10 easy tips will make you a better cook
June 10, 2003
BY KAREN HARAM, BONNIE WALKER AND JOHN GRIFFIN
SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS
Tips -- every cook has them. They make preparing meals a little
easier. They add depth of flavor to even the most ordinary dishes. And
they place you in the realm where your friends will ask, "How do you
do that?
Here are 10 of our favorites:
1. If you are using a recipe, read it in its
entirety before you start. Don't just grab the first few ingredients
and start cooking up a storm, thinking it will all come together in a
matter of minutes. Sometimes you discover too late that dough must be
refrigerated for several hours -- and not one minute shorter -- before
you can proceed on to the next step. There's little point in waiting
up until 2 a.m. before your dish is ready.
Once you have finished reading the recipe, then gather all of your
ingredients, making sure you have enough time to let the butter come
up to room temperature or the turkey to thaw before you start.
2. When making a tomato-based pasta sauce, use
vodka to take the sauce to a new level. Simply saute a chopped onion
and a couple of cloves of minced garlic in olive oil, then add some
good canned tomatoes that you break up by hand as you squeeze them
into the pot . Season with salt and pepper.
Then add the piece de resistance -- a splash of vodka.
Mysteriously, the addition of vodka to tomato sauce gives the tomatoes
a flavor jolt, even after the alcohol is cooked off. Add cream, if you
want, for an amazing tomato cream sauce.
3. There are several secrets to making great
pasta. Cook it in plenty of salted water and don't add oil, which
keeps the sauce from adhering properly. If you use enough water and
bring it to a good boil before adding the pasta, it won't stick.
Cook pasta just until al dente, or barely tender. Check by removing
a strand and tasting it or cutting it in half. There should be a
pinhead-sized dot of white left in the center. Don't drain the pasta
into a colander and rinse it with water; rather, use tongs to lift the
pasta from the water and put it into the pan where you have part of
the pasta sauce. The rest of the sauce should be removed and reserved
for dressing the top of the pasta.
Gently fold the pasta into the sauce using an upward, forward
movement with your tongs. You probably will need to add a bit of the
pasta cooking water to the sauce as you're blending it together; you
want the mixture to be slightly loose and flowing, not dry.
4. Making perfect pie crust is a matter of
practice, to be sure, but there are also some techniques that help
ensure you have a tender, flaky crust. Using all butter makes a crust
that isn't as tender and flaky as you want; instead, combine butter
with shortening for best results.
When cutting the fat into the salted flour, don't go overboard. You
want to end up with pieces that are pea-sized or 1/4 to 1/2 inch in
diameter. When you add water, it should be ice cold. We put ice cubes
in the cup to which we've added cold water. Before rolling out,
refrigerate the ball of dough for 30-60 minutes to firm up the fat,
which makes the pastry flakier. Don't overwork the dough when you roll
it out. We swear by a rolling pin cover and pastry cloth.
5. Rather than using a mallet with teeth, use
the flat side of a meat pounder. Instead of pounding up and down on
the meat, use the pounder (or a saucer) to push the meat outward and
flatten it. Don't spend much time in the center of the meat -- one or
two pushes should do it, then work outward until you have a thin
scaloppini of equal thickness. It will make the tenderest cutlet
possible.
6. To get enough salt in your potato salad, it's
easier and more thorough to lay the diced, cooled potatoes out on a
cookie sheet and salt them this way. You'll be sure each bite is salty
enough (or as salty as you wish) without having to do a lot of mixing
when you add the mayonnaise and the rest of the vegetables to the
potatoes.
7. Scrambled egg devotees take heed: If you love
creamy eggs, you might think adding milk is the best way to make them
even creamier. Actually, a teaspoon of water with two or three
scrambled eggs will yield a moister product. The answer is in
chemistry. Water slows down the coagulation of the egg yolk, making a
creamier product. Milk products work the opposite way, tending to
harden the yolk.
We've tried it both ways and we lean toward the water-added method.
Remember, for really tender curds of scrambled eggs, cook very slowly.
8. So many of us grew up putting fried things,
from bacon to batter-fried chicken, on paper towels to blot the fat.
This works, but a wire rack is even better. Paper absorbs not just
fat, but other moisture from the food and the steam. This is absorbed
back into the breading, making for soggy bottoms. Put a wire cookie
rack over a cookie sheet and set it in a warm oven. This is a good way
to hold batter-fried food for a few minutes before serving.
9. That crack in the top of a cheesecake bothers
some cooks more than others. If you're putting a topping on it, the
sour cream or the fruit spread can usually disguise it. If you really
don't want a crack, take the cake out a little sooner. If a small
circle in the center (about the size of a silver dollar) is still a
little wobbly, that's OK. The cake will continue to cook after it's
been removed from the stove. Don't refrigerate it right away.
10. If you are using fresh herbs in a cooked
dish, save a few to toss in at the last minute. The taste will be more
vibrant. This is because some herbs, including cilantro, basil, dill
and parsley, lose some of their robust flavor while cooking.
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