Tips to enhance your eating
experiences. Making it easier to prepare, tastier and better for you.
Sweet
Treat at the Barbecue:
Take a banana split it down the middle and fill with marshmallow, wrap
in foil, leaving a small hole in top. Remove when marshmallow is right
consistency (monitored through hole in top). - Barry
McDonnell
Non-Stick
Baking Tray
- to make a baking tray non-stick coat thinly with vegetable oil -
-olive will do, and coat with flour. shake off the flower and away you
go - Terry V
Brussels
Sprouts - Cut a small cross in the bottom of the sprout and
speed up cooking time - Regards -- Dianne Dimke
Kitchen
and Carving Knives
- Many good chefs and cooks use carbon steel knives (so did Hannibal
Lecter) the blades can get a bit dull and stained, however you can
brighten them up with half a potato dipped in sodium bicarbonate. Rub
each side for half a minute and it will come up nice and shiny. Carbon
steel can take and keep an edge. To sharpen them I use a diamond Lap
obtained from a specialist tool shop. I have two, one is medium and the
other fine. James A Mohammed St Ives UK
Mussels
-
do not wrap your live mussels, they could suffocate - never freeze and
do observe the sell by date, discard mussels that do not close when
given a sharp tap and discard the ones that do not fully open after
cooking. Regards -- Dianne Dimke
Using
the Microwave.
- When Microwaving food on the plate that is to be used to serve up the
food make sure that the plate has been heated before the food is placed
on it. If the pate is cold then it will suck much of the heat away. I
use hot or boiling water to heat the plate up before use. - Davina
Martin
Removing
the Top of a Jar
- If the top of a jar refuses to budge put an elastic band around it
and you will find it improves your grip making it much easier to remove
~~ Regards Dianne Dimke 13 June 2005
Cake Crumbs: Fed up with the cake or other
crumbly food disintegrating when you cut it? Use a wetted knife. ~~ Wendy
Quinn 01 June 2005
Pasta
, add a lapsang souchong tea bag to water when boiling pasta, gives it
a really nice smokey taste.. Steve Clarke
31 Jan 2004
Decaffeinating
Tea
- Although tea contains about one-third the caffeine there is in
coffee, and some teas are already decaffeinated, you can remove most of
the caffeine from any tea by steeping it for about a minute, discarding
the liquid and adding water to steep it again. ~~ Sylvia
PF 21 Sep 2002
Cream.
If you don’t have single cream, a mixture of milk and melted butter is
a useful substitute. To 4 units of milk, add one unit of melted butter.
- Jonny Koh, Washington.
Keeping
fresh coffee in the fridge or freezer preserves the taste ~~ Wendy
Quinn ; Kuala Lumpur Malaysia
Filling
Devilled Eggs:
After boiling your eggs, and cutting in half - scoop out the yolks and
make your filling for the eggs. Put the mixture in a ziplock baggie.
Then - making sure the bag is sealed - cut one corner of the bottom of
the bag. Squeeze the filling into the halved egg whites - simple
&
easy -! When all egg halves are filled - simply throw the baggie away.
No more trying to fit a spoon into those small holes of an egg! :)
Martha
An
easy way to get the "paper" off of garlic without peeling is to smash
the clove with the palm of your hand, the garlic will slide right of
the "paper". So much easier than spending all that time peeling. ~~
"kelly"
Sep 2002
Store
sugar with vanilla pods, lemon zest, rose petals, or lavender to give
it a nice flavor. ~~ Darryl Edwards.
Soften
Brown Sugar by covering the container with a damp cloth. Some people
use a small piece of bread ~~ Darryl Edwards.
Baking
with Flour: If you run out of self raising flour, the general
rule is 2.5 teaspoons of baking powder to 250g (1 lb.) of plain flour.
~~ Scott Ed.
