Cooking Tips
Vanilla Extract: Called for in what seems like every baking recipe, pure vanilla extract is made from vanilla beans and alcohol. It has a delicious fragrance, but is anything but delicious to taste by itself, owing to all the alcohol. When mixed with other ingredients, however, vanilla extract lends a sweet, vanilla flavor, truer to its scent. Be careful to always buy pure vanilla extract, though, and not imitation—nothing beats the real thing. If you’re out of it, don’t try to substitute another type of extract (like almond or lemon), because each one has a different strength and its own distinct flavor.
Rosemary: Whether dried or fresh, rosemary has a pine-needle-like shape to it and is very fragrant. It tends to be used in Mediterranean dishes, as well as traditional French dishes. It is incredibly versatile and can be used to flavor just about anything, from soups and salad dressings to meat and potatoes. It's also very easy to grow in your herb garden, as it's a pretty hardy herb. Rosemary is high in iron, calcium, and Vitamin B6.
Bay Leaf: What does a bay leaf do? Why use this herb? Bay leaves have a similar flavor to oregano and thyme, and they are often used in slow simmering soups and sauces as whole leaves, though it is possible to have crushed bay leaf as well. I think of them of having a very “mellowing” effect, especially with tomato-based recipes, meaning that they just help all the other flavors balance each other. Most recipes call for bay leaves to be removed before serving, which has led to the myth that they’re poisonous (other leaves of the Laurel plant family are, but those aren’t sold for cooking), when in fact they’re just bitter and don’t really soften when cooked.
Keep liquid measurements accurate by keeping a steady hand. Balance your measuring spoon against the edge of the mixing bowl to keep it flat and always pour with your dominant hand.
Did you know that not all tea tastes best with boiling water? Green tea, for example, requires water that has only just begun to emit steam, as opposed to other herbal teas which do best with water from a singing kettle. Be sure to check the instructions on your tea before preparing a nice cuppa!
Vamp Robin from Saratoga Springs saves her parmesan rinds to help give her soups a richer flavor without the heaviness of cream.
So I'm not a huge fan of Rachael Ray, but my nail salon often has her show playing with the sound off, so I've been able to pick up a few tips from her here and there that have been really helpful:
1) To facilitate peeling the skin off of garlic cloves, use the flat edge of your knife to mash the clove. This causes the skin to pop off much more easily.
2) Basil ribbons. Fresh basil bruises easily when chopped, so when the recipe doesn't call for the herb to be chopped finely, rolling the leaves inside each other and then making clean slices through the rolls creates pretty basil ribbons that don't bruise.
3) Cleaning leeks. Dirt hides in the many layers of leeks, so the best way to clean them is to chop them first, and then soak them in a bowl of room temperature water. The leeks float to the top and the dirt falls to the bottom.
Did you know that you can freeze fresh ginger root for up to three months? Vamp Robin wrote me with this tip after she made roasted butternut squash soup and was relieved to find she didn’t need to throw away her leftover ginger, since she never uses it all at once. Just put it in a freezer bag and break off pieces as you need it. Waste not, want not!
Guide to drying, canning, and freezing.
Drying: this is the oldest way to save herbs, meats, fruits, and vegetables. As the name suggests, this method involves removing all or most of the moisture from the food. Because it does not involve cooking the food, the nutrients remain in tact. Dried foods can either be rehydrated before consuming or simply eaten as is (think raisins or beef jerky). Methods of drying food include dehydrating, sun drying, smoking, oven drying, and air drying. Whatever method you use, be sure to store dried goods in air-tight containers in cool, dark places. If you do choose to rehydrate food, be sure to only use what you will eat right away.
Canning: this can seem like the most complicated way to preserve food, as it involves different temperatures, recipes, and equipment, but it can also be one of the most flavorful ways of keeping produce (think cucumbers into pickles, fruit into jam, etc). The final step of canning can also be tricky when the jars are sealed. If the seal isn’t tight, you might end up with blueberry syrup instead of blueberry jam (clearly not the end of the world!). Canning preserves produce by lots of boiling, which, while it assures no bacteria will live, also removes some of the natural nutrients of the fruits and vegetables. That being said, canned goods can last up to a year, so if you make your jams now, you can happily give them away as holiday gifts this winter.
Freezing: I mentioned in a blog post how I froze some blueberries after picking more than I could eat at once. This is a great way to preserve not only fruit and vegetables, but also meat and prepared foods. Be sure to use freezer safe containers—Tupperware that has a tight seal or Ziplock freezer bags—and label what everything is along with the date you put it in the freezer. As a general rule, you should not freeze anything with dairy (butter aside), raw potatoes, lettuce, or eggs in their shells. For a comprehensive guide of how to freeze what, click here.
