This took about 2 minutes to make with a pocket knife and a used coke can. The far more complex one is in the background, took…

Passé use by date?
/coat...
;-)

They may or may-not be bourgeois at various times or situations, but they are always chic....

Apparently humans have been cultivating them for at least 7500 years!

I tend to get around that by not taking things off the element. I can see that the temperature curves are smoother, but OTOH, that does mean…

The only problem is that they grate knuckles as well as they grate anything else – ouchy.

We bought a small copper pot, it is very pretty and makes me happy when I see it in the pot drawer

It probably has another function, perhaps even for cooking things, but for now it serves an important purpose.

That IS a dutch oven!

The enamel ones and anything referred to as ... shudder ... French ... are NOT Dutch ovens.

The name comes from the US where…

It's akin to gremolata : finely chopped parsley, lemon rind and garlic, sprinkled on most anything.

Ditto

And a damascus folded steel cooks knife

drool

+1

Thermal mass.

You can get a thin light pan just as hot but the moment you take it off the heat it loses it's temperature fast. That may be an advantage in certain situations but for a lot of cooking you don't want fast…

It's slightly less a superfood when you drizzle the leaves with oil and bake in the oven on one of those circulon baking trays until crisp. Sprinkled with seasoning (salt) it is yummy but by…

Need oven mits? Don't buy the stupid ones from the kitchen shop – go to your hardware store and buy a pair of welding gloves. The big ones that go halfway up the arm are great for working with a blazing hot BBQ!

What I like about him is that he takes the science and applies it to the dogma of recipes often rewriting the recipe as a result. He's also a…

Jessica Rose with freezing green grapes and using them as tasty little globes to keep your white wine cool.…

Fighting words. That's Israeli (and I think Lebanese) style. Egyptians and others use broad beans.

For felafel though, soaked but uncooked chick peas are the go – found this from a fab cook friend who found it from someone in the know, and confirmed in other…

My hack for that one is an old zip electric frypan lid. If something on the BBQ needs steaming or all round…

If you want to make your own hummus….

Traditional recipes call for chic peas, which need to be soaked for at least six hours, if not days, and to do it properly, you need…

Ain't nature wonderful!

Tomatoes must never ever ever be chilled!
Tomatoes are alive, they keep producing flavour on the bench at room temperature. This is really important because many of those flavour components are volatile, they just float out of the…

Washing up is always a chore, save time and effort by simply putting your dirty dishes straight into a cheap plastic washing up rack and put it outside in the rain for a day or two, works wonders.
If you are in a hurry, or have few…

pish

Dr George Goble got a Noble prize (Ig) for doing it faster and hotter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sab2Ltm1WcM

finely dice a small amount and add to aioli – goes amazingly well on pan fried fish

BUT the amount you use should be small when you first do it since it is very taste dependent and it's easy to use too…

This also works very well for Limes. This is an incredibly important hack because limes ripen in winter (and are cheap then) and margaritas are best drunk in hot summer (when limes are very expensive).

There is a small triangular shaped cartilage in your wrist that as you age becomes somewhat fragile. After about 9 months of being very careful with my wrist I can almost knead dough again. For now we let the breadmaker's…

Not an easy hack but definitely a kitchen hack:
We couldn't afford to get city gas up the driveway but I really really wanted to cook on gas. So we got a gas hob and connected it (registered gasfitter reqd) to an LPG bottle…

Bah! Sorry Gareth. As I was driving home I was trying to think whether I had written Gavin or Gareth ... sigh.

As for truffle butter mmmmm sounds delicious.

Gareth will, certainly.

All commercially available truffle oil is made with "arome de truffe" (truffle flavouring) which is an entirely artificial chemical cocktail you can buy by the litre in France…

We have lots of hacks but having not read the thread yet (man the e-mails pile up while you're behind the great firewall) I'll post a couple for now and more as I read along…

I…

(Is that legal, by the way? I had the idea that a working stove was a requirement).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUH1XmFb05Y

Only if it emits a pong is it a Dutch Oven.

The Dutch will be livid. :-)

I have a Chasseur roasting pan, which I don't use that much because it's so effing heavy, and thus a bit of a pain to clean. Purchased and lugged back from Australia, where…

I like the idea of the accuracy. How does it work in practice? Do you stick it in every time you want to get a reading, or does it stay in? How…

I use Cooking For Engineers. For all that nerdy cooking goodness...

