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Even people who spend a lot of time in the kitchen have their cooking kryptonite. Well, Redditor george_elis asked, "As a competent home cook, what is a basic skill you can't seem to master?" Here's what people said.
1."For some reason, I can't make mashed potatoes. My mash is always slightly lumpy, or gloopy, or sloppy. I have spent hours researching the science to try and perfect my technique. I have tried probably dozens of recipes. Ricers. Pushing through a sieve. Bake the potato first. I have not yet managed to achieve perfectly a smooth, fluffy, tasty mash."
2."Poaching eggs. Mine are always crooked and ugly. Been cooking as a hobby for 25 years. But my brother, who will ruin a boxed cake somehow, has always been able to make picture-perfect poached eggs."
3."Cooking fish. I simply cannot achieve consistency. I bought the same kind of fish three weeks in a row just to try and perfect a dish. Week one came out under cooked, week two was overcooked, week three tasted fine...but my house smelled fishy for five whole days afterwards."
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4."I think for me it's just timing. I have never managed to perfectly time a meal so that everything is ready at the same time. I always have at least one thing that takes 10 minutes longer. I do not understand how people do it."
5."Proper cutting technique. I can't hold anything still/stable by curling in my fingers. For context, no amount of knife care in the world will circumvent the arthritis developing in my knuckles. I've never had good control over my non-dominant hand's fine motor skills, but I can cook and prepare food just fine for home cooking without using the claw, and the only time I've cut my hand with a knife in over a decade is when I was using someone else's knife to cut a pumpkin."
6."I can never make the correct amount of pasta. I’m either left with enough to feed my family for 3 other meals, or they complain there’s not enough. I’ve taken to measuring portions on a kitchen scale, down to the gram, and yet I still can't get it right."
7."Rolling a burrito. There's always something coming out of the seam."
8."Pie crusts from scratch. I haven't been able to get it right yet, but I have a really good food processor now and some recipes to test out, so I'm crossing my fingers."
9."Making the right amount of food. I either make way less than I intended, or make so much I will have enough to last me until I start to hate the recipe."
10."Many of my sauces, using exactly the listed ingredients in the recipes and following instructions and videos exactly, never thicken up. I've even simmered for a lot of extra time, but there's barely an improvement. It drives me nuts to have to add a corn starch slurry almost every time in order to finish preparing dinner in a reasonable timeframe."
11."This is embarrassing, but hard-boiled eggs on the stovetop. This is basically the reason I still have my pressure cooker. The 5/5/5 pressure-cooker method is the only way I've been able to make hard-boiled eggs that peel easily. I've tried just about every stovetop technique and timing scenario I can find, and every single time, they are a pain in the *** to peel (taking half the shell with them) or the insides are never cooked exactly how I like."
12."I cannot get hot buttered toast and hot, not overcooked, eggs on my wife’s plate at the same time."
13."Cacio e pepe. Cheese all lumps up every time. I’ve never pulled it off."
14."Making a pot of rice. I gave up and bought a rice cooker and never looked back. It's been worth every penny for me."
15."I’m a pretty good home cook (if I do say so myself). I can make an excellent Beef Wellington, complex stews, and sauces. I can cook meat perfectly and reliably. But I cannot for the life of me master omelettes. I have a total blind spot."
16."I cannot flip a pancake to save my life. Eggs, French toast, and pancakes all flip perfectly. But pancakes? They will always partially flip and the batter will end up on the spatula, or the side of the pan or on the cooked side of the pancake. I’ve wasted so much pancake batter over the course of my life."
17."Plating. Perhaps if I don't have the finesse or the patience, but whenever I plate food, it never looks beautiful."
18."Using the broiler. It's the reason I know my smoke detector works."
19."I'm a pretty good cook (it's a hobby of mine), but I cannot get bacon right on the stove. I don't know what it is, but I just can't get the whole strip to come out consistently. Part of it is always lame and flabby when other parts are already too burnt. I've tried only flipping it once; I've tried flipping it a bunch of times. I've tried low and high heat, a cast-iron skillet, and a non-stick pan. I've simmered it in shallow water first, then let it fry in its rendered fat. It doesn't matter what I do; it just never comes out right. At most, maybe a few strips out of the pound will be GOOD, and the rest will be mediocre. I can work around it. I just make bacon in the oven instead, which consistently comes out great and is much less messy. But it's kind of infuriating that I can't do it!"
20."Gravy. My grandmother and mother always made wonderful gravies. They couldn't give me a recipe because they just knew instinctively through experience how much that to use, how much flour to add, and seasoning. My gravy never quite cuts it. So I often use a good quality package mix and doctor it up."
21."Toasting nuts. If I smell them, it's too late, and they burn because they continue cooking after removing them from the (toaster) oven."
22."I can't make an Alfredo sauce to save my freaking life. It always always always comes out runny."
