***To cook more delicious eggplant dishes, leave the eggplants in salty or plain water for about 20-30 minutes, before cooking. The water will turn to brown.
***To cook more delicious dishes you should use hot or warm water when you are cooking. Cold water harms your dish.
***When cooking meat; if you add the salt at the beginning the meat would be hard.
***The frying oil should be hot and sizzling in order to prevent your food absorbing much oil. Also adding new oil to existing hot oil, makes the food absorb the recently added oil.
***Consume ayran as quick as possible since upon time yogurt would be gathered at the bottom.
***To obtain a clear and bright Turkish Tea, wash the tea leaves with cold water before brewing.
***Strawberry has a protein which affects the serotonin hormone that makes you happy. Also, it lessens the stress and appetite.
***If your dish is too salty, peel a potato and cut it into a few pieces and add into your dish. Raw potato will absorb the excess salt in it.
***If you like crispy French fries, leave the sliced potatoes in water before frying. Water will absorb the excess starch of the potatoes and your fries will be crispier.
***To prevent the frying odor to be spread all over the house, place a few pieces of fresh parsley into the frying oil.
***Never wash the mushrooms. Washed mushroom will absorb water and lose its taste. Try to clean mushrooms gently with a little soft brush or with a cloth.
***If you can’t take out the baked cake form its pan, cover its bottom with a wet cloth and leave it for 5-10 minutes.
***To prevent your tomato paste from going bad, flatten its surface and add some olive oil. This cuts the air contact and prevents bacteria growing. You can keep the tomato paste fresh for a long time by this method.
***Place the dry legumes in warm water from the previous day of cooking. Also while cooking add some baking soda in.
***To make the pilaf shiny and whiter, add a thin slice of lemon or a few drops of lemon juice to the pot.
***To take the garlic odor off your hands, get some salt and wet it a little. Then rub it in your hands. Afterwards wash finely with soap, you will realize that the smell is gone. You can do the same for onion and fish smell.
***If you dip your fingers in vinegar before peeling or chopping onion, the odor of onion will not stick to your hands.
***While frying something, simmer water with vinegar on another pot. This will prevent the frying odor to spread all over the kitchen.
***While frying fish, add some lemon juice to the frying oil to prevent the bad odor. By this way you can also use the frying oil several times.
*** If you cook the meat with lemon juice, they will cook faster and will be more delicious.
***While boiling potatoes add a spoon of vinegar in it in order to have yellow and more delicious potatoes.
***To prevent the boiling milk stick to the bottom of your pots, wash the pots with cold water before placing it on the stove with milk.
***After using canned food, maintain the rest in glass container to keep them fresh longer and healthier.
***You can obtain different tastes while frying fish. For example, sprinkle some paprika in the frying oil. By this way the color of fish will be better and shiny. Also paprika gives a delicious taste to fish.
***Digestion of fried fish is may be sometimes difficult, because it absorbs too much oil. To prevent this after washing the fish, brush with oil and dip into flour, then fry them.
***To prevent the bad odors in the fridge, place a bowl of milk into the fridge and leave for 1-2 days.
***Try adding a little bit of lemon juice to romaine leaves before preparing caesar salad.
***Do not add oil to pasta water, it makes sauce 'slide' off of the pasta.
***When making potato salad, cool, or 'shock' the cut, boiled potatoes in the freezer.
***To remove the skin from a tomato, plunge the tomato into boiling water for 10- 20 seconds.
***Freeze baked cookies for months of ready-made snacks. Cooled cookies, double-wrapped in plastic sheets or plastic storage bags will last up to 3 months. To thaw, remove cookies from freezer, unwrap and place them in a single layer on wire racks for 15 to 30 minutes. Store not eaten cookies in a tightly covered container.
***After stewing a chicken for diced meat for casseroles, etc., let cool in broth before cutting into chunks. It will have twice the flavor.
***Don't use soda to keep vegetables green. It destroys Vitamin C.
***There are three ways you can freeze your onions. Freezing changes the onions texture, so frozen onions should be used only for cooking.
1- Chop and place onions on a cookie sheet in the freezer. When frozen, remove and place in freezer containers or bags, and seal. This allows you to remove the amount you want, when you want.
2- You can also freeze whole onions. Peel, wash, core and place onions in a plastic bag and freeze.
3- You may also slice your onions and saute them in a little butter, cool and then freeze in freezer bags.
Drying: Chop onions and dry in oven using lowest setting and remove when thoroughly dry but not brown. Store at room temperature in airtight container.
***Before cooking the fish, if you dip fish into beer, they will be crispier and more delicious.
***For cooking more delicious fish; before cooking rub them with a mixture of an onion, some fresh parsley, 2 bay leaves and finely sliced lemon pieces. Also you can just spread this mixture on fish and leave for 15 minutes. Then cook.
***For cooking more delicious kebabs; rub the meat with a mixture of ½ cup olive oil, ½ cup milk and ½ cup onion juice. Then leave in the fridge for 10-12 hours and cook afterwards.
***Do not salt beans until they are fully cooked or they will never become tender. The salt supposedly toughens the skins and makes the beans split. Salt after they have been simmering for 10-15 minutes.
***Roasting is a quick and easy way to cook meat, particularly poultry. Roast meat in an oven preheated at a high temperature and baste meat before roasting it to contain flavor. The high temperature seals the flavor in the meat and prevents it from losing its juices while cooking. Poultry should be roasted breast down and finished on the opposite side to give juices a chance to flow evenly into the breast meat. The roasting pan should comfortably hold your chosen cut of meat. If it is too big, your meat will likely burn. If the pan is too small, it will stick to the sides up, and lose most of the flavor.
