tips in the kitchen

two handfuls of dried rice and two handfuls of dried beans, per person, per meal.

every dish needs:

a starch (rice, pasta)
a protein (beans, nuts, seeds)
a sweetener (molases, honey)
a salt (I'm a huge "Braggs liquid aminos" fan)
an herb
a spice
oil or butter

Some obvious ones:

Sharpen your knife before you use it - everytime

Prep - take time & space

You can never have too many spices & herbs

Buy from ethnic stores many things are much cheaper

Buy things that you have no idea what they are - experiment

Chilli oil - make & store various flavours - great for adding flavour without any extra work

Radio - the chef's best friend

don't forget, one last thing...

clean as you go..

makes cleanup later much easier.

Grandma always did it, mom does it, my wife does it and now I do, when forced to help cook the big family meals. Gotta chop onions, chew on bread. It works.

Other essential survival tips:

1. Always keep a clean kitchen floor. When I was a teenager, I got a badly burned hand from slipping on a greasy kitchen floor...unfortunately at that moment I was holding a hot frying pan. The results were not pretty.

2. When cooking with tomatoes, leave them in boiling water a minute or so to expedite removing the skins. Next, remove as much as you can of the tomato seeds...if this step is skipped, the resulting sauce or what have you will be rather bitter, and oddly enough, you will never find that particular tip in any cookbook.

3. If you want to mix up a batch of homemade pizza dough, it's important to store the new batch of dough in a sealed container at room temperature for at least 6 hours or better yet, overnight. This burns off excess sugars in the dough and makes it taste just as good as the restaurant versions.

[edit on 11-8-2006 by FutureLibrarian]

That would just plain be wierd. How else would we fry bacon?

[edit on 11-8-2006 by notbuynit]

biscuits and gravy:

now i know this is a very mid-western dish, (as it's impossible to find B&G in SF) and a not-so -healthy one at that.
BUT if you have a killer deli, and the urge to splurge on a sunday breakfast, this is the the way to make the best gravy known to any ape this side of the iowa border.

first, go and get some decent sausage. like italian sweet sausage from a good deli (like guearra's meats in san francisco)

brown it well, using a stainless skillet or aluminum skillet, - so some of the sausage sticks to the pan. take out the sausage when it's done, but don't scrape the pan too hard. you want to keep them bits that are embedded on the bottom of the pan. (to make the glaze)

take about 2 tablespoons of flour and put into the still heated pan (on the fire) and stir it around till it browns. (note: 2 tbl spoons equal about a cup of milk that you'll add later)

after the flour browns, slowly add your milk, stirring and mixing. then after you have reached adequate texture, add your sausage back in. simmer and serve.

--- biscuits will need to be covered ion a later posting. that's a whole other story.

chow down!! --- then go ride your bikey!
-b

--- oh and as notbuynit says: "clean as you go" -- thew single BEST thing you can do while cooking. priceless.



[edit on 21/12/2012 by zooplancton]

a. When preparing raw fish for cooking (espcially salmon), check for any nasties like juvenile tapeworm living in the flesh of the fish.
b. Marinating meat like lamb chops overnight in a sauce makes them taste so much better when you barbeque them! Its actually very easy to mix up a quick marrinade for meat, there are lots of recipes available.
c. Keep your fridge organised and make sure you have lots of time to prepare your ingredients before the cooking starts so you don't end up running around like a maniac trying handle everything while cooking.
d. Wash pasta out in cold water before you cook it- it will help remove a lot of the starch from the pasta and make it taste a lot better.
e. Wash your chopping board during the various stages of preparing food on it especially if you are preparing both meat, veg or fruit, you espcially don't want any undercooked meat juice on your veg or fruit. Keeping a clean chopping board will significantly help reduce the risk of foor poisening or stomache bugs etc. Keep good hygeine around the kitchen and on you in general, you don't want to make you guests ill at the least!
f. Wash non-organic fruit and veg before you eat it as it will be covered in pesticide and herbicide residules and sometimes even wax (often used to make fruit or veg appear more shiny and clean or ripe).
g. Fresh herbs or spices taste much better than dried ones- you don't need a garden to just grow a tub of basil or parsely on the window sill in your kitchen.
h. If you are cooking for others, don't add loads of salt, as you will not know if they like the same quantities as you, so its better to just let other people add their own salt.






