The plastic bag is a lazy cook’s best friend

Tonight I was cooking a lump of salmon and used a plastic bag to coat it in flour and seasoning. 

I realised as a lazy cook, the plastic bag really is super helpful and convenient and reduces the washing up of bowls, plates and utensils. Plastic bags also reduce the waste of eggs and milk when crumbing (or breading as my friends in north America might say).

So tonight I took my lump of salmon from the refrigerator. The supermarket delicatessen sales assistant had placed the lump of salmon in a plastic bag before wrapping it in paper. Rather than waste plastic and dirty any other cooking utensil I poured a little oil into the bag and massaged my lump of salmon through the plastic bag. I then added a little flour, Panko bread crumbs, some sea salt crystals, curry powder, chilli flakes, and ground pepper. I massaged the lump of salmon through the plastic bag and let it rest while I heated up my frying plan. While my lump of salmon was cooking I added a halved tomato and made a quick coleslaw to eat with the fish.

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You can see the salmon has a nice coating of panko bread crumbs and the chilli flakes and pepper are pretty obvious. What isn’t obvious but to which I can attest is that I slipped with the sea salt crystals and the salmon was a little more salty than I like. That said, I finished my dinner and wished I had another piece.

For the lazy cook, a plastic bag can be used for all sorts of proteins to be coated. I like using it for chicken pieces whether they have skin or not, diced bits of tough beef for browning before slow cooking, lamb cutlets and I suppose you could do tofu this way too 😉 

Do you have any cheats for a lazy cook?

 

10 Responses

  1. I agree. I always double bag my veggies ie bundles of celery, kale, onions, so I can use the outer one for other purposes

    Freezer bags are useful for more than just freezing. I bag my sushi rolling mat to keep it clean while rolling and then just have to wash off the outside of the bag. 🙂

    1. I like using lots of zip lock bags. My best trick though isn’t a bag but wrapping a sandwich for toasting at work in baking paper so that I don’t dirty the sandwich press and there’s no mess to clean up.

  2. Wow such and easy way to prepare food. I’ve seen that with chicken but didn’t think about other food properties. I’m going to try that this weekend. Looked so delish. I love my Salmon.

  3. I make my own fries rather than the frozen ones pre cooked in canola oil and coated in a sugar mix.

    After cutting them, pop them in a ziplock bag with 2 tbsp of coconut oil, salt and pepper and other seasonings you desire. Give it a good shake then put on an oven pan and into an oven on 200C for 30-35 mins

    Parsnip fries are my favourite. I’m yet to try beetroot and taro.

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