Kitchen Tips
If you add too much salt to a soup or stew, drop in a raw potato and
boil for 5 minutes. When you remove the potato, the overt salty
taste will be gone.
When making soup, to absorb the grease that settles to the top,
place a leaf of lettuce on the top of soup while cooking. Remove
when it has done its job.
Add a little vinegar to the water when an egg cracks during boiling.
It will help seal the egg.
Sprinkle a little salt in your frying pan before cooking to keep the
grease from splattering.
For lighter fritter batter, substitute an equal amount of club soda
or beer instead of liquid called for.
Butter the rim of a pan in which you cook rice or macaroni so it
won’t boil over.
“Dredging” in flour is simply when you lightly coat food (meat or
fish) with flour in preparation for frying or sautéing. After
dredging it in the flour, lightly shake off the excess and proceed
with the recipe. You should dredge your ingredients just before you
are ready to cook them. Dredging is not the same as breading.
Spray a bit of non-stick spray on your grater before shredding
cheese. It prevents the cheese from sticking to the blade.
Never have rice boil over again. Put amount of rice and recommended
amount of water in a roaster, cover put in cold oven-turn oven to
350F and 25 minutes later, you have perfect rice with no mess and
almost no sticking to the roaster. Try it-it really works.
A marinade should completely cover the food. If needed, weigh the
food down by placing a plate on top of it.
Quickly discard marinade that was used for raw meat. You don’t want
someone dipping into the marinade after it’s been used!
A “stick” of butter or margarine weighs 4 oz and is 1/2 cup US. Each
1/4 cup or half stick butter or margarine in US recipes weighs about
50 g. There are 8 tablespoons in 1/4 pound butter.
Cook the low-fat way, rather than frying – broil, roast on a rack,
back or steam poultry, meat or fish.
Cut the Fat: removing fat from homemade soup with a paper towel or
skimming it is a messy and slow process. Simply add three or four
ice cubes and the fat will congeal around them so you can remove it
with a spoon. You may need to reheat a little when you are done.
To avoid a mess when cooking thick soups: Pureed soups and other
thick soups tend to splatter when they bubble. Protect your stovetop
by using a splatter screen or by partially covering the pan with a
lid. Or loosely cover the pan with foil that has been punctured in a
number of places so that steam can escape.
To encourage soup to cook more quickly: Cut ingredients into small
pieces.
To stretch a pot of soup that is slightly short for your number of
guests: Serve it in wide shallow soup bowls. They can only hold a
ladle of two.
Pasta: To Rinse or Not to Rinse? The only time you should rinse
pasta is after draining, when you plan to use it in a cold dish, or
when you are not going to use sauce and plan to serve it
immediately. In those cases, rinse the pasta under cold water to
stop the cooking process, and drain well.
Cooking Pasta: Boil water till it bubbles…shut fire off…place
pasta in pan stir once to separate …cover…set timer for 20
minutes…after 5 minutes stir again then cover … wait till
timer goes off…perfect each and every time…
To rescue a burning stew: Immediately pour the stew into a new pot.
Do not scrape any of the burned stew from the bottom of the first
pot. If necessary, add more liquid to the new pot.
Don’t EVER bother boiling corn again!!! Save the nutrients, flavor
and time. Toss corn, husks, silks & all, into the microwave, 3 min.
per ear on high. Let sit for a couple of minutes. Handle carefully
with a couple of kitchen mitts. Stand next to trash can, peel off
husks and silks in one sweep each side. Butter and enjoy! You will
be amazed at the difference!