Prep time: cooking is that much easier by having prepped all the ingredients before you turn on the stove. The benefit of prepping ingredients, by which I mean chopping the onions and carrots, cubing the beef, mincing the garlic--just getting everything to the point of being ready to be cooked--makes cooking so much more enjoyable. Plus, when you're able to do all the work upfront, you then don't have to split your attention, stirring the onions and making sure they don't over-cook while cubing the beef and hoping not to take off a thumb while cutting away the fat.
Guac stays green: Vamp Erin suggests keeping the avocado pit in leftover guacamole when you store it, so the guac will retain its green color.
Store food properly: Vamp(ire) Chris sent me a terrific article from Consumer Reports with tips about how to keep food fresher longer. Here are some of those tips, along with others:
Eggs should be stored in their cartons on the middle or lower shelf where it’s cooler (not necessarily in the egg compartment of your refrigerator, especially if it’s on the door!).
Cheese should be wrapped in wax paper and then wrapped in plastic wrap. This is how all the fresh cheese we bought in Paris was packaged, and it helps the cheese retain its flavor.
Berries should not be washed until you’re ready to eat them. The water can accelerate mold growing on them.
Herbs should be washed and dried with a paper towel. The paper towel should then be loosely wrapped around them and then placed in a resealable plastic bag.
Mushrooms should be stored in their original container until they’re opened. Then they should be stored in a thin brown paper bag. (For how to wash mushrooms, click here.)
Ripe bananas should be stored in the refrigerator to slow the ripening process. Even if the peels become darker, the fruit will still be good to eat. Super ripe bananas can be frozen until you’re ready to bake with them (or made into dog treats).
Butter should be stored in a covered dish in your refrigerator’s butter compartment. Stock up on butter when it goes on sale: unsalted butter can be frozen for up to five months and salted butter can be frozen up to nine months. Just be sure to wrap it in foil or plastic.
Beef can be frozen in the packaging it came in for two weeks. If you want to store it for longer, wrap the meat in heavy-duty foil, freezer paper, or plastic freezer bags.
Tomatoes and stone fruit should be stored at room temperature and consumed within a week. Refrigerating, while it slows the ripening process, causes the fruit to become mealy and lose its flavor.
Ice cream should have a layer of plastic wrap pressed into it before the lid is put on to prevent unwanted ice crystals and freezer burn from forming.
Flour, cornmeal, pasta, cereal, and sugar should be stored in air-tight containers to prevent weavels, flour beetles, or meal moths. There is nothing worse than an outbreak of those bugs! If you do have an outbreak, freezing them for a day or two will kill them . . . I still get grossed out, though, and so I just throw the damaged food away.An open box of baking soda should be kept in the fridge to absorb unwanted odors from food. This should be replaced every three – six months.
Mushrooms should never be washed under running water--they will absorb too much of it, which will alter the way they cook. You can purchase a mushroom brush or specially designed mushroom cloth, or you can simply take a damp paper towel and wipe them clean that way.
Keep it neat: your cutting board inside a rimmed baking sheet when you’re chopping juicy things like tomatoes or peaches to help save the juices and save you time cleaning up. Any juices that run off the cutting board stay in the rimmed baking sheet, allowing you to then pour them into whatever you’re making.
Recipes terms demystified:
Cut it up: cube, slice, chop, dice, mince. Recipes call for vegetables or meat to be cut different ways. Here I’ve listed them from the chunkiest to the tiniest. It’s especially important to pay attention to how you cut garlic and onion (or any other major flavor of the recipe, like ginger, celery, etc.) because the different surface areas produce different strengths of flavor and affect cooking time. If a recipe doesn’t specify how to prepare vegetables, I use the “bite” method my mother taught me: think about how you’d like to bite into it and chop it that size.
(Try a Santoku knife! The secret to chopping, slicing and dicing like the pros? The Santoku knife, of which Vamp Kara says: “they usually retail for well over $50 each, but I was surprised when I saw one at Target by Henckels (one of the top brands in knives) for about $20. One important thing to keep in mind when buying knives is that they should have a full tang (one piece of steel that runs from the blade through the handle). Santoku knives are different from others because the steel is scalloped close to the blade, which makes it very sharp and makes it so that it doesn't stick to whatever it's cutting. I love using mine for chopping and dicing, but it also cuts through raw meat effortlessly. I highly recommend them! Just remember that even if it says dishwasher safe, never put them in the dishwasher. It will dull the blade and decrease the quality of the knife.”)
