Photo by Donna
I have two copies of Ad Hoc, signed by Thomas Keller, to give away, courtesy of Artisan (thanks, Amy!) This is an even more valuable offer than I thought it would be because I see that Amazon is sold out until February, as are many bookstores. More than 100,000 copies of this book have been printed, with more on the way, making Ad Hoc one of the best selling books of the season. There's a reason for it: it's a fantastic book, with everything from burgers to bread pudding with leeks to cheesecake, and great discussion of cooking issues and technique from Thomas himself (who would have imagined a chef could be so uncommonly articulate on the page?!). A few namby pambies in the media have whined that some of the recipes actually ask you to cook when you use this book (there's a broad range of recipes, appropriate to every skill level, some simple, some labor intensive, but none that compromise). But it's been chosen one of the best books of the year by others. (Here's a great series of four videos by borders; watch the one of Thomas and Ad Hoc chef de cuisine Dave Cruz making the bread pudding.)
One of the things I love about this book is the design, by David Hughes of Level in the Napa Valley. There's an ease and comfort to the book that makes it a pleasure to peruse. I also love the small asides and tips throughout. This most excellent tip on slicing chives, for instance. I used to lay them flat on a cutting board but would often end up kind of mashing them, and often not slicing all the way through, leaving me to pick big pieces out of my fine slices. Keller suggests folding a damp paper towel into a wide strip and rolling the chives into a bundle. This allows you to slice cleanly through the whole bunch, keeping all their delicious oniony fragrance in the chive, not on your cutting board. It keeps them together neatly, and results in perfectly sliced chives.
So, you're wondering: "WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO SHUT UP AND TELL ME HOW DO I ENTER THE DRAWING TO WIN MY SIGNED COPY OF AD HOC?!!!"
Simply leave a comment here with your favorite kitchen tip or trick. Not technique, like, get your pan really hot before you put the meat in, but a tip like the one above. I'll pick randomly rather than judging them, so don't worry if it's not as good as others. I'll leave this post open and choose the winners Friday at noon eastern time via Twitter (follow me there and have a hand in the choosing). With apologies, I can only offer these copies to addresses in the United States because of shipping costs and customs headaches. Sorry!
I can however guarantee they'll arrive before Xmas for two lucky people who share their kitchen tips here! Good luck!
[Update: it should be needless to say, but only one entry per person, those who make multiple entries will be disqualified.]
[Update: the winners have been chosen! They are Aaron Haley (http://blog.sektormedia.org/) and Jason Davies! Will you two pls email me your mailing addresses? Thanks everyone for all these fantastic kitchen tips! I love them!]
Small kitchens make clever cooks. In my small kitchen, I always regret it if I do not put a bowl or other container on the counter before I start chopping, peeling, or slicing things. There has to be some place for everything to go, and we don't have an in-sink disposal. But there's a better-than-a-bowl solution whenever I've got a compost pile going. I use newspaper, and all my compostables go there, get rolled up, and into the pile they go.
The tip is to get the disposal means prepared before I find myself cooking among little piles of peels.
Being new to the world of fresh herbs, I love using cilantro. Before chopping it I fold it in half, and roll it up tight. When I cut it, I am able to slice the leaves and stock together to maximize the amount I have to use.
Wet paper towel under cutting board. Keeps board from moving and can be used for cleanup.
When I roast chicken, rather than using a rack to hold the chicken off the bottom of the roaster, I line the bottom of the cooking vessel with thick slices of onion. When the chicken is done, you have these lovely slices of sweet onion drenched in delicious chicken drippings. The perfect way to save all that flavor.
when making jam you can sterilize your jars in the dishwasher and then keep them warm by using the "heat dry" option on the washer. This keeps the jars nice and hot, and will keep them that way for hours.It's the only time I use the "heat" option on my dishwasher.
My favorite cooking tip is for peeling ginger, typically a difficult task that has you wasting a lot of the good meat. However, if you hold the ginger in your hand and run a flatware teaspoon against the skin, scooping at it with the bowl of the spoon, you can effectively "peel" off the skin in just a minute or two. It's easy -- give it a try!
I like to make all of my stocks and sauces and then freeze them in ice cube trays so that I can just grab a few of what I need for each recipe.
I sprinkle some salt on garlic pods before mincing them, makes the job a lot easier.
I love my V rack for roasting birds, but when it's not in the oven, it's inverted in my cabinet to hold lids neatly in place.
Also chopping parsley in a measuring cup with scissors. Sometimes I do it, other times I already have a knife and board out. Can be handy to store the unused chopped parsley.
Speed pours like bartenders use. I have my most used olls and vinegars topped with speed pours.
Cheers,
Jackie
I have a small kitchen myself, and have been on a big baking kick lately, but don't have many good places to let my dough sit to rise when doing breads. I figured out that I can tell my oven to start pre-heating to 350 while I'm mixing / kneading my dough, then shut the oven back off after about 2-3 minutes, and I have a nice warm place to put my bowl full of dough to hang out for a few hours! The oven stays at about 98 degrees or so for the entire rising period as long as you don't open it back up after you put the dough in.
I have recently discovered how much I can add to a simple pot of soup by simmering a Parmesan rind with it. Now I keep a stash of rinds in the freezer so that they are there whenever I need them.
I love to cook Asian/Indian inspired dishes that use a lot of ginger. However, I find the ginger becomes less potent, slimy, and not easy to work with after being in fridge for awhile. To fix this problem, I clean up the ginger root, peel it, and then place it in the freezer.
It works great. The ginger is fresh. I always have it on hand for anything I might use it for (veggies, rice, sauce, or a quick marinade), it's already peeled and ready to use. It's easy to grate using a microplane grater, or cutting it into discs that will come to temperature after 15 mins that can than be smashed, minced or otherwise.
On lids to jars that are really hard to open, I just pull on my rubber dish glove and it immediately gives me a much better grip. On new jars, I take a teaspoon and use it to pry under the lid just until I hear the pressure releasing; then the lid invariably loosens very easily.
My favorite trick is when I need to cut chicken in bite size pieces I partially freeze it so its easier to handle.
ever since i saw someone roll a lemon on the counter before they squeezed it to get the most juice out of it, i wondered why i had never thought of doing that myself. it makes sense and works!
My tip is to preserve fresh herbs by chopping them finely, sprinkling with a little water, and then roll into a log shape in some saran wrap. Stick it in the freezer and when you want some fresh herbs just pull it out and cut off the amount you need! I love it!
I keep a spare tea ball filled with confectioner's sugar in a plastic leftover container in my baking drawer. It's simple to dust with sugar by shaking the tea ball, and it's always ready.
My eyes are always tearing up when chopping onions. Maybe it's a poorly ventilated kitchen, a really fragrant onion, or just sensitive eyes - but I find that two things help me out: run my chefs knife under cool water between each onion half, and stick my head in the freezer when the tears start welling up. Don't know why the freezer stops the burning so quickly, but it does!
One of the best kitchen tips I have learned is so simple I felt like slapping my own face and yelling "D'oh!" when I heard it: A damp kitchen towel placed underneath a cutting board prevents the board from sliding around on the countertop. That's it. No sliding means you won't knock over any pepper mills, coffee press pots, those cute little "beckoning cat" statues and whatever else sits dangerously close to your fancy chef's knife.
That is all. Moisten a towel and go to work. (Wait, that doesn't sound quite right.) Here we go: Prevent mishaps with a little preparation and a damp towel under your board!
I used to throw all of my scraps in a "garbage bowl" when I was chopping vegetables, and thought I was being terribly clever to be able to throw them out so easily. Now instead I have a "stock bowl" and onion tops and skins, carrot tops, celery leaves and bottoms, leek greens, and what have you all go in there, and then all into a freezer bag until I make stock. now I'm making sure that I get every bit of flavor out of every bit of my veggies.
When a chocolate cake recipe calls for greasing and dusting the pan with flour, I dust instead with powdered cocoa. That way, when the cake is turned out, it's all chocolately goodness, with no white spots left by flour.
My favorite simple tip is to roll citrus before juicing them. Rolling them makes more juice come out.
I love to bake and inevitably destroy my kitchen whenever I do it. Batter all over everything, mixing cups, whisks, paddle attachments, measuring spoons, all filthy. And I hate dishes. So what I do is take whatever large-ish metal bowl I've used to mix batter in (sometimes even the one from the stand-up mixer itself) drop a few dots of liquid dishwashing soap, put every single baking utensil I've used in the bowl and fill with hot water. After about ten minutes, every utensil pulls out *almost* clean and the bowl itself will pretty much wash out clean with hot water. Way better than scrubbing each completely covered one individually, this way they can either be quick-sponged clean or dropped right in the dishwasher (which I don't have right now). Or you can leave it till the next day, works even better 🙂
I used to roll my pie dough out on either a floured tuppware thing designed for that purpose or on the counter. It didn't matter how much flour I used, it would always stick and be a pain to get into the pie plate.
Now I roll the dough out onto a piece of parchment paper. It doesn't stick, and manuevering it into the plate is no problem.
No fair on the not shipping to Canada. 🙂 I'll give you my tip anyway. Stacking slices of bacon, then slightly freezing them makes it easier to slice into lardons
To mince fresh herbs, I put the cleaned and picked-over herbs into a cheap plastic cup then use a pair of kitchen sheers to rapidly mince them in the bottom.
Learned this trick from Danielle over at Habeas Brulee: if you don't have the time or patience to temper chocolate, you can add a bit of flavorless oil to the chocolate as it melts, which will result in tempered chocolate's sheen without the effort.
After cutting foods like garlic or onions, I rub the back of one of my stainless steel spoons over my fingers while holding them under running water. The steel almost completely removes the odor. Kitchen stores sell stainless steel "soap" bars that do the same thing, but why buy one of those when a spoon from your everyday utensils will do the same trick?
Testing the doneness of a cake by poking a knife or skewer down the middle of it isn't always the best. Find the thickest part of the cake and use this point.
It's this part of the cake that will have needed the most time to cook through!
I always try to incorporate bacon or Joel Palmer House Oregon White Truffle Oil into everything I make. Even Christmas cookies
Since I have to cook on an electric stovetop and the time it tooks for the stovetop to drop from highheat for searing to low heat for braising can take forever I tend to start the second coil and get it heated by putting a pan with alittle bit of water/stock in it since there is always a way to use it and it makes overcooking on electric a thing of the past.
Also I have like 15 rinds of parmigiano de buffalo (ya its better than parmigiano regiano in my mind) and pecorino gran cru to flavor risotto or anything needing an umami kick
Since I have to cook on an electric stovetop and the time it tooks for the stovetop to drop from highheat for searing to low heat for braising can take forever I tend to start the second coil and get it heated by putting a pan with alittle bit of water/stock in it since there is always a way to use it and it makes overcooking on electric a thing of the past.
Also I have like 15 rinds of parmigiano de buffalo (ya its better than parmigiano regiano in my mind) and pecorino gran cru to flavor risotto or anything needing an umami kick
I do a lot of gluten free baking, many of the recipe call for different *flour* mixes. I like to use the 1/4 cup to measure everything out. That way I am not soiling every measuring cup.
Always keep a crock of iced tea spoons handy. They have become my crutch. Stirring, tasting, measuring, you name it,
they do it. They're cheap too, about $4 for a dozen at the restaurant supply house.
When you Bake Cookies and they come out TOO HARD, simply put the cookies in a Bag with a piece of Bread overnight. The cookies will absorb the moisture out of the bread and will be Soft in the morning.
I have really dark cork kitchen floors, which isn't the most practical color if you cook alot and make a mess like I do! (but it looks damn good when it's clean)
Any time I'm baking or cooking things that could potentially make a mess, I spread a huge beach towel underfoot. Not only does it catch everything that falls to the floor, but I can also just sweep the counter crumbs on to it as well when I'm done. Then all I have to do when finished is fold it up and throw it in the hamper for a no hassle clean up!
I take the tip about freezing stock in ice cube trays one step further -- if you ever have some left over wine (rare, I know) that has been open for one day too many, freeze it in ice cube trays and keep a bag of wine cubes in the freezer. When you need some wine in a recipe you have some always ready in case you don't have a bottle you can (or want to open).
I used to go nuts trying to clean pots and pans with stuck-on gunk, soaking forever, etc... but at some point I figured out you could add some water back into the pot, bring it to a boil, and it'd easily clean!
I always try to slice/dice meat for cooking while it's partially frozen, makes it easier. We're also very big on brownies & cakes here. I've learned that if you dip your knife/spatula in water it keeps the dessert from sticking to it, giving you cleaner cuts/slices!
All summer long, as I use the flat-leaf parsley and basil I'm growing on my back porch, I save the stems. I store them in freezer bags and have them at the ready all winter long when I make soups and stocks (in the case of the parsley stems) and large, comfort-foody batches of marinara (in the case of the basil stems). The parsley stems get thrown into the stock pot whole; the basil stems are finely chopped and added to the marinara with the rest of the herbs.
This is a satisfying practice: reaching into the freezer and coming up with a handful of bright green stems reminds me of sunnier days, and makes me feel frugal and practical, like my grandmother. Always a good thing.
Coat your garlic cloves in a tiny bit of olive oil and the peels won't stick to your fingers.
To find all of the pinbones in a fish fillet, lay it skin side down over the back of a large, inverted bowl. The ends of the bones will almost pop out of the curving fish. If the bones pop out too far, it could mean your fish isn't as fresh as one might hope.
After cutting garlic, rinse your hands under water while rubbing a stainless steel tool. I use a bench scraper. The steel oxidation the compounds in the oil that cause the odor and allows them to easily rinse away.
My favorite trick this time of year is getting the seeds out of pomegranates. Instead of digging out seeds with my hands, I just cut it in half, turn it over and start smacking the back of the flesh with something heavy (usually a really big spoon or a knife handle). Those seeds just pop right out!
What you do with them is up to you, although I always recommend starting with a champagne cocktail with pomegranate seeds.
I save and freeze the water from boiling potatoes and use it to thicken stubbornly thin sauces.
Here is my simple technique...
When preparing beets, I avoid the red stains that end up on my hands by coating my hands with vegetable oil first. Using soap and water to wash off the stains will be much easier. My mom taught me this technique and it makes the process much easier
I hate wearing gloves. Anyone have any tips for prepping hot peppers?
My favorite kitchen tip: 9" round cake pans are excellent multi-taskers for those of us with small kitchens! I roasted some chicken breasts in them last night, have made a fantastic tarte tatin, and have even used them to bake a cake on occasion.
Whenever I roast a chickens I use a beer can chicken rack to stand it up straight. It cooks faster, it has more crispy skin, and I get plenty of leftover schmaltz in the drip pan.
these are great tips everyone.
freeze leftover bits from chopping onions, carrots, garlic, celery, etc and use them to make stock. delicious stock.
Cynthia
Skip the specialty aisle and the kitchen supply shop and use a springform pan to make deep dish pizzas at home. No unitaskers required, getting the pie out is a snap, and cleanup couldn't be easier.
Here's one for the bakers, especially those baking bread in dutch ovens a la Lahey's no-knead recipe: ditch the pot and bake directly on a pizza stone. You can get the same steaming effect by covering the stone with a disposable aluminum roasting pan. Just make sure it is deep enough to clear the tops of the loaves, and wide enough to sit on the stone completely. Since the pan is so thin, no preheating is necessary. Remove halfway thru baking, at the same point you'd remove the lid of the dutch oven.
If your oven tends to burn the bottoms of cookies (and you have two pans in the oven) switch the positions half way through cooking. You'll avoid burning and everything will cook more evenly.
Similar to rolling them on the counter, microwaving citrus for 10-15 second makes it easier to get lots of juice out. Just don't hit the 5 minute button and walk away....!
I use garlic almost every night while cooking. Since my fingers seem to have permanently acquired the smell I've started rubbing lemon juice on my hands BEFORE and after i use the garlic. Keeps my fingers smelling garlic free 🙂
I love to make patties out of leftover spaghetti. Put them in a frying pan and pour a small amount of scrambled egg and grated parmesan over each one to hold it together, then slowly simmer on both sides until nice and crispy. Mmmm, never fails.
I like to make my vinaigrette for salads in a glass jar with a tight fitting lid. Using a glass jar allows me to see how much oil & vinegar I'm pouring in without measuring (using the proper "ratio" of course).
I put in the oil and vinegar, some shallots and other seasonings, put the lid on and shake. It's then ready to use and whatever is left goes right into the refrigerator already in its storage container.
One of my favorite (summertime) tips is to use a Bundt pan to catch all of the corn kernals when shaving ears. This helps with the balance of the endeavor (using the hole at the top of the pan to rest the pointy side of the ear) and not losing any runaway kernals on a flat surface.
My tip is wear swim goggles when cutting onions. No more tears! No more burning! 100% fool proof. Yeah, you look weird but who cares.
My favorite kitchen tip is to find great cookbooks to give to my husband to get ideas from. He is the cook in the house.
For those who tend to be a little lazy, or rather less than prompt, about scrubbing the exteriors of pots and pans and are in need of a way to ease the need for elbow grease, there's a simple solution that doesn't require harsh chemicals. Pour boiling water in the kitchen sink, add a little oxygen bleach powder (such as Oxo Brite or any other brand found at most stores, including health food purveyors) and let soak for anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or so. Then scrub. Repeat as necessary. Up to you if you care to consider rethinking your habits...
After further review... my first post is more technique than tip so here's my tip:
I do all my cutting/prep next to my sink rather than on a table or other counter...all waste goes into the sink..the sides of the sink allow for easy gathering of the debris and the spray nozzle allows me to flush everything clean quickly.
Freeze pesto from the summer in flat sheets and then you can break it apart like bark and just pick the appropriate size chunk for your leftover pasta lunch in the winter.
When juicing citrus, I will put it in the microwave for a few seconds then roll it out on a flat surface before slicing in half and squeezing. The microwave really seems to get the juices flowing.
If I don't want to smash a garlic clove to peel it, I just give it a pinch length-wise and the skin cracks making it easy to peel right off.
I soak the whole garlic cloves in water for 15 minutes or so. This makes the skins slip right off so you have nice clean whole cloves without having to smash them. Do a few heads of garlic at a time and store them in an airtight bag in the fridge for later use.
I hate how my eyes always water while chopping onions. I've found that by putting the onions in the fridge, or even the freezer, before chopping has significantly reduced its effect on my eyes, and it makes chopping a little easier.
Easier than wetting a towel, buy non-slip shelf liners and place them under your cutting board to stop it from slipping.
Eggplant may be one of the most versatile vegetables. To speed up dishes like eggplant parmesan (and save calories), I microwave the slices first and then just layer them (no breadcrumbs or frying).
Use a toothbrush to clean oyster shells before shucking. It's excellent for removing dirt and grime from small crevices, especially the hinge.
I love keeping a set of small containers in the freezer for extra citrus juice & zest. In the zest container I keep wax paper envelopes for each fruit. Then I don't have to make a special trip when I just need a little juice or zest.
I love using Fresh ginger, but find that I never seem to go through an entire root before it "goes bad". I've found out that Ginger root freezes extremely well and will keep for as long as you may need it (just make sure to keep it in an air tight freezer bag). I especially like running the frozen root over a microplane as garnish (fresh ginger bite with out the fibrous texture you may get from larger pieces; great for congee).
Touching something stainless steel gets the smell of garlic off your hands. I didn't believe but my faucet works perfectly for this.
I make a lot of guacamole, and it's not always easy to find perfectly ripe avocados. My favorite quick-ripening technique is to throw an apple or two (depending on how many avocados) in a paper bag with your avocados. They'll ripen beautifully over night.
And speaking of apples, a little lemon juice sprinkled on apples keeps them from becoming brown once you've sliced them. I use that trick a lot too!
Miicrowave tip for white rice. Place a wet paper towel over your rice while microwaving. It's a quickie facial for leftover rice.
The picture of the chives wrapped in a towel for cutting, reminds me that I store all of my greens in the refrigerator wrapped in a dry paper towel. I find that it keeps them fresh, crispy and delays wilting...always surprised when I see friends that simply store the greens in a plastic bag.
No mater how good a cook you fancy yourself, never give your wife "constructive criticism" when she's cooking (unless you want to enjoy her cooking much less frequently).
When I peel garlic, I use the side of my 10 inch chef's knife to squash each head. It makes peeling much easier. Then add a small amount of salt on the cutting board when chopping the garlic. By using the side of your knife you can grind the garlic into a very fine pile of happiness.
When I buy potatoes, a throw a couple in the toaster oven at 325 for 20-30 minutes. Remove them and allow them to cool on the counter, then I place them in the fridge. By par cooking them a bit, I can quickly make hash browns or sliced potatoes after a long day.
Baking tip: if your recipe calls for grated citrus peel, place zest and sugar in food processor and give it a whirl. Easier and seems to extract maximum flavor.
Running out of refrigerator space? Live in a northern clime, such as Cleveland, and your three season porch becomes a walk-in cooler for Christmas and New Years parties.
I keep a handful of small water bottles in the freezer as giant ice cubes. They come in quite handy when I need to cool down stock, home-brewed beer, etc in a hurry. It's best to get the labels off of them, they can be hard to keep clean with the labels still attached. Just dump two or three into the hot pot and stir them around!
This is pretty simple, but soak bamboo skewers in water before you place kabobs them on the grill. They won't burn or catch on fire that way!
I'm sure I'm the last person to figure this out, but it used to take me forever to peel garlic. Someone showed me how to crush the cloves with the flat side of a knife. That helped big time.
I hate to waste perfectly good wine so when there is some left after a night of entertaining, I use old fashion ice cube trays and fill them with the wine then freeze. The next day I take them out of the tray and put them in a plastic bag and keep them in the freezer where they are ready for individual use. I often add just a couple of tablespoons of white or red wine to sauce or meats so this is a perfect and much better than regular cooking wine.
Instead of using granulated sugar, I make a simple syrup and put in a squeeze bottle for my coffee and tea. Sometimes infuse the sugar with other flavors (ginger, for example) to give a little zing to my tea.
refill empty disposable water bottles with homemade stock (made according to Ratio of course). They freeze well, are tightly sealed and pre-measured for using in the future. Put in fridge a day before required use and you are all set.
Tip: cut cake layers by garotting them dental floss.
Cheap ($1) uncolored pantyhose are great for straining grease, stocks, etc.
When using one of my lighter weight cutting boards, I have a piece of that rubbery, woven look cabinet shelf liner that I put underneath to prevent the board from sliding all over my granite counter top.
We occasionally make quick stir frys which cook up fast, but brown rice still takes a long time, so whenever I make rice I make a double batch and freeze half. That way it's ready in only a couple of minutes.
I place a wine cork under the steel handlle on my smaller pot lids. This way I can remove the cover without a towel or burning my little fingers!
I have 3 tips. I use a lot of ginger and hot peppers. I live in Miami and these all seem to go bad quickly. I now clean my ginger and freeze it. It makes it very easy to grate and is vry good in recipes. I also freeze my jalapeno
peppers, and red chili peppers. They do not go bad. And I throw them in the cuisinart to chop or slice them with a mandoline.
If your pie crust isn't working out, consider rolling it out on a pizza peel, inverting the pie dish on top of it, and then flipping both to put the crust in the dish. It's not necessary most of the time, but if you're in a hurry and something's wrong with the dough, it works in a pinch.
Keep rendered bacon fat in the refrigerator...has lots of uses in the kitchen.
Store nuts in the freezer so that the oils don't go rancid--especially key for hazelnuts and pine nuts, which go off relatively quickly. Toasting the nuts in a dry pan is just enough to defrost them (and you'd probably do this for a recipe anyway).
After making a batch of pesto in the food processor and scooping out into a container, I throw in a stick of butter and give it a whirl. The result: an amazingly perfectly seasoned pesto butter ready to be used in too many ways. Grilled cheese, egg sandwiches, grilled fish, etc etc...
This is simple and maybe well known, but helpful: instead of cutting the ends off of asparagus stems, simply bend each stalk gently; it will break naturally, leaving you with a perfectly fresh stalk to cook with.
I find it super handy to line a loaf pan with parchment paper instead of using butter or flour etc. Leaving a bit sticking out the top makes handles for easy loaf removal!
Similar to yours in a way. I found cutting bell peppers by putting them stem side down and cutting around the white stuff rather than cutting it out wastes a lot less of pepper and is much easier.
Baby food jars make perfect spice jars, like so: http://www.facebook.com/souppeddler#/photo.php?pid=1790616&id=82427893193
After boiling a chicken I take the leftover stock and freeze them in ice cube trays for future use. I also do this with leftover wine - if there is any leftover!
I like to freeze stocks, soups and stews in quart size ziplock bags. Lay them flat to freeze, then you can upend them and line up like "books", creating more room in the freezer.
If you need to freeze dry something in a hurry. Use a fire extinguisher! The CO2 will make the liquid into something like dry ice. It's fun for your dinner guests to watch too! Also works to chill bottles and cans!
I always use parchment paper when baking cookies. No more burnt bottoms!
A tip I learned that I use frequently is that a great way to peel ginger is with a spoon. Less waste than with a knife, and you can get into all the bendy parts easily.
When cutting an onion light a match/candle near by and the smoke will stop the burning.
Since Hanukkah is approaching, one of my fave kitchen tips is to grate onion before you grate the potatoes to help the potatoes from discoloring. The onion juice definitely helps out as well as wringing out your potatoes. Also, use chopsticks to turn them - so much easier than using tongs (unless you're really bad at using chopsticks!).
If you're into cool presentations but don't have an arsenal of molecular gastronomy toys, an immersion blender can serve double duty as a foamer. One of my favorite desserts to serve friends is panna cotta with "pomegranate/cherry foam"--pomegranate and cherry juices, with a tiny bit of sugar added, foamed with the help of my trusty stick blender.
To help speed dinner prep, I cut up my salad ingredients in the morning or early afternoon and cover it with a damp paper towel and some plastic wrap. Everything is super crisp and ready to toss with dressing!
How much oil to use for deep frying your turkey? Get a clean rock about the size of your bird, wrap it in aluminum foil and drop it in your pot to check the displacement of your oil. Low tech. Everyone has a rock, right?
