These are great. I knew some of them, but I was surprised, after decades in the kitchen myself, that I’d never heard of, but they make sense. I haven’t looked at them all, just half, but the only objection I have is the assumption that fat is bad, and something to be removed from soup.
18 thoughts on “Kitchen Secrets”
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FWIW it also tells how to put fat on the soup. Different people have different tastes.
I’m with you as far as the stupid demonization of fat, Rand, but sometimes a soup or stew just has too much fat, and it looks and tastes unappetizing, so it’s helpful to know how to get some of it out. I’ve seen soup with fat just floating top, and didn’t want to eat it because it looked so yukky.
BTW, thanks for pointing to this – I just purchased the book for my Kindle.
Yes, you obviously want to be able to control your fat. I guess I’d just like to see some kind of asterisk or something with advice like this to point out that sat fat is not unhealthy.
They recommend beer or citrus for a marinade on low quality cuts of meat. Try using Coca Cola instead.
Or maybe Dr. Pepper?
Crazy Russian Hacker has tons of ideas like this.
For peach tea, add Kerns Peach Nectar to your fresh-brewed tea, 4-6 ounces per half gallon. Do not use Jumex brand – Jumex nectar has a slight amount of peach and a lot of fructose.
At least one of these tips was debunked during the food myth busters episode of “Good Eats.” The rice in your salt shaker is not there to absorb water. It’s to provide mechanical abrasion, which breaks up the salt clumps when shaken.
As Alton Brown said, if rice absorbed water that easily, you could cook a bowl of rice just by leaving it outside on a humid day.
True – he recommended adding a few (unpopped) popcorn kernels the salt shaker instead, and that’s been working for me for years.
My mom used to keep a few grains of rice in the salt shaker. I had completely forgotten about it, and my salt has been clumping lately. That will probably work well enough, and if not I’ll try the popcorn.
Table salt usually comes with anti-clumping additives already. The advice is pointless.
It’s essential in high humidity areas like the Gulf Coast.
Lots of good ideas. Just ignore the pæans to the food Nazis: “It’s almost un-American to throw away bacon fat. Store the useful (if admittedly unhealthy) stuff in an airtight aluminum or stainless steel container in the freezer, and use it to make corn bread or fry eggs or potatoes.”
I don’t think there’s any need to freeze bacon fat. It’s very stable. I’ve always stored bacon fat in the refrigerator, in a ceramic or glass container, as my mother did. I’m sure metal would work, too, but it isn’t necessary as PM implies. Bacon fat lasts in the refrigerator for months without going rancid. I’ve never had it go bad on me. Some people, I’m told, store it at room temperature.
Table butter contains salt as a preservative. Unsalted butter, used for baking, *does* need to be frozen if you’re keeping it for a long time (months). Bacon, as we all know, is heavily salted, which no doubt contributes to its long shelf life.
In my experience the anti-salt movement is the main cause for the food industry switch to that other food preservative: sugar. When I look at food labels today I see glucose-fructose syrup added to all sorts of foods where it makes no sense to add any sugar at all including things like bread and crackers.
You need sugar if you want your bread to rise. It provides food for the yeast.
Nope. Yeast is quite good at breaking down starch and using the resulting sugar as food; the relevant enzyme in yeast is called amylase. Sugar makes for faster-rising dough, I’ll give you that. Also softer crumb in the bread.
Make pie crust using vodka instead of water. Alcohol does not cause the gluten to develop, resulting in an easy-to-roll crust that remains flakey when baked.