Archive for the ‘Cool Cooking Tips’ Category

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At a friend’s dinner party the other night the hostess – a terrific cook – was bemoaning the fact that her chopping board was becoming covered in stains that she found increasingly difficult to remove.

I suggested, not too seriously, that she change the board, but this particular item was (a) a gift from her partner (b) made from hard to get Laurel wood and (c) a singularly attractive shape that complemented her kitchen. It was a natural work of art.

I suggested to her that she cover the work surface with raw lemon juice and leave it over night. This would remove most stains and also disinfect the board. White vinegar has similar properties.

Yesterday I got an ecstatic phone call from her. The board was like new and smelling faintly of lemon. Try it. Lemon juice can work wonders on food stains and you don’t have to use fresh lemons. One of those bottles of the processed stuff will work just as well – in fact, that is the only use they have in my kitchen.

photo credit: Ignotus the Mage

I’ve just had a comment from a reader about my ‘how to poach an egg’ video in which he (or she) says that I omitted to mention that several eggs can be cooked at the same time. That’s a fair comment, I think, although I was more concerned with the basic method than with all its possible variations.

Nevertheless, let’s put the record straight. You can cook any number of eggs at the same time using this method, as long as you increase the size of the cooking pot proportionately. For example, in the pan I use in my video (which is in the ‘My Videos’ section), two to four eggs is the maximum. Any more and you would need a larger pan.

You don’t need to put each egg in a separate container prior to cooking, by the way. Crack them all into the same bowl, taking care not to break the yolks. They will stay separated in the pan.

photo credit: Jilles

If kitchen gadgets are your thing, try this one.

If you have stopped making your own mayonnaise because the recipe you followed tasted bitter, let me see if I can persuade you otherwise.

Just about every recipe I see in magazines and even some cookbooks suggests using olive oil, and that’s what creates the bitterness. Crazy isn’t it? It just goes to prove my theory that most food writers don’t actually eat the stuff they write about.

Use grape-seed or sunflower oil instead for a perfect mayo that fluffs up with no trace of bitterness.

photo credit: quinn.anya

Poultry drumsticks carry a lot of fat just under the skin. While this does provide some welcome flavor it also provides you with some very unwelcome calories and trans-fats. So it’s best to remove the skin prior to cooking. You can replace the flavor with a good marinade.

Now, chicken skins are very slippery and hard to grip, especially after removing the first one. Get round this by having a tablespoon of salt on the chopping board and dipping your fingers into it before gripping the skin. Pull the skin from the blunt to the sharp end and it will come off quite easily, especially if you chop of the knuckle with a cleaver first.

photo credit: Sandy Austin