Helpful Cooking Tips
Have you ever wondered how to tell if eggs are fresh? We have that answer and more!
Fruits and Vegetables:
- Chopped fruit and nuts will disperse more evenly in cake batter if they're lightly floured before adding them.
- To get more juice out of lemons, quickly heat them in hot water for several minutes before squeezing them. Or roll them to soften them.
- Guaranteed: no tears in your eyes when you peel onions. Just run cold water over them as you peel them.
- Cook potatoes and other root vegetables in their jackets to prevent loss of vitamins and minerals.
- Oversalted soup or vegetables? Add cut, raw potatoes and discard them once they have cooked and absorbed the salt.
- If you only need half an onion at a time, save the root half. It will last longer.
- Always break lettuce in pieces; never cut it with a knife.
- Fried potatoes will be deliciously golden brown if sprinkled lightly with flour before frying.
- Drop fresh celery leaves in the pot while cooking shrimp to destroy the odor.
Eggs:
- A boiled egg should never be boiled. Simmering produces tastier, better results. This is true of "hard-boiled" eggs.
- To determine whether an egg is fresh, immerse it in a pan of cool, salted water. If it sinks, it is fresh; if it rises to the surface, throw it away.
- Eggs will beat up fluffier if they are allowed to come to room temperature before beating.
- For baking, it's best to use medium to large eggs; extra-large eggs may cause cakes to fall when cooled.
- Hard-boiled eggs will peel easily when cracked and placed in cold water immediately after taking them out of the hot water.
- When a recipe calls for adding raw eggs to a hot mixture, always begin by adding a small amount of the hot mixture to the beaten eggs slowly to avoid curdling.
Baking, Cooking, and Frying:
- To easily get a rolled pie crust off the board and into the pie pan, fold it lightly in half, then in half again. Unfold it in the pie tin.
- Pastry made with cold water is flaky. Pastry made with hot water is crumbly.
- For cupcakes and small fancy cakes, grease pans well on the bottoms, little or none on sides. Fill them only half full.
- For easy cake decorating, first draw the designs on the frosted cake with a toothpick. Then fill an empty plastic ketchup squeeze bottle with colored frosting and squeeze it out slowly over the toothpick lines.
- When measuring flour, level the cup without packing the flour by passing a knife over the top to scrape off the surplus.
- You won't waste flour if you dust it from a large salt shaker onto meats, fish or patties, instead of dipping the food into the flour. It's easier, too.
- Grease salad molds with mayonnaise before filling them. Salads will come out easier and will have a nice flavor. Wet your fingers before working with molded salads.
- You can meringue pie cleanly by coating both sides of the knife lightly with butter.
- Cream will whip faster and better if you first chill the cream, bowl and beaters well.
- A few drops of lemon juice added to whipping cream helps it whip faster and better.
- Brown sugar won't harden if an apple slice is placed in the container. If brown sugar is brick-hard, grate it with a cheese grater.
- To keep noodles or rice from boiling over, add a tablespoon of butter or oil to the water.
- A little oatmeal adds much flavor and richness when used as a thickener for soups.
- When pan-frying, always heat the pan before adding the butter or oil.