What are the best practices you’ve learned to save time or make a meal better.
- Nothing goes on a plate without being tasted
- If it’s too sour, add sugar
- if it’s sweet and you haven’t added acid, add a splash of vinegar.
- if it’s too hot, add fat
- if you burn it, throw it out.
- IF you taste it early, it should taste weak. If it’s fantastic when when it starts to simmer, it’ll be too harsh once it’s reduced.
- Taste it and it tastes empty or boring? Smell it. Smell all your herbs/spices on hand, which ever one it smells the closest to, add a healthy pinch and salt if it doesn’t taste salty already.
- know your oils and use the right ones. Olive oil can handle some heat and is great for savory, grapeseed is almost flavorless. Canola has a distinct flavor that doesn’t go with everything. 9 season your meat before you cook it.
Only thing I’d add is that, on 8, learn what rancid oil smells like. Most people keep things like olive oil in poor conditions (that’s without us even getting into quality of oil, or how people buy FAR MORE oil than they’ll reasonably be able to use), and the oil goes bad far faster than they think it will.
yeahhh, Hell, there are a couple exceptions, but nothing that goes into a dish should smell bad.
Ok I might get downvoted to oblivion but I use MSG. It enhances the flavors so much that I have stopped going to restaurants.
Edit- I did my research and found no credible source that says MSG is harmful.
Edit2- If you go to a restaurant or order KFC chances are they use MSG as well
Anti-MSG propaganda actually comes from Asian racism, and was born out of the idea that Chinese food with its MSG was causing headaches and other health effects that were entirely made up. MSG is perfectly fine for you, and it makes a ton of things even tastier. I use it all the time in home cooking.
There is nothing wrong with MSG. It being bad for you is made up by racists.
Uncle Roger agree with you!
Hahaha true
By far my favorite is to have a squirt bottle of water next to my stove. It’s great to have throughout the cooking process, especially if you’ve moved on from Teflon bullshit and are using a pan you pre-heat. To start, you put the pan on the heat and squirt a little water in it. When the water evaporates, the pan is usually in the 350F-400F range. Then when the pan is dry and heated a little more, you can squirt a few more drops in to see if the Leidenfrost effect has taken, uhhh, effect. The way you tell is that the water just dances around on the pan instead of behaving like water normally does, and it’s how you know your food won’t stick, it is at this point that you add the oil.
Moving on to the actual cooking, let’s say you’ve thrown some chicken thighs in the pan and you’ve built up a lot of fond (the brown bits that form in the bottom of the pan) and the chicken is almost done, but you’re not planning on making a sauce. Deglaze the pan with little squirts of water targeted directly at the fond and rub the chicken thighs over the area where the water is deglazing and suddenly that fond is sticking to your chicken thighs, resulting in a better crust and a cleaner pan.
Speaking of cleaner pan, once you’re done cooking and plating and you have a hot dirty pan, squirt enough water in to cover the bottom of the pan and then go eat. When you come back to the kitchen to clean up, the water will have broken down the shit on the bottom of the pan and will steam the sides of the pan, so the pan will wipe clean as easy if all you did was fry an egg.
Finally, I stopped putting milk (of any variety) in my coffee, but I wanna be able to drink my coffee right away and it’s too hot when it’s made fresh, but I’ve got a bottle full of room temperature water (all the filtered water in my house comes out ice cold) sitting right there so I can cool it down that way (I brew my coffee pretty strong so watering it down isn’t a big deal).
Very interesting, ty 4 sharing! Never heard of this but will definitely give it a try. I’ve got a spare unused squirtbottle already too
on the pan test, I just run a bit of water onto my hand and flick droplets off my fingers. My reason is that I absolutely LOATHE having anything plastic near the stove. I’ve had far more mishaps involving errant plastic containers than any other.
Besides, If my hand bacteria can make it into the water and survive a 300+ degree pan, it deserves to outlive all of us.
