Cooking quick tips

Do you know what is speed cooking? It is the art of cooking with economy in effort and time. You will save much time with good planning, organizationn and a handful of speed cooking tricks.

All sorts of cooking tips and tricks for speed cooking

If you are in a hurry, and you will be more than once, staring at the pan won't make it cook your food faster. These are just the best tips and tricks home cooks have been using for ages and you have them at your fingertips.

Organization for cooking quick

Save trips to the kitchen: Do you need to walk miles between kitchen and dining room when you lay the table? Prepare everything you need beforehand and set it inside a basket with handles. You will avoid unnecessary trips and there is no risk of glasses or plates slipping, as there would be if using a tray.

A place for everything: Have a place for everything and keep things always in the same place. You will save time wasted otherwise searching for tools and ingredients.

Preheat: Preheat the oven while you prepare the dough for your cake. Heat up the water for steaming or boiling while you wash the vegetables. Do the same with the oil for fries and heat it up while you peel the potatoes.

Do the preparation work: Prepare all the ingredients you will need before you start cooking. Peel, wash and chop everything in advance. There is no magic in the kitchen without some labor intensive knife skills before.

Tidy up: While you wait for water to boil or food to finish cooking, get everything back in place, even if you are going to use it in a few minutes.

Cooking potatoes quick

Cook potatoes faster: Pierce potatoes with a skewer before boiling, roasting or adding to a casserole. Potatoes will cook faster this way.

Boil before roasting: If you are going to make roast potatoes, boil them first in water, with salt, for ten minutes. You will cut the time in the oven by a third.

When baking or grilling, do skewered potatoes: Use metal skewers, the metal will transfer heat quickly to the core and the potatoes will cook much faster.

Cooking pasta quick (and well)

Save the pasta water: Before you drain, scoop out a cup of the starchy cooking water. A splash stirred into your sauce helps it emulsify with the oil or butter, turning thin and watery into silky and glossy. It is the difference between good pasta and great pasta, and it costs you nothing.

Salt the water well: The water should taste like the sea. Pasta absorbs salt as it cooks, seasoning it from the inside out. Under-salted water means bland pasta no sauce can rescue. Add the salt once the water boils, just before the pasta goes in.

Don't add oil to the water: A common myth says oil stops pasta sticking. It does not. It just coats the pasta so the sauce slides off later. Stir the pasta in the first minute instead, that is when it is most likely to stick.

Finish the pasta in the sauce: Drain the pasta a minute before it is done and let it finish cooking in the sauce for the last minute. The pasta soaks up flavor and releases starch, binding everything together. Add a splash of that reserved pasta water to loosen as needed.

Time it from the boil: Don't start timing until the water returns to a full boil after adding the pasta. Use the packet time as a guide, but taste a strand a minute or two early. You want it al dente, with a slight bite at the center.

Match the pasta to the sauce: Thin sauces suit long, thin pasta like spaghetti or linguine. Chunky sauces cling better to shapes with ridges and hollows like penne, rigatoni or fusilli. The right shape carries the sauce to your fork.

Never rinse cooked pasta: Rinsing washes away the surface starch that helps sauce stick, and cools the pasta down. The only exception is pasta destined for a cold salad, where you do want to stop the cooking.

Food preparation is the key to great cooking. No miracles happen in the kitchen without intensive knife work.

Cooking with garlic

Add garlic after the onions: Garlic burns far faster than onion. If a recipe has you soften onion first, that is why — get the onion soft and translucent, then add the garlic for the last 30 to 60 seconds. Burnt garlic turns bitter and acrid, and once it does there is no saving the dish.

Watch for the smell, not the color: Garlic is ready the moment it turns fragrant, a few seconds before it colors. As soon as you can smell it, move on to the next step or pull the pan off the heat. Waiting for it to brown usually means waiting too long.

Smaller cut, faster cook, stronger flavor: Crushed or finely minced garlic cooks in seconds and tastes sharp and pungent. Whole or halved cloves cook slowly and turn sweet and mild. Match the cut to the result you want, and remember the small stuff needs watching.

Cool the oil if it is too hot: If the pan looks ready to scorch the garlic the instant it lands, take it off the heat for a few seconds first, or add a splash more oil. Garlic is happiest cooked gently in warm oil, not blasted in smoking-hot fat.

Save raw garlic for the end: In dressings, salsas, and dips, raw garlic is at its most intense. A little goes a long way, and it keeps building as it sits — so go light, taste, and add more only if you need it.