Regardless of your situation, you can benefit from learning how to cook. If you know how to cook, you will get nutritional, financial and social benefits out of it. The following advice will give you a large sum of knowledge on cooking.
Keep your spices and herbs in a dark, cool place. Humidity, light and heat can cause your spices and herbs to lose their flavor. Another little known fact is that ground spices tend to lose their flavor quicker than whole spices. Whole spices last longer, possibly as long as five years. If stored the right way, they keep fresh for a lot longer.
Keep all spices stored out of the sunlight. By storing them in excessive light and heat, their shelf life will decrease. When a spice is placed in a cool area with very little light, its life is extended and it will taste better. Make sure that your spices are fresh to add taste and flavor to any meal.
Invest in a knife sharpener to make cutting any ingredient simple. Dull knives are hard to cut with and they are also dangerous. If you’re trying to slice a firm vegetable with a blunted knife, you’re more likely to cut yourself with it than you are if you use a sharp knife.
For crispier French fries, you should chill the peeled potatoes in water for 30 minutes or more before frying them. When potatoes are allowed to absorb cold water, the texture is able to withstand the extreme heat of cooking without breaking down and becoming mushy.
A great cooking tip to employ is to cook your vegetables in chicken broth. The broth will give the vegetables a delicious, warm flavor as well as extra moisture so they don’t stick to the pan. Chicken broth can be found at almost all local grocery stores at a very cheap price.
There is no downside to learning how to prepare a good meal for yourself and your family. As these tips prove, cooking can brighten your life if you like haute cuisine, down-home cooking or soul food. While it may be easier to simply order your food from an outside source, there is nothing quite as satisfying as a well cooked meal at home.
