• Start a personal food blog, or, start a community food thread for all.

Tips, cheats, shortcuts and advice

O.k. Thought I'd never start this one but here goes.

This is THE thread for all your hints, tips, cheats, shortcuts, Grandma's advice, heard it from blah blah. There may be some industry related 'cheats' in here but it's all good. Just hope the the Chefs in Black are not knocking at my door.
  • Roast chicken. Preheat the oven or BBQ to 160 C. Push the neck bone back into the cavity and secure with a skewer. Fold the the skin over the hole and secure the same way. Rough dice an onion, quarter a lemon and finely dice half a clove of garlic and fill the cavity. Then fill the remaining cavity space with quality chicken stock and then drain that liquid into a saucepan but not the solids. Bring the stock to a boil. Place the chicken neck down cavity up. You may need some skewers, and then then re-fill the cavity with the stock. Cook for 2 hours. Drain stock, strain and reduce. Add half Tbs butter and mix well. That's the gravy. Rest is up to you. Dry rub or not. Flavours...mix and match. Technique stands.
  • Beurre noisette and sage butter with egg. Gently heat 2 Tbs butter until it turns light brown. Add 1 tsp fresh sage. Cook until sage is light brown. Add 1/2 tsp garlic and remove from heat and continue to stir until cool. Float all your eggs in a large bowl of water. Keep the ones that sink for this meal. Crack the eggs one by one and strain through a large hole strainer. Bring a pot of water to the boil and then reduce to a very gentle simmer and then add one egg at a time with the strainer. Cook until just the white is set. Remove and serve on toast cut with a round cuter with the beurre noisette on top.
  • To slow roast anything, cook low and slow and wrap in foil as air tight as you can make it. 140 C for 3 hours with no added liquids fat side up will do the trick.
  • Add all your aromatics off the boil. That is, if it smells good add it when the food is at its lowest temperatue to retain all those oils and aromatics. Note: If you can smell it cooking it's not in your food anymore.
I've got more but it's your turn now. Cooking is all about sharing. Who wants to cook the the world's best meal and eat it by themselves?

Eat and and be happy :D
 
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Taste as you cook.

Salt the dish cooking at the end rather than the beginning. You cannot remove salt.

Do not trust anything a celebrity chef tells you. Most often they are neither.

Wanting to cook is as simple as wanting to eat.

Food will continue to cook when removing it from heat.

98% of all steaks sent back to the kitchen at a restaurant are not because of an improperly cooked steak.

It is because 98% or the people ordering don't know how to order the temperature of steak they like.

RARE ~ red, cold center

MEDIUM RARE ~ red, warm center

MEDIUM ~ solid pink, hot center

MEDIUM WELL ~ thin line of pink through center

WELL ~ cooked through, no color.
 
.... and if you need to convert between Celsius and Fahrenheit, here's a link to a converter, just plug in the appropriate number. There's a "Swap Units" button beneath the box where you enter the numbers to switch between C and F.


EDIT: Oh yes, if you go to the homepage of that site, you'll also find other metric conversion types. There's no need to fear a recipe because of unit differences!
 
When roasting birds in the oven, start HIGH and drop. 475F for 20mins then 375F for an add'l 45 for a chicken, and 500F for 30 or so and 375F for the remainder. This seals in juices, and gives you that beautiful brown and crispy skin.

Toasting spices brings on a totally different, and AWESOME flavor and smell.

Never cook with booze you wouldn't drink.

Oh, and RECIPE=RECOMMENDATION
 
If while making hollandaise the sauce "breaks" do not throw it out.

You can save it by adding a little heavy cream.

Average cooks follow rules.

The best cooks cheat.
 
Pre-chopping salads/greens-

You can pre-chop your lettuce 2-3 days in advance and the edges will not turn brown-
chop, rinse and drain your greens. Spread out a clean bath towel. Place the drained greens on 1/2 of the towel, fold the towel over and then gently roll the towel up. Stick everything in a plastic bag if it's going in the main compartment of the refer, or just stick it all in the veggie drawer of the refer. The greens will stay crisp, dry, and the edges will not turn brown.


Remove the tendon from raw chicken tenders/strips-
In our area, you can buy 5 pound packages of frozen chichen breasts and also frozen chicken strips/tenders. I have this "thing" about cooking chicken strips/tenders with that white tendon in it. It grosses me out, so I figured out how to remove the tendon.

It takes a firm hand grip, but it can also be done using a spoon on the cutting board. Firmly grasp the tendon in one hand, I use my thumb nail against my first finger to hold the tendon. Slip the tines of a heavy-weight fork around the tendon. You might need to kinda wiggle it to get it started, but then the tendon will slide out and the fork will push the chicken down. You can also hold the tendon down on a cutting board with a spoon or the back side of a knife and then run the fork down the tendon to remove it.



Video Reviews of your products-
If someone posts a review of your product, download the review to your own computer. That way if the reviewer takes the video down, or gets booted from youtube, whatever, you still have the video can upload the video yourself.



