Recipe Your simplest cooking tips, tricks or recipes

Never trust something you don't know the science behind. There's a LOT of old wives tales about cooking that will hold you back, things like not flipping meat too often when that's actually the best way to get it cooked evenly. If you know the underlying how and why of cooking you can do just about anything.

Use good tools, and use the right tool for the job. Don't try to stir fry something quickly in a heavy copper bottomed pot, don't drop something that will suck up all your working heat into a thin wok. Tying into that: unless you're rich or in a laboratory nothing in your kitchen is actually being honest with you. Your stovetop has arbitrary measurements for a reason, and your oven's temperature can vary by a good amount in either direction. On my stove I've got one eye where "4" is past the smoke point of even peanut oil and another where I need to go past "medium" to get that hot. Learn how your stuff behaves, where hot and cool spots how, how quickly it reheats after putting cold food in, things like that.

Less general random tips: Never do anything in your kitchen that would bother you if you saw it in a restaurant, take pride in hygiene and safety and you'll never have an accident or gross out a date. Put a lid over eggs when you're frying them, you'll be able to cook the whites fully without overcooking yolks that way. When your oil's cold put less in the pan than you think you need (unless you're measuring the amount), it'll thin and spread when it heats up. You can always add more salt, spices, or cook something longer. Some foods will keep cooking internally after you take them out of the pan/oven/whatever, take them off right before they're done and let them coast. Learn what things taste like inherently, then you know how to use them best.

That stuff in the bottom of the pan? That's delicious flavor, make a sauce out of it using an appropriate liquid. Similarly use the juices and ingredients from each course or item to tie all of their flavors together somewhat, they shouldn't taste the same but should flow from one to the next or work together somehow.

 

I actually really do like how Rachel Ray presents her recipes.

And I think she's hot, even if she isn't hot in the super model sense of hot.

Warning!! Some of the images (photoshopped) are NSFW!!!

rachael ray racy photos - Google Search

 

Rachel Ray likes to cook with fresh basil, Giada cooks with olive oil, and Alton Brown cooks with whatever was on sale at home depot.

 

Home Depot?




I don't get too much into the science behind cooking. In some cases it's necessary, but understanding all of the reasons behind every cooking technique can take the fun out of cooking; does one really need to know the exact boiling temperature of brown sugar and the chemistry involved?. I certainly question and go against some of the old wives tales that get passed from along over the years.

 

You think knowing takes the fun out of it. I think learning how everything works so you can do so much more is where the fun begins.