I love that chive chopping tip. Hmm... I say clean as you go. There's nothing worse than preparing a meal and finding yourself surrounded by dirty dishes and pots and pans when you're done. The meal is so much more enjoyable if almost all of the dishes are already done and you've got a clear counter and nicely set table to eat on.
And another I'm thinking about because of the chives is when a recipe calls for a measured amount of herbs, such as a tablespoon of chopped parsely, you can fill the measuring spoon with unchopped parsley and then cut just that measured amount, rather than trying to get all your tiny chopped parsely pieces into the measuring spoon.
The trick for braised short ribs that are yielding, tender and succulent: start searing the short ribs and rendering its fat in a 450 degree oven for +/- 45 minutes. Half way through this process remove the fat with a bulb baster. At the end of the searing process, deglaze the roasting pan with some of the red wine that has been measured for braising. Go about the same procedure in braising the short ribs in a sturdy dutch oven. At the juncture when the braising liquid is added, include the red wine deglazed liquid back into the dutch oven, for the extra robust flavor.
When you need every last bit of lemon/lime/orange juice squeezed out of only a sparse amount of fruit, slice them in half, and jam the half into a the crook of a pair of tongs - you can exert a huge amount of pressure very easily to get every bit of juice out.
Homemade popcorn + truffle oil + fresh parmesan = umami euphoria.
If you dont have a rolling pin and need one, just use a wine bottle. I usually wrap it in plastic wrap first.
My simple kitchen tips:
1. Buy dried herbs in bulk and store in wide mouth jars [labeled with name and date] so you can get measuring spoons into the jars. Those narrow-mouthed jars with supermarket spices are totally useless.
2. To avoid spoilage and pantry moths, transfer all grains into glass jars, and label. Makes the pantry pretty, and you can see when your supplies are getting low.
3. Store stock in the freezer two ways: in larger tupperware with enough for one meal for your family; and in 1/2 cup containers to add to other sauces.
4. Always keep ready-made meals in the freezer for those days that are too hard. Examples are lasagna, meatballs, fish fillets, quiche. Next time you make a meal that can freeze, double the amount for stocking the freezer.
5. Don't throw out food. Aging vegetables can go in the freezer for your next stock, whey from cheese-making makes a great liquid for bread-making, old bread makes great breadcrumbs.
6. Date and Label everything. Yea, it looks obvious that this is chili now, but in the depths of the freezer, the chili and the pot roast look pretty similar.
7. Again with the pantry. Keep your ingredients organized by culinary region. Japanese/Korean in one area, Chinese in another, Middle Eastern in its own special area, and French/Western in yet another. Makes grabbing for double black chinese vinegar a quick task instead of a journey to the back of the cupboard.
8. Read Ruhlman's blog regularly to learn new tricks. [Yea, I would love an Ad Hoc book!]
*susan*
When whipping egg whites by hand, use two or three or four whisks for faster results. More tines = more wires to incorporate more air = faster stiff peaks
Recently, I've started freezing left over white and red wine to be used later for cooking. So far, so good. The flavor remains and I'm not pouring decent wine out if there's any left over.
If you're stuck with vegetables packed in liquid, there is flavor in the liquid--if you want to avoid overcooking them, drain and reduce the liquid first, then add the vegetable to whatever you're working with just long enough to get it to the right temperature.
I use the side of my chef’s knife to flatten garlic cloves - makes peeling them much easier. Then I put salt on the cutting board when chopping the garlic very fine - and end up with a delicious garlic-y paste that's easiest to scoop up with the knife blade and add to the pot.
Use your panini grill to reheat leftover pizza. So much better than the microwave. Use a rolled up ball of tin foil to suspend the top lid above the pizza if your panini grill does not have a hinge that will suspend the lid above the food.
The best way to peel banana's is just like chips do, start from the bottom! Pinch the bottom and peel down as usual, the whole thing comes off much easier than ripping the top off.
You can roast the seeds of any edible squash/gourd, not just pumpkins. Just remove the stringy flesh, rinse, dry, season, and roast. They are delicious.
Whipping cream by hand isn't really that difficult. Trick is to use a very large bowl.
I like to keep onions in the freezer for less tears when cutting them up.
If you don't want your bacon to curl when cooking do not pre-heat the pan. Add the bacon to the pan before heating.
One other....
If you have a cabinet above the counter when you do your prep work, use it as the place where you store most of the items that you use during that work. I keep my cutting boards, prep bowls, storage containers and any other tools within arms reach so I am not running around the kitchen or using valuable counter space for prep.
I had always defrosted meat in the microwave which inevitably cooks part of the meat while other portions remained frozen, even on defrost setting. For any vacuum packed meat the best and fastest way to defrost is putting the meat in a large bowl of water, weighing it down making sure it stays submerged.
Not so much a trick as a piece of advice. People who come to my house always say how much they love the thick rubber mats we have in the cooking area of the kitchen. Tile is a terrible surface for our backs. The mats come in all shapes and colors now. Mine are standard restaurant mats, but if I were to buy again I'd recommend a continuous surface instead of mats with "holes."
I soak garlic cloves in to make them easier to peel!
When making a cake in a bundt pan, I add butter to the pan and place it is the preheating oven. The butter melts so I can then remove the pan from the oven and use my pastry brush to get the butter into all the nook and crannies. Then I dust the pan with sugar. This gives the cake a wonderful outer "crust"
If you are making Maki rolls at home, wrap your rolling mat in plastic and then rub it down with a small piece of avocado. The oil from the avocado will remain on the mat throughout your sushi-making adventure and prevent any rice from sticking to it. This simple step actually makes the whole process of handling and rolling maki much easier.
1. Any sauce built on deglazing a pan with white wine is better when you substitute good dry vermouth.
2. Warm running water defrosts meat like a charm.
I LOVE garlic, but hate the smell that lingers on my hands. Instead of using some silly gadget to peel and chop the garlic, I rub my hands on the sides of my stainless steel sink to remove the odor. Easy and efficient.
whoops! Put a wet paper towel under your cutting board and it won't slide around on you.
i cut my pomegranates in the bottom of the sink. that way i don't have to clean up a lot of red splatters off the walls.
For the two things we use the most, smash garlic to both get the skin off and decrease the amount of chopping required; also, leave root end of onion in tact when slicing, then save for stock!!!!
I love roasted beets (you can use them for so many different recipes) but hate trying to peel them. So I started roasting them whole, running them under some water and then using a paper towel to rub the skin off. It works like a charm!
I always soak my beans in salted water but cook them in unsalted water. This allows for tender bean that is cook edproperly. The salt in the soaking liquid helps to insure that the skin of the bean have a bit of bite to it, but the lack of salt in the cooking liquid, much like potatoes, doesn't change the structure of the starch and allows for proper cooking.
I save hard cheese rinds for adding to pots of beans or certain soup stocks and then remove them before serving. It adds just a nice bit of richness to the flavor.
Use a sharp pastry blender to chop eggs for egg salad. Can be done right in the bowl without messing up another dish.
Use kosher or sea salt, crack your pepper when you need it, buy whole spices in bulk, and keep your knife sharp.
For anyone who's experienced stained hands after peeling roasted beets, use paper towels to "wipe" off the beet skins after the beets have been roasted. Keeps your counter/cutting board/prep area cleaner, too!
One of the reasons I read food blogs is for the tips! Crushing garlic with a knife is my weekly used tip.
When I'm using a thinner cutting board, I usually put a hand towel under it to prevent sliding.
To get my kids to eat different foods, I put together a little tasting menu for them. I make the menu very pretty and fancy. We put a candle in the center of the table and they do the place settings. They will pretty much try anything that way!
I know it's painfully basic, but freezing meat to firm it up before slicing it--whether pancetta for risotto, bacon for lardons, or beef for Korean bulgogi--is the most sanity-saving thing I do.
For a quick, poor man's pastry bag, place filling/frosting in a ziploc bag. With the bag open at the top, push the air out and push filling/frosting to bottom of bag. Cut the corner of bag. Squeeze gently and now you have a pastry bag.
best tip I've learned, when washing leeks or similar vegetables, immerse them in a bowl of cold water & let them sit for several minutes. all the dirt will sink to the bottom, leaving clean veg at the top.
I like to use a towel under a bowl when i'm whisking, especially when adding something while whisking.
Thanks.
Anyone who tells you to use a pizza stone is trying to sell a pizza stone. Prepare the pizza on parchment paper, turn your oven up and use a cookie sheet or other peel-like-object to slide the pizza directly on to the oven rack. Works wonders every time.
I soak wooden skewers in water for 15 or so minutes before using them so they won't burn during cooking.
When you make a viniagrette or mayo, throw a side towel over a small sauce pan, and place your mixing bowl on top. This will keep your bowl still while drizzling in oil.
Let the kids measure. If they are interested in cooking, they'll help as much as possible. If not, it's one less thing you have to do.
Cut an onion with a liquid in your mouth (water works but coke works best) and you won't shed a tear!
I soak garlic cloves in warm water to make them easier to peel!
After handling raw garlic, I wipe my hands over the stainless steel faucet as I wash my hands in order to remove the garlic smell. Works really well!
I've found that the easiest way to rinse cooling racks is to place them directly onto a cutting board, then to run both under the water.
I have found that a good pair of kitchen shears are the best way to cut chives. You can hold the chives right over the bowl as you cut them and you don't have to get a cutting board dirty.
To get garlic/onion scent off your hands after chopping, rubs your hands in a small amount of ketchup, then rinse. No more garlic. No more onion. 🙂
When I'm make a sauce or dressing that has garlic in a food processor, I will start the dry food processor and drop the garlic cloves down the feed tube one at a time. This will quickly and nicely chop the garlic into very small pieces without getting anything else dirty, and without the problem of the large chunks you can get if you add the garlic with other ingredients.
When dicing an avocado, I cut the avocado in half then make cuts diagonally then criss cross the other way. I then take a large spoon and scoop out the diced avocado by getting as close to the skin as possible.
Not sure if I'm going to miss the deadline BUT I always let red onions sit in ice water for 10 minutes if I'm using them raw. The ice water really draws out the bitterness in the onions and lets their raw flavor shine through.
I have pedestrian tips. lol. I guess my tip, although this is more consumption-aimed, is to take the nubbins of carrot you get when a recipe calls for half a cup chopped and grate them into tupperware. When you next want a salad, you've got carrot strips ready to go on top.
I cannot have enough thin linen towels- I use them in place of cheesecloth, to place under cutting boards to prevent sliding, over my stand mixer to prevent batter explosions-- I love them.
Wash hands in cold water before and after handling garlic or onions. This closes the pores so the scent doesn't seep in. Hot water opens them, which just makes the problem worse!
Keep your mother-in-law away from your cast iron pan. That's it.
use a microplane grater to grate garlic and/or ginger when a recipe calls for "minced."
Fresh ginger is always one of those things that I never had around when I really wanted it. My solution is to peel and section off chunks that are apx. 1"x2" and store them in the freezer. When I need some, remove the chunk, thaw for about 15 minutes on the counter, and run over the microplane. The best part is the freezing process breaks down the fibers and the grating produces what amounts to a puree, so you're left with the bright taste of fresh ginger with no stringy bits or chopping. If you've thawed too much, just return the unused chunk to the freezer. It can take it.
When I cut a hard boiled egg I use a spray like Pam to coat the knife so it slides through cleanly (water works too)
If you find yourself needing to unwrap a lot of butter, get a pot of warm water, and place the sticks in the water one at a time, paper on, for a maximum of one second, then just push on the end of the stick of butter and itll pop right out .
Cut and onion with a piece of bread in your mouth and you won't cry.
You can easily get a hard boiled egg by using a wet towel on the bottom of the cooking pan in a rice cooker.
I always keep fat handy - bacon, duck, etc...I never know when I'll need it.
Good old pesto and chicken stock in ice cube trays!
To peel garlic I use an old rubber glove. Just roll up the garlic in the glove and roll it back and forth on a cutting board and the skin of the garlic will quickly peel off.
bacon was always a pain to cut until I started using kitchen shears. it gives me good size pieces without too much effort.
When working with phyllo, cover it with a layer of plastic wrap then a damp towel to prevent overly wet spots but prevent it from drying out.
I've found that putting my rolling pin in my freezer for about 10 minutes before I use it helps keep it nonstick better than any other method I've tried.
Oh, and if I want to take the skin off my almonds, I just dump them in a bowl with hot tap water for about 20 minutes and the skin comes right off.
When peeling tomatoes, score the bottom in an X pattern, and drop into a pot or bowl of near boiling (not actually boiling) water for a few minutes, then move the tomatoes into a bowl of cold water. The skins will peel right off!
When making stuffed mushrooms, use muffin tins (either small or large depending on size) to help them cook evenly and maintain their shape in the oven.
Silpat makes a fine sushi roller.
When mincing garlic, try slicing the clove with the back of your knife. First make some normal parallel cuts towards the bottom of the clove, then flip the knife over and cut perpendicular. It will crush and slice the garlic, doing almost all the work in one go.
I use my mandolin to very thinly slice the tough bottom stalks of asparagus instead of throwing them out and I freeze them then put them in a ziploc bag. Later I can quickly add a handful to scrambled eggs and quick weeknight pasta dishes.
When I reheat New Orleans style French Bread in the oven, wrap it in a wet cloth and keep the temperature low enough that the cloth doesn't scorch. It keeps the outside crisp and the inside still soft and chewy as it should be. Thanks. Jonathan
Ice cube trays.... I use them for all sorts of things... leftover tomato paste, chipotles in adobo, broths, marinara sauce, hoisin sauce, orange juice, coffee. You name it and I probably have frozen it. Once frozen, I label a baggie and pop the cubes in. Easy to thaw and eliminates lots of waste.
Make the best gravy and sauce. Use a degreasing measuring cup to pour off the good stuff and leave the grease behind.
If you have a lot of cherry tomatoes to cut, sandwich them between two tupperware lids and slide your knife through the lids and it will perfectly cut them in half. Saves you some time if you have a hurry through a couple flats of cherry tomatoes.
Need losts of juice from a lemon? cut them in half and in a microwave proof bowl, nuke them for about 3 - 4 minutes. the amount of juice is unbelieveable! I try to remember to do this a few hours before I need the juice, so it comes back to room temp.
The best tip I ever learned was for cutting corn -- stick the ear in the hole of a bundt pan and it'll catch all the kernels. No more kernels bouncing off the cutting board and onto the floor!
Making pie crust is tough because getting the right size fat chunks is critical for the right texture. I've solved the problem--and made the whole process neater--by freezing my butter, lard, or shortening overnight and grating it on the largest hole of a box grater. Then toss the perfectly uniform and pea-sized chunks of fat with the dry ingredients and continue with the recipe. No cutting, no wondering, and it works every time.
I drape a piece of plastic wrap over the bowl of my food processor before putting the lid on whenever I process wet stuff. Everything splashes against the plastic wrap, rather than the lid, which stays clean and doesn't need washing afterward.
To get all the dirt out from between the layers of leeks, make two perpendicular cuts lengthwise down the leek, but leave the end with the roots intact. When you wash it, the four pieces will peel back like a banana, allowing the water to get in between the layers, but the leek will stay together for easy slicing.
Ever come across a professional dough formula that calls for a certain percentage of hydration? Here's how to figure it out:
The hydration percentage is amount of liquid divided by amount of dry (e.g.: hydration% = water / flour). Ruhlman's White Bread Ratio, for instance, (5 flour:3 water) would be 3/5 = .06 so 60% hydration!
Think of this as tinkering, customizing and harnessing all the power of Ratios.
This is especially useful for at home pizza making, as the colder your oven, the greater the tendency to dry out the dough unless you have compensated by adjusting hydration.
Since we're on the topic of pizza, a respectable substitute for a pizza peel is the side from a cardboard box! It may be ghetto but it works beautifully.
Good luck to all who enter!
After washing my cast iron pans, I dry them with paper towels and heat them up on the stove to make sure all the water is gone. Definitely has saved me from getting little pockets of rust on them.
I love lemon/lime/orange slices in my drinking water but hate that the sliced citrus goes bad so quickly… so this idea stemmed from that need and snowballed from there. I zest the citrus first and store it separately in a small sealed container. Next I slice the citrus leaving larger chunks at the end and thinner slices from the middle. Those are laid on a sheet pan covered in plastic wrap and placed in the freezer until the slices are solid, then transferred to a zip top freezer bag. Triple duty, citrus slices for my water, citrus ends quickly zapped in the microwave for a small amount of fresh juice if needed, and citrus zest at the ready.
Always work into a scrap bowl.
Use one whether you're peeling veggies, picking herbs, or trimming pork bellies. If you work straight over a trash can you will eventually drop something in there. You never want to reach into the trash to pull stuff back out.
Plus, you can use the scraps for stocks, or any number of other dishes.
when making fresh pasta i used canned air, for computer keyboards, to clean off the pasta rolling machine. it keeps machine free of flour after you are done without using water. it is a huge timesaver.
Since we're talking about chives, I like to snip them with scissors.......
I live alone, so freezing is key to being able to use fresh, quality ingredients including herbs that would otherwise spoil.
Keep your cutting board stable by putting a moist paper towel under it.
Always clean the grater/ microplane immediately after using it!
Save your veg scraps to make veg stock each week.
Clean pomegranates in a bowl of water. Seeds sink; pith floats.
Grate frozen butter into flour when making pie dough or biscuits - works like a charm! Ad Hoc at Home looks amazing - can't wait to get a copy! Plan to buy it soon unless I somehow win here! 😉
I always cook bacon in the oven on a cookie sheet with a wire rack. Put it in a cold oven and turn it up to 400 for about 15 minutes, until the bacon is to your liking. Not only will it keep the splattery mess down, it will also keep the bacon nice and flat, perfect for BLTs.
I like to make a fairly big batch of roux and freeze it in an ice cube tray since I don't use very much each time I need it. Each cube holds exactly one ounce for easy use in ratios! And since the roux is cold it incorporates into hot liquid very easily and smoothly.
I use my Wustoff kitchen shears for all sorts of tasks --including cutting chives. Good shears are great for trimming the pie dough after putting in the pie pan. Also great for giving a few extra "chops" to just about anything in the pan, stock pot, salad bowl.
When rolling out pie crusts, roll them between 2 layers of silicone mats.
This will keep you from needing to put flour down, which will ultimately work its way into the dough, changing the proportions of fat and flour and compromising your flakes .
Shake your button mushrooms in a bag of water and salt to remove any excess dirt and grime.
Never cook bacon without a shirt on.
1) cook bacon in the oven (or toaster oven) on a cooling rack on a sheet pan.
2) moisture is your enemy for all flora. Herbs,bchives, and even garlic. If you buy peeled garlic in a tub from costco, separate into smaller gladware lined with paper towels or napkins. But don't freeze!
3) hone your knives for 10 or 20 swipes before each use.
Here are some that I only learned through experience -- wish someone had told me earlier:
- Always keep a well-stocked, well-labeled freezer and pantry; you never know when the flu might strike suddenly, and I love the smugness of heating up some soup I've frozen v. microwaving a strange-looking boxed 'freezer entree'
- Use kitchen shears to snip herbs into a pot/pan, instead of making a mess all over your cutting board
- Chopsticks are better than tongs for most applications
- If using anchovies in sauces or with veg (I love it with cauliflower), they usually disintegrate right in and most people won't know, unless you're cooking for someone with a very good palate or who is very familiar with the background note that they lend to recipes
- Marinate in a large Ziploc; save the big platters and dishes for the actual meal
- Always make more sauce/gravy than you think you'll need; leftovers can be easily frozen and there's nothing as sad as running out of gravy before mashed potatoes
- For flat bacon strips, speedy cooking in mass quantities, and controllable grease: line them up on a sheet pan and into the oven (or on a rack over a sheet pan, if your guests are grease-conscious -- or if you'd like to save all that bacon fat for cooking the potatoes)
- Mise is invaluable and rescues your sanity; it seems silly to have a game plan written out on paper, right down to the scheduling, but I'd rather seem silly than harried and overwhelmed in the kitchen
- When throwing a dinner party, have plenty of liquor.
Living in the worst region of the country for grocery shopping has taught me one thing - buy the best ingredients you can find, then plan your menu. If you start with good quality, fresh ingredients, the rest is usually pretty easy. I always go to the Farmers Market and Meat Market first to see what looks good. Even if it's a simple spinach, Feta and mushroom pizza that I have in mind to prepare, and those items don't look so good, I change the pizza. I only buy the best, quality ingredients I can find.
I peel ginger and freeze it, then use a microplane grater when I need fresh ginger. I also use the microplane with garlic when my RSI acts up and using a knife is problematic. I have a new gadget, a butter slicer, I use it to dice chilled butter for pastry, faster and cleaner than grating. It is also great to use sliced or diced butter when mounting a sauce.
When making pesto, I always freeze some in an ice cube tray. One ice cube is about 1 serving size, so it's great to pull out just as much as you need later.
Grow your own garlic over the winter in pots.
Hope this counts- the west coast is just getting up at noon EST!
Fresh herbs fit great into beer tasting/sample glasses and will stay fresh longer if you change the water daily. Keep them out on the counter as a reminder to use them and to look nice.
Rub veal bones with tomato paste before roasting to skip the step of browning the tomato paste with the mirepoix later!
An old trick, but useful nonetheless, is wrapping your box grater in plastic wrap when grating fresh ginger. Not only does it allow you to get the most out of the ginger root, it also makes cleanup a breeze.
For removing the skins for mashed potatoes: after you boil the potatoes with their skins on and if you don't have the fancy tool necessary to separate the skins from the meat, cut them in half and toss them in a bowl. grab a fork, flip a potato half cut side down and smush the potato with your fork. the skin will loosen enough so you can just grab it out (or use a second fork to help you grab it from the bowl if things are too hot to touch).
When I'm chopping a lot of onions, I put on my swimming goggles. It helps to play some Devo while you're chopping, too.
Rub fingers against something stainless steel (the kitchen faucet works well) to neutralize garlic and onion smell on your hands.
Don't buy chili powder! Make it in a blender instead and save a lot of money and get better chili powder to boot.
Buy a few bags of different dried chiles, whatever you like. My last batch was equal parts Arbol, Cascabel, and Guajillo, then 3 big anchos. Give them a rough chop and discard the seeds, and toast the chile bits in a dry pan over medium heat until they smell great. About 10 minutes shaking frequently. Add some cumin and garlic powder to taste and put it all in a blender, or as much as you can fit in a coffee/spice grinder. Pulse until you've got a reasonably uniform powder.
Instead of mincing garlic, grate it on your trusty Microplane.
Cleaning as you go is almost as important as tasting as you go. And using a scale means fewer implements to wash!
(I'd like to vote for the guy with the tip about lighting a match to combat the onion fumes – if that works, he deserves the book and the Nobel.)
I always rub oil on my measuring spoon/cup before measuring sticky stuff like molasses and peanut butter. I get all of the ingredient into my recipe, and cleanup is much easier.
Place a baking sheet under what you are baking if you keep coming up with burnt cookies.
1) Why use a hulking and expensive panini press when you can use a griddle pan with a teapot filled appropriately with water as the press
I always use a combination of kosher salt and veggie oil to clean my cast iron right after use. It cleans and seasons all in one.
I always saute my mirepoix when making any dish.
Also, olive oil works great to revive wood kitchen utensils.
When chopping parsley, dont rinse it first to avoid a wet mess all over your board. Chop first, then bundle in a clean lint free towel. Rise under cold water and squeeze dry. Beautiful, fresh chopped parsley, without a sticky wet mess.
Too much basil in the garden? Just wash and throw it in a food processor with a bit of olive oil and pulse a few times. Take blended mix and freeze in ice tray to have basil for soups during the long winter.
To easily clean your grill grate, put a disposable aluminum pan on the grate as you preheat the grill. It gets so hot it ashes anything stuck to the grate.
Save your parmesan rinds in the freezer and use them for flavoring soups
Using a ziplock bag to defat a hot stock is one I use regularly. Fill a ziplock bag with stock, snip the lower corner and let the stock drain into a clean vessel. You will see the fat layer floating in the bag on top of the stock. As it empties out, discard the bag before the fat reaches the bottom. The resulting stock is ready to add back into soup, sauce, etc
If you have a pizza stone that you want clean for some reason you can use a belt sander to give it a brand new look. Nothing like power tools for use in the kitchen!
I put bacon in the freezer for 10-15 minutes if I need to chop it into smaller pieces. Much easier to work with that way.
I guess I'm too slow, but just in case - if you're grinding fresh spices for a sauce, run some of the thickening agent through the grinder - whether mortar and pestle or dedicated coffee grinder - after you take out the spices to clean it out and get *all* of the spices into your food.
Use a VERY light touch - barely more then the weight of the blade - when stroking a knife on a honing steel after sharpening to get the best edge. The reason is that after you sharpen a knife, the blade at the edge is very thin and flexible, and tends to bend away from the last side you sharpened it on. Heavy strokes on a steel just bend it back and forth (try it - use heavy force when stroking, then run your thumb across the edge one way, then the other - it will feel sharp on one side - the side opposite your last stroke on the steel - and dull on the other). The aim is to straighten the thin sharp edge so it feels just as sharp either way you run your thumb across it. Now the edge is aimed straight down and cutting most efficiently and cleanly.
To get the peel off of garlic, crush it with the side of a knife first and it's much easier to peel!
If you get chiles on your hands or face and it's burning (or you need to take out contacts or, ahem, go to the restroom), slather on sour cream or yogurt. It kills the pain, and it has staying power, so it can sit there while you do other things. After about 30 minutes, rinse off and you're good.
Or just use gloves. But we all forget the gloves sometimes.
If a recipe calls for a vanilla bean (as in ice cream), don't throw out after using. Simply rinse, dry thoroughly, and the next day pop in a jar of sugar to make a delicious vanilla scented sugar.
If you buy vegetables in bulk at places like Costco or Sam's Club, but won't use them all before they go bad, blanche them in boiling water briefly (1 minute), dip in an ice bath (or just run cold water over them) then pat dry. Separate into meal-size portions and sue a vacuum sealer to make individual airtight meal packages. Then just label with a Sharpie and stick in the freezer. For mushrooms, just skip the blancheing, and know that they will be useful for cooked meals, but not raw in salads.
