What are the best practices you’ve learned to save time or make a meal better.
Boil spaghetti in a small amount of water in a frying pan. You won’t need to push the pasta down and you’ll have lovely starchy water to finish off your sauce — perfect for something like a carbonara!
Another fun fact, you barely need enough water to cover the pasta and it doesn’t even need to be boiling to be working. If you just slightly more than cover the spaghetti with water it heats up much faster and therefor you are done cooking much faster. No need for a giant full pot.
- Nothing goes on a plate without being tasted
- If it’s too sour, add sugar
- if it’s sweet and you haven’t added acid, add a splash of vinegar.
- if it’s too hot, add fat
- if you burn it, throw it out.
- IF you taste it early, it should taste weak. If it’s fantastic when when it starts to simmer, it’ll be too harsh once it’s reduced.
- Taste it and it tastes empty or boring? Smell it. Smell all your herbs/spices on hand, which ever one it smells the closest to, add a healthy pinch and salt if it doesn’t taste salty already.
- know your oils and use the right ones. Olive oil can handle some heat and is great for savory, grapeseed is almost flavorless. Canola has a distinct flavor that doesn’t go with everything. 9 season your meat before you cook it.
Only thing I’d add is that, on 8, learn what rancid oil smells like. Most people keep things like olive oil in poor conditions (that’s without us even getting into quality of oil, or how people buy FAR MORE oil than they’ll reasonably be able to use), and the oil goes bad far faster than they think it will.
yeahhh, Hell, there are a couple exceptions, but nothing that goes into a dish should smell bad.
To get a good sear on a steak in a pan, the pan doesn’t have to be super hot, you just have to make sure the contact surfaces are as dry as possible.
If your stew tastes like it’s missing something, it’s bay leaf.
Don’t buy hyperspecialized tools for cooking if you can use more generalized tool for the task with the same amount of effort. You can do a lot with a good chef’s knife.
Cut through greasiness with a bit of acid.
Adding a little bit of sugar, but not so much you can taste the sweetness, to otherwise salty dishes will mellow out and enhance the flavor of the dish.
Sorry for the off topic, but do I understand correctly that this account is being used by multiple people on Margot Robbie’s team to post and comment, and ultimately attract attention for the Barbie movie? If I have that right, that’s a really great marketing strategy that I haven’t seen before. It would be cool if you could find a way to let us know how it works out.
How can you be so sure of anything you read on the Internet?
What do you think the point I’m trying to make is here?
How can you be so sure of anything you read on the Internet?
I can’t be, which is why I was asking.
What do you think the point I’m trying to make is here?
I scanned through your profile, comments, and posts. The profile itself says it’s staffed by a team to market the movie. You made a whole bunch of posts without commenting on them initially, so I assume it was to get conversation going. Some of the comments reference the movie, but most are like the one above that seem to be good faith attempts to answer questions.
So I don’t know, but there’s at least an implication that the account is designed to get people talking, and maybe notice the account name, getting some attention for her work. The other leading option would be that you have no association with Margot Robbie at all and are just screwing with people.
But that’s all just me reading and guessing. You’re the one who can actually answer: what is the point you’re trying to make?
Let your protein equalize to room temperature before you cook it. This is a great time to season it as well. Pat dry, then cook.
Rest any grilled or pan fried meat on a non-heated surface for at least 5 minutes after cooking.
“Carry Over Cooking” is a thing that usually results in overcooked food if you don’t account for it.
Learn to make a pan sauce. Easy, quick, and worth it.
That trick of reserving a cup of “pasta water” that you never do? Yeah…
Almost without exception dried herbs/spices go in at the beginning of the cooking process, and fresh go in at the end.
If you work with a group of people start having an “Autumn Potluck” at work. It’s perfect for trying out holiday recipes, before the holiday, and get back constructive feedback and/or nice compliments.
It’s not really a hack I think, but having a good instant probe thermometer really gives you the ability to be consistent no matter what, especially if you’re cooking proteins or have something that’s temperature dependent.
I had started with a cheaper one and eventually graduated to a Thermapen when I realized how critical it was to the things I was making.
The cheapest Thermapen brand one is worth 10 generic ones.
