Quick tips sep/oct 94

1 info

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
Making Yogurt Cheese
Removing Fat From Stock
Squeezing Moisture From Eggplant
Extracting the Meat from Avocados
Moving Cake Layers When making layer
Crushing Garlic and Spices
Measuring Dough Height
Drying Herbs
Making Cookie Crumbs

Directions

1. Pour the yogurt onto a double layer of paper toweling.

2. Gather the paper towels together at the corners, secure them with a rubber band, and place a chopstick through the rubber band.

3. Suspend the yogurt from the rim of a yogurt carton until it is well drained (4 to 8 hours).

To remove the fat from stock, gently lay a paper towel on the surface of the stock for a few minutes. When you pick up the paper towel, it will have absorbed a large proportion of the fat.

To make eggplant less bitter and give it a denser texture for cooking, it should be salted, drained for and hour, and then pressed to squeeze out the moisture. Here's an unusual, but highly effective way to do this.

1. Place the salted and drained eggplant pieces in a ricer.

2. Press handle to squeeze out excess water.

1. After cutting the avocado in half and removing the pit, slice through the meat, but not the skin, with a paring knife.

2. Rub a rubber spatula around the circumference, just inside the skin, to loosen the meat, then twist the spatula to pop out the meat.

cakes, it is sometimes hard to keep the top layer in one piece while transferring it into position on top of the bottom layer. Try this.

1. Carefully place the second layer onto a pizza paddle that has been coated with confectioner's sugar.

2. Gently slide the second layer onto the first layer as you would slide bread or pizza dough onto oven tiles.

Use a large smooth stone instead of the blade of a chef's knife to smash garlic or crush spices.

Recipes often instruct you to roll dough out to a particular height.

If you estimate "by eye" it can lead to problems later on in the recipe. Measure the height of dough by rolling out the dough and sticking a ruler directly into it.

Harvest herbs in season and follow these steps: 1. Tie herbs together at the stem end.

2. Place the herbs upside down in a paper bag shut around the bunched stems.

3. Hang the paper bag in a well-ventilated area. Clothes hangers make a convenient rack. Using this method, herbs will stay dust-free, and any leaves that fall from their stems will be caught in the bag.

To crush cookies for cookie crumbs, put the cookies in a plastic bag and run back and forth over them with a rolling pin until they are the size called for in your recipe.

Cook's Illustrated September/October 1994 Submitted By DIANE LAZARUS On 12-27-94

Related recipes