Perfect your poultry

• Simple skinning

Skin a piece of poultry, or even a whole bird, with ease. Put it in the freezer until partially frozen (generally 1-2 hours). You will be able to pull the skin off with no trouble.

• Chicken money-saver

Buy whole chickens and cut them up with poultry shears, rather than buying breasts or legs. Freeze in portion-sized freezer bags. If you eat chicken often, you’ll make up the cost of the shears in just a few weeks.

• Butter (milk) up chicken pieces

To tenderize chicken pieces and pack them with flavour, rinse the meat, pat dry and marinate them in buttermilk (or add a tablespoon of lemon or vinegar to regular milk) for 2-3 hours, in the fridge, before cooking.

• Stuffing stopper

When cooking a stuffed turkey, chicken or duck, simply place a raw potato in the entrance to the cavity and the stuffing will stay put.

• Tea-riffic flavour

To give chicken or turkey breasts or thighs a light smokey flavour and help them to retain moisture as they cook, brew 2 strong cups of spice-flavoured tea. Once the tea cools, add seasonings such as black pepper, salt, paprika and garlic to taste, pour into a large self-sealing plastic bag and add the chicken or turkey pieces. Put in a shallow dish and marinate in the fridge for at least 2 hours before cooking.

• Carrot and celery rack

Instead of using a roasting rack, crisscross whole carrots and celery stalks on the bottom of a roasting dish, then top with your chicken or turkey. Once it’s done, the bird will easily lift out of the dish and the flavour of the gravy will be enhanced by the vegetables.

• Simple roux starters for gravy

Combine excess fat from a roasting pan with sufficient flour until you can roll it into small balls about half the size of a walnut and freeze on a baking sheet covered with a paper towel. When frozen, transfer the balls to a plastic bag and store in the freezer for future use. The next time you need to make gravy, take out a roux starter-ball from the bag and melt it in the saucepan before stirring in the other ingredients. Or, if your cooked gravy is too thin, drop in a roux starter, whisk well, season to taste and serve.