Kitchen Secrets: How To Select, Store, Prepare and Cook Fresh Ingredient s for One or More

By Barbara Lowery and Tony Delroy

What's the best way to store prawns? What should you look for when you're buying broccoli? Or a good piece of steak? What are the essentials you should keep in your kitchen and how long will they last?In KItCHEN SECREtS, Barbara Lowery shares her vast knowledge of practical secrets, all those things our mothers knew about buying, storing, preparing, flavouring and cooking food that we never actually got around to learning. KItCHEN SECREtS looks at all the fresh foods we buy - meat, poultry, fish and seafood, fruit and vegetables - and tells us everything we need to know to keep it and serve it. this brilliant compendium of must-know advice is perfect for everyone who is fending for themselves. All the recipes are designed for one person - but every single one works for two or for a whole family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: May 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9780730498384

Book preview

MOST USEFUL

The solid-gold rule for life in the twenty-first century is be ready for change: it will happen and not always when we want it. My half century of experience on the planet has shown that the possibilities are endless, and that the key is to ‘buckle up’ and enjoy the ride.

The statistics gathered by our national census show an Australia very different to when I was a boy in the 1960s. These days we wait longer before deciding to commit to Mr or Ms Right. And we don’t always get it ‘Right’ first, second, or maybe even a third time. Even if we do find the perfect partner, modern-day financial pressures mean that we are mostly no longer working the dream of 9 to 5 with a 20-minute commute and dinner on the table after a little backyard cricket with the kids. The reality is that many Australians work shifts or commute a considerable number of hours each week, and in many families both parents work — sometimes more than one job.

A growing number in Australian society live alone, whether by choice, because they have lost their partner, or are managing single-parent households. Then there are those who do live as part of a family but feel they inhabit almost separate lives because of shift work (I’m raising my hand!) or because they have a partner whose job takes them away from home for long periods. And when kids leave home they might move into a shared household but still have to look after themselves quite independently.

One of the essentials in life is to eat. But the problem for many busy Australians, particularly those who live or eat alone, is that we can neglect our diet — the old ‘can’t be bothered’ syndrome. Yet it is so easy to change this: to eat well, to eat healthily even if you are eating alone.

The purpose of Kitchen Secrets is to give you the basics of the kitchen and some superb food ideas that are easy to master. Ideas that will be faster than getting ‘fast food’ — and not just faster but cheaper and infinitely more delicious. Taste and enjoyment always keep you coming back for more. So treat yourself as a special person and start your food evolution.

Don’t get caught up in the ‘can’t be bothered’ frame of mind. All you need to be a success in the kitchen are ideas and a little practice. As the old saying goes ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’! If you make small changes in your lifestyle, you can eat healthier, too, which will make you healthier.

Kitchen Secrets will give you all the information you need — to buy fresh food, to store it, to prepare it, to flavour it. It is filled with the helpful and practical wisdom that nowadays seems to be being lost. These are the secrets that Barbara Lowery has found out through trial and error. Kitchen Secrets is filled with many delicious recipes, too. Most are sized to suit one person but quantities are easily increased to feed two people, a dinner party or a family — or to freeze for later.

Kitchen Secrets will be your guide in the kitchen. It will help you and inspire you to eat better, tastier food and make the preparation easy and fun.

Tony Delroy

KITCHEN SECRETS

A well-organised kitchen makes food preparation so much easier. It takes only a few minutes to think about the functionality of the kitchen, which is possibly the most important and most-used room of a home. Not only is it used for food preparation, but it may also be a homework zone for children, an informal eating area and a meeting place for family and friends.

Check the layout and see if you have easy access to the most commonly used items, such as pots and pans — deep drawers are more accessible for pots than a cupboard.

Bright lighting is important above preparation and chopping areas — fluorescent tubes offer brighter light than globes.

Keep your favourite workbench area clear and free from clutter and appliances. Only have the appliances you use frequently on benchtops, if there is sufficient space.

A bench next to the opening side of the refrigerator door makes packing or unpacking foods easier and it also minimises the time the fridge door is open. No bench? Consider adding a table.

