Cooking tips & tricks

Beetlebum

Hey Guys,

This may have been done before but I was thinking it'd nice to have a thread dedicated to helpful cooking tips. It can be anything from how to make an overly spiced curry less spicy to how you can crush garlic by clicking your fingers! :pac:

If you stick a small spoon into a big petite foluis (sp) yogurt and freeze it, you have a lovely low fat creamy treat.

If your spice collection is running low, try adding them all together and giving it a good shake. It usually ends up as a kind of new all spicey flavour.

Adding crumbled black pudding to bolognese gives it a whole new depth of flavour.

Adding finely chopped chorizo to scrambled eggs makes them a million times more exciting and colourful.

Emm..I'm actually not very good at this. It seemed like a good idea at teh time but I'm already out of ideas! Hah:pac:

Faith

There's one here. It was stickied for a long time, but got lost when we unstickied it. Might resticky it for a while!

rsta

Mmm, chorizo in scrambled eggs sounds good. Nom nom :pac:

Sigma Force

Adding crumbled black pudding to bolognese gives it a whole new depth of flavour.

Adding finely chopped chorizo to scrambled eggs makes them a million times more exciting and colourful.

Two good ones.

Mine: If in doubt add more chocolate chips to cookie mixture can never have too many lol.

Alun

I think I've mentioned this one before, but when marinading meat, instead of leaving it in an open dish, put the marinade and meat in a sealed plastic bag (with the air pushed out) and seal it with a bag clip. Means you use less marinade, makes it easier to squidge everything around and get the meat thoroughly coated and less washing up.

Little Alex

I recently came across this and think it's great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o28yI1XTQQU

Maybe everyone else has always been doing it this way, though...

Doolee

A simple one i recently discovered:

Leave eggs out of the fridge and they are wayyyyyy easier to seperate and even fall out of the shell better.
Probably something everyone knows but if it helps one person make a better omlette, then its worth it!

Theres also the one where if a bit of shell falls in, use the rest of the shell to fish it out.

Remove all veges from plastic immediatly as plastic induces mould growth.
Store mushrooms in a paper bag, they keep better.

Dizzyblonde

If you keep your OXO cubes in the fridge they're a lot easier to crumble.

If you drop an egg on the floor, sprinkle flour onto it and wait for it to soak up the moisture and it'll be easier to clean up. Not a cooking tip, but we've all dropped an egg..

carmex21

I love the Gordon Ramsay tip!

I always make a complete hash of pepper chopping

kylith

If you're frying something in butter put a drop of oil in the pan with the butter and it will stop the butter burning.

And a clean-up tip: If something's gotten burned to the pan soak it with a cap of biological washing liquid (for clothes) and hot water. The enzymes in the washing liquid will digest the burned on stain, making it much easier to remove.

the beer revolu

You know when you marinate meat, it doesn't really brown very well when you go to cook it?
Well a tip I got from a Corrigan recipe is to brown the meat before marinating !
Simple, effective.

Miaireland

Brush or wipe mushrooms, do not wash them.

Kenny_D

Miaireland wrote: »

Brush or wipe mushrooms, do not wash them.

Just curious but why? I always wash mine...

sharonl

when you buy fresh ginger, peel it and keep it in a bag in the freezer, then just grate it frozen into whatever your cooking as you need it. Keeps for months that way and you've always got fresh ginger around. Maybe everyone already knows this but I wasted lots of ginger buying it for a curry, only using an inch or so of it and then having to dump it if I didn't use the rest quickly, so always ended up having to buy fresh ginger everytime I needed to use it so this way, I'm never out of ginger and always have some in the freezer.

boodlesdoodles

Everyone probably knows this one as well. Keep your block of parmesan in the freezer, it keeps for ages and is easier to grate. If you're using shavings for a salad it doesn't matter because they warm up so quickly. Just make sure its wrapped up probably to avoid freezer burn.

This isn't food related, but similar to the tip for washing burnt pots, if sprinkle washing powder round a dirty or tea stained sink give it a scrub with old washing up brush it comes out sparkling clean. You can just do it to make it sparkly too if you've no stains.

Dinkie

before putting a spoon into honey smear it in oil. The honey won't stick to the spoon

put your water bottle into the freezer at night and take if out the next morning. The water will melt gradually, meaning that you have chilled water all day (learnt this in oz).

finely chop any extra herbs you may have. put them into ice cube trays. simply pop out of the tray next time you need some herbs (really good for curry's, casseroles, soups, etc)

cut up slices of lemon and lime. put in a zip loc bag and freeze (I always end up throwing out lemons and limes when they go off). Next time a visitor wants water/soft drink pop one of the slices in. Looks really pretty and cools down the drink

poonamt93

Please share your most favorite tips or tricks that works in the kitchen. Whether it is how to store a food without it going bad, or how to cut something difficult or most anything else, please share your best kitchen tips and tricks.

kylith

sharonl wrote: »

when you buy fresh ginger, peel it and keep it in a bag in the freezer, then just grate it frozen into whatever your cooking as you need it. Keeps for months that way and you've always got fresh ginger around.

And there was I thinking I'd been all smart thinking that one up!

I do the same with garlic; it's not so great for keeping the garlic smell off your fingers, but grating it means that it just dissolves in the food and tastes wonderful.

tscul32

likewise freeze your chilli peppers. Sometimes you can only manage to buy a bag of them and only need one or two. They defrost in no time.

Also I make banana cake when I'm left with a few about to go bananas. Bake in 1lb loaf tins and freeze in halfs. Pefect amount for a slice each for me and the little ones. Or slice it and freeze the slices. Then you can defrost in the toaster - the outside kinda caramelises and is delish.

rsta

Make potato farls with left over cold mashed potato.

Mashed potato will keep in the fridge sealed for about 5-7 days, or longer if you freeze it. Let it cool down first before refrigerating it.

To make the farls, let the mash come up to room temperature, add flour and mix up with seasoning (if not added already).

The quantity of flour to add is a quarter of the weight of the mash. So if you have 400g mash, add 100g flour. This quantity makes about 4 farls.

Mix it up good so you kind of have a dough, roll into a ball and flatten to the size you'd like your farl, then fry it up in a bit of butter. Or if you like a dryer farl, fry it up in a dry pan dusted with flour.

Had these this morning, very tasty

Also, another tip for extra tasty mash, add some of the Shwarz Steakhouse Pepper with some butter.

Chicken Run

Not specifically a cooking tip, but freeze cartons of juice and put them in with a packed lunch - they act as an ice-pack keeping the lunch fresher and will have thawed by lunch-time.

Good for schoolkids.