What the Hell is Going On With Paris Hilton’s Cooking Show?

I have seen some crazy things in my life but nothing prepared me for Cooking with Paris, Paris Hilton’s new YouTube cooking show. I watched it, I rewatched it and honestly, I’m still not even sure if it’s a joke or not.

First of all, don’t let your dog help you cook. Sure they’re cute but it is not hygienic.

What I’m going to do is go through everything she does and explain why it’s wrong. Because literally everything is wrong.

You might think I’m going to start with her putting the pasta into cold water to cook instead of bringing it to a boil first, but that’s actually legit, just ask Alton Brown. What she does do wrong is not salting the water, not setting a timer and not covering the pasta completely with water. It will eventually soften and fall into the water, but she’s going to have pasta cooked to two different degrees of doneness.

The biggest problem is she doesn’t really explain how to do anything. I assume most people know how to cook dry pasta, but she doesn’t say how long to cook it or how to tell if it’s ready. We’ll come back to the pasta later, once she takes it off and drains it.

Next up is the cheese. Paris takes some mozzarella and grates it, complaining the whole time and suggesting viewers buy already-shredded mozzarella. This is a monumentally bad idea because cheese sold shredded is coating with an anti-caking agent to make it look prettier on the shelf but it also prevents it from melting the way you want. Always shred your own cheese. Paris doesn’t say how much to use here, but a pound is a pretty good amount. I’d also grate in like, 3-4 ounces of Parmesan, too.

As a funny aside, she also mentions she’s wearing gloves to keep from injuring her hands, which isn’t a bad idea but you should probably wear white latex or black nitrile gloves when cooking and just use proper kitchen safety techniques to keep from hurting yourself. She also says the gloves are for sliving, which she defines as “slaying and living” but Merriam-Webster defines as “to slice off or cut through” which is not what you want to be doing here.

Next up is the ricotta, and I thought for sure she was going to use cottage cheese here based on how things were going but nope, she gets this one right. She mixes in an egg and half the grated mozzarella, which I’ve always found to be optional. I do like to mix in some basil or oregano here, though, fresh or dried, whatever you have.

Then she makes the sauce, and if you’re going to use sauce from a jar and dried noodles why is this even a cooking show. Here’s a very simple sauce recipe from Alton Brown you can use that basically just involves cooking down two cans of tomatoes with some garlic.

From some reason, Paris also browns three pounds of ground beef, which is just way too much. She is right that you don’t want to cook the beef all the way through, but try one pound of beef and maybe half a pound to a pound of Italian sausage removes from the casing. And want to wait  until the sauce is cooked and season it with salt and pepper when it’s ready to come off the heat.

Also, this is very important, do not, under any circumstances, drain your beef in the sink like a Paris does here. Unless you rent then who cares. But that grease gets solid at room temperature and it absolutely will clog your drain. Drain it into a bowl, wait for it to cool and scrape it into the trash.

Do not drain your lasagna noodles and especially don’t drain them into one giant ball of noodle. Turn off the heat and use tongs or a spider to remove the noodles one at a time into cold water and then onto a parchment-lined baking sheet so they don’t stick together.

She does do a good job of putting  the lasagna together and cooking it, just don’t press the foil into the cheese, that’s just gonna stick and make a mess. If your lasagna is coming over the top of the pan, tent that foil. But I have to admit that when she takes it out of the oven at the end, it looks good.

Paris is entertaining and pretty sexy, honestly. But you know who is entertaining, sexy and can cook? Nigella Lawson. And Giada De Laurentiis. Watch them instead. Or just watch Binging with Babish.

Just don’t listen to him when he says not to use ricotta.

Seriously though, is Paris going to do more of these? She says at the end to tweet ideas for what you want to see her make next, so I suggest some really crazy ideas like Beef Wellington or Eggs Benedict. Any dish that sounds like the nickname of a rich British asshole, really.