sleeves, but once the whole bottom edge of a rather nice jacket.

Jess · Post by **Jess** » Wed May 09, 2007 8:53 pm

Oh i set fire to my hair once, but that was in chemistry, so i'm not sure that counts as a cooking disaster

Gate · Post by **Gate** » Wed May 09, 2007 9:01 pm

A friend of mine who used to make banoffee pie fell asleep during the bit where you boil the tin of condensed milk to produce the toffee bit. It boiled dry and exploded, blowing the pan apart and punching holes in the brickwork with the resulting shrapnel. I saw the damage the next day - mighty impressive. She was lucky she fell asleep in the dining room - if she'd been in the kitchen she'd have been killed. Needless to say, she hasn't made banoffee pie since.

[She also took quite a while to forgive me for pointing out that you can buy the toffee stuff as "dulce de leche" from Sainsbury's.]

Rizzo · Post by **Rizzo** » Wed May 09, 2007 9:07 pm

I made a Christmas cake. Having put it in the oven, I then realised you had to bake it at one temperature for 2 hours, then turn the oven down and bake at a lower temp for another 2 hours. This necessitated turning the oven down at midnight and getting up at 2am to turn oven off and get cake out (don't ask why I started cooking so late at night!).

Got up at 2am, went downstairs half asleep. Turned oven off and got cake out. Decided in half asleep way that I should remove the outer loose side ring of the cake tin and cool it just on the base. So I held the tin with oven glove on one hand and pushed up the base hard. The loose ring part shot down and circled around my (unprotected) wrist and arm burning me, I yelled, the cake went in the air and splatted on the floor. I was left with my arm looking like I'd been branded like Kwai Chang Caine in Kung Fu.

We picked up the cake, pieced it back together, iced it, and never told the family. ;o)