If cooking is a new adventure for you, realize that you just need to get started. Not just anyone will be able to cook naturally. In the same breath everyone has the capacity to learn to cook. There are a few things that you should know if you want to learn how to cook great food. This article contains plenty of handy tips that can help to improve your culinary skills.
Try drying your own fresh tomatoes. Just slice them when ripe to about 1/2″ thickness. Put them on a rack with the cut side up and add sufficient salt. Next, position a full rack on a baking sheet in an oven preheated to 190 degrees. Dry for approximately 10 hours. The dried tomatoes can be put in plastic bags and frozen. Another way to preserve your dried tomatoes is in olive oil, with herbs for added flavor, in a glass jar. The jars can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.
Before you begin to cook, your utensils should be clean. If your utensils are not completely clean, you run the risk of introducing old food residue into whatever you are cooking. This could allow bacteria to easily spread.
Start out with fat-free stock in order to make a low-fat soup or stew. Take advantage of the vast array of colorful, tasty vegetables and lean meats to keep fat content low. When your soup finishes cooking, chill it in the refrigerator for a bit. When it’s chilled enough, you’ll see hard fat clumps floating on top. The fat can then be removed and tossed out. The calorie savings is around 100 per tablespoon you remove.
A great tip to use when making any type of salsa is to rinse your raw onions once they’re chopped. Also, make sure that you dry them before adding them to your mix. Fresh onions have sulfurous gas in them. This can end up ruining your batch of salsa. Rinsing and drying the chopped onions removes this gas.
Trussing is when you tie your turkey with string. Trussing keeps the legs and wings close to the body of the bird, so that cooking happens evenly. If left untied, the turkey’s legs and wings may burn before the breasts and thighs are done.
To ensure the freshest fish, go fishing and catch your own. Fishing is a great way to get fresh meat at no cost. Make sure you clean the fishes you have caught thoroughly.
New ways to prepare oysters. While oysters are for the most part eaten raw with a bit of lemon lemon juice on top, there are many other ways for you to prepare them. Place opened oysters on top of a broiling pan while covering it with cream. Sprinkle pepper and freshly grated Parmesan over them. Broil them until they begin to bubble. Not a fan of that method? Try sauteing the oysters instead. This is accomplished by using a light layer of seasoned flower and putting them inside a dish of frying butter for only a few minutes. Do not remove oysters from their shells for baking. You place them in a casserole type dish, place a dollop of butter along with fresh breadcrumbs on top of each oyster, then bake them four or five minutes at 425 degrees. After the butter and other juices begin bubbling, serve it smoking hot along with some toasted baguettes.
Though not everyone has a born talent in the kitchen, if you can follow directions, you can become an amateur chef in no time. It doesn’t have to be hard. Take the knowledge you have gained here, and apply it to your cooking. Within no time, you will be whipping up one culinary masterpiece after another.