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Cooking secrets you wished you'd known about sooner.

(I've always done it this way but hardly anyone else seems to)

Cutting peppers vertically into segments makes it easy to then pull each segment off the stalk at the top, without leaving loads of edible bits of pepper behind the way you do if you slice the top off horizontally.
 
Tomatoes need a finely serrated knife. A bread knife is better than a chef's knife but the serrations are a bit big and there's a lot of unsafe unused blade flying about if used on a tiny tomato.
 
Saffy said:
I have a really cold kitchen and so proofing bread is difficult. If you put 100mls of water on full power in the microwave for 2 minutes, it creates a nice warm place to proof your dough.
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Mrs D puts a baking tin of water in the oven when she's making bread. It gives a nice crisp crust.
 
Elpenor said:
I’ve only ever cut myself with sharp ones :confused:
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Because you're not used to sharp knives.

I have one of the victorinox tomato knives posted above and every single time I've let someone use either that or one of my good work knives because their own knife is shit, they end up cutting themselves right after I've warned them it's really sharp :facepalm: Never happens with people who also keep their own knives sharp.

If you can break the bad habits you've picked up from handling & using blunt knives, a sharp blade is much nicer and easier to work with. And I'm saying that as a cackhanded twat who's almost certainly dyspraxic.
 
iona said:
Because you're not used to sharp knives.

I have one of the victorinox tomato knives posted above and every single time I've let someone use either that or one of my good work knives because their own knife is shit, they end up cutting themselves right after I've warned them it's really sharp :facepalm: Never happens with people who also keep their own knives sharp.

If you can break the bad habits you've picked up from handling & using blunt knives, a sharp blade is much nicer and easier to work with. And I'm saying that as a cackhanded twat who's almost certainly dyspraxic.
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My f-i-l used to always insist that sharp knives were dangerous, and kept his very blunt. I seldom cut myself on my very sharp knives but often did hacking away with his blunt ones.
 
iona said:
Because you're not used to sharp knives.

I have one of the victorinox tomato knives posted above and every single time I've let someone use either that or one of my good work knives because their own knife is shit, they end up cutting themselves right after I've warned them it's really sharp :facepalm: Never happens with people who also keep their own knives sharp.

If you can break the bad habits you've picked up from handling & using blunt knives, a sharp blade is much nicer and easier to work with. And I'm saying that as a cackhanded twat who's almost certainly dyspraxic.
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Yes I am probably a cackhanded twat too

For personal safety issues I’d rather keep using blunt knives, living alone if I was to cut myself badly with a sharp knife I might bleed to death and not be found for a week. I am perhaps hypersensitive to this happening as hear about it a lot at work.
 
The skin on pumpkins & winter squash is often perfectly edible depending on how you cook them but if you do want to remove it, it comes off much easier after cooking. Just lightly steaming or microwaving big chunks until they're starting to soften at the edges is enough, if you want to use it in a recipe that'd make peeling impossible once it was fully cooked.
 
Elpenor said:
Yes I am probably a cackhanded twat too

For personal safety issues I’d rather keep using blunt knives, living alone if I was to cut myself badly with a sharp knife I might bleed to death and not be found for a week. I am perhaps hypersensitive to this happening as hear about it a lot at work.
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Fair enough :)

I realise I'm starting to do that thing of insisting on solutions for something you don't even consider a problem now, so I'll stfu after this, but just in case you or anyone else reading would be interested you can often do short (couple of hours / half day) knife skills courses at either proper cooking schools or community kitchen type places, where you'll get to try a few techniques with properly sharp knives under supervision with qualified first aiders on hand, and often get to eat the dishes you've cooked at the end.
 
iona said:
I'm talking about the tail ends though, not the stalks.


I'm not offering to send you a kilo of them! A smallish pack should be pretty cheap to send. Offer's there if you want :)
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Posting anything to Ireland now is a pain in the hole since Brexit.

I had my last package returned and the previous one charged €22 customs etc. We just wait till someone comes over now. It’s less hassle.
 
iona said:
(I've always done it this way but hardly anyone else seems to)

Cutting peppers vertically into segments makes it easy to then pull each segment off the stalk at the top, without leaving loads of edible bits of pepper behind the way you do if you slice the top off horizontally.
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I cut rectangles off the sides of peppers which is pretty effective at avoiding stalk and makes it easy to get rid of seeds. You're then left with a usable base and a stalk section which at worst you might want to trim a bit.
 
RubyToogood said:
You can also use your oven as a proving drawer by putting a baking tray of hot water in the bottom. Heat off obviously.
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Just switching the light on can work well too, if your oven has that option. When I lived somewhere with a proper oven I used to use that for propagating certain seeds - just the lightbulb on kept the oven temperature at about 28C which is pretty much perfect for a quick, warm prove too.
 
iona said:
(I've always done it this way but hardly anyone else seems to)

Cutting peppers vertically into segments makes it easy to then pull each segment off the stalk at the top, without leaving loads of edible bits of pepper behind the way you do if you slice the top off horizontally.
Click to expand...
It's recently come to my attention that I cut peppers different to pretty much most of the population, using neither of the above methods.

I stick a knife in at the top by the edge of the green stem, and cut around the stem. Then make a vertical cut down one side of the pepper and up the other side.
Pull one side off the stem, then the other.
All the seeds stay on the core bit of it, there's virtually no wastage, and you've got 2 equal shaped pepper halves which are good for stuffing if you want a big surface area for cheese.
 
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