We are considering adding a page entitled, cooking tips from chefs and experienced cooks', under the advice section. If you have any specil tips and you would like to share them with the rest of the world, please send them to me via the contact link above, along with the name you would like them to go under.
Mamta
Sounds like a good idea, will it be searchable in some way ? will recipes even cross reference them ?
You know so that in the recipe any tip type key words might highlight...
Boil potatoes until soft.... blah blah..
clicking the highlighted word would take you to a tip...
Boil - Tip, adding a little salt raises the boiling point of water so its actually hotter before it turns to steam, so the food will cook quicker.
One problem I can see is the validity of the tips, and their usefulness. I would guess most are not worth the bandwidth, but those that are should be thoroughly tested and confirmed before being put up for adoption on this very useful site.
A case in point is Askcy's tip above. It is a well known phenomenon that dissolved substances raise the boiling point of liquids (and conversly drops the freezing point) but, as a cooking tip it is not useful because the amount of salt you would have to add to gain a useful increase in temperature would render the food inedible. Salt is not necessary to cook vegetables, or meat. Only add it at the end, when the cook/chef has tasted the food, to see how much salt, if any, is requird.
A little scientific knowledge is not always a good thing.
cheers
Waaza
Mum, I think it would be far more useful and of interest if the tips were just yours not random (and unverifiable) ones from other people...
Personally.
It'll be a quick and easy static text page, no links, no search function.
then you will not be able to use the vast experience of all the other contributors to this forum, and its usefulness as a forum is diminished. A forum should be a place for discussion and debate. Let the contributors do this, and it should soon become obvious which tips are useful, and which are not. They could still be verified (validated) by you before adding to your static page, if that is what you want. It works on other forums.
cheers
Waaza
My adding salt wasn't really as a suggested tip merely for example of how things could be integrated into the site.
However adding salt when cooking things such as pasta is helpful and doesn't give much of the the salt taste to the cooked product - watch any Italian cooking pasta and they will put a huge pinch/handfull into the water.
Steve
I think if there is a "tip" section that people will probably come up with them from time to time while disussing other things.
eg Someone might ask if they can store a curry sauce to be added to cooked meat or vegetables and during the answers people will come up with ideas(some tried and tested and some merely thoughts) which could end up as being a very good tip. (etc etc)
Steve
At this stage, I am trying to gather good cooking tips, to put them as a collection on my website. It would be good have scientific reasons behind a tip, why it works? Perhaps you can help by sharing your tips, as well as the reasons behind how they work?
Any other tips anyone would like to share, will be most welcome.
Many thanks
my point was not to criticize, but to highlight the problems of providing tips. Steve, your science was sound, but the aplication (in this case, IMHO) was not. Neither is your example of salt added to boiling water while cooking pasta, IMHO. It is added to add 'flavour' to the cooked pasta. It is not really necessary, but most people do not want to question what they have been taught.
A lovely Indian story has a recently married woman cooking a leg of lamb (goat?) for her new husband, trying to impress him. After the meal, the woman asked if the food was to the man's liking. He said it was perfect, but wondered why she cut the end off of the joint of meat. She replied that it was what her mother did, but she would ask her mother why. Her mother said the same thing, that was the way her mother did it. So the young bride asked her grandmother why she cut the end off of legs of lamb. Her grandmother replied 'to get it in the roasting tin!!!'
My point is that some tips are well intended, but of no practical use at all (a bit like a Microsoft manual ;?) and special care has to be used before we pass on this mis-information.
cheers
Waaza
Thank you for that waza. This is the point of discussion here, so we can learn a few new tricks and discrad the old, habitual ones.
In answer to my request on BBC message boards, I have first reply;
Add a pinch of soda bicarbonate when boiling beans/chickepeas. It makes them soft faster - this is because the alkali in the bicarbonate soften the protein and fibres thus taking less time for cook -sunflower from BBC food message boards.
Steve, I will translate your curry sauce tip as follows:
When making curry sauce, make double/extra and keep it in a jar in the fridge. When you are in a hurry, you can add it to cooked left-over roast meats/chicken or for making vegetable curries. From Steve AskCy
I do it sometimes, when I know I will have less time on the day I actually have to cook. For example, I fried a bag full of shredded onions 3 days ago, because that will save me time during the week.