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I have both. I like that the thermopen actually does read faster and I can see the temp gradient in my meat and find the coolest spot faster. The ergonomics are better. Also, a name brand thermopen, on sale, costs less a kilogram of prime filet.
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Take care of your knives. Hand wash them, dry with a towel, and put them back in a block when you’re done. They’ll stay sharper for much longer that way, instead of letting them bang around in the dishwasher and then thrown into a drawer.
Also the Ninja Foodi is the best cooking device ever made, second only to the invention of pots and pans.
Yes on both accounts. I have one chef knife and one paring knife. I take care of both, and chopping everything is a pleasure.
The ninja toaster is pretty sweet too.
Patience. Good food doesn’t have to take a long time, but you need to give each step the respect it deserves, sometimes it will take a little longer. Mise en place is an important step, and so is reading the entire recipe thru before beginning. Also read recipes, even if you never intend to cook them, because you’ll discover new techniques and combinations that might elevate an old favourite.
Probably known, but stainless steel cookware is the best you just need to make sure it’s hot enough first before you start to cook. Drop a pinch of water in the pan, if it dances around you’re good too go.
Instant pot wasn’t just a craze. You can take a 6 hour chili and get it done in 90 minutes.
That said, while they’re not one trick ponies, they’re not as good at most of their other tricks as regular cookware. That said, you need to sear meat and cook a stew in one it, it’s completely reasonable.
Sousvide is amazing, as long as you like rare-medium meat and corn. If you’re going to cook it to medium well, sousvide is a waste of your time.
I love the instant pot especially for two things: Cooking beans and making broth.
I get a nicer texture from beans done in the instant pot than I do cooking them any other way. And I can knock out a big pot of chicken stock in like an hour. If you want it to be totally clear you have to let the pressure release naturally, but I don’t care if it’s cloudy because I’m just gonna turn it into something opaque anyway usually so I do a quick release so it’s done faster.
I also used it to cook in summer before I got an induction burner, because my apartment’s shitty electric stove dumps heat everywhere.
Mine is kind of bitchy, when searing meat first it always tends to set off the burn alarm or whatever halfway through the pressure cook part. Apparently leaving the fond at the bottom to be released during the rest of the cooking isn’t possible.
BURN gets triggered when the sensor sees the pot temperature ramp over boiling temp faster than pressure would allow. It’s caused by the bottom of the pot being too dense, there being a lack of water in the pot, or a loose lid seal.
In your case, it’s probably the fond letting it overheat. Have a plate next to it. When the meat is seared, pull the meat out and deglaze the bottom of the pot with water or wine and a wooden spatula. return the meat into the juices and continue with your recipe.
Use a piping bag to fill muffin tins/cupcakes. Saves so much mess and crumpled paper.
That sounds like it involves a lot more mess with the addition of a piping bag that can’t even handle the chunks in many of my recipes. How does spooning crumple paper?
Clearly you have a better technique than me. When i spoon batter into paper cups, the spoon inevitable touches the paper, sticks to it, and causes it to fold and stick to the batter in the rest of the cup. At least a third of my cups end up messy and misshapen. Piping works great for me, but I dont do a lot of things with “chunks.”
My spooning always leads to sticky touching (PHRASING!) but I just smooth it out and move on. Nothing of value is lost.
Upvote for phrasing
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Ok I might get downvoted to oblivion but I use MSG. It enhances the flavors so much that I have stopped going to restaurants.
Edit- I did my research and found no credible source that says MSG is harmful.
Edit2- If you go to a restaurant or order KFC chances are they use MSG as well
There is nothing wrong with MSG. It being bad for you is made up by racists.
Anti-MSG propaganda actually comes from Asian racism, and was born out of the idea that Chinese food with its MSG was causing headaches and other health effects that were entirely made up. MSG is perfectly fine for you, and it makes a ton of things even tastier. I use it all the time in home cooking.
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Instead of using a pastry cutter to incorporate butter, freeze the butter then grate it with a box grater then mix it in. It stays much colder. Perfect for pastry or biscuits.
Reverse taring - instead of placing the bowl on the scale and taring before weighing, place your ingredients on the scale and tare, and you can then scoop out and see the negative weight of how much you have used. This is especially helpful if you are trying to weigh an ingredient into a hot pan you can’t just set on the scale
Now that’s a great idea. Timesaver too.