[edit on 8-1-2007 by Tokis Phoenix]

The 'clean-as-you-go' tips really are essential. Here's how I do it.

Even though I have a dishwasher, I keep a dishpan of hot sudsy water in the sink that I add a small slug of Clorox bleach to give it the added germ killing power. I use this to wipe down counter and table surfaces, chopping boards, soak stuck on foods, even dunk fruits and veggies (giving them a thorough rinse), and soaking my dishcloth, scrubbers, and sponge to keep them disinfected and stain free.

I replenish this several times a day, and also go over the countertops again with a wiping of Windex* (any ammonia cleaner will do--just don't mix ammonia with the chlorine bleach, the fumes will make you sick). This keeps everything shiny and sparkling clean.

Ammonia is the best grease cutter and works wonders on kitchen cabinets and floors too. I learned this from the cleaners who came in to do the military housing units after we were packed out and ready for transfer to a new duty station.


* As I said on page 2 of this thread, the Windex tip came from the movie, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", which was a running joke thru out the dialogue--got a booboo, tennis elbow? Windex it!



Here's a site with some amazing good tips:

Keeping Up With Your Kitchen

OK are you just sitting there with no idea what to make? Well it's Google to the rescue!

Cooking With Google

All you have to do is list some ingredients and google will give you a list of recipes that use those ingredients.

What can you make with Pork chops and tomatos?

eeeeeeee!! i am stoked on the spoon/onion smell thing I use a lot of onions and garlic and junk when i cook and i always hate the lingering smell on my fingers!! awesome can't wait to try it out!


im gonna try that brine stuff as well sounds yummy!

To get strong smells like garlic off your hands after cooking, wash your hands with anything that is stainless steal (the sell "bars of soap" made of stainless steal but a steel sink will work too). I don't know how it works, but it gets the smell out of your hands better than anything else I have found.

When chopping onions I always put a teaspoon between my front teeth - it makes you breathe through your mouth, and trust me, it really works! I'm a chef and so I'll be chopping 20 or so at a time and don't have the time to be constantly washing the onions or my knife, so this is a quick and easy way of dealing with it.

And as for sharpening your knife every time you use it? Well I sharpened mine last night getting ready for a busy Saturday night service and within 5 minutes had managed to slice through my thumb, resulting in a trip to A&E!

And now I'm sitting in the garden enjoying the May sunshine, albeit with a stitched and bandaged thumb, whilst my colleagues are sweating away in a hot kitchen. So maybe a really sharp knife is not such a bad idea after all!

Cheers

Put a bit salt in water to make it boil faster.
Useful in many situations.

reply to post by maynardsthirdeye

---

lol i never thought of that that is funny but yeah it would work

if you put honey in you re squash it tastes like heaven

Drink wine in the kitchen . . . yes indeed . . .a little Italian opera goes well too.

Beer for barbecuing though.


What helps in the onion dept is a very sharp knife.

Cut the ends off, peel and if the onion is fussy about keeping the dried out stuff on it, peel off one whole layer of the white 'meat' - assuming you're dealing with a white onion.

Slice with the sharp knife.
Seems like less of the pungent liquid that gets lberated with a dull knife is turned loose with a sharp one.


Knife sharpening is a skill, no doubt.
Even so, here's a quick way to bring one up to useful and beyond.

A Smith's sharpener.
Use the carbide side first, don't bear down overly hard and then flip it an put a smoother finish on with the ceramic rods.

This device is self aligning and gives good results.

Found at Big 5 and similar places for $5. or so for the small one.




Fwiw, yellow onions are just as tasty as the white ones and a whole lot cheaper.

[edit on 6-7-2008 by Desert Dawg]

Dry spices: Don't just add them into your meal after you've started it. Make it the first ingredient you use after heating the oil. Spices like curry and cumin should be fried briefly in hot oil first, to release all those delicious essential oils. Try it out next time, you'll notice the difference.

i agree with another poster who suggested keeping it under warm water. I usually do the opposite and keep an onion under cold water - the colder the better as it seems to reduce the stinging.

The other thing which i have started doing is keeping one or two onions in the fridge. Onions tend to last a while in the fridge and i find that i can keep them for a couple of weeks in the vegie section without any ill effects.

Being a batchelor the last 9 yrs my tips for keeping kitchen clean,go out to dinner buy buy ready made food,not only does it keep kitchen clean,save on water soap,electricity,plus makes more room in the refridgerator for beer!