Conversions, calculations, tips

Didn't find a thread on this so I thought I'd start one... general food and cooking info for inquiring minds.

To start:

1 lb of fresh baby spinach leaves sautéed down over medium heat (no oils, water, nothing) yields the same as a 10 oz box of frozen. Still have to squeeze the water out if recipe calls for that.

Took me a few minutes on Google to confirm that before I started cooking this batch of Spinach and Artichoke dip, so I thought maybe the foodies on TW could use a thread about all the weird little cooking info tidbits that come in handy now and then. Hence, said thread.

 

Sub.

 

Ryan and I got into it once over whether or not this is common knowledge... I said no, he said yes, who knows who's right and who cares. I post this in an attempt to make it common knowledge, just in case Ryan's wrong

When cooking pasta, keep a cup or so of the water the pasta boiled in to help a sauce that's tightened up or just to use as a thickener.

 

Maybe a ground rule for this thread... Just post one tip, trick, etc per post. Will keep it nice and orderly that way instead of a bunch of random crap all glopped into one post.

 

To keep this thread useful... If you post something wrong and then it's pointed out to you and it was indeed wrong, please fix the original post to reflect the accurate info. That way, somebody reading the post won't wander off with bunk info presented as "the facts".

This thread is meant to be (hopefully) a repository for good, solid cooking info, with a minimum of BS / wandering / spazzing out (like I did with Ryan )

 

Seems like every cream sauce based pasta recipe tells you to warm the serving bowl with the pasta water or in the colander or some shit... Fuck that. Just put the serving bowl in the microwave for 30 or 60 seconds depending on the size.

 

How about always wash then salt your rice before cooking.

 

Wash and then salt before putting in the water, or do you mean salt the water?

 

Wash the rice, then add salt, put salted rice in water to cook. I guess you could salt the water, but I prefer the salt the rice, I feel like it lets me control the amount of salt better. I used large grain sea salt or pink salt.

 

Makes sense. I always just salt the water because I know how to gauge that, but either would work. The rinsing is def key, three times for white. You want the water running clear.

 

Using a half cup measuring cup to portion out 80/20 ground beef for patties will get you a 6", thin diner-style patty that will shrink down to about 4.75".

 

To keep your plastic storage containers from getting all nasty ass when storing pre-cooked and pre-seasoned taco meat, line the container with plastic wrap.

 

Caveat, didn't think to say it before... Cool the taco meat thoroughly before dumping it in the plastic wrap lined container.

 

If a recipe calls for cooked chopped bacon and you don't want to dirty a chopping board, hold 2 or 3 pieces in hand and use kitchen shears to cut it up. A few chunks will want to get airborne, so hold it close to the plate or bowl to minimize that.

Or, cut it with the scissors / chop before cooking.

 

For good cooking oil that you use to deep fry and aren't ready to throw away, dump it into a lidded camp cooler with a drain plug at one end. When ready to reuse, put the cooler on a counter higher then the fry pot, pull the drain plug, and 90% of the crap in the oil will stay below the drain plug level, thereby giving you fresh enough oil to fry again.