Top 10 Evil Ingredients

10. Gravy Master.  Ingredients: Made From Caramelized Sugar, Caramel Color, Water, Hydrolyzed Soy & Corn Protein, Apple Cider Vinegar, Salt & Spices (Onion, Celery, Parsley, Garlic). Contains No Meat…Does this sound like the makings of gravy to you?   If you must dance with devil, think of this a brown food coloring for a pale gravy.  You’ll be forgiven.

9.  Black Pepper, Not Freshly Ground.  The flavor compounds in pepper are highly volatile.  Pre-ground pepper loses much of its flavor and aroma.  Your first choice is always freshly ground.  If you need a lot of freshly ground, break out the blender.

8.  Your Spice Rack.  If the spices in your spice rack are more than 1 year old for whole spices and 6 months for ground, throw them out!

7.  Margarine.  There’s just no reason to use this stuff to cook with at home.  It’s loaded with trans-fats and it can’t compare to butter for flavor.  In commercial bakeries it may be used due to its lower cost.

6.  Miracle Whip.  It’s not mayonnaise.  Ingredients: Water, Vinegar, Soybean Oil, Modified Food Starch, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Sugar, Salt, Contains Less Than 2% Of Egg Yolks, Cellulose Gel, Mustard Flour, Artificial Color, Potassium Sorbate As A Preservative, Xanthan Gum, Cellulose Gum, Spice, Paprika, Sucralose And Acesulfame Potassium (Sweeteners), Natural Flavor, Dried Garlic.

5.  Instant Mashed Potatoes in place of the real thing.  You can use instant mashed potatoes (Potato Buds) as a great crust for chicken tenders, aka chicken fingers that kids will go mental over.  I’d also recommend it to practice your piping skills with.

4.  Parmesan Cheese in Can.  First of all, any grated cheese in a bag or green can is mixed with cellulose to keep it from sticking together.  And, cellulose doesn’t improve the taste of cheese.  Secondly, cheese is very much like wine, a product of its environment and aging.  Just because you can grow grapes somewhere and ferment them doesn’t necessarily make a great wine.  Think MD 20/20 vs. Château Lafite Rothschild.  There is no substitute for Parmigiano-Reggiano from Italy…yet.

3.  Bottled Garlic.  Chemically treat garlic in rancid oil, yum.

2.  Bottled Lemon Juice.  There is no substitute for the real thing.

1.  Cooking Wine or Cooking Sherry.  In the US, cooking wine is very cheaply made, low in alcohol and loaded with salt to denature it and make it a non-drinkable cooking wine.  This is pure evil.  Either use the real stuff or nothing.  Some Chinese and Japanese cooking wines are the exception.  Quality in Asian cooking wines is highly variable but some can lend great flavors to cooking.