What are the best practices you’ve learned to save time or make a meal better.
Ok I might get downvoted to oblivion but I use MSG. It enhances the flavors so much that I have stopped going to restaurants.
Edit- I did my research and found no credible source that says MSG is harmful.
Edit2- If you go to a restaurant or order KFC chances are they use MSG as well
Anti-MSG propaganda actually comes from Asian racism, and was born out of the idea that Chinese food with its MSG was causing headaches and other health effects that were entirely made up. MSG is perfectly fine for you, and it makes a ton of things even tastier. I use it all the time in home cooking.
There is nothing wrong with MSG. It being bad for you is made up by racists.
Uncle Roger agree with you!
Hahaha true
When I have to use parchment paper, I crumple the paper ip into a little ball first, then press it out flat into the cooking vessel (sheet pan or loaf pan or whatnot) and it lays flatter/conforms to the pan better without rolling up all over the place rather than trying to just use a pristine sheet of parchment. It really works great.
LPT - go buy a box of half-size sheets from a restaurant supply store. Webstaurant was my go to until they sent their shipping prices into the stratosphere. I buy 1000 sheets at a time and store it with the sheet pans (the box is only a couple inches tall) and it lasts forever. Costs about $50-60 a box iirc which is way cheaper than buying in rolls.
- Nothing goes on a plate without being tasted
- If it’s too sour, add sugar
- if it’s sweet and you haven’t added acid, add a splash of vinegar.
- if it’s too hot, add fat
- if you burn it, throw it out.
- IF you taste it early, it should taste weak. If it’s fantastic when when it starts to simmer, it’ll be too harsh once it’s reduced.
- Taste it and it tastes empty or boring? Smell it. Smell all your herbs/spices on hand, which ever one it smells the closest to, add a healthy pinch and salt if it doesn’t taste salty already.
- know your oils and use the right ones. Olive oil can handle some heat and is great for savory, grapeseed is almost flavorless. Canola has a distinct flavor that doesn’t go with everything.
- season your meat before you cook it.
Only thing I’d add is that, on 8, learn what rancid oil smells like. Most people keep things like olive oil in poor conditions (that’s without us even getting into quality of oil, or how people buy FAR MORE oil than they’ll reasonably be able to use), and the oil goes bad far faster than they think it will.
Don’t be afraid of spices. Use more than you think is necessary. Onion and garlic can make a meal 100x better.
Agree. Especially the onion 🧅
Not good advice with certain hot peppers.
To each their own
Biggest hack? Realizing that humans have been cooking for millennia, and that it’s in the best interest of big business to convince you that it’s difficult/expensive/extremely complicated.
You don’t NEED the fancy equipment every company out there is trying to sell you.
Not everything needs to be gorgeous on the plate, or a whole production to make.
The poorest people in the world cook delicious food every day.
For instance, you don’t need NEED a +$150 Japanese chef knife to cook at home. What you need is something that can hold an edge through general maintenance, a whet stone, a kitchen towel to dry off your blade immediately after you hand wash it, and a little bit of patience.
IKEA sells some surprisingly great single construction (steel blade, steel handle) knives, and their single body chef knife is like $25. Just get an honing rod for use before you start slicing, and a whet stone for periodic sharpening (there’s TONS of YouTube videos of all the different ways of sharpening your knife), and remember to wash and hand-dry after you’re finished. My chef knife cost me barely anything, and I’ve used it for years and years, and it still slices through a tomato without a problem. Also, I only cook for myself, so I can absolutely 100% guarantee my whet stone will “outlive” me.
That being said, a mandoline can save a lot of time, and a kevlar glove paired with that will save a lot of fingers.
Not exactly a mandoline, but I used to work at a place with a cheese slicer named “Old Nubby.” It had blooded the entire team at least once.
Did they ever learn to use protection?
Each one of them did after nubby took its toll
Legend has it the blood was never cleaned off either
Mandolines are not you friend. They thirst for blood.
Seriously if you get one get a safety mandoline like the once for all brand.
Yup, two big and noticable scars on my fingers now. Didn’t lose digits thankfully. If I use that thing ever again I’m using the guard and just cutting what’s left with a regular knife.
Can confirm.
If you’re American, you don’t want to have to pay an ER bill when you slice the tip of your finger off, like I did.
Or pair it with a pair of kevlar gloves or similar. But yes, every commercial cook I know says the worst kitchen incident they’ve seen involved a mandolin.
