What's the best cooking tip you ever got? (ingredients, tomato, soup)

[sayulita]

In all your years of cooking, what are some of the best tips you've gotten? Or even one you discovered yourself.

Mine is pretty simple but it's made all the difference in my pasta dishes. For years when I cooked pasta according to the package directions, I though the instruction to add salt to the cooking water meant just a couple of shakes from the shaker just like I saw my mom do. Then I read somewhere that the water should be as salty as the sea.

So I researched it a little and now I add 1 teaspoon per quart of water, sometimes more. It makes all the difference in taking the pasta from bland to perfect. You can never adequately salt it after cooking. It needs to be cooked in with the water. It really makes all the sauces and/ or ingredients you add to it taste so much better.

So what great tip do you have?

[fibonacci]

Putting a wooden spoon across the top of a boiling pot of water for pasta prevents it from boiling/bubbling over.

[Rubi3]

I like to make soup and always admired the soups my bro's wife made. She told me she adds a piece of fruit to any soup made, that it adds a special something that isn't present without it. It's a habit I quickly acquired.

[sayulita]

Originally Posted by Rubi3

I like to make soup and always admired the soups my bro's wife made. She told me she adds a piece of fruit to any soup made, that it adds a special something that isn't present without it. It's a habit I quickly acquired.

Could you elaborate please? Do you mean like a half an apple or a slice of orange? Do you take it out before serving?

[gouligann]

Knowing how to cook a great pot roast. Use only boneless chuck roast. Any other cut of beef will be tough (stringy) or chewy.

Heat a pan on med-high, melt 1 tbsp margarine or butter. Put in your roast and crumble one cube of Knorr beef cube on top of the roast, sprinkle with garlic powder, and brown it in butter on all sides. NOTE: don't use any other kind of beef flavoring but KNORR! It is the best and no other version comes close for flavor.

Anyways, either add water to your pan so it comes half way up the sides of the roast, or put it into a slow cooker. If you're cooking it in the pan, set it on a low simmer and cook for 1 hour. Turn the roast and cook one more house. If you're using a slow cooker, put on medium for 4 hours.

If you want gravey, make it with the juice after the roast is cooked.
Note: I don't add vegetables to my roast because the veg's taste like roast and the roast tastes like veg's. I do the veg's separately.

[jade408]

Taste as you go.

[Wild Colonial Girl]

Originally Posted by fibonacci

Putting a wooden spoon across the top of a boiling pot of water for pasta prevents it from boiling/bubbling over.

A little oil in the water does, too.

[Weatherfan2]

Turn the oven on.

[in_newengland]

When you're making gravy always throw some peas into it for flavor. When the gravy is done, throw away the peas. My mother always did it that way.

[meemy]

1. Whenever you use tomato paste make sure you fry it off well, before adding other wet ingredients. This adds a certain richness.

2. Never add a slurry of flour and water to thicken soups or stews; it gives the dish a "raw" flavor. Use corn starch instead or plain flour which you have previously browned off.
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