Whether you want to admit it or not, you’re probably guilty of committing this cooking faux pas: liquid overload. Sometimes, it’s a simple oversight — picking a pot too small for the job. Other times, we simply add too much liquid while cooking a dish, assuming it will cook away in time so our final product will be just the right amount of doneness (not overcooked or undercooked) with just the right amount of moisture.
This can be a problem when you must remove the liquid without disturbing the dish as it cooks. Since it requires a gentle touch, removing liquid off the top is best, like you would when removing the soup scum from a pot of soup. However, this poses a problem, as it is challenging to get the liquid without picking up food at the same time. Rice is a prime example.
A genius viral hack making its rounds on YouTube addresses this issue by making use of a flat slotted skimmer spoon to fix the problem. The technique is actually quite simple. Place a flat skimmer spoon over a deeper spoon (without holes) and press them both down together into the food. As the liquid pours over the skimmer, the holes will allow the liquid to seep through into the spoon below while preventing the food from joining. Once your bottom spoon is full of liquid, simply toss it (or set it aside for later, just in case), and keep going until you have the desired amount of liquid.
Other techniques might work, but may not be as effective
There are other ways to remove liquid, of course, but they are not always as practical or as easy as this hack and certainly won’t work when you have a dish that needs to cook gently without being disturbed. One option is to strain your food and return it to the pan. Another would be tilting the pan so the liquid pools on one side, thus making it easy to use a spoon to ladle out significant amounts of liquid without pulling food with it.
But what if you are cooking a delicate dish like a simple yet delicious shakshuka? While this dish doesn’t typically require the addition of liquids like broth or water, it does include tomato sauce, and tomato sauce tends to be a bit watery until it is thickened in the cooking process. Once you add the eggs, you want the dish to sit and cook — tilting the pan or straining it will compromise the eggs. If you haven’t sufficiently reduced your tomato sauce before the eggs are cooked, you may want to try this skimmer spoon hack so you don’t serve a watery mess.
Getting a good skimmer spoon doesn’t require a huge investment — you can get one like this GXONE Stainless Steel Skimmer Spoon for under $20, and it is a great tool to add to your cooking arsenal. In addition to removing the liquid with this hack, it’s also a great tool for removing ravioli from a pot of boiling water so the delicate pasta pillows aren’t damaged during the straining process.
