Eating is a requirement, but cooking is not. Consider the following tips the next time you enter the kitchen. It is important to have confidence when it comes to your kitchen, cookbooks and the ingredients that go into the meals that you will be preparing. Cooking skills allow you to prepare a variety of delicious dishes, and even the chance to have fun doing it! Have fun with these tips and don’t fear making a mess in your kitchen sometimes.
If you want to start cooking more, go to the bookstore or library and get a cookbook of simple and basic recipes that appeal to you. Create at your own pace and allow for patience as you get the trick of cooking down.
One thing that you can do is to bake a pie or tart crust longer to optimize quality. They should not be a pale blond color, they need to be golden brown. The golden color indicates that the sugar in the pie crust has caramelized and this will give a sweet and crisp flavor.
If you messed it up, you can use this trick to fix it and no one will be the wiser. In a small bowl, combine two tablespoons of water and 3 teaspoons of corn starch. While stirring, introduce the liquid into your sauce while it is simmering. Make sure you add the solution slowly while stirring constantly or you risk thickening the sauce too much.
If you want crispier and crunchier French fries, then soak the potatoes in a bowl of cold water for a period of at least half an hour before use. Soaking the potatoes helps to make the fibers within them stronger, which makes them better able to handle the heat during frying.
They will soak up a ton of water, just like a sponge. Instead, get a wet, clean cloth and wipe off the mushroom by hand.
When preparing chicken stock, it is best to make a large batch. Plan to make a big pot of stock so you can freeze and store it. You can use that delicious chicken stock in stews, casseroles, and soups. Just cool your stock and freeze it in heavyweight Ziploc freezer bags.
Try adding seasoning over the entire cooking process instead of putting on all your seasoning on at the beginning. Add a little spice every few minutes. This will allow you to make your meal more flavorful, and will prevent you from adding too much seasoning.
You can dry out your own tomatoes. Dry your own by slicing ripe tomatoes 1/2″ thick, or cut Romas in half, lengthwise. Lay your tomato slices across a cooling rack with the cut-side facing up, and salt them lightly. Heat your oven to 190 degrees and place the tomatoes inside for as long as ten hours. Once done, you can store them in your freezer in plastic bags. Dried tomatoes could also be put in a jar with fresh herbs and topped up with olive oil. Kept in the refrigerator, these tomatoes will keep for a couple of weeks.
The idea of preparing a delicious dish need not be terrifying. If you prepare your own meals at home, you gain the benefits of spending less money than you would at a restaurant, eating more nutritiously because you control the ingredients that go in the food, and learning a new and enjoyable skill. Apply the advice you’ve just learned from the above article to your grocery store trip, kitchen, and then your plate. Celebrate your accomplishment and stick with cooking at home!