Cooking Hints & Tips Archive 27
Cooking Tip: When cooking fresh apples for pies or sauces, the yield is about 50 percent. 1 pound raw apples will yield 1/2 pound cooked.
Cooking Tip: Apples absorb odors. They emit ethylene gas, which causes other fruit to ripen quicker.
Cooking Tip: Store apples at 35F degrees, 80 percent humidity to prevent dehydration.
Cooking Tip: Apples, pears and potatoes dropped in cold, lightly salted water as they are peeled will retain their color.
Cooking Tip: Avoid overripe apples (indicated by a yielding to slight pressure on the skin, and soft, mealy flesh) and apples affected by freeze (indicated by internal breakdown and bruised areas).
Cooking Tip: One pound granulated sugar = 2 1/8 cups; 1 cup = 7 1/2 ounces.
Cooking Tip: One pound brown sugar = 2 cups packed; 1 cup = 8 ounces.
Cooking Tip: Honey contains 18 more calories per tablespoon than refined sugar.
Cooking Tip: One gallon of honey weighs about 11 pounds. One pound of honey equals about 1 cup.
Cooking Tip: When substituting honey for sugar in a recipe, reduce the liquid by 1/4 cup for each cup of honey used.
Cooking Tip: Store unopened yeast in a cool, dry place, such as a pantry (or refrigerator). Exposure to oxygen, heat or humidity decreases the activity of the yeast. After opening, store in an airtight container in the back of the refrigerator, away from drafts or freeze accordingly to package directions. Use within 3 to 4 months.
Cooking Tip: To properly dissolve the yeast, follow package directions. The remaining liquids should normally be about 80-90F degrees if the flour is at room temperature. Ideal dough temperature is 78F degrees, so on hot days, cooler liquids may be used; on colder days, warmer ones.
Cooking Tip: Unbaked yeast dough can be frozen. It is best to freeze it before the final rising period. Let it rise the first time, punch it down and shape into the desired shape and then freeze. Thaw it at room temperature for 3 hours or overnight in the refrigerator.
Cooking Tip: Flour should be stored in airtight containers in a cool, dry place (less than 60 percent humidity). All purpose, bread and cake flour will keep for 6 months to a year at 70F degrees and 2 years at 40F degrees; store away from foods with strong odors.
Cooking Tip: Whole-wheat flour should be refrigerated or frozen, if possible. Before using refrigerated or frozen flour, allow it to warm to room temperature and inspect for rancidity and taste.
Cooking Tip: Chilies are available year round and in the United States they are grown in California, New Mexico and Texas. When selecting chilies, look for firm, glossy chilies with taut, unwrinkled skin and fresh green stems. Dried hot chilies should be glossy yet unbroken.
Cooking Tip: Chilies should be stored unwashed and wrapped in paper towels in the refrigerator for up to three weeks. Dried chilies should be stored in airtight containers at room temperature for a maximum of four months. To keep dried chilies for more than four months, store them in the refrigerator.
Cooking Tip: It is very important not to touch your nose, eyes or mouth after handling or eating chilies. If you do, flush with water immediately. The capsaicin in the chilies can be extremely painful to your eyes and can even burn or irritate your skin (especially if you have cuts on your hands). If possible, wear thin rubber gloves while preparing chilies. Wash hands thoroughly with soap and water when done working with chilies. If the bite is too strong when you eat a chili, chew on bread or another starchy food; water only makes the bite worse as it spreads it.
Cooking Tip: To decrease the heat intensity of chilies, wash them, cut them open and remove the seeds and veins. Also, soaking cut up chilies in salt water for at least an hour will help cool them off. To add a mild pepper flavor to your dish, poke holes in the chili of your choice with a toothpick (or cut slits in it) and add it to a food that is already cooking. When cooking is complete, remove the chili from the dish.
Cooking Tip: The seeds are not the hottest part of chilies. It is at the point where the seed is attached to the white membrane inside the chili that the highest concentration of capsaicin (the compound giving chilies their pungent flavor) is found.
Cooking Tip: In addition to their most common use in salads, you can also braise, steam, saute and even grill certain lettuce varieties to create a wonderful and different taste treat. Try halving a head of radicchio or romaine lengthwise, and brush on some extra virgin olive oil, and grill until they soften and just begin to brown-absolutely delicious.
Cooking Tip: Lettuce tends to keep well in plastic bags in the crisper section of the refrigerator. Iceberg lettuce keeps the best, lasting around two weeks, while Romaine, ten days, and butterheads types and endives lasts approximately four days.
Cooking Tip: Lettuce is a vegetable that is pretty much immune to any form of preservation. You can't freeze it, can it, dry it, or pickle it.
Cooking Tip: Lettuce leaves should be torn by hand; cutting with a knife will turn the edges brown faster. If you must cut lettuce, be sure to use a stainless steel knife.
Cooking Tip: Field Greens, also called Mesclun, is a classic green salad mix originating in the South of France. It consists of a mixture of very young leaves and shoots of wild and cultivated plants, including endive, dandelion, arugula, lamb's lettuce, oak leaf, mache, radicchio, chervil, sorrel, frissee, purslane, etc. Sometimes edible flowers are included.
