breaking the culinary rules! (redux)

Are these culinary rules legit to you, or do you break them?

1. "Always sift dry ingredients."

2. "Don't cook steak from fridge cold." (i.e., from fridge-cold temperatures)

3. "Never cook with cheap wine."

4. "Don't mix salt into burger-patty mixture."

I can give you my answers:

1. I think sifting is way overrated. I do understand that it can affect the perceived volume of a powdery substance like flour (sifted flour looks fluffier), which is why it's better to measure powders by weight (e.g., grams) and not by volume (e.g., milliliters, cups, etc). But I measure ruthlessly by weight where I can, so that's not an issue. Does not sifting result in lumps? Well, in some cases, as when you're making pancakes, lumps in the batter are actually considered a good thing. In other cases, if you use a Chef John rule like Hot roux, cold milk, no lumps, you don't even have to worry about lumps. And then there's just the idea that you can mix your dry ingredients thoroughly enough to achieve a no-lump mixture. So if the point of sifting is to avoid lumps, I'm here to say that, 9 times out of 10, you're not going to get lumps, anyway.

2. I'm not enough of a steak connoisseur to say, and ever since I discovered the fire-and-forget ease of sous-vide cooking, the question of fridge temp is irrelevant to me.

3. I use cheap wine with my beef burgundy all the time. Except for that one time. That said, I do subscribe to the Use a wine you would drink rule, whether the wine is cheap or not.

4. I've always found this to be absurd. Season it all up from the beginning, for God's sake. Don't listen to Babish; listen to Gordon Ramsay.

Here's Sorted Food, experimentally breaking rules to see the results: