Five Ingredients to Have Around Your Kitchen
Items that any cook should have to hand while preparing food, along with some of their uses.
I hope this list gives you some ideas on other ways to prepare your food.
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Water
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Butter
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Salt, Pepper, Vinegar, and Sugar
One of the single most important ingredients, yet so often left behind. When you microwave food, add just a little touch of water, enough to put a thin layer on the bottom the dish, cover the whole lot with cling film, then microwave as you normally would. The water will gently steam whatever is with it, and hydrate it. Therefore, your food will not have that nasty dryness that usually comes with microwaving. This works VERY well when microwaving vegetables. If your sauces are a little too thick, then add some water. This may seem obvious, but it’s amazing how many people don’t think about it.
Water is also useful for cleaning your microwave- but not just for scrubbing it. Pour out a plastic container full of water (about a butter tub full), but make sure you put it into a very sturdy container (Not a butter container!). Microwave it for about five minutes and the water will evaporate, soaking the inside of your microwave. Take a sponge, and just wipe that grime away!
When pan frying food in a sauce, add a little water very slowly (Too fast and you risk a fire). This will keep your sauce from burning dry quite nicely.
Try pan frying chicken using butter instead of oil- the change in taste is dramatic. This also works with many other meats, including burgers, mince and pork. You’ll get a much richer taste, but be warned this can make your food much more filling.
Butter is also the basis of many sauces, including rue. If you heat it up and melt it, you can also use it for greasing baking tins and other kitchenware. Adding a nice layer of butter onto a joint of meat before you roast it can also ensure your meat does not become too dry (also called basing). This works especially well with poultry, but I’d advise against using it with red meat.
These are great for altering the basic taste of your food. For example, if you are making a tomato sauce and find that it’s a bit too bitter (as tomatoes can often be), adding a little sugar (which is sweet), can kill the bitterness outright. Remember, the tongue only tastes bitter, sweet, sour, salty and umami (the rest of taste comes from smell). If you can’t get these quite right, then the taste of the food will be off. All you need to do is add the “opposite” taste. For example, if something is too bitter, add a little sugar.
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