Cooking Tip: Lemons contain 30 to 45 percent juice depending on variety, climate, maturity when harvested, and storage conditions. The extracted juice contains between 4.5 and 8.5% organic acids.
Cooking Tip: Sweet bell peppers should be stored at 35F degrees, and will keep for up to 1 month if stored that way.
Cooking Tip: To prevent mold on cheese, wrap it in a cloth dampened with saltwater before refrigerating.
Cooking Tip: When buying dates, avoid ones that are sticky or ones that have crystallized sugar on the surface.
Cooking Tip: The liquid in canned salmon comes from the fish itself, whereas tuna has oil or water added in the canning process.
Cooking Tip: Gooseberries taste of a sweet tangy mixture of pineapple and strawberry. The fruits make an interesting addition to salads, cooked dishes, and as a garnish.
Cooking Tip: Sesame seeds are generally described as having a mild, nut-like flavor which intensifies when toasted. They are characterized by nutty, oily, green and bitter flavor notes.
Cooking Tip: Broccoli rabe looks similar to thin broccoli stalks with small clusters of buds and smooth leaves with sawtooth edges. Broccoli rabe has a somewhat bitter taste and should be cooked to help mellow that taste. It is an excellent source of vitamin C and also contains beta-carotene, fiber, and phytochemicals.
Cooking Tip: Broccoli rabe is available year-round though its peek season is between late fall and early spring. It is grown in Quebec, California, Arizona, and other states.
Cooking Tip: Tamarind pulp has more sugar and fruit acid per volume than any other fruit. It is also an ingredient in Worcestershire sauce.
Cooking Tip: When adding milk (or cream) to a hot dish, it is best to heat it up a bit before adding it to another hot liquid. It is partly the difference in temperature that causes milk or cream to curdle. Never add milk or cream to a boiling liquid.
Cooking Tip: To freeze milk, use pasteurized homogenized milk. Place in moisture-vapor resistant containers for freezing. If packaged in wide-mouth containers, leave 1/2-inch headspace for pints, 1 inch for quarts. If packaged in narrow-mouth containers, leave 1 1/2 inches headspace for either pints or quarts. Freezing may change the texture of the milk and cause some separation. Stir well before using.
Cooking Tip: When buying dates, avoid ones that are sticky or ones that have crystallized sugar on the surface. Fresh dates should be firm and springy, and should have a fresh smell, not sour. Fresh, soft dates should be kept in plastic bags in the refrigerator, and will keep for several weeks.
Cooking Tip: Dried dates should be firm, but not hard. Dried dates will keep for up to a year, refrigerated.
Cooking Tip: Sometimes ground beef is red on the outside and a dull, grayish-brown inside. This is because oxygen from the air reacts with meat pigments to form a bright red color which is usually seen on the surface of meat purchased in the supermarket. The pigment responsible for the red color in meat is oxymyoglobin, a substance found in all warm-blooded animals. Fresh cut meat is purplish in color. The interior of the meat may be grayish brown due to lack of oxygen. If all the meat in the package has turned grey or brown, it may be beginning to spoil.
Cooking Tip: Zucchini blossoms may be battered and deep fried, or cut into strips and used in omelettes or soups.
Cooking Tip: Dried fruits and vegetables like raisins, prunes and sun-dried tomatoes, retain almost all of their nutrients. Since they weigh less, the nutrient content is actually concentrated.
Cooking Tip: When drying fruits at home, never use a temperature over 140F degrees. Higher temperatures dry and harden the outside, trapping moisture on the inside. While in storage, the trapped moisture will spread throughout the whole fruit and will eventually cause mold to form.
Cooking Tip: To properly dissolve yeast, follow package directions. The remaining liquids should normally be about 80F degrees - 90F degrees if the flour is at room temperature. Ideal dough temperature is 78F degrees, so on hot days, cooler liquids may be used; on colder days, warmer ones.
Cooking Tip: Store unopened yeast in a cool, dry place, such as a pantry (or refrigerator). Exposure to oxygen, heat or humidity decreases the activity of the yeast. After opening, store in an airtight container in the back of the refrigerator, away from drafts or freeze accordingly to package directions. Use within 3 to 4 months.
Cooking Tip: Allspice flavor and aroma is a pleasant blend of cinnamon and clove. It is generally described as possessing a woody, cinnamon-like flavor which is slightly numbing. Allspice is used in seasonings, sauces, sausages, ketchup, jams, pumpkin, gravies, roasts, hams, baked goods, and teas.
Cooking Tip: Thyme, a low-growing evergreen with small bunches of leaves, is native to the Mediterranean where it grows wild between the cracks in rocks. This highly aromatic herb has a spicy taste with hints of cloves and mint. There are hundreds of varieties of thyme with flavors ranging from lemon to lavender.
Cooking Tip: Epazote is a pungent herb used in Mexican and South American cooking. Widely used in bean dishes, it is supposed to reduce the after effects of eating beans.