Water: rolling boil, boil, simmer. A rolling boil refers to water that has been boiling for a little while and the bubbles are really big, thus moving the water or stock around a whole lot. A regular boil is when the water just starts boiling, with bubbles moving the surface. A simmer is not quite a boil—there will be little tiny bubbles around the edge, but otherwise little movement. Simmering helps bring out multiple flavors and allows for those flavors to mix together. When in doubt, boiling usually refers to when bubbles are breaking the surface.
On the stovetop: sauté, sear, pan fry: sautéing meats or vegetables is done with a little bit of fat (usually olive oil or butter) in a frying pan over medium-to-high heat. This process cooks the meat or vegetables thoroughly, releasing juices that can later be used as a sauce if desired. When a recipe calls for something to be seared, it’s asking for a high heat to be applied quickly, which causes a caramelizing effect. This is also sometimes referred to as browning, as in “brown each side of the beef.” This technique does not cook the food all the way through. Finally, pan frying is a technique that uses less oil than deep frying, but still enough to cover the food that’s being cooked about half-way. The food is cooked throughout, though needs to be turned regularly.
In the oven: broil, bake: These are common ways to cook meat. Broiling requires the broiler to be used (in some ovens this is a separate compartment from the regular oven; in others, the broiler is at the top and an oven rack needs to be in the topmost position), causing an effect similar to grilling. Baking is the most straight forward, requiring the oven temperature to be set according to the recipe. Both broiling and baking cook the meat all the way through.
Freeze fresh fruit: The best way to freeze berries is to first wash and gently dry them. Then, spread them in a single layer on a cookie sheet that can fit in your freezer. Place them in the freezer until they're frozen through and then transfer them to an airtight container or plastic freezer bag. You can defrost them throughout the year for your morning cereal, muffins, or pie!
Want an easy way to dress up a salad? Try toasting slivered, sliced, or chopped nuts. I added toasted sliced almonds to a lot of our salads, and they added a subtle, nutty flavor that was reminiscent of a nutty olive oil, without requiring the investment in a whole bottle of it. To toast nuts, heat in a dry skillet over a medium flame, stirring constantly so as not to burn them. Once they start to brown and release their oil, remove from heat. They’re best used right away.
Helpful How To . . . Cook Light
The Basics:
1. Bake, broil, or grill your meat instead of frying it. This both uses less fat and releases more of the meat’s fat.
2. Lightly steam your vegetables to help retain most of their vitamins and minerals, while releasing the best flavor.
3. Take advantage of what’s in season. Fresh fruits and vegetables have more nutrients and flavor than their frozen or dried counterparts.
Intermediate Level:
1. Make onions, garlic, vinegar, and mustard your friends. These are easy ways to flavor dishes that are low in fat.
2. Tomato sauce is packed with sugar. A healthier substitute is grilled red pepper puree. To make, slice a couple of red peppers in half and remove the seeds. Place on a baking sheet skin-side up and place under a broiler until skin is pretty charred. Remove skin and place pepper in a blender or food processor and combine with some salt, olive oil and a clove of garlic (for a more subtle garlic taste, roast it, too). Toss with pasta, fresh tomatoes and any other vegetables or grilled chicken for a lighter pasta salad.
3. An easy way to get protein and the good kind of fat is from yogurt. Plain, non-fat varieties are good for you, but something like Greek yogurt is really the best. You can substitute it for plenty of things—in cereal with fresh fruit instead of milk, on grilled potatoes instead of butter or sour cream, or tossed with steamed green beans for a fun vegetable side dish.
Advanced Placement:
1. Use fresh herbs. I recently cooked with a good friend and Vamp, Marie, and was amazed at how she used fresh herbs in nearly everything she made. The results were really delicious and complexly flavored dishes. Trying new combinations takes some experience (my tarragon red potatoes did not work out as nicely as I hoped they would) and a sense of adventure.
Baking:
Pastry Cutter: If your recipe calls for a pastry cutter and you don’t have one, reach for a large fork instead. It’s not as efficient as a pastry cutter, but it’ll still get the job done of combining the ingredients, without changing the consistency of the butter. Since pastry cutters are bulky, if you have limited storage space, don’t worry about picking one up.
Storing Flour: It’s important to always store flour in an airtight container, and store any open bags in large Ziploc bags. If you have a flour you aren’t going to be using for a while (for example, I have multigrain flour from a recipe a couple months ago), then place it in a Ziploc bag and stick it in the freezer. Just be sure to take it out in advance before baking with it.
