Cooking Hints & Tips Archive 40
Cooking Tip: Cookie dough can be frozen up to three months in an airtight container or refrigerated three to four days.
Cooking Tip: When you re-roll dough scraps, dust the pastry cloth with a mixture of half flour and half confectioners' sugar. This makes the cookies more tender than if they were rolled on a surface dusted with flour only.
Cooking Tip: If you flour a cookie sheet after greasing it, cookies made from thin batters will be less likely to spread during baking.
Cooking Tip: To keep homemade cookies just-baked fresh, put a slice of white bread in the jar or container.
Cooking Tip: Let cookies cool completely before storing. Store different types of cookies in separate containers so they'll keep their original flavor and texture.
Cooking Tip: When a recipe calls for adding oil, garlic, and onions to a pan, always add garlic last. This keeps it from burning and tasting bitter.
Cooking Tip: Biscuits will be crisp on the outside and flaky in the center if you roll the dough thin and fold it over once before cutting out biscuits. They'll also split open easily when you're ready to butter them.
Cooking Tip: To re-freshen and heat biscuits, put them in a well-dampened paper bag, twist it closed and put in a 300°F oven for several minutes or until warm.
Cooking Tip: If you want soft-sided biscuits, bake them in a pan with sides and put the biscuits close together.
Cooking Tip: If you want crusty biscuits, bake them on a cookie sheet and place them apart from each other.
Cooking Tip: Substituting applesauce for half of the amount of vegetable oil called for in your baking recipes will reduce the fat content.
Cooking Tip: In most recipes you can use fat-free cream cheese or blended fat-free cottage cheese instead of regular cream cheese. For recipes where fat content is necessary, try using half regular cream cheese, and half reduced or fat-free cream cheese.
Cooking Tip: Vitamin C is destroyed quickly in cooking - so cook your Vitamin-rich vegetables in the smallest amount of water possible and for a short amount of time.
Cooking Tip: Replace the meat in your chili or other casseroles with extra beans, tofu, or tempeh. Experiment with different varieties of beans.
Cooking Tip: Use de-fatted broth, fruit juice, wine, water, or cider to saute meats and vegetables instead of oil or butter.
Cooking Tip: Some cooks leave a few inches of twine on the bouquet garni and tie the end to the pot handle so it's easier to retrieve.
Cooking Tip: You can tie a bouquet garni with twine, but if you're using small spices like peppercorns or cloves, or if you're worried about thyme leaves getting into a clear soup, you should bind everything in a more secure wrapping.
Cooking Tip: Other aromatics in a bouquet garni can give your dish a more complex flavor. A few whole cloves add a touch of warmth and sweetness; a strip of citrus zest enhances meat-based stews and braises; a sprig of rosemary, sage, or savory sets a Mediterranean tone; and a garlic clove is a welcome addition to almost any selection of herbs.
Cooking Tip: Parsley, thyme, and bay leaf are the standard trio for a bouquet garni. Use four or five parsley stems, a sprig or two of thyme, and a bay leaf.
Cooking Tip: Bouquet garni are little bundles of herbs and spices tied together with twine or wrapped in cheesecloth. These packets are added to soups, stocks, sauces, braises, or any other dish with a lot of liquid and a long simmer.
Cooking Tip: The best way to store fresh celery is to wrap it in aluminum foil and put it in the refrigerator, it will keep for weeks.
Cooking Tip: An egg stored under refrigeration for one week will be fresher than one stored at room temperature for just one day! The inside of an egg may be bacteria free, while due its porous nature, the shell may hold a high bacteria count.
Cooking Tip: If you are only using half an avocado, leave the pit in the unused half and refrigerate, covered with plastic wrap. This will retard discoloration.
Cooking Tip: Chocolate should be stored in a cool, dry place at a temperature of about 60°F. If the chocolate becomes too warm, the cocoa butter rises to the surface and forms a dusty gray film known as bloom.
Cooking Tip: Shelled nuts keep best in a glass jar and should be refrigerated, or frozen, if you are to keep them for any length of time.
