DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Cooking tips

For those who like to and know how to cook, we all have tips. For those who don't know, you need to know. We all eat food, and the better you can cook, the better your life.

Share your tips here. If you can eat better, and make it easier, why the heck not? I'll start with a few of mine. I am a pretty good cook and have a lot, but am eager to learn more.

Herbs...use a pizza cutter. Just roll that sucker over the herbs you want to use. A lot easier and safer that using a sharp knife. You are also going to get a finer chop, and the finer the chop, the more flavor you get.

Poached eggs...nobody does that because it is a hassle. Use a muffin tin.

Spray the tin lightly, add a tablespoon of water and vinegar mixed 4:1 water, ( you can skip the vinegar) crack in the egg and bake in the over at 350 for maybe 10 minutes or so. Just check and take out when the yolks are the way you want them. You can cook a dozen at a time if you want. Add some diced ham or whatever you want at the beginning. Cheese near the end.

If you want Egg McMuffin style, use a bigger sized tin, and crack up the yolk before cooking. If you want runny, don't open up the yolk and cook to your liking.

Thick Rubber Bands...

Keep a few sizes in your drawer. They are great to use to open hard to open jar lids. Just strap them around the lid, now you get a grip.

Disposable shower caps.

If you have a mound of potato salad or something, just put a shower cap over the bowl. Keeps contaminents out and smells in.

When working with raw meats, I like to do everything I can to minimize the amount of surfaces contacted and the mess made. I have little ones at home and much of the counter space next to the sink is mixed use, so potential opportunities for little hands to pick up bacteria.

I use a roll-out metal/rubber mat thing over the sink. Here's a good example of what I use.
Sink Mat/Rack Thing

So if I have a rack of ribs or a pork butt, I can plop the meat on that thing. It's sitting over the sink for me to rinse/dry, season/rub. It can sit and chill there to come up to room temp and let the rub do its thing. Once the meat is where it's supposed to be to cook, rack gets washed up in the sink (along with whatever has fallen through), dried, and then rolled up and put back underneath the sink.

Want a flavorful juicy steak no matter if it’s cooked on the grill or pan seared? Season lightly with garlic salt and pepper before cooking, then when the steak is almost done to your desired likes, put a tablespoon of butter and a pinch of rosemary and thyme on top or in the pan and bathe the steak in the melted butter and herbs. Makes for great flavor.

And tip for those new to cooking steaks, there are many charts or cooking guides online to tell you how long to cook for the desired degree of done. Rare, med rare, medium, med well, well… I watched a video on YouTube years ago that shows you how to touch the steak to determine how done it is… a good medium rare will feel as spongy as the area of your palm that the thumb is attached to, when pressed with your finger.

Also, bread is life. Learn to make homemade bread, rolls, buns, pizza crust, etc. You’ll find the ingredients and techniques are similar for each. And once you learn to knead the bread properly for what you are making, the entire world of bread making opens up for you. Almost everyone likes fresh made bread and you will be the hit of the get together for making it.

Same with noodles. Everyone likes good homemade noodles. Here’s my simple recipe for egg noodles:

Combine 2 1/2 cups of flour, 3 whole eggs, two tablespoons of room temp water, and 1 teaspoon of salt. Mix and knead until soft and well combined. The mix will seem too dry, but keep kneading or mixing. I use a stand mixer, but about 5 minuted of hand kneading will usually do. Then put that in a covered air tight container and let it rest for at least twenty minutes. After that time, lightly flour a surface for rolling them out, cut into 4 equal pieces, and roll out to be about 1/16th inch thick. Cut them narrow or wide to your liking and know they will double in size when cooked. TIP: use plenty of flour while rolling to keep them thinly coated on both sides. This helps roll them thin and the excess flour on the noodles will naturally thicken soups or beef/chicken and noodles.

To make beef or chicken and noodles here is my tip:

I season with salt and pepper then sear a smallish chuck roast (2-3 pounds) in my instant pot. Then cook it with 1-2 cups of water on high pressure for about 1 hour and 15 minutes. This will render all the fat and make it fork tender to shred. When done, remove the beef and shred with two forks, removing any intact fat or silver skin. In a separate pot, measure and add the liquid from the instant pot and add water for a total of 10-12 cups. I like the knorr beef bullion and add one cube for each two cups of water added. But you can use beef stock instead of water or add beef base, you just want a nice beef flavored liquid base. Add shredded beef, bring to a boil and while boiling add noodles. Boil on high for about 5-10m minutes stirring regularly. The remove from heat, cover and allow to cool at room temp at least two hours. This will cause the noodles to drink up all that stock. You can also just refrigerate overnight. Reheat as needed and serve. At room temp and covered for two hours, they are usually still warm enough to serve at that point.

