Cooking Hints & Tips Archive 25
Cooking Tip: Mace is the bright red membrane that covers the nutmeg seed. After the membrane is removed and dried it becomes a yellow-orange color. It's sold ground and, less frequently, whole. It tastes and smells like a pungent version of nutmeg and is used to flavor a variety of foods, from sweet to savory.
Cooking Tip: A member of the lily family, garlic is a cousin to leeks, chives, onions and shallots. The edible bulb or "head" grows beneath the ground. This bulb is made up of sections called cloves, each encased in its own parchmentlike membrane.
Cooking Tip: Water chestnuts are the edible tubers of a water plant indigenous to Southeast Asia. The water chestnut's brownish-black skin resembles that of a true chestnut, but its flesh is white, crunchy and juicy. The flavor is bland with a hint of sweetness.
Cooking Tip: The nectarine's flesh is sweet, succulent and firmer than that of its relative, the peach. When ripe, its smooth skin is a brilliant golden yellow with generous blushes of red. Nectarines are available from midspring to late September with a peak during July and August.
Cooking Tip: Drawn butter, also called clarified butter, is unsalted butter that has been slowly melted, thereby evaporating most of the water and separating the milk solids, which sink to the bottom of the pan, from the golden liquid on the surface. After any foam is skimmed off the top, the clear (clarified) butter is poured or skimmed off the milky residue and used in cooking.
Cooking Tip: Bouillon is any broth made by cooking vegetables, poultry, meat or fish in water. Bouillon is available on the market in the liquid, cube, granule, and packet forms.
Cooking Tip: Court Bouillon is a poaching liquid for fish whose ingredients usually include water, vinegar or wine, diced vegetables, and seasonings.
Cooking Tip: Gravy is a sauce made from meat juices, usually combined with a liquid such as chicken or beef broth, wine or milk and thickened with flour, cornstarch, or some other thickening agent. A gravy may also be the simple juices left in the pan after the meat, poultry, or fish has been cooked.
Cooking Tip: Au Jus is a French phrase describing meat served with its own natural juices. Beef Broth is a liquid resulting from cooking vegetables, meat or fish in water. The term is sometimes used synonymously with bouillon. Beef Stock is the strained liquid that is the result of cooking vegetables, meat, or fish and other seasoning ingredients in water.
Cooking Tip: Truffle oil is created when truffles are soaked in olive oil. Chefs in Italy and France traditionally made their own by steeping tiny bits of fresh truffles in high-quality olive oil.
Cooking Tip: 1/4 cup of unpopped popcorn will make 5 cups popped.
Cooking Tip: One slice of bread will make 1/2 cup of bread crumbs.
Cooking Tip: One cup of uncooked rice will make 3 cups cooked.
Cooking Tip: One cup of uncooked macaroni will make 2 1/2 cups cooked.
Cooking Tip: Eight ounces of uncooked spaghetti will make 4 cups cooked.
Cooking Tip: Unopened solid shortening sugar may be safely stored up to 8 months; opened solid shortening sugar may be safely stored up to 3 months.
Cooking Tip: Unopened confectioners' sugar may be safely stored up to 18 months.
Cooking Tip: Unopened brown sugar may be safely stored up to 4 months.
Cooking Tip: Granulated sugar may be safely stored up to 2 years; sugar will not spoil but eventually may change flavor.
Cooking Tip: Unopened flour may be safely stored up to 12 months; opened flour may be safely stored 6-8 months.
Cooking Tip: Pineapples, like melons, do not have any starch reserves, so they do not get sweeter after they are picked. They must be harvested after they begin to ripen. The sweetest part of the pineapple is at the base.
Cooking Tip: Pineapples should be ripened at room temperature. Ripe pineapples can be stored at 40F degrees for several weeks.
Cooking Tip: Select pineapples with a nice fragrant smell. If possible choose pineapples that have been jet shipped because they will be the freshest. Avoid those pineapples with sour or fermented odors. It is really ripe if you can easily pull one of the leaves out of the top.
Cooking Tip: Store pineapple at room temperature for 1 or 2 days before serving to allow the pineapple to become softer and sweeter. Store in the refrigerator for 3 to 5 days or cut pineapple into chunks and store for up to 7 days. Cut up pineapple also freezes well.
Cooking Tip: The oil content of Macadamia nuts ranges from 65% to 80%.
Cooking Tip: Keep chili peppers fresh longer by storing them with the stems removed.
Cooking Tip: Always serve cheese at room temperature for optimal flavor.
Cooking Tip: If you run out of brown sugar unexpectedly, mix a cup of granulated sugar with two tablespoons of molasses to make your own.
Cooking Tip: When butter or margarine is called for in a recipe, use it in stick form. Do not use it in whipped butter or margarine. The whipped form has air whipped into it to make it softer and more spreadable. When measured tablespoon for tablespoon, the whipped form is actually less in weight than the stick form so it would not be an exact substitute.
Cooking Tip: Placing a piece of bread in with the brown sugar will prevent it from becoming hard, or sealing the package tight and storing it in the refrigerator will also keep it soft and fresh.
Cooking Tip: A roast with the bone in will cook faster than a boneless roast - the bone carries the heat to the inside of the roast quicker.
Cooking Tip: To slice meat into thin strips, as for Chinese dishes, partially freeze and it will slice easily.
Cooking Tip: To restore color and shine to an aluminum pan, boil some apple peels in it for a few minutes, then rinse and dry.
Cooking Tip: Burnt food can be removed from a glass baking dish by spraying it with oven cleaner and letting it soak for 30 minutes. The burnt-on residue will be easier to wipe off.
Cooking Tip: Stubborn stains can be removed from non-stick cookware by boiling, 2 tablespoons of baking soda, 1/2 cup vinegar, and 1 cup of water for ten minutes. Before using the pan again, season it with salad oil.
Cooking Tip: Check expiration dates of baking soda. For testing purposes, baking soda should bubble when added to vinegar. Be sure to mix baking soda into the flour before adding to the wet ingredients; this distributes everything evenly so your food won't end up with large holes.
Cooking Tip: Check expiration dates of baking powder. For testing purposes, baking powder should bubble when added to hot water. Be sure to mix baking powder into flour before adding to the wet ingredients; this distributes everything evenly so your food won't end up with large holes.
Cooking Tip: Check shortening before using. Shortening, especially new trans fat-free brands, can go bad, introducing off-flavors to your food.
Cooking Tip: Smell and taste nuts before using. Oils in nuts can turn rancid quickly. Store any leftover nuts in the freezer for longest shelf life.
Cooking Tip: Don't substitute flour types. If your recipe calls for all-purpose flour, that's what you need to use. Cake flour and bread flour will not behave the same.
Cooking Tip: Add a little honey to the butter in which you saute onions for an extraordinary flavor to your dishes. Add the onions to the pan once the butter and honey mixture begins to sizzle.
Cooking Tip: Mushrooms freeze well. Wash quickly, dry, then put them, sliced or un-sliced, in a plastic bag and freeze. Use them without defrosting. In any cooked dish, they will taste exactly like fresh mushrooms.
Cooking Tip: If you like well-browned pancakes, add 1 teaspoon molasses to the batter to get a beautiful color.
Cooking Tip: Make your own celery salt by drying celery leaves thoroughly, crushing them to a powder and mixing with salt.
Cooking Tip: Blend almost any kind of leftover soup, without bones, in a blender to make a delicious sauce or gravy.
