Cooking Tips are intended to help you produce better meals. Sometimes, though, you have to think quickly when your cooking goes disastrously wrong, and you don´t have time to go looking for hints. Fate usually dictates that this will happen when you are cooking something important and trying to impress guests. So, memorise these cooking tips, just in case you find yourself in this position, or if your family are at risk of going hungry …
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1. Adapt
So, things have not quite turned out as you planned, and your beautiful dish has collapsed into a soggy mess. What on earth can you do to save it? Think fast, and use whatever you have at hand to adapt the recipe. Turn it into something else – unless you have issued a menu, your guests will never know that you intended to cook something else (and your family won´t mind). This is one of those cooking tips you can use after the fact!
2. Backup Plan
Even if you enjoy dinner parties, it can be stressful putting everything together, and even worse if something doesn´t work out. If you´re catering for a special occasion, it´s a wise idea to have a backup plan. This doesn´t need to be complicated, simply something that you can throw together if Plan A goes wrong.
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3. Quick Meals
One of the most useful cooking tips is to have something to throw together for a quick meal, as there are always times when we are hungry or in a hurry. This can be especially useful when your first attempt hasn´t quite worked out as you planned! One way to cover this is to have something home-cooked ready in the freezer, so that all you have to do is defrost and reheat.
4. Start Early
When you´re cooking an important meal, if the menu allows then start as early as possible. By doing so, you allow yourself time to start again if something goes wrong during the cooking process. You can either begin the same dish from scratch, salvage it to make something else, or make an entirely new dish. Whatever you choose, if you have time you can do this without panicking! Starting early is perhaps the best of the plan-ahead cooking tips.
5. Invent a New Dish
Let´s say you´d planned to make a particular dish, but something went wrong. One solution is to improvise, and turn what you have into something different. Invent a name for it, and present it to your guests or family as a new recipe. They may guess what you´ve done, but so what – just make a joke of it!
6. Cake or Charcoal?
Oh dear – there you were, looking forward to a delicious home-made cake. Just one problem – you forgot to take it out of the oven until you smelt that ominous burning smell that reminded you. The solution is simple – cut off the burnt bits. If necessary, cut up the cake and sandwich it together with a filling, or cover it with icing.
7. Brilliant Bicarbonate
Always have some bicarbonate of soda in stock. Not only is it great for making non-toxic home cleaning products, but it´ll also save your saucepans if you manage to burn them. Simply throw some bicarb in the pan, add a little water and leave overnight. In the morning – goodbye burnt food!
8. Takeout
Any smart person knows that however good they are at cooking, one should always have a stack of takeout menus in the drawer. Then if your meal doesn´t work out, you can pick up the phone and wait for dinner to arrive. This is perhaps the best of all the cooking tips – get someone else to do the cooking!
If you read and memorise these cooking tips, then you won´t panic next time your beautiful meal goes wrong. It happens to all of us at some point, so it makes sense to be prepared for the day the kitchen gremlins pay you a visit. What cooking tips have helped you get out of a kitchen disaster?
Top Photo Credit: weheartit.com
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