Kitchen Tricks
Bread Crumbs: To make fresh bread crumbs: Trim crusts from firm sandwich bread. Tear bread into pieces and process in a food processor or blender until coarse crumbs form. One slice of bread makes about 1/3 cup crumbs. Bread Crumbs, old-fashioned way: Place slice of firm bread in plastic bag, seal; roll over bag with rolling-pin until crumbs reached desired consistency. Boiling: "A stew boiled is a stew spoiled". The same sentiment may be applied to almost every other kind of food. Even "boiled" eggs, so-called, should be simmered. Brown Sugar, to soften: Place a slice of bread in the box and seal the box tightly. In just a few hours the brown sugar will be soft again. Cakes: When a cake recipe calls for flouring the baking pan, use a bit of the dry cake mix instead and there won't be any white mess on the outside of the cake. Celery: Wrap celery in aluminum foil when putting in the refrigerator and it will keep for weeks. Cinnamon Sugar: Mix 1 cup sugar with every 2 tablespoons cinnamon. Use for toast, coffeecake and yogurt toppings. Coconut: To Store: After opening store coconut, tightly closed, in refrigerator. To Tint: Dilute a few drops food coloring with 1/2 teaspoon water; add to 1 cup coconut placed in a plastic bag. Close bag and shake until coconut is evenly tinted. Repeat with more food coloring and water for a darker shade. To Toast: Heat oven to 350 F. Spread 1 and 1/3 cups coconut evenly in shallow pan. Toast 7 to 12 minutes or until thoroughly browned and stir often. Or toast in microwave in a microwavable pie plate on HIGH for 5 minutes; stir often. Convenience Foods: They're great -- but doctor them up. Add your personal touch -- don't add water, add wine. Season, add vegetables and bake. Do something with them. Cutting Foods Changes Flavor: You release the flavor of fruits and vegetables when you slice, chop or crush them. The action cuts the plant cells, which have different chemical substances sealed off in different sections. When you cut a cell, compounds freed from one part of the cell mix with substances in other parts to produce different states. The flavor changes according to how many times you tear the cells. For instance: garlic, a whole clove has a wild flavor when cooked, a slightly crushed clove has more flavor; a sliced clove even more and a chopped clove the most. Deep-Frying: When no thermometer is available, a simple test for temperature can be made with a small cube of bread about 1-inch square. When you think the fat is hot enough, drop in the bread cube and count slowly to sixty or use a timer for 60 seconds. If the bread browns in this time the fat will be satisfactory for frying most foods. Foods for frying should be at room temperature when possible. The colder the food the lower the oil temperature. Do not fry too many foods at once, this also lowers the temperature of the oil and may also cause the fat to bubble up too fast and go over the top of the kettle. Always immerse gently into oil with long-handled tongs or a slotted spoon or in a fry basket. Always dip utensils into hot fat first so that food will release quickly without sticking. After frying one batch let the temperature come up again to the required heat. Skim out bits of food or crumbs frequently -- as they collect during frying. If allowed to remain, they induce foaming, discolor the fat, and affect the flavor of the food. At the end of frying and after the fat has cooled somewhat, strain it to remove all leftover particles. Return it to the container and store for future use. Adding some fresh fat for each new frying materially increases its length of life. When the fat becomes dark or thickish looking, discard it. Oil at this stage will smoke when heated. For good result the food to be fried must be properly prepared. Pieces should be uniform in size, preferably not thicker than 2 inches, so that they will all cook in the same length of time. Raw foods, especially wet ones, should be patted between towels or absorbent paper before cooking to remove excess surface moisture. Foods to be coated with batter should be surface dried before applying the batter (shrimp, pineapple slices). The richer a dough or batter mixture, the more oil it absorbs during frying. By adding even a little touch more shortening or sugar to the mix, a doughnut may become so rich that it will end up being grease-soaked. Additional alphabetical tips: © Copyright 2008 bommer for http://www.sakara.net |