Separate Pomegranites from the detritus by dumping everything in a bowl of h20. The little white bits of membrane float to the top. Easy!
When I need to season a cast iron skillet, I just cook a bunch of bacon in it and voila! Perfection and bacon!
The freezer is as important as the oven when baking
Put the anti-slide padding they sell for drawers under your cutting board to keep it from slip sliding away when you're cutting.
Egg whites work better (at least for meringue; the finished product is more stable) if they sit out on the counter in a bowl overnight, covered with cling wrap.
Mine is plain and simple, but I use two slightly sticky/tacky coasters underneath my cutting board. I have to try really hard to move it (even exerting pressure to lift it off of them to clean it). Simple, I know, but I'm sure it has saved me a slight cut or two at least.
If you only need to use ½ of an onion, cut your onion at the equator and just use the top, pointy, half. You can store the bottom, root, part in a container or plastic bag for weeks since the onion as a plant is still living. (The separated top only lasts a few days.)
This is useful in small households, with really large onions, or for applications where you just need a little onion. You can keep cutting away at the upper areas of the onion for weeks and the root portion will keep it alive.
Nuke a lime for ~10 seconds to extract more juice.
Hydrogen peroxide is great at getting out red wine stains!
freeze homemade stock in icecube trays, which makes it really easy to pull out exactly how much you need when you need it!
Where gloves when working with hot peppers; you never know when you may need to take out a contact or go to the bathroom.
To stuff sausages without a sausage stuffer, use a spritz cookie press with a metal cylinder attached to the end (take a saw to a golf ball retriever). It works much better than a pastry bag, and saves you $100.
Go to the Ad Hoc website and sign up for the daily menu to be sent to you. It is always interesting to see what they are cooking up, and sometimes can provide an idea or two for dinner.
When I'm grilling pizza dough I grease the outside of the dough with olive oil and roll out between 2 pieces of parchment paper. Olive oil imparts a wonderful flavor on the grilled dough and the parchment paper allows for easy clean-up.
When I break down a chicken to make stock I always cut the cavity of the bird in half or 4ths to take up less room. I found that my kitchen shears easily cut through the rib cage. It's a lot easier than trying to force a knife through the bones.
The GladWare Soup & Salad Containers (3 CUPS / 24 OZ) when filled to 1/2 an inch from the top hold *exactly* a pound of ground meat. I buy the big family sized packages, even though I am single, and divide them up as soon as I get home to label/date them and stick them in the freezer.
Also the dollar store HELLO MY NAME IS __________ stickers are inexpensive, stick well, but also come off easily, when labelling containers. And they amuse my friends when they go rooting through my pantry and find HELLO MY NAME IS WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR (10/18/2009).
For some reason, I can't remember Ruhlman's ratios, but I can remember single numbers and the number 1. Bread dough is: 1 c water, 1 t salt, 1 t yeast, and 13.3 ounces of flour.
when you make a large batch of braised meat, such as shortribs( who doesnt want leftovers for later) store them submerged in the braising liquid, they will keep much long since they are not exposed to air.
To degrease pan juices, put drippings into a 1 gallon ziplock bag, place in tray on refrigerator door for a few minutes. Then snip lower corner and watch beautiful fat free juices drain into container of choice. When you bet to the fat, pinch the bag and stop the flow. I hope you extend the time for all us left coasters. Thank you, Al W
My latest obsession is canning. Anytime I have leftover stock, soup, chili, pasta sauce... I pack it serving-size jars and seal them in my pressure canner. Coming up with a quick meal is a snap and it has freed up valuable freezer space.
I also use Bar Keeper's Friend to keep my All Clad pots and pans looking like new.
I always save the wrapping paper of sticks of butter, so whenever a recipe asks me to grease a cake pan or ramekin or what have you, I just use the butter that's left on the paper. I find it's the perfect amount, plus it's a lot easier to use the wrapper to spread all the good stuff around 🙂
I put green onions (scallions) with their roots in a little jar full of water on my countertop, and periodically snip off the green tops to use - and miracle of miracles - they grow back! I've had this same bunch for a little over three weeks now - I change the water every few days.
I also freeze single portions (about 1/2 cup) of rice in individual balls in my freezer for those times when you want rice ASAP but don't feel like waiting.
I think the tip I've been using the most lately has been for how to quickly flour the inside of a baking dish. Once it has been properly buttered just dump a whole bunch of flour inside, cover with plastic wrap, and then shake the dish around a bunch. It's kind of fun to do it, and a whole lot easier than my prior failed attempts at flouring involving using my fingers or a sifter. The best part is pulling off the plastic wrap and dumping out all the extra flour into the trash can, because you know that if you had done it any other way that flour would be all over your counter top and floor.
I also wanted to say thanks for Donna for all the beautiful photography pictures lately. I subscribed to your blog because I like your work, and really had no idea about Donna's stuff but now that I know about it I love it.
After making fresh pasta using an ironing board to dry it out before cooking.
If you need to thaw meat in a hurry, take your largest, heaviest cast iron pan, turn it upside down on your counter, and place the meat on top.
In a hurry, bake lasagne in a muffin pan. More delicious crispy edges.
When weighing very light ingredients (e.g. a small amount of powder), use parchment/wax paper as weighing paper and crease it before weighing your ingredients, to make it easier to transfer the powder.
Make friends with your butcher, local produce stand, and other mongers.
Put potatoes in water after slicing to prevent oxidation.
Chew on a piece of bread while slicing onions to prevent teary eyes. Or you could just have a really razor sharp knife so each slice will not damage as many cell membranes.
Save your butter wrappers to grease pans.
Freeze ginger... it keeps forever and it's easy to peel with a spoon.
If you find yourself with unused fond in a pot, "deglaze" it with a solid amount of fresh spinach or arugula - the liquid released as it wilts will loosen the fond, which will perfectly season your greens with a flavor to accompany your main dish.
Also, when freezing stock, I usually pour it into a gallon bag, and then lay that on a plate in the freezer. This way, I can stack all my stocks for later use.
to ripen an avocado fast - place in a paper bag with a red apple. The axioms go to work and ripen quickly!
Buy pancetta in 1/4" slabs, wrap them in butcher's paper and toss them in the freezer. This way you always have some on hand if you are making a soup, starting a risotto or going to make some roasted potatoes, at least if you're me 🙂
Also, I save all of my parmesan rinds and use them when I'm making soups. This is especially tasty in my tomato bisque.
A great trick I use for getting the last of the honey/Steen's cane syrup out of the bottle (esp. crystallized honey) is to put the bottle in the microwave for about 10 seconds. It warms and liquifies it just enough to speed up the flow.
To easily cube an avocado - cut in half length-wise, remove pit, and cut rows through the flesh *but not through the skin* horizontally and vertically. To remove cubes, invert the avocado half and pop 'em out.
Make sure that your kitchen is equipped with a stool for your child to stand on to help you cook; to sit on while you talk about cooking, and family, and food. Enjoy their company, and remember to be patient with the odd spill.
Do a little math.
I got hooked on British cookbooks when I was married to an Englishman. The one thing noone tells you is that if you cook by weight, you have almost no cleanup afterwards. So even for my American cookbooks, I've taken to doing the math on any recipe I have and writing the numbers in beside. So if flour is 30g per 1/4 cup, and the recipe calls for 1 cup, I write 120g by the flour. I can simply put each ingredient straight into the bowl, then clear it out to zero, then go on to the next. Changing the numbers any time I can means I'm almost never washing measuring spoons, which saves a lot of time - over time.
Like the Ratio concept, but put into use in every cookbook.
By the way, I'm following and saving this entire thread of comments. Amazing stuff in here!
to measure 1 c shortening, fill a 2 c measuring cup with a cup of water, and drop shortening in until the water level reaches the 2 c mark. Faster and easier to clean than one of those shortening measure tubes.
A quick way to tell whether eggs are fresh: if the shell is chalky and textured, the egg is fresher. Older eggs will be shinier.
What I do to keep recipes handy and cookbooks clean(er) is photocopy the recipe I want to use and tape the copy to a kitchen cabinet near my primary workspace, for example, above the cutting board if I'm going to be doing a lot of knife work for the recipe.
-use dowels to guide you cutting a cake in half, place 1 dowel on each side of the cake, use your bread knife and cut in half.
-rub fingers on steel the get the garlic smell off.
-boil a sponge for 5 minutes to disinfect it and get more life out of it.
Roasting peppers:
Lie pepper sideways, cut off top and bottom. Upright , slice down the sides on the inside of the flesh but away fro the seeds and pith. You should have 3-4 flat (roughly) rectangular pieces. Place skin side up on cookie sheet and broil until brown and blistered. Steam in a closed bag for a few minutes and the skins slide right off. No need to turn the pepper to get all sides brown !
I love using a grapefruit spoon for everything except grapefruit. Gutting tomatoes, stripping the ribs out of peppers, and pulling bits of egg shell out of cracked eggs in a bowl.
Wash (and dry!) your greens as soon as you get home from the grocery store. That way you have no excuse not to serve salad with dinner.
For me it is intimidating to leave anything on this blog because it seems everyone is so knowledgable and it sounds like great cooks.
The 2 rules of thumbs for me at least, that Peter Kump drilled into me when I was a plongeur at his school in the 90's was always make sure your knives are sharp and always buy the best ingredients you can afford.
Clean cast iron pans only with hot water....no soap.
For novice grillers, never add lighter fluid to pre-soaked briquettes...especially on vacation on balcony of rented condo!
If a recipe calls for raw strips of chicken breast (instead of slicing an entire cooked breast), throw the chicken in the freezer for a few minutes before slicing. Firms them up just a bit and makes the slicing much easier.
Rub a lemon on a grater after grating soft cheese to clean it quickly and easily.
Next time you are making potato puree, try putting a little honey and roasted garlic in it. It gives them an incredible richness and it does not add hardly any more fat.
Whenever I cook bacon (on that rare, self-indulgent Saturday morning) I always cook the entire pack and put the extra in the freezer to pull out to toss in soups or quiche or whatever needs a little extra.
After you buy pork shoulder for making sausage, save the bone and use it in a pot of chili. Really thickens the chili and gives it depth.
As has been said before, make all the basics in bulk (stocks, sauces, doughs) and freeze in smaller portions so you always have something on that to whip up. It makes dinners after a long days work much easier.
Damp towel under the cutting board to keep it from slipping.
Removing a beer can chicken from the grill can be difficult, considering that the can will be half filed with boiling liquid. Lift the bird with tongs, and remove the can your other hand, inside an oven mitt and covered with a disposable plastic bag. That way the oven mitt does not get contaminated and you don't burn your hand.
Buy 3 or 4 good quality whole chickens (on sale, even better) and process them yourself. Wings together in one freezer bag for a future wing-fest, boneless breasts frozen individually, thighs and legs deboned and meat tied into neat parcels. Finally, take all the bones and bits left over and make a lovely chicken stock.
Use those fat rubberband from broccoli to hold spring loaded tongs shut. I also use toilet paper tubes to store cords of appliances. Just coil them up and stuff them in the tube. Keeps it tidy and you don't have to mess with twisty ties.
If your cast-iron gets too much gunk on it and you have trouble getting it out with hot water and a brush. Gently heat a small amount of oil and put some kosher salt in it and scrub it out with a towel and a pair of tongs.
wooden cutting boards can be cleaned with a little lemon juice and kosher salt if they have absorbed some oils or odors. Also a good bench scraper works well to get them clean.
To peel garlic, smash it on your cutting board with the flat side of your chef's knife and a little punch with your fist. The peel comes right off. And depending on how hard you smashed it, you're well on your way to finely minced garlic. Way better (and cheaper!) than that jarred stuff! You would think everyone would know this by now (and probably everyone that reads this blog does), but I'm always shocked at the number of people who don't!
Use the same pot of water to boil vegetables, then noodles, since the specific heat of capacity for water is so high.
I rest my bowl for making mayonnaise in a ring formed by a towel; it stops the bowl from sliding everywhere when I whisk and obviates the need for another person to pour while I whisk.
To give tofu a chewier and more 'meat-like' texture, first freeze it, then thaw it out and grate it. Then cook as usual.
Wrap thick rubber bands around the ends of your rolling pin to desired thickness before rolling out dough.
Use kichen sheers to open beer bottles...
It's been a prior topic of discussion here, but hey, I came up with on my own before that, so what the heck:
When sliding pizza onto a stone/tiles/etc., put the dough on parchment paper, to keep it from sticking to the peel/bottom of the sheet pan/whatever you're using. The dough will slide right off into the oven. I cook the pizza with everything but the cheese for 3-4 minutes before adding the cheese, so when I pull the pie out to add the cheese, the dough has cooked enough to allow for the removal of the parchment paper (no need to worry about sticking when you put it back in to finish cooking).
I bartend. When making lemon twists, for drinks or food, slice them and leave the skin attached. peel off the "twist" when you need it. Because it stays attached, it keeps the peel from drying out and will last alot longer!
It's winter, if you go snowboarding/skiing, your goggles are very handy for cutting onions.
I use non-stick aluminum foil on my baking sheets when I roast anything in the oven. Makes clean-up a breeze and NOTHING sticks to it. It's amazing stuff!
When making pasta by hand, I like to use a spackling knife (clean!) to work the dough.
Whenever I fry up gyoza I always use a brush to brush the oil into the frying pan so that way the pan is barely coated in oil. Keeps the gyoza from being over greasy, especially if you use a little water to steam them briefly after pan frying!
I use magnets to hold recipes/ratios 😉 fixed to the vent hood above my stove. Nice for at-a-glance reference and takes up no counter space.
Ginger freezes well. As a bonus it grates beautifully when frozen.
When you make stock freeze some in ice cube trays to add to dishes that need just a small amount of the liquid or flavor of the stock.
When making onion soup peel all the onions at the same time and then slice. It prevents skin from getting in the soup.
Save fresh herbs by blending them with a little water, and freeze the results in ice cube trays. Once the cubes have frozen, take them out of the trays and toss them into a freezer bag for easier freezer storage. I do this for many herbs that don't overwinter well, except for woody herbs like rosemary and thyme, or sage, which can all be readily air-dried by just spreading them out on a dry kitchen towel for a few days.
To juice a piece of citrus pierce the fruit with a fork and while holding the fork inside squeeze the fruit with your other hand to remove the juice without getting any seeds in your dish
keep stale bread in the freezer, then throw a chunk in the blender for instant, homemade bread crumbs whenever you need them
My best tip:
Read Ruhlman's books!
Leave the root of the onion when dicing for a more uniform cuts.
To keep celery crisper, wrap the stalks in aluminum foil and place in a paper bag.
The "chives trick" applies to many other things. Just recently I found that when slicing up big mounds of chard, it was easiest to take the buck and begin to use its own leaves as a way of containing it. It turns into a big thick cigar that you can then slice easily for the widths you want.
When faced with a bumper crop of lemons (especially meyer) always plan to make Limoncello AND preserved lemons. You can use the juice from the many zested Limoncello lemons to contribute to the pickling juice.
After buying large quantities of bacon, unwrap them, separate the strips of bacon, and lay the strips flat on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, and freeze. When they've frozen, stack them up and wrap them in aluminum foil. This way, you can pull out as much or as little bacon as you want at a time, instead of having to thaw an entire pack.
If you have an electric oven, and want super crispy pizza, put your pizza stone under the broiler for about 5 minutes (get it SUPER hot), then throw your pizza directly on that stone under the broiler for about a minute and a half.
Super crisp, perfectly done pizza.
Don't have time to drain the tofu? Pop it in the microwave in a bowl for about 20 seconds. Grab it as soon as the bell rings. The tofu should be much denser surrounded by more liquid. You could try it for another 10 seconds if needed, but I wouldn't go much beyond that.
when cutting corn off the cob, place a clean dishtowel under the corn. The towel helps damper the kernels as they fall and thus preventing them from scattering all over the place.
My tip? Let my boyfriend cook everything. 🙂
I just saw this tweeted & thought it was hilarious: Do not use a counter-top espresso machine's steam wand while naked.
If you have forgotten to soften your butter grate it using a large hole grater and it will be room temp in no time or ready to cream right away.
When preparing a meal use a counter top toaster oven set at 125 degrees to preheat plates.
I believe that this is a fairly well known one, but, for those of you who don't know, if you make a soup and find that you have over-salted it, cut some big hunks of potatoes and throw them in the pot for a while. The potatoes will absorb some of the salt and you can simply remove them before serving the soup.
When cooking, not baking, constantly taste and adjust the seasonings. this is even true with stews and stuff that should sit a day.
When boiling pasta, save a little pasta water and use in your sauce to help thicken and flavor.
peeling ginger root by scraping with the edge of a spoon.
saves so much time and wastes very little of the ginger.
cook with love!
Wrap celery in foil and it stays crisp and fresh for a really really long time.
I'll go with Douglas Adams on this one: Always have a towel handy. A fresh, dry towel in the kitchen is a blessing.
When cooking with fresh garlic, once you are done handling it, run a steel soup ladle under a cold tap then once it is cold enough handle it in your hands where you touched the garlic, it gets rid of oil/scent from your hands.
When using fresh herbs, add at the last second so they stay green and vibrant.
Store hulled garlic cloves in olive oil w/a sprig or two of rosemary for easy access to garlic and for a great salad dressing . . . .
My favorite trick is using a sieve to break up gravy or bechamel or whatever type of sauce. I understand some people whirr it up in a blender but this is much easier and faster and requires less cleanup! I don't know if this is a "trick" but my family at Thanksgiving thought it was.
I have borrowed this book from the library (and given how its selling, was amazed I am not still on a waiting list). It's great!
Its not a new one by any means......
" Mis a Place "
Get as many of your ingredients, measuring cups, spoons and bowls lined up and ready to go by your preparation area.
It is so much easier to make the recipe. For me, it instills confidence when I am making something new too.
to roast a large squash or a pumpkin, you don't really have to cut it in half and remove the seeds first. It's much easier, although it does take longer, to do all that after it's cooked.
I keep two sizes of ziplock bags on hand at all times. Quart and Freezer sized.
I label left overs or scraps with a large black sharpie. I freeze what food I can, after squeezing out the air.
Also, when I buy bulk (say pork chops or chicken) that I plan to freeze I remove the portions from the box and into quart bags before I freeze...
And, I always keep a box of latex gloves in the pantry. You will find yourself using them more than you could imagine.
Not a profound tip, but nevertheless, press down and roll your fruit (ie lemons, limes or oranges) to get more juice
When cooking pasta that will be added to a tomato sauce cook it just shy of al dente then drain and add to the sauce, this will allow the pasta to finish cooking while sucking the soaking up the flavors of the sauce.
Make your own panko breadcrumbs: Grate leftover sandwich bread by pushing through a food processor fitted with a shredding disc. Spread onto baking sheet and bake at 300* for about 8 minutes, tossing occasionally. Remove and cool, store in ziploc bag in freezer for several months. It's so simple and economical!
Hi there,
the lids on my cooking pots are metal and they get very hot when I'm making soups and sauces. Sonce I don't always have a hot-mitt near by I've taken wine corks, I seem to have plenty, and I slide 3 under the metal handle on the lids. When I go to peak at the soup I only have to touch the ends of the corks...does that make sense? The corks last forever and they look very nice. I can send a photo from home....
Thanks,
Heather
Always use a serrated knife to cut through whole bread or for slicing in to a sandwich to serve- It leaves for a cleaner and appealing finish.
to prevent peppercorns and similar bigger spices from bounding out of your mortar while grinding, cut a circle of cardboard (like from an empty cereal box) that is slightly larger than the diameter of the mortar. cut a slit from the edge of the circle into the center. wrap this "skirt" around your pestle and rest it on the top of the mortar, to prevent flyaway spices!
Let bread rise inside your oven with the oven light turned on. Almost perfect temperature!
Sometimes I want sliced black olives and I don't want those bland canned ones. To pit black olives at home without spending money on an olive pitter or smashing them, use the spout of a small plastic funnel.
Place the spout at the end of the olive and push the funnel through. Out pops your olive pit, nice and neat!
When cooking Mushrooms don't overcrowd the pan. you should still be able to see the bottom of it. Cook in batches if you need to or else you will never be able to get proper caramelization.Because mushrooms release so much liquid when cooking if not given enough hot surface area they will steam instead of caramelize. A ripping hot pan helps as well. Nothing like a perfectly cooked mushroom.
Put your stainless bowl and beaters in the freezer before whipping cream. I usually throw them in about 2 hours before, or at least before serving dinner.
I microwave my lemons and limes for 10 seconds before juicing, it makes them easier to juice.
I'd LOVE to win a copy.
My kitchen trick/tip is for bags of frozen fruits and veggies. When I open them I but the entire length of the end off with scissors and then I use that strip to tie the bag up for later use. It's like recycling and it keeps you from having to have a twist tie, clothes pin, or a clip handy.
Buy a second freezer. LOL
I save every chicken scrap, trimming, and bone, both raw and cooked (even the skin from chicken breasts) for stock production; same with veggie trimmings, celery tops and parsley stems - all in zip bags in the freezer. That is my insurance policy.
I already have a copy after standing an hour and a half in line at Sonoma Williams in King of Prussia Mall. His signature rivals anything I've ever seen Al Hirschfeld draw. My own tip is the best one for aspiring cartoonists.
Look at his signature for ideas about how to draw.
Yep, even his signature is that of an artist.
It's loads easier to grate ginger when it is frozen.
A fork is also a great way to juice citrus
When you need a large quantity of cracked peppercorns, put them into a bread loaf pan and roll an unopened can of whatever from the pantry over them a few times, shaking every once in a while to redistribute. You'll get a perfect consistency. (And if you're making Steak au Poivre, you can just press the steak right into the now-cracked pepper to cover...)
When serving pasta I always heat my plates. The fastest way is to put the colander on top of the plate and strain the pasta and the pasta water heats the plate in a snap.
To get cream to whip up super quick freeze the bowl and the beaters before mixing. The heavy cream comes together almost instantaneously that way.
Nothing is more versatile than silicon rubber bands...not only can you use them like butcher's twine, but you can use 'em for rolling-pin thickness gauges, to bundle herb stems, identify glasses @ a party (assuming you have multiple color bands)...a TON of different uses!
For crispy skin AND juicy meat, first brine your bird, then pat it dry, then put it in the fridge on a roasting rack with a little electric fan blowing on it, for about an hour or two before you intend to roast it. This along with the salt from the brine will dry out the skin. It is ready when the skin is leathery to the touch. Brush lightly with olive oil before putting it in the oven. The result will be crispy, light, almost puffed skin, while the meat will be juicy and tender from the brine. This works really well for skin-on pork roasts too like shoulders, and for pork belly rolls. Never eat flaccid rubbery skin again!
My kids are at a stage where they won't eat the crust on the bed. I save them and make bread crumbs or croutons if the pieces are big enough.
when fine-mesh straining, use a ladle in a circular motion over the strainer to eek out the final bits of goodness on the other side. it will speed up the sometimes-slow straining process and ensure consistency.
When brining, use beer instead of water for extra added flavor!!
Don't cut apples pieces too thin when you are using fresh
apples. Larger chunks will hold together and have more apple flavor.
Use only the egg yolk (beaten) & heat in a skillet pan (thin layer). Then julienne the egg layer to top on rice or noodle dishes.
I like to cut my peppers skin side up to avoid that problem where the skin doesn't get cut all the way through.
Sometimes I just deglaze my SS pans with water when I'm done cooking because it makes cleaning easier.
Make sure both of your brothers are chefs, and let them cook for you. If that doesn't work, buy a whole chicken and break it down, you will save money and have more options. (Just like my brother taught me!)
Favorite tip: score your pork chops twice across the fat to prevent curling.
Run your hands over your sink after cutting an onion. Stainless steel mysteriously gets rid of that annoying smell in your hands!
To get the raw 'bite' out of red onions, and mellower flavor - slice then let soak in ice water for about 30 seconds. The end result is a much fresher flavor, and doesn't have the heavy bit that it would normally have.
For tasty summer tea, freeze lemonade into ice cubes. The tea slowly transitions to a nice lemon drink!
If your brown sugar has turned into a lump of concrete, just put it in the microwave and zap it for 15-25 seconds to soften it right back up.
Also - make your own stock. You hear and read that advice over and over - but it's SO true. Homemade chicken stock is like liquid gold - the difference between it and the canned or boxed stuff is amazing.
Keep ginger root in the freezer to make it easier for grating.
I always store my kitchen-aid ice cream maker in the freezer, so I never have to plan ahead. I try to keep whole greek yogurt in the fridge, so whenever I need a quick dessert, I can make a Pinkberry style frozen yogurt anytime in 15 minutes.
Not too profound, but I always save the rubber bands from asparagus, broccoli, etc. and then use them to secure opened bags of things like brown sugar, chocolate chips, etc. Recycling!
When I have an abundance of vegetables from the farmer's market I cook and put into freezer bags in 1/2 and 1 cup portions. They are then available to grab and throw into recipes.
Skim your stock with a new, clean fishtank net. It's super fine and will clean up stock scum way faster than a slotted spoon.
ALWAYS...ALWAYS...bring a protein to room temperature prior to cooking....whether it is a piece of fish or fowl or meat. I heard TK say this on a morning news show when he was in town promoting his book last month. He said, "you need to temper the chicken."
If you've been peeling shellfish, garlic, or citrus and want to get the smell off your hands, put a small mound of salt in your hand and a bit of dishwashing soap (1:1 ratio, I'd say) and scrub thoroughly without water. Then rinse. Boo-ya.
Put a wet paper towel under your cutting board to prevent it from slipping all over the counter.
For the holidays:
Don't crease your cookie sheet if you are squeezing out cookies with a cookie press. They need to stick to the sheet just a little bit to form correctly.
I don't have any sort of pot or dutch oven that I can use for braising so I just use my large cast iron skillet with a foil tent for short ribs. Works exactly the same.
Learned this one the hard way: before putting pan with a handle (ie, sauteuse, fry pan, etc) in the oven when, say, pan-roasting something, wrap the handle with aluminum foil. That way, after you take it out, you won't forget that the pan just spent 30 minutes in a 400-degree oven...and if you do, the foil cools much faster than the handle, so you buy yourself a split second before you burn your palm.