Chicken is the same. Put a smallish 4-5 lb whole cleaned chicken in the instant pot with salt and pepper and about 1-2 cups of water. Cook on high pressure for an hour. Then debone, remove skin, and shred. Use water and chicken bullion just like the beef recipe, bring to boil with chicken, then add noodles and full boil for 10 minutes stirring frequently. Remove from heat and cool like the beef recipe says.

Enjoy.

If you own an Ecko potato peeler (the kind with the serrated edged blades), then you have the perfect tool for coring hot peppers (like Jalapenos, and upward on the Scoville Scale).

This is the tool I'm describing:



(apologies for the screen resolution. The pic is 6X bigger than the actual tool...)

I slice off the tops of the peppers, run this tool down and around the inside of the fruit, and extract the membrane/seeds in about 1.5 seconds. The cupped blade cradles the innards, and pulls them out with zero effort. With stubborn specimens, I actually twist the fruit in my left hand, while sawing the membranes with the serrated edges of the tool's blades. On those occasions, I can gut and core a pepper in 2.5- 3.0 seconds.

With this tool, I can also tailor the amount of heat I wish to impart to a dish by simply being neat or sloppy with my carve-outs: clean pepper = mild heat. Sloppy pepper = spicy.

Added benefit: I can core a pint/quart of hot peppers in record time, without ever touching the capsaicin-producing pepper parts.

I've never used gloves to prepare peppers (of any Scoville rating) for cooking, quick-pickling or canning. I've never needed to. The tool is the key.



.02

Most people don't use those peelers properly. They only peel in one direction. That blade pivots and changes the blade angle. You can peel down, then up without ever removing the blade from the potato. You get the job done much quicker. A little practice is all it takes.

I like to buy ground beef in 10 lbs chubbs to get the best price.

To freeze it, I divy the meat in to 8 equal sections (about 1.25lb each) and put each in to a 1 gallon zip lock bag. Take a rolling pin or wine bottle and roll the meat out flat to fill the entire bag. That removes most of the air in the bag and you end up with nice flat packages for easy storage in the freezer. Just stack them nice and neat. Removing 98% of the air also helps reduce freezer burn. You can store it much longer.

It also greatly reduces thaw out time since you are thawing a sheet of meat maybe 1/4 inch thick rather than a balled up clump.

At least for me, it helps in the cooking process as well. I just take the entire sheet of meat and drop it in the fry pan and more or less sear half the meat at once. When you break it apart to finish cooking, you end up with heartier chunks of beef, which I like for the most part. If you need it finer, just keep chopping as you cook.

One tip I've learned about smoking.....once a piece of meat reaches a certain temp in the smoker, it ceases to take smoke. I rub the meat the night before and put it on the smoker cold....straight from the fridge. This gives the cut of meat added time to take smoke, as it takes longer to get to the proper temp. It always results in a beautiful smoke ring and a rich, smokey flavor.

I also don't use a binder for the rub, I find that the natural moisture of the meat is enough to hold the rub in place (or just a light spray of cooking oil if you insist). Rub one side and let it sit for a couple minutes before flipping to do the other side. I really think that slathering the meat in mustard or whatever is a practical joke perpetrated by the experts as they laugh at you while you're trying to clean up that yellow, goopy mess that seems to get all over everything.

I use the potato peeler maybe twice a week, I never knew you could do that, thanks.

I’m ordering these tomorrow, sister highly recommended them. Boil some water, lightly spray with pam, crack egg put it in the poacher, put it in the boiling water, 10 minutes. Done, no oil jumping all over the place. I love poached eggs, but wife hates to make them cause of the oil everywhere.

https://www.amazon.com/Egg-Poacher-COZILIFE-Build-Microwave/dp/B01LXBW1UI/ref=mp_s_a_1_6_sspa?crid=1KM1RJXXT17BL&keywords=egg+poachers&qid=1695404085&sprefix=egg+poachers%2Caps%2C176&sr=8-6-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9waG9uZV9zZWFyY2hfbXRm&psc=1

A few time savers.

Chopped, dehydrated onions.

No doubt there is a time for fresh onion. On a burger, I want a big, 1/4 in. thick at minimum slice of raw onion on top of that burger. At times you just want to add some to a meatloaf and don't have, or don't what to shop up an onion. Chopped, dehydrated onions work great. Look for the chopped. They usually come in a larger container than the minced onions you can get in a shaker. If that is all you can get, they work, just not as well IMO.