Other items to keep in airtight containers, just in case: sugar, cornstarch, pasta, cereal, cream of wheat, oatmeal, rice, crackers, and, of course, your clean pastry cloth. Please note, that these items only need be stored in airtight containers once they’ve been opened.
Pie Plates: The next time you’re bringing a pie to a party, don’t use the disposable aluminum foil ones. Not only are they tough to recycle (even if you can clean them), they aren’t great for the pies. The shiny metal reflects the heat instead of evenly distributing it. Pick up some studier, but still inexpensive, reusable alternatives like this one. Having a few on hand means you won’t mind if you don’t get it back right away.
Baking Powder Bind?: You’re in the middle of a recipe and realize you’re out of baking powder. Instead of running to the store, you can substitute 1/4 teaspoon baking soda, plus 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar for 1 teaspoon of baking powder.
Baking terms demystified: There are a couple of basics to baking that will help you follow any recipe well.
Measure: it is important to accurately measure your ingredients. Flour, for example, should be scooped into your measuring cups and leveled with a knife, without packing it into the cup at all. The same goes for white granulated sugar. Brown sugar measurements, though, are called for “tightly packed,” which requires pressing it down into the measuring cup. When you tap it out, it should come out like a sand castle bucket, retaining its shape.
Liquid ingredients should be measured in liquid measuring cups. I don’t think there’s too much difference in a dry teaspoon versus a liquid teaspoon, but cups should be measured in a liquid measuring cup and not the same ones you use for dry ingredients. Liquid measuring cups make it much easier to measure liquid accurately.
Mixing ingredients: a well-written recipe will describe how to combine ingredients. They may say “mix until just combined” or “beat well” or “beat until light and fluffy.” In each case, be sure you’re paying attention to what is going on in your mixing bowl. The first time I made cupcakes, the batter looked perfect until I got to the bottom of the bowl and found butter and sugar that hadn’t mixed with the rest of it. I have since learned that that’s just what my mixer does, and I need to mix the bottom into the rest of it after each addition.
A lot of older recipes may ask for dry ingredients to be “sifted together” before added to the batter. My mother had a sifter that we’d use for this, pouring the flour and baking soda and salt into it and cranking the handle until it was one big pile of dry ingredients. The purpose of sifting is to both thoroughly mix the dry ingredients together and break up any lumps. If you don’t have a sifter, combine ingredients in a bowl and mix with a fork.
Other tips:
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Unless otherwise noted, most ingredients should be room temperature when you use them. Take your milk and eggs out when you take out your butter to soften.
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When baking with a glass baking dish, the oven should be 25º less than what the recipe calls for.
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Always use unsalted butter.
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Read through the recipe from start to finish before starting and make sure you have what you need. I've run to the grocery store in my apron for more Vanilla Extract more times than I wish to remember!
Cooking Tips
Some practical, easy suggestions for improving the way you cook.
Liquid Measurements:
Keep liquid measurements accurate by keeping a steady hand. Balance your measuring spoon against the edge of the mixing bowl to keep it flat and always pour with your dominant hand.
Prep time:
Cooking is that much easier by having prepped all the ingredients before you turn on the stove. The benefit of prepping ingredients, by which I mean chopping the onions and carrots, cubing the beef, mincing the garlic--just getting everything to the point of being ready to be cooked--makes cooking so much more enjoyable. Plus, when you're able to do all the work upfront, you then don't have to split your attention, stirring the onions and making sure they don't over-cook while cubing the beef and hoping not to take off a thumb while cutting away the fat.
Keep it neat:
Your cutting board inside a rimmed baking sheet when you’re chopping juicy things like tomatoes or peaches to help save the juices and save you time cleaning up. Any juices that run off the cutting board stay in the rimmed baking sheet, allowing you to then pour them into whatever you’re making.
Tips from Rachael:
So we all love Rachael Ray, and my nail salon often has her show playing with the sound off, so I'm been able to pick up a few tips from her here and there that have been really helpful:
- To facilitate peeling the skin off of garlic cloves, use the flat edge of your knife to mash the clove. This causes the skin to pop off much more easily.
- Basil ribbons. Fresh basil bruises easily when chopped, so when the recipe doesn't call for the herb to be chopped finely, rolling the leaves inside each other and then making clean slices through the rolls creates pretty basil ribbons that don't bruise.
- Cleaning leeks. Dirt hides in the many layers of leeks, so the best way to clean them is to chop them first, and then soak them in a bowl of room temperature water. The leeks float to the top and the dirt falls to the bottom.
Guac stays green:
Vamp Erin suggests keeping the avocado pit in leftover guacamole when you store it, so the guac will retain its green color.
