Here are some tips and tricks to help you with your cooking experience.
Shortcuts
No one is going to fault you for taking shortcuts as long as it saves you time.
Buy the peeled garlic
Buy the frozen vegetables
Buy the canned mushrooms instead of fresh
Just be careful these things you buy are the freshest possible without added fillers and junk.
1. Although it is proper to sauté over high heat, medium heat is best for pan-frying or scrambling eggs.
Never use milk to extend scrambled eggs. The milk can separate and leave you with weeping eggs. Browning point occurs when the conduction of the pan and medium reach approximately 280°. If this happens, you pan is way too hot.
Hard cooked eggs (boiled eggs), give up the water! Preheat your oven to 325° and place eggs in a muffin pan. Bake for 30 minutes. Throw them, in ice water and crack the shells all around them. Let them take up some cold water. They will be much easier to peel and there won't be grey around the yolk!
2. Any pan can be made non-stick. Do you have a stainless-steel pan set that foods stick to when cooking? Try this: put 2 tablespoons of oil in a hot pan and rotate to cover the entire bottom of the pan. Bring that oil to the smoke point, then remove from the heat and pour off excess oil. Return the pan to the heat and add fresh cold oil to the pan, and when it’s ready, add your items. Your food will no longer stick to the pan. This must be done each time you use this pan.
3. Do you hate it when garlic sticks to the knife when chopping it? Rub the knife blade with a little oil before you start to prevent it from sticking.
4. Do you know how to make any meats tender and juicy? I gotcha!
5. When sautéing meat, don’t overcrowd the pan, it will only boil and steam in its juices and in the end it will still be pale, but also tough. Sauté meats in small batches.
6. Deglazing a sauté pan with water (though it gives no flavor), stock, or acid, will bring up the fond and crispens from the bottom of the pan for your sauce, and leave you with an easy-to-clean pan when you’ve finished.
7. Consider a marinade for your meats as they can break down proteins for a more tender and tasty result. We will discuss marinades in the meat section.
8. Let cooked meat rest before you slice or cut it, “Rest the meat!” If you cut into it and the juices flow out, you are cutting too soon.
9. Always assess seasonings before service, but only after you have properly balanced your preparation. Don’t use salt to magnify the taste, rather just enough for a subtle adjustment if needed at all. Break the habit of salting everything.
10. Only cook with wine you would drink yourself. This means, don't use 'cooking' wine as in, that garbage that is all salty from the grocery. Cheap wine is just fine, just stick to wines you'd find on the shelf that aren't in the cooking aisle. I have found the only exception to this is cooking sherry.
11. When cooking pasta, ALWAYS reserve a portion of the cooking water to complete the pan sauce.
12. Keep your plastic wrap in the freezer. It prevents you from doing the two-handed, one foot, and lip routine trying to keep it from sticking to itself! You'll thank me!
13. Have two whisks at your disposal, a metal balloon whisk and a plastic whisk. Never use metal with a white sauce, it will turn the color grey.
14. IMPORTANT! Get yourself a small journal or notebook and write down what worked and didn't. You may make a wonderful sauce today, but when you recreate it weeks from now, will you remember exactly how you did it?
15. Mise En Place, “everything in its place.” Have all of your ingredients prepped and measured before you start cooking. This way you aren't running around with things on the stove.
16. Taste, taste and taste again! How else would you know how your dish is coming together.
17. It is OK to store hot foods in the fridge. You do not have to wait for the foods to cool before you put them away. In fact, it's better to store them right away while they're still hot than to forget them and leave them sitting at room temperature for too long. For them to cool faster, transfer to shallow dishes.
18. When you can, make stock from scratch. It will always provide a richer flavor than store bought.
19. Temperatures you should know:
140°
Steam forms
Yeast dies
150°
Eggs coagulate
160° - 170°
Milk solids separate
180° - 190°
liquid simmers
212°
Water and liquids boil
Maillard Reaction
338°
In Eggs - 280-330°