Culinary tips that have changed your life

[ParsingFancy]

Haven't had one of these threads for a while!

Mine:

You can loosen the paper on garlic by twisting the clove. Better still, thwack clove with flat of knife to crush, pick paper off.

To chop herbs or anything small, hold the end of a curved chef's knife on the board with your spare hand, and just see-saw it up and down, back and forth.

To shred cabbage/lettuce/any leaves, roll leaves up like a cigar and slice.

To skin celeriac or swede, slice into discs, then place flat on board and cut down round the edges. Also works with pumpkin, though you don't actually need to peel butternut squash.

Anyone else?

Soften onions a while before adding garlic, otherwise garlic gets burnt

Peel boiled eggs with a teaspoon

After chopping garlic, rub your hands vigorously on your stainless steel sink for 30 seconds before washing them to remove the smell

Add a couple of handfuls of red lentils to the kids bolognese and some extra liquid, they pretty much disappear and they don't notice, and I've never had a problem with any visiting children eating it either. Helps to up the protein while making the meat go further. I freeze it in to portions.

Also find for fussy and younger eaters, that hand blending half of it, then adding back to the still coarse bolognese thickens the sauce and hides some ingredients enough to get it down them, and avoids too much pointing at veg / mushrooms / whatever I've put in it this time and asking "urgh what's that?!"

My friend has jars of porridge for the week ahead ready for a quick heat up. I've googled it and this is similar to what she does:

Bad link! Not sure how to do it on mumsnet app.

Cut and paste www.thekitchn.com/oatmeal-in-jars-a-week-of-stee-143623

Frozen potato waffles can be cooked in the toaster. Once to defrost, another to crisp them up.

This is why I am the size of a bus.

Mrsmarigold - soak pans with a dishwasher tablet overnight. Never fails.

"Great thread.. never thought of the lettuce one and defo going to try rice that way.

Easy pancakes -
one cup plain flour
one cup milk
one egg

whisk - leave to set in fridge for little while.. perfect batter."

Is this an American cup measure?

Also does the rice trick work with brown rice?

For brown rice, 1.5 times boiling water, lid on, when up to boil simmer as low as possible for 30 minutes.

Thank you Dame

yes to ready made puff pastry, and also slow cookers

Oh yes. Plant spring onions in some soil in the garden when you get them home from the shops. Stops them going all slimy in the fridge.

Keep some quorn mince in the freezer. Bolognese, chili, lasagne all work well, can feed vegetarians, but carnivorous DH doesn't notice. And doesn't go off as frozen meat does.

I struggle with slow cookers - the meat is lovely and tender but the flavour is often dull and it makes everything taste the same. Do you add the flavour components at the end?

I no longer peel or crish garlic for meals, I use garlic oil when frying off meat/onions etc.
Peel 3 pr 4 cloves of garlic and place in a small jar. Top up jar with oil. Leave for a week to let the flavour infuse.
Use as needed for cooking, a little gives a really good hit of garlic.

snowlie - normally at the start, but then i'll add things at the end if it tastes dull. mustard, garlic, chilli or if all else fails i'd make it into curry by adding curry paste. you can add a bit of mustard to a lot of things and not actually know its there, to give it a bit of oomph

Add a teaspoon of bicarb to the water when hard boiling eggs - then shell will come off easily and won't get lumps of egg stuck to it.

Dreaming I do start adding things at the end but it still tastes like stew. Even when I made Bolognaise it tasted old and stew like. Chicken was moist but everyone complained about the lack of colour and flavour.

bolognese - i'd add more tom puree and/or garlic. it does taste very slightly different to the one from the pan, but if i use it for lasagne no-one seems to notice in our house

You don't need to peel garlic if you grate it. The skin gets left on the grater.

A wooden spoon laid across a boiling pan of water means it will never boil over. I don't know why, but it works!

Ditto grating tomatoes.

at planting spring onions. Well I never...

Don't bother buying buttermilk, if a recipe requires it - use a combination of natural yoghurt, milk and lemon juice/vinegar.

Flash-freezing cookie dough balls - this was a bit of a revelation to me! Then just freeze them in bags as normal.

Knorr chicken stock and beef stock concentrate - I bloody love these.

This is my current favourite, frozen yogurt balls. Super easy and really rewarding.

I also make huge batches of Nigella's Crumble (just the topping) and freeze it - when the mood strikes us, we just put frozen berries or whatever fruit we fancy on a ramekin, top it with the crumble from the freezer, quick oven and we have super comforting pudding.

This is the crumble topping recipe I use, I think the almond meal makes it a bit nicer.

Yoghurt "mayonnaise".

Whip 1 tbsp olive oil into 100g natural yoghurt plus lemon juice and whatever seasoning you fancy. You get a dressing the consistency of mayo but sans egg.

(Useful in this house as we never finish jars of mayo, but always have multi-purpose yoghurt on the go. About half the price, too.)

Don't bother buying buttermilk, if a recipe requires it - use a combination of natural yoghurt, milk and lemon juice/vinegar

What sort of proportions ? Is it half milk/yog and a splash of acid ?

I love you forever for this one. Buttermilk is unfindable where I live. Have to go all the way to the one shop I found it in Milan.

I've just come home with sheeps yogurt, so I'll have a go at the mayo idea with that one. And I'll make the dots for me and hide them.

Wonder if you can make choccie flavour yogurt drops rather than fruity ones. Becuase that philidelfia chocolate spread suonds all wrong, but is heaven on the end of a table tea spoon.

And yogurt is like philly.

Sort of.

Carpe I'd say I use approx 70% natural yog and approx 28% milk, with a splash of lemon juice or vinegar to make it up (I'm not usually so precise in my calculations!...)

Let it stand for 5 mins before using. Whilst we're on the subject of buttermilk, my fave recipes using it (or fake buttermilk...;) are this one for scones and a mash-up of this Lorraine Pascal soda bread and this Nigel Slater one. Mmmmmmmmmmmm soda bread :)