Article created by: Robertas Lisickis
Why cook hard if you can cook smart, ya know?
There is absolutely no reason to toil over pots and pans all because you crave mac and cheese. Yes, mac and cheese can also be hard to pull off for some.
But hey, thanks to the internet, you don’t have to worry about that any more because folks in this and this Reddit thread have it all figured out, so open up your mind and scroll down!
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Also, salt is the most important thing for seasoning food. Salt alone is better than 100 spices and no salt.
If a meat recipe calls for water don’t use water, use the same amount of unsalted stock of the meat you’re cooking. Chicken Curry, use chicken stock, Beef stew, beef stock. Adds a lot more flavour to these dishes
Getting and using a stick blender. I thought they were gimmicks until I got one (nearly 20 years ago). I’ve reached for that thing at least 20 times for every time I even thought about getting the full-sized blender out.
Butter. A lot of butter. It’s the difference between the food you have at home, and the same dish you have at the restaurant that magically tastes way better. I’ve seen whole sticks of butter disappear into sauces at restaurants.
Spend a little time once a week doing prep work such as chopping onions, carrots, celery, whatever, then store these ingredients in separate containers in the fridge. Cook and chop up a couple of chicken breasts while you’re at it. Mustering up the energy to cook is so much easier when the ingredients just need to be thrown together.
If you are really new to cooking here are some red meat tips to remember: meat continues to cook when you remove it from the oven. Since most people like their beef a little pink remember to take it out before it hits the temp you want. Also, let it stand, don’t cut it up right away, you will lose juices. Invest in decent quality sharp knives, you are far more likely to cut yourself using dull ones.
Sliced peppers and onions can go straight into the freezer fresh and come straight out and into the hot pan, no need for thawing.
For me it was making the same dish over and over until you perfect it. You’ll understand how the seasonings, temperatures, sauces, and meats will change as you make mistakes and do things slightly different. After like 5x making a dish you’ll feel like you can do it in your sleep.
After you learn like 10 dishes like that you can just whip up meals based on the ingredients you have in your kitchen.
I’m also single so I don’t have anyone to complain about repeat meals.
I hate jarred garlic but every dish can always use more garlic, so I go through a lot. I buy the big bag of whole peeled garlic from Sam’s club and chop it all up in my food processor to a fine mince. Then I put it in a freezer ziploc bag and spread it in a thin layer and press the air out, then just break off chunks when I need fresh garlic. Started this when a friend and I were doing a lot of batch cooking large portions and we needed over 40 cloves of garlic for various recipes one session.
Also take several knobs of ginger and do the same, but almost puree it. I don’t even bother to peel it. So convenient.
1. I now freeze my left over tomato paste. I can cut off the amount I need for a recipe and throw it back in the freezer.
2. If you store asparagus in a mason jar of water, standing up with the heads out of the water, it can stay fresh for weeks.
This is something I tried on a whim, but it turned out so well I think it’s going to become my new go-to method of making tomato sauce.
(For context, I make _large_ batches of tomato sauce at a time so that I can just portion out what I need later.)
My normal recipe calls for three 28-oz cans of crushed tomatoes. What I did this time was cook down two of them until the flavor was rich and the sauce was super thick, then add the last can and leave it on the heat just long enough to ensure it was all heated through. Combines that developed tomato flavor with the brighter freshness of uncooked.
For snacking on veggies instead of spending all that time chopping, getting a Mandolin slicer and cutting up cucumber, bell peppers, carrots etc is so much easier and they look great too.
Also, baking bacon on foil in the oven instead of standing stove side the entire time.
I guess this counts: when I need minced garlic, I just smash the garlic with the flat of my knife and then give it a quick rocking cut for a few seconds. That’s almost always good enough- I’m not spending minutes mincing garlic.
Either that, or I’ll microplane it
Pizza dough – Measure by weight and let the refrigerator do its magic for 2-3 days to build a proper flavor profile.
Best part of that ginger trick: you don’t even have to peel it if you’re going to grate it with a microplane (yeah, it’s super easy to peel with a spoon, but not peeling it at all is still even better)
Realising I can make hollandaise sauce without having to use a bain-marie was a wonderful discovery for me.
Just slowly whisk in 50g of melted butter to one egg yolk, then add lemon juice and season. The consistency’s ever so slightly different, but I wouldn’t say it’s a bad difference.
Not quite a trick but learning how to use salt properly has made the biggest difference in my cooking. I don’t know who said it originally (it could have been the author but idk) but I read in Anne Burrell s cookbook “taste your food. If it needs something, it’s probably salt.” And keeping that mindset has really helped my cooking without a recipe.
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