I think I'm seeing the flaw in my thinking. I simply don't cook anything that hot on a stove. I'd use the oven or the BBQ (which is cast iron). Must…

I find they also give better heat control for various dishes. Thin/light pans…

Now those are a hack and a half. I've never used another blender since I got one. Fits in a cutlery drawer, takes no time to set up, does an excellent job with little mess, takes about 10 seconds to clean.

+1 for that recommedation... was just given a copy of it as…

Saute in EV olive oil 2 or 3 onions cut into wedges. While that's cooking pick a colander-full or so of green veges; if kale take out the ribs, then chop (or tear if you don't have a knife). Dice 4…

Late-to-the-farmer's-market hack: every spinach recipe – raw or cooked – is a silverbeet (chard) recipe waiting to happen, and vice versa.

Quite nutty I find. lil' lime infused olive oil (from my friend Trev of Taipa) drizzled over after steamed and a grind of salt and pepper is a meal all in one.Try raw and thinly…

Just in, my latest discovery and absolute delight,Kale
I am going to grow this natural pest resistant munchie. Until the cows come home 'cos then they would eat it. ;)

Glass lids mean you don't have to open it to see, too. Save money and time, and prevent casual steam burns!

Boil the water faster with the lid on and save money!

Never fear.... Harold McGee has blazed a wonderful path already. Had his book On Food and Cooking from the library years ago.... it's huge and fascinating. Haven't been back for the updated version, which is probably…

As a subbranch of kitchen science, it's probably the lesser science. Chemistry would be the more important part of it. I wish I knew more.

I'll probably not be talking the physics any more, exam was yesterday. From…

In a vain attempt to ward off the impending armagedon, we’ve turned what was once an eighth-of-an-acre of lawn into what is fast becoming a Palmy fruitopia.
Here’s the list: Blueberries, red, black and white currants, raspberries, blackberries, rhubarb,…

But yeah, I agree with your underlying point: for boiling, you should only use the minimum energy input needed to maintain boiling temperature.

Unless the purpose is the vaporization…

This describes my situation accurately.

Another pork-hack: pig heads. Your local butcher probably has them — they use them to make sausages and such like but will generally part with one for $10-15. Your…

Stephen:

but you are cooking for vegetarians

Do they cook for you? A meat lover?

Thanks. Made this tonight – very…

Yup, the fact that the system is not closed was causing me grief thinking about it. All my working there was intending to show was that the difference in the boiling point with the lid on is insignificant, since Ben…

With the white can opener depicted, I have not encountered a can it won't open with ease. It was actually only today that I realized that the standard can opener can actually do the same thing. It's not perfectly…

While there is a puddle of water in a pressure cooker the pressure follows the saturated steam tables. Note the pressure at 100 degC is 101kPa. At 120deg C it is about 200kPa. Twice atmospheric pressure.

When there…

And even betterer AS a recipe book? If only we knew an editor-type person...

That had never occurred to me. It looks like your method produces a much safer can edge, too.

We have one of those, and it's great. Not least because everyone in the family can use the same damn tin opener.

From when I used to own a pressure cooker, it takes about 30 minutes to pressure cook chickpeas to hummus-ready condition, compared to…

Just prior to putting your loaf/buns into the oven, pour boiling…

Our tool-using ancestors would be proud. Find myself levering the edge of lids with the handle of a regular teaspoon in search of that satisfying pop as the seal releases. Can still re-seal afterwards if not using contents in one go.

If a recipe involves special effort (eg puff pastry) or special shopping (eg fondue), always – funds permitting – make at least double and freeze the excess for next time.

(Don’t freeze finished fondue. Freeze the rubbly fluid that results from processing the…

If you ask me,…

At least both are reasonable things to chuck into a pot of soup/risotto/etc?

My fail was clam juice vs eggwhite. Meringues did not happen.

And for getting off jar lids, use the manky old stainless can opener in the kitchen drawer – one leg has the bottle-opener notch and is perfect for cracking the seal by…

Don't know for sure, but my understanding is that they would be very close to the same temperature, the liquid and the gas, if they are close to thermal equilibrium, and all of the energy coming in from the element would be going into changing the phase…

I think for the liquid, the boiling point is defined by the Clausius–Clapeyron equation.

