For the past 4 years cooking professionally, I have made my fair share of screw-ups. Some are minor, but some are really big. From all the cuts, burns and money loss, here are my top 3 fails in the kitchen; and oh boy they are interesting.

#3- I somehow burnt soup (how is that even possible??)  I was making pho at home for my family. Everything was going according to plan. Noodles were prepped, vegetables are ready and the chicken broth was halfway done. For the chicken broth, I let it simmer for about an hour. So I put the heat to low and waited. Knowing that the broth wasn’t going to be done anytime soon, I decided to watch some tv to kill time. Big mistake! When I came back, all the soup was evaporated and all what’s left of it was burnt chicken bones from the broth. Turns out I didn’t turn the heat low enough and all the liquids evaporated. After that, I spent the next 20 minutes cleaning the bottom of the pot. Pro tip: don’t walk away from the kitchen.

#2-  I cut myself so bad, I nearly passed out from the shock! This has to be one of the most painful mistakes I have ever experienced (and quite recent too). It was the time when I was cutting potatoes at work. One of the chef’s knives wasn’t sharp enough, but since I’m a clumsy idiot, I used it regardless. And if you’re cutting something with a dull knife, you have to use more force which has an increase of potential injury.  I accidentally cut my nail while cutting potatoes. In addition, since the knife was dull, I used so much force that I nearly cut my nail off (a bit of my nail was dangling)! There was blood everywhere, so I had to rinse it under cold water. For the first time in my life, I nearly passed out. Good thing the store manager help patched me up. I still have that scar, do you want to see it?

#1- My right arm caught on fire! What can be more frightening than a very painful cut? Last year I went camping with some friends. And of course I was the one that is doing the cooking. I set up the grill with the tube and propane tank. My friends and I put everything together and once we tried to start it up, the grill catches on fire! We quickly turned off the gas and put out the fire. We didn’t know what was going on with the grill. We thought it wasn’t screwed on properly; so we tried it again. When we restarted the grill the flame was much bigger than before. So we turned off the gas from the grill and tank and put out the fire again, but there was still some gas leaking. So for some reason, my idiot brain told me to unscrew the propane tank from the grill. I grabbed the oven mitts and tried to unscrew it. Little did I know, once I was done unscrewing it, the tube let out some gas and my oven and my entire right arm caught on fire! Since I was wearing bug repellent, my arm was very flame prone! Luckily, it only catched on fire for a good 3 seconds. What was left is an arm that looks like it has been tanned and the fire burned all my hair off my arm. I still get nightmares of this to this day.

At the end of the day, I just wanted to share with all of you that no one is perfect at cooking. Through reading my blog i’m hoping that you guys are at least aware of the dangers in the kitchen and take steps to prevent it from happening. We all make mistakes, but it’s all about learning those lessons so you don’t have to experience it again.

 

 

Courtesy of Masterchef