Let’s share our best cooking tips

[Metoodear]

Never put milk in mash when making a shepherds or cottage pie just butter you want a stiff robust mash that will support the pie
Creamy mash is for sides not on top

Yh I should of married a Chinese man that can cook !

Worcestershire sauce makes a huge difference to shepherd's pie.

Assemble your lasagne for 6 hours before cooking (thank you Mary Berry) - pasta soaks up extra juices, so no sloppy lasagne when it comes time to serve.

Never cut pizza with a knife or pizza cutter - a scissors is so much easier.

Line your grill tray with tin foil before you use it - simply bin the foil when you're done. SO much easier for clean up.

Instead of using unsalted butter when making cakes, use regular butter and don't add salt to the cake mixture. Way cheaper to buy regular butter than unsalted.

Goose fat for roast potatoes - super crispy yumminess.

Cook potato waffles in the toaster - come out much crispier than in the oven

Freshly grated nutmeg in cheese sauce or cheesey fillings.

Polenta in place of mashed potato. Make it with veg or chicken stock adding a knob of butter and grated parmeasan. Simply delicious with stews, roast meat or my favourite is meatballs. Super quick too and you can make extra, put in a lined baking tray, store in the fridge and make polenta fries the next day!

Sweat your veg when making soup for an hour. Really low. It brings all the flavour out and really makes a difference.

Add a few oats to spagbol to make it go further and thicken it up.

Ok, mine are all to do with hearty mince-based meals:

When making shepherds pie/bolognaise/chilli cook the onions (and whatever other veg you are hiding in there) until they are distinctly brown, not just see-through. Much tastier

If you have bits of random chill/bbq/tomato sauce left in the bottom of the bottle, swill it out with hot water and add to whatever the mince-based dish is. It’s nice. As is the bit of coffee at the bottom of the pot, the dregs of the wine, etc

Cinnamon in chilli is lush

Put a couple of handfuls of lentils in everything you cook. Useful fibre and fills kids up. Also means that if you want to make a “special” meal you can just omit the lentils and it is mindblowingly rich and delicious!

Marmite adds flavour to everything.

Have started using pureed chilli, garlic and ginger. No difference in taste and doesnt grow mouldy or go off. So less waste and cheaper.

Doesnt grow mould.

Add a shot of coffee to chocolate cake. It won't taste of coffee but will make the flavour much richer and deeper.

Grate butter before beating for cakes if it's too cold.

The best tomato sauce in the world is 2 cans of whole plum tomatoes, salt, 70g of butter and an onion peeled and chopped in half. Reduce to desired thickness, remove the onion halves, serve. It's so much more than the sum of its parts. Also makes amazing pizza sauce if very reduced.

Agree with the using scissors to cut pizza although my husband thinks this is nuts.

If cooking a roast once your meat is done pour the meat juices onto your roast potatoes for last 15 minutes. Makes them crispy and taste amazing.

I "mash" potatoes with a hand mixer.

Alongside traditional veg for roasting, broccoli is really good done in the oven.

The grated butter suggestion is fabulous.

But surely the mash doesn't support the pie, it's the other way round. Or have I been making it upside down all these years??

Add a glug of wine to "empty" pasta sauce jar, swill and add to meal.
Freeze whole chillis and root ginger and just grate in from frozen.
Use food processor to blitz onions, garlic, carrots, celery - freeze in big bags and just chuck a handful in as the base for soups and stews.
Don't add salt to lentils at the beginning of cooking time, it makes them hard.
Soft herbs like coriander and basil need to go in right at the end.
Supermarket own brand cream cheese makes a quick white sauce for fish pie
You can pretty much hide spinach in every recipe!!

Use cream in Angel Delight.

Go on.

DO IT NOW!

'tis lovely.

Recently discovered the best recipe for crunchy roast potatoes on bbc good food
Ingredients
1¼kg potatoes
, halved or quartered if large
2 tbsp flour
4 tbsp sunflower oil

Method
Heat oven to 220C/200C fan/gas 6. Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil, add the potatoes, then boil for 5 mins. Drain the potatoes well, then shake in the colander (or back in the pan), to rough up the edges a little. Tip into your largest roasting tin and sprinkle with the flour and some salt. Stir, then drizzle over the oil and stir again so that no dusty flour remains.
Roast for 50 mins, putting them in the oven on the bottom shelf, give the potatoes a stir, then they should need 20 more mins to finish
I have copied and pasted from the website, they were really delicious

Use the oven rack from the top oven if you need an extra rack in the bottom oven.

Stew is always nicer the next day.

Flans made with rolled out puff pastry and anything from the fridge within reason on top are lovely.

Bottle of vermouth last ages and is good for when a splash of alcohol is needed.

Roasted beetroot tastes great.

Once saw a youtube video where he added a teaspoon of baking powder to the water when parboiling the taties, I now do this every time without fail and always always get the nicest crispiest roasties

A question: who adds salt to a cake recipe & why would unsalted butter cost more (doesn't where I shop!).
I don't boil potatoes for mash, just cook them like jackets then mash the insides. Much more creamy as no water involved.

@Furrycushion that's how I do mash too. Mainly because I'm lazy!

who adds salt to a cake recipe

Salt brings out the flavour. Obviously you don't add enough to make it taste salty. Try making buttercream icing with unsalted butter and then with salted butter and you will notice the difference.

Agree with the using scissors to cut pizza although my husband thinks this is nuts

Same! My oh insists on using the pizza cutter which is much less efficient and makes crumbs everywhere!

A large pinch of sugar or honey enhances the flavour of tomato based sauces.
A few drops od Lea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce in cheese sauce - ditto

Get fresh mash, pre-prepped frozen peppers and onions.
Get someone else to do the cooking as well if possible.

Squirt of Yoghurt Mint sauce in spaghetti bolognese, makes it taste like minted chops.

Why would I want my bolognese to taste like minted chops??