Alton Brown recommends a Kevlar glove when using a mandolin.
Kevlar glove.
Ah, the alchemy of the kitchen! A dash of efficiency, a sprinkle of passion, and a dollop of savviness. First off, mise en place - French for ‘put in place.’ Prepare your ingredients ahead of time, it can help remove a loot of stress.
Secondly, invest in a sharp knife - it’s the Excalibur of the culinary world, turning the toughest veggies into paper.
Lastly, experiment! Like any good inventor, a chef isn’t afraid of a few mishaps; it happens to the best of us! You’ll surprise yourself with some of things you may come up with 😉
I am all about mise en place. My wife doesn’t want to dirty a few extra dishes and ends up trying to do too much while things are cooking and stressing herself on out.
I was honestly the same when I was starting out in the kitchen and quickly learned I’d rather clean a few extra dishes, than get myself overly stressed!
If I’m doing a lot of different ingredients, I’ll chop, put in dish to store, and then layer the prepped ingredients on plastic wrap, payments, or wax pape in one or two bowls. Or even on the counter. Not as environmentally sound, but there are times where it’s more doable than separate dishes.
Use silicone toppers and enjoy the best of both worlds.
Besides mise en place, also clean as you go. Basically you only have to clean the pot(s) you cook in, everything else has already been cleaned. And invest in a knife sharpener. They go dull very quickly. And a big box of bandaids :-)
First off, mise en place - French for ‘put in place.’ Prepare your ingredients ahead of time, it can help remove a loot of stress.
Corollary: as you empty a dirty dish, put it directly into the dishwasher or give it a quick wash and dry while the ingredients sweat/simmer/cook. Nothing is quite as nice as having the kitchen nearly cleaned up as you plate your meals. (my wife taught me this - it only took me 25 years to learn!)
Replace everything plastic with glass.
Any brand recommendations? My pyrex lids are all cracked. Probably shouldn’t have put them in the dishwasher…
I use plastic containers if something’s going in the freezer.
Generally I completely agree, but I do have an embarrassingly large number of deli containers in various sizes. Great for leftovers or drinking water.
Unless it’s a cutting board. Plastic cutting boards are great cause you can throw them in the dish washer.
But if you do this, replace it often. Tiny cuts make places for bacteria to grow and you end up cutting tiny bits of plastic into your food.
If you cook by using a cooking recipe you can be creative (within reason). If you BAKE by following a baking recipe stick to the letter!
I teach my kids that cooking is art and baking is science. You have to be precise with measurements in baking, not so in cooking.
Use a meat thermometer! All your meat will come out perfect, without being under or over cooked.
Imo this is the single most important tip that made me cook better. Get one of the instant-read ones, they are worth the money.
Also, flatten your chicken so it cooks evenly.
Thermoworks.
Highly recommend a meat thermometer to everyone. Great recommendation.
By far my favorite is to have a squirt bottle of water next to my stove. It’s great to have throughout the cooking process, especially if you’ve moved on from Teflon bullshit and are using a pan you pre-heat. To start, you put the pan on the heat and squirt a little water in it. When the water evaporates, the pan is usually in the 350F-400F range. Then when the pan is dry and heated a little more, you can squirt a few more drops in to see if the Leidenfrost effect has taken, uhhh, effect. The way you tell is that the water just dances around on the pan instead of behaving like water normally does, and it’s how you know your food won’t stick, it is at this point that you add the oil.
Moving on to the actual cooking, let’s say you’ve thrown some chicken thighs in the pan and you’ve built up a lot of fond (the brown bits that form in the bottom of the pan) and the chicken is almost done, but you’re not planning on making a sauce. Deglaze the pan with little squirts of water targeted directly at the fond and rub the chicken thighs over the area where the water is deglazing and suddenly that fond is sticking to your chicken thighs, resulting in a better crust and a cleaner pan.
Speaking of cleaner pan, once you’re done cooking and plating and you have a hot dirty pan, squirt enough water in to cover the bottom of the pan and then go eat. When you come back to the kitchen to clean up, the water will have broken down the shit on the bottom of the pan and will steam the sides of the pan, so the pan will wipe clean as easy if all you did was fry an egg.
