Five kitchen tricks for savvy cooks
If you’ve ever joined us on a course at Bettys Cookery School, you’ll know that our food experts are bursting with clever tips to help you make the most delicious food while saving time, money and effort. We asked senior course tutor Lisa Bennison to share a few of her favourite secrets for kitchen success.
1. When opening a pack of bacon, if you don’t intend to use it all, cook it anyway, chop the leftovers into strips and freeze. You’re more likely to use them in a quick carbonara or omelette than left to go off in the fridge.
2. Buy a bulb of garlic and roast it whole on a slice of onion at 150°C for 20-30 minutes. Remove the base with a serrated knife, squeeze out the gorgeous roasted garlic nuggets, place into a jar, cover with oil and have lazy garlic for a week or two.
3. Don’t keep dried spices in a spice rack as the sun will make them lose their impact. Instead, keep them in clip & lock tubs.
4. If you’re making sauces for the freezer, when cool place into good quality ziplock freezer bags and lay them flat on a tray to freeze. When frozen, remove the tray and keep all your sauces flat like records. They not only take up less space but will be quicker to defrost.
5. When cooking on the stove, place a large deep roasting tray half filled with water onto one ring and put two or three pans into it. This will give you more space and stop items burning.
And because even the best cooks have their off days, Lisa has an additional tip:
Don’t tell your dinner party guests exactly what you’re having. Then if the chocolate fondant is too well baked and becomes a chocolate pudding with ice cream, they’ll never know.
To learn even more secrets of the chefs, book a course at Bettys Cookery School