Learn how to cut/chop efficiently.
Pixian Douban Jiang - This is the flavor you were looking for:
https://blog.themalamarket.com/pixian-chili-bean-paste-douba...
Measure by weight, use a thermometer.
Make stock. Decent stock is one of the secrets to really good cooking, but it is not available in stores (at least in the US). Whenever you have poultry or pork scraps or bones or whatever, cooked or raw, save them in a bag in the freezer. Dumpster dive a KFC if need be ;). When you have a lot, put it all into a big kettle, cover with water, add 1TB vinegar and a pinch of salt. Bring just briefly to a boil, then put it in a 200F oven uncovered overnight. Then screen out the bones and glop. Chill the stock overnight so you can skim the fat off. It should be like chicken Jello at this point. Freeze it. Season as needed at time of use.
How does anyone need more than 16MB vinegar? Get off my lawn!
Good tip make “sofrito” ahead of time (puree peppers, onions, cilantro, garlic) and freeze it in an ice tray so it is already portioned and ready for when you cook.
Rice and beans takes about 20 min to make without much effort, and is pretty nutritious. Not to mention you can eat for dollars a day.
Edit: My grandmother used to feed the whole family for less than $20. And most of that cost is in meat.
1. Keep a stick of butter at room temperature in a closed container. It doesn't seem to go bad (at least not if you use it within a couple of months) and it's so much more spreadable.
2. Use the broiler in your oven. It makes food taste similar to if you'd grilled it. (This might not be a "hack," since it's just working as intended.)
3. Make buttered (or olive oiled) toast in the broiler. Put on the butter in advance, then broil until it's golden brown. That way the fat soaks through.
4. Clean your blender by blending water and detergent.
5. Make bland coffee taste better by adding cinnamon to the grounds before you brew it.
6. Use your stale bread for making french toast instead of throwing it out. This is how french toast was invented, I think, but it might not be obvious that you can do this.
- - Cut with a big, sharp knife, use your knuckles for alignment so you don't cut yourself.
- - Cut one direction, but don't worry about retaining the shape for the next cross-cut. Roughly align the stick-shapes after the first cut (spread out in to a longer line if too much to handle) and do the 2nd cut. It's not so bothersome if some onion pieces are not perfectly square, for things to cook evenly only the thinnest dimension matters and this is way faster than doing things carefully.
- cut tomatoes slightly off-center and you only have to remove 1 green spot (actually just not through the "poles", still through the center)
- sharpening a knife without a tool: use the underside edge of a cup or plate, it is usually not coated and works fine for sharpening.
- rather than cutting everything beforehand, I'm not afraid to take e.g. the onions out of the pan to fry the next vegetable and than mix it back to together at the end. (if you need to clean the pan, de-glaze it with a sup of water)
- don't be afraid to add water when things get to dry!
- use enough fat, makes everything taste better (especially important for vegan stuff)
- rescue boring improvised sauces by adding: ginger, chili, cilantro, soy-sauce
- make pasta sauce less thin by pouring in a bit of the pasta-water
- tomato sauce: cheat with tomato paste if you don't want to boil/simmer it down for very long.
- avocados: Take out the kernel by hitting it with the knife (like laying an axe to rest in a block of wood) and twisting (but don't hit too hard or it will become hard to get it off the knife). Use the biggest, roundest spoon you can find for peeling.
See here: https://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/cooking-tips-techniq...
Ginger becomes really easy to grate if its frozen. So stick it in the freezer.
Add freshly crushed Cardamom, saffron and pistachios to vanilla ice-cream. Orgasmic.
Whack a garlic clove with the back of the knife. It will peel instantly.
Put a lid on to boil faster (~10-15% faster in my experience)
Add butter to Italian red sauce. Secret of an old manhattan italian restaurant, there was a NYTimes or NewYorker article on this famous italian diner in NY and their secret was - butter.
That reminds me of a supposedly Punjabi technique I heard from someone: take a whole onion and whack it hard onto a table. Instantly becomes sweet-tasting instead of pungent (if eating it raw). Don't know the science behind it, but have tried it, it works.
