Post any amazing cooking tips you've picked up over the years :)

[CustardD123]

Post any amazing cooking tips you've picked up over the years :) e.g. in prepping stuff, flavour combinations, cooking times, techniques, food pairings, etc

Best Yorkshire pudding recipe is get a jar crack egg daw a line were egg mix ends poor into bowl fill flower upto line and then milk works each time perfect Yorkshire’s

If using turnip for soup etc, put it in the micro for 6-10 mins first to soften if for cooking - no more broken wrists trying to chop

Left over pizza: don't refrigerate it overnight (I'm trusting none of you do heinous things like have chicken on pizza). To reheat - slowly warm up in a non stick frying pan with a lid, no oil.

Stale crackers - zap them in the microwave for 45 seconds (in a single layer). Leave for 5 minutes. Crispiness restored!

Add tomato sauce (250ml) and water 1:1 to a Pyrex dish and dried pasta (250g ish) = easiest meal for after school - 40 min in the oven. Add cheese later if you want.
I use homemade frozen sauce: Garlic, onion, tinned tomatoes, mix of herbs, veg (any) , honey, salt and pepper - all put in blender. No chopping. Freeze batches and follow the above. Five minute meal prep when ready to use.

Perfect fairy cakes every time - weigh your eggs in the shell, then weigh the equivalent weight of flour, butter, and sugar into your bowl, crack the eggs in and beat till fluffy. Easy to make small or large quantities depending on how many eggs, and no complicated maths to multiply up a recipe.

Taking notes ✍️

Flour to thicken stock !! Who knew 🙄

After you steam asparagus. Put a tablespoon of honey in a searingly hot frying pan and dump the asparagus in, coat evenly and leave for a min until the honey is caramelized. OMFG! Its lush.

But the pan MUST be red hot. Absolutely scorching. Otherwise you just end up frying the stalks in honey.

For perfect rice every time: cover basmati rice with lots of boiling water. Put on the job and stir it. When the rice starts “dancing “ at the top of the water, put the pot lid on and continue to boil it for exactly 8 minutes.
Then remove from heat, sieve, place sieve with rice on top of pot and cover with kitchen paper for ten mins.

Freeze scotch bonnet chillis and grate from frozen.

If tortilla or wraps are starting to go stale, cut into triangles and fry them as part of a Mexican style breakfast.

Marry someone who is an excellent cook!

For most recipes where you need to add stock made from a cube, you don't need to actually dirty a jug making up the stock, just put the stock cube and hot water in the pan with other ingredients and stir well. Yes, I'm lazy

Same as the tip with soaking pasta before use, I soak rice for the same reason, throw away the soaking water and use fresh to cook it, makes it less claggy and takes less time to cook.

Ripen avocado by storing with bananas, or put in the airing cupboard, same with papaya or mango, but don't forget they are there.

Squash garlic with the flat of a knife, easy to peel and releases the essence of the garlic. If you just chop it you don't get the full flavour.

Use an apple corer on potatoes to make potato wedges alot faster. 30 seconds and they are in the oven.

how do you make crispy roast potatoes without boiling the spuds for 10 minutes then

If you have the fat really hot and the oven also hot you will get crispy roasties, they just take a bit longer to cook. I use corn oil to cook them and my potatoes are legendary.

Too stiff to open jars? Give them a sharp whack sideways near lid on to a chopping board or similar. It breaks the vacuum seal and lid turns easily. I use nutcrackers for opening bleach bottles where you have to squeeze and turn.

Cornflour is better for thickening sauces, gravy etc. Mix with a little cold water and it never goes lumpy. My Russian friend does the same thing with corn or potato flour (fecule de pommes de terre from health food shops) to thicken juice of stewed fruit - blackberries, blackcurrants. Cook for a few more mins, till cloudiness disappears. Cool and eat with cream/creme fraiche/Greek yoghurt. Doesn't change the taste but interesting texture and saves ending up with spoonfuls of juice and curdled topping.

Kitchen scissors are brilliant for slicing, chopping bacon, jointing chickens etc. Don't blunt them by using them for cutting paper etc. Get the ones that you can take apart for washing.

Potato flour for thickening gravy, stock etc. instead of cornflour or flour.

Greaseproof paper in the tin when making flapjacks, saves washing up and can be re-used if it isn't too messy.

Unsalted butter burns at a much higher temp than salted. So good for sauces

A spoonful of plain flour will thicken any sauce or stock
It will actually turn any sauce or stock into a claggy lumpy mess unless you blend it in slowly

Couple of drop (no more) of Worcestershire sauce elevates cheese sauce from mundane to sublime

When making spaghetti bolognese, I use half pork mince and half beef mince..when I'm browning the meat with the onions, I add in a big splash of whole milk (sounds very odd, but seen it on a cookery programme) it definitely makes a massive difference in softening the meat! The meat is so soft and just falls apart completely once cooked! One of the best tips I have picked up!

Not really a cooking tip but if you open a bottle of prosecco and dont drink all of it

Sorry, what?

sashh how do you make crispy roast potatoes without boiling the spuds for 10 minutes then

Just doing some now.

Peel and chop potatoes.
Heat fat for 10-15 mins with the oven on the highest setting, always use animal fat as it gets hotter than oil.
Put the spuds in and roll them around to cover in the fat, after 15 mins turn them over / roll them / bash the tray about and cook for another 15 mins.

I've done the parboil and bash but this works just as well.

If you stick a parsnip in with them they are sweeter.

Use an apple corer on potatoes to make potato wedges alot faster. 30 seconds and they are in the oven.

Do you mean apple slicer? i use an Apple slicer, and there are fights over the cylindrical “core” wedges.,

Dried mushrooms are useful for adding umami to saucy dishes like spag bol, casseroles & stews etc. Soak for a few minutes in just enough boiling water to cover and chop up finely when cool enough to handle. Don't throw the water away, add it to your dish - be careful of the little bit of grit/dust in the bottom. I use a tea strainer or fine sieve or just leave the last bit like you would when drinking loose leaf tea. I used some in a pasta thing I made with left over roast chicken, some crème fraiche, parmesan cheese and ended up with a fantastic chicken Alfredo-ish meal.

I also keep all vegetable trimmings from the week to make a vegetable stock for my legendary (in my house anyway) Sunday roast gravy. Nothing is excluded, except potato peel because I prefer a clear stock, pepper cores, garlic skins, the lot gets gathered up and kept in the fridge. I alway use lots of bay leaves, a handful of parsley, whole peppercorns and often some grated nutmeg or a teaspoon of fennel seeds. Mind you, I do have to keep it behind a ring of barbed wire and dobermans so DP can't keep nicking cupfuls of it

Another couple of gravy tips: a small knob of cold butter makes it glossy and a bit more luxurious, and a spoonful of redcurrant jelly boosts a gravy to go with roasted red meat.