Here are our top kitchen tricks for the month

Bring some balance 

Tomato-based sauces can often have an unpleasant acidity to them. Your solution? Carrots! They add subtle sweetness to help balance out acidity. To get your sauce back on track, simply peel a carrot and add it in whole to your sauce. Let it simmer and remove before serving.

Ginger ninja

Keep your ginger fresher for longer by wrapping it up in cling film and storing it in the freezer. This prevents it from shrivelling up in your veggie drawer. You can even freeze ginger pre-sliced or grated to save you some prep time in the future!

How to fix salty soups

There’s nothing worse than cooking up a delicious pot of warm soup, only to realise it’s a touch too salty! Toss in a few wedges of raw apple or potato into the pot, then simmer for 10 minutes and discard. The wedges will absorb some of the salt to help get the balance back.

Bake a bundt cake

Want to make a Bundt cake, but don’t have the correct tin? Why not DIY one! Grab a regular, round cake pan and place a clean tin in the centre filled with uncooked rice or beans as a weight. Grease well and pour in your cake batter to begin baking the perfect Bundt cake!

Flavour bomb

Did you know that you can use Parmesan rinds in your food? Although they’re too hard and tough to eat, you can use them to infuse soups, stocks, sauces and stews with extra flavour and saltiness. Simply store leftover rinds in an airtight container until you’re ready to use them, then plop them into your concoction and let it simmer away. Remove whatever is left of the rind just before serving and enjoy! 

Words by Kirsty Buchanan 
Photography:  freepik, gallo/gettyimages

No need to struggle with broken bits of eggshells, stinging eyes as you chop an onion or the hassle of peeling ginger. We’ve revealed a few of our top cooking hacks to make life a little easier!

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Get clued up on this month’s top tips and tricks from the MyKitchen team

Nutty for nuts!

What is granola without almonds, carrot cake without pecans or  pad thai without peanuts? Using nuts in your food not only adds extra flavour, but also an exciting layer of textural crunch. To get the most out of raw nuts, make sure to roast them. This enhances their flavour tenfold, giving them much more value in whatever you’re creating. To roast them, spread out your nuts evenly on a baking tray and place in a 180ºC oven for 10 min until they smell toasty. Let them cool, then store in a jar or container. For long-term storage, freeze nuts in a sealable bag. 

The Easiest Way To Deseed A Chilli

To take the spicy bite out of fresh chillies, you need to remove the seeds and white membrane. To easily deseed a chilli without the fear of getting the spiciness all over your hands (and in your eyes!), chop off the stalk and roll the chilli between your hands over a bowl to dislodge the seeds. Firmly tap the chilli to knock out any stubborn seeds, then chop up for your meal

Using Up Your Leftover Broccoli and Cauliflower Stems

More often than not, we cut the florets off heads of broccoli and cauliflower and toss the remaining stem. Here are some ideas to give the stems a place in your cooking:

• REMOVE the woody, outer layer to reveal the tender core, if necessary.
• BAKE into fritters, frittatas or quiches
• GRATE into coleslaws and salads
• BLITZ into home-made pesto
• SLICE into thin discs and cook with your florets
• ADD to dishes such as stir-frys, soups, stocks or potato bakes
• FRY in olive oil, garlic, chilli and salt, then toss in pasta or serve as is with your dinner

Understanding thermofans

Ovens with a thermofan setting have a fan with a heating element around it, which creates evenly distributed heat around the oven. This allows you to evenly cook, brown and crisp multiple dishes at once. Thermofan ovens create more intense heat than conventional heating so make sure to reduce the temperature by about  15ºC when using it. By cooking at a slightly lower temperature compared to conventional heating, meats dishes are kept more succulent. A thermofan oven is ideal for things that bake quickly at higher temperatures or require drying, such as choux pastry and rusks. However, it should not be used for items that need to be baked longer at lower temperatures, such as cakes.

The Ultimate Crispy Chicken Skins

Chicken skins are arguably the best part of cooking chicken for dinner, so why not make them the star of the show? Similar in taste to puffed pork belly crackling, crispy chicken skins can be crumbled over dishes, whipped into butter or enjoyed as a tasty snack. To make them, remove the skins from your chicken pieces and lay them out flat on a tray lined with baking paper. Sprinkle over a pinch of flakey salt and cover with a second piece of baking paper and another tray. Place in a 180ºC oven for 10–15 minutes until golden and crisp. Drain on paper towel to remove excess oil and enjoy!

Words by Kirsty Buchanan 
Photography: Courtesy Images

These informative food hacks will help you prevent waste in the kitchen.

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No need to struggle with broken bits of eggshells, stinging eyes as you chop an onion or the hassle of peeling ginger. We’ve revealed a few of our top cooking hacks to make life a little easier!

No More Eggshells!

One of the most frustrating things to happen when baking is getting a piece of eggshell in your bowl and having to chase it around for ages to get it out. To avoid getting shards in your mixing bowl, don’t crack eggs on the side of your bowl, but rather straight on your countertop. Always crack open eggs in a separate bowl first. And if you need to fish out bits of eggshell from your mixture, use one of the eggshell halves to scoop it out – it works like a charm!

How To Peel Ginger

By removing the peel from fresh ginger with a vegetable peeler, or slicing it off with a knife, you often end up cutting away lots of the precious ginger itself.  Our hack: Use a spoon! By using a spoon, you’re able to scrape away all of the peel easily, as well as reach into all the nooks and crannies without sacrificing any ginger. Spoons with thinner edges work best.

Banana Bread In A Flash

Why is it always the case that one often has lots of overripe bananas when you don’t need them, but when you’re craving banana bread, you don’t have any on hand? Overripe bananas are essential for baking as they have a much sweeter flavour and softer texture. To quickly ripen bananas, place them on a lined baking tray in a 150ºC oven for 15–20 minutes – the skins will go black, but the insides will be perfectly softened. Allow to cool before using.