Finally, I stopped putting milk (of any variety) in my coffee, but I wanna be able to drink my coffee right away and it’s too hot when it’s made fresh, but I’ve got a bottle full of room temperature water (all the filtered water in my house comes out ice cold) sitting right there so I can cool it down that way (I brew my coffee pretty strong so watering it down isn’t a big deal).
Very interesting, ty 4 sharing! Never heard of this but will definitely give it a try. I’ve got a spare unused squirtbottle already too
on the pan test, I just run a bit of water onto my hand and flick droplets off my fingers. My reason is that I absolutely LOATHE having anything plastic near the stove. I’ve had far more mishaps involving errant plastic containers than any other.
Besides, If my hand bacteria can make it into the water and survive a 300+ degree pan, it deserves to outlive all of us.
I’ll echo the other comment about deglazing with other flavorful juices to make a better pan sauce (even if it’s not going to be a sauce), since I just prefer it that way. BUT, a splash of water into a pan sauce that’s simmered for too long WILL restore its glossiness and re-thin it.
Removed by mod
The problem with squirting the oil into the pan as it heats is that the metal of the pan heats up a lot slower than the oil so you will burn the oil before your pan is up to temp. Also, pre heating pans will not harm them in any way at all. It sounds like you’re applying my comment to Teflon coated pans, which I excluded at the beginning of my comment.
Removed by mod
I definitely didn’t say to leave the pan on the hob for 20-30 minutes, it takes about 5 minutes. But if putting an empty pot or pan on the heat for 20-30 minutes ruins anything at all on your pans, you need better pans. Every single pan in my kitchen, and I have some budget ones, would just be too hot to handle for a while. On the oil handling the heat, your way puts more heat into the oil than my way and you are way more likely to burn your oil.
Removed by mod
Save a cut of pasta water to thicken up sauces.
Bake bacon on cookie sheets at 375 for about 20 minutes. You can make a ton of bacon very quickly, with almost no mess, and all the bacon is perfectly flat. We have a double oven and we can make about 4 pounds of bacon in about 30 minutes this way. :)
Cookiesheet bacon on the best! If you uike it crispy it heups to broil it for a minute or so atthe end of cooking it.
Does this not splatter all throughout the oven?
No, it does not splatter throughout the oven.
Yes and no. A substantial amount of grease will be aerosolized and condense on the interior of your oven when it cools. It’s nasty looking and the next three cakes you bake will taste slightly of bacon. You can decide whether that’s a bug or a feature.
If I could figure out how to make my electric smoker get to 375F I would only do bacon outside in the smoker as I essentially have to clean the over every time I do bacon in it. And, yes, you can smoke bacon. It’s not bad, but it also is a bit more like jerky than the crispy bacon I like. Again - bug/feature territory.
I just throw bacon on the barbecue at the same time as my burgers. It takes almost the same amount of time to cook, and it’s super crispy - just how I like it.
I do pretty much the same but at a lower temp (~350F) so it doesn’t hit the smoke point. I also prefer my bacon a bit floppy instead of crispy.
And then save the bacon grease in a jar to add to gravys! I add a tablespoon or so to my sausage gravy for biscuits and gravy and it is freaking delicious. Can also use it to grease a cast iron pan before making a pizzookie for a little extra flavor.
There are still people who don’t user probe thermometers. This is the single best cooking tip I can give:
- Get a probe thermometer (preferably a fast reading one).
- Use it.
- Know your temps.
Grilled cheese hack: assemble the sandwich open-faced on a baking sheet and place under the broiler for a few minutes until the cheese is melted and bubbling and slightly browned, then close it up and cook it like normal in a covered skillet on medium heat with butter. The cheese will be completely melted and (more importantly) it will stay melted while you’re actually eating the sandwich, and the browning on the cheese adds a big flavor component.
I used to make them the normal way just in a skillet, and even if the cheese was just barely melted it would cool off and re-solidify before I started eating it. And often I would burn the crust just trying to get the cheese melted.
deleted by creator
I worship at the altar of Alton Brown, but I almost think he was kidding with that video. So much extra work just to melt the cheese.
It was a bit of a high effort shitpost. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn anything from it. I’m definitely not pulling out a grill and full chimney of charcoal just to make literally grilled cheeses but fresh shredded cheese blends with spices as the filling? Hell yeah! Premelt the cheese so it gets bubbly and crispy? Do it under a broiler! Use something other than Wonderbread? Yes please!
I do love high effort shitposts. They have an oddly profound beauty to them