Attach a notice board or whiteboard to a kitchen wall or have a magnetic pad attached to the refrigerator door for shopping lists. Preparing lists will save you time and money!

Keep a waste bin under the kitchen sink and empty it regularly. Always sort kitchen waste into paper, glass and food scraps before disposal.

For easy access to biscuit and baking trays, it’s a good idea to store them vertically in a kitchen cupboard — the trays will take up less space too. To do this, install a divider made from a piece of laminated board approximately 2 cm wide and tall enough to fit snugly between the cupboard floor and ceiling.

Ceramic and slate-tiled kitchen floors look smart and are easy to clean; however, glass or china shatters on them. Cork and linoleum floors are a dream to keep clean or choose a floor that is low maintenance.

A kitchen is the most likely place in the home where a fire can occur, so invest in a domestic fire blanket and keep it in a handy spot at all times. Otherwise have a woollen blanket on hand for emergencies.

Ensure dry goods, such as rice, pasta, flour, couscous, lentils and dried fruit, are removed from their original packaging and stored in the pantry in labelled airtight containers, so that in the summer months these foods are not invaded by moths and weevils. Cardboard packets often harbour insects from a warehouse environment, well before they reach stores and supermarkets. For a little extra money, as a once-off purchase, you can now buy rice, pasta and flour packed in plastic containers, and refill them when necessary.

If possible, install narrow shelves or wire racks in the pantry to display a single row of dried herbs and spices for easy visibility and access. Attaching racks to the pantry door is sometimes a possibility, too.

Food items should not be stored anywhere near an oven or their quality and shelf life will be shortened. Suitable items to store near the oven are pots and pans, cooking equipment, such as bowls and jugs, baking trays and tins, foil and wraps.

A magnetic knife rack at eye level on a wall, well away from the kids, is more hygienic than a wooden knife block.

Keep a wooden, heatproof board or trivet next to the stove to put pots and pans on immediately after cooking in them — burnt benchtops are not a good look.

Line the base of the oven and grill tray with foil to lessen cleaning, but check with the oven instruction manual first. If you prefer to use the fan-forced cycle in an oven, the oven floor shouldn’t be lined with foil as it will flutter in the breeze of the fan.

Go through the pantry twice each year (January and June are ideal) to check use-by dates on foods and also to see if any insects or pests are lurking. Throw out any foods that have expired as their flavour will be inferior and the contents may possibly be dangerous to eat. Do the same with the freezer. While you won’t find pests lurking there, you could find a few old packages suffering freezer burn or dehydration with contents that won’t be worth eating.

Conversions and measurements

A nest of gradated cups and a set of measuring spoons is essential (and inexpensive) to reproduce recipes. The Australian Standard Metric cup (250 ml), tablespoon (20 ml) and teaspoon (5 ml) are used throughout this book. In England and New Zealand a 15 ml tablespoon is used, America uses a 14.8 ml tablespoon and Canada a 14.2 ml tablespoon; however, the difference will not affect the results of your cooking. The cup size in America is 237 ml and in Canada 227 ml. The difference is small beans in most recipes.

All cup and spoon measures in recipes are level. To level dry ingredients, such as flour and sugar, smooth the top of the measuring cup or spoon using the flat side of a knife blade. For greater accuracy dry ingredients should be weighed.

Buying electronic kitchen scales is a one-off purchase that is a good investment. They are essential for weighing foods accurately for baking and diet food — it’s often difficult to imagine what 500 g of pumpkin or 100 g mushrooms look like. If you don’t have scales, put them on your wish list, or buy a set in mid-or end-of-year cookware sales.

For liquid measures, use a clear 1-cup (250 ml) or 1-litre (4-cup) plastic or glass jug with metric markings. Measure liquids with the cup or jug sitting on a bench, so liquid is level.

Liquid measures

1 teaspoon = 5 ml

1 tablespoon = 20 ml

1 cup = 250 ml

¾ cup = 185 ml

½ cup = 125 ml

¹/3 cup = 85 ml

¼ cup = 60 ml

Oven temperature chart

Cooking times can vary according to the type of oven used. Recipes in this book were tested in a conventional electric oven. If using a fan-forced oven, set the temperature 20°C/70°F lower.