I’ll echo the other comment about deglazing with other flavorful juices to make a better pan sauce (even if it’s not going to be a sauce), since I just prefer it that way. BUT, a splash of water into a pan sauce that’s simmered for too long WILL restore its glossiness and re-thin it.
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The problem with squirting the oil into the pan as it heats is that the metal of the pan heats up a lot slower than the oil so you will burn the oil before your pan is up to temp. Also, pre heating pans will not harm them in any way at all. It sounds like you’re applying my comment to Teflon coated pans, which I excluded at the beginning of my comment.
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I definitely didn’t say to leave the pan on the hob for 20-30 minutes, it takes about 5 minutes. But if putting an empty pot or pan on the heat for 20-30 minutes ruins anything at all on your pans, you need better pans. Every single pan in my kitchen, and I have some budget ones, would just be too hot to handle for a while. On the oil handling the heat, your way puts more heat into the oil than my way and you are way more likely to burn your oil.
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Don’t be afraid of spices. Use more than you think is necessary. Onion and garlic can make a meal 100x better.
Agree. Especially the onion 🧅
Not good advice with certain hot peppers.
To each their own
This one is a little bit of a hot take, but bottled lemon or lime juice is good for consistency. While fresh will most certainly be better, you may inadvertently juice a bad lemon/lime and potentially ruin a dish. Bottled juices can last a bit longer in the fridge.
Similar, but more situational argument for tinned fruits/veggies. Sometimes, the consistency is more important than the freshness.
Honestly, canned tomatoes will be fresh almost 100% of the time.
Speaking of canned tomatoes, there can be a huge difference between brands. If canned tomatoes make up the bulk of the recipe I prefer to spend a little extra.
Biggest hack? Realizing that humans have been cooking for millennia, and that it’s in the best interest of big business to convince you that it’s difficult/expensive/extremely complicated.
You don’t NEED the fancy equipment every company out there is trying to sell you.
Not everything needs to be gorgeous on the plate, or a whole production to make.
The poorest people in the world cook delicious food every day.
For instance, you don’t need NEED a +$150 Japanese chef knife to cook at home. What you need is something that can hold an edge through general maintenance, a whet stone, a kitchen towel to dry off your blade immediately after you hand wash it, and a little bit of patience.
IKEA sells some surprisingly great single construction (steel blade, steel handle) knives, and their single body chef knife is like $25. Just get an honing rod for use before you start slicing, and a whet stone for periodic sharpening (there’s TONS of YouTube videos of all the different ways of sharpening your knife), and remember to wash and hand-dry after you’re finished. My chef knife cost me barely anything, and I’ve used it for years and years, and it still slices through a tomato without a problem. Also, I only cook for myself, so I can absolutely 100% guarantee my whet stone will “outlive” me.
That being said, a mandoline can save a lot of time, and a kevlar glove paired with that will save a lot of fingers.
Not exactly a mandoline, but I used to work at a place with a cheese slicer named “Old Nubby.” It had blooded the entire team at least once.
Legend has it the blood was never cleaned off either
Did they ever learn to use protection?
Each one of them did after nubby took its toll
Reverse taring - instead of placing the bowl on the scale and taring before weighing, place your ingredients on the scale and tare, and you can then scoop out and see the negative weight of how much you have used. This is especially helpful if you are trying to weigh an ingredient into a hot pan you can’t just set on the scale
Now that’s a great idea. Timesaver too.
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Get the grocery store herb plants if they have them in your area. It’s possible to repot them and have them produce for a while, you can snip off basil stalk tops and shove them in fresh damp soil to propagate.
Fresh herbs are a game changer, but they are finishers, not starters. You’re looking for aroma from fresh. In many cases, you’ll herb a dish twice. At the beginning with dry and at the end with chiffonade barely mixed in. Throwing fresh in early works ok, but the aroma is muted and they immediately wilt which is not ideal.
If there’s not a sunny window or outdoor space to grow herbs in, you can get cheap grow lights with a timer for about $45. Worth it!
I swear that thyme is called that because ain’t nobody got thyme to get all those little leaves off the stem. Just saute a bunch of stems in your fat to infuse the flavor and take out the stems before adding anything else.
