Cooking is a valuable skill that everyone should have. Pretty much everyone loves food, even more so when you or someone you love cooks the meal. Unfortunately, not everyone has as much skill as they desire. You'll be on your way to being a better cook if you use the advice in this article.
Use cooking oil to measure sticky foods easily. Prior to measuring, put a little bit of a low-flavor cooking oil on the spoon (canola works well here). This way, the food you are measuring will easily slip off the spoon. This stops you from wasting food and having to clean up afterward. Peanut butter and honey can be measured this way as well.
You can salvage the work you've done and quickly rectify the situation with this little trick. Put some corn starch into water and mix it in your sauce. Thicken your sauce by stirring in this solution. Remember to stir your sauce constantly while adding the cornstarch mixture, to avoid it getting too thick.
Reheating oily dishes in your microwave can have disastrous results. To avoid the mess, warm the dish in an oven instead. Microwaves have such intense heat that they separate oil, which gets hot the quickest, from other ingredients that heat more slowly. Baking, however, gently and evenly warms up the entire dish, keeping the ingredients together.
Do not forget to add salt to water for making pasta. This will help season the pasta as it cooks. Salt and seasonings do not necessarily stick very well to cooked pasta, so seasoning it while it boils is your best bet to enhance the flavor.
Complete many steps when cooking something ahead of time. Look through any recipes you make before you begin and prep accordingly, this can save you time before you cook letting you concentrate on your task when the time comes. Do the prep work the day before. Doing this can transform intricate recipes into simple, quick and enjoyable cooking tasks.
If you will have a busy day tomorrow, you can always get some of the ingredients of your dinner ready today. Chopping and dicing vegetables for a stir-fry or assembling lasagnas or casseroles to store in the fridge can make it easier to place a hot, no-stress meal on your family's table, even on the busiest days.
Ensure that all of your spices and herbs are stored in a cool and dry area away from direct light. Humidity or heat can ruin your herbs and spices quickly. This makes it more likely that your spices will not retain their distinct flavors and properties.
In addition to the oven timer, set the timer on your wristwatch or stopwatch. Then you will know when the time is up even if you are not in the kitchen.
In order to get the most out of your selection of spices, you should store them out of the light and heat. If you leave them out somewhere, you will expose them to light, wetness, and heat, and it could ruin them. Keeping your spices in a cooler space with little light will enhance their flavor and shelf life. These fresh spices will help add flavor to your meals, making them tastier!
Flavoring your meals with beef or chicken stock instead of water is a quick and easy way to spice up any meal. You can also simply add bouillon cubes to the suggested amount of water. You'll still get the amount of water necessary in the recipe, but it will introduce another interesting taste into the mix.
If you are getting ready to cook for a big family get together, it is probably causing you a good amount of stress. Instead of succumbing to panic, do as much of the prep work as possible on the preceding night. This means setting out measurements, ingredients and marinades.
Fresh garlic is ideal when preparing dishes that call for garlic. It's well-known that fresher garlic equals sweeter taste. If it isn't soft, bruised or shriveled and it has some firm skin then you know that the garlic is fresh.
If you follow this advice for cooking, you will be eating tasty homemade meals in no time. You will become more experienced over time and you will see how tasty a home-cooked meal can be. And your pocketbook will thank you. Often times, home cooked meals are more nutritious, resulting in a better life for everyone at the dinner table. There is no better time to start preparing your own meals than right now.
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