Cooking Hints & Tips Archive 26
Cooking Tip: To peel tomatoes, fill a saucepan with enough water to cover tomatoes and bring to a boil. Immerse tomatoes about 30 seconds; drain and cool. Remove stem ends and slip off skins.
Cooking Tip: To seed tomatoes cut them in half crosswise. Gently squeeze each half, using your fingers to remove seeds. To reserve the juice for use in dressings, sauces or soups, seed the tomato into a strainer held over a bowl.
Cooking Tip: To roast tomatoes, preheat oven to 450F degrees. Halve tomatoes crosswise. Place halves, cut side down, on a shallow baking pan; brush with oil. Roast until lightly browned, about 20 minutes; cool. Remove skins and stem ends.
Cooking Tip: To slow-cook tomatoes, preheat oven to 300F degrees. Remove stem ends; slice tomatoes. Place slices on a shallow baking pan; brush with oil. Cook until tomatoes soften and shrink, about 45 minutes.
Cooking Tip: To make tomato shells, cut a 1/2 inch slice off the stem end of each tomato. Using a spoon, scoop out the pulp.
Cooking Tip: Capers are the unopened green flower buds of the Capparis spinosa, a wild and cultivated bush that is grown mainly in Mediterranean countries like southern France, Italy, and Algeria, and also in California.
Cooking Tip: Manual labor is required to gather capers, for the buds must be picked each morning just as they reach the proper size. After the buds are picked, they are usually sun-dried, then pickled in a vinegar brine.
Cooking Tip: Capers can range in size from that of a tiny peppercorn to some as large as the tip of your little finger. Capers generally come in brine but can also be found salted and sold in bulk. Either way, rinse before using to flush away as much salt as possible.
Cooking Tip: Capers taste slightly astringent and pungent, and they can lend piquancy to many sauces and condiments; they can also be used as a garnish for meat and vegetable dishes.
Cooking Tip: Sago is a starch extracted from the sago palm, which is similar to tapioca. South Pacific cooks frequently use sago for baking and for thickening soups, puddings, and other desserts. In the Orient and in India, it's used as a flour and in the United States it's occasionally used as a thickener.
Cooking Tip: When buying cabbage, look for heads that appear heavier than their size with crisp leaves.
Cooking Tip: Try using carrots instead of sugar to sweeten your sauces.
Cooking Tip: Mushrooms should be wiped off with a damp cloth and not washed under the faucet since they are like sponges and will absorb the water.
Cooking Tip: Leeks are full of hard to get at sand and dirt, chop them first, then give them a bath in cold water and drain in a colander.
Cooking Tip: Look for potatoes that have a smooth skin and no sprouts. Stay away from those with wrinkly skin or soft spots.
Cooking Tip: Poaching is "to cook an item by submerging it in a liquid that is just barley simmering." Poaching is not a rolling boil. Poaching, compared to boiling, is a much gentler technique. Poaching generally calls for food to be fully submerged in a liquid that is kept at a constant and moderate temperature, between 160F and 180F degrees. Keeping the temperature constant can take a little practice. The surface of the liquid should just shimmer with the possibility of a bubble. The liquid is generally well flavored - stock, broth, court bouillon infused with herbs, spices or anything the imagination can conceive. Usually the most delicate of foods, like eggs, fish, fruit, and some organ meats are poached. The food must be completely submerged in the water.
Cooking Tip: Simmering is usually reserved for tougher cuts or items that need more time to cook. The temperature of the liquid is usually between 185F and 205F. A simmer is sometimes called a "gentle boil." Small bubbles periodically rise to the surface - the gentler and slower the bubbles degrees, the lower the temperature. NOTE: You can simmer with a lid, but remember the temperature inside the pot will rise and the simmer can very easily turn into a boil. The simmered item renders a broth that is served as the sauce with your dish.
Cooking Tip: Boiling food is the process of cooking it in a boiling liquid, usually water. Boiling water has a temperature of 212 degrees, and no matter how long it boils or how hard it boils, it never becomes hotter; for at that point it is transformed by the heat into steam, and in time boils away. This temperature varies with the atmospheric pressure, which in turn varies with both altitude and weather.