The key is to take a few tablespoons full, or whatever amount you want and put them in a small bowl with some cold water to cover and stick in the fridge an hour or more before you want to use them. Rehydrating them makes a big difference. Remember they aren't as strong as a raw onion being cooked, so us a little more than you think.

All purpose seasoning.

I highly recommend Goya, Adobo seasoning. I like pepper and it has a good amount of white pepper. It has a nice punch to it. Great on pretty much everything.

Sherry

Get a bottle of real Sherry, not the cooking sherry. Go to the liquor store. It doesn't have to be an expensive bottle, but as they say, if you don't want to drink it, don't cook with it. Sherry adds a depth of flavor to soups and sauces that can't be beat. You can turn a can of Campbells tomato or clam chowder into something people are going to wonder how long it took you to make. (Little white lies never hurt anybody)

You only use a few tablespoons at a time on average, so that $20 sherry you bought, as long as you keep it capped...or don't drink..lol...it might last you 2-3 years. It's not going to go bad. Like vinegar, alcohol is going to prevent that.

On that note...keep a 4 pack of the small bottles of a red and white wine in the fridge. Perfect for cooking. Reds for your tomato/brown based or beef based dished. Whites for your cream based or chicken based dishes. As above, wine adds a depth most people miss when cooking.

For the chopped onion, you can also chop onion, then lay the bits out on a cookie sheet and pop it in the freezer. Do a few sheets at a time if you have enough onion. Then, once they are mostly frozen, you can dump them all into a large freezer bag and you'll have ready-to-use frozen onion that won't stick together in clumps. This is a great way to store onion if you have a large garden and produce more than you can use right away. You can do the same thing with entire slices.

Alternatively, GFS (Gordon Food Services) sells 5 pound bags of diced onion and diced green peppers. You can buy those, divvy the contents into smaller bags, and freeze everything.

When breading things like chicken, pork chops, or even vegetables, ALWAYS let the breading sit for at least one hour before frying. This helps prevent the breading from falling/flaking off.

Marinades: making your own marinades is just needing to mix up an Acid, an Oil, and seasonings.

Acids are the part that tenderize the meat. This can be things like vinegar, buttermilk, lemon juice, pineapple juice, teriyaki or soy sauce, etc...

Oils should be chosen for flavor, but also for the cooking method. Make sure the oil can handle the temp you'll be cooking at without smoking/scorching.

Seasonings are complementary flavors to your acid and oil to enhance the complete package.

I use two oils.

Avocado for cooking. It has a very high smoke point.

Virgin Olive oil for dressing or a simple drizzle over various foods for flavoring.

I didn’t know we were doing smoking tips, not sure purp has the disk space. What you think, Swish?

Lol.

Next visit to Sam’s we are goona try avocado oil. We’ve used olive oil for years, what is the biggest difference? I don’t care for olives or avocado, but the olive oil is alright.

Avocado oil has been my goto for about ten years now. Higher smoking point means it's much more versatile. Personally, I think the flavor is better as well. Love it for sauteed vegetables. EVO is great for salads, that's about all I use it for anymore.

Crazy thing is, I just went to Amazon to order my favorite brand before checking in here. 🤣

Don't worry., For cooking it is great. It is a bit heavier, but it is a cooking oil. You can fry foods in it and it isn't going to scorch, or go rancid. But if you want to a nice light dressing, go olive oil.

You really need two oils. One is for taste, and one is for frying. It just depends on what you are trying achieve. If you want a crispy chicken or fries, you best use a high temp oil or lard. If you want a nice salad dressing or oil drizzle, use a light olive oil.

You'll have a harder time getting avocado oil to scorch on the grill. I've been told that AO can impart a bit of a nutty flavor, but I can't really confirm that despite how much I've used it. Based on the effect on the smoke point and that AO is readily available, I'd say it makes sense to have an extra bottle of oil (right tool for the job).

Avacado oil is also great on the Blackstone, for both seasoning the cooktop and cooking.

Thanks for the replies, we really dont make fried foods anymore, unless you count fried rice. Wife cooks a ton of veggies so I might just order that same AO off amazon.

Avocado is more for cooking. It has a high smoke point. It doesn't break down. Olive oil has one of the lowest smoke points. It will break down sooner. If you are really heating it, it will flash fire long before avocado.

Olive oil is more for dressing or to use in place of butter and used to dip bread in to. I'd keep both. As for taste, they taste about the same IMO, the olive oil is lighter and maybe a tad sweeter.