- Balance salt with sugar
If you’ve over-salted a stew or soup, save it with a teaspoon of granulated sugar. It will absorb excess salt and help to balance the taste. Or stir in a teaspoon of honey instead.
- De-grease gravy with bicarb
Sometimes the cooking juices used for gravy are so greasy that they look like an oil slick. Counteract the problem with a pinch or two of bicarbonate of soda: stir just enough into the juices to absorb the grease. (Be careful, though; if you overdo it you could taint the flavour and make it taste metallic.)
- Over-heated curry
Tone it down with pureed apple. Add 30 ml of pureed apple for each 90 ml curry sauce, then taste. If necessary, continue stirring in a little pureed apple until the curry is to your liking.
- Two extra for dinner
It can be a total disaster when you cook the perfect size roast for a small dinner party. Meat shrinks when cooked, so it’s a third smaller than you started out with and then the doorbell rings — with two extra guests to feed. Carve the entire roast into thin strips, toss a large salad, top it with the meat and you should have substantially increased the size of your main course.
- Rescue a cracked egg
If you’re boiling an egg and the shell cracks, simply add a teaspoon of vinegar to the cooking water. It will help to coagulate the egg white and stop it from seeping out.
- Salsa too hot?
Stir in a drop or two of vanilla extract and a hot salsa should cool down. Whether it’s the vanillin, sugars or amino acids in vanilla that take the heat down a notch or two, vanilla extract is the best condiment for the job.
- Too much garlic in the soup
Pack a mesh pouch, gauze bag or metal tea ball with dried parsley flakes or fresh parsley sprigs and drop it into the pan. After 5 minutes or so, the flakes will absorb some of the taste of the offending ingredient. Once the garlic taste has been adequately toned down, simply remove the parsley and discard it.
Credit : Reader’s Digest
Picture Credit : Google