Microwave excess herbs from your garden between paper towels. It preserves the color and flavor but dries them out so you can use them later.
If you need to peel ginger, use a spoon!
No lumpy gravy ever again: put the flour with 1/2 cup of broth or whatever liquid you're using in a small jar. Cover and shake, shake, shake. The resulting paste will blend into your gravy without a single lump. Works like a charm.
I read all these comments, BTW, and some are SO helpful and ingenious!
To keep from crying (hysterically) when cutting onions; I cut them near an open flame on my gas burner. I don't know the science behind it, but it works.
I'm caught between two "tricks" which my friends keep coming back to, saying "wow, that's a waay better method". There's peel-your-ginger-with-a-spoon, which is really a winner when making candied ginger this time of year, and open-your-pomegranates-underwater. I think the latter is really the winner, though; the pomegranate arils sink, while the pith floats. Not only, all the juice is contained underwater and doesnt stain your kitchen up. (I typically lop my fruit in half on the cutting board, then toss into a bowl of water. Nom!)
To seed a pomegranate, I cut it into six wedges, and put all of the wedges in a large bowl of water. I then pull the pomegranate apart while keeping it under the water, so any splashes and juice don't get on me/the counter.
For ripe Avocado, pull off nub and check the color...then press on the bulbous end and look for a slight give.
freeze leftover tomato paste in one tablespoon portions then wrap in plastic wrap.
My tip comes in the form of one of the most wonderful kitchen gadget discoveries I've made this year! There are two drinks I love, fresh margaritas and a Gordon's Cup, which is made with Hendrick's Gin, muddled cucumbers, simple syrup and fresh lime juice. I have tried everything when it comes to juicing limes and when you are trying to make large batches (especially in the case of the margaritas), it can be time consuming, messy, and no matter how much pre-rolling and massaging of the lime, hurts your hands and feels like you never get all of the juice. My aunt found this at Bed Bath and Beyond and I can only say it is like a magic juicer! It gets all of the juice out of the lime and because the tip has sharpness, tears into any lime with ease. It's become one of my must have kitchen tools!
Calphalon Hand Juicer
http://www.jr.com/calphalon/pe/CPH_GT124/
Cheers!
A few tips:
1) A little pork broth goes a long way towards taking the acidic edge of tomato-y sauces and broths. (My mom taught me this and always uses this when making her vegetable soup with homemade tomato juice.) It goes a long way to adding depth of flavor and -- this doesn't do it justice -- mellowing/blending flavors. Too much is... Well, too much; so be discriminating.
2) A little table salt on a cocktail napkin will keep it from sticking to your cocktail glass.
3) Taking the pan off the heat when you've added flour to make a pan gravy is a great way to give yourself some added control (read: avoid lumps) when you whisk in liquids.
4) Remember seven or eight minutes... That's how long you have to cook vegetables -- for instance, green beans -- with a lid on before it starts to affect their color. (I think I learned this from one of Ruhlman's books -- although I'm pretty sure he learned it from McGee -- and have never forgotten.) It will make sure you bring vegetables with bright greens to the table.
5) Blanch your basil before making a pesto and it will help keep it green instead of black. Pepin puts it in a plastic back and microwaves it for a quick and easy blanch.
6) A damp cloth under your cutting board is very helpful.
7) Have fun. I forgot how much fun it can be to mess around and even screw up until I read Kenny Shopshins book earlier this year. He's not fussy and serious about technique only about serving food people like and he's proud of. The best result of my period of experimentation? Putting globs of sour cream into pancakes before I flip them. Try it. I guarantee you'll like it.
Thanks, Ruhlman!
To defat stew/stock/whatever quickly, without waiting for it to cool, draw a paper towel over the surface in one, quick motion. Repeat if necessary.
Takes some practice (and practice creates some messes), but it's great.
Throw a couple of mini-marshmallows into your jar of brown sugar. It will keep the sugar from getting hard.
P.S. My wife and I love The Aviation cocktail, too.
Prior to its introduction in our household, she said she "wasn't a gin drinker."
If you dont have time to let pans soak, just deglaze the pan on your stovetop burner with some tap water (while you dine). Scrape with a wooden spoon, dump the water and wipe clean.
After blanching greens, if you leave them in the water too long they will start to lose color and nutrients.
My new favorite trick is for cleaning up kitchen messes. If something bubbles over in the oven, pour some salt on it while it's still hot. When it's cool the mess will scrub right off.
save used butter wrappers in the freezer and use them to grease pans
If you have a computer in your kitchen, you can keep your grocery list on a free online document site (I use Office Live Workspace). I can add items at my desk if I'm looking at recipes online, from the kitchen as I open the last of something... If I decide to stop at the store on my way home from work, I can access my list and print or copy it without having to go home first. I've saved many hours of my time and with a handy desktop icon on the kitchen computer, have even been able to get my husband to use the list.
Make rice for stir fry a couple of days in advance and leave it in the fridge until you need it. It does wonders for the texture.
When roasting a chicken, always brush the skin with soy sauce before putting it in the oven. It gives the skin a gorgeous color and helps it crisp up perfectly!
Place a damp paper towel or kitchen towel underneath a plastic cutting board to keep it from sliding while you are cutting.
A book about the size and weight of Ad Hoc is a wonderful garlic press.
Hit your grater with a quick spray of oil before grating cheese to prevent clogging and sticking
For perfect brown rice, cook it like pasta: Add rice and cover with a generous amount of water, boil for 20 minutes and strain out water from rice. Add lid to rice and let it steam without heat for another 10 minutes - voila, perfect brown rice.
When you have to cut raw meat into slices (like beef for stir fry) freeze it for 30-60 minutes and it firms up just enough to get a nice even, thin slice.
use ice water when making a stock to pull more gelatain from the bones
Use an egg slicer to slice mushrooms. Fast, efficient, even slices every time.
When making custards, if they curdle, run them through the blender immediately to rescue them.
If your saucepan lids have metal handles--as most do--that after a few minutes' use get too hot to touch, here's a tip. When the lid is cool, slide three or four old wine corks under the handle. If you have a few different sized corks to play with, you should find enough in the right size for a snug fit, so that they stay in place. Thereafter, always lift the lid by the (insulating) cork. They look good too!
(I've always used a rubber band for chives & the like, but a damp paper towel sounds even better!)
Actually, that reminds me of one trick that doesn't seem as common as I'd expect that involves rubber bands, too. I find that rubber bands are great ways to get traction for your chopping boards (a more traditional version is to put a damp kitchen towel under the bowl, but I find they get messy quickly & add to my laundry piles) -- one stretched across the shorter width on each end of the board works wonders & they rinse off in the sink with no effort (I'm partial to using the thick sturdy bands that come on broccoli from the store; while I'm mostly eating farm share & farmer's market produce, I steal them constantly from my in-laws' house!).
A dash of sugar mellows out overly spicy foods - useful when you've added just a bit more chili than you intended or if you need just one serving to be a bit milder.
If you've oversalted something... toss a potato in there... can't say how many times that's saved me from overly salted food...
Use a reusable tea mesh basket for your bouquet garnis. Put the leek leaves directly in the pot and the rest of the spices and dried herbs in the basket. They are made to withstand the hot water used for steeping tea so it will stand being in your stock, broth, or soup just fine. When you are done, fish it out, rinse, and it's ready to be reused. It sure beats cheesecloth.
If you over cook your beef, just melt some butter in a pan, enough to soak the meat in, and soak the beef in it before you slice it.
Clean as you go, my friends, clean as you go
The three things I do every time I plan to cook a complete meal:
1. I sharpen three knives, so I can discard the dull ones as I go. Why three? I have three chef's knives. Symmetry. The Trinity. Manny, Moe and Jack. The Three Little Pigs....which leads me to-
2. I fry a small amount of bacon: it smells great and I can incorporate the fat into just about anything for a kick of extra bacon flavor. If I can't find anything else to do with it, I've actually used crisp bacon as a garnish.
3. I heat up a large pot of water and keep it at a low boil. I can use it to blanch, poach, steam, etc.
It sounds so simple as to be dumb, but it is so nice to be able to
chiffonade baby spinach with a razor-sharp knife
steam it very briefly over the boiling water and
crumble hot bacon over it with a dash of the bacon grease, some crisp fried garlic and a spoonful of Greek yogurt...
you offer that to your hungry wife after a day at work and she'll forget all about ordering out.
Not so much a tip, but I think there are a lot of folks out there who aren't as food/cooking obsessed as my wife and I are that don't get how important/great it is to have a couple of good, sharp knives.
I know that I have a lot of relatives who buy cheap knives and use bad sharpeners and basically muddle through. I periodically sharpen their knives for them. Cooking is so much more fun with a decent knife, and there are many out there that are a good value, too.
And one other thing that might actually be a tip. Our kitchen doesn't have any where to keep notes or grocery lists. I found a dry erase board that's a flexible sheet that I could mount inside a cabinet door with double sided carpet tape. Works great. McMaster Carr product # 4148T2 is an example.
The colder your onions are when you slice them, the less they'll make you cry. Put them in the freezer for a bit before getting your chop on. (How fresh the onions are also makes a big difference.)
After poaching fruit in wine-spice-sugar syrup, don't discard the liquid. Use it as a base for sorbet, or reduce it to make a thick syrup for pancakes, or a glaze on a cake.
Can't always get fresh scallops? To make perfectly seared scallops from frozen ones, wrap frozen scallops in layers of paper towel. Enclose in a zip-loc bag and thaw for at least 24 hours in the refrigerator. Blot off the remaining liquid (there shouldn't be much) and sear the scallops in butter and olive oil. They cook up like dry-packed scallops from the fish market.
As crazy, high strung Type A person, I always organize my grocery lists based on the layout of the store. Produce is top left, then canned goods bottom left, cleaning/paper goods is top right, then meat/fish, and the bottom is frozen. The weeks meals are written accross the top and each item has a reference of which dish it belongs to so I can substitute if needed. Though it sounds complicated, I swear its a time saver.
Simple one, but...
Gotta go with the suggestion (from Ruhlman and others) to use side towels rather than oven mitts.
I was searching online for what people recommended as high-quality oven mitts - as I've never been happy w/ any that I've had. So, I finally ran into comments recommending ditching the mitts in favor of the towels. It was kind of a "duh" moment. They are so much better from an insulation/convenience/durability/multi-tasking standpoint.
As an aside, I got my 20%-off OpenSky coupon and will be opting for the CIA side towels!
To keep a split avocado fresh and from turning brown, put it in the refrigerator with some pieces of chopped onion in a sealed container. It will keep fresh for a few days.
ONLY buy sweet cream butter. NO SALT!
mincing a big batch of garlic in the mini-prep and freezing in one tablespoon portions.
ever burn something onto the bottom of a pan or pot put it back on the stove with water and bring it to a boil. it helps to get the burnt crap to come off easier.
To clean up a pan with food baked on, sprinkle some automatic dish washer detergent and let soak for several hours. Then simply rinse. All the baked in food will be gone and the pan is clean like magic.
if you have a hard to open jar, wrap a rubber band around the top and then twist to open. the rubber band gives you a great grip on it and it's MUCH easier to open then! (if you dont have a rubber band, a bottle opener popping the top, so the seal is broken, also helps).
When I make rice, instead of using a measuring cup to measure water. I put the rice in a pot, then put my finger tip on top of the rice, add water until it reaches the first join of my index finger.
I hate when I cook burgers on the grill and they "get pregnant" making the patty fat in the center and effectively uneven, which we all know results in uneven cooking. I have a golf ball that I keep in a drawer that I use only to create an indentation on one side of the patty (about 1/3 the thickness of the patty). When you add it to the grill be sure to have the indentation side facing up and voila. No more pregnant burger.
In order to get lovely round and moist meatballs, put them in a 375f oven for 15-18 minutes on a sheet pan or saucepan to set the shape, then finish cooking in your favorite sauce.
Save old butter wrappers and use them to grease your baking pans!!-gosh i hope i win 🙂
I always pick fresh blueberries in the summer and then freeze them for the rest of the year. The trick is to lay them out on a sheet pan in a single layer. Once the berries are frozen you can put them in a bag and they wont stick together in a giant clump.
Chop onions near the hood vent (turn it on of course). It will prevent tearing.
If you lack a decent hood vent, core out the stem about an inch deep and toss. It seems to work for me.
If you need to melt a tiny amount of butter and don't have a microwave, use metal dry measuring cups as tiny sauce-pans on the stove.
Add a little baking soda to a half inch of water in the bottom of a pan to lift heavy stains. Or, simmer a whole peeled potato in sauce to suck the salt out.
Toss a few duck or chicken feet into your stock. Their collagen melts down and makes the stock wonderfully lush and gelatinous.
I use my KitchenAid mixer to shred chicken. Really speeds up the process.
For perfect stove top popcorn, heat the oil over medium-high heat with 3 uncooked popcorn kernels in the pan. When they pop, you know the oil is hot enough for perfectly popped, non-greasy popcorn. So cover the bottom of the pan with kernels and pop with confidence.
Instead of using the self-clean or a harsh chemical spray to clean your oven, warm it up to 100 degrees or so and use a paste of baking soda and water (with lots of elbow grease). Better for the environment and your lungs!
Wear a towel, and keep a dry towel and a wet towel handy for grabbing hot things and cleaning up messes respectively.
I keep a supply of slightly used ziplock bags in the freezer for bits of left-overs so the bags are handy to be re-used many times before being discarded.
Every time I make steamed veggies I make some extra to put in the salad the next day.
I count the number of cloves I'm putting in a balsamic reduction so I know how many to find when it is done.
I have a small kitchen without a lot of room for specialty gadgets like avocado peelers. But I found an easy workaround.
1. Halve the avocado through the poles.
2. "Thunk"(that's an industry term) the blade of your knife into the pit and give it a half-twist to remove it.
3. Score the avocado meat (fruit, whatever) with the tip of a sharp knife.
4. Use a silver spoon to scoop out the avocado. It has much sharper edge than a stainless spoon. The older the silver spoon the sharper the edge will be. If using the one that was in your mouth at birth, please wash first.
If you're using lemons, limes, or oranges for juice, zest them first and freeze the zest in an ice cube tray. It's so handy to always have zest on hand.
Use a pinch of salt when cooking with chocolate. Yum!
Use your potato ricer to squeeze the liquid out of cooked spinach or sauerkraut. Works great and you can use this method even if the spinach is hot without burning yourself.
If you cut up hot peppers without wearing gloves or bags on your hands, and your skin starts to burn, rubbing alcohol seems to take the burn away. Just swipe with a cotton ball until the pain is gone.
My favorite use for my Sil-Pats outside the oven is for easy transfer of pie crusts: roll it out on the sil-pat, pick up the mat in the middle so the crust folds in half over the top, and then lay it sideways into the pie dish and roll it in. No tearing!
Freeze wine (or stock, or sauces, or eggs, or, or, or...) in muffin tins, then take them out and bag 'em up. They'll stay separate, and you'll be able to grab out single servings when you need them. You can also measure the volume of the tins to have an idea how much your little frozen discs contain (mine are about 1/2 cup).
For those of us who love to make sauces but end up getting distracted working on other components of the meal I would recommend getting a thermos container. Fill it with very hot water to get it warm then pour out the water and add your sauce. It will stay hot and not break for quite some time.
When trying to cut a slice of lemon meringue pie run the knife under some warm water before cutting in order to keep the meringue from sticking to it.
Physics is your friend. If you're stuck without a set of scales and are baking you can always make a balance and use volumetric measurements of water as weights. A flat cutting board, a pencil, and two equal weight bowls can be used to measure the weight of your product.
One gram of water is one mL of water, take that measuring cup and use it to pour of however many grams of water you need. Put the cutting board on top of the pencil so that it approx. balances. Bowl of water goes close to one end, bowl of product goes equally close to the other end. When they balance they are equal. Not the fastest method but its fun and a great way to teach your kids some physics while they're having fun in the kitchen.
Put stuff that's hard to cut neatly (some cured meats, some cheeses, dough, etc) into the freezer for a while until it's ALMOST but not quite frozen - it's much easier to slice neatly when it's at that stage JUST before ice crystals form in it.
(Of course, don't freeze stuff that will be damaged by getting really cold!).
If I win, I'll have to give the book to my mom, because she taught me most of the really useful stuff I know (no offense, Michael!!!!).
Keep sticks of butter in the freezer. When you're making a baked good that calls for cutting cold butter into the dry ingredients, just grate the appropriate amount of frozen butter into the dry ingredients instead. The bits will be small and uniform and all you'll have to do is stir them in.
I use a melon baller to hull strawberries. It's so fast, and I never cut my fingers anymore like when I'd use the tip of a vegetable peeler. This also gives me greater control over how much of the white top to remove.
If I need boiling water, I usually use the electric kettle instead of the stove. Much faster.
No-mess diced avocado: Cut a grid into a halved avocado with a butter knife without breaking the skin. Then scoop the dice out. Also works with baked squash.
Michael, I see that you are up to over 400 comments. If there is any chance you can pick out the top 20 tips from these and re-publish them, that would be appreciated. Just reading through a few, you have some very creative readers.
Keep "neutral"-tasting cuttings and scraps in a plastic bag in the freezer (meaning yes to carrot tops, mushroom stems, onion skins, etc., no to fennel, crucifers, etc.), add meat and poultry trimmings and bones too. When the bag is full (I use a bread bag) throw it in a slow cooker full of water to make easy "mystery stock."
Measure your dry ingredients first, then wet. That way you can re-use the measuring spoon, cup, or bowl.
I was amazed when I found that you can prevent cream from boiling over by placing a wooden spoon across the top of the saucepan.
My new favorite trick is for cleaning out the food processor. After attempting to get out what you can of whatever you've processed (be it a dip, batter, etc.), don't worry about going overboard with the spatula and stressing. Simply put it back together, pulse for a second, and the blade will clean itself off, leaving the excess ripe for the taking, along the side of the container. I learned this a few months ago and it has changed my life! So easy!
Save old butter wrappers in the freezer and ue them to grease baked potatoes prior to baking. Add some sea salt for a great potato skin!
Use an apple peeler/corer/slicer on potatoes. Quickly makes a unique shape for french frying or roasting.
Rub your hands with oil to create a barrier when working with hot peppers.
If you spill and have a red wine or a deep-colored, fruit juice stain on your kitchen counter, combine two parts Dawn Dishwashing Detergent and one part hydrogen peroxide. Dab onto the stain and let sit for 30 minutes.
Then wipe away.
Voila!
The stain will be gone.
Buy a $10 food mill and use it for making mashed potatoes and other mashed vegetables. The difference between using a food mill and using a potato masher is at least as large as that between Thomas Keller's cooking and mine...
It is easier to mince parsley when it is bone dry. It will slice cleanly and not mash. So I wash my parsley ahead of time, roll in a tea towel, then leave on the counter to dry. Then I rebag it, rolled in a paper towel until I am ready to chop it.
Oh, I'd love to win!
This is a brand-new tip that I just learned this weekend while I was trying to frost a cake:
When frosting a cake with {delicious, homemade} buttercreme frosting, use an offset spatula and a water bottle with spritzer. First slap some frosting on like you're used to, then wipe off the spatula and spritz the spatula -and- the frosting with the water.
The butter/fat in the frosting will repel the water and with just a little effort you'll be able to get a beautifully smooth and lovely top surface to your cake.
! I don't even really like cake and I wanted to eat this!
When slicing a lot of cherry tomatoes, put them between two plastic deli lids(one on the bottom, one on the top), and slice between the lids.
You can slice handfulls at a time this way.
when sifting, i set my sifter right in the bowl, tare my scale, and then weigh my ingredients right into the sifter. after i've got the right amount, i just sift the whole shebang right into the bowl. saves a mess.
There is no better kitchen tip than to always have sharp knives.
When prepping for a stir-fry dinner partially freeze the meat to make it easier to make nice thin slices. Also freeze your ginger as it will keep for a long time and will grate very well when frozen.
I've been making large batches of recipes and then freezing what we don't use that day. (Cookies, pasta sauce, roasted tomatoes, etc.) It makes for easy use another day.
In fact, after eating at Ad Hoc last March and having one of the most enjoyable restaurant meals ever, we made the roasted tomato spread that we had with our dinner there. The waiter was kind enough to explain how they had made them (and he knew this without having to ask the kitchen).
When breading meat/fish for frying, use egg beaters instead of eggs. The consistency is perfect, especially if you have a hard time beating eggs like I do.
BTW, I ate at Ad Hoc last year and loved the atmosphere and the food. Our waiter was just the best ever.
Shiitake "Bacon"
Preheat oven to 450
Slice 1 Qt. shiitakes to a 1/4 inch
Toss in bowl with 1 Tablespoon olive oil and a 1/2 teaspoon of salt
Spread on baking sheet and place in oven for 10 minutes, stir and return to oven for another 5-10 minutes or until crisp.
Like crack and it's a trick!
* Cold water defrosts things faster - put meat in bowl and run cold water over it
* Salt on the coaster for the beer you drink while cooking keeps it from sticking to the glass
* oatmeal cooks most excellently in a rice cooker.
My grandma always said that to avoid bitter cucumbers, just cut off the ends and rub each end against the opposite side of the cucumber until it starts to foam a bit. I honestly don't know if this is an old wives tale, but my cucumbers are never bitter!
Sometimes I find it a challenge to finish off a pound of bacon before it goes bad.
My latest trick is to place the individual strips on a non-stick sheet pan and freeze them. Then I remove them and put them in a ziploc baggie back in the freezer.
Cooking chard or brussel sprouts? Take a couple of strips out, fry them up and use the grease for the veggies. Eat more bacon.
I have an electric stove where "low" = "Nuclear" and "High" = "surface of the sun."
For any long cooking (braising, stock, the like) I've taken to using a low oven instead of the stove-top. It's been infinitely more reliable and I've had much less scorching.
This works particularly well for several recipes from my current favorite cookbook, "Bouchon." Maybe you've heard of it...
When cutting onions, turn on a fan! A hood works, or even your summer standby. So much bettter than refrigerating your onions.
Wow. I get to read 485 tips.
My favorite kitchen tip is to keep kosher salt in a sugar shaker next to the stove. It's easy to get to and can be measured into a teaspoon, into a bowl on a scale, or onto the palm of my hand. I even salt boiling water for pasta or vegetables by shaking it directly into the pot.
Chicken parts, shrimp shells -- when preparing dinner save it all and make stock instead of tossing into the garbage. (And if you take Michael's advice, do it in a low oven overnight instead of the stovetop).
I use a spoon to peel ginger. The peeler is always "lost" in the utensil drawer, and I can peel as fast as I want and never worry about cutting myself.
I've always been a fan of putting unpeeled garlic cloves into quart sized plastic chinese food soup containers, putting the lid on it, and then shaking it like crazy. Its a great way to get the skins off without damaging your garlic.
I used to use 2 metal bowls, but it drove my wife nuts.
To freeze bacon, roll each slice end to end into a circle, stand them on a cookie sheet. When they're frozen hard you can store them in ziploc and pull out the amount needed.
I keep a stick of butter (at least) in the freezer. When I recipe calls for the dotting the top with butter, I used the frozen stick and a grater and grate the butter on the top.
For a really nice presentation of mashed potatoes, put them in a gallon zip bag, cut off an end, and use as a pastry bag.
Green onions will grow back in a glass of water, so save your stems, and you'll always have some on hand.
Sprinkle a bit of good coarse salt on top of your chocolate chip or oatmeal cookies.
To keep a cut avocado fresh, rub a bit of lime juice on the exposed flesh and cover it. The acid will help keep it from browning as quickly.
If your old oven does not have a legible temperature knob, as mine does, you should get a thermometer and not guesstimate. You will fail miserably if you try. One day, when you’re not broke from planning a wedding or taking impromptu trips to New York City or building a fence to entrap your dogs so they won’t continue to eat your futon, you should buy a new oven with a proper temperature gauge. Then you will know for sure how to position the knob for 350 degrees and won’t burn your chicken pot pie, which is a bit of a sin.
chill onion in fridge several hours before dicing for fewer tears
use ziplock bags for icing.....mix color into icing in the bag.... then snip corner of bag and use it like it was a pastry bag....no mess when mixing color or when piping
favorite tip/trick: roll out cookie dough in a plastic bag and freeze it flat; when you want to bake, just slice open the bag. it's genius. i'm so amazed (i just did it -- cookies in the oven now!) at the lack of mess and perfect cookies!
When I buy sliced american-style bacon, I slice everything in half width-wise when I get home. I freeze most of the pound, and then I put 6 or so halves into a container in the fridge to keep thawed.
I find that a half slice produces just enough fat in which to fry an egg.
And the half slices fit better into a round skillet.
P.S. What is up with that dude that has trouble finishing off a pound of bacon before it goes bad? That's crazy. Bacon is manna from heaven.
We eat a lot of shrimp (living on the Gulf- it's fresh and inexpensive). There are times when I'll go to the trouble of making a proper shrimp stock and I use it for 'big' dishes, but I keep a zip-lock bag of heads and shells in the freezer for a quick boil in shallow water with some kosher salt and lemon. I use the short-cut broth in tons of prep - quick rice, use in stews when I don't have seafood, sauce for eggs, cooks grits with the broth. It can quickly bring out a seafood taste. If I don't use the shells, I just replace them when I use shrimp again.
After using what you need from a fresh can of tomato paste, cover the can and stick it in the freezer. Once the contents are frozen, you can open the other end of the can and use it as a plunger to push out the frozen cylinder of tomato paste, which can thereafter be conveniently sliced as needed.
You don't need to use the stove to steam foods- the microwave does a great job as well, and much quicker. Throw some broccoli or green beans into a glass bowl with a bit of water, cover with plastic wrap and microwave for 5 minutes. Spend the other 10 minutes you would have used steaming on the stove to read your new copy of Ad Hoc
I clean my blender right after using by filling it about halfway with very warm water, a few drops of dish soap, hit blend to clean out the mess, then rinse. I'm done.
When I purchase pork chops, pork loin chops or boneless chicken breasts in bulk, I dry-rub them and portion them into zip-loc baggies. If I don't dry-rub them, I add a marinade and then I label,date and freeze them. Makes it simple when I pull them to thaw and prepare.
