Since childhood, many of us have been told that before you put something in your mouth, you need to wash something. However, some products cannot be washed immediately before cooking. On the list: raw meat, fish, eggs, mushrooms and pasta. Rinsing these products with plain water will do more harm than good.
Washing meat and poultry
First of all, before cooking, it is not recommended to wash raw meat and poultry:
- Chicken
- beef;
- pork
- lamb;
- veal.
Bacteria, which many tend to wash off, are not removed with ordinary water. They are firmly attached to the surface. To neutralize them, heat treatment is needed - the temperature inside the meat should reach 75 degrees Celsius.
Washing meat is not just a futile exercise, but also harmful. Along with water splashes, some bacteria, including salmonella, campylobacter and listeria, fall on the edges of the sink, hands, clothes and table. All of them cause intestinal infections. Therefore, if the prospect of getting into a hospital bed is not encouraging, it is better not to wash the meat and the scream. Instead, wipe the product with a disposable paper towel and boil or fry well. If you need to cook the broth, after boiling, you need to drain and pour a new one. So the meat will be cleared much better.
Egg washing
Rinse before cooking eggs is absolutely pointless. Firstly, there is a risk of simply beating them - the raw shell is very fragile. Secondly, during cooking, the bacteria that are on the surface will still die. Thirdly, the protein and the entire edible part of the egg are reliably protected from the penetration of microbes by the shell and film. It makes sense to wash the eggs only when it is planned to cook the eggs: when breaking a dirty shell, bacteria can get into the protein. And he, as you know, sometimes remains damp in the scrambled eggs.
Washing the fish
The meat rule also applies to fish. She is not sterile either. Washing with ordinary water will not destroy the bacteria, but will lead to cross-contamination of nearby surfaces.
Fish are cleaned from the insides and scales, fins are cut off - and that’s all. To easily remove the scales, the carcass is poured with boiling water in a kitchen sink, and then put on a newspaper and carried out with a knife from tail to head. Scalded scales can be removed with ease. The waste is thrown out along with the newspaper, and the fish is immediately cooked.
Mushroom wash
Mushrooms and oyster mushrooms are cleaned with a slightly damp cloth before cooking. Especially dirty places can be scratched with a knife. Forest species are usually steeped, and some are cooked immediately.
Mushrooms should not be washed. The thing is that almost all of them have a porous structure, so they quickly absorb liquid and become watery. In water, fungi darken, oxidize and lose their nutritional value.
Here you need to make a correction - you can’t wash the mushrooms intended for drying and frying before cooking. Before cooking soup, broth, salting, they are still washed.
Washing pasta
Many have remained in the habit of washing pasta since the Soviet Union. Then they were of poor quality and without washing stick together in one lump. Today, pasta is made mainly from durum wheat, so they do not need to be washed either before or after cooking. Water deprives the starch product, due to which the sauce is better absorbed. For the same reason, do not wash couscous. It is something between porridge and pasta and is made from wheat groats.
There are different ways to cleanse foods. Washing refers to primary processing and is recommended for almost all products. However, there are exceptions to any rule. At least 5 foods should not be washed immediately before cooking. Use alternative cleaning methods and remember that harmful microorganisms die only during heat treatment!