I value the wisdom of all who love cooking, specially the ones who have studied food and have the scientific knowledge behind them. So, please let us have tips, as well as the reasons behind why they work, even if both come from different sources. You can post them here, which is better because they can then be discussed. Alternativly, send via the contact link above.
For the moment, I am storing all the tips I receive from all of you in a file, so I can go through them and check them as much as possible. Perhaps some of you will help me in that by discussing them here? We may discover a few things that we have been doing for years, that make no sense and do not work!
About salt, I have these comments to make;
I have asked these questions on BBC food forum too, it has much wider readership, including several chefs.
Kav, a separate page will be nice, but I have to think a lot about how to present it so it makes easy to navigate when one is looking for tips. It may make a good general point of reference perhaps?
Please keep the discussions going, until we have a definitive tip sorted out for each topic.
Many thanks
Mamta
Dear Waaza
You are perhaps confusing the purpose of discussion boards/ forums and the new Tips section we're proposing.
The discussion boards will remain an arena for all visitors and contributors to ask, advise, share information together - this bit will remain open to all and we will continue to encourage, as we always have done, input from all. In this part of the site everyone can share their ideas, information, tips, recipes, requests and so forth. This will not change from now and we would not want it to. We all really appreciate the exchange of ideas that happens in the forums.
The proposed new Tips section would be a static page offering additional tips from Mamta to go alongside the recipes. If we were to accept any and all tips it would quickly become unmanageable and less useful for readers - there would likely be conflicting tips and too much information to wade through. As for moderating it ourselves in terms of deciding which tips to accept and which not to accept - we simply do not have time to do that - this site is a hobby site not a commercial site - we don't make money from it so no one is looking after it full time. Adding more tasks to the list for those of us who run it is not an option at the moment, I'm afraid. So really this is only feasible if it's a basic static page that does not require constant updating/ editing and so on.
The idea arose from a realisation in another thread that there are general techniques and tips that mum uses in multiple recipes and these could be provided in a single page rather than her trying to add them into every single recipe where they might be relevant.
By all means, mum, ask people for tips if you're willing to check them all and include some in the page you give us but please note what I said when we first discussed this - the new page will be a STATIC page like your menu advice pages, not one that is updated all the time. Sorry, we just don't have time for that.
Kavey
thank you Kavey for your reply.
Please be assured I understand what you are trying to do, and the effort you can (and cannot!) put into this site. My thoughts and concerns are to do with the realization of such ideas, specifically ensuring the efficacy of the 'tips', so to promote the splendid effort that has gone into this site so far.
In giving surfers ideas, recipes etc, I believe one has a moral responsibility to ensure that what is provided is correct. Unfortunately, this is not always so on other sites. For most subjects, this is unimportant, but when ones health is involved, then I believe it is a different matter. You must agree it is very frustrating when one comes across a recipe that just doesn't (and can't) work, because of mis-information. And unfortunately, again, because of the plagiarism which is rife on the internet, this mis-information gets propagated. I only wish to help to maintain your excellent efforts.
As an example, Mamya's tip about bicarbonate is a case in point. Yes, adding bicarb to food, especially pulses, can dramatically reduce cooking times (sometimes halved) but the downside is that vitamins are destroyed by such action, aluminium pots are attacked, and sodium content raised, not to mention the residue from the bicarb. All this to save some time? The practice of adding bicarb has been around a long time, usually added to vegetables to maintain their colour, but in the light of recent nutritional considerations, this practice has to be questioned. This is where the forum has a distinct advantage. Contributors can discuss, and some may have more time to research such ideas.
At the end of the day, you have editorial control.
cheers
Waaza
Thank you for this very interesting discussion Wazza, nice to understand exactly how soda bicarbonate works. However, only a small amount of it is used when boiling things like chickpeas and kidney beans, which one doesn't eat very often. Dals do not need it. Also, we use baking powder, which contains soda bicarb., in baking cakes and other things all the time. I know that it can react with some drugs, but I wonder if ?a large pinch? added to a a pan full of chickpeas, eaten between a family, will cause that much harm. I know that it is also used in antacids, which most people take at some point or other in their life.
