To share this odd cooking tip and ask for yours?

[Clafoutis]

When making a chilli, if there's too much sauce and it's a bit thin....add a dessert spoonful of rolled porridge oats. It soaks up the excess liquid and bulks it a teensy bit-and you can't tell! I found this tip when googling. Apparently lots of chilli sauces from outlets in the US use porridge oats.
Anyone want to share their culinary own tips?

I do baked bacon too .......... ooooh wine in cheese sauce sounds like a fondue (been a lot of years since I had one of those) - going to try that next time

White wine and milk to make bolognese. Not red. (Felicity Cloake recipe)

Chilli - Use big chucks of braising steak and then pull apart when slow cooked for hours. And berlotti beans rather than kidney. (Thomasina Myers? sp? recipe)

Perfect poach eggs - keep chickens and cook for 3min 20 secs.

Peel ginger (with a spoon) and freeze in big lumps. Grate as much as you need from the frozen lump.

Freeze fresh chillies.

Do not freeze garlic.

To stop your eyes watering when cutting onions, use a really sharp knife. A very sharp knife stops the juices from spraying,when cutting, that irritates yours eyes.

Talking of mayo - this really works and it doesn't take ages:

www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2011/10/two-minute-mayonnaise.html

And yy to labelling stuff in the freezer

Random brown tea anyone?

Oh and the time I thought I had some pea and ham soup out of the freezer but it was stewed gooseberries. An unexpected mid-week gooseberry crumble pleased DH and the DC no end!

Never chuck away a parmesan rind. Put in your next ragu to simmer away for hours to add umami flavour and to stuff the melted gloriousness in your mouth at the end.

Never add garlic with onions to cook down. Garlic takes way less time than onions to cook, so either garlic will burn, or your onions won't be properly caramelised.

Wear contact lenses. Onions are never a problem.

Most things freeze well except raw eggs and lettuce/ cucumber. They do freeze but defrost like a limp soggy mess. Cheese is a good one, and also bananas. They defrost Brown but once peeled are fine as they’ve been in nature’s own protective packaging.

Serialweightwatcher I have made mayonnaise using that method and it was a complete revelation. It is magical, it really works!

Add Aunt Bessie's frozen mashed potatoes to thicken a vegetable soup. You can thank Delia for that.

Microwave garlic cloves for easy peeling.

LoniceraJaponica it's great isn't it, as long as the mixing glass or whatever is just a little bigger than the blender and not too wide - I would never sit and faff for ages dripping oil into anything, so any quick and easy style way is my cup of tea

Yes, contact lenses with onions are amazing. Sometimes when I wear my glasses, I am rudely reminded how harsh they can be!

**user1497403588 I do this too, bacon sausage black pudding on an oven tray no oil, last ten minutes chuck the hash browns in, yummers

For creamy Currys add a small amount of Philidelpia it's lower fat than cream.works really well

Stew, soup or chili thats too thin can be thickened with a spoonful of oat bran. It gives a creamy texture as well.

I put tahini & peanut butter in chilli - it takes off a bit of heat and adds a bit more 'depth'.
Obviously I'll check that nobody has any nut allergies before cooking it for friends.

When you've simmered stock (chicken carcass, carrot, peppercorns celery etc) for 2 hours to make a delicious homemade stock, do not strain over the sink meaning the stock goes down the plughole and you're left with a pile of bones

Yes. Done that.

Philly adds creaminess to all sorts of sauces. Cream upsets my stomach but Philly doesn't.

Leave the root intact when you cut, slice or chop an onion, your eyes won't water.

Add puréed carrots to spag bol to fool small children into eating veg.

If a tomato based sauce/chilli etc is too bitter, add a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda. It reacts with the acid (bitterness) to form carbon dioxide and floats away.

Light a candle next to the chopping board when chopping onions - it really works - no burning eyes.

I had the best beef stew ever in a restaurant once - it was truly amazing. I asked the chef, and he said he adds a few block of dark chocolate to the stew .

few blocks

Red lentils similarly good for thickening a chilli/Bolognese/tomato based saucy dish, without being noticeable in the end result.

A spoonful of red onion relish to spaghetti bolognaise ( mine is a quorn version)

DP keeps asking me how I make it so tasty