Use a damp paper towel under your cutting board to keep it from slipping. Later, when you are cleaning up, you can use the paper towel to wipe down the counter.
The acid that keeps avocados, apples and other fruits+veg from browning is NOT citric acid, but ascorbic acid... aka Vitamin C. Ascorbic acid has a much less harsh acidity than citric acid (i.e. it tastes better).
Tip: instead of adding lime or lemon juice to prevent browning, you can crush up some vitamin C tablets, dissolve them in water and use that instead.
If you cry chopping onions. Get a cheap pair or find a pair of swimming googles. You may look ridiculous, but at least you can chop as many onions as you please
When I wash my knives, I immediately hone them on a steel before putting them away so that they're ready when I need them, and I don't need to hone them before use.
I always give my knives a quick sharpen before I cut anything.
I always cut sticks of butter with the paper on and then peel it away prior to adding to a dish thus using the guides on the pre-printed wax paper. Then, I return the butter to the fridge using the peeled away paper to cover the open end. Also, as an FYI, I always use kitchen shears when "chopping" fresh herbs. It's so much easier and keeps the herbs from being crushed.
I'm a one-girl household, and it can be hard to have a variety of produce on hand and not have it go bad before you can use it all. For all manner of greens, whether bagged or still in bunches/heads: Once you get them home, wash well, separate the leaves, then soak in plenty of water-and-ice for 30 minutes. Drain, spin, roll in a clean towel to get absolutely dry, then store in a zipper bag, squeezing out all possible air. Greens keep for an amazing amt of time this way. Source: Shirley Corriher.
For firm, slightly chewy tofu and works well in clear broth soups (perhaps vegan "chicken" noodle) without bloating up, press and bake as usual, then freeze. Thaw in fridge over a folded tea towel to absorb moisture, then slice into strips or cubes and grill. Add to your broth along with your chopped, fresh veggies.
I buy packages of bacon and freeze the strips individually (sometimes, I'll chop 'em up before freezing). Then I always have some bacon on hand when I want to throw some extra flavor into a dish.
Wipe your knives down quickly after use without soaking them in water to keep them sharper longer!
This little gem has saved me more than once. When a sauce gets over salted drop a piece of raw potato in for a few minutes, it will draw the salt out of the sauce.
If you have a recipe that involves chopping both dried fruits and nuts, chop the fruit first. The sticky residue it leaves on the cutting board then keeps the nuts in place and makes them easier to chop.
Another bacon tip: love bacon but can't use a whole pound before it goes bad? Roll up individual bacon pieces onto themselves, place them in a ziploc bag, and you can easily break off individual pieces as you need them. If you have extra time you can individually freeze, then package, but this method is a big time saver without much loss in functionality..
Good luck to everyone!
To use fresh ginger with no stringy mess and much faster and easier grating: peel raw ginger root (or don't) and keep it in the freezer; grating the ginger while frozen (on the small, parmesan-sized holes) yields soft, wispy bits of ginger root that melts away in your dish, and the grating is way easier and is easier to clean up.
Practice a recipe before you invite company over to try it... I know it sounds obvious, but really no matter how fool proof a recipe is I almost always make one mistake the first time.
Treat polenta like risotto and never, NEVER stop stirring!
This is an old one that many people know, but still. They sell fancy stainless steel "soap bars" to remove the smell of garlic from your hands, but a stainless steel spoon works just as well and is already in every kitchen. Just rub your hands on it under running water. (The water may not be necessary, but I'm usually multitasking and cleaning the spoon at the same time,)
place a damp paper towel or kitchen towel under your cutting board so that it does not slip. now your cuts will be cleaner and consistent and you might avoid cutting your fingers do to slippage. a very simple but necessary tip!
Grate cloves of garlic with a microplane grater instead of using a garlic press when you need crushed garlic. It's faster, easier, and you end up with a smooth paste the mixes easily into anything.
My wife is borderline OCD when it comes to cleanliness. I am a borderline cooking slob. I do all of the cooking. See the potential for a divorce here. My tip? Always make sure Mocha(our lab) is in the kitchen to vacuum up any scraps I drop.
In southeastern Wisconsin we eat a lot of Kringle - a yummy Danish pastry shaped in a large oval. To make cutting simple, skip the knife and use your kitchen shears. Same for "dicing" bacon -- I just use the kitchen shears. Works for a lot of food prep around the kitchen actually. Love all the other tips!
Use sprigs of rosemary as a brush for basting lamb or chicken with garlic oil or butter. You get the flavor without the unchewable leaves.
I use the flat end of my meat tenderizer to quickly crush garlic. It is so easy that even my kids can do it and works with the skin still on the garlic!
I learned this from my friend's Italian father. When making Genovese pesto of the traditional type with basil, garlic, pine nuts, salt and olive oil, blanch several fresh green beans and a small potato cubed and add it to the pesto before processing (or chopping, or grinding in a mortar). The potato will improve the texture and the green beans will add a bit of color and fresh flavor to the pesto. Also, it will make your pesto stretch a bit further, which is very likely the original motivation for these additions.
For chopping nuts, put them in a plastic freezer size bag and use a rolling pin. Much easier than a knife, and it contains all the nuts... no more nut particles all over the floor.
Simmer a bit of vinegar (lavender vinegar) and water in the bottom of a pan to pull off burned food. Smells a bit but can save an expensive pan when your reduction goes up in flames!
When you get home from the store (or the farmers market, or picking up your CSA share) rinse leafy greens immediately and store in a salad spinner in the fridge. They seem to keep crisper and fresh longer this way!
When using one or two chiles from a can of chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, puree the remaining chiles and sauce and store refrigerated. It keeps very well (a dash of salt will extend shelf life), is often used in small doses, and blends well into a sauce or stock once pureed.
Freeze your stock or demi-glace in an ice cube tray to have some stock cube instant flavour on hand.
- similarly, if you're a gin and tonic fan, freeze tonic in an ice cube tray and use cubes of tonic in your G&T instead of watering it down with normal ice. 🙂
(this thread is already a goldmine of great tips - Thanks!)
I used to buy the uber-expensive tomato paste in a tube so I wouldn't waste it. Then Ruhlman opened my eyes to freezing it. Buy a can, use what you need, put the rest on a sheet of parchment, roll it tightly into a log and toss in the freezer. When you need some for stock or whatever, take it out, cut off what you need and put it back.
It's an easy trick and much cheaper than the stuff in the tube.
To get the restaurant quality stir fried beef with home stoves, first cook the beef on very low heat in oil until it is 50% cooked through. This takes no more than half a minute for thin sliced beef. Then stir fry the beef on high heat rest of the way. This will leave the beef very tender and juicy.
some really good tips
I love cooking(&eating) clarified butter. I take the short cut of chilling the butter as soon as its melted( in the same pan). After it solidifies, dumping the liquids out and my tip :
Use a flat edge wooded spat to scrape off the milk solids on top of the butter.
I then rough chop the pristine butter and store at room temp next to my stove in a bowl.
I always freeze my tofu before I use it. It gives it a much firmer texture, much better for frying or baking...
Also, 1lb of silken tofu pureed with 1lb melted dark chocolate and 1/3 cup crushed hazelnuts in a pie crust? Best chocolate pudding pie of my life.
I got this one from my mother & grandmother. When unwrapping a stick of butter from the paper, save the paper in the freezer. Then when you are baking something, and you need to grease the baking dish, you take the wrapper out of the freezer and use the inside of the wrapper, with its residual butter, to grease the pan. It was probably a depression era idea that came from a need for extreme thrift, but it is such a terrific idea all the time. I haven't bought shortening in years!
When you are a single guy or girl, you can still buy meat in bulk and save money, just put individual portions in a Ziploc bag and freeze. In addition, the Ziploc vacuum seal works pretty good.
Best tip I have is to keep me out of the kitchen! I am a disaster on two legs!
When I make chicken stock (which, admittedly I do not do that often anymore), I freeze it in ice cube trays, then store the stock cubes in Ziploc bags in the freezer. That way if a recipe calls for only a cup or so of stock, they defrost quickly (or sometimes you can just throw the frozen cubes right into whatever you're preparing). I have done this for years.
When peeling garlic, rub the whole unpeeled cloves rapidly between your palms. The skins come away easily and you're not left picking it off your cloves or your board.
I freeze my pesto in ice cube trays and then put the cubes into freezer bags. Easy sauce anytime of the year.
Instead of greasing and flouring pans for baked goods, use parchment paper cut to bottoms and sides plus a little extra. Spray with cooking spray and place the parchment paper. This is cleaner, you don't end up with raw flour on your baked goods and you can use the extra parchment paper that is sticking over the edge to lift out your cake or bar cookies... no messy first piece.
Keep all of your clean onion skins, ends of carrots, celery ends, and any other bits of aromatics for stock-making. I just throw mine in a large freezer bag and store it with the carcasses until I have enough to make a large batch of stock!
I buy all my spices in bulk and store them in the freezer to extend shelf life. A simple tip, but it keeps the spices and seasonings potent MUCH longer.
I make a "tea" out of rosemary using hot milk for breads or scones.The oils break open while soaking in the milk and then infuse your bread or scones with a rich rosemary flavor.
Always have a ramekin of kosher salt on your countertop.
Always assemble your mise en place. This means to find, measure, and prep your ingredients before you start to cook. Of course, you can do this while things are preheating or whatnot, and you can do this in stages if you have long gaps between steps of more than, say, 20-30 minutes. But generally do all your prep first, THEN cook with freedom.
This is one of two tips that started me down the road of cooking well. Thanks, Alton Brown! (The other was to measure by weight, not volume.)
I always have too many pumpkins on hand in the fall, so I roast and puree them, and then put 2 cups of puree per ziplock bag and freeze it. If you're making soup, you can just throw it in or defrost it ahead of time. It's also great to add to pasta sauce especially if it's a sweet pumpkin. And if you're going to bake with it, just strain it in cheese cloth to get rid of the excess water before using. I've found that 2 cups is a good amount since most recipes call for 1-1/2 cups or so.
when a recipe says to "cut in" butter, do it using a cheese grater!
My sister laughs at me because I use certain wooden spoons for savory dishes, and another set of wooden spoons for sweet dishes and desserts. That way my vanilla custard won't have a hint of onion! I do the same with my cutting boards - onions, garlic and veggies on one board, fruit and sweet stuff on another.
When chopping apples, coat them in a mixture of apple cider vinegar & water to keep them from turning brown. The vinegar adds more apple flavor, rather than the sour flavor of lemon juice. Apple cider and apple juice both work, too.
When making chicken stock, wrap the chicken in a big piece of doubled cheese-cloth and tie closed with kitchen twine (you want a long piece that can dangle out of the pot). This way, when the stock is done, you can pull all the chicken out at once without leaving behind all the bits that break down. It makes it easier to shred the the freshly cooked chicken because it's all in one place. And lessens the volume in the pot for straining purposes. (you can do the same with the vegetables.)
Nothing is worse than opening up a can of tomato paste for only a tablespoon, then having the rest of it sit around in your fridge to spoil and age poorly. What to do?
Scoop out tablespoons onto a parchment-lined rimmed sheet, cover with Saran-Wrap, then freeze until solid. Then, wrap individually and store in a Zip-Loc. Problem solved!
Two tips - one well known, one just discovered:
I hold onto the blade of my stainless steel knife and run it under cold water after chopping onions to both clean the blade and remove the onion smell from my fingers.
Use the leftover turkey (and any bits of leftover cheese, prosciutto, ricotta and herbs) from the holidays to make a delicious filling for ravioli, tortellini, etc.
Inspired by the pic, sort of... I always have tons of chives left over in my garden every year, so I cut them plants at the base in fall and freeze them whole (in a zipper lock bag) for the winter. Not rocket science, but hey, "fresh" chives all winter long!
I keep a jar of bacon fat in the fridge. Every time I cook bacon, I top off the jar. I use the fat for a variety of purposes, such as the fat for the roux when I am making Gumbo
When freezing in zipper bags, close the bag down onto a soda straw.
Sucking almost all the air our is a snap.
I don't have any place to compost veggie detritus and so for years I threw away peelings, rinds and anything that started to turn before I could use it. Recently, however, a friend turned me on to collecting all my throw-aways in the freezer until I accumulated enough to make stock. Now I can put my waste to good use and I don't have to buy fresh vegetables for stock purposes. And, the stock is so tasty I think I prefer it to chicken stock for most dishes.
In a similarly thrifty vein, my partner challenged me to make quinoa that she would enjoy. Most recipes suggest boiling it in stock instead of water to enhance the flavor. That's a good idea and made it palatable for her, but not quite enjoyable. Now I save the leftover grease every time we roast chicken and vegetables (about once a week) and boil the quinoa in that. It's not very healthy, but it tastes great and will appease a quinoa-hating lover.
When making pastry, pie crusts, crumbles or scones, freeze whole sticks of butter then shred them on a box grater for perfect little pieces. Much easier than trying to cut big globs into the flour.
Put grape or cherry tomatoes between two platic lids to easily slice whole bunch in half all at once. Works with seedless grapes too
For chocolate chip cookies on a whim, freeze cookie dough balls and keep in a plastic freezer bag until ready to bake. Make chocolate chip cookie dough then scoop individual dough balls onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Stick sheet in freezer until the dough balls are frozen, an hour or so, then slide them from the parchment paper into the freezer bag. Squeeze excess air out of the bag, label, and put back in the freezer. When you crave a cookie, simply place frozen dough balls onto a baking sheet and bake as your recipe directs. You wouldn't think so, but they bake in the same amount of time as unfrozen dough. I imagine this would work with any drop cookie. I loathe supermarket refrigerated cookie dough, so this is one of the best baking tips I've ever picked up!
Take celery out of its plastic sleeve and wrap in foil to keep it crisper for a longer storage period in the fridge - no more tossing rubbery celery!
To keep grapes fresh and plump for 5-7 days in the fridge, take the grapes off the stems the moment you bring them home from the market, wash them thoroughly, drain them, and store them in a plastic container lined with two layers of paper towel, cover the grapes with another layer of paper towel, close the lid, and store the container in the refrigerator.
God, that was one long sentence.
Always let your meat rest before plating or cutting it.
Raw rice in the coffee/spice grinder is a great way to get rid of the cumin smell when you need to grind something else.
Slow down and pay attention! Everything matters - the chop of the onion and the sear of the meat all play a part in the finished dish. If you hurry through it you'll get a hurried, non attentive result. (not to mention you'll miss out on the pleasure of cooking)
If your soup is too salty add potatoes as they will absorb some of the salt.
1) I save my brine from my last batch sauerkraut to make my sourdough starter
2) core and freeze the last of your summer tomatoes whole, to use, rinse under the tap and the skins peel right off
After making a large batch of chicken stock to use for chicken and dumplings, I reserve the mirepoix and pour a little of the fresh stock into a food processor. After the mirepoix is pureed and strained, I then add that back into the stock as a thickener for hearty soups like chicken and dumplings and turkey pot-pie
When you're making ice cream, mix in a teaspoon of vodka while the mixture is turning - this will keep your ice cream from freezing too hard.
a trick I love when cooking chicken is, in order to get more moisture in the meat (and fat), is to push butter under the skin over the breasts, legs, and thighs. (I have also used duck fat, but that is decedant.) - Spencer
I always need to find a way to get rid of that garlic smell on my hands after I chop garlic. Just wipe your hands against anything stainless steel in the kitchen (I use the inside of my sink), and the smell will be gone! Not that garlic-hands are always a bad smell! 🙂
Never wear perfume or scented lotions while cooking. It makes it difficult to properly smell or taste your dish.
Add an anchovie to stocks/soups
To test if your knifes are sharp enough fold a piece of laserjet paper in half and then try to cut through the folded side. You should get a very clean cut without any signs of tearing. If not, then it's time to get out the wetstone.
I freeze berries in the summer in individual packs to make smoothies in winter
A few of my favorite tricks (mostly well known I think) -
Roll limes/lemons firmly on a tabletop before slicing open to help break up the inside & juice more easily.
Smash unpeeled garlic cloves on cutting board to loosen skin before peeling it off. Also flattens the clove for ease of cutting.
Use an egg slicer (the one with with wires) to cut other oval foods such as mushrooms.
When a recipe calls for just an egg yolk, I keep the whites in an icecube tray and freeze them. Then you can put them in a ziploc and use an egg white whenever you need one.
Sometimes I need to monitor the temperature of a liquid, but my thermometer doesn't have a clip to hold it on a pan. I put a binder clip on the side of the saucepan and use it to hold the thermometer in the liquid.
I clean my spice grinder with rolled oats, then brush out. This removes remaining traces of spices and their odors and gives me ground oatmeal to use as a facial scrub.
When cooking pasta, reserve some of the salted, boiling water in the serving plates. This will warm up the plates and keep the salty, creamy water for finishing your pasta sauce. When ready to serve, just dump out the water and wipe dry. I also like to warm plates on my pots in lieu of the lids if I have pots on the stove.
When baking, I save the wrappers from the butter used in the recipe and use that to butter the pan. Just place the wrapper, buttery side down, in the pan and rub it around to coat the pan.
favorite tip from me is using a damp paper towel under a cutting board to stop it from slipping. better than a slipping and sliding cutting board while you're prepping!
I take a small sized ice cream scoop to make equal sized drop cookies, which I then flash freeze on a cookie sheet. When they are hard, I put them in a freezer baggie and anytime I want a hot fresh cookie I have them in the deep freeze. It only takes slightly longer to cook.
Usually your posts have no more than a 100 comments. But this one is reaching almost 600! Why? Because you're giving some away, for free. This tells us so much about human nature.
Well, I was gonna try to win the book but I don't want it. I don't know, this greed people have make me feel weird. I do have great tips and even if I didn't, all I had to do is go downstairs and ask my grandmother. But this time I'll pass. 😉
I hope the person who wins this book can actually make good use it - or, better saying, I hope the person actually cooks, at least for him/herself.
So, yeah, I'm sorry for the rant. 😛
When you are making pie crust, biscuits, or anything that requires cutting in a fat. Freeze all of your work bowls beforehand and freeze a sheet pan to put on the dough if it gets too warm while rolling. Keeping the fat solid will result in a better texture in the finished product.
A much better solution to crying over onions is to chomp on a wet wash cloth. The fumes are attracted to moisture & the cloth is between your eyes & the onion , so! I picked this up from a pro chef at a cooking class. This also keeps you from being distracted by talking to others in the kitchen.
If keeping your food, especially meat in the fridge, let it come to room temperature before cooking it (you can leave it out safely for up to four hours.) This will let it cook more quickly and evenly.
Allow (most) meat to rest 10 minutes (or more depending on the cut) before carving. I can't tell you how many years I ignored this rule as needless... it turns out I was a 20% better cooker of meat than I knew, I just wasn't waiting to find out.
In order to keep our silicone baking mats together but not flopping all over the place we roll them and store inside a large cardboard roll. Ours comes from one of those commercial plastic wrap dispensers, so it is larger on the inside and very sturdy. It can hold around 5 baking mats.
When smoking on your Weber, insert your probe thermometer into one of the vents and set the alarm to go off if the temperature goes about 225. Helps make maintaining the fire a lot easier. Anyone know of a probe with an alarm that goes off if the temperature drops below a certain number?
Save scraps of veggies (carrot ends, etc.) in the freezer until the next time you make stock.
We grill bacon on low - it renders out the fat and gives a great taste - even on a gas grill. However - do not cook more than 2 pounds before cleaning out the drip tray or you WILL get a grease fire, which is not very tasty on the bacon.
Thicker bacon works better (Nodine's and Niman Ranch are good).
Put any unused bacon in a ziptop bag in the crisper for use on sandwiches, pizza, or burgers. We have never gone back to greasy pan frying.
I like to prepare Southwestern dishes and occasonally one becomes over-seasoned with chiles. Adding a couple of peeled, whole potaotes and letting them simmer over low heat will lower the heat index of the dish. The potatoes absorb some the heat but be sure to remove them before serving!
Whenever it gets really hot cooking or grilling outside, I stick a soaking wet hand towel in the freezer. When it gets frozen solid I take it out and stick it around my neck to cool me down.
When you need finely minced garlic or garlic paste, sprinkle a bit of kosher salt on your cutting board. Place a peeled clove on top of the salt and smash with the side of a heavy chef's knife. Push the garlic back and forth. The friction from the salt helps the garlic get nicely pulverized.
Peeling mangoes: cut the "cheeks" off the pit. Using a paring knife, score between the flesh and the peel all around each piece. Using a suitably large spoon gently work between the peel and the flesh, working around the piece as needed. The flesh should easily come away if the mango is good and ripe.
Use chopsticks to beat eggs for omelettes, rather than a fork or a whisk: less air in the eggs means creamier omelettes!
I store extra flour in the fridge rather than a cabinet - keeps much better much longer. Just make sure you bring it to room temperature before you use it in any baking application!
When you don't have time to roast sweet potatoes in the oven, a microwave can produce similar results. Rinse your sweet potato and make a number of incisions with a knife around the circumference of the potato. Place the potato on a microwave-safe plate and drape a damp paper towel over the potato. Microwave on high for ninety seconds. Rotate the potato and microwave for another ninety seconds. Repeat for a total of four cycles. Caution: the potato will be extremely hot. Remove the potato from the microwave and wrap in aluminum foil. Let the potato rest in the foil for five to ten minutes depending on the thickness of your sweet potato. Serve.
1. Never underestimate non-kitchen tools. Hammers do great work at crushing all manner of things.
2. Roll pie crusts on parchment - then place a pie plate over the parchment, flip & peel the parchment from the top. No sticky mess!
Always have the phone numbers of poison control, fire department and your local doctor nearby when cooking.
Especially if you have young kids.
I grow Meyer lemons and they all seem to ripen at the same time and don't keep well. I cut them in half and put 2 halves in a zip lock or vacuum food saver bag and put the bag in the freezer. When I need juice just let a bag thaw UNOPENED. Roll over the bag with a rolling pin and pour out the juice. One whole lemon will yield one cup of juice usually. The freezer has done all the squeezing by bursting the ferules and releasing the juice. No work, fresh juice and ALL the juice is released.
My daughter loves penne in butter with cheese On a busy weeknight - melt the butter in a metal bowl sitting in the pasta water as it cooks. Then, toss pasta in the warm bowl so it stays hotter longer. Not earth shattering, but keeps things moving on a work night dinner schedule.
Toss a pinch of kosher salt on the garlic you're mincing, it will help break it down faster, especially if you drag the flat of the knife back and forth every few (dozen) chops.
My life got so much easier when I learned how to properly slice an onion, in "The Sharper Your Knife The Less You Cry."
1. Cut the onion in half through the root
2. Make 1-3 horizontal slices almost to the root (depending on size of the onion)
3. Make vertical cuts almost to the root (with the knife point towards the root)
4. Slice the onion, into a perfect dice!
When you crack an egg and a piece of shell falls in with the egg, the shell in your hand is the best tool for scooping out the piece.
Put all the herbs (such as parsley, mint, etc) you need for a recipe in a glass jar or bowl and use a sharp pair of cisors to cut them! It makes the job a lot easier!
GRAVY To speed up the separating of the fat while the turkey is resting, slip a few ice cubes into the separator. The melting ice will chill the mix quickly, moving the fat to the top. The floating cubes and the resulting water will stay on top and the good stuff pours out clean.
tasting your food is always a good idea!!!
After boiling pasta or potatoes, cool the water and use it to water your house plants. The water contains nutrients that your plants will love
When making eggplant parmesan, soak the eggplant in salt water first to get the bitterness out.
When making cheesecake, treat it as if it was a custard and cook it in a water bath. You will end up with a much creamer texture that wont crack on top.
Great tips!
I'm baking cookies right now - instead of smashing my peanut butter cookies down with a fork (or any cookies you roll into a ball) I use the pointed end of the garlic press. Decorative and useful.
I like freezing leftover tomato paste as is mentioned above, but I also use that technique after opening a can of chipotles.
Lay some parchment paper on a tray or plate that will fit in your freezer, arrange the chipotles so they don't touch, and top each with some of the adobo sauce remaining in the can. Freeze them! After they are are solid, pop the lot into a freezer bag and they'll be ready for your next recipe.
When making consume and you need to get the fat off the top of the surface you can use parchment paper to take the oil off instead of using paper towel that will absorb your liquid and laddeling it off.
Freezing bacon slices. Take a big sheet of plastic wrap. Lay a slice of bacon at one end. Roll the wrap around the bacon. Put down another slice. Roll. Repeat. Store in a freezer bag. Anytime you need a slice of bacon, just unroll one from the collection. All the other slices will remain protected, and it will be easy to take out just one at a time. Enjoy!
When cooking a roast dinner, keep some water used to cook the potatoes and vegetables to add to the gravy.
Don't be afraid - try a new dish, modify a recipe (ratios make this a lot easier!), make a substitution in one of your classic recipes. You won't always have a masterpiece but you'll get better the more you try. Some of my best dishes were created by being brave!
Hey everyone!
Im culinary student currently and have a internship working in pastry. I recently learned about a trick to help whip egg whites to firm peaks.
Seperate whites from yolks.
Make sure you have clean, dry equipment!
Add a pinch of salt to the whites right as you are about to whip them.
About 2/3 thru whipping the whites, add a pinch of cream of tartar, it will help stabilize the egg whites.
you will want to use about 1/8 tsp per yolk roughly.
when cooking beans or pasta for a dish with vegetables (like kale), subtract the time it takes to cook the veggies, then add them into the boiling water with the pasta or beans. everything will be finished at exactly the same time, just drain and finish!
After making a caramel sauce or anything with melted sugar, instead of scrubbing your pan into oblivion to get the extra sugar bits off, just add water to the pan and simmer on the stove while doing the other dishes. The warm water suspends/dissolves the sugar and gets it right off the pan!
I like to push my cooked potatoes through a mesh strainer with a rubber spatula before adding my butter and cream for lump free mashed potatoes.
since i have warm hands, when i make truffles by hand, i start by putting some (nonpowdered) food safe gloves in the fridge a bit to cool down things down and swap them out when the get too warm.