Repurpose Your Pickle Juice

Next time you finish your jar of pickles, don’t throw away the juice. Pickle brine is a great way to add extra depth of flavour to dishes. Use it to make salad dressings or simply reuse it to make your own pickles. It’s a great tenderiser for meat so it works well in a beef marinade. Elevate your fried chicken by adding some pickling liquid to the wet mix when you’re dredging. Pickle brine can also add a delightful zing to potato salad and items such as store-bought barbecue sauce. Pickle juice lends itself to so many applications, so get creative! 

Master The Chop

Dicing onions is one of the first steps in most recipes and is an essential skill to master. To start, slice off the stem end of your onion, leaving the root end intact (this is essential as the root section will hold all the onion petals together as you’re slicing). Slice the onion in half through the root section, then peel off the papery skin. Lay one onion half flat on your chopping board and make vertical slices in the stem-to-root direction, but not cutting all the way through to the root end. Next, carefully make 1–2 horizontal cuts through the onion towards the root end, again not slicing all the way through the root. Now, holding the onion firmly to hold it together, chop it up crosswise and watch your diced pieces magically fall onto your board. Repeat with the other onion half. Store any leftover onion in a ziplock bag in the freezer.

Words by Kirsty Buchanan
Photography: alamy, pexels, shutterstock

If you feel like cooking isn’t for you, or you just get super flustered in the kitchen, these 5 simple hacks will help you!

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Rice is a key part of the meal when dining on curry, and many other dishes. So make sure you know which to boil, fluff and serve!

WILD RICE
Serve this when you want to take your dish up a notch. The dark grains have a nutty flavour that will perfectly accompany your curry.

BASMATI RICE
Basmati’s fluffy, dry texture bulks up thinner curries or curried soups and its nutty flavour is the perfect sidekick to those spicy flavours

WHITE RICE
Although not packed with flavour, this should be your go-to option when you make curry for hordes of people. It’s cheap and quick to cook.

JASMINE RICE
This long-grain variety is wonderfully fragrant (reminiscent of popcorn!). The mild flavour and sticky texture pair perfectly with Thai curries.

CURRY HACK Oven-roast your rice! Fill a deep roasting tin with rice and enough water to cover it. Pop it in the oven and let it boil, topping up the water when necessary. Your rice will have an intense nutty flavour. Yum!

Words: Staff writer
Photography: Unsplash

Are you ready to get a little crafty and save some cash at the end of the month? Then here are 5 tricks to help you save cash in the kitchen!

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We are all about reducing as much waste as possible, and we have rounded up a few ways to ensure you are using your teabags to their full potential. There is no reason to chuck them away right after you have finished brewing your cuppa, especially since a used teabag contains a host of antioxidants and tannins.

By Roxy Greeff

1. FLAVOUR PASTA AND GRAINS

Bring a pot of water to the boil and pop in a few used teabags. Allow to boil for a few minutes before removing the bag and adding your pasta and grains. This is especially delicious with camomile and jasmine tea.

2. FEED YOUR GARDEN

Brew some weak tea and allow to cool. Use this to water your plants for a nutrient boost and to deter fungal infections. Alternatively sprinkle the damp tea leaves around the base of your plants to compost them and keep pests like mice away.

3. GET RID OF HOUSEHOLD SMELLS

Brewed teabags can be popped in a corner of the fridge and in the bottom of your dustbin to keep them smelling fresh. Just remember to change them regularly. You can also mix the damp leaves into your new batch of kitty litter to banish bad odours.

4. DIY AIR FRESHENER

Set your used teabags out in the sun to dry out. Then add a few drops of your favourite essential oil. The leaves are super absorbent and most bags already have a string attached. Secret them in all the rooms in your home.

5. SCOUR DIRTY DISHES

Pop your greasy pots, pans and grids in a sink of hot water with a few used teabags. The tea will help to loosen grease, saving you the trouble of scrubbing.

6. TAKE A BATH

As we all know, tea is full of antioxidants, and so taking a bath with a few of them will do wonders for your skin. You can either just drop them into the warm water or hang one from the tap and let the water run through it as you fill your bath.

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It’s the end of the year, when budgets are tight and time has become a scarce commodity. Ditch the stove and oven – hot, time-consuming energy guzzlers – and turn to these microwave hacks for tasty dishes in only minutes.

By Jana du Plessis

1. Mug cake

Need we say more? A super-simple dessert that rises to the sweet occasion, plus you don’t have to share!

2. Scrambled eggs

If you don’t know this one already, it’s time to hop on board. Whisk two or three eggs together with a splash of milk and pop in the microwave for 45 seconds, take out and give it another whisk. Continue to whisk at 15-second intervals until cooked to your preferred consistency.

3. Melting chocolate

Who has the time and energy to use a double boiler? Place chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl and heat on medium-high for one minute, remove from the microwave and stir. Repeat the process of stirring at 20–30 second intervals until completely smooth.

4. Cheat’s French toast

Yes, it’s possible to create this breakfast favourite in the micro! Prepare the egg mixture as usual and dip in the bread slices. Smear a microwave-safe plate with a little butter or oil and place the first slice on the plate, microwave on high for one minute and repeat with the other slice.

5. Fruit compote

This one is handy for all the ice cream you will be eating over summer. Put 2 cups of diced fruit, such as berries, apple or peaches in a microwave-safe bowl and stir in 2 tablespoons of sugar and 1 tablespoon of water. Cover the fruit mix and microwave on high for 2 minutes, give it a stir and place back in the microwave until soft and sticky.

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