At least 6 million people, or about 14 per cent, have had a cooking accident or have caused serious damage to their homes while trying out new tricky techniques, a study has revealed.
The research commissioned by Esure Home Insurance said that damage worth billions of pounds are caused across the UK by people trying to copy high-profiles celebrity chefs like Gordon Ramsay, Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver.
Often people without home insurance are left wide open to financial loss as well as physical damage.
Despite 73 per cent of participants in the survey describing themselves as amateur, novice or useless, 75 per cent admitted that they would still attempt pulling off a complex cooking trick. This would result in approximately £5 billion of household damage.
Amongst the cooking techniques responsible for most of the damage are: fast chopping, causing scratched kitchen surfaces; deep frying, involving personal injury damage; and steaming, leading to watermark damage on walls and ceilings.
Others are: tendering meat, leading to chips and cracks in kitchen surfaces; and skewering, causing personal injury.
The most dangerous dishes on the list, according to the study, were crème brûlèes and roasted peppers. Many people use a DIY-style blow torch in place of the culinary versions used on TV cooking programmes to practice the techniques.
It was also revealed that more than a quarter of these often result in damage to the people, their kitchen or culinary utensils, just as 70 per cent do not keep a fire extinguisher close.
“It’s great to see that kitchens across the country are becoming hubs of creative cookery – fuelling a passion for food and the growth of the dinner party,” said celebrity chef Tony Tobin.
He however advised people at home to consider the fact that all celebrity chefs have had training and experience before mastering the techniques.
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