Cooking Hints and Tips
Beverages
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Coffee Fruit Juice Miscellaneous Tea Wine |
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Coffee Keep coffee in an air tight container and store in a cool, dark place. Try the freezer! For best results buy the whole beans and grind them yourself just before use. If you notice any traces of chlorine, iron, or other minerals in your water, use a quality bottled or filtered water. Softened or distilled water will effect the flavor of the coffee and should not to be used. It's said the best water-to-coffee ratio is 1 tablespoon of ground coffee or 2 tablespoons of whole beans for each 6 ounces of water. Boiling or reheating coffee literally boils away flavor. A thermal carafe will keep the coffee hot for 2 hours or more without losing any flavor. If your coffee tastes bitter, put two or three cardamom pods into the pot while it is brewing. Over-percolating does not make coffee stronger. It makes the flavor more bitter and very harsh. When cream is used in coffee, allow it to reach room temperature beforehand, so it cools the coffee as little as possible. Never boil coffee since boiling brings out the tannic acid in the bean and makes for a bitter as well as cloudy brew. Make ice cubes from brewed coffee to be used in iced coffee drinks. This keeps the melting ice from diluting the coffee drink. Brew coffee with bottled spring water for better tasting coffee and no mineral deposits. If you are out of coffee filters, don't use a paper towel. Use a handkerchief instead, the coffee will taste much better. Have a favorite coffee but it costs too much? Buy it and some regular coffee and just add a little bit of your favorite to the regular, it tastes like your favorite and cheaper then just using your favorite alone. Store your freshly ground coffee in the freezer until you need it. It will be fresher. You may add some flavorings such as chocolate, cinnamon sticks or toasted almonds with the beans before grinding.
Coffee Roast Types (lightest to darkest) Cinnamon: a light cinnamon-brown color, which produces a nut-like flavor. Medium: Even chestnut brown color. Full City: Dark brown color, with no trace of oil on the bean surface. Vienna: Dark brown color with a small amount of oil on the surface of the bean. French: Very dark brown color with large amounts of oil on the surface of the bean. Italian: Almost black, with large amounts of oil on the surface of the bean. Fruit Juice To quickly use that frozen juice concentrate, simply mash it with a potato masher, no need to wait for it to thaw! Make ice cubes with lemonade instead of water and use in your iced tea or in your lemonade to help prevent that watery lemonade syndrome. Miscellaneous I have a solution for those of us who don't like it when our drinks, like tea, get watered down. Take your favorite drink, mine is tea, and make ice cubes out of those! As they melt, your drink won't lose it's flavor! Ice Cubes - For people who don't like drinking water because of its lack of or funny taste, use fruit juice, kool-aid, etc. to make ice cubes instead of water. How many times to you have small amounts of flat Coke or any other carbonated drink left over? Fill ice trays with the left overs and freeze. Use in your Coke or other carbonated drink next time you want to put ice in it. The drink will not be watered down, because you're not adding water. To make big ice cubes for your pitcher of iced tea or lemonade, use muffin tins as ice cube trays. Tea Tea that has been steeped too long or refrigerated hot will become cloudy. Pour a small amount of boiling water into tea to make it clear. To make iced tea that is clear and not too cloudy, place 4 tea bags into a 2-quart pitcher of water and leave in the refrigerator for approximately 4 hours. To add sugar to cold tea, dissolve the sugar first in a glass of hot water. You won't have those hard sugar crystals floating around in your tea now. Use less sugar and make your tea taste different by dissolving old-fashioned lemon drops, or hard mint candy in your tea. Iced Tea taste bitter? Add a pinch of baking soda to your glass or a teaspoon in your gallon pitcher. Makes it perfect every time! Fast easy way to make iced tea... place a big tea bag or 4 small tea bags in a gallon jar and either set it out in the sun or even on your counter in the kitchen under the light. Loose tea lasts about a year. Tea bags last for a shorter amount of time. If you use an old tea bag, it is best to leave it in the hot water for a longer amount of time. Both green and black teas come from the plant Camellia senensis. For green tea, leaves are picked and heated to retain the characteristics of the growing plant. For black tea, leaves are picked and exposed to air. Oxygen reacts with the oils, changing the leaves' chemistry and turning them black. As for oolong tea, leaves can be slightly oxidized and taste like green tea or very oxidized and taste like black tea. The most important variables to take into account in steeping excellent tea are the size of the leaf and the temperature of the water. The larger the leaf, the longer you must steep it; the smaller the leaf, the more surface it exposes to the water and the more quickly proper infusion curs. Steeping good tea takes two to three minutes for the flaky small grades, and five to seven minutes for the twisted, larger grades. Oversteeping tea will cause bitterness. With correct steeping the tannins, or natural acids, give flavor to the tea. When tea is oversteeped, it is the tannins that cause bitterness. Fruit and herbal tisanes may steep for as long as you like without causing bitterness as they contain no tannin. The 'proper' way to prepare the teapot to steep tea is to fill the pot with boiling water to warm it up. After a few minutes, pour out the water, put in the tea and refill the pot with fresh boiling water. This will keep the temperature of the steeping tea from dropping from being started in a cold pot. For Hot Tea: "Bring the pot to the kettle, not the kettle to the pot," is the standard rule because, when steeping tea, water temperature is critical. Bring water to a 212&def;F rolling boil to infuse tea. Tea may be steeped in water as low as 192°F though times and results may vary. Usually about a level teaspoon is used for every 12 ounces of water. The tea should be steeped for three to five minutes depending on the type of tea and personal taste. Once steeping is completed, one should remove the spent leaves to prevent further infusion. For Iced Tea: Iced tea is truly an American invention. The traditional way to prepare iced tea is to steep hot tea using 50% more tea than you would normally use. When the tea is ready, pour it over ice in a tall glass. The extra strength tea will be mellowed by the melting ice cubes. A good stout iced tea uses 1 1/2 ounces of tea to a gallon of water. For Sun Tea: To create Sun Tea, simply place the jar in a sunny spot and allow the warmth of the sun to gently assist in the steeping process which usually takes 6 to 8 hours. The Cold Water Method: To make iced tea that is crystal clear, simply use the cold water method. Fill a three inch tea ball with tea and put it in a 2 liter jar filled with cold water. Allow the tea to steep for approximately 8 to 12 hours. The jar can be left at room temperature or refrigerated during steeping. Wine When a recipe calls for wine, do not use what is called "Cooking Wine" They contain salt and flavorings. Use a wine that you would like to drink. | ||||||||||||||||||
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