Cooking Hints & Tips Archive 35
Cooking Tip: Cookie jars should be airtight. Many of the charming and artistic colorful ones I have seen are not. Glass jars with ground glass around the rim and the cover are airtight. Some plastic or glass jars with a rubber ring around the top are also airtight.
Cooking Tip: Cutters should be sharp, with no rough edges. If the cutter sticks to the dough, dip it in flour each time you use it. Always start cutting at the edge of the rolled-out dough and work toward the center, cutting the cookies as close to each other as possible.
Cooking Tip: The enemy of melted chocolate is water. Even a hot and humid day can ruin your efforts. Be absolutely sure that hands, utensils, bowls, surfaces - everything that comes in contact with the warm liquid chocolate - are bone dry. One drop of water in warm melted chocolate will cause it to seize.
Cooking Tip: The second nastiest enemy of chocolate is too high heat. It's so easy to scorch! No matter what method you choose to melt chocolate, use patience. Do not take shortcuts.
Cooking Tip: Please note that melting chocolate is not the same as tempering chocolate. Tempered chocolate has been subject to certain temperatures and techniques that alter its chemistry. Tempering produces the texture and sheen we expect from fine chocolate candies. To temper chocolate, consult a candy cookbook.
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 vegetable oil.
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: Whenever you empty a jar of dill pickles, use the left-over juice to clean the copper bottoms of your pans. Just pour the juice in a large bowl, set the pan in the juice for about 15 minutes. Comes out looking like new.
Cooking Tip: To clean copper bottoms on pots and pans, simply open a can of tomato soup paste, rub it on and scrub then rinse. If you do this weekly, your pots and pans stay shiny clean. This is also a very inexpensive way to clean copper and brass items.
Cooking Tip: Stains and sediment in cut glass or hobnob bowls or vases respond to olive oil. Pour some in and let stand until the stains or sediment disappear.
Cooking Tip: Make sure the package is cold and has no holes or tears when buying ground beef. Excessive liquid in a package may indicate improper storage or beef that is past its optimum shelf life.
Cooking Tip: Use a gentle touch when shaping ground beef patties. Overhandling will result in a firm, compact texture after cooking. Don't press or flatten with spatula during cooking.
Cooking Tip: Most brownie recipes call for melting the chocolate with the fat and adding this mixture to beaten eggs and sugar. Let the chocolate mixture cool completely before adding it to the eggs and sugar as it makes for a lighter brownie.
Cooking Tip: Brownies are cooked when the edges look hard, the top has cracked slightly, and the surface has a glassy appearance. The center should not jiggle when you shake the pan. The toothpick method works on cakey brownies, but not fudgy ones.
Cooking Tip: As they cool, brownies shrink from the side of the pan and set. Put them out of reach of the thronging hordes and don't cut until they've reached room temperature.
Cooking Tip: Most of the world's popcorn is grown in the Midwestern part of the United States, principally in Nebraska, Iowa, and Indiana where it can get hot in the summer. Although popcorn has been with us since pioneer times, it was not until 1890 that popcorn became important enough to be raised as a crop for market.
Cooking Tip: According to the American Egg Board, the terms ?€œhard-boiled?€ and ?€œsoft-boiled?€ eggs are really misnomers, because boiling eggs makes them tough and rubbery. Instead, these eggs should be ?€œhard-?€ or ?€œsoft-cooked?€ in hot water.
Cooking Tip: The best eggs for poaching are the freshest eggs you can find. If eggs are more than a week old, the whites thin out. Whites of fresh eggs will gather compactly around the yolk, making a rounder, neater shape.
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: Scrambled eggs make a delicious and quick meal, but there is a little science to getting them just right. The secret to successfully scrambling eggs is slow cooking.
Cooking Tip: Coconut milk is not the juice found inside a coconut, but the diluted cream pressed out from the thick, white flesh of a well-matured coconut. Coconut milk is a rich, creamy liquid made from water and coconut pulp.
Cooking Tip: Cream of coconut is a smooth, thick liquid made from fresh coconuts. It is thick and very sweet, and commonly used in mixed drinks. Can usually be found in liquor stores, available in liquid and powdered forms.
Cooking Tip: Room-temperature lemons, limes and orange will yield more juice than those that are refrigerated.
Cooking Tip: Store fresh lemon juice in the refrigerator for a week or so. If I have a large amount of juice to store, I put the juice in ice cube trays and freeze for later use.
Cooking Tip: When looking for citrus fruit for juicing, avoid ones with bruises, wrinkled, or discolored skin. Choose lemons that have smooth skins and are heavy for their size. Lemons contain 30 to 45 percent juice depending on variety, climate, maturity when harvested, and storage conditions.
