Blog:Grust's Top 10 Cooking Tips

We're all being quarantined and so some of you are likely having to cook your meals (though curbside is also a thing so be sure to thank the giant squid for that mercy). Since I enjoy cooking myself and is my secondary hobby, I'll share some experiences I have in the kitchen. I am not a trained chef, just a guy who likes to cook. So here are my top 10 cooking tips. There's no recipe to learn aside from some links but I'm hoping to give you an edge in the kitchen. Since this wiki is based on gaming though here's a good reason to listen. You cook your meals, you can hopefully make leftovers to save money for more video games. I mean you go to a restaurant and buy a meal for $20, or go to a store and buy stuff for spaghetti for the same price and have leftovers for 3 days. You saved almost $40. Okay then onto the countdown.

10. Wash Your Hands: The most basic but still important. If you're going to cook, you don't want germy virus-ridden hands touching that food or worse, cross contamination. Washing your hands is the best step and does an even better job than that old sanitizer people are fighting to the death over. TV's best chef Alton Brown already did a video on this so I'll leave this to him. Take it away, Alton.

9. Start Small: Today, I can make beef stew, lasagna, cakes, cupcakes, ice cream, sorbets, and sherbets, but I never though I'd get this good when I started. Believe it or not, I got into cooking merely by helping to brown ground beef for Hamburger Helper. So for this tip, I suggest you start with simpler recipes before you move onto something big. Even those Hamburger Helpers can give you some experience with the kitchen. Think of it like playing an RPG. Wanna kill the world-destroying god-like entity? Start with the rats.

8. Multi-Taskers, not Unitaskers: You wanna know why I dislike Crazy Russian Hacker's kitchen gadget videos and use them to threaten the administrators with? Most of them are unitaskers, devices only fit for a single job. Like Alton, I vastly prefer multitaskers, like knives that can fillet, chop, and pare. Kitchen shears can open pouches and debone a chicken. Multitaskers encourage smaller space and better organization. I'd only ever recommend a unitasker if the job it does is something you really love to do, like making yogurt.

7. Keep Your Counters Clean: Counters are where food prep is often done. From serving food or preparing a meal. Because of that, don't you want them as clean as possible. Every so often I take a sponge and wipe the surface clean. I have two sponges so I like to wait till I have some hand washable dishes to clean. Now unless a whole chicken or other raw meat hit the counter, I go with plain, simple water and wipe. With raw meat, I'd recommend a bottle with water and a tiny amount of bleach for sanitizing. As for sponges....

6. Take Care of Your Sponges: Kitchen sponges have a bad reputation for being germ cities, so to speak and spread germs around. While this is a fact, this can be prevented with proper sponge care. After every use, I like to put my sponges in the dishwasher to thoroughly clean. Once out, I wring out as much water from them as I can and leave them to dry. Should take about a day or two. And for good measure, once a month, I put my sponges in boiling water for ten minutes to completely sterilize them. Some sponges are microwave safe. If you have those, soak them in water, wring out excess moisture and nuke for 2 to 3 minutes. Keep in mind only some sponges are microwave safe, mine aren't. I learned that the hard way.

5. Filtered Water for Cooking: I love making cakes and candies (chocolate syrup counts as candy), and of course, coffee. And I use filtered water for that. I keep a water pitcher with a carbon filter for the job and replacing them is now the only time I ever use Wal-Mart (I also make sure to buy more socks and underwear just to be safe). If your tap is fine, you can use, but most of the time, there are chemicals and undesirable things in tap that can interfere with flavor. I don't use bottled because that should only be for emergencies and people use those for littering.

4. If It's Easy to Make At Home, Don't Buy: I remember one time shopping at Wal-Mart and I saw the stupidest thing I've ever seen being sold. Simple Syrup! I never made it until an apple cider sorbet (which by the way tasted like a nice cold apple pie), but even then I knew what simple syrup was. All it is equal parts water and granulated sugar. The sugar is dissolved in heated water over a stovetop. It's literally the easiest stovetop recipe of all time. I also make my own chocolate syrup which is also very easy to make. Ive never touched Hershey's syrup again after I made my own. Plus by buying the sugar or cocoa powder, you also get additional kitchen resources for other recipes like chocolate pudding. Plus it's actually cheaper to make it from scratch than to buy. An average bottle costs maybe $3 to $4 while making it costs you only $1. You can even make fine sea salt by putting kosher salt in a food processor.