Even assuming that the ideal gas law applies to confined steam…

now that's a hack

Where's good place to find it?

Well, actually in this formula it will be constant, until the water is gone. Every gram of water leaving through the vent is replaced by a gram coming out of the water in gaseous form into the pot.

I'm still puzzling over whether the water…

Ah, yes, thanks. That'll teach me to do the conversion in my head – out by 10-fold (but on the good side, so far as my argument is concerned :-))

I don’t think that %-age of pressure above atmospheric is going to…

I can honestly say that this has never happend in our household. #lush

Is that a trick question ; ) round here it doesn't last long at all....

but seriously, i guess is should last months, maybe longer as a fermented product with such an intense salt level : )

Giving it every chance by leaving it in a pre-warmed oven to rise. Say a little prayer for me ...

I like the look of that.

Looks great, will be giving that a go

And…

At the core of many West Indian recipes. http://www.cookingwithria.com/2013/03/trinidad-green-seasoning.html and a search on green seasoning will uncover many variations.

The hack – you can change ingredients and proportions to suit yourself. Make ice cubes, pop it in a jar.

The pressure doubles in the pressure cooker – while there is water in it – for every 20 degrees above boiling. Most domestic pressure cookers run at about +1 atmosphere.…

Further to this, magic curry ingredients (i.e. those to take them…

Not sure, but I wouldn't be surprised. It's often the case overseas precisely because people expect seafood on it. Napoletana traditionally has capers and anchovies.

Though in NZ, marinara usually contains seafood. Am I right? Isn't a tomato sauce called 'neopolitan' in NZ pizzerias?

Many a suit for false advertising was filed in vain.

Cheers. I agonized over how to fit it in when we designed the kitchen. It was a real pain in the arse in the original kitchen, took up huge amount of bench space.

here when the oven or dishwasher door…

Yup, that’s a whole different device, though. A lid on a pot does not a pressure cooker make. It’s just a whole lot more efficient than no lid, for an almost identical effect. Many times more efficient. The effect can…

This is true, but the pots are venting so I don't think the pressure can rise much. The upper limit is presumably the pressure exerted downwards by the lid divided…

I have been making a spicy tomato bean sausage stew often of late. It has a lot going for it – it's cheap to make, filling, healthy and tastes great re-heated for lunch at work.
Recipe roughly as follows:
1 brown onion and 4-6 cloves…

Indeed, as this story explains. It's also large EU subsidies.

Have a nibble!

This seems to me more like an opportunity for culinary experimentation than a problem.

It's harder to know in New Zealand. I think No Right Turn wrote a couple of posts about this but I'm buggered if I can find them.

1. I often find myself not having a 1/2 cup of cooking wine on hand when wanting to make risotto or bolognese.
2. When D and I have a glass of wine with dinner, there's typically about 1/2 a cup left in…

Damn, I hadn't actually been aware of that. But EU subsidies are also a factor. Useful Australian story on the issue:

Such economies of scale trim costs, but Italy's tomato industry has two key competitive advantages: cheap, sometimes illegal, migrant labour…

pull out the food processor and chop up fresh stuff to taste (not too small) – I usually add:…

Firstly, the coffee grinder is broken: does anyone have a reliable hack for turning beans into espresso-able pieces? (We don't have a bread maker either – I'm the guest of a French pastry-chef.)

The last six months…

The luxury! Just measured mine as 2.2m x 4.6m containing oven, stove, microwave, dishwasher, sink, fridge, pantry, all cupboards, bookshelves, drawers, 6 seater table and chairs. But it has an illusion of space when you're in it, strangely, on account of the window placement.

Well, with the lid on,…

Pam's cans of cherry tomatoes in juice are very good. And someone mentioned Delamine back beans in…

I'm afraid the credit goes to slave…

True, but I tend to make huge pots of tomato sauce and freeze them in portions, so mine's ready-cooked anyway.

Can I just say that I am very, very happy for…

You can only embed a pic if you download the image then upload it here with the "choose file" button. I did it for you this time :-)

Not averse to using fresh tomatoes, but they would have to be superbly ripe.

That is the basic pizza marinara, which is probably where pizza comes from – so named because it was the standard breakfast of fishermen returning ashore. There…