Cake Mixes:
How to use cake mixes and add other ingredients to make it taste like
homemade: '... Use a white cake mix. One can of Cherry pie filling or 2
depending on the quantity you are making. Spread the cake mix over the
pie filling. Cut up one cube of marj. or butter and place though out
the top of the cake mix. Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes. It's
fabulous. "Dump Cake" Top with whipping cream. They will think you
slaved and it was simple... 'Jan Tani
A cocktail
stick or toothpick can be used to test whether a cake is
ready, If it comes out clean then the cake is ready. You can also tell
from the elasticity of the crust ~~ Helen Budkiewicz Toronto Canada
Bread:
it is so lovely to make your own bread, and I find that brushing the
bread with salty water before baking gives it a lovely crunchy topping.
~~ Maggie Renton, Athens, Georgia, USA
Fruit
Pies:
I find that tossing the fruit in flour stops the pastry at the bottom
of the pie from getting soggy. Also when making cakes with glace
cherries toss the cherries in flour first.
An
interesting fact is that raw blackcurrants, and kiwi fruit contain more
vitamin C than oranges. Green bananas go yellow quicker if there are
ripe bananas with them ~~ Robbie Gill Heston England
Dates: if you are dieting, natural dates contain only half
of the sugar of the sun-dried variety you get in boxes. ~~ A
Husaini, London W6
Lemons: when squeezing lemon, if you put them in the
microwave for half a minute makes them release more juice. ~~ Comi
Ed
Vegetables
Carrots
are easier to peel if they are briefly blanched in boiling water. –
Essie 2000.
A drop of
lemon/lime juice will stop the browning (caused by oxidation) of
vegetables or fruit ~~ Anon.
Lettuce
should never be cut, but torn instead – Vanessa Echols
Cook
vegetables quickly and in a closed pot with only 5cm or so of water.
Taste an color are better this way ~~ Bruce Snyder
England Dec 98
Before
you peel your onion heat it up in the microwave for one minute. No
tears, I guarantee ~~ Bruce Snyder Radlett England
Meat
Excess
gravy can be frozen and used for stocks and sauces later on.
Poultry: I found that my turkey or game casserole is even nicer when I
add just a little bitter chocolate. I never tell the people eating it
though. ~~ Anon.
Herbs/Spices
Keep fresh herbs, and fresh spices such a root ginger in the freezer to
stop them going off. The ginger or garlic can be grated into the food
while still frozen ~~ Darryl Edwards, UK, Jul 98.
Chew some
parsley after eating garlic to sweeten your breath– Wendy
Quinn Kuala Lumpur Jun 98.
Wear
gloves when chopping hot peppers, always wash your hands after
touching them, and never rub your eyes or touch other parts of the body
when handling them as they will burn and sting. ~~ Sara Sutherland age
10
If you’ve
overdone the spices in a dish, a bit of sugar will balance it out.
Lemon juice helps, as does putting in half a lemon cooking for a few
minutes then removing ~~ Rathna Ali London England.
Spices
should be roasted and cooked for a few minutes before cooking the rest
of the dish to get the most of the flavours, and remove the really
choking burning sensation if they are hot. ~~ Rathna Ali London
England.
Herbs
Dried
Herbs. The general rule of thumb is one tablespoon of fresh herbs
is equivalent to one teaspoon of dried ones. - Anthony Daniels, Los
Angeles
Eggs
eggs,
boiled.
~~ Boiling water hardens the protein in egg whites. To avoid this,
cover eggs with 3" of salted water, heat to boiling, turn off stove and
let sit for 20 minutes in the hot water. Run under cold water for
easier peeling. Bill Shockley San Francisco, CA.