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: Two methods that can be used to safely thaw pork are the refrigerator method and the cold water method. Never thaw pork on the kitchen counter. The outside of the meat will reach a temperature above 40 degrees F while the inside is still frozen. The area that reaches a temperature above 40°F would be susceptible to bacterial growth.
Cooking Tip: Set oven temperature to 325°F. Both cook-before-eating cured and fresh hams should be cooked to 160°F. Reheat fully cooked ham to 140°F.
Cooking Tip: Ham is one of the leanest cuts of pork. According to the USDA, a 3.4 ounce (100 gram) serving of roasted extra-lean ham has about 145 calories, 5.5 grams of fat, 21 grams of protein and 53 milligrams of cholesterol. Ham contains a significant amount of vitamins B-1 and B-12. While fresh pork is low in sodium, ham is high in sodium as a result of the curing process.
Cooking Tip: Vitamin C is destroyed quickly in cooking so cook your vegetables with Vitamin C in the smallest amount of water possible and for a short amount of time.
Cooking Tip: Romaine lettuce is loaded with vitamins compared to iceberg. It has three times as much Vitamin C and six times as much Vitamin A.
Cooking Tip: Many vegetables and fruits, including potatoes and apples, retain their nutrients in their skin. So when possible, leave the skin on your fruits and vegetables and cook them whole.
Cooking Tip: Thicken gravies with milk or broth blended in the blender with flour. Be sure to cook long enough to remove the raw flour taste. You'll never notice the lack of fat.
Cooking Tip: Use olive oil for cooking when appropriate. It adds to the taste of the dish and is better for you.
Cooking Tip: For clarified butter, slowly melt unsalted butter over low heat. Don't let the butter come to a boil, and don't stir it. This allows the milk solids to separate from the liquid butter.
Cooking Tip: Once the butter has separated into three layers - foamy milk solids on top, clarified butter in the middle, and milk solids on the bottom - turn off the heat. Skim the foamy white solids from the top. Then ladle off the clarified butter. Be careful not to disturb the milk solids at the bottom of the pan.
Cooking Tip: Clarified butter can be used immediately. Or let it solidify and keep it in the refrigerator for up to three to four weeks. Just remelt to use.
Cooking Tip: Get into the habit of measuring the oil you use while you cook, rather than just pouring it out of the bottle. It will be much easier to moderate the amount you use.
Cooking Tip: Use non-stick cookware so that you don't have to use as much, if any, fat. When sauteing, use a small amount of chicken broth or wine instead of butter or oil.
Cooking Tip: Even if you're freezing food for only a couple of days, be careful of packaging. Air that's in the package will affect the color, flavor and texture. The container should be air tight, or the food will get freezer burn and lose nutritional value, and palatability.
Cooking Tip: It's critical to have a both your refrigerator and freezer cold enough. The best indicator of a good freezer temperature is brick-hard ice cream. If ice cream stored in your freezer is soft, turn the control to a colder setting. As for the refrigerator, check the drinking temperature of milk. If it's very cold, you've probably hit 40 degrees, which is what you're aiming for. If the milk isn't cold enough, or if it sours too quickly, move the control to a colder setting.
Cooking Tip: To make homemade TV dinners, place leftovers in serving portions on sectioned plastic trays. Cover, chill, tightly with plastic wrap and seal. Then wrap entire tray in foil. Label, date and freeze. To reheat, remove foil, puncture plastic wrap to make steam vents, and heat dinner in microwave.
Cooking Tip: Use freezing tape to seal freezer wrap or suitable plastic wrap. Freezer tape is made with a special adhesive designed to stick at low temperatures.
Cooking Tip: To freeze chicken in a polyethylene bag, lower the bag, with the chicken in it, into a pan of water to force out the air. Be sure the bag opening is above water. Press entire surface area of bag to squeeze out air bubbles. Twist end of bag and fold over. Secure with fastener and label.
Cooking Tip: Store spices in a cool, dark place. Humidity, light and heat will cause herbs and spices to lose their flavor more quickly. Although the most convenient place for your spice rack may be above your stove, moving your spices to a different location may keep them fresh longer.
Cooking Tip: As a general rule, herbs and ground spices will retain their best flavors for a year. Whole spices may last for 3 to 5 years. Proper storage should result in longer freshness times.
Cooking Tip: When possible, grind whole spices in a grinder or mortar & pestle just prior to using. Toasting whole spices in a dry skillet over medium heat before grinding will bring out even more flavor. Be careful not to burn.
Cooking Tip: Because the refrigerator is a rather humid environment, storing herbs and spices there is not recommended. To keep larger quantities of spices fresh, store them in the freezer in tightly sealed containers.
Cooking Tip: Use a light hand when seasoning with spices and herbs. Your goal is to compliment your dish without crowding out the flavor of the food.
