Ten cooking hacks you need in your life

Elawin

Elawin

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This is an article on the BBC Radio 4 website
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5w3zWw4kT6xRkSS72v2QGzv/ten-cooking-hacks-you-need-in-your-life

1. Use a wooden chopping board
2. Don't bother peeling your mushrooms
3. Salted or unsalted butter? It doesn't matter
4. Use fresh yeast when baking, not dried yeast. Ask a baker in a supermarket for fresh yeast
5. Keep bubbles in a fizzy drink by keeping it cold and putting a lid on it
6. Rapeseed oil is a great all-round cooking oil
7. After cooking, rest meat down to warm room temperature whilst it's covered with tin foil
8. Use more parts of the vegetables you cook with
9. Check a wine by smelling the cork and making sure it doesn't smell damp
10. You can throw spaghetti at a wall to see if it's cooked (or just taste test it)

Have you any other, similar tips?
 
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  1. I use a wooden chopping board for everything except meat. It also doubles as a pizza peel, and I put the weights on it when I'm weighting cheese rather than using a plate, which may crack.
  2. I don't think I've ever peeled a mushroom in my life - don't see the point.
  3. I always use unsalted butter - I can't stand the taste of salt and salted butter is too salty for me.
  4. I always use dried yeast. None of the supermarkets round here have fresh yeast - in fact none of them even bake their own bread any more. The fresh bread is always delivered ready baked and, if you are lucky, it may be slightly warm.
  5. I can't remember the last time I had a fizzy drink of any description, so wouldn't know.
  6. I use rapeseed oil for deep frying or hot temperature frying. At the moment I also have a 5 litre bottle of sunflower oil for everything else - the local supermarket had an offer on it, and it was cheaper than a 1 litre bottle of light olive oil which I usually use.
  7. I usually cover meat but don't let the foil come into contact with it if it has spices etc coating it. I don't leave it next to the cooker, though. It's hidden out of "harm's" way in the microwave or in a cupboard.
  8. I try not to waste any part of the vegetables I use, even if this only means giving the stalks to the dog to chew on or as part of his dinner. I don't like using the onion skins in dishes, although I sometimes use them and all the other bits to make stock. I often use carrot tops as a substitute for parsley, although they are usually much stronger tasting so you only need a little.
  9. Most of the wines I buy don't have a cork.
  10. I taste it.
I do sometimes use up milk which is on the verge of going off for making cheese, but would never use it for anything else.
 
TBH these 'hacks' sound a bit dated - as you say, who peels mushrooms? I have some very old cookery books where it occasionally suggests that but I really can't imagine anyone doing that now.

Corks in wine are also fast becoming a thing of the past, it seems!

Elawin said:
5. Keep bubbles in a fizzy drink by keeping it cold and putting a lid on it
Click to expand...

Is this serious? I would have thought everyone knows that.
 
I can remember the first time I went to Germany and the lady who was looking after me peeled mushrooms, but used a knife! She didn't know that you could easily peel them by snapping the stalk off and then using your thumb under the membrane and pulling it back... mind you I personally have never bothered peeling most veg/fruit & fungi.

as for meat wouldn't know.
as for bubbly, wouldn't know
only ever used wooden chopping boards, hate the plastic ones.
fresh yeast whenever I can get hold on it.
wine, don't drink so wouldn't have known to sniff the cork
pasta, I always taste it.
 
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