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FOOD
PREPARATION TIPS
- Continued
from the previous page...
- If you use a food processor
or blender to chop dried fruit, freeze the fruit first. It well
be less sticky and easier to chop.
- Instead of salting gravy, enrich
both the gravy's color and flavor by using a little soy sauce.
- Bacon strips won't stick together
if you roll up the package like a jelly roll before opening it.
- Soup too thin? Prick a baking
potato several times, wrap in a paper towel and microwave 5 minutes
at 100% power until soft. Peel, mash and add the potato into
soup.
- To prevent boil-overs, apply
a thin coat of cooking oil around the top of the inside of pots.
- To keep a bowl steady while
you mix or whip ingredients, place it on a dampened cloth.
- For uniform pancakes, use measuring
cups designed for dry ingredients (a 1/4-cup medium-size, 1/3-cup
for big ones). Grease the cups inside and out so the batter will
slip out easily. To keep the batter from dripping en route to
the griddle, scrape the bottom of the measure on the rim of the
mixing bowl.
- When a sauce curdles, follow
this procedure: Remove pan from heat and plunge into a pan of
cold water to stop the cooking process. Beat sauce vigorously
or pour into a blender and process until the sauce is smooth.
- When ice cream is rock-hard,
dip the scoop in hot water to make scooping easier.
- To chop or grind nuts fine in
a food processor without turning them into nut butter, add 2
or more tablespoons sugar from the recipe.
- You can easily adjust the position
of your holiday gelatin mold or fancy frozen bombe on its platter
by slightly wetting the platter before you unmold.
- Always cook pasta in salted
water, but don't add the salt until the water boils. You'll need
2 tablespoons of coarse (kosher) salt for 1 pound of pasta. Salted
water has a higher boiling point, so will take longer. Taste
the pasta to determine if it is done. Perfectly cooked pasta
should be "al dente," or firm to the bite, yet cooked
through.
- Another advantage to cooking
pasta al dente, is that it preserves some of the vitamins and
minerals that are lost into the cooking water with longer cooking
times.
- Click
to continue...
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