My mother's oatmeal:
When making oatmeal whisk an egg per serving with a little maple syrup in a mixing bowl while the stuff cooks. Then, when the oats are still too runny to serve temper the egg by pouring the hot oatmeal into the bowl as you would for custard. Return the oatmeal to the pot and heat and cook a few more minutes until it's perfect. That's a fine oatmeal!
When I cut onions I always leave about a 3/4"-1" cube around the root ball. That's where all the acid is, and as long as it is undisturbed, you'll never cry.
For better, firmer fried green tomatoes, slice and SALT an hour or so before frying. Then quick rinse, before dusting with corn meal and frying. No need to add additional salt.
Garlic skin comes off easily if the garlic cloves are slightly warmed before peeling.
Tip: With extra tasty left over sauces, freeze them in an ice cube tray, and use the cubes later in another delicious dish.
If you make a large pot of stock you won't use right away, measure it out into ziploc bags, 2 cups (in a quart bag) or 4 cups (in the gallon size) per bag. Freeze all the bags flat, and you can store the stock a long time and thaw just what you need to cook with. Plus, they freeze in a nice compact shape and take up very little room in the freezer.
When faced with a burn in a pan - scrape what you can out, easily. Put in a cup or two of baking soda. Add at least a quart of water - less if a small pan. Let boil for at least ten minutes. The burn will lift right off and not trash the surface.
When cooking oatmeal raisin cookies soak the raisins in the egg and vanilla (and rum, if its the holidays!) mixture for about an hour before putting them into the cookie dough to bake. This allows the egg mixture to soak into the cookies for extra moist, delicious cookies! (You will soak the raisins in the desired amount of egg and vanilla according to the recipe you are using, then add the mixture to the dough prior to baking) Thanks!
This is more of a baking tip but for the best chocolate chip cookies you need to let the batter sit for 36 hours in the fridge. You won't be disappointed.
I always take the additional time to remove the "germ" or green part of each garlic clove. A lot of people complain that garlic can irritate their stomach, but when the green part is removed, we don't seem to have any problems. Also, for people who have trouble digesting cucumber, but love the taste: grow salad burnet and use it in your salads. It's a hardy herb that tastes like fresh cucumber.
If you're home canning and a jar doesn't want to seal, turn it upside down.
I always crack my eggs into a bowl before mixing them in when baking incase of shell mishaps!
Make chunky guacamole in the avocado skin. Slice a ripe avocado the long way from the stem end all the way around. Separate the two halves. Remove the pit (using a folded side towel as a kind of "basket" for the avocado to protect your hand, firmly strike the side of the pit with your knife and twist .. the pit will lift out easily). Using a paring knife with the avocado half still in the towel "basket," gently slice through the flesh being careful to not go through the skin. Turn the avocado 90 degrees and repeat. Then cut as near as parallel to the original slice as possible, making rough "cubes." Scoop out the avocado flesh into a bowl. Repeat for the other half. I like my guacamole with just a little salt, and sometimes a squirt of lime juice.
don't decide what you are going to cook until you've seen what is at the market. cook with the seasons!
I love Chocolate Chip Cookies but If my fiance makes the whole batch I'll eat them until they are gone. 🙂 So we now bake 1 sheet of cookies and then portion out the rest of the dough with a mini ice cream scoop on to another baking sheet and refrigerate the raw dough for 30 minutes. Then the par frozen cookies can be transferred to a ziplock or tupperware. Makes for simple cookies the next time you want some, just bake as you normally would... and I swear they taste even better after the dough has set!
Ruhlman Rules.
these are terrific ideas. but my best tip is.....find someone who hates to cook but loves you and likes to CLEAN UP!!
Do not store your coffee in the fridge or the freezer: when taken out of the freezer they will attract moisture and/or frozen beans will dry out and shatter when ground.
LOVE the picture. It is stunning.
Throw away every oven mitt glove thingy you've ever used to handle hot things and learn to love the towel.
After braising chicken in the skin (in a poulet basquaise, for instance), crisp the skin by taking the chicken out and putting it by the rotisserie burner of a barbeque for about ten minutes .
When baking cheesecake, the final consistency is dramatically affected by the environment of the oven. Many recipes call for using a water bath to buffer the heat during cooking. This also keeps the oven relatively moist, and you'll end up with a softer, creamier texture. I prefer a more crumbly texture, and I like the "New York style" browning on the surface of the cheesecake, so I usually skip the water bath, put the cheesecake in the oven after preheating to the recipe-recommended temperature, and then just turn the oven off. As it cools down, there's still plenty of energy in the oven to cook the cheesecake, and you won't dry it out with too much heat.
Also, drip trays are your friend.
PS - I am not the same Rob who posted at 10:52!
Weigh your coffee instead of using a scoop because different beans are actually different sizes and the only way to achieve consistent results are to weigh your beans. Use 2 grams of coffee beans for every ounce of finished coffee you desire - so, an 8z cup of coffee uses 16 grams of beans!
Turn your oven down about 10 - 15 degrees lower than what's called for in the recipe to prevent it from rising with a big hump in the center and keep the layers nice and flat. Just be sure to compensate appropriately with a slightly longer cooking time.
One hand pouring and one wisking, you can use a mouse pad to keep the bowl in place. One's usually sitting close by if you're looking up stuff on sites like this while cooking.
Instead of chopping flat-leaved herbs like parsley and cilantro (and even chives), put them in a somewhat narrow water glass and snip/cut them with kitchen scissors. It is much easier than chopping, especially when the herbs are damp.
In order not to dull your knives prematurely, when transferring food off of a cutting board, scrape off the food with the blunt side of the knife.
I freeze extra wine or lemon juice in ice cube trays to prevent waste!
If you want to eat well cook the food yourself. Don't leave it to your wife.
Family-style. My kind of style.
I keep the microplane handy not just for zesting and hard cheeses but chocolate, whole nutmeg, cinnamon sticks, and finishing dishes with finely grated cashews, almonds or black truffle.
My kitchen tip... use vermouth in place of white wine in braises or for pan sauces, so you don't have to open a new bottle just for a small amount of wine, vermouth keeps well in the fridge. Julia Child says so.
To prevent scorching when heating dairy products, rinse saucepan with a bit of water beforehand. Do NOT dry it.
When cleaning the hood above a fryer, never use a sheet pan as a platform to stand on.
One of the most horrific things I've seen in as a chef, is coming out of the office to witness an employee doing just that. Needless to say within a moment of my seeing this, the sheet pan cracked and folded in half. I won't describe the injuries that occurred, but just remembering it still causes me to cringe some 15 years later.
There is only one rule: MISE EN PLACE. Learn it. Know it. Love it. Everything else will follow.
If you don't have time to blanch tomatoes in order to peel them, try using a regular or Y vegetable peeler, only instead of swiping directly across the skin (which may tear into the flesh), perform tiny (quarter-inch or so) zig-zags from pole to pole across the skin. It takes a delicate touch, but will do the job nicely. An added benefit: it doesn't cook the tomato. This technique also works for pith-less citrus zesting.
Peel a pomegranate under water. It keeps the juice from squirting all over the place and the pith floats to the top.
Something you won't learn in a book, class, or blog; Make friends with people who hunt!
Wild game is Tasty, Healthy, and arguably the real Slow Food.
It can't be bought in stores, restaurants rarely serve it (if so it's farmed), and it's how humans have survived for god knows how long.
Out of the ordinary ingredients give you the opportunity to cook out side the box. There is no such thing as Wild Boar "Helper"
The dinner will be memorable, the pairing potentials are fantastic, and the food won't sit uncooked in a freezer.
i have two:
1. using a small spoon to peel the outer skin off ginger
2. i can never use up a can of tomato paste right away, so i always freeze the rest for the next time i need it - i cut out little rectangles of plastic wrap, divide the leftovers by spoonfuls, and wrap them up in little packs before storing in a container in the freezer. single-portion tomato paste at the ready!
I like to use a damp kitchen towel to peel garlic. Pull the stem out and separate the cloves, then put them in the center of the towel and bring all the corners together, wack it a couple of times on the counter, scrunch and roll your hands over it, and they should be free of their skins!
Clean as you go.
When deep frying tacos, I use tooth picks to hold the folded tortilla together so the filling does not fall out
When cracking an egg, sometimes shell fragments fall into the bowl. I just use the egg shell half to pick them out, as opposed to my hands or a spoon
When I need lime juice I cut the ends off and peel in the same manner as a melon and/or pineapple. I then throw it in a blender...
Use a grapefruit spoon to remove the stringy insides of a winter squash or pumpkin.
learn to make 2 great braised dishes or stews. make them often and in big batches. they get better after a few days. nothing satisfies a hard day at work or a long night at the bar more than a reheated braised dish sandwich. this always impresses my friends too.
Use half and half when making scrambled eggs, the milk fat makes them full and fluffy, but also rich in texture! Always finish with butter!
My favorite kitchen tip is much like the chives-in-towel, and may have been posted already, but here goes:
When cutting any small round/oval food (cherry tomatoes, olives, cherries, grapes) in half, I find it easier to take 2 plastic container lids (the kind with a discernible edge to it), sandwich those around the foodstuff and slice through the center. It's an easy way to get a 'slice in half' if you're in a hurry.
When you make stock ( and not to sound Kiss ass but Ruhlman's oven method is the best way I have found to make it) take strained and defatted stock, put it on the stove top and reduce by half or until it sticks to the back of a spoon (you'll know it when you see it). This is Demi glace and is the backbone to all of your sauces and gravies.
Here is the real tip:
Take the finished Demi glace, freeze it in ice cube trays and then store in a zip top bag.
Ratio for use:
1 -2 cubes into a pan with meats= a great pan gravy
6 cubes to a cup of water= 2 cups stock
8-9 cubes to 2 cups water= soup broth for 2-4 bowls of soup (depending on what else you put into it).
Keeps forever!
If making an emulsified vinaigrette in the blender, the best way to know that you can stop adding oil is by watching the cone in the middle of the blender. As the oil emulsifies, the cone will slowly close towards the top. Once the cone is nearly shut or shut entirely and the vin doesn't spin anymore, don't add anymore oil or you'll break it.
How to fix a broken vinaigrette? Well, I could tell you, but that'd be two entries and I'd like to have the book.
Two tips:
1) bouquet garni in soups and stocks: buy empty tea bags from your local store (especially an asian specialty store if you have one) and you can put your herbs in that. You get the great flavors, no green bits (that doesn't bother me) and an easy dig out of the soup.
2) any long-grained white rice, here's an easy measuring tip for the water. Put your index finger on the top of the rice, add water until it reached your first knuckle. Bring to boil, put heat on low, cook 20 minutes, lid still on, let sit off burner for 10 minutes. Perfect every time!
Since dressing/stuffing cooked in the bird poses some difficulties with getting the stuffing to a safe temperature without overcooking the bird, cook the stuffing in a Crock-Pot instead. Saves burners and oven space while keeping it moist like it was cooked in the bird. For a little crunch, you can put the stoneware crock into the oven for a few minutes to brown the top.
When basting, hold the spoon like you would a pencil. It reduces the burns, and provides you with a great angle of approach.
pound cold butter to soften it guicker rather than waiting at room temperature or using a microwave
Always toss your vegetable scraps into a freezer bag and when full, make a big pot of stock. Frugal and home made stock beats store bought, specially since you didn't have to pay a dime extra for it.
for dried bread crumbs when you have no dried bread, simply put bread (as many as needed) into the microwave and microwave 20-30 seconds or until bread is dried out..be careful no to burn the bread. If you want it toasted, grind the bread into crumbs then spread on a baking sheet and toast in a 350 degree oven until toasted.
Cut the corner of a ziploc bag, after stuffing, as a pastry dispenser.
Smashing garlic with the back of your knife to peel.
Use a damp towel to rub off hazelnut skins after toasting.
i fue a fork to clean flatleaf parsley from its stems before chopping
when boiling or blanching always season your water with salt lots of salt
I can't really claim credit for this personally, but I use Alton Brown's technique for frenching a chop: cut away the main chunks, and then take string attached to a drawer handle (that you would buy from a hardware store), wrap the string in a loop around the base of the bone, and pull using the handle. It takes the meat off in one fell swoop.
If you're traveling with a knife, stick it in a the cardboard roll from a roll of towels.
I'm very sensitive to onion vapors and the tip that has helped me the most is to put the onions (or shallots) in the freezer for 5 minutes before chopping. I was told that doing so slows the release of the gases that cause stinging/tearing eyes long enough to chop them.
After scraping vanilla seeds out of the pod, grind it in a mortar and pestle with some of the sugar in whatever recipe you are using. It will pulverize the larger bits and pieces of the pod that end up being scraped off with the seeds, and saves you from having to strain them out later in sauces, ice creams, etc.
Air cools pasta faster than running water, when cooking pasta, and wish to cool , spread with oil on a sheet pan
Taste. Season. Repeat.
First: Have trouble measuring single servings of pasta? Use a spice/herb jar. Cook however much fits through the neck of the jar.
Second: Run out of table salt and not realize it until you tried to bake cookies? No worries. Toss some kosher salt in the food processor for a few seconds. It'll be a bit of a pain to get it down to the same size as table salt, but you don't need to go that far. (I decided to just use kosher salt a few years back. What a terrible decision. Salty spots are okay in biscuits. They are not okay in cookies.)
Separate large amounts of eggs by cracking all of them in one bowl, then moving yolks to another bowl.
use small jars for on the go vinaigrette: put salt, chopped or dried herbs, (olive) oil & vinegar (or lemon juice) in a jar and close it ... shake well just before you pour it over your greens, beans, whatever, wherever, whenever ...
Here's a tip from my Italian mother-in-law that you're not likely to see elsewhere. Never eat a meal when your bra is too tight. It will give you stomach problems.
When making chicken soup, to skim off the fat quickly, lay a piece of wax paper or even a paper towel over the top, and you'll get all the fat in one fell swoop.
If you want really thin slices of meat by using a chef's knife (IE: shabu-shabu) partially freeze the beef or chicken and you can slice it so thin it is like tissue paper. I learned this in Tokyo from a japanese chef...
I trim my herbs (including chives) using a kitchen shear directly over a pot or a dish, whilst cooking 🙂
To peel large amounts of garlic, break the head up into its individual cloves and toss all of this in a small tupperware so the garlic is maybe filling up 1/5th of it. You then shake this tupperware for about three minutes like a maraca, and the garlic peels itself as it hits and rubs against the other garlic and the side of the box. This works best when you have a lot of garlic that you need to peel, as with small amounts there isn't enough friction to make it work, and for the same reason a sturdy plastic works best for the tupperware. But when done right, you open up the box at the end and can just pluck out whole, peeled cloves of garlic for use!
When I have extra lettuce or greens from the Garden I wash and dry them and then roll in paper towels and store in the fridge . They last Much longer and stay crisp.
One of myh favorite kitchen tools is Wax paper. I use it for so many things, such as when I measure out dry ingrediends and spices, I do it over a creased piece of wax paper. After I level off the measuring device, i use the wax paper to pour the excess back in the bag or container.
When I harvest my herbs, I cut them with shears over wax paper and from there am able to pour it into a clean container to freexe. If I dry them, I take the leaves of the stems over the paper and am able to pour them easily into bottles, where I date them and store them in my pantry.
When I make compound butter logs, I use the wax paper to roll into a log and chill down till firm, before rewrappimg to freeze for winter use.
This inexpensive tool is so hand to use in so may ways.
When utilizing a pot of salted water, I always add a peppercorn after salting the pot... so as to not mistakenly double salt.
Chinese food containers make great leftover containers.
I feel like everyone already knows this one but, I'll leave it none the less. I will when making cakes, grease and flour the pans with confectionary sugar instead of flour. It works great, doesn't change the consistency of the cake and doesn't leave the floury edge on your cake that just doesn't hold up to the sweetness of cake.
Keep your knives sharp and cutting boards clean.
Two things I use wherever possible - ice cube trays and shelf liner. Larger sheets of shelf liner help hold bowls and cutting boards in place, while I use a small square to "rub" the skin off garlic for slicing.
Ice cube trays - bits of just about everything get frozen in those then transferred to baggies in the freezer - extra tomato paste, leftover wine, chicken stock, grated ginger, lemon zest, pesto, even buerre manie - sometimes, when you're cooking something, it needs just a bit of . . . something.
I enjoy using chemistry glassware and spatulas. I find the reasons why they're good for chemistry, true for cooking as well. But rotovaps can be expensive.
Save Parmesan and other hard cheese rinds to add to stocks/broths/sauces for an added flavor element.
I use a small weighted ice cream scooper to take the flesh out of squash, such as butternut squash or acorn squash. The heavier weight makes this task really quick and easy!
Anytime you make a really spicy dish (whether it is curry, chili, spicy noodles, keema, etc.), add a bit of sugar to meld the bold flavors. It really helps bring everything together - especially if you don't have enough time to let things properly cook or 'stew'.
After lightly spraying the bottom of a cake pan, spray a large round coffee filter flattened out to line the bottom of a cake pan. Easy clean up and peels right off bottom of cake.
Don't wait until you've finished eating, clean up after yourself as you're preparing meals and the dreaded sink full of dirty pots/pans/untensils won't seem so daunting.
Place damp paper towels under your cutting board and you'll have a slide-free safe place to work.
Have a really dirty pan that's looking like it's going to take forever to clean? Deglaze it! Put it on the stove over high heat, allow to heat for a few minutes, then add 1/2-1 cup water. Bring to a boil (it'll happen instantly if the pan is hot enough) and gently scrape with a spatula. All the baked-on grime comes right up, and no scrubbing required.
Not original, but I love using a scoop to dish out cookies. I bake cookies at least once a month, more during this time of year and that makes it a breeze. I keep a small glass of hot water nearby and rinse off the scoop every 2nd or 3rd cookie.
I don't use a lot of butter, so when I get it home from the store I immediately cut it into 1 Tbsp. measures and freeze it. That way when I need it I only have to thaw what I want.
In the summer I'll use ice cube trays and fill them w/ juices. I'll water down the juice a bit so it is refreshing and not overly sweet. Watermelon juice as is makes a perfect quick cooling relief to quench thirst and begin cooling oneself down when overheated. Also, this restores natural sugars body is sweating out in hot weather to keep us from feeling faint. It's fun to make mini-juice blends and freeze them that way. You can add a toothpick or popsicle stick to create mini-ice-popsicles. Great for kids! And you can also place these fruity flavored ice cubes in beverages to add a new flavor. Something I haven't tried yet is brewing mint tea or other herbs and blending them w/ juices or leaving as is to make iced-tea ice cubes with or without juices. Something else I just came up with to add to what I've done w/ freezing fruit juices in ice trays is to use some spices with herbs or juice or alone or even other treats. Like watered down vanilla extract and assorted extracts, alternate milks like rice and almond milks in their various flavors; chocolate, mocha, vanilla, original et al. And what about liquid chai watered down for an eclectic blend of delicious spices. I love concocting and blending things so it is no wonder I came up with something new to add to my original idea. I've even heard that parents can freeze baby food ad pureed fruits/veges to make for perfect portions to defrost or heat up. Freezing applesause sounds rather yummy to me right now as a frozen pudding pop that I'll have to try when the weather is warmer. Also, sometimes I'll place them in plastic ziploc bags to store in freezer - make sure they are freezer bags. I tend to brainstorm all the time and add to ideas which is my thought and creative process constantly turned on. Oh my mouth is watering now, how about yours? Enjoy!
At present with this cold spell across the country I'm wondering what hot tip I can leave that is actually hot! Well, when you boil tea if it is too hot you can use an ice cube or two to cool it down without cooling it down too much. Again, you can use these fruit juice and/or herbal/spice/extract/alternative milks (won't curdle) etc flavored cubes to add dimension to your hot tea, hot cocoa. hot apple cider and endless hot steaming beverages there to warm you up in the cold of night of stormy winter day. You might even try a mix of two or as many to flavor and heat up whether used to cool down tea or not. You can play and explore with all kinds of flavors to toss readily into cooking up hot broths, soups, stews, rices, grains and just about anything you cook up!. I hope I've stirred your mental pot of creativity some in our shared brew of hot kitchen tips.
Keep tomato paste in a small glass or plastic container in the freezer, and microwave for 30 seconds or so to get out a tablespoon or two at a time. Over time, the remaining paste will acquire a smoky flavor from being reheated -- an added bonus!
Also, a cleaning tip...if you have metal caps and grates over a gas stovetop, these may be put in the oven during the self-clean cycle.
Instead of washing strawberries, I put mine in a dish towel and gently shake them. Leaves them dry and pretty for presentation or dipping in chocolate. You will see what came off on the towel.
I find that the most effective way to seperate egg whites and yolks it to use you hand (clean hand of course). Let the white slide between your fingers while gently rolling the yolk around.
When peeling multiple heads of garlic the easiest way to go about it is by separating each clove, then smashing the clove with the blade of the knife. After this is accomplished simply put all of the cloves into a stainless steel bowl, of which you have a duplicate. Place the two bowls together, hold tight with your fingers, and shake vigorously for about a minute in a vertical, curving motion. Every peel will be separated from the garlic. Huge time saver....
I use a lot of garlic; buy the 3lb container of peeled garlic at your favorite wholesale warehouse, cut off the root end, wrap in foil with olive oil and roast until tender. I divide it into zip-locks and freeze. Makes it so easy to whip up a quick sauce.
When poaching eggs break them into a ramekin or small cup and then slide them from the cup into the simmering water so that they stay together. Otherwise, if break an egg directly into the water the parts of the egg fall into the water at different times, making a hot mess.
When making ginger cookies, use the wrapper from the butter to wipe the inside of the measuring cup before measuring the molasses. The molasses will pour out much easier.
My favorite kitchen tip is Andreas Viestad’s homemade aquavit recipe (though Tina Nordstrom is easier on the eye). First, down two shots of iced aquavit in quick succession. Attach your children to the chains on that iron stake you have in the yard (we all have one right?) to keep them out of the way. Down two more shots of iced aquavit. Hone your knife to surgical standards. Down two more shots of iced aquavit. Randomly select a recipe from Ad Hoc at Home. After you discover you lack the ingredients down two more shots of iced aquavit. Call your favorite pizzeria and order a large pie and order 20 wings (hot). While waiting for the delivery, down two more shots, free the kids, and bring up that growler of Flying Bison Aviator Red. Enjoy your meal!
Buy those huge containers of mixed greens at your local warehouse club? To keep it fresh longer do two things. After you open it, place a folded paper towel in the container to absorb excess moisture, change it out every couple of days. Also, every time you take a serving out, rotate the greens from bottom to top so that the stuff on the bottom gets some fresh air too.
i see someone already said this but the cheese rinds in stocks really is an awesome tip. i just recently started doing that and it does really add some depth. i just keep the hard edges in a little tupperware in the back of my fridge till i need them.
To keep toast for a sandwich from getting soggy from its own steam after it comes out of the toaster, prop the pieces together like you are making a teepee.
I can't recall where I learned this, but when slowly sauteing garlic, soak the crushed/minced garlic in a tiny bit of water to prevent burning. The water evaporates out, keeping the temperature lower for longer.
This is simple, but use a kitchen thermometer when cooking any type of meat that's prone to drying out. Though it's important to be able to use sight and touch to evaluate the doneness of meat, using a thermometer really takes the guesswork out of it.
I know so many people that cook the hell out of pork because they are terrified of foodborne illness. Incidentally, I know plenty of people that don't like pork chops becuase their parents always cooked them until they had the texture and flavor of hockey pucks.
I love the trick of placing a kitchen towel between the counter top and the cutting board to keep my board from slipping all over the place when I'm chopping things.
First, 734 comments already? wow.
I know this is so simple, but changed my view of chopping completely. Cutting a pepper, I used to try and cut out the seeds, stem and such. I took a chopping class and we just cut the sides off the pepper without removing anything. You then have all the pepper sliced off and the seeds and stem in a neat package to throw away.
Here’s a tip. When straining stock or broth through either cheesecloth or, in Michael’s house, a hankerchief be sure to wet it first. It will stay in place and you won’t lose any precious stock in the cloth.
I wear a hat when I'm frying, it actually reduces the amount of oil droplets on my glasses. Thanks, McGee!
To keep the oil from splattering and to not waste paper towels or wet an entire dish towel, I put my washed vegetables into a hot pan first and cook off the water a little before adding the oil.
Instead of soaking my gnarly greasy pans in dishsoap and water, i toss some dishwasher liquid into the pot or pan, fill with water, leave on the stovetop overnight. come morning, everything wipes clean as though you were using non-stick.
I use the edge of a thin metal spoon to scrape the skin away from fresh ginger. It's less dangerous for those not dexterous with a knife and definitely wastes less of the root itself.
The freezer is your best friend: Herbs, leftover everything, from cheese rinds for sauces to tomato paste to coffee (I use defrosted coffee in baking recipes) to stock to pesto and so forth. But I also use it for baking recipes: cutting up your butter and putting it in the freezer for at least an hour before baking scones or muffins results in a fluffier baked good.
I use an inverted cast iron skillet in place of a pizza stone. It comes up to temperature on the stovetop while the oven is preheating (much faster than adequately heating a stone), and the iron makes for a fantastic crisp crust. I remove the whole skillet from the oven (no pizza peel required!), and cut right on the pan bottom. The iron keeps the pizza warm.
When spraying non-stick spray in a pan, place pan over open dishwasher door so that mis-sprays land on the inside of the door and are washed away with your next dishwasher cycle.
Wipe down the grates of the BBQ Grill, or Gas stove grill top with olive oil before adding the meat to prevent sticking. Especially helpful with poultry. Simple I know, but it works!
I always like putting a layer of fat down on the bottom bun of a hamburger (fat as in mayo or avocado), then placing the burger on top, as it acts as a grease stopper, stopping the bottom bun from turning into a mushy mess. I always wonder why various restaurants put this on top of the burger where it serves virtually no purpose other than taste. Putting the burger directly on top of the fat layer creates a nice and clean burger.
I like to add fresh garlic (or other such pungent vegetables/herbs) at two points in the cooking process in order to achieve a layering of that flavor. Adding garlic toward the beginning and then again at the very end of a stir fry, a stew, a saute, or other preparations effectively creates two ingredients from one, simultaneously presenting garlicky depth and pep in your final dish.
