Small gripe ; Chefs putting everything in a plastic bag

[EvilMorty]

What is this current trend for chefs throwing it all in a plastic bag and “swooshing” it all around? Wtf is wrong with a dish or bowl to do all that. Yes Nigella looking at you! And most of those overly salty “Tasty” FB videos. And Jamie with his THREE bags of egg, breadcrumbs and flour... it’s unnecessary!

Makes less washing up I suppose. Though I don't imagine TV chefs do the washing up in the first place. I use a bag to put the flour onto chicken for nuggets or fried but that's it.

yanbu
whats wrong with using washable bowls or tupperware?

I've seen Tv Chefs get a lot of stick for not broadcasting the washing hands stage of cooking.

That’s been a ‘trend’ for a long time. Griping about plastic is getting very tedious. The electricity you used to make this post isn’t helping the planet either.

Its not the washing up. It’s the encouraging their viewers to use up to three one use only plastic bags, that will end up in the sea, when they could just use a bowl part. I’d wash up a bowl to help try and save the oceans, even three bowls Like you say, they probably don’t even do the washing up part themselves!

It’s much easier to get a good, even coverage of marinade/egg/breadcrumbs/whatever using a plastic bag. And it’s nothing new; my mum used to make fantastic ‘shake and bake’ breadcrumbed chicken back in the 70s.

And when I use bags I wash them out and reuse them. There’s no need for a bag to be single use.

I used to do this and wash reuse the plastic bag. But actually you can do the same thing perfectly well in a tupperware box with a lid.

You can coat/breadcrumb food using a plastic box with a lid. Just put the crumbs or flour or whatever in with the chicken or fish and give it a good shake. Works as well as using a plastic bag and you can reuse it many times.

Cross post!!

Agree, I generally use a glass, lidded Pyrex dish to marinade and just stir it to mix it up. No need for all those plastic bags.

The TV bit aside, most people would probably be horrified at the amount of single use plastic and paper that professional kitchens use.

It's all health and hygiene related. We aren't allowed to use cloths for longer than a day, we have to throw them away. Disposable wipes to clean probes, single use paper to dry things or wipe surfaces. If tubs and things get cracked, even if they are still usable, we have to throw them away.

It's all to do with cross contamination and stopping bacteria getting in. I have seen tubs be disposed just because they were too busy to wash them - that I don't agree with.

Very few places recycle plastic, glass they sometimes do.

I’ve only ever used a mixing bowl. You can still touch the chicken with your hands and wash them, it doesn’t need to be through a bag that you get a good coverage.

Question about reusing - it’s had raw chicken in there, how do you get it clean enough to reuse without melting it from hot water?

Shake and Bake is also unnecessary, it’s just herbs and a bit of flour.

The coverage is much better from a bag as there is less space between the meat and the surface of the container.

If you're a strong campaigner against single use plastics then this seems a strange thing to focus on as those bags are more commonly used to put sandwiches and the like in.

Totally agree. Lidded container does the job just as well in most cases.

We're using beeswrap stuff a lot more now for covering bowls - waxy cloth that's moulds to fit round stuff. Splendid. Pricey, but lasts a very long time once you have it.

Also using cotton cloth squares - like a massive hanky size - to wrap dryish stuff like filled rolls. Make the clothes from old sheets that have got worn out. Tie up the corners or stuff into a bag to hold it closed, or a bit of string or Velcro or elastic band.

And cloth bags for storing bread, cake etc, again, made up from old clothes or bedding.

I made some little bags with slightly elasticed tops for the kids to take fruit for school. Protects the fruit from knocks, washable, and has their initials stitched in so no labelling problems any more.

I actually think the fruit bags for school could really take off because they are so convenient to use. Can't be arsed to try and sell them, but if anyone here is a maker, they're a great thing and no one else is doing them as far as I know. We have three in circulation per kid, including a long one for bananas.

Most people I know use paper or recyclable foil to wrap their sandwiches. The school even encourage this.

It was my mum’s own homemade shake and bake, Morty, not packet stuff.

You don’t need to wash at plastic melting temperatures to get things clean, even if it was used for raw chicken. Plenty of people don’t have dishwashers and manage to keep things hygienic just fine. You can use stone cold water and it would make no difference whatsoever apart from having to scrub a bit harder to get the grease off.

I travel around many different worksites and mostly see sandwiches and other food stuffs in plastic sandwich bags.