Cooking Hints & Tips Archive 44
Cooking Tip: Store spices in a cool, dark place, not above your stove. Humidity, light and heat will cause herbs and spices to lose their flavor.
Cooking Tip: Use a coarse microplane to shave vegetables into salads or vinaigrettes. You can create an orange-fennel dressing by adding grated fennel and orange zest to a simple vinaigrette.
Cooking Tip: Always make stock in a large quantity and freeze it in plastic bags. That way, when you want to make a nice soup or boil veggies, you can simply pull the bag out of the freezer.
Cooking Tip: Cook pasta 1 minute less than the package instructions and cook it the rest of the way in the pan with sauce.
Cooking Tip: After working with garlic, rub your hands vigorously on your stainless steel sink for 30 seconds before washing them. It will remove the odor.
Cooking Tip: Add 1/2 to 1 teaspoon baking powder to a frying batter for an especially delicate crust.
Cooking Tip: Mushrooms freeze well. Wash quickly, dry, then put them, sliced or unsliced, in a plastic bag and freeze. Use them without defrosting. In any cooked dish, they will taste exactly like fresh mushrooms.
Cooking Tip: Add a little honey to the butter in which you saute onions for an out-of-the ordinary dish. Add onions when butter/honey mixture begins to sizzle.
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: 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: Beef tenderloin steak is also called filet or filet mignon. These extremely tender, boneless steaks are cut from the whole tenderloin.
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: Delmonico is a fancy name for ribeye. You'll find the word Delmonico more commonly in the Northeast (the original Delmonico's Restaurant was in NYC); ribeye is the label of choice in the Southeast.
Cooking Tip: Young beef with the most marbling is given the Prime or highest quality grade. Prime is usually sold to restaurants, but may be available in some specialty markets. Choice is the most widely available grade in the retail market. Select has the least amount of marbling, but may not be as tender, juicy or flavorful as Prime or Choice.
Cooking Tip: A soft-cooked egg has a firm white and runny yolk. To serve in egg cup, place egg in cup small end down, slice off large end of egg with knife or egg scissors and eat from shell with spoon.
Cooking Tip: A medium-cooked egg has a firm white and a slightly firm yolk. On the outside, medium-boiled eggs look exactly like hard-boiled egg - the whites are tender, yet cooked and hold their shape. Once you open the egg, you see creamy golden yolks which are neither liquid nor completely solid.
Cooking Tip: A hard-cooked egg has both a firm white and yolk. Hard-cooked eggs should never be boiled - always simmer them in water. If cooked too long, the protein toughens and a greenish or purplish ring forms around the yolk. Extremely fresh eggs are not recommended when making hard-boiled eggs, as they are very difficult to peel.
Cooking Tip: Eggs that are too fresh are difficult to peel. The fresher the eggs, the harder it will be to peel them because the white membrane is just not mature enough. Hard boiling farm fresh eggs will invariably lead to eggs that are difficult to peel. Eggs need to be at least three (3) days old to peel well.
Cooking Tip: It is preferable not to peel your eggs until you are ready to eat or use in your recipe. Hard-cooked eggs in the shell can be refrigerated up to one week. Peeled hard boiled eggs can be stored in the refrigerator in a bowl of cold water to cover for about 1 week,change the water daily.
Cooking Tip: Room-temperature lemons, limes and orange will yield more juice than those that are refrigerated. Use your palm to roll lemon, lime, or orange around on the countertop a few times before squeezing.
Cooking Tip: Microwaving citrus fruit for 15 to 20 seconds before squeezing will help extract more juice. Don't overdo it. You don't want to boil the juice.
Cooking Tip: If just a few drops of citrus fruit juice are needed, pierce the skin with a toothpick and squeeze out what you need. To store it, reinsert the toothpick, put the lemon or lime into a plastic bag, and refrigerate.
Cooking Tip: Store fresh citrus fruit 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 citrus fruit that have smooth skins and are heavy for their size. Citrus fruit contain 30 to 45 percent juice depending on variety, climate, maturity when harvested, and storage conditions.
Cooking Tip: To get snowy white potatoes, add a teaspoon of vinegar or fresh lemon juice to the boiling water.
Cooking Tip: When making potato salad, add the dressing to warm potatoes for the best flavor. Once cooled, the potatoes will not absorb the dressing as well.
Cooking Tip: For extra smooth, well-mixed oil and vinegar salad dressing: Combine all ingredients in a screw top jar, add an ice cube and shake then discard what's left of the ice cube.
Cooking Tip: If you put onions in the freezer 15 minutes before you chop them, you'll reduce the spray of vaporized onion oils which means your eyes won't tear when you cut the onions.
