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Shoutout to the old guy who told me to stop using metal bowls for my meringue
My first head chef in Chicago, a guy named Frank, saw me using a stainless steel bowl for egg whites and just shook his head. He said 'Use glass, kid. The fat in a metal bowl, even if you can't see it, will ruin your peaks.' I thought he was just being picky... but after three failed batches, I switched to a glass mixing bowl I had. The next meringue was perfect and held its shape for hours. Anyone else have a weird kitchen rule that turned out to be totally true?
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wrenwilson2mo ago
It's like the old rule about not washing cast iron with soap, the people who swear by the shortcut are usually the ones who've never had a big enough failure to learn the hard way.
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sage_lewis103mo ago
Honestly that sounds like an old wives tale to me. I've used a stainless steel bowl for meringue for years and it's never failed once. A clean bowl is a clean bowl, the material doesn't magically hide fat. Maybe your old bowls just weren't washed well enough. I think some chefs just cling to these weird superstitions for no real reason.
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