36 Cooking Tips and Tricks of Chefs

For most people, cooking is a tedious task, and cooking well seems undoable and intimidating. But that's only unless you know several cooking tricks that can turn you into a real foodie! Some of these tricks may seem bizarre or downright crazy at first, but once you try them, you won't believe you used to prepare your meals without them!

36 cooking tips

Bury egg yolks in a mixture of sugar and salt and leave it all in the fridge for a couple of days. After that, pop the yolks in the oven where they'll dry. As a result, you'll get firm egg yolks that can be grated like Parmesan cheese to add mouthwatering flavor and a pop of bright color to your pasta or salads.

While making scrambled eggs, add some milk and cornstarch mixture to the eggs and whisk everything until smooth. Cornstarch will protect the eggs from turning rubbery and getting overcooked.

To caramelize meat, first, melt several tablespoons of sugar and some butter in a frying pan. Only after the sugar melts completely, add the meat.

Forget about "blond" pasta! Try toasting your grains in a pan with oil before cooking them. It'll make the pasta golden and nutty and add some exquisite flavor.

You can make potato chips easily, fast, and, more importantly, on your own, with the help of a microwave. Slice several potatoes thin, soak the pieces in cold water to remove the starch, and lay them out on a paper towel. You can sprinkle the slices with a pinch of sea salt or chili powder before you put them inside. Microwave your chips for about 6 minutes.

If you add a spoonful of peanut butter or sweet mustard to your sauces and stews, they'll have a richer taste.

It turns out there's a shortcut to poached eggs! Just pour some water into a pan with fried eggs, cover it with the lid, and let your meal cook for a couple more minutes. The result will be almost the same as when you poach eggs.

By adding cornflour or nacho chips to chili, you can thicken its texture.

If you want to make onions less harsh, keep them in cold water before cooking. It'll help to neutralize the sulfur compounds which give onions their bitter taste and sharp odor.

To make meat more tender, rub it with baking soda and leave it in the fridge for 4 to 5 hours. After that, remove all the soda by rinsing the meat and cooking as usual.

Add half a teaspoon of baking soda to freshly brewed iced tea, and it won't taste bitter.

Instead of wasting your time and nerves trying to peel a boiled egg, just cut it in half and spoon the insides out of the shell.

Use a squeeze bottle to make pancakes. This way, you'll avoid dripping batter all over the kitchen, and the shape of your pancakes will satisfy any perfectionist.

To avoid wasting tons of time peeling garlic, put a bulb on the counter and lightly hit the heel of your hand against the top of the bulb. After the cloves are separated, place them in a bowl. Then cover the bowl with a lid or another bowl turned upside down. Vigorously shake it for about 15 seconds. While slamming against the sides of the bowl and each other, the cloves will separate from their skins.

Before making a hot sandwich, warm the cheese and the butter to room temperature (which is 68 to 72 degrees F). This way, it'll be easier to spread the butter, and the cheese won't dry out during cooking.

It turns out you don't have to sit there for hours, peeling spuds (should I mention that they're hot?) for your mashed potatoes! Instead, right after boiling them, put them in a bowl with ice-cold water for a couple of seconds. When you take them out, all you need to do is grab a potato with your hands, twist the skin, and pull it apart. It'll slide right off!

Add breadcrumbs to your burgers before cooking - and you'll save them from crumbling apart when they're on the grill.

To roast meat properly, first, rinse it under running water, then dry it, and only after that, salt it. In this case, during cooking, the salt won't dissipate and will draw the juices to the surface of the meat. On top of that, the top layer will turn out way more crispier.

Use broth instead of water while preparing rice and other hot grains. This way, your dish will have a richer flavor.

If you have a waffle iron in your kitchen, you can make delicious bacon without any effort. Just lay the bacon on the medium-hot waffle iron and close the lid. Wait for two and a half to five minutes, depending on how crisp you like your bacon, and transfer the treat to a plate lined with paper towels. As for the grease left in the waffle iron, you can leave it for another use.

When baking something, add a pinch of salt to the batter. It'll bring out the flavor of your dish.

Apply a thin coating of mayonnaise on fish, meat, and other foods to prevent them from sticking to the grill. On top of that, it'll help things to get brown evenly.

While preparing a cup of coffee, add a dash of salt to the coffee pot – it'll help you get rid of the bitterness. Also, you can sprinkle your coffee with cinnamon – it'll emphasize the flavor of the drink.

If you're under the impression that you have to bake cookies right after you've made the dough, I'll try to make you reconsider this approach. When you let the dough rest in the fridge for 24 to 36 hours, the dry ingredients have more time to soak up the wet ones. As a result, your cookies have a better texture. That is if they ever make it to the oven. You know what I mean.

Not all hotels have the luxury of a microwave, and it might turn into a problem if you crave some leftover pizza in the morning. Really. But here's the trick! All you'll need is an iron and a hairdryer. Switch on the iron, turn it over, and put a slice of pizza on its soleplate. While the iron is heating the crust of your pizza, use the hairdryer to blow hot air on the toppings. Yeah, it sounds crazy to me too. On the other hand, when I think about all the disgusting things that are bound to live on the surface of that iron, I'm not sure I want pizza that much...

Roast your white chocolate (but I mean REAL white chocolate) and get some nutty golden goodness with a heavenly smell! Just take a sheet pan, cover it with some baking paper, and put your white chocolate there. Then, pop all this into a hot oven and get ready to enjoy the result. Oh, and remember to give the stuff a few stirs while it's cooking.

When you cook meat, use sea salt instead of table salt. Unlike sea salt, table salt doesn't strip the meat of the smell of blood. Boy, you had me right there until the end. It's a salad for me tonight.

You can toast white sugar to give it a light caramel flavor before using it in your favorite recipes.

To make the meat softer, marinate it in a mixture of cornstarch and egg whites.

Toss cumin or black pepper in a medium-heated pan to enhance their taste and extract natural flavor. Toast these spices until they get fragrant. After that, use a mortar and pestle to grind them.

To prevent hot milk from splashing when you're preparing mashed potatoes, smash them a bit in the pan first, and only after that, pour the milk.

If you add a pinch of sugar to a dish that contains tomato paste or fresh or canned tomatoes, it'll help to reduce the bitterness, and your food will taste more delicious.

To make your dough airy and light, take the eggs and butter out of the fridge the night before cooking to warm these ingredients to room temperature.

Your chicken broth will remain crystal clear if you cook it without a cover on low heat for about 3 hours. Remove all the suds, and in about one and a half hours, add some celery, parsley, onions, and carrots.

Before cooking vegetable cream soup, fry the vegetables in olive oil. It'll caramelize the sugar contained in the vegetables, and their flavor will become more prominent. You can use the same method while cooking a vegetable stew.

While baking at home, it's often hard to make a perfect crust, not too thick and not too pale. However, if you put a bowl of water into the oven along with your pastry, the resulting steam will take care of this problem, and the crust will be crispy and light.