Tips & Tricks

netwhizkid

Hi,
My tip is if you are opening a bottle of wine and intend to close it and use it later, you should lay the bottle down flat for about a week before opening it, the wine keeps the cork moist and will keep it from falling apart and cracking when opening the cork of the bottle.

Regards netwhizkid

Thanx 4 The Fish

When boiling vegetables, a bit of cooking oil in the water prevents it from boiling over.

When cooking pasta also put some oil in the water, this draws the starch from the pasta and so pasta isn't sticky, thuis also works with rice.

Kolodny

When poaching eggs in a microwave, putting a tiny splash of vinegar into the cup/bowl stops it sticking to the sides. Doesn't affect the taste either.

Mercury_Tilt

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Thanx 4 The Fish

If ya stir up the water a bit and then slowly pour the egg from a cup into the middle of the maelstrom (spinny bit in the middle)then the spinning of the water will keep the egg in a nice circley shape.

I always add vinegar when poaching eggs and I never poach them in the microwave.

Gordon

Wow! That's a great concept.

I wonder if you can do egg sculptures that way

Kolodny

I don't poach my eggs in the microwave either, it's just a trick I learned in the café I work in part time. Microwaved eggs are yucky if you ask me but I feel it is my duty to pass on such information to the lazy eaters of the universe.

Mercury_Tilt

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Kolodny

Eggcellent! (Sorry...)

Samson

Gordon

Wow, what a great way of cooking eggs.

I always thought poaching eggs was stealing them without a licence! badoom tish.

Mercury_Tilt

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Samson

Originally posted by Mercury_Tilt
Samson.....

I will be trying that in the morning.

I'll be using a wok though.

May god go with me on this one.

Good luck and God bless!

And remember, if at first you don't succeed...

Kolodny

Originally posted by Samson
And remember, if at first you don't succeed...

...redine success!

Mercury_Tilt

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pickarooney

Originally posted by Gordon
When making white sauce (for cheese sauce/bechamel) use corn flour and milk instead of flour and milk and butter - it's healthier and easier to make, less chance of lumps and I find it's easier to solidify. It also seems less heavy (more brotherly...)

oh yeah, corn flour has a cool knack of seeming solid and liquid if you use a tiny amount of milk when mixing, great fun for 10 minutes of playing with.

Do use butter but do not burn it, as this makes it unhealthy. Brown butter bad. Once it's melted, stir in the flour and remove it from the heat before adding the milk. This will prevent lumps from forming. Add the milk while stirring, then return it to the heat, throw in a pinch of salt, a spoon of pepper and half a spoon of nutmeg. Now make the rest of the lasagne.

ArwenEvenstar

To stop butter from burning, just add a drizzle of oil...pref olive.

Panda

for quick toasted sannwiches,
first toast the bread till quite brown,
add ham,cheese,onion,children,roadkill, etc
microwave for about 20-25 secs.

*ping*

if needs more, flip sannwich first and go again.

Samson

Originally posted by Panda
for quick toasted sannwiches,
first toast the bread till quite brown,
add ham,cheese...
microwave for about 20-25 secs.

Does this not make the bread soggy?

Gordon

When baking potatoes:
Skewer a metal skewer through the potatoe(s) ensuring a good all the way through cook.

rob1891

Rob's wok advise:

o Don't stand for no ****, get yourself a gas cooker. Electricity sucks for almost everything (expect melting your hands on, one of my favourite pastimes from my youth). Wok will never ever heat up properly on a electric hob.

o One wok fits all, buy one now!

o cheap oil on a paper towl, rub over the wok's cooking surface and it will never rust (real woks rust!!)

o don't scrub off the carbon build-up, you are made of carbon it will do no harm!

o wooden implments only

Panda

Originally posted by Samson
Does this not make the bread soggy?

nope, the toasting before microwaving prevents such a disaster.
cheese only takes about 15-20 secs in a microwave so happy days.

Panda

and, if you manage to detonate some sort of food in a microwave and shtuff covers the insides and is left to dry,
get good sized mug of water and microwave it for a while till the water turns to steam and then the shtuff what was stuck to the walls is now easily removeable.

Thanx 4 The Fish

After chopping onions on your plastic or wooden chopping board, wash it with cold water rather than hot as the oniony smell will be washed into the board when using hot water.

Gordon

When cooking stock from a carcass of chicken for example: Be sure to break the bones before boiling to allow the marrow inside the bones out.

Also on the same note: To de-fat your stock after making - put it in the fridge until it turns to jelly and then simply comb the fat off with a spoon. The fat is more easy to break down than the jelly so with the right amount of pressure you end up just taking the fat.

Thanx 4 The Fish

If you have a toasted sandwich maker and it is non-stick, heat it up and when the light goes off, put an egg into one of the wells. Oil free and tasty, cooks from both sides so is a bit quicker too.

Amazing what ya get up to on a drunken night playing with your christmas presents...

mm.ie

Spin it...if it stands up the egg is boiled!


try it it works.....(give it plenty of room mind!)

Mercury_Tilt

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Corega

Be weary of any food served to you by a person who's left handed. But seriously :

From my Grannies dear old mouth "Always wash your hand's with cold water after chopping onions......" Bless her heart.

My dad used to own a cookhouse in Navan, now Abrakebabra, where I worked as a kitchen porter, a formal title for someone who washed dishes and got paid fu<k all, while I was there i learnt some inportant things about making fry-ups and other things :

1) Cook bacon in the oven, not on the pan, the bacon has it's own natural greases which cook it just right.

2) When frying egg's (eggs seem to be the main topic so far) put just enough oil in the pan for the egg to float, effectively shallow frying the egg.

3) Suasages should be completely submersed in oil, hence doing away with the need to turn them over. The oil used for this technique and the others above can be reused a few times until it has to be chucked out.

4) Pudding, both black and white, should be cooked with very little oil, merely a quick rub of the pan with a napkin doused with a little bit of oil.

5) Chicken and brocolli bake is beautiful. Although I'm not quite sure how to make it. It's similar to lasagne only with no pasta sheets. I think it's a cheese or white sause poured over the chicken and brocolli and other veggies.

6) My old man liked to make various dishes sound much nicer by pretending that they were created in a foreign country i.e. Austrian apple pie and Northhampton scones, both of which were highly fattening and delicious.

As you can probably ascertain from most of the above most of Navan's population are overweight, have spotty face's and crave greasy delicasies.

Gaffo

Don't cut the rooty part off the onion until extremely necessary. Thats what emits the stuff that makes you cry.

If your sausages are popping then your pan is too hot, and yes you are evil if you pop them, even if you're Mary Poppins.

If you're poaching an egg, swirl the water(a bit obvious) and add some salt. It holds the egg together.