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

Put scallions in a jug of water to keep sprouting, keep them trimmed & don't let flower.

A pinch of bicarbonate takes the bitterness out of a tomato sauce (science, innit).

When making something with a pastry base rather than rolling it out and having to pick it up and get into place without it breaking, you can grate the lump of pastry directly into the dish and press it into place.

@smellbellina - I don’t have formal recipe, but start with about a mugful of gram flour and about 3 tablespoons of tahini. Add salt, pepper, lemon juice, garlic etc, then mix/blend in olive oil and water to get it to the right consistency.

So you don't cook anything? Hummous is usually made from cooked chick peas, not raw. And I always understood that eating raw pulses was not a good idea as many of them contain toxins (destroyed by soaking and cooking). I know Red Kidney beans for instance are NOT to be eaten raw.

.... a few minutes research later ...

"Gram flour can be made from either raw or roasted gram beans. The roasted variety is more flavourful, while the raw variety has a slightly bitter taste" [Wikipedia]. So I guess it would be better to make sure you use the roasted type.

Throw a couple of cans of chopped tomatoes, a whole peeled onion and half a pack of butter in pan, simmer slowly for 3-4 hours. Delicious tomato sauce base for bolognaise etc or just on its own. The onion disintegrates completely.

Double/triple quantities and batch freeze.

MatchSetPoint- I don't believe you.
How would that work? I'm thinking Tango, 7up???

@Troppibambini . My son is not really a fan of spaghetti Bolognese but loves the leftovers fried. I find it really tasty too.

You can cook veg ( and pasta) by putting them in a wide-mouth vacuum flask and adding boiling water. Saves using a hob if you are short (eg at Christmas) and saves power too.

If cooking on the hob, turn power off as soon as the pan comes to the boil. The veg will cook anyway, no need to simmer on low power.

Amazing how many of these are about roast potatoes

Easy to make your own vinaigrette : olive oil, dijon mustard, maple and white wine vinegar. Whisk together to bind. Can be made ahead and refrigerated.

These ingredients can be interchanged for honey, balsamic vinegar, apple cider vinegar, red wine vinegar, coarse grain mustard, etc.

I do 1 part olive oil, then half the amount each of mustard, vinegar and honey. Works a charm.

If you're on a diet you can replace the fat in cakes with apple sauce. Obviously the taste will not be exactly the same but the cakey texture is still there.

Sandwiches are really good if you butter the outside of the bread then fry it gently in a pan so the outside is roasted and all melted buttery.

Grilled Cheese are one example, but you can do ham, cheese, whatever. Peanut butter and banana is good too.

Amazing how many of these are about roast potatoes

Well it makes a change from cottage pie, that thread must be heading for classics by now.

Sandwiches - only butter one slice of bread, it tastes the same but has less fat and saves about a penny each time.

To help reduce the amount of calories in a home made cheese sauce, add a chicken stock cube( or 2) to the sauce. Improves the cheesy flavour without the calories

@Graphista , I tried your egg rolling technique last night, it's magic

You aren't supposed to wash mushrooms. They're porous and just absorb the water. You've supposed to brush the dirt off. I have the cutest mushroom brush for this very purpose.

Waitrose chopped frozen garlic and herbs, as well as puree garlic and frozen chopped onions (from any supermarket) are worth their weight in gold. They save me time and save my hands from smelling for days.

An alternative egg-peeling technique:
half fill a jar with water, put egg in, lid on, shake hard until shell covered in cracks, take egg out. Membrane and shell just slide off.

A can of pop can replace the eggs in cakes.

Please elaborate

The best, hotel restaurant style scrambled eggs are cooked on your lowest setting for the longest time (10-15 minutes) and try hard not to stir more than 2-4 times at the most.

Oh and a bit of cream

Amazing tips on here!

When I’m thickening sauce I take a spoonful of the sauce out, blend that with cornflour in a small bowl and then tip it back in (rather than blending cornflour with water and adding).

You can make your own cake tin release mix to stop cake sticking, esp in fancy shaped tins like bundt rings.

1 part flour, 1 part oil, 1 part a softened solid fat such as butter or vegetable shortening.

Work them all together into a paste and 'paint' the interior of the tin with a pastry brush.

This may leave a white-ish finish on the cake so is best for something you're going to ice, or dredge with sugar. Add enough cocoa powder to colour it brown for chocolate cakes.

These may have been covered previously but:

If you have a large slow-cooker/crock-pot but only need to cook a smaller meal, put a smaller casserole dish of the right size in the slow cooker.

When you put your par-boiled potatoes in fat/oil ready for roasting, put the pan on stove-top heat as the temperature of the fat drops when you put the potatoes in.

Don't bother rubbing in cold butter to make a crumble, melt the butter in the microwave and add to your other ingredients and mix with a spoon. Takes less than a minute to get perfect crumble 👍😁

Apologies for any repetition:

When boiling veg, if it grows under the ground (potatoes, carrots et) put them into cold water and bring to the boil. If it grows above the ground, put into boiling water.

Half a teaspoon of sugar into tomato sauces, and when boiling peas, mange tout, sugar snaps etc

Stirfry veg order goes roots, fruits, shoots. So onions and carrots before peppers etc then sprouts etc last.

When baking it’s best to have all your ingredients at room temperature but if you’ve kept your eggs in the fridge place them in a bowl of warm water for about 5 mins to come up to temperature

For baking, buy the pre cut baking parchment squares or circles and spray oil. This really cuts down the greasing and lining stage.