7 Cooking Hacks & Simple Solutions with Herbs

Blossom Lady

Mar 03, 2021 05:29 AM

7 Cooking Hacks & Simple Solutions with Herbs

Cooking hacks and simple solutions are amazing because they make our lives easier, save time, and minimize effort. Cooking with herbs can be slightly confusing because of all of the varieties that are available to both chefs and cooks alike. You can grow herbs in a home garden or even on your kitchen window in small flower pots. However, more than many other kitchen ingredients, herbs seem to become food waste. Fresh herbs in the fridge can turn brown overnight, and dried herbs in the spice drawer become bland in flavor and aroma after just a few months. Use these tips to avoid tossing herbs in the garbage or compost pile. Today I’d like to share with you some simple solutions for cooking with herbs. I hope, these simple ideas and tips will make your time in the kitchen a little bit more pleasant!

Easier herb washing

Use a salad spinner to wash herbs. Once the herbs are clean, simply lift the basket with the herbs out of the dirty water, discard the water, fit the basket back into its base, and spin the herbs dry.

Shear brilliance

Plucking the individual leaves from fresh herbs like parsley and dill can be time-consuming, especially when you need a large amount. Here’s a quicker method: hold the bunch with one hand and, using a downward stroke, shave what you need from the stem. (be sure to discard any large, woody stems that get cut off before proceeding with the recipe.)

Fresh herbs, fast

Fresh herbs are the finishing touch to countless recipes, but carefully plucking the leaves from a bunch of parsley or cilantro can be tedious. You can use some everyday kitchen utensils to streamline the job.
A. Put a fork on it
1. Holding a bunch of clean, dry parsley or cilantro in one hand, use the other hand to comb the tines of a dinner fork through the herbs to pull off the leaves.
2. Pick through the leaves to remove any remaining stems.
B. A hole new way to pluck
Thread the stems of your tender herbs through your colander (starting from the inside and pulling through) to make quick work of this task—plus, the bowl of the colander collects the leaves for you!

Whole herb helpers

In recipes that call for thyme or rosemary, instead of stripping leaves off the branches and mincing them, simply throw the whole branch into the pan. Remember to remove the spent branch, as you would spent bay leaves, before serving. Rosemary is very strong, so you may want to keep it in the pot for only 15 minutes or so.

Better vase for herbs

A good way to store fresh herbs such as basil or parsley is stems down in a water-filled glass, with the leaves covered by a plastic bag. But the leaves and the bag make the setup top-heavy and prone to tips and spills in the refrigerator. You can make a more stable container from a one-quart or half-gallon plastic milk jug.

Grating lemon grass

Mincing a tough, fibrous stalk of lemon grass with a chef’s knife can be a painstaking job. Make it a cinch by freezing the lemon grass stalk until firm (about 1 hour) before grating it on a rasp-style or box grater to create fine shards.

Dry with ease.

Use kitchen string to tie bunches of herbs and hang them upside down in the kitchen for about a week or until completely dried. To oven-dry, lay sprigs of herbs on a baking sheet and place in the oven set to 180 degrees Fahrenheit for one hour or until herbs are dry. To preserve using the microwave, place four or five dry herb branches between two paper towels and microwave on high for one to two minutes; if herbs are not brittle and dry, microwave in 20-second intervals. Store dried herb leaves in airtight jars away from light.

kitchen hacks

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1 comment

Jeannette Campana

Mar 07, 2021 08:22 AM

# ↓

I have two fresh tumeric that look like sweet potatoes. How do I keep them Do I grate them or just cut them into l inch pieces