Cooking Tip: Clarified Butter is also called drawn butter. Regular butter is made up of butterfat, milk solids, and water. Clarified butter is the translucent golden butterfat left over after the milk solids and water are removed. In short, clarified butter is just butter that contains only pure butterfat. It has a higher smoke point than regular butter, thus allowing you to be able to cook at higher temperatures, and won't spoil as quickly.
Cooking Tip: Clarified butter and ghee are not the same. Ghee is clarified butter that has been cooked longer to remove all the moisture, and the milk solids are browned (caramelized) in the fat and then strained out. This gives a rich nutty taste. Ghee has a longer shelf life, both refrigerated and at room temperature. It is traditionally used in Indian cuisine.
Cooking Tip: Cook vegetables with a tea spoon of sugar to preserve their color and to make them tastier.
Cooking Tip: To remove odors from kitchen vessels, wash them in lemon juice mixed water.
Cooking Tip: Add a tablespoon of vinegar while boiling potatoes to preserve their white color.
Cooking Tip: The purity of honey can be tested by putting a few drops in water. If it reaches the bottom without mixing with the water, it is pure.
Cooking Tip: While cooking cabbage add a slice of fresh ginger to reduce its unpleasant smell.
Cooking Tip: To speed up ripening of avocados and tomatoes, place in a brown paper bag at room temperature for a few days.
Cooking Tip: A damp paper towel or cloth brushed downward on an ear of corn will remove the silk.
Cooking Tip: Rinse a pan in cold water before scalding milk. Then it won't stick to the pan.
Cooking Tip: It is easier to center a gelatin mold, when unmolding, if you wet the serving dish first.
Cooking Tip: Use milk in place of water when making a pie crust. It will never be hard or dry.
Cooking Tip: Keep sliced apples, bananas, pears and other fruit from discoloring by coating them with orange juice or diluted lemon juice.
Cooking Tip: A lettuce leaf dropped onto the top of a pot of homemade soup will absorb the excess grease.
Cooking Tip: To keep sticky liquids from sticking to the measuring cups or spoons, lightly coat them first with a bit of oil.
Cooking Tip: If you turn the oven off after a meringue is brown and leave the door ajar, the pie cools more slowly preventing the meringue from cracking.
Cooking Tip: If granulated sugar has lumps, place it in the refrigerator for 24 hours before using.
Cooking Tip: Cream will whip up more quickly if your bowl, beaters and cream are chilled.
Cooking Tip: To reduce the mold on cheese, store in an air tight container with a few sugar cubes.
Cooking Tip: To get hard boiled eggs with centered yolks, stir them gently as they boil.
Cooking Tip: Egg whites won't run when poaching if you add a bit of vinegar to the water first.
Cooking Tip: Pour pan drippings into a tall glass to cool. The grease will rise to the top for easy skimming and fat free gravy making.
Cooking Tip: To easily remove a lettuce core, pound the core on the counter. It should twist and remove easily.
Cooking Tip: Rinse a pan in cold water before scalding milk. Then it won't stick to the pan.
Cooking Tip: Add a teaspoon of cornstarch to sugar before beating it into egg whites and meringue won't "weep".
Cooking Tip: If you turn the oven off after a meringue is brown and leave the door ajar, the pie cools more slowly preventing the meringue from cracking.
Cooking Tip: To keep chocolate cakes brown on the outside, dust the pans with cocoa powder instead of flour.
Cooking Tip: Baking involves using dry heat in the oven. Set oven control to the desired temperature while you're preparing the dish to be baked. Once the light that says it's heating turns off, the oven is at the proper temperature. Then put in the food - for best results, center it in the oven.
Cooking Tip: Boiling involves heating a liquid until it bubbles. The faster the bubbles rise and the more bubbles you get, the hotter the liquid. Some recipes call for a gentle boil (barely bubbling) or a rolling boil(just short of boiling over). Watch so it doesn't boil over.
Cooking Tip: Braising is a moist cooking method using a little liquid that barely bubbles on the top of the stove or in the oven. This is a good way to tenderize cheaper cuts of meat. The pan should be heavy and shallow with a tight-fitting lid to keep the liquid from boiling away. There's a lot that can be done for flavoring in your choice of liquid and of vegetables to cook with the meat.