D2S- thanks for starting this thread. I've had the same idea for a while, but never got around to it.
 
salsalady said:
Pre-chopping salads/greens-

You can pre-chop your lettuce 2-3 days in advance and the edges will not turn brown-
chop, rinse and drain your greens. Spread out a clean bath towel. Place the drained greens on 1/2 of the towel, fold the towel over and then gently roll the towel up. Stick everything in a plastic bag if it's going in the main compartment of the refer, or just stick it all in the veggie drawer of the refer. The greens will stay crisp, dry, and the edges will not turn brown.
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Frequently the browning problem is an interaction with the metal blade of a knife. Using a plastic-bladed knife, as they make for chopping lettuce, usually works, too. Make sure to get one that has a very stiff blade rather than a flimsy one.
 
Instead of cutting salad greens etc, tear them to prevent them going brown

Don't dress your salads with any acids until the last minute

When making a stock, add milk powder to your meat before browning. This adds more protein to cause the maillard reaction. To make the best consomme, strain your stock through cheese cloth then freeze. Defrost by letting it drip through cheesecloth again. Perfectly clear consomme.

When cooking steaks, flip every 2 minutes to keep the rate of heat absorption even

'wash' your hands with a stainless steel item to remove the smell of garlic
 
BBQ tips:

Non-runny slaw: Salt your chopped cabbage and place in a sieve or strainer and put in a bowl, in the fridge, overnight. The salt will draw all the water out of the cabbage and into the bowl. The next day rinse and pat dry the cabbage and assemble your slaw. It will not run and create that white pool. The water is gone and the cabbage is crisp.

Non-runny beans: After you make your baked beans, mash about 1/3 of the beans and mix well into the baked beans. This mash acts as an emulsifier and you won't have that pool of bean liquid.

Just some quick BBQ sides tips ;)
 
Boss, does the salted cabbage make the slaw too salty? I'm thinking if a person used purchased coleslaw dressing, they wouldn't be able to adjust the salt in the dressing recipe.

And +1 on the the smashed beans tip!
 
SL absolutely not. What happens is when you make your slaw normally and add your salt that's what draws the water out and creates the white pool you don't want. So prep the cabbage with it. You rinse it the next day, and taste your finished product to see if it needs more salt, which if added, now will not draw water from the actual cabbage. I'm sure you've had slaw where there is no white liquid at all around it. That's the goal with slaw. Otherwise, you have the soupy mess which also turns it soggy.
 
That makes sense. And rinsing the slaw would make it more amenable to using pre-made dressings, which usually have a high enough salt content you don't want to add more salt.





Side note- pet peeve against the local pub for sending out to-go burgers with a side of slaw....all in the same one-compartment box.... and the slaw juice totally soaks the bottom of the bun.....(yuk)...
 
Sausages:

DON'T pierce the sausage!!! If they burst it's because the heat is too high or they've been over filled.

Buy the most expensive sausages. Cheap sausages are usually meat trimmings off the floor, eye balls, hoof and saw dust

Cook low and slow in water then dry and flash fry in very hot oil for no more than 1-2 minutes. Always rest a couple of minutes.

Cook the sausage to the same internal temperature you would for the same cut in a roast. Beef just light pink in the middle. Pork and chicken, just cooked.

Sausages should be crisp with a snap when you bite or cut and full of juice.

Don't smother that gourmet sausage in cheap nasty sauce. Go for a home made gravy or quality sauce. You want to be able to taste the sausage more than the sauce!
 
I've mentioned this before, but here it is more formally.

For the best churrasco you've ever had...

Get vacio (also called, irreverently, flap meat) or skirt steak...I prefer the former.

Slice the raw meat into single servings.
For skirt, just cut into 10 inch lengths.
For vacio, slice on the bias into 6 x 10 Inch thin steaks, 1/2 inch or so thickness.

Cover a sheet pan in rock salt (ice cream salt)
Place the steaks on the salt.
Cover the steaks with more salt. Cover them, don't be a wimp.
IMMEDIATELY start a timer for NO MORE than 7 minutes.
At DING, rinse the steaks in water, get the salt off, and place on a clean dish.

Cook on a hot grill, preferably coals with a hickory/mesquite chunk. Flip once.
Maybe 4 minutes per side. Serve.

Serve with chimichurri.
A bunch of parsley, stems removed.
6 or more cloves fresh garlic
About 1/4 c white vinegar
In the food processor...
Add extra virgin olive oil while it runs. Half a cup or more.
Salt, pepper to taste.
These measurements are not exact, play with it to your taste.

I've also added cilantro, pine nuts, chilies, sun dried toms, etc when I'm feeling awesome, but usually do it straight.

The real trick is the 7 minute salt marinade. Try it.
DOES NOT make the meat extra salty. It is magical. 7 minutes only. Less if your meat is very thin.
 
geeme said:
Also known as flank steak in regions away from our country's southern edges.....
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It may be called flank in other regions but that is incorrect.

Skirt comes from the plate, just back of the brisket.

Flank comes just back of the plate.

They are both 2 distinct cuts of meat.
 
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