10 kitchen secrets from home cooks that you’ll want to try too
Are you also crazy about secret tips from home cooks? Those eye-openers that instantly make you think, ’no way, what a great idea—I’m going to do that too!’. Sometimes people prefer to keep their tricks to themselves, but these ten kitchen secrets were shared so everyone can benefit from them!
Whether it’s an unexpected addition that makes an age-old family recipe just that little bit more special, or something the discoverer simply stumbled upon by chance, these tips and kitchen secrets can give your dishes a surprising twist too:
Chocolate + coffee = winning
“Whenever I bake something—anything—with chocolate, I always add a little coffee or espresso powder. It makes such a big difference.”
Chocolate and salt too
“I always add a little salt to hot chocolate. Somehow, it makes it taste more ‘chocolatey’. Everyone always says my hot chocolate is the very best, but I just use a ready-made powder mix with milk, plus a tiny pinch of salt.”
Garlic is the crack of flavor enhancers
“I never tell people just how much garlic I use in a dish… Garlic is basically crack and I can’t get enough of it.” Also classic: the husband who says he doesn’t like garlic, and his wife who cooks with garlic every night—he has no idea and thinks her cooking is amazing, ha!
And they lived happily ever ready-made
A very successful wedding-cake maker confessed that although she makes the fondant and decorations for her stunning creations herself, the inside of the cake is simply made from boxed cake mix. And that she’s always terrified of being caught in the shop with her shopping cart full of cake mix. Another woman also said that although she has never claimed to make her brownies ‘from scratch’, everyone assumes she does, and now she can never be honest about her supermarket brownie mix again. “I’m in too deep”…
Brown your butter
“No one takes the time to brown butter in the pan. Brown your butter, always.” And indeed, the nutty flavor released when you let the butter turn a perfectly beautiful hazelnut brown is genuinely ten times tastier than the ‘regular’ flavor of butter. And that’s already fantastic—just imagine!
Frozen banana
If, after more than a year of lockdown, you still haven’t had enough of baking banana bread, you’ll also always need overripe bananas. The ultimate tip for stopping them from going just past perfectly ripe to completely rotten is to freeze them when they’re perfectly brown, if you don’t have time to get into the kitchen just then. Take them out of the freezer a few hours before you start baking, and you’ll have perfectly soft and sweet bananas, ready to go—with that banana!
Secret little fish
“I put mashed anchovies or anchovy paste from a tube in virtually all my dressings, pasta sauces and gravies. No one can ever put their finger on what that special flavor is, but they all love it!” We wholeheartedly agree: anchovies are fantastic.
Mac ’n’ Cheese ’n’ Mustard
No, this isn’t a confession about always making Mac and Cheese from a ready-made packet that only requires hot water. This is a tip for when you make this ultimate comfort food yourself (here’s a really good Mac ’n’ Cheese recipe, by the way): give it a boost by sprinkling a teaspoon of hot mustard powder over it. Delicious!
Deluxe French toast
Hmmm, this sounds good! “When I make French toast, but also when I bake other sweet things, I always add a little almond extract.” Great tip!
Super-secret addition
As a final tip, we found this one particularly special—and definitely worth trying: “Whenever I’m mixing the ground meat for hamburgers, I always add onion soup powder.” Whaaat?! We’re genuinely very curious, and honestly, an umami onion boost doesn’t sound bad at all in a thick, juicy burger. Just that powder from a packet that you only need to add water to? Yes (use less salt, though), “and I also add a generous splash of BBQ sauce,” mister Robertson reveals. Interesting! We’re going to try that…
Read also:
- 3 top chefs share their 9 favorites from around the world (including sausage rolls!)
- 8 super-smart kitchen tips for every home cook
- 7 handy kitchen hacks that will make your life easier
Source: Bored Panda