Health is an important issue these days. We all try to decrease our salt/fat/sugar intake. I for one never put salt in water when boiling/steaming any vegetables. I used to add it to water when boiling pasta, but stopped doing it a while back. It will be nice to have a one line tip like ?you don?t need salt? when boiling things and why not? Isn?t it interesting the things you learn when you discuss a simple thing like this?
Waza, I will be very grateful to you if you would point me in the direction of some references about sodabirab. destroying vitamins. Is it all the vitamins, heat liable ones or heat resistant ones that it destroys?
Kavita?s point about lack of time is very valid. They work hard enough on this site already, I don?t have any intentions of asking them to increase their work load. Perhaps it will be a good idea just to have a single, static page as she says, where important tips are posted, after discussions and research! Perhaps not. Will it be too much outside the scope of this site!
Mamta
Mamta, I agree with your thoughts about whether a pinch will make a difference. I have found a few references to Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) being destroyed by bicarbonate, and some which also suggest B1, B2 and B12 are affected as well (all water soluble) but vitamin D is not (oil soluble).
Here are some references, none a definitive reference, IMHO, so I may still look for others.
Hope this helps.
cheers
Waaza
ps I do not have anything to do with any of the references, nor do I endorse any products or support anything written below, they are only for the reader!
Unfortunately, with the references I quoted, I was stop from posting (because of spamming problems), so I'll try to get you the info another way.!
Not ignoring you, been off sick all day, am on computer only to get some files ready for my job at client site tomorrow.
Thanks mum, Wazza.
Mamta, I didn't see your comments about adding salt, you must have posted during the time I was replying, looking at the posting times above!!
I have carried out a few scientific experiments with salt and potatoes. What I found was that on cooking, the potato absorbed very little salt water. If a cut end is immersed in a saturated salt solution (a saturate solution is made by adding enough salt to water as to have some solid salt left over, which won't dissolve)this will cause the cells adjacent to the cut end to rupture. If you try this experiment, after immersing the cut potato for 3 hours, dry it, then immerse in a solution of food dye. You will find much more dye adheres (is aDsorbed)onto the cut end than if you just cut a fresh potato and apply the same dye solution.
I think this is becase we are exposing the insides of the cells, which have burst open because of the strong salt solution. This process is used to make crispy roast potatoes. Once the potato has been totally peeled,it is left in strong salt solution. Then, when roasted, the outside of the roast potato becomes very crispy and golden.
I also found that cut (one face)potatoes (either raw or cooked)aBsorbed very little salt from a salt solution, thus I'm questioning the old idea about putting a potato into a curry sauce/gravy to reduce the saltiness.
My take on salt in cooking is never to add any, and to taste the food just prior to serving, to adjust, if necessary, though in our present 'low salt' thinking, I hardly ever add salt at all, and tell my guests to add to their taste if they want to. I also think it may be down to one's individual tastes, anyway. It is well known that our ability to taste things depends on what we have just been eating, so choosing our starter/sweet course may become more important.
cheers
Waaza
Hello Wazza
Thank you for your mail with all the web addresses, very interesting!
As far as salt goes, we shouldn?t really add when boiling most things, not good for our health. When adding to over salted curries, it is supposed to expand the quantity, as well as breaking up into the gravy, to make it less salty, that is all. Only the surface of the boiled potato has salt, not inside.
Out of the sites you sent me, I found some following of special interest:
From http://www.iceland.co.uk/ice/instore.nsf/(websearch)/mirrorarticle
?Good cooking Whether you opt for fresh or frozen veg, it's important to cook them properly so they retain their nutrients.
Steam, microwave or stir-fry veggies.
If you must boil, only use a little water and wait until it's boiling before adding the veg. This deactivates the enzymes that destroy vitamin C.
Don't add salt to cooking water, and do use the liquid to make gravies or sauces.
Don't use copper pans or add bicarbonate of soda to the cooking water as both speed up the loss of vitamin C.
Article by Juliette Kellow Daily Mirror 7th March 2006 ?
and
From http://www.hec.server101.com/info/articles/food-proc/food-pres.htm
?Saving the nutrients in food.
Do not store fresh foods for long periods - purchase just enough to last a week or less, and
eat soon after buying.
Store foods in a cool, dark place.
If slicing or chopping, keep the pieces as large as possible.
When boiling, add the raw food once the water is already boiling.