Cooking Tip: Sage is a shrubby plant with long oval-shaped velvety leaves in colors ranging from a pale gray-green to dark purple-green. Blue, purple or white flower spikes appear in mid to late summer. The taste is sharp and spicy-bitter with a scent that combines thyme, lemon, pine and moss.
Cooking Tip: The flavor of Ginger is characterized by its unique combination of lemon/citrus, soapy and musty/earthy flavor notes. It is warming to taste.
Cooking Tip: If you've over-salted soup or vegetables, try adding uncooked potatoes. Discard them after they've cooked and removed the salt.
Cooking Tip: To speed up ripening of avocados and tomatoes, place in a closed brown paper bag at room temperature for a few days.
Cooking Tip: Rinse the pan in cold water before scalding milk and it won't stick to the pan.
Cooking Tip: Add a teaspoon of cornstarch to sugar before beating it into the egg whites and meringue won't weep.
Cooking Tip: To test if baking powder is still effective, place 1 teaspoon in one cup of water. If it bubbles, it's still good
Cooking Tip: Instead of adding raw garlic to sauces, saute the garlic first for a milder flavor.
Cooking Tip: Add a small amount of lemon juice to the artichoke cooking water to retain the color of the artichoke.
Cooking Tip: Cookies will spread if your dough is too pliable by allowing butter to get too warm. If your cookies are spreading too much, try refrigerating the dough for a couple of hours before baking.
Cooking Tip: Cookie dough can be frozen up to three months in an airtight container or refrigerated three to four days.
Cooking Tip: Whenever possible, warm your dinner plates slightly in the oven before serving so the meal stays a little bit hotter.
Cooking Tip: Fresh spinach should be stored at 35F degrees and used as quickly as possible. If stored properly, it should last 3 or 4 days.
Cooking Tip: Spinach grows in sandy soil, so wash it thoroughly to get rid of the grainy, sandy particles.
Cooking Tip: Fresh thyme sprigs and leaves are used whole or minced. Like many other herbs it turns black when cooked in an acid based recipe such as tomato sauce.
Cooking Tip: When buying broccoli look for firm, compact clusters of small flower buds, with none opened to show the bright yellow flower. The bud clusters should be dark green or sage green, and even green with a purplish tinge.
Cooking Tip: Mustard greens are an excellent source of both vitamins A and C and contain several other vitamins and minerals as well as fiber and protein.
Cooking Tip: Bring eggs to room temperature before boiling. The temperature of the egg at the start of the cooking process will affect the cooking time. An egg that is at room temperature at the start of the cooking process will require about 1 minute less cooking time than eggs taken directly from the refrigerator.
Cooking Tip: To help center the yolks in the eggs when boiling, the night before the eggs are to be cooked store your eggs on their sides in the refrigerator. Seal the egg carton with a piece of tape and turn on its side to center the yolks.
Cooking Tip: Extremely fresh eggs are not recommended when making hard-boiled eggs. They are very difficult to peel. This is the best use for eggs nearing their expiration date.
Cooking Tip: Coddled eggs are made by very briefly immersing an egg in the shell in boiling water (to cook in water just below the boiling point) to slightly cook or coddle them.
Cooking Tip: The best eggs for coddling are the freshest eggs you can find. Whites of fresh eggs will gather compactly around the yolk, making a rounder, neater shape.
Cooking Tip: Apply lemon juice on cut papaya to keep it fresh longer.
Cooking Tip: Grind boiled potato and add it to the soup to make the soup thick.
Cooking Tip: While cooking cabbage add a piece of crumbled bread to reduce its unpleasant smell.
Cooking Tip: Jam can be softened if its container is dipped in warm water.
Cooking Tip: Add 2 teaspoon full of lemon juice in jam preparation to set the jam quickly.
Cooking Tip: The word "Ham" means pork which comes from the hind leg of a hog. Ham made from the front leg of a hog will be labeled "pork shoulder picnic." Turkey Ham must be made from the thigh meat of turkey.
Cooking Tip: Hams may be fresh, cured, or cured-and-smoked. The usual color for cured ham is deep rose or pink; fresh ham (which is not cured) has the pale pink or beige color of a fresh pork roast; country hams and prosciutto (which are dry cured) range from pink to mahogany color.
Cooking Tip: Hams are either ready-to-eat or not. Ready-to-eat hams include prosciutto and fully cooked hams; they can be eaten right out of the package. Fresh hams and hams that are only trichina treated must be cooked by the consumer before eating; these hams will bear the safe handling label.
Cooking Tip: Both vacuum-packaged fully cooked and canned hams can be eaten cold just as they come from their packaging. However, if you want to reheat these fully cooked hams, set the oven no lower than 325F degrees and heat to an internal temperature of 140F degrees as measured with a meat thermometer.
Cooking Tip: Raw pork must be stored in the refrigerator at 40F degrees or lower and used within 3 to 5 days of the "sell by" date on the package or it should be frozen.