Also when it comes to flavouring ice-cream garlic is an underappreciated flavour!
Also if you use a garlic press, there's no need to peel. Actually it's easier to clean the pres if you don't.
Also, mango ice cream + blackberries. So good
Don't go shopping when you are hungry.
It's OK to regularly cook and eat the same meals.
Dried pasta is as good as fresh pasta.
You don't need much in the way of equipment, one sharp knife, one pairing knife and one serrated knife will cover most things.
Dried herbs don't last long, especially if you leave them exposed to light.
Don't put bread in the fridge, it ruins the taste. This also applies to fruit and veg although what you do will depend on your climate.
I'm so uninspired when I'm not in the mood for food :)
Buying what looks good leads to waste for me, and I really don't like to waste.
We got an instant pot a few years back, and now we use that. Besides replacing the slow cooker, the pressure cooker function of it can cook a frozen meal in 30 minutes instead of 8 hours.
1. Cheap stainless steel prep bowls. [0] They're just $1-$3 each, so you can get enough that you never have to hunt for a bowl while chopping or cooking. Get a bunch of little ones, a few 3 or 4 quarts, and a couple of big ones for making salads.
2. Big square graduated plastic containers, for storage and transport of liquids. [1]
3. Universal pot lid. [2] Use this to cover any pan to finish or hold proteins or veg, or steam reheat starches.
4. Cheap spring-steel tongs [3] Get at least three, they're $2 each – use 'em for everything. Much less fussy than the hinged tongs.
5. Sous vide, as mentioned above – I like the Anova.
6. Shoulder tenders. This is the cut of beef from the teres majer muscle often sold in restaurants as the "petite filet" – because it is as tender as filet mignon, more flavorful, and much cheaper. Sous vide at 128F for 2 hours, sear and eat.
[0] https://www.webstaurantstore.com/3-qt-standard-weight-stainl... [1] https://www.webstaurantstore.com/4-qt-clear-square-polycarbo... [2] http://amzn.com/B000GHKIDG [3] https://www.webstaurantstore.com/12-stainless-steel-black-sc...
Shop at Sam's club or costco and potion large items ahead of time.
Plan menu items that can be prepared in individual servings like a restaurant so everyone can have what they want for dinner with little hassle.
The above tips let me run a family of 5 for about $300 per month food budget while serving delicious foods.
Off the top of my head things you can do with a blender that don't go well in the other devices you listed:
Broccoli soup, vegetable stock and hollandaise have all come out of my blender recently. The blender makes all of these items rather trivial to make compared to their classical preparations.
It's not really a "hack" but getting a Sous-vide machine has probably been the biggest game changer for me. Being able to "perfectly" cook steaks/seafood at home with great ease is fantastic. Probably saved me hundreds of £££ over the past few years as I eat out a lot less now.
I just got an InstantPot - so far it lives up to the hype. I've made chili, Thai curry 2x, rice, and hardboiled eggs so far, and they've all turned out fantastically, and all in under 30 minutes.
Find your favorite flavor combinations and work them into your meals. I love the combination of lime and salt, so I'll use that in rice, salads, stir fries, etc.
Sriracha/Cholula/insert your favorite hot sauce can save an otherwise bland dish.
On lazy weeks, I buy one of those big boxes of fresh mixed greens, a rotisserie chicken, and some guacamole. Then I make a big salad for each day of the week with just those ingredients. It's cheap, tastes good, and is on point nutritionally.
I just switched from cooking with olive oil to avocado oil. It has a higher smoke point and maintains its fat profile in high temps, and I haven't noticed a difference in taste/quality.
When I do cook, I opt for pre-prepped ingredients if possible.
I did a quick search for that thread on hn.algolia.com so that I could post the link, but did not find it, maybe because their data collection does not go back that far.
One of the comments in it that I found interesting was by PG, who wrote about how to cook rice and beans, to save on costs.
Wasn't just about the costs, was interesting otherwise too.