Cooking Tip: Broiling involves turning the oven to its highest setting. In an electric oven on the broil setting only the upper element heats, and you can regulate how fast the food cooks by how close to the element you place it. Watch your cooking time - it's easy to overcook food in the broiler.
Cooking Tip: Browning food involves cooking it until the food gets light brown. Usually used for frying or baking. Ground beef should usually be browned (use a frying pan) and have the grease drained before adding it to a casserole or meat sauce.
Cooking Tip: While cooking green peas add 3 or 4 drops of vinegar to preserve their green color.
Cooking Tip: Add a tablespoon full of vinegar while boiling potatoes to preserve their white color.
Cooking Tip: Add a little honey to a cake mix to make it tastier and it will not crumble when cut.
Cooking Tip: Potato stays fresh longer if some garlic is kept in the same container.
Cooking Tip: There will not be foul smell if ginger is added while boiling cabbage.
Cooking Tip: Virtually all of the fennel plant is edible: the roots and stalks can be cooked and eaten as a vegetable; the stems chopped and added to salads; the bulb eaten raw or cooked; chopped leaves used in soups, with fish or added to salads; fennel seeds are used in pickles, liqueurs, tomato sauces and sausages; fennel oil is used in candy, liqueur and perfume.
Cooking Tip: Often mistaken for celery, fennel has a different taste that is quite similar to anise or licorice. Fennel is often grown for its seeds and oil from the leaves and used for various food flavorings.
Cooking Tip: Fennel is available year round, with a peak season in fall and winter. Select fennel that are firm, have straight stalks, and green leaves. The bulbs should be compact in shape with the stalks fairly close and not too spread out. Avoid fennel that is discolored or show signs of splitting.
Cooking Tip: Fennel is more delicate than celery and will dry out quickly. Before storing, cut the stalks off, wrap the stalks separately from the bulb in plastic bags, and store in the crisper section of the refrigerator. Fennel should keep for three to four days, but it is best to use it as soon as possible.
Cooking Tip: Wash fennel stalks thoroughly and use in soups and stews. The feathery leaves can be used as an herb or garnish. The fennel bulb must be washed, trimmed at the base, and then can be sliced as called for in the recipes.
Cooking Tip: Keep peeled and mince garlic fresh by placing it in a small jar and pouring just enough olive oil over it to cover the garlic and then place it in the refrigerator. It will keep its fresh flavor for about a week.
Cooking Tip: Do not store potatoes close to onions. The onions will cause the potatoes to rot faster. Place an apple in the bag with the potatoes to keep them from sprouting.
Cooking Tip: Store mushrooms, uncleaned, in a paper bag or their original container. Do not store in plastic or airtight plastic containers because they cause the mushrooms to retain moisture and decay faster.
Cooking Tip: Keep chili peppers fresh longer by storing them with the stems removed.
Cooking Tip: To preserve your wooden cutting board, occasionally rub it down with a couple of drops of edible cooking oil. This will also help prevent food from sticking to the board.
Cooking Tip: Bacon is cured and smoked pork. In the US pork bellies are used, Canadian bacon is made from the rib eye of boneless pork loin, and most European countries use the thigh or shoulder to make bacon.
Cooking Tip: Regular sliced bacon is 1/16 inch thick with 16-20 slices per pound, thin sliced bacon is 1/32 inch thick with 28-35 slices per pound, and thick sliced bacon is 1/8 inch thick with 12-14 slices per pound.
Cooking Tip: An opened package of bacon keeps for about 1 week. Unopened vacuum sealed packages of bacon will keep in the freezer for about a month before the fat begins to oxidize and turn rancid.
Cooking Tip: Blanch heavily salted bacon in boiling water for a minute before using in recipes to reduce the amount of salt in the bacon.
Cooking Tip: The star fruit or carambola, is a unique fruit that has a 5 pointed star shape when cut across the middle of the fruit. They range in taste from pleasantly tart and sour to slightly sweet. As a general rule, the yellower, the sweeter. They are bruised easily, so handle with care. Star fruit can be eaten out of hand or sliced and used as a garnish or in salads. They are also used in curries and tarts.
