Dumping hot water without steam burns
Does anyone know a technique to prevent rising steam from burning you when you are dumping hot water into a sink?
For example, putting a strainer into the sink and pouring off water from spaghetti. The rising steam hits your hands and face. I have tried running cold water into the sink as I pour off the hot water. Helps some, but not enough.
Best Answer
Do not hold your hands (and especially not your face) over the strainer. Hold the pot to one side, and don't turn it upside down, just tip it. If you need to look over to be sure the water is headed to the right place, pour slowly until you've established that, then move your head out of the steam and pour more quickly.
If you can't keep your hands away from the rising steam (because of the size of your pot or your sink or whatever) then wear oven mitts on your hands as you hold the pot to drain it.
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Answer 2
You might like a pasta strainer that fits inside the pot. When the pasta is cooked you lift the strainer out of the pot and leave the pot of hot water sitting on the stove or in the sink. There's still some steam exposure but not nearly as much. You can re-use the hot water (for a second batch of pasta, soup, hot chocolate, etc), or let it sit in the pot until it's cool enough to pour out conveniently.
There are pot/strainer combo sets like the example below, or you can get a separate strainer insert that fits a pot you already have.
The small downside (aside from purchasing and storing an extra strainer) is that the strainer inserts tend not to have as tall a "foot" as a stand-alone pasta strainer. So you won't want to set the strainer down in the sink because the pasta might come in contact with the surface of the sink (which presumably is not clean enough to eat off of, unless your sink is cleaner or your "ick" threshold is higher than mine). The solution is to have a bowl sitting by ready to pour the pasta into it. Then you can put the strainer back in the pot.
Answer 3
Blow gently to disperse the steam and hot mist as it rises; this normally brings in enough cooler air to keep your hands from being hurt. This should be combined with Kate Gregory's advice about pouring slowly and keeping your hands to the sides.
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