E.g. (after the prep) put the stuff in the cooker, and forget about it :)
Was reminded of it by both the thread subject and by this comment by navd in this thread:
Potatoes are a staple food that you can nearly live on with nothing else. Keeping easy to cook versions of them on hand that you can add a little something to makes it easy to throw together a fresh, healthy meal.
Easy to cook versions include various forms of frozen potatoes, like hash browns and potatoes O'Brien, plus fresh ones that need little prep, like new potatoes or other varieties that basically need to be washed, but not peeled.
Hash browns plus potatoes O'Brien plus an egg or something is a way to have non boring potatoes with a bit of veggies and protein. New potatoes plus frozen chicken plus butter and spices can be baked together for a simple, no hassle meal.
When you feel and chop aromatic items like onions, garlic it peppers, run the wastes through the disposal. It help kill stuff growing in the disposal.
Your disposal blades can be sharpened by putting a mixture of cold water and ice through it. Be careful to not overload it with too much ice at one time.
If you use coconut oil, it can be kept in a liquid state by storing on a warm spot on the counter. If your fridge is next to a counter, the heat coming off the back can help create a warm spot.
I have been told, but not tried it: If you want a butter like spread and don't want margarine, you can store olive oil in the fridge to get it to firm up and make it spreadable.
If you have only ever had canned pineapple and you think it is gross, try actual fresh pineapple. You may finally understand the appeal. If you live on the West Coast, whole fresh pineapple is typically available at a reasonable price most if the year.
If you have a George Foreman grill, a nice meal to grill on it is a small steak, a thick slab of yam and a thick slab of fresh pineapple. You can also grill some onion with it if you like.
When you make spaghetti, don't bother to try to figure out how much noodles you need. Just make the entire thing of noodles. Cold leftover noodles with Parmesan cheese and some apple slices is yummy. Or you can fry the noodles up with an egg.
If you like homemade pizza but you don't make it often and are sick of throwing out gross, moldy mozzarella that never got used, use Parmesan instead of mozzarella for your pizza. It keeps better.
Pizza can be a source of veggies. Fresh chopped pineapple, onion and green or red peppers goes great with a little pepperoni.
Rinse grapes as soon as you get them home and pull them off the stem. They will keep for up to a week without getting all gross and mushy.
Celery can be kept fresh by standing it in a glass of ice water in the fridge.
Do not store apples and potatoes together. They rot faster if you do.
If you like bananas, get a banana hook to hang them from. It really makes a difference in how well they keep.
Cooking for one? Freeze small steaks in ones and twos in ziploc bags. Thaw them in minutes in a bowl of warm water in the sink.
You can ask your butcher to cut a thick London broil into very thin breakfast steaks. They will cook super fast and make it a breeze to throw together a light meal.
- use induction cook top with preset timers for preparing rice.
- use food processor to prepare dough
- use two induction cook tops for parallel processing.
total meal preparation time 20 mins.
Grow herbs in your house, it is easy
And yes I know that reducing the calories of a staple food is the very definition of a First World Problem...
> It's remarkably simple. By boiling the rice in water mixed with coconut oil, you change the architecture of the rice, turning it into a "resistant starch," where two polysaccharides, amylose and amylopectin, connect to form indigestible bridges. Chilling the rice for 12 hours leads to further conversion of starches. The result is a food with far fewer calories.
How did your first batch turn out? I've heard the same about potatoes - they are a resistant starch and with each subsequent cooling off/re-heating cycle you increase the resistant starch levels.
The implication that white rice makes you fat, however, is ridiculous. Singling out one staple food (besides sugar) isn't helpful. Anything will make you fat in high enough qualities. Not a jab at you OP, but more our culture of maligning single food groups. (again, besides sugar :) )
Pretty nice, slight coconut taste, no discernible difference in texture, what flavour there was was mostly obscured by the curry I made. I think this will be my regular technique provided I can be organised enough. Maybe whip up the evening’s rice while I make breakfast.
I wonder if you get that effect with triple-fried chips, which are very fashionable right now.
Don't do that to rice though, you significantly increase the risk of food poisoning. (And heat doesn't prevent it.)