Saving Scorched Chili
With all the emails I receive asking various cooking questions, I thought it would be fun to post some of the responses in a new section to my web site called Ask A Chef. Many times when I get a question from you, I send it to one of my chef friends for their advice. Between their answer and my own thoughts on a subject, I respond. This way you get advise from a professional chef with a home cooks point of view.
Becky wrote and asked, “Is there anyway to save scorched food, not totally scorched but just a little, enough to taste. I made a great pot of chili, left the room to answer the phone and came back to scorched food. Any tips would be great.”
After conferring with Chef Ricco, here’s how I responded:
First of all, don’t go back and stir the bottom of the pan and try to scrape all the burnt stuff off. Instead, get another pan; transfer all the non-burnt chili into the pan being careful to leave any burnt chili. Now you can continue cooking but try not to take your “eye off the ball”.
If you scraped the bottom of the pan in an attempt to rescue the original batch, you might as well throw it all out and start over since there is no way you are going to get rid of the burnt flavor.
Preventions
A few things you can do to prevent this from happening are being sure you are using a quality pot with heavy bottom. Cheaper pots typically have hot spots and don’t distribute the heat as well resulting in burning food. A well made soup pot or stock pot will have excellent distribution of heat and a bottom heavy enough to prevent “some” burning.
You can also try lowering the heat. This way you don’t have to watch as careful, but you still want to be paying attention. If you can’t adjust the heat on your stove low enough, try purchasing a stovetop heat diffuser. This simple gadget can help modify the strength of the heat and prevent scorching foods.
And in Becky’s case, she may consider having a phone installed in the kitchen but I’m not so sure that’s a good idea if it distracts her while she is cooking.
on February 9th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
I found a little trick in a curry recipe book that said if your food sticks to the bottom of the pan to take it off the heat for a few minutes and then try stiring it and i’ve found that it comes off the bottom quite easily altough left for to long and all you get is a horrible burnt taste. I’d only reccomend this if you’ve got the heat to high or it had been left for a short while.
on March 2nd, 2007 at 1:53 pm
I PUT SOME SMOKE FLAVORING, JUST A LITTLE. IT HELPS WITH THE BURNT FLAVOR IF NOT TOO BURNT.
on September 15th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
I have a slightly burnt taste to one of my mega pots of chili (one burner on my ceramic top stove heats in spurts even on the lowest setting)…I managed to scrape the bottom before I realized what had happened. Any thoughts? I had been cooking a vegetarian chili, wondering now if I add more ingredients and meat if I can save it somewhat. (Planning to serve vegetarian and meat chili tomorrow, was going to add onions and meat to one of the two pots today)…It’s hard to tell if a little bit of burn is too much burn at this point. Why do some recipes call for adding vinegar?
on December 9th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
Adding vinegar helps with the gas that all the beans will cause. Sounds weird, I know, but it works.
on February 15th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Great tips. I usually just eat the foods with the burnt taste or throw them away! I will be moving on now. Thanks
on February 25th, 2008 at 12:44 am
Hi,
Thanx for these tips! This is something I never thought of doing.
Cheers
Chef Johan
on February 27th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
There is no such thing as saving scorched chili! However, there is a simple way of doctoring it up. I am the infamous chili burner so, I always pick up an extra package of chili seasoning EVERY time that I plan on cooking chili. You can strain the chili and rinse with cool water. This will completely get rid of the burnt taste. Then you just put it back in the pan, add water and more chili seasoning. I also add a teaspoon of liquid smoke to help! This really really works!
on March 1st, 2008 at 10:17 pm
i saved a pot of chili that was sticking to the bottom of the casserole . I transfered it to my slow cooker and added a heaping tablespoon of peanut butter, yes peanut butter! And WOW the burnt smell and taste went away, couldn’t believe it!