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Food
Preparation Tips
- When a recipe
calls for adding oil, garlic, and onions to a pan, always add
garlic last. This keeps it from burning and tasting bitter.
- Use a meat baster
to make perfect pancakes every time.
- To make the
best and prettiest chocolate shavings, use white or milk chocolate;
they are softer in texture and curl better.
- To help gelatin
hold its shape when unmolded, add a teaspoon of white vinegar
to the recipe.
- Place a piece
of plastic wrap on the surface of cooked pudding or pie filling
immediately after pouring to prevent a skin from forming.
- Before chopping
nuts in a food processor, dust them with flour. This keeps the
nuts from sticking to the processor.
- Cut a meringue
pie cleanly by coating both sides of the knife lightly with butter.
- To make mashed
potatoes fluffier, add a pinch of baking soda along with the
butter and milk.
- Use flour tortillas
for easy dumplings! Cut into strips and add to boiling broth,
a few at a time so they do not stick together. Delicious!
- If you add a
pinch of baking powder to powdered sugar when making frosting,
it will stay creamy and not harden or crack.
- Substituting
applesauce for half of the amount of vegetable oil called for
in your baking recipes will reduce the fat content. (Or use all
applesauce, which produces a low-cal, moist product!)
- Use a piece
of plastic wrap the length of your pan for ease in pressing down
those crispy rice treats, no more messy hands! (Try this with
any bottom crumb layer to be pressed in a recipe.)
- When cooking
oatmeal, coat the pan with non-stick cooking spray. It keeps
the oatmeal from boiling over and sticking to the pan.
- You'll find
honey, corn syrup and molasses much easier to measure if you
remove their lids and microwave for 30 to 45 seconds at 100%
power. That's for a 12-ounce bottle. Smaller amounts need even
less time.
- If you're out
of brown sugar, try substituting an equal amount of granulated
sugar plus 1/4 cup molasses (light or dark) for every cup of
white sugar.
- When shrimp
curl into a semicircle they're done. When tightly coiled, they're
overdone.
- To slice mushrooms
quickly and uniformly, use an egg slicer.
- If you use a
food processor or blender to chop dried fruit, freeze the fruit
first. It well be less sticky and easier to chop.
- Instead of salting
gravy, enrich both the gravy's color and flavor by using a little
soy sauce.
- Bacon strips
won't stick together if you roll up the package like a jelly
roll before opening it.
- Soup too thin?
Prick a baking potato several times, wrap in a paper towel and
microwave 5 minutes at 100% power until soft. Peel, mash and
add the potato into soup.
- To prevent boil-overs,
apply a thin coat of cooking oil around the top of the inside
of pots.
- To keep a bowl
steady while you mix or whip ingredients, place it on a dampened
cloth.
- For uniform
pancakes, use measuring cups designed for dry ingredients (a
1/4-cup medium-size, 1/3-cup for big ones). Grease the cups inside
and out so the batter will slip out easily. To keep the batter
from dripping en route to the griddle, scrape the bottom of the
measure on the rim of the mixing bowl.
- When a sauce
curdles, follow this procedure: Remove pan from heat and plunge
into a pan of cold water to stop the cooking process. Beat sauce
vigorously or pour into a blender and process until the sauce
is smooth.
- When ice cream
is rock-hard, dip the scoop in hot water to make scooping easier.
- To chop or grind
nuts fine in a food processor without turning them into nut butter,
add 2 or more tablespoons sugar from the recipe.
- You can easily
adjust the position of your holiday gelatin mold or fancy frozen
bombe on its platter by slightly wetting the platter before you
unmold.
- Always cook
pasta in salted water, but don't add the salt until the water
boils. You'll need 2 tablespoons of coarse (kosher) salt for
1 pound of pasta. Salted water has a higher boiling point, so
will take longer. Taste the pasta to determine if it is done.
Perfectly cooked pasta should be "al dente," or firm
to the bite, yet cooked through.
- Another advantage
to cooking pasta al dente, is that it preserves some of the vitamins
and minerals that are lost into the cooking water with longer
cooking times.
- If the pasta
is to be used as part of a dish that requires further cooking,
undercook the pasta by 1/3 of the cooking time specified on the
package.
- The only time
you should rinse pasta after draining is when you are going to
use it in a cold dish, or when you are not going to sauce and
serve it immediately. In those cases, rinse the pasta under cold
water to stop the cooking process, and drain well.
- For perfectly
clean-cut slices of cheesecake, briefly run a thin-bladed slicing
knife through an open flame, then cut. Wipe the blade and reheat
between cuts.
- You can thicken
a soup without using flour and butter or eggs — just purée
a portion of the soup and stir it back into the pot.
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