Note: microwave recipes were tested in an 850-watt oven.

Length

Some may find it helpful to be reminded of length in imperial inches, so here’s an instant guide. (It’s a good idea to keep a ruler in a kitchen drawer.)

Eggs

Recipes use 60 g eggs.

Important: some people are advised by their medical practitioner not to eat raw eggs as salmonella may be present. This list includes the elderly, pregnant women, young children and people suffering from immune deficiency diseases. Those with an allergy to eggs must also avoid them.

GETTING STARTED

A little planning and organisation pay huge dividends when it comes to cooking for one, two or more. If you’re one of the fast-growing single set in society, eating well is easy and far better for you than taking supplements. After all, food is a tastier and healthier option and food preparation can be rewarding and therapeutic.

For a well-balanced diet, eat a wide variety of foods. Superfoods essential to good health are berries (especially blueberries), walnuts, extra virgin olive oil, broccoli, seed-based breads, oily fish, tomatoes, apples and pears.

Nutritionists recommend that for good health we eat at least five serves of vegetables and two serves of fruit daily. The healthiest dinner plate comprises 75 per cent vegetables or salad and 25 per cent fish or lean meat.

Eating should be an enjoyable experience and not a chore. Aspire to make a new recipe each fortnight so boredom doesn’t set in. Choose simple tasty recipes for home and go for fancy food in restaurants. If eating alone, take time at least once a week to make food a special event. Set the table with a placemat, your best crockery, cutlery and glassware — and maybe even a candle. You’re worth it! And remember to eat slowly and savour the meal — rushed meals often lead to indigestion.

Read each recipe through carefully to check you have all the ingredients and equipment necessary before you start.

Shop for meat and poultry once a fortnight and freeze meat in individual portions, making sure you label and date them. If you are searching the freezer in a hurry, meat packages (particularly dark-coloured meat) can sometimes look the same when frozen.

If you buy the best-quality fruit and vegetables, you will only need to shop for them once a week. As soon as you get fresh produce home, unpack refrigerated and freezer items immediately and store other foods correctly so that they will last longer (see individual chapters for more information).

Always take a shopping list so you rarely buy food on impulse. The extra cost will be reflected in your wallet and waistline. Having said that however, it’s good to try a new product occasionally. Take advantage of grocery specials.

Convenience or prepared foods are naturally far more expensive than those made at home. Packaging, marketing, advertising, transport costs and new-line fees imposed by supermarkets all add to the cost of food.

Always read labels. If ingredients displayed on the back of a product seem unfamiliar or chemicals are listed, don’t buy it. You wouldn’t use chemicals when cooking for the people you love. It’s so easy, and in fact much faster and healthier, to whip up something quickly at home than it is to buy fast food. Takeaway foods are often high in fat, salt and/or sugar so should be eaten no more than once a week.

Add a salad or vegetables to purchased healthy main courses, to increase the fibre and vitamin content.

Make the most of your microwave as it’s a great labour-saving device.

Buy shelf-stable convenience and standby foods for emergencies as they don’t require refrigeration, for example UHT milk and cream, pre-cooked noodles, pasta and prepared meals that are vacuum-packed.

Always examine the use-by dates on foods before purchasing.

Equipment

Most homes these days sport a refrigerator, microwave, stove top and grill in the kitchen. A dishwasher is a fantastic invention, particularly for glassware and cutlery. It’s far more hygienic, too, than using tea towels that carry bacteria. An efficient toaster is important.

Buy cookware from a specialist shop that sells professional cooking equipment. The gear is likely to be sturdier, more efficient, far more durable and cost less than in department stores.

Knives

Good-quality knives will last a lifetime and one-piece stainless steel knives are easier to clean and are therefore more hygienic. Keep in mind that the larger the food you are cutting, generally speaking the larger the knife you should use. There are four must-have knives:

a chef’s or cook’s knife — with a 20–22 cm heavy broad blade, for cutting meat and chicken, chopping hard vegetables, slicing, dicing and flattening garlic cloves;

a filleting knife — with a narrow flexible blade is perfect for