Top non-recipe posts of 2020

Lots of people want to make this at home. We show you how!

It’s been quite a year, has it not? The readership of Burnt My Fingers (and probably most food blogs) has more than doubled during the pandemic, as folks look for something to do while stuck at home. And yet most readers find their way here through well-trodden paths laid down by the search engines. In commemoration of the blog’s 9^th anniversary in September, here are our five most popular non-recipe posts of the year:

1. The Halal Guys white sauce mystery… SOLVED! We cracked the code of the creamy white topping offered at the legendary NYC street food stand, while revealing what amounts to a vast conspiracy among food mavens to misdirect the public. By far our most-read post with over 15K views this year.
2. Test driving the Misen nonstick skillet. The good people at Misen like to tout the science behind their products, so we grabbed an early version of their new skillet and put it through its paces. Over a year later, our skillet is still going strong with non-stick properties virtually intact.
3. The sauce that made Mr. Durkee famous. In our house we only eat this creamy, eggy topping at Thanksgiving (on leftover turkey sandwiches), but people seem to like to read about it year round. Did Mrs. Lincoln actually invent Durkee’s while in the White House? Was it once made by a paint company? Read the post to find out!
4. Hacking the Salt & Char Ribeye Cap Steak. Summer in Saratoga means racing, and racing means celebrity chef Bobby Flay is in town, enjoying what he calls “the best thing I’ve ever eaten” at the Salt & Char steakhouse. Their Waygu Ribeye Cap is priced at $78 for a 9-oz serving, We show you how to make it at home—it’s not Waygu, but costs quite a bit less.
5. How to get big(ger) holes in your baguettes. Everybody’s been baking more, and this post does offer some useful info including pictures, which we usually don’t take the trouble to provide. But don’t stop here—search “sourdough” for many, many recipes and baking strategies including the link at the end of that post on how to generate steam in your home oven for a gleaming, blistery crust.

What lies ahead? Maybe a year from now we’ll be crowding into restaurants and around shared tables once again. (We really, really miss our buffets but suspect that concept is gone for good.) Right now, our several posts on Snow’s Barbecue (do a search) are trending thanks to a recent Netflix show on that fine Texas establishment (which is currently providing its pudding-soft meat by mail order only). While the weather is still good enough to fire up the smoker, check ‘em out.