Cooking Tip: Let raw potatoes stand in cold water for at least half an hour before frying to improve the crispness of french-fried potatoes.
Cooking Tip: The terms Hot Cocoa and Hot Chocolate are often used interchangeably, but technically they are as different as Milk Chocolate and bittersweet chocolate. Hot cocoa is made from cocoa powder, which is chocolate pressed free of all its richness, meaning the fat of cocoa butter. Hot chocolate is made from chocolate bars melted into cream. It is a rich decadent drink.
Cooking Tip: Chocolate has been drunk as a beverage for thousands of years. Archaeologists tell us that the Olmecs, the oldest civilization of the Americas, were probably the first users of cacao, followed by the Maya, who consumed cacao-based drinks made with beans from their plantations in the Chontalpa region of what is now eastern Tabasco.
Cooking Tip: In central and southern Mexico, people commonly drink chocolate twice a day year-round. Having a layer of foam on hot chocolate is as important today in Mexico as it was in ancient times. Mexicans believe the spirit of the drink is in the foam. The chocolate is whipped to a froth with a carved wooden utensil called a Molinillo and served in mugs.
Cooking Tip: The original hot chocolate recipe was a mixture of ground cocoa beans, water, wine, and chile peppers. It didn't take long for Spaniards to begin heating the mixture and sweetening it with sugar. After being introduced in England, milk was added to the then after-dinner treat.
Cooking Tip: Chocolate grows on trees, appearing in its raw state as melon-like pods on the 40- to 60-foot tall trees known botanically as Theobroma Cacao, which means food of the gods. This tropical tree has grown wild in Central America since prehistoric times. It also grows in South America, Africa, and parts of Indonesia. The cacao tree produces a fruit about the size of a small pineapple. Inside the fruit are the tree's seeds, also known as cocoa beans.
Cooking Tip: Boiling, steaming, or microwaving are popular ways to prepare fresh green beans. Stir-frying preserves the best qualities of the fresh green bean. Remember to cook fresh green beans as little as possible using the smallest amount of water as possible.
Cooking Tip: To blanch green beans, in a large saucepan over medium-high heat bring water to a gentle boil. Add trimmed green beans and cook, uncovered, 4 to 5 minutes or until crisp-tender. Immediately drain the green beans in a colander and plunge them into ice cold water to bring the temperature down.
Cooking Tip: To steam green beans, set a steamer basket with the green beans into a saucepan just large enough to hold it tightly covered. Add one-inch of water, bring to the boil, and cover the pan tightly. Regulate heat to moderate. Green beans will take only 3 to 5 minutes.
Cooking Tip: To microwave green beans, place prepared beans in a microwave-safe bowl. Add approximately 2 tablespoons water. Cover with plastic wrap, leaving a small corner open. Microwave on high for approximately 3 to 4 minutes.
Cooking Tip: Green beans may be cooked several hours in advance. To keep their freshly-cooked taste, once cooked to your liking, dry them thoroughly in clean towels and then refrigerate them in a covered bowl. They will keep for about 4 days, wrapped in plastic bag or wrap, refrigerated.
Cooking Tip: An avocado is a fruit and not a vegetable! It is actually a member of the berry family.
Cooking Tip: Avocados must reach full maturity before they are picked, however, they do not soften on the tree. The tree can actually be used as a storage unit by keeping the fruit on the tree for many months after maturing.
Cooking Tip: The two most widely marketed avocado varieties are the rough-skinned, almost black Hass and the smooth, thin-skinned green Fuerte. The Hass has a smaller pit and a more buttery texture than the Fuerte.
Cooking Tip: Avocados must be used when fully ripe. They do not ripen on the tree and are rarely found ripe in markets. Fresh avocados are almost always shipped in an unripe condition.
Cooking Tip: To test for ripeness by cradling an avocado gently in your hand. Ripe fruit will yield will be firm, yet will yield to gentle pressure. If pressing leaves a dent, the avocado is very ripe and suitable for mashing. They are best served at room temperature.
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: After stewing a chicken for diced meat, let cool in broth before cutting into chunks. It will have twice the flavor.
Cooking Tip: To keep celery crisp, stand it up in a pitcher of cold, salted water and refrigerate.
Cooking Tip: When you freeze bacon, there is no waiting for thawing if you arrange the strips flat, slice by slice, on waxed paper, then roll them up. Put them in a plastic bag in the freeze. To use, unroll and peel off the necessary number of slices.
Cooking Tip: For a juicy grilled hamburger, add a little cold water to the ground beef (1/4 cup water to 2 pounds of meat).