Use a meat thermometer! All your meat will come out perfect, without being under or over cooked.
Thermoworks.
Imo this is the single most important tip that made me cook better. Get one of the instant-read ones, they are worth the money.
Also, flatten your chicken so it cooks evenly.
Highly recommend a meat thermometer to everyone. Great recommendation.
When I have to use parchment paper, I crumple the paper ip into a little ball first, then press it out flat into the cooking vessel (sheet pan or loaf pan or whatnot) and it lays flatter/conforms to the pan better without rolling up all over the place rather than trying to just use a pristine sheet of parchment. It really works great.
LPT - go buy a box of half-size sheets from a restaurant supply store. Webstaurant was my go to until they sent their shipping prices into the stratosphere. I buy 1000 sheets at a time and store it with the sheet pans (the box is only a couple inches tall) and it lasts forever. Costs about $50-60 a box iirc which is way cheaper than buying in rolls.
THANK YOU! I was baking cookies last night and struggled through placing the dough while trying to keep the sheet from rolling up. I will do this in the future!
Often recipes are really inefficient and sequenced wrong… Read the whole thing and find the “long pole” , and do that first… could be starting the oven preheat early, starting the rice cooker right away vs at step 6 or run things in parallel.
Let your protein equalize to room temperature before you cook it. This is a great time to season it as well. Pat dry, then cook.
Rest any grilled or pan fried meat on a non-heated surface for at least 5 minutes after cooking.
“Carry Over Cooking” is a thing that usually results in overcooked food if you don’t account for it.
Learn to make a pan sauce. Easy, quick, and worth it.
That trick of reserving a cup of “pasta water” that you never do? Yeah…
Almost without exception dried herbs/spices go in at the beginning of the cooking process, and fresh go in at the end.
If you work with a group of people start having an “Autumn Potluck” at work. It’s perfect for trying out holiday recipes, before the holiday, and get back constructive feedback and/or nice compliments.
You don’t need to slave over a stove for 3 hours to get caramelized onion. Here’s what you do. After slicing the onion, get the pan up to a medium heat with a splash of oil. Toss in the onions and add a bit of salt to make them sweat. Once they start to dry out, go golden at the edges, and even stick to the pan a bit, add a splash of water. You do have to stir continuously for this method as well, but it takes much less time. Do this process a few times where you add water, cook it until its dry, another splash of water, cook it until it dries out again, etc. Sometimes I’ll even alternate in a splash of white wine for fun. You should have beautiful caramelized onions in 30 min with this method.
You can also add a pinch of baking soda greatly speed up the process
Alternately, a mandolin, slow cooker, and an ice cube tray are amazing.
Mando up a 5lb bag of onions, toss in the slow cooker, & 6 hours later you have the most delectable flavors.
I usually take half the onions and make French onion soup, and the rest into the ice box. They thaw perfect in the fridge, or a sauté pan.
It’s not really a hack I think, but having a good instant probe thermometer really gives you the ability to be consistent no matter what, especially if you’re cooking proteins or have something that’s temperature dependent.
I had started with a cheaper one and eventually graduated to a Thermapen when I realized how critical it was to the things I was making.
The cheapest Thermapen brand one is worth 10 generic ones.
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I have both. I like that the thermopen actually does read faster and I can see the temp gradient in my meat and find the coolest spot faster. The ergonomics are better. Also, a name brand thermopen, on sale, costs less a kilogram of prime filet.
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Replace everything plastic with glass.
Any brand recommendations? My pyrex lids are all cracked. Probably shouldn’t have put them in the dishwasher…
Generally I completely agree, but I do have an embarrassingly large number of deli containers in various sizes. Great for leftovers or drinking water.
I use plastic containers if something’s going in the freezer.
Unless it’s a cutting board. Plastic cutting boards are great cause you can throw them in the dish washer.
But if you do this, replace it often. Tiny cuts make places for bacteria to grow and you end up cutting tiny bits of plastic into your food.
