Cooking is an art. It is also a practical, everyday activity. This combination may account for the tremendous popularity of TV cooking shows, cookbooks, and cooking classes. Recipes are part of the heritage passed down in families. Here are some tips to help you expand your culinary adventures and finesse your kitchen skills.
Buy pre-packaged whole chickens instead of boneless, skinless chicken breasts. It’s more economical, you get more meals and you can use the bones to make your own chicken stock for soup based recipes and more.
Spices should be stored in a cool and dark place. Do not store your spices above the stove. The heat, steam, light and humidity that ovens and stoves omit will all cause flavor loss, and keeping your herbs and spices away from these elements will make them last much longer.
To make hard boiled eggs easier to peel, try running them under cold water. Once they’ve cooled, roll them across your counter until the shell begins to crack, and then run them under the cold water again. Start peeling them at the egg’s widest end. This is where the egg’s air pocket is, which will help the shell come off more easily.
Learn to enjoy brussels sprouts. Not many people enjoy brussels sprouts if they are cooked in the traditional manner of boiling them. Sprouts can be delicious if you try different methods of cooking, such as roasting them with carrots and parsnips for a delicious side dish. They are delicious if pan-fried with bacon. These cooking methods give them a nutty flavor. Always choose small brussels sprouts, as the larger ones tend to be very bitter.
To have a clean coffee maker, use table salt and white vinegar. Rub the table salt inside the pot to scrub away the stains. “Brew” the vinegar instead of water (don’t use coffee, either!) to clean the inside of the coffee maker. Be sure to run water through the coffee maker several times before brewing the next pot of coffee, though.
You must let meats rest after cooking them for more than one reason. Whether coming out of the oven or hot off of the grill, if you cut into the meat too early, it will bleed and lose a lot of the tasty juices. It will also be much easier to cut once it has firmed up a little.
Add a roll of sausage to your cabbage for a particularly tasty meal. Cut up a cabbage into bite sized pieces, cover with water, and put it on the stove to boil. While your cabbage is boiling brown some sausage in a skillet. Drain off the excess grease then pour the sausage into your cabbage. Cook until the cabbage is tender.
This is a rich and bountiful set of cooking tips and lore to help both the novice and the chef. We hope they will challenge you to try new dishes and expand your list of ingredients. This can bring new enjoyment to you and those who share your table. This note is put up by the courtesy of Lave Vaisselle Encastrable