Are you a kitchen guru? Maybe you are just a kitchen veteran? Or like many others, you may be a novice. Whatever the case may be, helpful cooking advice can add some fresh ideas to your cooking. Take some time and learn a few things that can splash some new fun into your kitchen routine.
It is extremely embarrassing to have lumps in your gravy. It happens to everybody from the beginner cook to the master chef. There is a simple trick you can use to eliminate them. Drain the gravy through a fine strainer and discard the lumps. This technique can be used for other sauces or soups too.
Boiling vegetables is a cooking process that decreases valuable nutrients in them. For the most nutritious veggies, cook them quickly by steaming or sauteing, or just eat them raw.
Cook your vegetables quickly to retain quality and nutrients. With slower cook times, the overall value of the vegetables is decreased, mainly taste and nutrition. A plus is that faster cooking methods usually yield vegetables which are, generally, simply better for you health. Cooking better vegetables is all about cooking them for the least amount of time possible.
To save on fat when cooking, use applesauce instead of butter. A cup of applesauce is equal to a cup of butter. This will reduce fat and calorie contents of your dessert recipe. It will also make your recipe moist and delicious. Most people won’t even be able to tell the difference.
Try to store spices in dark, cool places and do not store them above your stove. Places that are bright, humid and hot, can cause your spices and herbs to lose their flavor. A good place to put them would be inside of a pantry or in your kitchen cabinets.
Cooking tip “ sweet treat for smelly fingers! Cleaning fish or shrimp is a messy task and leaves a distinctive smell on your hand for at least a day. There is an effective way of removing the smell. Squish a few fresh strawberries between your fingers for a couple of minutes and rinse your hand with soapy water. The smell will disappear instantly!
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Change from ordinary table salt when cooking, to sea salt or kosher salt. The latter will add a much better flavor to the recipe. While it is important not to over-salt food for health reasons, leaving salt out of a recipe altogether can result in a meal that tastes bland. So seek a middle ground when using this seasoning.
It is fine to alter recipes. Do you like more cheese than what is called for? It’s fine to add more. Do you think onions would be good added in? Try it! Adding your own special twist to a recipe can help make a meal one of a kind!
To reduce the fat and calories in a recipe that calls for a lot of mayonnaise, simply replace half the mayonnaise with sour cream. Since mayonnaise serves primarily a textural purpose in many of these recipes, replacing it with similarly textured sour cream gives you the same texture with a lighter, healthier taste.
Keep a few cut up, washed, and prepared vegetables in your freezer. This will reduce your prep time when you’re cooking a recipe. Onions and peppers are great to freeze. Just buy them fresh, wash and cut them when you have time, and store them in individual zip lock bags.
It is possible to cut back on the amount of calories that are in your favorite dessert by simply using applesauce in the recipe. Many recipes call for unhealthy ingredients that add tons of calories to a desert that really are not needed. Applesauce will add sweetness to the dessert with adding tons of calories.
Read the recipe fully before you begin any cooking endeavor! Just reading the list of ingredients does not ensure that you are fully prepared to complete the meal. There are many different techniques and tools that may be required so do not be too ambitious when tackling a new recipe.
For important meals or dinner guests, stick with cooking what you know. Whether you are cooking for a new significant other or your boss, use a recipe you have cooked before. You can change it up a bit with a new a new ingredient or two. However, never ever try a new recipe with an ingredient with which you are not familiar – the results are unknown!
Advice is great when you can be hands on with it. Cooking can be lots of fun and with the advice you have read in this article, you will see that you can enjoy your time even more. Take these ideas and use them and maybe even experiment while you are at it. The kitchen is a great place to try new things with the right help.