When having friends over, keep it simple & easy, make as much as you can ahead of time, and clean up as you go. After all you do want to see and enjoy being with these people you invited into your home
Control the ease of rolling out pastry in your kitchen by controlling the temperature. If your pie crust is getting hard to roll out, pop it in the freezer for 15 minutes. The oil will harden and your pastry will be easier to roll out.
I put butter in an empty mustard tube so I can use it freely wihtout my girlfriend attacking me for it... I just leave the tube on the counter, not raising her suspicion, and whenever she looks away I squeeze as needed.
She always loves the result and I love her body, butter or no butter!
When i make a spaghetti sauce (bolognese type) i always make enough for leftovers. It'has become a tradition in our home that the day after this leftover sauce together with a simple bechamel will become a lasagna. It makes cooking on the second day very quick and easy since all i have to do is make a white sauce (simply butter fat, flour and milk) and put the lasagna together. Takes no more than 15 min! I make it early in the day so that i can bake it and rewarm it for dinner. That way the lasagna will hold it's shape and in our eyes it tastes always better the next day when it's reheated. That way we have it reheated the same day. Added bonus, the questions what's for dinner is omitted since everyone will know what's being severd the day after Spaghetti.
Petra
Christophine (a.k.a. christophene, chow chow, chayote, mirliton, vegetable pear, mango pear, xuxu, etc...) contains a very sticky sap that can be hard to wash off your hands and can irritate the skin. Parboiling the squash for 10 minutes before cutting into it or peeling it will neutralize the sap.
And I do have a US address if I happen to get one of the books. No customs headaches here.
Chilling onions in the fridge prior to cutting them will minimize the fumes which cause you to tear up while slicing and dicing them.
When I'm packing things away in a ziploc-type bag, I always fold the sealing part back. It keeps the bag open better and prevents food from spilling or getting on to the sealing strip. Very useful when packing up raw meat (keeps the outside of the bag clean) or when putting more viscous items into bags.
My boyfriend taught me this: douse your garlic with some salt and olive oil before cutting it. It should give you some traction and allow you to slice and dice more finely.
To contain the mess while cracking eggs on the counter, crack them against the open lid of the egg carton.
I like to use a pastry scraper to scoop up fine diced veggies, etc., instead of the knife. Less dangerous.
I know it looks silly...
A lot of times I end up cutting very juicy onions even though I have very sensitive eyes. If the onions are too much for me to handle without bawling, I root around my drawers until I find my old pair of swim goggles. Keeps the tears at bay!
When making biscotti, which I do a lot this time of year, dampen rather than flour your hands to handle a sticky dough.
place one of those rubber "jar opener" pads under your cutting board to give it more traction on the counter.
Add garlic cloves, folds removed, into salted water on the boil for mashed potatoes.
When grinding meat for sausage using a KitchenAide with sausage stuffer attachment, I run a "sacrificial" onion through it at then end to push out the last of the meat into the sausage casing so it's not stuck and wasted in the stuffer tube.
Running your knife under cold water before chopping onions greatly reduces tears.
A good way to store leftover tomato paste in measurable portions is to scoop it out with a tablespoon and place it on a small dish or baking tray sprayed with cooking spray. Leave it in the freezer for 30 minutes until it hardens, then put the balls of tomato paste in a ziploc. Freeze for storage.
We always start the Holiday Turkey in the oven, but finish it (for the last two hours or so) on the grill. Imparts that great grilled taste to the bird and frees up the oven for all of those side dishes.
Add a tablespoon of sugar to your spicy tomato sauce to give it a little something special.
Here's a trick I use for removing fresh corn from the cob (at least until I'm able to locate one of those nifty corn scraper thingies like the one you have.) I use a bundt pan- insert the ear of corn in the center hole, then using a sharp knife, scrape downward on the ear and voila! the kernels and juice collect in the pan. No more kernels all over the kitchen counter.
Okay, I have a very convenient use for pilsner glasses (in addition to the obvious). I use a pilsner glass to keep my dried pasta handy next to the stove while the water is coming to a boil. The glass is the perfect size to hold 3-4 servings close at hand but out of the way/
Freeze leftover tomato paste, wrapped in wax paper, then in a freezer bag. When you need just a tablespoon or two, cut it from the frozen chunk, then return the remaining chunk to the freezer.
When making lasagna with fresh pasta, there is no need to boil the noodles. Just layer them in with the usual cheeses, sauce and meat (I use mini meatballs) and the pasta will cook while it bakes.
Use half the ganja the recipe suggests so you don't wig out when you eat a brownie.
i boil and reuse all my marinades as sauces and glazes, and find they are great ways to use up fresh herbs that are past their prime.
The easiest way to deal with fresh ginger is put some plastic wrap over a grater and rub the chunk of (peeled) fresh ginger. It's like a ginger puree with not much mess.
Store Silpat sheets vertically between two thin plastic cutting boards--they stay nice and flat and save space in the cupboard.
I use a little ramekin to hold my pepper grinder in so I don't get pepper grounds all over the counter where ever I set the grinder down.
Buy a large, flat unglazed terra cotta saucer at a garden store. This would be the type of saucer that goes under a potted plant to keep it from leaking water.
Clean the saucer, dry it well and place it on the bottom rack of your oven (when cold). The terra cotta will soak up and distribute oven heat such that it becomes more like a brick oven. When baking bread, you can move it to the middle rack and use it as a surface for the bread to bake on.
Needless to say, you only use this saucer for the oven, never for plants. 🙂 And be careful to heat it up and cool it down slowly with the oven, rather than placing it in a hot oven.
Explore the under-appreciated wonders of fine pimentón from Spain, especially from the La Vera DO, and learn how to carefully use the four varieties, separately or in combination -- sweet, bittersweet, hot and unsmoked (the last therefore being essentially Spanish paprika) -- to add an amazing depth to most savory dishes.
Line all bar cookie pans with heavy duty foil. No cleanup, terrifically easy slicing, no sticking. (Be diligent about pressing against sides & bottom.)
When you have very fresh ginger, put it in the freezer so that it doesn't become all stringy. When you want to use it, grate the amount you want to use with a Microplane (it is very easy to grate). It's great in curries, soups and sauces.
When I've added too much salt or added salt twice because I've forgotten that I did, adding a raw potato wedge to the dish and cooking for a while longer helps remove the excess.
When peeling potatoes, especially the smaller ones, I impale them on a fork so that I don't accidentally take off a ream of skin from my hand with the peeler. Or I wear a latex glove.
My husband has the miraculous tendency to leave huge black marks at the bottom of my stainless steel pans when he's finished cooking with them... (how do they get there!? I may never know....) I tried soaking overnight, soaking in dishsoap, scrubbing with steel wool... all to no avail! Then I started filling the pans with about a cup or cup and a half of white vinegar, bringing it to simmer, adding baking soda till fizzy, boiling that mixture, removing from heat and letting sit for a few minutes. When I go to clean it, the black comes miraculousy off the bottom of the pan!! Never underestimate the power of all natural cleaners!
I "cook" my bacon and sausage patties in the oven. I set the oven for 350 and place bacon strips and/or sausage patties in a rectangular cake pan, then set the timer for 30-45 minutes, depending on desired browness/crunchiness of the bacon.
While it's baking I am free to work on the rest of my food prep. I don't need to turn over the bacon/sausage, and I don't have a mess of splattered grease on the stove and counters to contend with afterward.
Granola, homemade or at least the kind without puffed or flaked cereal, makes an incredible porridge--never tastes like library paste. Subbed for oatmeal it's also fabulous in cookies.
I always wear an apron when cooking naked. Just in case.
I've never found a better tool for cleaning out squashes, pumpkins and so on than our one grapefruit spoon. Slick as a whistle.
Instead of buying an expensive pizza stone, use a couple of unglazed quarry stones that you can buy from a hardware store. You can buy them for a $1-2 a sf. Much cheaper than the $40-45 from a cookware store.
Refrigerate onions (and especially shallots) before chopping -- no more tears!
When buying salad greens in a clam shell package, use your chef's knife to poke several holes in the cover to keep the greens fresher longer.
I intentionally order large soups from Chinese take aways so I can store stock in them.
When you are making a stock, pour ice in it and the fat will rise to the top, it's kind of like clarifying it but without adding anything other than ice.
Eggs left to rest on their sides will boil with a more centered yolk.
Get a good emulsion in your vinaigrette? Xanthan gum works wonders, but who has that lying around? More folks than you think...take a look at that hot sauce in the cupboard. Ingredients? Xanthan gum!
Adding a few dashes, or even a teaspoon, depending on quantity, to your vinaigrette can aid dramatically in achieving an excellent consistency. The extra bit of flavor doesn't hurt either. This works particularly well for Caesar, Dijon and balsamic vinaigrettes.
Tapatio works really well, providing a nice red chili flake and garlic flavor without adding much heat.
I use a spoon to peel ginger. Just put your thumb on the back and scrape! So much easier than using a knife, and less goes to waste
When toasting bread for crostini, impale a clove of garlic on a fork, and rub over the bread.
My obsession (and the one that causes the most strife with my wife when she cooks) is to "clean as you go". There is not reason for the kitchen to look like a disatster by the time you serve. After you use an ingerdiant, put it away. Reuse bowls, plates, pans! Rinse that plate/spoon/pan, it takes a moment and makes clean-up much easier.
Not really a tip, more of a mantra.
Of true tips, I love keeping bags for chicken bones and vegtable trimmings for making stock in the frezer. Once you start doing this, stock becomes a "free" ingredient that is better than anything you could buy.
If you like crispy skin, make sure to dry out your chicken and duck breasts by placing them in your fridge on a dish without any covering on them for a day or so before you cook them. This works especially well if you have brined your chicken.
When you need to chiffonade herbs make sure to only use the tip of the knife as to not bruise or crush the herbs thus leaving their beautiful natural colors!
When you make stock/soup freeze one cup increments in large yogurt containers. The hockey pucks of stock can them be placed into freezer bags and stacked in the back of you freezer. You can fit a lot of stock in a small freezer this way.
When canning at home with a hot water bath, my mother always taught me to sanitize and keep the cans hot by putting them through a dishwasher cycle with no soap. This eliminates the annoying and time consuming step of boiling the cans right before you fill them and keeping them warm. Simply leave them in the dishwasher until your food is ready to be canned, and the cans will be clean and warm, ready to use!
When making stock, start with the pot to one side of the burner so the junk will accumulate in one spot and be easier to skim.
Place a damp towel underneath mixing bowls to keep them in place while you stir/whisk ...
Keep a stock pot on the stove as described in Elements. This will change your way of life.
When making ice cream, add a bit of vodka, so it doesn't freeze so solidly.
Forget fiddling around with your pairing knife - smash an olive over the head with a meat mallet and the stone will pop right out.
My best kitchen tip is to not be held back by a recipe. As long as you know basic techniques and ratios, use good ingredients and have a healthy sense of adventure, you will be successful most of the time.
keep a mason jar of vodka or bourbon handy for spent vanilla bean pods (rinse 'em first if they were steeping versus if you simply scraped them out.) once a week give it a shake and keep it in a dark-ish place. in a few weeks time, homemade vanilla extract!
If you have some very ripe bananas you won't be eating soon, peel, halve and freeze them! They can come in handy for smoothies or a yummy banana bread.
If you're making baked goods and forgot to set out butter for room temp., grate it on a cheese grater.
To clean the bottom of a burnt pot or pan -- fill with water and sprinkle with baking soda. Put back on the burner and simmer. Pour out the water and scrape away the burnt food with a plastic scraper.
To always have "roasted garlic" on hand buy a jar of the pre-peeled garlic cloves, put it on the stove in a small pot and cover with olive oil. Put it on the lowest setting and allow the garlic to poach until golden -- as long as an hour. Drain it and store cloves in an airtight container in the fridge. It will last forever. As a bonus you get garlic infused cooking oil!
I use my cappuccino/frappe electric frother to emulsify small amounts of salad dressing so I do not have to dirty my blender.
Cut roasted chiles with scissors over the bowl. This way you do not lose all the juice to the cutting board.
Taking the time to caramelize your mirepoix/soffritto to a dark mahogany will add depth and richness to your dish without having to add more ingredients.
Buy the best knives you can afford. One of the best wedding presents we ever got was our knife set, and it is used in someway everyday. Good knives make cooking that much more enjoyable.
When using fresh Ginger I like to use the back edge of a spoon to scrape away the outer skin. Makes for a perfectly peeled root with little wasted.
Some brands of cookware (such as All Clad and Calpahlon) have lids with uninsulated handles. You'll be able to grab the hot lids without a mitt or towel if you wedge a cork under the handle.
If you have a rice cooker, use it to make oatmeal. Just throw in some steel cut oatmeal, some dried fruit (we like cherries, but raisins will do in a pinch), some water, and maybe a pat of butter. Best easy oatmeal ever.
Freeze unused cooked rice in a ziplock bag - - don't refrigerate, as it will dry out the rice. Reheat in bag in microwave or pot of hot water.
Marry a food writer 😉
My defining kitchen tip: add cinnamon and freshly grated nutmeg to coffee grounds before brewing.
Keep a bottle of wine open on the counter while cooking. When the recipe is ill-written and causing frustration, pour one half glass and consume quickly. Repeat until frustration subsides.
Keep a roll of painter's tape (the wide, blue kind- it's easy to remove) and a sharpie in the drawer of your prep table (or wherever you prepare foods). Makes it so much easier to write dates on leftovers or bottles you open.
Use a small smooth rock to bash your garlic cloves. Find a small smooth rock about the size of your palm, and run it through the dishwasher. Then bash away - once just to pop off the skin, and several times to crush the clove. It's refreshingly physical.
Throw some peeled garlic cloves into your rice cooker when you make rice, and you'll have bonus stewed garlic when the rice (which will have a lovely, faint garlicky taste) is done.
As for cutting chives, I hold them in a bunch and use scissors. This has always worked for me!
I hope I win.
Renée
When you make pesto, make more than you need for one meal and freeze the rest in an ice cube tray. That way you can pop a couple out one 'cube' and defrost for a quick topping on pasta, eggs, almost anything.
Need an icepack but can't find the right one without nasty chemicals or one that will fit in your fancy new Mario Batalli office lunch bag? Use your vac seal to create icepacks that are just the right size!
Use a stand alone metal wine rack to hold your parchment, aluminum foil, plastic baggies etc. It provides easy access to them and saves space.
Got a stubborn mason jar that just won't open? Don't pry off the lid and risk breaking the jar in the process. Turn the jar upside down ,vertically, and tap the top of the lid on the kitchen counter. Turn right side up and give the lid a twist, it will come off with no problem.
When you have little ones to feed, kitchen shears or scissors do wonders in cutting up food to their bite size pieces. It's so much faster and easier using scissors to cut meat, noodles, etc. up rather than using a knife and fork.
Instead of using (and throwing away) a damp paper towel every time you need to secure a mixing bowl or cutting board to the counter, buy a roll of rubber shelf liner and cut it into different sizes to accomodate different size boards and bowls. The liner is easy to wash in case there are spills and you won't be creating a lot of waste.
Let your onions sit in cold water for a few minutes before cutting them to reduce the gasses that cause teary eyes 🙂
To make any poultry taste juicier, brining it a day in advance regardless of type of bird or method of cooking will make it taste juicier and not dry.
Always have cheese cloth handy to strain your gravies, soups, and stocks!!!
always cut your meat CROSS GRAIN!
Don’t be afraid to experiment!
Learn to season your food properly paying close attention to the thickness of whatever you're seasoning, which might require more than smaller portions.
buy 1 or 2 GREAT knives as opposed to a set of sucky knives!
Foolproof way to open any stubborn jar lid (learned from my Grandmother): With the handle end of a butter knife, hit the jar lid in a few places. Breaks the seal. It will now open with no effort.
When juicing carrots, add the residual pulp bi-product to soups, meatloaf, bread, any number of things. It adds great texture and helps moisten whatever food item you may be cooking, not to mention vitamin fortification of your dish and less waste.
Hello from the Great White North. Even though I know we Canadians can't win I thought I'd leave my two cents: when making fresh pasta I use a laundry drying rack that I picked up at Ikea for $7 instead of the fancy pasta drying racks that cost ridiculous amounts. It's waist height so it's easy to access and it holds over 3 lbs of noodles.
When writing recipes, list your ingredients in the order in which they are used.
Salt is your friend! It brings out the flavor of everything! Tomatoes, chocolate, pasta...you name it!
When I'm chopping garlic and it sticks to the blade, I like running my knife under the kitchen faucet for a quick second. Flick the excess water away and the garlic won't stick!!
Also, make your own chicken stock by saving the bones of chickens you roasted in a freezer bag. Once you have enough, make 2 big batches of stock at once in your oven (as suggested by Ruhlman).
To make sure your eggs are completely blended for scrambled eggs, put them in an old jar & shake them. (I hate stringy bits of white in my scrambled eggs)
I took a butchering class in college, and learned that the quickest and easiest way to get a knife to hold a great edge was to steel it while it's hot. I was mine in hot water, dry it, steel it, then put it in the block.
When you make stock, freeze a portion in ice cube trays, then transfer to a ziploc bag. They make great small additions to sauces or while treeking a recipe.
Buy spices and dried herbs from the "ethnic foods" aisle of the store. They cost about 75% less and you can buy what you need instead of a jar that will sit around forever.
I use a flexible cutting mat to grate all my cheeses onto and then roll the mat and us it cone shaped to "sift" the cheese in one handed to sauces and other things that need time. This can be used for many ingredients not just cheese, but I really like cheese sauce 🙂 Such a cool book and awesome giveaway!
Store your ginger in the freezer in a zip lock bag. When you need some, use a microplaner and it will literally come off as dust that virtually melts when it hits the pan.
When making pimiento cheese or guacamole, use a pastry cutter to break ingredients down to size. Much less effort than mashing with a fork and creates a better texture.
to hold a bowl in place put a towel around it.
What a GREAT giveaway! My tip is related to peeling garlic. This must be done ahead of time, soak garlic cloves in cold water for half an hour. The garlic peel should soften and dissolve like paper in the water.
Re-grow your scallions by putting them in a cup of water.
When you need a little extra counter space, open a drawer and lay a cutting board across it.
When making pesto, use walnuts instead of pine nuts (which in my area are $14.99 a pound). Any difference in taste is negligible.
Wrap rubber bands around the loop and handle of your fine mesh strainer at the same width as your sink. Then the strainer will stay put on the edges of the sink and you can pour directly into it.
Also, when cutting a bunch of green onions, leave the bottom 1/2" of the bulb and replant it. New green onions will poke out of the soil within a few days. As they grow, you can just snip off the tops and use what you need, and you'll always have fresh green onions on hand.
To have your family or go-to recipes on hand while traveling you can type them all down then create a simple web site for your own use, therefore you will always have them on hand where ever you go, even on your cell phone for a quick shopping list.
After cutting pears in half use a melon baller to remove the seeds. Makes for a nice clean presentation.
If you can't open a tightly sealed jar, knock the lid on the floor or the counter a couple times to break the airtight seal. The jar will open very easily. I've never had the jar break or leak while doing this.
Before making stuffed cabbage rolls, put the head of cabbage in the freezer and when it thaws the leaves will separate much easier.
If the bottom of your oven is covered with burnt bits and you don't have time to clean it, sprinkle salt all over it for a temporary smoke stopper.
Have you ever burned a pot so badly that the only option was to throw it away? Before you toss it in the trash, try this. Fill it with water, add 2 dryer sheets and let it soak a day or two. Really--it works!
I used Molass to give my Choclate Chip Cookies that dense yummy taste 🙂
When asked to cook a monkey, ask him to dinner instead.
Roll your doughs on an over-sized silicon baking sheet. Uses less flour to keep things from sticking and clean up is a breeze.
For those with limited kitchen space like me get ride of all the lids for your pots and pans. You can cover them with a circle cut out of parchment paper, or tin foil. It saves me from lots of clangy around my cupboards.
If you are oven roasting a piece of meat and need it done a little faster you can jab a metal spoon into it so that it conducts the heat down into the meat.
When grating ginger, place a layer of cling wrap over the cheese grater. It doesnt rip, so collecting your ginger and clean up are simple AND and the fibers stay connect to the hunk of ginger.
One of the best tricks I learned in culinary school
When making a brine use a whisk to dissolve the salt and sugar. You can do this directly in cold water saving the time of heating and then waiting for the brine to cool.
A microplane is a whiz at grating garlic and easier to clean than a garlic masher.
Freeze Bacon (or other meat for that matter) for 10 minute to make it easier to slice thinly.
Add a splash of water to your eggs as you beat them for a fluffier scramble.
Ditch your sifter and use a food storage container instead. Put all the dry ingredients in, cover tightly with the lid, and shake like mad.
When cooking with a wok, always add liquid to the side of the wok, not the center -- it will keep the wok temperature hot and your veggies cooking.
When grating soft cheese such as cheddar or mozzarella, be sure to freeze it for 15 - 20 minutes before grating so it's easier to handle
I posted this on Facebook but saw you wanted people to post here, sorry and hope this doesn't count as a double entry:
To keep soft herbs (like basil, mint, cilantro) from wilting, wash them, layer them between paper towels and store them in a cardboard box in the fridge! Tip courtesy of my mama
I like to thicken my curries with pumpkin puree. It's a relatively neutral flavor, and it adds great texture and color.
After mincing garlic use the side of your knife to smear the tiny pieces into a paste. Scrape the results into any finished soup, stew, or ? to add a burst of flavor.
When making guacamole, roll avocados and limes under your hand on the counter top to soften them up for mashing and juicing.
When peeling hard boiled eggs, crack shell and then use a spoon to peel off shell. The shell will come off easier then peeling piece by piece.
When first bringing lettuce home, wash and spin immediatly. With lettuce slightly moist, roll up in paper towel and place back into grocery bag. Lettuce is now easily ready for salads or other use.
When flattening a piece of meat, poultry, etc use two freezer sized ziploc bags. Cleanup is super easy, mess is self-contained and the bags are recyclable.
Jeff
Keep your flours in tightly sealed containers or zip-top bags in your freezer. (No more little mealy bugs.) Keep brown sugar in a zip-top bag with the excess air squeezed out in your refrigerator and it won't get hard. Thanks for a chance at the giveaway!
When you have the ends of crusty breads like baguettes left over and they're getting stale - cut off the crust and stash in a ziploc bag in the freezer. When you need breadcrumbs, just grab out of the freezer, bring to room temp, and toss in the Cuisinart to shred your own.
Always season at the beginning of cooking rather than just at the end so that the flavor cooks in and allows the real flavor to come out instead of just tasting salty. Cheers on the chance to win this great book.
Use a coconut grater (any good restaurant supply store) for grating hard cheeses. I hate using a microplane for this....I end up with a pile of wispy cheese that just disappears into whatever I'm adding it to and I never taste it again. Using a coconut grater gives just the right consistency, not too big....not too small (it's awesome for the popcorn you made on a previous post).
if you need/want to cold smoke something(cheese for example)and your smoker/grill does not have that capability, throw a big container of ice water in/under your smoking apparatus to chill the smoke.
if you need some stock real quick and don't have the bones handy go buy a rotiserrie chicken for dinner, strip it down and save what you don't eat then use those bones for stock. Quick and easy and better than from a can/box.
Use moist paper towel to cover saucepan to prevent splattering when simmering tomato sauce.
If you forgot to take your eggs out ahead of time for a recipe that calls for them to be room temperature, simply place in a bowl with warm water for about ten minutes. Viola room temperature eggs!
you can use an empty wine bottle in place of a rolling pin in a pinch.
After mixing bread dough, to get it out of the bowl easier, sprinkle flour around the inside edge of the bowl. Then take a flexible pastry scraper and scrape around the sides of the bowl, down to the bottom. This works the flour all around the dough and it will now easily "pour" out of the bowl onto your work surface. This even works with difficult high hydration doughs.
After opening a can of tomato paste...I take the leftover and put tablespoons on plastic wrap and then wrap these with foil and put them in the freezer so they are ready to go and avoid waste!
when baking chocolate cakes use cocoa powder instead of flour to grease and "flour" the cake pan
When peeling garlic, shellfish, citrus, etc. and want to get the smell off your hands, put a small heap of salt in your hand and some dishwashing soap (1:1 ratio, I'd say) and scrub throughly. Rinse and boo-ya.
After mincing garlic, rub your fingers on something made of steel to get the smell off. I usually just rub the side of the sink.
I write the date and contents on anything that goes into a ziplock bag with a "Sharpie" pen when it goes to the freezer. Hopefully, we thaw the chili and expect it to be chili and not sauce for a lasagna. We still have the last batch of pea soup from my late mother-in-law in the freezer in the garage. ..at least that is what the bag says.
Freeze your pie crust in its pie plate, lined with aluminum foil, before blind baking instead of using weights.
When attempting a new recipe for the first time, consult your copy of Ruhlman's Ratio for what to do when it bombs! (Alton Brown's Hollandaise sauce recipe didn't have the all-important "how to fix it when it breaks" secrets!) - Really happened to me a week ago!
I cook brownies in a small cast-iron pan because I shock mine in a ice bath when they come out of the oven, and of course I have no qualms about how a cast-iron pan will respond to such drastic changes in temperature.
Not much of a trick, but I line the pan with foil and let it heat up in the oven while the oven preheats. That way the brownies cook evenly through and through. You wouldn't need to do this with a thinner, smaller pan.
If you don't have a spare set of hands to assist, filling a pastry bag can be a bit cumbersome if you haven't have a lot of practice - since one hand is stuck holding the bag while the other scoops the filling inside. One way around this is to prop the bag up inside a tall, narrow glass, vase, or jar - using the rim of the jar as the support for the overhand of the bag to rest upon - leaving both hands free to fill the bag.
Just made the blowtorch prime rib last night.but i added a twist with a mustard herb crust that i rubbed on after torching..It was fantastic!
relax when cooking---your mistakes are still usually better then what the local deli will sell to you
Can't use a whole bunch of fresh herbs from the grocery before they go bad? Fill a glass halfway with water and place the cilantro/parsley/etc stem down in the glass and cover with a plastic bag. This will increase the life of those herbs by a factor of 4 or 5!
