Cooking Tips & Lore

[WritersBlock]

Stuff your mother taught you, and stuff you learned on your own out in the big blue room.

I'll start:

Tip: If garlic has started to sprout, (green shows in the middle of the clove when you cut an end off), slice the clove lengthways & take out the green middle bit (it'll be apparent which bit to take out.) Leaving it in will make your dish taste bitter.

Tip: To peel tomatoes, put them into boiling water for one minute only, then remove them. The peel will split and come off easily.

Lore: Don't drink milk when eating fish. (I have no idea if this is true or not; it's just what I grew up hearing. But to this day, I can't bring myself to drink a glass of milk with a fish dinner.)

Next! :D

[NMDemDist2]

1. don't tell DH about milk/fish---- He drinks milk with everything

and fish sticks is one of his comfort foods (I wonder if that started as part of a Kosher kitchen thing?)

My hints:

to keep peeled potatoes from turning brown, add salt to the water they are soaking in

if you aren't going to use the whole avocado, use the half that comes away from the seed and leave the seed in to keep the stored half from turning brown. If you make guacamole, be sure to add lemon (or lime) juice as that will also keep it from turning black

another avo tip. cut the avo in half and twist to separate the halves. cut the "slices" while the half is still in the skin, then just squeeze the skin to pop out the slices (you can slide a knife around the edge to loosen if necessary). if you don't need slices, use a spoon to scoop it out of the skin (never "peel" avo's --- it's a total waste of time) edit to add, once you have two halves, "pop" the knife into the seed and twist and pull to remove the seed

if you need buttermilk for a recipe, add 2 teaspoons white vinegar to 1 cup regular milk and let it sit for a while in the fridge

to measure shortening, (say you need 1/2 cup) take a 2 cup measuring cup, add 1/2 cup water, scoop in the shortening til the water reaches 1 cup. pour off the 1/2 cup water and you have a 1/2 cup shortening left

[eyesroll]

3. I bought a kitchen scale, and it makes measuring shortening easy

Just weigh the stuff. (Alton Brown's new book gives everything in terms of both weight and volume, and you can figure out the conversions from there.)

You can also store the avocado seed in the guacamole and that keeps it from turning colors.

[NMDemDist2]

4. i have a kitchen scale, but not sure i'd trust it to be THAT accurate n/t

[eyesroll]

6. Mine's digital and measures in one-gram increments

Considering that most recipes call for hundreds of grams of shortening, it's a lot more accurate than the pack-into-a-measuring-cup method.

(It was about $25 at Linens n Things.)

[NashVegas]

2. the tomatoes

I dip them in ice cold water directly after the boil before trying to handle them.

[fortyfeetunder]

5. Egg freshness testing

Not sure about the eggs in your refrigerator?

Dunk them in a tall container of water...if it sinks, it's still fresh. If it rises (which means gas build up) dump it, or throw it at the next motorcade...

[NMDemDist2]

7. great tip! i remember hearing a egg test, but had forgotten it n/t

[Stinky The Clown]

9. Your point is correct, but

"Old" eggs aren't necessarily unhealthy bad .... they're just not fresh. In actuality, they can easily last 90 days, or maybe even more. They just get thin and watery whites and the liquid in the white starts to evaporate. Remember boiled eggs that have what appears to be a missing area at one end of the white (sort of a "burst bubble" look)? That's an old egg ... but not a bad egg.

Sparkly always wants to throw away eggs that are past the date code. I use 'em for other purposes .... or even for scrambled eggs.

Try this experiment ...... have on hand some really fresh eggs and some eggs that you know to be old ..... at least at the end of the date code, if not older.

Break one of each egg onto a small flat plate. Watch how the fresh egg stays together and seems to "stand up". The old egg will flow out much more and seem "flat".

Take two more eggs - one of each - and float 'em in water. The difference will be obvious in both experiments. But as I said, the old egg is just old ..... not unsafe. If an egg is unsafe, your nose will let you know.

[politicat]

17. And old eggs work far better for hard boiled eggs than very fresh.

Having made thousands of deviled eggs over my 39 years, I've gotten expert at them. Old eggs are far better for boiling.

Pcat

[politicat]

21. What a typo....

29 years, not 39 years.

Just because your inner child is 43 doesn't mean you have to rush the rest of your life, right?

Pcat

[The empressof all]

8. Keeping Vanilla Beans

I love the taste of Vanilla. I keep my Vanilla Beans in a jar of sugar. The beans stay fresher and the sugar develops a wonderful vanilla flavor.

[Stinky The Clown]

10. Coffee grounds in a smelly disposer

Run some used coffee grounds down a smelly disposer. Include some ice cubes. Your disposer will be sweet and clean.

[livetohike]

11. Good one!

I use lemon rinds. I'll try the coffee grounds next.

[bearfan454]

12. It's better to have too much of what you cook than

not enough.

[The empressof all]

13. Stainless removes smell of garlic

rub your garlicy hand over a piece of your stainless cookware. It will reduce (remove) the smell. (I personally will not verify this as I like the smell of garlic so I don't even think about it but I have a friend who swears this is true)

[Stinky The Clown]

14. I will testify ... this works!

I tend to use the blade of the knife I use to cut the garlic. I rinse it off under hot water and rubbing my hand on the blade cleans the knife and rids my fingers of the smell.

Actually, if you don't like living dangerously (as I appear to do!) any stainless object will work. A large serving spoon is probabaly the safest and easiest. Bedd Baff an' Beyond Reason used to sell this stainless lump shaped sorta like a bar of soap expressly for this purpose. Then Alton Brown busted them on it on his TeeVee show (an old episode about garlic that had some guy dressed as "Vlad" and had this really cute lady who worked at the BB&B as his foil .... corny but cute show .... but aaaaaaanyway). I haven't seen them for sale since then.

[wryter2000]

16. That works for me, too

I was astonished the first time I tried it, and the smell was completely gone.

[WritersBlock]

20. I tried this a couple of hours ago. I'm really impressed!

Used H2S's knife method. I can't believe how well that worked!

[wryter2000]

15. Hollandaise

Instead of a double boiler for hollandaise, use a largish bowl set above boilingwater in a saucepan. It's easier to work the whisk around the bottom of a bowl than in the corners of a double boiler (the Joy of Cooking).

Just before you set the beaten egg yolks over the boiling water, put in a tablespoon of solid (cold) butter. As it melts, it'll lessen the shock the yolks suffer. (Julia Child)

[Stinky The Clown]

18. Cutting peppers

Here's an easy way to slice open a bell pepper and not have to fuss as much to get the seeds out.

Wash the pepper. Cut the top off (like you're going to make a stuffed pepper). Cut in a way that cuts through the stem just below the skin.

Cut off the bottom.

Stand the pepper on the now-cut-off bottom and cut the sides off, leaving the seeds and webs attached to the core. Cut around the sides until you're left holding just the core with all the seeds still intact.

Toss the seeds and use the pepper. Since it is washed, and since there are (ideally) no seeds clinging to the flesh, you're ready to move on.

[WritersBlock]

19. Beans & tomatoes (never the two shall mix until the beans are done.)

If you want soft beans, that is. If you don't mind crunchy beans, you can put tomatoes in at any point in the cooking.

Dunno why this is - acid in the tomatoes stops the beans from softening, maybe?

When I make chili, I used canned kidney beans unless I've got cooked pinto beans handy, which isn't often. The kidney beans are too crunchy for my liking straight from the can, so I cook them separately for a couple of hours before adding them to the other pot with the tomatoes, onions, garlic, spices, etc.