6 Cooking Tips to Become Handier Around the Kitchen
Have you ever watched cooking shows with famous chefs like Jamie Oliver or Gordon Ramsey and envied their kitchen prowess?
Kitchen tycoons were not made overnight – it took many hours of practice, mistakes and a couple of hot tips to get to where they are today.
If being able to effortlessly navigate your way through the kitchen is your New Year’s resolution, then we have a real treat for you.
Whether you are new to the kitchen or not, there are always a couple of nifty tips and tricks to add to your arsenal of cooking and baking knowledge. Here are six tips to become handier around the kitchen to get you started on your culinary journey.
1. Homemade Garlic Oil
Garlic is a lovely addition to any meal not only because of its flavour but for its various health benefits. Your pantry should always have stock of a few heads of garlic to add that “something extra” to your home-cooked meals.
However, if the garlic has been sitting on the shelf for a while and you are worried about it going bad, then there is a simple and delicious solution: garlic oil.
Making homemade garlic oil will not only preserve your garlic for longer but also add an incredible flavour to your cooking. To make garlic oil, you will need a glass jar (an old gherkin or beetroot jar or the likes will do), vegetable oil and your garlic.
Put a good amount of vegetable oil in your glass jar (the amount will depend on how much garlic you have) and heat up the jar in the microwave for 1 minute in two 30 seconds intervals. You can now throw in your crushed garlic pieces and the heated oil will cook the garlic to make delicious garlic oil.
Garlic oil is great for pan-frying meat or onions and can be added to any meal, like stir-fries and curries, to enhance the flavour.
2. Get out of Sticky and Messy Situations
We all have a few of those plastic containers floating around the kitchen cupboards that are stained from tomato-based foods or curries. Unfortunately, once the damage is done there is little that can be done to return them to their original state.
But there is a way to avoid ruining your plastic containers and that is to prevent them from getting stained in the first place. To do this, lightly spray your container with some oil to prevent the tomato-based foods or curries from sticking to the edges.
Another sticky situation that can become frustrating is ingredients getting stuck onto measuring cups and spoons. If you need to measure sticky liquids, like syrup or honey, be sure to spray the measuring utensils with some Spray ‘n Cook before you use them.
This will prevent the liquid from sticking to the surface and will ensure that you are putting the correct volume of each ingredient into your cooking/baking.
Want to learn one more use for vegetable oil? Keeping bad smells off your hands! If you are going to chop chillies or onions, first rub some vegetable oil on your hands. This will help to coat your skin and prevent the smell from being absorbed.
3. Meaty Tips
Struggling with unevenly cooked meat? There’s nothing worse than cutting into your meat and it is still raw in the middle. Or it’s perfect in the middle and overdone on the outside.
To avoid eating unevenly cooked meat, take your meat of out the freezer a few hours before you plan to start cooking. This way, the meat can completely defrost and reach room temperature guaranteeing a more even cook.
4. Cleaning Burnt Pots
Accidents happen – we are all guilty of burning food. As though the embarrassment of the burnt food is not enough, there is still the burnt pot to deal with afterwards.
The good news is that there is an easy hack for removing burnt food or scalded milk from the bottom of a pot that does not require fancy cleaning products or detergents.
All you will need is some water and bicarbonate of soda! Bicarb will become your new kitchen right-hand – as you spend more time in the kitchen you will learn that bicarb has numerous uses.
To clean your burnt/scalded pot, all you need to do is fill your pot a third of the way with water and add a quarter cup of baking soda to the water. Let the pot simmer on the stove plate for about 10 minutes and the burn will lift making it a lot easier to get rid of the evidence of your mistake.
5. Make your Vegetables Last Longer
Vegetables aren’t cheap and between picky children and busy schedules, they are often left forgotten at the bottom or back of the fridge. Or, if you are an impulse buyer, you might end up with a bunch of vegetables that you simply do not have enough time to eat!
Either way, there is an easy solution: the freezer.
If you have leftover zucchini, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, spinach and the likes then simply grate, chop or pack them into a freezer-safe container and store them until you need them.
However, certain vegetables do not freeze well and would be better off used in a quick salad like lettuce, celery, tomatoes and cucumbers. If you do freeze them, they will unfreeze into a mushy or tasteless mess.
6. Save your Salt
Has your table salt gone clumpy? Salt absorbs moisture from the air and, if enough moisture is gathered, it can cause your salt to clump together. This often happens to salt that goes unused for a long time like the salt inside your ‘special occasion’ salt shakers.
But there is an easy way to return your salt back to normal and to prevent it from clumping in the first place: rice.
Place a few grains of rice inside the salt shaker and they will absorb the moisture instead, keeping your salt smooth and clump-free.
***
Do you have some cooking or baking tips that you would like to share? Share them with us by leaving a comment on Kerrygold’s Facebook, Twitter or Instagram pages for our followers to see.