Cooking Tip: Unsalted butter can be substituted for regular butter in any recipe. It is not necessary to add salt. Margarine can also be substituted for butter. Do not use lowfat spreads or light butter for baking.
Cooking Tip: Substitute undrained, plain yogurt or sour cream, whisked with a little milk to thin, in recipes that call for buttermilk. Or combine a tablespoon of white vinegar or lemon juice with enough milk to make 1 cup. Set the latter mixture aside for five minutes before using.
Cooking Tip: In a recipe, 1/2 cup hot water and 1 teaspoon instant coffee granules can be substituted for 1/2 cup strong brewed coffee.
Cooking Tip: For each 1 teaspoon baking powder called for in a recipe, you can substitute 1/4 teaspoon baking soda plus 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar.
Cooking Tip: For each 1 ounce of unsweetened chocolate called for in a recipe, use 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa plus 1 tablespoon butter or margarine.
Cooking Tip: Buying olive oil in small sizes, or splitting larger bottles with friends, is a practical way to buy expensive olive oils. Olive oil purchased in bulk should always be poured into smaller containers, preferably in a can or a dark-colored bottle.
Cooking Tip: Olives are fruit and olive oil is a fruit juice. Air, heat, and light will cause olive oil to turn rancid.
Cooking Tip: The ideal temperature for storing olive oil is 57°F or 14 degrees C, although a normal room temperature of 70°F works very well if the olive oil is stored in a dark area where the temperature remains fairly constant. A kitchen cabinet located away from the stove and away from direct sunlight will work quite well.
Cooking Tip: Refrigeration does not harm most grades of olive oil, but it is not recommended for expensive extra virgin varieties because condensation may develop in the bottle, affecting the flavor. When chilled, or in cold weather, the oil may turn cloudy and even solidify.
Cooking Tip: Be sure olive oil bottles are tightly sealed. Tinted glass, porcelain, or stainless steel are the best materials for containers; oil should never be stored in plastic or in reactive metals.
Cooking Tip: The Greek name for basil means king, which shows how highly it has been regarded throughout the ages. Sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum) is a sun-loving annual with highly aromatic leaves that has a pleasant spicy odor and taste somewhat like anise or cloves.
Cooking Tip: Both the leaves of basil and their essential oils are used as flavoring agents. There are many different types of sweet basil - large and dwarf forms, with green, purple, or variegated leaves. Many of these widely grown plants are ornamental, as well as edible.
Cooking Tip: Italian cooks love basil, as it is this easy-to-grow, and they use it generously in their sauces. In Italy this plant is a symbol of love; a sprig of it presented to your lover bespeaks fidelity. When a woman puts a pot of basil on the balcony outside her room, it means that she is ready to receive her suitor.
Cooking Tip: There is nothing like the smell of basil - one of the most recognized fragrances of summer. There are many types of basil, which vary in size, color, and flavor. All can be used for culinary purposes. Look for evenly colored, bright green leaves with no sign of wilting or dark spots.
Cooking Tip: Store a bunch of basil, stems down, in a glass of water with a plastic bag over the leaves. Secure plastic bag to the glass with a rubber band. Refrigerate for up to a week, changing water every other day.
Cooking Tip: When slicing a hard boiled egg, try wetting the knife just before cutting. If that doesn't do the trick, try applying a bit of cooking spray to the edge.
Cooking Tip: A dampened paper towel or terry cloth brushed downward on a cob of corn will remove every strand of corn silk.
Cooking Tip: Fresh egg shells are rough and chalky; old eggs are smooth and shiny.
Cooking Tip: No curly bacon for breakfast when you dip it into cold water before frying.
Cooking Tip: When working with dough, don't flour your hands; coat them with olive oil to prevent sticking.
Cooking Tip: You can store onions for up to six months without freezing by wrapping the onions separately in paper towels or foil and storing in the refrigerator.
Cooking Tip: Chop and place onions on a cookie sheet in the freezer. When frozen, remove and place in freezer containers or bags, and seal. This allows you to remove the amount you want, when you want.
Cooking Tip: Chop onions and dry in oven using lowest setting and remove when thoroughly dry but not brown. Store at room temperature in airtight container.
