Kitchen Skills, Tips and Hints

Safety Tips

1. Always turn the handles on your pots and pans towards the center of your stove top. It's possible to catch the handle of your pan on your clothing as you walk by. If you have small children you don't even want to imagine what could happen.

2. Tip the lid of a pan away from you when you take the lid off a hot pan. This keeps you from having hot steam in your face.

3. If food or grease should catch on fire.Smother the flames with the pan lid or a cookie sheet. You want to shut off the oxygen supply to the fire.You can also throw flour on the fire.
NEVER pick or carry a pan of grease that has caught fire.


BASIC KITCHEN SKILLS


Bake - To cook by dry heat, usually in oven

Baste - To moisten surface of food during cooking with melted fat or liquid

Beat - To combine ingredients by rapidly lifting over and over with a spoon

Blend - To mix two or more ingredients until well combined
Boil - To cook in liquid (usually water) in which bubbles constantly rise to the surface and break

Braise - To cook meat in moist heat in a covered pan

Broil - To cook foods in the oven broiler

Brown - To cook over low to medium heat in a skillet on stove or under a broiler

Chop - To cut up into small pieces with a knife

Cream - To mix or work with a spoon into a smooth, soft mass

Fold In - To combine ingredients by cutting down through the mixture with a spoon or rubber spatula across the bottom of the bowl and bringing it up the side — a down, under, up and over motion

Fry - To cook in a skillet in hot fat that covers the food partially or completely

Grate - To rub on a grater and separate into small pieces

Knead - To work and press dough with the palms of the hands, turning a small amount after each push

Marinate - To soak food in seasoned liquid before cooking

Mince - To chop or cut very fine

Poach - To cook in a hot liquid (often water) that is kept just below the boiling point

Preheat - To heat oven to desired temperature 5 to 10 minutes before putting food in the oven

Roast - To cook in a dry heat in an open pan in the oven

Sauté - To cook in a pan that has been coated with a small amount of fat

Shred - To tear or slice into long, narrow pieces

Sift - To put dry ingredients through a sifter or a sieve

Simmer - To cook slowly over very low heat with liquid moving slowly

Toast -To brown directly under the broiler

Whisk - To beat into a froth



FOOD WEIGHTS AND MEASURES

dash, speck, a few grains = less than 1/8 teaspoon

3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon

16 tablespoons = 1 cup

8 tablespoons = 1/2 cup

4 tablespoons = 1/4 cup

5 1/3 tablespoons = 1/3 cup

8 ounces = 1 cup (liquid)

2 cups = 1 pint

1 cup = 1/2 pint

2 pints = 1 quart

4 cups = 1 quart

4 quarts = 1 gallon

8 quarts = 1 peck (dry)

4 pecks = 1 bushel

16 ounces = 1 pound

1 pound butter = 2 cups or 4 sticks

1/2 pound butter = 1 cup or 2 sticks

1/4 pound butter = 1/2 cup or 1 stick

1 pound granulated sugar = 2 1/4 cups sugar

1 square chocolate = 1 ounce chocolate

1 square chocolate = 3 Tbs. cocoa + 1 T. fat

10 miniature marshmallows = 1 standard size marshmallow

4 1/2 cups of min. marshmallows = 1/2 pound marshmallow


OVEN TEMPERATURES

Very Slow 250° to 300°

Slow 300° to 325°

Moderate 350° to 375°

Hot 400° to 425°

Very Hot 450° to 475°



Tips and Hints


Brown Sugar - Add a slice of soft bread to a package of rock-hard brown sugar. Close the bag tightly, and in a few hours the sugar will be soft again.

Crackers - To crisp soggy crackers, put them on a cookie sheet and heat in the oven for a few minutes.

Fat - Lettuce leaves absorb fat. Place a few into the pot and watch the fat cling to them.To remove fat from stew, soup or pot roast, wrap an ice cube or two in white paper toweling and skim the surface. Fat will cling to the toweling.

Glasses - When one glass is stuck inside another, do not force them apart. Fill the top glass with cold water and dip the lower one in hot water. They will come apart without breaking.

A small nick in the rim of a glass can be smoothed out by using an emery board.

Use a wet paper towel to pick up broken glass slivers. Simply blot them and they will stick to the paper.

Scratches on glassware will disappear if polished with toothpaste.

Make glasses extra shiny by adding lemon peels to the water in which they are rinsed. The lemon acid released gives glasses a clear shine.