Use the smallest amount of cooking water possible.
Cook all foods for the shortest possible time. (Especially in the case of vegetables, lengthy cooking causes large losses of nutrients).
Do not use copper pots or utensils.
Do not use baking soda to preserve the colour of vegetables, as this increases vitamin losses.
Use cooking water and liquid from canned foods for gravies, sauces and soups.
Microwave cooking, because it is quick and avoids the use of cooking water in most instances, is a good way to save nutrients.?
More I read these things, more I am thinking about not doing the Tips section. It can be a minefield of misinformation, unless one spends a huge amount of time checking and cross checking things!
Mamta
yes Mamata, anything put on the internet can be a minefield, but, if contributors to forums are sensible and debate each subject, it makes for a better site, I believe.
In your answer above you mention that veg should be plunged into boiling water. I've seen (and heard on TV) this before, and the reason given was that if (green) veg is heated slowly, there is a temperature (range?) through which the green colour (chlorophyll complexes) become unstable, though, at higher temperatures, they become stable again. This seems to be why it is recommended we plunge the green veg into boiling water, then 'refresh' in cold water, it takes the veg through the 'unstable region' very quickly (in both directions).
This is the reason leaves lose their green colour in winter, it is the cold that breaks the complex, leaving yellow/brown carotenes to herald in the autumn. If we are lucky, after a very sudden cold snap, the leaves (on some trees and plants) turn red. This is because the sugars produced in the leaves, and normally pumped down into the roots for storage over winter, are attached to a red pigment, called anthocyanins (the same colour in beetroot and grapes). The cold destroys the chlorophyll complex, but the sugar/anthocyanins are 'caught' in the leaves, for a few days, at least.
So, hopefully our green veg will remain greener from now on, and we will know why!
cheers
Waaza
I've got a tip ! - Don't start a discussion on adding food tips to your website if you want an early night !
LOL
Steve
Waaza
Your input is much appreciated as always. However, I think what you see the site as and what we see the site as differ quite a bit. Our intention is that the site is, at it's core, a collection of recipes which should very much be seen as a family cookbook. It's certainly extended somewhat from that with the addition of recipes from friends and visitors but that is, at it's heart, what this site is about.
As such, the advice here is simply the kind of advice one would get if one asked a friend for their personal methods and tips and ideas. It's absolutely not intended to be any kind of official guide with scientific methodology applied when testing the recipes or data. What worries me a little about your comments above is that you seem to favour a very different slant and approach to sharing information. If we suddenly found ourselves having to authenticate/ investigate the health issues and science behind all our recipes and tips we'd simply have to shut the site down!
Imagine more that the site is an online version of having a friend who happens to be Indian and is happy to how she cooks, with the normal caveat that the friend is not any expert in the industry, simply someone who has some skills that others may like to learn.
That said, of course, if a reader spots any mistakes or has suggestions for improvements to recipes and other information posted on the site we are (and always have been) extremely open to hearing from them. Infact many, many of our recipes have been amended directly as a result of feedback from our readers.
In the same way, the Tips page idea would be a case of mum thinking about general cooking methods and tips that she uses not just for one or two recipes but across much of her cooking. It would just be simpler to put them in one place rather than repeat them on every single recipe where they might be used. Of course, if a reader spots an error or problem in a tip, we would like to hear from them and could then amend the information provided as appropriate.
But I think trying to be too clinical and scientific about the content of this site would be a mistake.
Kavey
thank you Kavey, for your post.
I can see I can never change your mind. I hope there are never any legal issues arising from your posts, maybe you should make a statement as to not being responsible for any errors that you may publish.
I withdraw from this forum.
cheers
Waaza
Waaza
I would be surprised to encounter any legal action from a non-commercial website such as this. It is not the same as publishing and selling a cookbook!
But perhaps we will add some kind of statement as you suggest. I will look into it.
It would be a shame indeed if you withdrew from the forum just because you disagree with how we want to run/ add to our website. Your input is very interesting and the discussions are always useful so we welcome your presence here on the discussion boards.
But surely it's only natural that you will not agree with all the decisions made by someone else about their projects? It is only natural that people will not have identical approaches or opinions or methods of doing things. Our way is to keep it casual, informal and friendly. We do not want to be some kind of official guide or expert database.
Kavita