Before I start prepping a recipe, I fill one side of my sink with warm, soapy water. That way, I just put used utensils (except knives!!) in the water - gets them off the counter and makes clean up more efficient.
Pancetta at your disposal - I buy in 1/4 in slices and layer in wax paper to always have available, thaws quickly and can be used in multitudes of recipes from greens to pastas.
Listening to you on NPR's Marketplace right now! Next time give us a heads-up that you'll be on!
I rinse out my empty, cardboard, 1/2 gallon juice and milk containers, open up the top and use next to my board and sink for garbage. Trimmings tend to be wet and this works as a disposable garbage bowl that can easily be closed up for transport without spills. This is also great for the stock strained vegis and bones .... less chance of a garbage blow up on the way out the door.
I have to say that the overnight oven stock method is excellent. I don't think I'll ever make stock on the stovetop again. Thanks so much, Michael!
To remove the garlic smell from your hands, rub your hands on stainless steel (like your faucet, or some cook stores even sell stainless steel "bars" for this exact purpose). It gets rid of the smell instantly!
listen to music when cooking!
I like to break down large pieces of meat, especially whole pork loins into chops and roasts, and the best way to do it is when it is still partially frozen. This keeps the cuts clean and straight, and minimizes how much moisture the meat loses in the process.
When spreading alluminum foil over a large surface (baking sheet or under pan from the saute range) use a damp hand towel to apply pressure as you're smoothing it out. This is most helpful when you have to slide the pan into a narrow area. The foil really forms to the pan.
To prevent crying while chopping onions, put a piece of bread in your mouth. It will block the fumes/juices released from chopping, and then you have an automatic snack!
I always seem to have the wrong type of tapioca when it comes time to make something that calls for it. After much searching, I figured out that regular and quick cooking tapioca are the same thing except for their size, so if you have regular tapioca and your recipe calls for quick cooking, simply grind the regular tapioca in a spice grinder until it's in smaller pieces, and voila! quick cooking tapioca
If you make large batches of bread, as I do. Cool the loaves thoroughly and then bag them overnight. The moisture equalizes and they slice much more evenly without many crumbs. Then you can freeze the loaves and pop slices off if you forget to thaw bread when you need it. You can put the bread, or some rolls in a crockpot on low and they heat up beautifully and are warm and moist like fresh baked.
When cooking pasta, parboil it just enough that you can finish cooking it in the sauce itself. The pasta becomes more flavorful as a result.
As an adult cooking back at your childhood home make sure Mom has lots of wine so she forgets to tell you what to do in her kitchen. Loud music also helps. Cheers!
Washing sharp knives:
Since I use a chopping block for almost every meal, it always needs a good scrub. I do the knives at the same time. I place the knife blade flat on the board (it is sitting at an angle in one half of the double sink) and turn the knife handle sligtly to have the blade tight to the surface of the board. Then it is safe (safer is guess is the correct term) to stroke the blade with the sponge or wash cloth. Turn the knife over, and repeat the other side. Voila! No cuts, no scratches and no nicks!
If you don't have a proper wine cellar or cooler, chill reds in the fridge for 10 to 20 minutes, fine champagne for about 45 minutes and whites between 60 and 75 minutes before pouring. Within those ranges, fuller bodied less time, lighter bodied more. In the meantime, keep the bottles in their cardboard wine box on the floor of a pantry or closet...dark and cool is good. Never in decorative racks on the counter or over the fridge...light and heat is bad.
When helping in a friend's kitchen I found dull knives with no sharpening equipment. Using two knives, use one against the other as a sharpening stone. Miracle.
I use a box grater to grate frozen butter for biscuits and pastry doughs - so much more effective for me than cutting in the butter.
Place a towel under your cutting board to keep it from moving and sliding around.
If you need a pastry bag and don't have one, try using a plastic food storage bag (Ziploc, etc.). Just fill it, cut a corner to the desired size and squeeze away. Works great for dispensing sour cream for Tex-Mex dishes also.
This one has to be in my top 5 and came first into my mind when I over salted my Cheese & Beer Soup a couple of weeks ago. I was told a peeled potato dropped into the soup will absorb salt. I cut mine in half for a little more surface area and I have to say, worked very well.
The easiest way to peel a butternut squash: cut the top and bottom off so that you have a flat surface on each end, then cut the squash half (specifically, at the point where the "neck" meets the "bulb"). Next stand each piece up vertically and shave off the outer rind using a sharp chef's knife.
I just learned this one, when mixing in flour or other dry ingredients into the mixer bowl, cover the mixer with a wet towel to catch the flour from flying over the kitchen!
When you make a batch of stock or broth make more than you immediately need, you can freeze them into dixie cups and cutting a tiny slit into the top of the lip of each cup. Once they are frozen, you can place them into gallon, ziplocs, which are more spatially efficient. While this is somewhat wasteful, it allows you to easily scale recipes based on each cup holding the same amount (9 oz). Also if you're sick and short on time one of those 9 oz cups makes a hearty and re-invigorating hot beverage in the microwave or on the stovetop.
Since I live at 6,000 feet getting my grill hot is difficult. I place a sheet of heavy duty foil over my grates and pre-heat. This helps to trap a little extra heat and helps with making presentable grill marks.
I don't keep pastry bags handy because I don't make pastry that often, but every once in awhile I find that I have need for one. Instead of going to the store, I take a regular sandwich bag and cut off the corner. This definitely doesn't make up for a proper bag, but MacGyvering it has worked for me in the past and likely in the future as well!
When you are doing a plate-up at a catering event, load your crew up with lots of water/other liquid refreshments 45 minutes before plating starts. Your crew will be motivated to move oh-so-much-faster when they know they can finally pee at the end of service.
Simple but extremely useful and time saving: To separate cloves from a whole head of garlic, put the garlic root side down on your cutting board. Hold a kitchen towel over it, and with moderate force smash the top with the bottom of your fist.
Let your husband, or significant other, cook while you drink wine and watch. It makes for a great meal.
I caught you on Iron Chef, tonight. I have to agree, zucchini is pretty bland. The girl to your left was just flat annoying.
Coating peppers in oil before roasting them will help the skin to char evenly, so it will slip out of the crevices as well as off the bulges.
Always keep some bacon lardons in the freezer (preferably homemade!) That way you don't have to worry about waiting for them to defrost before cutting.
oldie but goodie...
when rolling out a pie crust wipe the counter down with a damp sponge and then put a sheet of saran wrap down (it will stick in place on the damp surface) you can then roll out your crust and use the wrap to help transfer it in one piece (folding it in half is always an option too)
Never underestimate the power of cooking liquid. Whenever I cook beans or lentils, I always reserve the cooking liquid, strain, reduce and freeze. Makes an amazing stock for use in braises, stews, soups, risotto, etc. Same goes for pasta water. If you save it and reuse it, it not only saves water, it flavors each batch of pasta with the one before it. After a few batches, you can actually sauce the pasta quite nicely with a splash of it's own cooking water swirled into the pasta with a bit of butter and parm. Basically, anything you cook in water, try to think of a way to save and reuse the cooking medium. More often than not, it will surprise you with its delicious usefulness.
Use an upside down funnel to pit olives!
I haven't read the comments, so I hope I'm not duplicating tips here…
When you're using egg yolks but not whites, you can freeze the whites to save them for later. They thaw just fine and can be whipped as normal.
When peeling garlic, pound with the flat of the knife. and pound again when peeled to make it easier to mince. oh, and keep the fingers in!
Ynhallfreelance. Yes and if I don't change my socks everyday I tend to concentrate the aroma of my sweaty feet quite nicelly. After a few days.. weird things begin to happen down there....
I love you bro... just couldn't resist poking you a bit...hope you have a sense of humor. But it's the same thing.. I think.
I store spices in empty clean baby food jars, then keep the jars on strong knife magnets. (the lids are magnetic.)
I want to win!!!! I've been wanting that cookbook...
When I freeze stock, sauce or other liquids, I put them in a freezer bag and lay them flat on a sheet pan in the freezer. Once they're frozen, I find that the flat packages are easier to stack or store in the freezer.
Always invite fun guests that love food over for dinner, food always taste better with great company.
'tastes" where's the edit button when you need it....
Keep two plastic ice cube trays always stacked in your freezer.
For left over sauces, stocks, pastes there is then a ready storage mechanism to freeze single portion servings of these items. When frozen, double bag them in plastic bags and mark the date on the outside. This makes it easy to grab a small portion of these 'flavor' cubes whenever needed. Need some stock to perk up a sauce, grab a cube! Want a little extra sauce or paste to drop into a meal or over some noodles. Grab a cube!
I like to use a large zip-top bag to mush up my meatloaf mix-
just put meat, eggs, binder, and veggies in and mush it up. You can even
shape it in the bag!
I hate the feeling of raw meat and eggs under my fingernails, and this also saves on clean-up and cross-contamination.
I have two tips for working with pate a choux. The first one is folding the parchment paper in half once and once again for the right size for eclairs. Be sure to pipe a little in each corner on the sheet tray before you lay the parchment down so the paper doesn't blow around in a convection oven.
The second tip is to use a scoop to portion out consistent cream puffs.
I like to run onions under cold water so I don't cry like a baby when I cut them.
Thanks to commenter tim e I'm listening to you on marketplace right now, (it's true, the Cleveland food scene is great)... Love that Alaska time-delay! I have to say my favorite kitchen tip that I learned from working in professional kitchens is using parchment paper...under cookies on a sheetpan, under bacon on a sheetpan (cooking your bacon in the oven, 350 til it's crisp... is also a great tip!) wrapping up fish (en papilliote), lining cake pans....or anytime you want your job to come out neat and clean. Better than aluminum foil and when we're done we just burn it.
Instead of making pumpkin bread, bannana bread, etc. I make muffins and keep them in the freezer. That way there's always a delicious, nutritious homemade muffin in the freezer for whoever wants one.
Use the long handle of a wooden mixing spoon to lift the skin of a chicken so that herbed seasonings and butter can be placed all the way down to the drum sticks without tearing the skin. The entire skin can be lifted to create easy access. The long spoon handle can also be used to spread the seasoning, again, without danger of tearing the skin.
Don't go to culinary school thinking you are going to be a million dollar chef. If you think that tv chefs are where you want to be - stay out of the kitchen, SAVE THE MONEY. If you love food and you are borderline psycho about it - yep it is for you.
That is the best kitchen tip I can give M.R. Great contest but I figured since you know I am a culinary instructor you would have thrown me out anyways!
Test out new recipes when you do not have company. That way you can perfect your technique and make adjustments for taste without your guests becoming guinea pigs! :O)
Cathy
Leavenworth, WA
I love the easy way to peel lots of garlic cloves! Take to matching bowls, I use a couple of medium metal bowls that have thumb rings and a bit of lip. Fill one of the bowls with unpeeled cloves, turn the other bowl over the top. HOld the bowls together and shake like crazy. I mean really rattle them around, remove the bowl and most if not all the cloves will be peeled.
Place damp cloth under cutting board so it doesn't slip when using.
When cutting said chives wrapped in paper towel, slice them with a back stroke not the usual rocking or eliptical motion. It's kind of like sawing in reverse. Also, make sure your knife is sharp and well honed for perfect chive rings!
If i'm stuck with cheap ground coffee... I take a pinch of vanilla sea salt and add it to the top of the coffee grinds then brew. Takes the bitter right out. I know not so much of a cooking tip, but it's in the kitchen right?
ice cube trays for lots o stuff - herbs, stock, wine.
When washing rice, as I poured the starchy water out of the pot to pour in fresh water, i'd always throw away a few grains of rice, plus there'd always be some leftover water in the rice, which made it difficult to get the proportions right afterwards.
I recently switched to measuring the rice inside a strainer, and submerging the strainer inside a big bowl of water, and washing it with my hands. This way it seems like i don't waste as much water, and then i leave the rice to drain for a couple of minutes on the dish rack before nailing the proportions for good rice.
Roast beets wrapped in aluminum foil with a little sea salt and olive oil. When they come out of the oven, the skin will slip off when pressed. So much easier than peeling them ahead of time.
when working with most gluten free dough (like pizza), the dough should have a thick frosting consistency, not a solid ball. the best way to spread it out is by putting a piece of oiled saran wrap over it before you roll it out with a rolling pin so it doesn't stick and tack up and basically spread all over the place. this is important if you are using a yeast risen dough since it has a lighter, tackier texture to begin with.
I love hot sandwiches, but I do not have a sandwich press. Just heat up a cast iron skillet and use the bottom on the top of the sandwich.
I can never use up my fresh herbs - so I wash and dry a bunch, rolling a few sprigs at a time in a moist paper towel, and then put them all in a plastic bag...they stay good much longer, and each 'serving' is ready to go at a moment's notice.
I store ginger in the freezer so that I can grate some fresh as needed.
EASIEST WAY TO CLEAN YOUR BODUM FRENCH PRESS (after each use)
1. Dump out the coffee grind and rinse the container with water.
2. Add 2 drops of detergent to the container and fill with water.
3. Place the plunger into the french press and pump the piston up and down a few times. (This will froth up the detergent water and wash both the container and piston at the same time.
4. Remove the piston assembly and a quick wipe down of all the visible surfaces with the soap water in the container.
5. Dump out the detergent water and rinse everything with water.
Note: The entire operation should take no more than 3 minutes.
when i cant find my whetstone (which it seems is always) i can sharpen by knives by sliding them across the bottom of a coffee cup. It does gets the knives sharper because of the rim that is unglazed on the bottom of the cup. Great trick when you need to sharpen your knives in a pinch.
A great trick that an instructor taught me for cleaning a wooden block after butchering meat is to just cover it with salt and leave it over night. The salt will draw out excess moisture, kill bacteria, and "bleach" the board. In the Morning just scrape it off and you'll be left with a clean block.
Let your meat rest when you are done cooking it. Not just steaks but any beef, pork, lamb or poultry. And I am talking minutes, not seconds. A good thick steak can rest for 7-10 minutes. Your Thanksgiving can rest for 20. If you slice into it too soon, much of the deliciousness will spill out onto the carving board.
Here's a tip for travel agents and other unfortunates: Cut and paste Ruhlman's blog into one email, then cut and paste the comments into another so one can read them at work. All blogs and all interesting sites are blocked at my office- I have to work to read your blog, Mr. Ruhlman. 🙂 I enjoy it immensely, so it's no problem.
The bottle of wine you are about to drink can make an excellent rolling pin/meat mallet in a pinch.
I'm still working on my cooking skillz with stainless steel pans, but I have been told (always forget to try it myself) that if you heat a stainless steel pan with salt sprinkled in the bottom, the salt draws out the moisture in the pan, rendering it with some non-stick properties for a short time. (Discard the salt before adding the food, obviously.)
Next time I need to fry some eggs, I need to remember to try it!
No-Brainer Tip.
After blanching vegetables, place them in a china-cap or colander before lowering into a large amount of iced water. After agitating the china-cap/colander to chill quicker, the vegetables can be removed from the water faster and there's no need to wrestle with ice cubes or stray veggies. There won't be any lost product, either.
When I bake and I need to line a pan with foil, I flip the pan over and wrap the foil on the outside of the pan like I am wrapping a present. I then lift off the foil, which is now in the perfect shape to fit easily into the inside of the pan.
My favourite trick is to peel my onions underwater so that I don't tear up nearly as much. Works well because the bulk of the onion gas is under the first 2 layers of skin (supposedly). It used to work a treat when I was stuck peeling kilos and kilos of them for work!
to slice corn off the cob, i like to use a bundt pan and let the hole be the holder for the corn while i slice off the kernels. so much easier and much less messy!
Line a sieve with coffee filter for straining really fine particles. Thanks very much by the way!
Tonight, I used the top of my toasty radiator to raise some bread dough. With single digit weather raging outside and a complete lack of counter space, I was pretty damn pleased with myself. Thanks!
When preparing to juice citrus, cut it in half and poke the flesh deeply with the tines of a fork. You will get more juice from the fruit. Smiles!
Taking apart a pomegranate underwater is the easiest way to save getting red juice everywhere. The seeds sink to the bottom and everything else floats to the top making it easy to separate.
I love smoking foods. I have a pretty basic home smoker (propane) that doesn't do a good job cold smoking. When I want to cold smoke, I'll use an electric hot plate, a thin pan and saw dust. This creates enough heat to have the saw dust smoke, but keeps the box cold enough to not cook the meat (my favorite technique for making bacon!!!).
I recently found that my garlic press does a great job for ginger as well. I love the way you enticed us all to to share something useful, Ruhlman.
Thanks!
Using a piece of thread vs. a knife is a great way to even off a cake before frosting or cutting off cupcake tops prior to creating a baked delight. After you take the item out of the oven, let it cool about 5 minutes. Cut a piece of sewing thread to equal the width of your item plus extra on each end so you can hold on to it. Take the thread and place it up against the area you want to slice off. Gently start to saw back and forth and once the thread has started to cut you can gently pull it through. Works like a charm!
mise en place! took me awhile to figure this one out, but i got it 😉
Instead of buying expensive rings for stacking just use a used canof tomatoes with both ends cut out. Just remember to dremel or sand down the sharp edges first. Best of all you can use the same can for cuttig your biscuits to the perfect size!
Use a microplane to mince woody lemongrass instead of a knife.
Salt your boiling water before putting in the pasta - it's the only chance you have to salt it!
Learn how to butcher your own meats. You will be able to create custom cuts to your liking, you will get all of the "goodies" that don't make it into packaged or pre-cut meats, you will save money, and, I feel, the more work you put into the meal/ingredients, the more satisfaction in the result.
Read and re-read your recipe! Have a back up plan!
Along the lines of an earlier suggestion, when laying parchment paper on a cookie sheet, I spritz the cookie sheet with some water to make the parchment lie flat.
-=Eric
Whenever I use tomato paste, bacon fat, broth, egg whites, etc, I take what I don't use and freeze in an ice cube tray, then transfer to a freezer storage bag (make sure to suck out as much air as possible. This is also great for fresh herbs, just chop them and put a few drops of broth or water to preserve. Good for roughly 6 months. This gives me approx 1T portions of any of these itesm if I just need a little for a recipe...
To always have the best bacon available for flavoring recipes, take a baking sheet and spread your fabulous raw bacon rashers out in individual strips. Freeze them raw and flat, wrap individually and throw in a freezer bag. When needing bacon in small portions, you always have the best waiting for you in whatever small portion you need.
This is a great tip for solo cooks and solo diners - bacon in large quantity can go rancid before needed in a single's kitchen.
Don't bother with pastry knives for pie dough. Add your dry ingredients to a blender, pulse to mix. Add your (very cold) fat, and pulse to mix. Add your water, pulse to mix. Done, in about 1/8th the time.
Taste as you go. Took me forever to learn this simple task. Learn to trust your taste buds, learn how to salt, when to salt and what a dish should taste like.
The other simple "ah ha" is that most slow cooked soups and stews taste better the next day!
Put a good classic movie in the DVD player to keep your inlaws from "helping" you in the kitchen while making them a holiday dinner.
Ventilation is the key for tear free onion chopping. Open a window near your chopping block, set up a small fan, or put your block on a cold range top and turn on the ventilation. It works!!
Also, if at all possible, try to avoid cooking when you're "p*&^ed" off. Seriously, your food will end up just as bitter as your mood.
Having grown up in a household where waste was almost sacrilegious, I always peel ginger using a small teaspoon and simply scrape the thin skin off. It really helps with getting into those pesky crevices.
Wow, after reading through these tips.... I'm seeing a new book idea, "Ruhlman's Readers KitchenTips" --*laughs*
Everything tastes better with bacon, and bacon tastes better if cooked long on low heat.
While this is not a cooking tip in the truest sense of the word, it is a great after cooking tip. If you have any pans with white residue from boiling tap water, boil some vinegar and baking soda for 10 minutes in the pan. Voilà! Also, ketchup is a miracle worker for tarnished brass.
Use an egg slicer to slice mushrooms. Quite handy if your knife skills aren't quite up to snuff or if you have little hands helping you in the kitchen.
Thanks for the contest - what I great prize!
Use an egg slicer to slice mushrooms. Quite handy if your knife skills aren't quite up to snuff or if you have little hands helping you in the kitchen.
Thanks for the contest - what a great prize!
I keep my spices and herbs in air tight containers, well labeled, in a dedicated freezer (I have 2 fridge and one upright freezers in my home). I take out what I need and let warm to room temp before using.
I like to keep Olive Oil in a spray bottle, like what you would get in a hardware store for chemicals. (don't use one that contained a chemical!).
Works great for coating a sautee pan, vegetables or fish for grilling, or just for finishing a plate to give it that extra glisten!
I tend to cook Asian foods which require lots of chopping. The cutting boards that I use tend to slip on my granite counter top (especially when the surface gets wet), so I place a kitchen towel on the counter first before placing the board down. I now have a safe cutting surface as my board won't slip.
To keep salt in salt shakers from going hard like a rock, add dry rice. This will keep the salt from hardening.
to cut grape or cherry tomatoes, i take two lids from plastic quart containers, place tomatoes in one lid face up, then top it with the other lid face down, and slice parallel to the work surface for a quick and easy cut....
My tip: Cook because you want to, not because you have to. Cooking and sharing food with friends and family is a gift you give not only to them but to yourself!
Don't throw away cheese rinds. Put them in soups or dishes that have a lot of stock.
Separate white and yolk of eggs before frying. Fry white in the fat of your choice. When white has hardened, place yolk gently on top. Cover until the yolk is the degree of doneness you prefer. Perfect fried eggs, for eating alone or in many soups for a filling lunch.
My address is 71 West 83 Street #2R, NYC, NY 10024. Hope you like this. Annette
Meat lover's tip:
When cooking up chops/cutlets in the frying pan, cook until just under done, then stick in a 150/200 degree oven. Saute your veggies in the pan you cooked the meat in and they'll soak up all the tasty juices/bits! You'll have perfectly cooked meat & meaty/savory veggies. And the pan will be easier to clean after, too!
If you need to soften butter quickly and don't have a microwave, simply turn on the oven and place the butter on top of the stove near the vent.
Canning jars have the same mouth size and thread to fit certain blenders. Narrow mouths fit cuisinart, and wide mouths fit kitchenaid. When I make marinades, salsas, pestos, dressings, flavored mayo's etc. I just put the ingredients into the jar and blend. The finish sauce stays in the jar for storage, and the blade can be quickly rinsed and reused for the next sauce. Its a great way to prep for a large meal that has lots of saucy elements.
When slicing onions keep the nonflammable end of an unlit match in your mouth. It will prevent tears.
Take advantage of the freezer: freeze stock in ice cube trays and bacon on a baking sheet, then store both in separate Ziplock bags. Then you can use just what you need.
I like to use an egg slicer to quickly slice mushrooms and olives.
Keep your cast iron pan in the oven while preheating and cooling, throw a little oil in there every once in a while. Yeah its seasoned, but it can always be more seasoned.
to blanch brussel sprouts more consistently, and all the way through....freeze them instead. The freezing breaks down some of the cell walls, and doesn't overcook any part of them. After that, just use however you would fresh (except for salads)
When I'm making stock for soup, and some of the vegetables for the finished soup need to be blanched instead of cooked until mush, I just stick my (clean) chinois into the stock as it simmers, and blanch my veggies in the simmering stock. They add to the flavor and nutrients of the stock, and are cooked perfectly when it's time to assemble the finished soup.
Also, I buy those big, inexpensive jugs of pre-peeled garlic at the market. Then I put them in a big zip-top bag and stick them in the freezer. When I need garlic for a preparation that just needs garlic flavor (like a braise) but isn't dependent on the texture of fresh garlic, I just grab a couple out of the freezer, smash them, and stick them in. I hate peeling and dicing garlic.
Next time you're making chili and it's time to thicken things up, substitute corn flour in lieu of regular for your roux - It adds a very nice subtle, nutty/tortilla flavor note.
To remove cooked on eggs from a pan, soak for a few minutes in ice cold water. The cold water breaks down the protiens in the eggs and makes them break apart.
A lot of people here probably already know this one, but as a new aspiring home chef, this potato peeling trick has saved me time and cut fingers.
Take your potatoes, and create a score line all the way around the center of each potato. Drop the scored potatoes into a pot of boiling water for about 15-20 minutes, depending on the size of the potatoes. After removing them from the boiling water, submerge them in a bowl of ice water for about 30-60 seconds. Once the potatoes are cool enough to handle, hold each potato with half of the scored potato in one hand, and the other half in the other hand. Using your fingers, slowly pinch and pull the potato skin apart (away from the score line), and you should be left with a perfectly peeled potato.
Another fun tip for peeling a banana. Instead of cutting or breaking the banana peel at the stem, turn the banana around and pinch the bottom stub of the banana--the stub will separate, and you can easily remove the peel without smashing the end of the banana in your attempt to break the stem.
I freeze extra tomato paste and pesto in ice cube trays and then pop them frozen into various soups as needed.
To keep hamburgers juicy when using lower fat ground beef (eg grassfed or even buffalo), mix in some minced onions. Adds subtle flavor and a bit of extra moisture.
Don't be afraid to use your microwave as a bread box. It's a perfect use of space for those of us in urban environments, and it'll keep your bread, chips, etc. fresh.
Parchment paper to line the bottom of a cake pan always drove me crazy. I know it's important, but i hated having to stop in the middle of a flourless chocolate cake to do an arts and craft project - parchment paper, pencil, scissors, etc - while up to my elbows in melted chocolate and egg whites.
Now i just fold a sheet of parchment into quarters. Holding the corner that was the center point of the open sheet, keep folding into a smaller and smaller wedge until it's less than 1" at its widest. Hold the point of your wedge over the center of the cake pan and tear along where it meets the pan's edge. Unfold and you have a surprisingly good circle of just the right diameter. No school supplies needed!
Always have fun when cooking. The point of creating delicious meals is to express your passion and creativity. If you are stressed or unhappy, there is no point of cooking. Take your time, take a deep breath and make it fun.
(it will make all your dishes taste better)