~~
Boiling
Eggs using boiling water: Soft boiling takes 6 minutes, hard boiled
eggs take 10 minutes.~~ Wendy Quinn
Kuala Lumpur
Shelling
Boiled Eggs: Use a wetted teaspoon, it has just the
right curvature and slips under the shell ~~ Davina
To test
eggs for freshness put in cold salty water, and bad ones will float to
the top. – Wendy Quinn Kuala Lumpur
If you
accidentally break an egg onto the floor put some salt onto it,
leave for 10 minutes, and then the egg is much easier to pick up as it
had clotted. – Bonnie Pacifico
Boiling
eggs : Eggs that are cracked may be boiled by wrapping
them tightly in aluminum foil before placing them in the water – Ricardo
Bos
Egg
Whites: To stiffen egg whites I find that adding a pinch
of salt or cream of tartar does the trick. ~~ Michael
Goldstock, USA
To discourage cracking It is best to perforate your eggs
before boiling them. Sausages too, like to be perforated. ~~ Dave
Ed
Need
Boiled Eggs for recipes. Whenever I need boiled eggs for a
recipe or a salad ,instead of the nuisance of boiling eggs and the
frustration of peeling them, I use one of those poached egg cookers
(found at any large discount store) and cook the eggs in the microwave.
Within a minute or less, I have a perfectly cooked egg for chopping
without the shell mess. Great for when you need only one or two boiled
eggs. ~~ Nancy Collins
Seafood
Fresh
Caught Fish
- Nothing tastes better than fish frewsh from the ocean, however fish
if allowed to die slowly build up lactic acid in their flesh, so for
better tasting, longer lasting and less smelly fish you should kill
your catch straight away. For sushi and sashimi the Japanese spike the
brain. My preferred method is to rapidly cut off the head using a very
sharp knife ~~ DM
Cooking fish: When shallow frying fish always coat in
seasoned flour or egg as it holds the fish together and keeps it moist.
~~ Kay Chan.
Mussels:
with live mussels clean first by scrubbing, remove the beards and
barnacles with a knife, rinse several times in cold water and soak them
a couple of hours so they clean themselves. Any mussels that float
should be discarded along with any with cracked shells. Any mussels
with open shells should be tapped, if they don’t close these should be
discarded. Make sure they open when cooking, and keep stirring because
they may have trouble opening if they are too packed together. To
remove grit from the cooking liquor sieve through muslin or use a
(clean) sock. - - Anon
Tartar
Sauce.
A quick way of making a nice substitute sauce is by adding 7
tablespoons of mayonnaise to 2 tablespoons of chopped mixed pickles. - Shelia
MacDonald
Eating
Lobster. Use electricians side cutters (sterile) instead
of the conventional mallet. Jaz D
Rice
Don't
settle for any Risotto rice, there are several varieties, my favorite
is Carnaroli. it is less sticky than Arborio and it usually tastes more
like the rice I am used to. My local store stocks Vialone Nano risotto
rice which is similar in texture but is shorter and the ones I have
tried have been a bit blander than the others. ~~ Scott Ed
Other
rices to use for Risotto are; Baldo, Roma or Arborio. Viale Nano can
also be used in Minestrone soup and is the best one to use in timbales
(dry rice dishes). Carnarole takes a little longer to cook; 18-20
minutes whereas Viale Nano is ready in 14-15 minutes.
Risotto
(and Paella): When making Risotto you must have the stock pre-heated so
as not to interrupt the cooking process and the stock should be added
gradually while gently stirring. If using wine it should be added before
the stock. As with Paella, the rice should be gently fried before
adding the stock, a little onion, herbs and spices should be added
before the rice and be patient when adding the stock. Slowly does it
and test continuously. Remember that rice will cook after heat is taken
away so stop before it is fully cooked. ~~ S.
Ed
Pans
Many top
chefs never wash their frying pans. They scour them with salt
and some-times salt and oil. One chef I know used to "condition" his
pan by raising to a high temperature with just salt, and then, when it
had cooled some, he got rid of the excess salt, and only then he added
the oil ~~ Dave Ed
Knives
The best
way to look after your kitchen knives is to use a set of diamond laps;
these can be bought fron a good tool shop. -- R J Snyder
A weird
but irresitable foodie site: Wildrecipes