Cooking Tip: To bring out the true sweetness of the onions when eating raw, place onion in the fridge, skin on, for one hour before using. In a hurry? Place the onion in a bowl of ice water for about 15-20 minutes, remove and drain on paper towels.
Cooking Tip: You can also freeze whole onions. Peel, wash, core and place onions in a plastic bag and freeze.
Cooking Tip: Toast coconut in the microwave. Watch closely, as it browns quickly once it begins to brown. Spread 1/2 cup coconut in a pie plate and cook for 3-4 minutes, stirring every 30-seconds after the first 2 minutes.
Cooking Tip: To keep celery crisp, stand it up in a pitcher of cold, salted water and refrigerate.
Cooking Tip: After stewing a chicken for diced meat for casseroles, etc., let cool in broth before cutting into chunks. It will have twice the flavor.
Cooking Tip: Do not use soda to keep vegetables green. It destroys Vitamin C.
Cooking Tip: Place an open box of hardened brown sugar in the microwave oven with 1 cup hot water. Microwave at high for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes for 1/2 pound of sugar or 2 to 3 minutes for 1 pound of sugar.
Cooking Tip: Round tip steaks, also called minute, breakfast, or sandwich steaks, cook very quickly; take care not to overcook or they will be dry.
Cooking Tip: A Porterhouse steak differs from a T-Bone in that the Porterhouse tenderloin diameter is no less than 1 1/4 inches measured across the center compared to the T-Bone tenderloin, which is not less than 1/2 inch.
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: When buying beef, make sure the package is cold and has no holes or tears. Excessive liquid in a package may indicate improper storage or beef that is past its optimum shelf life.
Cooking Tip: Choose beef with a bright cherry-red color, without any grayish or brown blotches. The exception is vacuum-packaged beef, which, due to a lack of oxygen, has a darker purplish-red color. When exposed to the air, it will turn to a bright red.
Cooking Tip: Sprinkle a little flour on potatoes before frying them and they will be extra crispy and crunchy.
Cooking Tip: For perfectly chopped eggs, place them in an egg slicer and cut through. Carefully turn the egg sideways and slice again.
Cooking Tip: Chill a can of warm soda fast by swirling the can in ice water for five minutes.
Cooking Tip: When breading chicken, coat the pieces with mayonnaise instead of egg. The mayonnaise clings to the chicken and doesn't drip like the egg does. Plus, it adds nice flavor.
Cooking Tip: If you are only using half an avocado, leave the pit in the unused half and refrigerate, covered with plastic wrap. This will retard discoloration.
Cooking Tip: Caramelize onions very quickly by cooking them in a dry nonstick saute pan over medium-high heat. They will caramelize beautifully in a lot less time than with traditional methods.
Cooking Tip: To help keep an onion together while dicing, do not remove the root.
Cooking Tip: When making caramel, use a nonstick pot. That way, when you pour the mixture out, there is no waste, and cleaning the pot is a breeze.
Cooking Tip: Don't be afraid to ask the butcher or fishmonger to see the products up close and to smell for freshness. Fish should never smell fishy.
Cooking Tip: When baking cookies, be sure your dough is thoroughly chilled when it goes on your baking pan. This will allow the leavening ingredients to work before the butter flattens out and your cookies lose their textural distinctions.
Cooking Tip: Use good oil when cooking. Smell and taste it: If it doesn't taste good alone, it won't taste good in your food.
Cooking Tip: Make sure the handle of your saute pan is turned away from you so you don't hit it and knock it off the stove. It happens all the time.
Cooking Tip: Don't dress the salad when having a big party. Leave it on the side and let the people do it themselves. We've all had too many soggy salads because of this.
Cooking Tip: For crispy fish skin, rest the fish on paper towels skin-side down for a few minutes before cooking (the towels absorb moisture). Then saute skin-side down over medium heat in oil and butter. Flip over for the last few minutes of cooking.
Cooking Tip: When cooking eggplant, use the long, skinny, purple Japanese kind because you don't have to salt it to pull out the bitter liquid like you do with the larger Italian variety.
