When comes to cooking, better to know as many facts about how and why food behave in different ways in all processes and stages. Here are few tips that can help you determine the best methods when come to prepare and cook your food.
1 Butter will rancid even if kept in air tight containers and refrigerated . Buy as much as needed only. Salted butter keep fresh longer. The smoking point of butter is about 250F. so is better to be used in light coking or to add in the final cooking processes.
2. Best way to preserve leaf vegetables vitamins is to cook them light by steaming or sautéing. To increase the fiber intake keep the steams on the ones that are soft like spinach and beets but remove the hard texture fibers that are hard to cook like the ones in regular kale
3. To clean carrots, potatoes and other underground vegetables soak them in cold water for 10 minutes then use a vegetable scrubbing-brush to remove dirt. Cook vegetables with skin if possible to preserve most vitamins. Do not freeze fresh underground vegetables to avoid structural damage to the cells and their fibers.
4. When simmering cauliflower add small amount of vinegar or lemon juice to the water to keep it`s shape and preserve the pigmentation. Avoid cooing cauliflower in aluminum or iron pots to avoid its oxidation and decrease discoloration. Best way to preserve vitamin C in cauliflower is to bake or sauté
5. Bell peppers and in special the green ones keep best color if are quick sautéed . This process keeps more vitamin C in the pepper as well
6. When come to add salt to cooking meats and in special pork add it only at the end. Salt withdraw moist and meats become more stringy in texture when cooked.
7. Searing out any food and in special meats wont lock moisture inside and make it juiciest. The searing method is good for meats or increasing taste by converting some of the fats and proteins sugars in to more flavor. Add a sauce to cook with like BBQ or a marinate to increase their flavors will also help increasing taste.
8. Do not peel potatoes unless you ready to use them right away to avoid oxidation. Some cooks keep potatoes in water to avoid the browning but most vitamins will leach out in the water
9. When buying chicken is important that you buy the fresh as possible and cook in the next one to two days max. Cooked chicken keep up to 2 to 3 days in refrigerator in air tight containers
10. Wash rice before you cook it to remove dust and any impurities. This process will not wash starch out. After cooking you have a choice of washing the starch out with cold water but this process will remove minerals and make it less nutritious and dry
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