Cooking is very multifaceted and it is impossible to master all its subtleties and nuances. However, you can take note of a few tips from experienced chefs, which will not only avoid many mistakes in the kitchen, but also prepare delicious and beautiful dishes like in a restaurant. Novate.ru talks about several of them.
1. Cook pizza for five minutes
Yes it is possible. To prepare an Italian crispy dish in record time, one simple rule must be followed: the oven temperature must be as high as the model and the state of the household appliances allow. Preheat the oven for at least half an hour, and bake the pizza for a maximum of ten minutes, depending on the set temperature.
2. Make rice crumbly
In most cases, round rice turns into porridge during cooking, but you want it to be crumbly, like in a restaurant. To achieve this effect, try lightly frying raw rice in a skillet with butter and oil. As soon as it ceases to be transparent, add water so that it covers the rice by two to three centimeters, and cook it over low heat for a quarter of an hour. When frying, each grain will be covered with a film of oil and will not stick to others during the cooking process, so the dish will turn out to be crumbly.
3. Bake the chicken correctly
It is believed that baked chicken is one of the easiest dishes that can be prepared not only for a family dinner, but also served on a festive table. But why then is the bird often fried unevenly? The thing is that chicken breast cooks faster than legs. You can solve this problem in one of two ways: put ice on the breast in a bag half an hour before sending the chicken to the oven, or put the carcass on a baking sheet upside down, and after 45 minutes turn it over and cook in a different position.
On a note: Blot the skins with a paper towel before baking to remove excess moisture for a delicious crispy finish at the end of baking.
4. Make a sous-look out of the film
Chefs in professional kitchens often use sous vide techniques to make the meat tasty and juicy, but the equipment required for this type of cooking is not cheap. But there is good news - you can replace an expensive appliance with ordinary cling film, which is in every kitchen. In addition to it, you need to take a cooking thermometer and a large saucepan. Marinate the meat, greasing it with vegetable oil and any spices to your liking, then wrap it in film in several layers and put it in water preheated to 70 ° C.
If a piece of meat weighs about 0.5 kilograms, it will need to be cooked for about two hours - the main thing is to ensure that the water temperature remains at 70 ° C, without rising above. When the meat is ready, take it out of the boiling water, let it rest for about 15 minutes, remove it from the film and quickly fry it in a pan to form a beautiful and appetizing crust.
5. Make healthy mayonnaise
Many housewives switched to homemade mayonnaise, since the store version is high in calories and of little use. However, the sauce, which is prepared independently with the addition of eggs, also does not have a very good effect on the figure. What to do in this situation?
Try making an equally delicious but healthier dressing for salads and main courses. To do this, simply replace the eggs with milk. Here's a simple recipe:
• vegetable oil - 300 ml
• milk - 150 ml
• mustard - 1 tbsp.
• salt - a pinch
• sugar - half a teaspoon
• lemon juice - 2 tbsp.
In a blender flask, combine milk and vegetable oil, then add salt, sugar, mustard and beat the ingredients until smooth. Add lemon juice and beat mayonnaise until thick. If it comes out runny, try letting it sit for 10-15 minutes and then use the blender again. When the sauce is ready, transfer it to a storage container and refrigerate.
6. Use oil of different temperatures
The main secret of delicious pastries that remain fresh for a long time is butter. However, there is one caveat - its temperature. If you are making filled shortbread or quiche lauren dough, the butter should be cold or even frozen. And if there are buns on the menu, the product must first be taken out of the refrigerator and wait until it reaches room temperature.
7. Cook a delicious broth
As you know, salt is able to draw out the taste from meat, so to make the broth from beef, pork or chicken as rich as possible, you need to salt the water at the very beginning, when it just starts to boil. Another important nuance is the temperature of the water: it should be cold when you add meat to the pan. The fact is that with gradual heating, flavoring and nutrients are released from the meat, which subsequently pass into the broth. If you put pork or chicken in boiling water, the surface is immediately "sealed" with a protein film and the meat cannot give off its taste and useful elements.
By the way, when you remove the scale, use not the usual slotted spoon, but an ordinary spoon, so that you can collect all unnecessary curdled protein.
8. Purée different varieties of potatoes
The lightness of mashed potatoes largely depends on the amount of starch contained in the potatoes. However, this type of vegetable often lacks the flavor that wax tubers have. Therefore, to make the mashed potatoes ideal in consistency and rich in taste, combine two varieties of potatoes in one dish - you won't go wrong.
9. Leave the fillets on the bone with skin
White meat is usually very dry, especially when it comes to chicken fillets. In order not to spoil the taste of the dish, do not cut the meat off the bone, regardless of how you cook it: fry, bake or boil. This will not only make the breast more juicy, but also cook evenly. As for the skin, it should be removed only after cooking the meat: even if you are not going to eat it, it helps the dish to keep its softness and juiciness.
10. Add bread crumbs to meatballs
To prevent the meatballs from falling apart and keeping their shape well, add breadcrumbs to the minced meat, and not bread soaked in milk. There is one more secret: the meat balls will turn out to be more saturated if the crackers are fried in a mixture of vegetable and butter together with finely chopped onions, cooled and only then added to the minced meat.
11. Put ice in the cutlets
When it comes to frying cutlets, they are very often dry. What the cooks do not come up with to fix this: put a lot of onions, add water, etc. However, there is a way much easier and more effective. It is enough just to make a depression in the center of the cutlet when it will be fried, and put an ice cube in the center. The ice will melt quickly enough, and the water will get into the minced meat, making it as juicy as possible.
There is another option: get a mold with ice from the freezer, put ten pieces in a vacuum bag, grind with a meat hammer and add to the finished minced meat. After that, form the patties and immediately send them to the pan.
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