• friederike June 2011

  I thought it would be nice to exchange a few cooking tricks - just those small things that make life easier, or food better.
  One of mine is that I always prepare salad dressings in old jam jars and then just shake them instead of stirring - works like a charm. Let's see, what else? For flambéeing, the food needs to be as hot as possible as with many alcohols (esp. those with a lower alcohol percentage) you won't be able to reach the temperature necessary for burning - cover with a lid, heat up quickly, then uncover and flambé.
  What are your special tricks?
• aj12754 June 2011

  I use a milk frother for my salad dressings now-- no more drizzling and whisking...
  
  My less than $20 Kyocera slicer is my new best friend and has completely replaced the much more expensive mandoline gathering dust in my basement now. Plus the Kyocera is dishwasher friendly.
  
  A great knife is never a bad investment!
  
  Thanks for starting this thread -- I love hearing what makes other cooks so successful.
  
  PS -- so many great reviews have been posted lately I am having trouble keeping up with getting them all read ... a nice problem to have!
• redjanet June 2011

  A tip I learned recently from a Nigella book for boiling water faster in a saucepan, if you have an electric kettle: At the same time that you start the water going in your kettle, also start heating the saucepan with a centimetre or two of water. That way, once the water in your kettle comes to the boil, the water in your pan is already simmering and hot, so you can add the kettle water to the pan, clamp the lid on and the water in the pan will return to the boil very quickly. Works a treat for me every time!
• BethNH June 2011

  A simple baking tip.
  When spooning flour or cocoa powder (or any dry ingredient) into measuring cups, do so over a piece of waxed paper. Then you can swish a knife over the cup to level, capture the extra flour and pour it back into the container.
• Leeka June 2011

  BethNH, you sound like a very tidy cook! I'm always wiping up big piles of cocoa and flour from my countertops. That's a great idea.
• Queezle Sister June 2011

  I have been plagued by a stove that cooks too hot, and I'll share with you my solution. I purchased a "simmer mat" for my stove. Its a heavy cast iron disc that sits on the burner, between the flame and the pan. I get my frying pan hot first, then put the (cold) simmer mat on the burner (and crank it high to warm it up). Then I move the frying pan onto the simmer mat, and turn the heat down. Even though I use a heavy cast iron frying pan, I was getting uneven heat. With the simmer mat, I can now make perfectly even pancakes and grilled cheese sandwiches.
  
  By the way, the simmer mat is very small, so it won't be a problem finding it a home. I look forward now to making sauces and those recipes that call for rice on the stove top.
• andrew June 2011

  Great tips. We use jam jars for salad dressing too! Here are a couple of mine:
  
  Oven preheating. I used to just pop my baking in the oven once the element switched off and I knew it had reached the set temperature. Lately I have been warming it up for longer - at least 30 minutes before baking. The thermostat in an oven just measures air temperature, and when you open the door all that hot air rushes out and the temperature often drops by 50 or 100 degrees and then has to come back up. If you heat it longer, the oven walls get hot and serve as a reservoir of heat to ensure much more even cooking.
  
  I use parchment paper under my pizzas instead of using flour or cornmeal - it guarantees no messy transfer of the dough into the oven (pizza stone) and if I want I can slide it out after a couple of minutes, or just leave it in until the pizza is done.
  
  I got a cheap digital scale (good old StarFrit) and use it all the time now. I measure flour using 4.5 oz per cup so I know I'm being consistent in baking recipes. When I'm making rolls I use the scale to weigh the dough so I know they're all the same size. I have taken some of my favorite recipes and written down the weights for everything so I can just dump the ingredients into the bowl on top of the scale. I use it for butter all the time too - 1 Tbsp is 0.5 oz, so I just convert instead of trying to guess how many tablespoons I'm measuring.
• kateq June 2011

  I love this stuff!!
  
  If you are measuring oil and honey in a recipe, measure the oil first. Then measure the honey--it will slide right out of the oiled cup/spoon.
  
  I buy unglazed quarry tiles (bout 69 cents each)--6 make a perfect baking stone for bread, pizza. Easy to remove, store, clean. And when they get too stained, they go in a friend's garden.
  
  I too use parchment for bread/pizza and I love my scale--I use ut all the time.
• southerncooker June 2011

  I use my immersion blender (what Emeril calls a boat motor) to puree hot things instead of putting it into a blender. Much easier and safer too.
  
  I keep ginger in the freezer. It grates better and lasts longer. I can have it on hand for stir fries that way.
• Leeka June 2011

  What a great thread full of fantastic tips!
  
  Andrew, I love your oven preheating information as well as the parchment paper under the pizza. I bought a pizza stone and after failing to transfer my pizza to the stone the first time without creating a huge disaster I gave up on it. Thanks for the great solution!
  
  I just couldn't live without my immersion blender. It's a lifesaver especially if you have children who are sensitive to bits of veggies in everything. When I make "tomato sauce" it's really chock full of other puréed (right in the pot) veggies like onion, red pepper and carrots.
  
  I do the frozen ginger trick too. It's great to be able to throw a whole unpeeled chunk in there and just grab it, grate part of it and then throw it back in the freezer anytime.
• Queezle Sister June 2011

  These are great tips! RedJanet - I've done the boiling water three times since reading your tip - it really works. I, too, have a kitchen scale, but I don't use it enough. I'm going to write Andrew's weight conversions on a card, and post it inside my cupboard door to have them handy!
• redjanet June 2011

  Great, I'm glad to have passed on a good tip! :)
• Jayme July 2011

  I didn't know that about ginger. That's fantastic! No more shrively gingers for me. Great thread guys. I wish I could think of an awesome tip but nothing comes to mind. Hopefully later!
• redjanet July 2011

  Does the outer brown layer come easily off of ginger iffrozen, or would it be better to peel it first before freezing it? I'd like to try this as I do end up wasting good chunks of ginger sometime.
• Jayme July 2011

  I don't know the answer to that yet. But i do know that you don't usually have to peel ginger. The skin tastes just as good and nobody will ever know you didn't bother peeling it!
• Leeka July 2011

  I don't peel it anymore when I freeze it. I used to do the peel with a spoon trick when I had fresh ginger but I've never actually peeled it and then frozen it. I agree with Jayme that you won't notice if it's not peeled if you're grating it for recipes.
• southerncooker July 2011

  I don't peel mine either before popping in freezer. I just grate it while still frozen with the peel on.
• redjanet July 2011

  Thanks. I'm definitely going to try that with the ginger!
• friederike March 2014

  To resurrect a very old thread: My mother-in-law taught me recently to use only cold water if you want to clean something that has flour on it - warm water will make the flour turn sticky, making it a lot more difficult to wash it off. This doesn't work for batters and doughs, though, only for flour.

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