Share with me you culinary secrets!

[Notasbigasithink]

I'm currently making spagbol and everyone whoever tries it always comments on how tasty it is! They can never put their finger on it but my secret ingredient is adding about a teaspoon (heaped!) of brown sugar!
I wait until nobody is around to witness this and have been doing it for years without being rumbled!
What do you add to standard, everyday meals to help liven them up?

@OhLaDiDaDiDa I've seen dill put in the water to boil potatoes with. The Scandinavians do it

Spaghetti bolognaise is enhanced by
mixture of beef and pork mince, better balance and some sweetness
cooking out a large amount of tomato puree with your soffrito, take your time with it
beef stock is obviously necessary
cooking it down for as long as you can, a good couple of hours
if it needs a lift or you don’t have long enough to cook it out then a tsp of treacle or a squeeze of hp towards the end lift it.

Yes the thread has been slightly derailed by a dish I absolutely hate 😂

I love it but puy lentil one with too much cheddar grated on top of the mash which Btw is lovely mixed with cream cheese!

I add stuffing mix to Yorkshire Pudding batter & marmite to my gravy

I was being a bit judgy about adding sugar to bolognese, but when I have time to make a ragu, I start it by slowly caramelising onions, before adding the carrot and celery so that’s actually quite a bit of added sweetness too.

I tossed a packet of cashew nuts in a vegetable soup last year when I was clearing the cupboards and fridge, and it blended up thick and creamy, and added a lovely depth of flavour that wasn’t instantly identifiable. Not quite a secret recipe - but cashew and vegetable soup has become a regular in my rotation.

I always roast a couple of heads of garlic, when I’m doing a roast, and then squeeze out the pulpy garlic goodness for quickie garlic bread or to add a quick hit to a dish.

Hummus stirred in makes most dishes creamier.

Steamed courgettes have a remarkable ability to thicken soups when blended in.

A splash of sherry improves many savoury dishes

Both sherry and a squeeze of orange juice improve tomato soup

I always make a delicious potato salad dressing of mayonnaise and sour cream either a dash of balsamic vinegar and a tiny bit of brown sugar. Absolutely moreish

Me too please! x

Adding garlic to pork dishes really enhances the flavour of the meat.
I add slices of garlic inserted into the rind/fat of a pork loin joint before roasting it, delicious!

I use a glass of red wine in spag Bol, which is the original, pre sugar version.

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Authentic spaghetti Bol should have chicken livers in it

Thats interesting! Thank you.

We often have most of a half bottle of brandy left at Christmas, so I soak raisins in jars filled with a spoonful and serve it with vanilla ice cream. Instant pudding. Although I usually forget to use it.

Yoghurt pot emergency no equipment cake.

Classic kindergarten cookery activity or to make when you have no scales. It will survive poured into and baked in a tin/dish/pyrex of any roughly OK size and can be flavoured or perked up however you like. It's all done by ratios so just use the yoghurt pot that you have.

1 x 125g pot yoghurt.(Standard plain yoghurt)
1 x the rinsed out yoghurt pot of oil. Any cooking oil. Margerine or butter is OK as well.
2 x the yoghurt pot of sugar.
3 x the yoghurt pot of self raising flour/plain flour + level tablespoon baking powder.
3 eggs.

Mix everything together. Add vanilla flavouring. Or cocoa powder. Or throw in some blueberries and a squirt of lemon + zest. Or don't. Mess with it how you fancy really. Add a handful of chocolate chips. Or multi coloured sugar sprinkles. Raspberries maybe. Apple chunks and cinnamon to make it into an apple cake.

Anything within reason or nothing at all.

For this size of yoghurt pot a 23cm/9inch wide cake tin is ideal but anything oven proof that the mixture comes about 2/3rds of the way up the sides will do. Grease and flour it/line with greaseproof etc. Use what is to hand.

Bake for 35mins approx at 180°C.

*I've never actually used flavoured yoghurt in this but the recipe is more or less impossible to ruin so you could always try.

Cheap, easy and surprisingly good. I daresay you could do it in an air fryer with a bit of fiddling about as well but I haven't got one to be able to advise you on this matter.

There's probably some kind of clever mnemonic or trick to help you memorise the number of yoghurt pots for each ingredient but I don't know it.

A quick lasagne can be made with pre cooked tagliatelle mixed with the meat sauce in the dish with cheese sauce poured on top and into the oven for 1/2 the time.

Salt and pepper on various fruit makes it taste better - pineapple, nectarines, peaches, you’ve already said strawberries.

And to massively lower the tone….frozen mash. Absolute game changer.

Sugar in anything with tomatoes, ideally palm sugar or jaggery.
Salt on onions when softening them, don’t add garlic until onions nearly done as they burn.
Roast potatoes, par-boil then dry on kitchen paper, freeze (overnight, for a week or however) heat a drizzle of oil or fat in pan, just enough to cover, throw in frozen potatoes, drizzle with more fat. Shove in the oven for 10 mins then turn so coated. Cook in about 25 mins, rather than usual 45 and really fluffy, also works with parsnips.
Sponge use ground almonds instead of flour, separate eggs, beat egg yolks and sugar, add ground almonds, beat. Beat egg whites then fold in, add any flavouring, orange zest is good. Bake in a tin lined with grease proof paper. I then soak with orange juice, sugar and brandy. Serve with brandy, vanilla cream.
Sprouts shred, steam for 3 mins then fry in a mixture of butter and olive oil with bacon.

I believe that this, or variations on this - using a short pasta shape like a slightly fatter penne called ziti and either using the béchamel or mornay sauce on top as you do, or even easier by just dotting ricotta or mozzarella about the dish with sprinklings of pecorino/parmesan/grana padano - is a recognised Italian American dish called Baked Ziti.

It's a great idea.

I buy gigantic packs of minced beef and cook them for seven hours in the slow cooker with sofrito, tomatoes, sad veg from the bottom of the fridge and whatever else I've got hanging around that goes with mince (that last red wine in the bottle, dribbles of herbs, frozen veg from a nearly-used up packet). Into the slow cooker on low all day and then bag up the results (when they are cool) into freezer bags in individual portions and freeze.. Then serve with spaghetti, mash, jacket potato, whatever I feel like.

But I do live alone and my standards can be somewhat slack.

This.

I ask chat gpt how to make a recipe extra nice, and it always comes up with tweaks I hadn’t thought of. 😂 Lime or lemon juice is often suggested and it makes a difference.
I have actually started to enjoy cooking again because of chat gpt!

Umami spice always makes everything taste better too, and mushroom powder.

That is the opposite of slack.

Thin apple slices with cinnamon.

No. Have seen the factory from the outside. That was enough.