3. Patience is A Kitchen Virtue: No knead breads take almost a whole day to make. I want to cut into that bread I just made it smells so good. I just want to dump that ice cream base and have my churned ice cream now.

Grust: WAIT!!!

No knead breads do take a whole day to make but during the second phase, I'm watching anime and biding my time. If you cut into that bread before it cools, you'll ruin the texture by either drying it out or turning it into mush by not letting the starches settle. And you'll get a grainy disgusting ice cream (see 1 for explanation) if you don't let that base chill. As Alton Brown says, "Your patience will be rewarded." Plus remember what happens when developers rush a game?

2. Learn to Substitute: My preferred yeast is active dry (I failed miserable with sourdough starter) but what if a recipe calls for instant? Well that's simple. This is a recipe for a cast iron skillet bread I love. But it calls for 2 1/4 tsp (average packet size) of instant so what do I do? Well I looked around and if you wish to use active, multiply the required amount by 1.33 and you get 2.9925 tsps of active (which naturally I round to 3 tsp. A reverse multiply active with .75 for instant.  I also mix a bit of vinegar with milk to substitute buttermilk when making cornbread and I use 50% more coffee crystals as a substitute for espresso powder.  Substituting can get you out of a jam, especially when I learned that espresso powder can mainly be bought online than in stores.  However, if you're planning to do canning, jamming, or preserves, substitutions are NOT an option.  This is because there exists a bacterium that can not only survive high temperatures, but thrive in a low-oxygen environment called botulism.   Following the recipe exact is your best chance so no substitutions allowed.

Honorable Mentions

 * Ice Cube Trays are still relevant: I discussed them in my Top 10 Non-Electric Kitchen Tools so I'll leave this off the list
 * Caring for Cast Iron: Discussed them in my Review of Cast Iron Cookare so off the list.

1. Learn the Science of Cooking: Back on 3, I mentioned churning ice cream base before it's chilled will lead to grainy, unpleasant ice cream. That's because warm bases take longer to freeze. And the longer it takes, the larger and more jagged ice crystals form. Churning it while chilled (about 40 degrees F) will freeze it faster, creating much smaller ice crystals, which leads to a creamy texture we expect from ice cream. Another example. Yeast is a living thing that produces gases which raise bread dough. Because of that, we need to make things pleasant for them until we're ready to make them not alive. Because of that, an optimal temperature to bloom yeast in is around 110 to maybe 120 degrees. Too cool, they don't thrive and too hot, they'll die before the bread can rise. Just right and they'll start munching, producing gas and getting a bread to the perfect texture and they even add flavor. Another example is the difference between natural cocoa powder and Dutch Processed Cocoa Powder, both of which is the essence of chocolate...Chocolate.... CHOCOLATE....CHOCOLATE. Natural cocoa powder is the cocoa solids separated from the cocoa liquor (not alcoholic) and is very acidic, but is useful for brownies and other baked goods because the acidity cuts through the fat and sugar. Dutch processed on the other hand has had its acidity neutralized wit an alkaline solution. It supposedly dissolves easier in liquid and is great for candies and puddings. I love it myself for chocolate syrup and buy mine from Wincrest Bulk Foods (not endorsed I just love em). Chocolate makers keep both on hand for each benefit.

Another example is when I experimented and decided to make my own maple ice cream. I wanted to use maple sugar instead of granulated sugar for the base so I decided to do some research. Granulated sugar is pure sucrose so I looked up maple sugar and sure enough it was also sucrose so I used it to make the base which smelled like a pancake and for added flavor I added 1/2 cup maple syrup to the hot base. When it was time to churn, it turned out to be very flavorful because of both the maple syrup and the maple sugar. All because I did a little research.

Cooking is a science and the more we learn the easier cooking becomes. And that's why it's my biggest tip to give you guys.

