To wow your guests and show off your talent in the kitchen, here are 6 tricks worth knowing. How do you cook eggs perfectly? How do you make your dishes tastier? How do you get tender meat, cooked just right inside and out? Here are the answers to all these questions, so you can impress everyone at the stove.
1. Sprinkle the Salt Evenly
When boiling a pot of water to cook pasta, it's tempting to salt it right at the pot's edge. That's actually a bad habit: the right approach is to salt from a bit of a distance, so the water gets salted evenly.
2. For Perfect Hard-Boiled Eggs, a Small Prick Before Cooking
3. To Fry Rice, Cook Eggs in the Pot First
A trick widely used in Asian restaurants: before frying the rice, scramble some eggs in the same pot — an original way to keep the rice from sticking. Foolproof.
4. Take the Meat Out of the Fridge Before Cooking
5. To Stop Crying Over an Onion, Water Is Your Friend
Life is too short to cry over an onion. To stop wiping away tears while slicing rings, the simple trick is to rinse the onion under cold water for a minute, to get rid of the sulfur compound it contains.
6. A Show-Stopping Tart Takes a Careful Hand
First, choose the right dough: shortcrust for a more crumbly texture, puff pastry for a crispy result. Trim off the excess in the pan and brush the whole thing with egg wash. Then place the dough in the refrigerator so it becomes watertight and sturdy enough to hold, say, a layer of fruit.
Salting from a distance, pricking the egg, taking the meat out of the fridge in time: three simple gestures, invisible at the table, that make all the difference in the kitchen.
