7 Culinary Hacks & Kitchen Tips

Need soft butter for baking but don’t have time to wait? Place the cold butter in a plastic bag and use a rolling pin to pound it to the desired consistency in a matter of seconds.

If you want butter for your toast but you forgot to leave it out to soften, a vegetable peeler will cut a thin ribbon that’s easy to spread on hot toast.

From sweet potato casseroles to seasonal fruit pies to rich gratins of potato or other root vegetables, many recipes direct the cook to dot the surface of a dish with butter just before putting it in the oven. To keep soft, sticky pieces of butter from clinging to your fingers, try using frozen butter and a vegetable peeler for this task. Shaving thin curls off the surface of a frozen stick of butter is infinitely neater—and easy, too. You can also try grating the frozen butter over the large holes of a flat grater directly onto the dish.

Rather than use a large colander to drain brine-packed capers, try a tea strainer. The tool, which fits inside a teacup, is ideal for an ingredient usually measured out in small quantities, and its tight weave prevents the tiny capers from falling through.

Tiny, slippery capers are difficult to chop when they roll around on the cutting board. Use the following technique to stabilize them.
Spoon the capers onto a double layer of paper towels, fold over the towels, and push down firmly on them to flatten. And simply transfer the dry, flat capers to a cutting board for chopping.

Cutting carrots into julienne—⅛-inch-thick by 2-inch-long strips—is painstaking work, even for cooks with advanced knife skills. Save time by starting with a bag of uniformly cut and peeled baby carrots from the supermarket.
1. Cut each carrot lengthwise into quarters.
2. Cut each quarter lengthwise into ⅛-inch thick strips.

A facelift for your cauliflower
Even the freshest head of cauliflower can have minor blemishes. Rub a rasp-style grater over discolored areas until they disappear for flawless cauliflower.