Quick Kitchen Tricks That Work

Posted by The Editorial Desk / Thursday, March 12th, 2009

What do I do with the rest of the bacon after frying two slices for breakfast?

Usual Advice: Wrap the leftover raw bacon and toss it in the fridge until inspired to whip up another full English breakfast (by which time weeks have passed, and the bacon has started to smell funky). Alternatively, freeze the bacon in the original package until it turns into a solid brick that is no good to anyone on Sunday morning when there’s no time for thawing.

QUICK TRICK: Wrap bacon slices individually and freeze in a kind of bacon roll (not affiliated with the Bacon Explosion). To do this, take a long sheet of aluminum foil, lay one slice of bacon at the end of the sheet, and roll the foil over until the bacon slice is completely covered. Lay another slice of bacon on top of the covered bacon slice and roll again. Repeat until there are no more bacon slices. Place the foil-wrapped bacon roll in a freezer bag, label and freeze. The bacon can now be used one slice at a time.

How can I prevent homemade muffins from sticking to those annoying paper liners?

Usual Advice: Spritz muffin tins with an aerosol can of non-stick cooking spray. Omit paper liners. Curse when the extra-sticky pumpkin muffins don’t release completely from the pan. Wail and cry when the burnt non-stick spray leaves a permanent, brown residue on what were once shiny new muffin pans.

QUICK TRICK: Brush your pans with Better Than Pam Spray. Mix equal parts shortening, flour and vegetable oil to form a smooth paste. Apply to muffin tins with a pastry brush. Omit paper liners, fill with batter and bake as usual. Muffins will all but jump out of the pan when pulled out of the oven, leaving no ugly residue.

Is there a way to chop onions faster?

Usual Advice: The conventional method shown in this video. Cut onions in half and peel them. Make several horizontal cuts parallel to the cutting board. Make several more cuts down the length of the onion, from tip to root. Rotate onion 90 degrees to chop crosswise into small pieces.

QUICK TRICK: Chop onions the Pioneer Woman way, which takes advantage of the layers already built in to an onion. This method skips the step of making the horizontal cuts through the onion, shaving a few seconds off dinner time prep.

What’s your most brilliant kitchen trick?

– Christina Lee

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The Top 4 Web Recipes (Plus 1 Cult Favorite)

Posted by The Editorial Desk / Thursday, March 5th, 2009

Each online cooking community has its own iconic recipe. For whatever reason, these recipes generate hundreds — and even thousands — of reviews, so everyone feels compelled to try them if just to see what the hype is all about.

Here are the most-reviewed and top-rated recipes for each of the four biggest online communities (in order of increasing popularity):

 

Chicken Tetrazzini

Recipe by Giada De Laurentis on FoodNetwork.com

This dairy-rich, retro Italian casserole is time consuming, and it requires twenty different ingredients — two of which are whole milk and heavy cream.

In this modern age of convenience meals and waist-line consciousness, it’s pretty surprising that this recipe has such a huge following (785 reviews, 5 out of 5 stars). Housewives in particular seem to love this dish because of its ability to revive marriages (a la Ann Lander’s 1984 meatloaf recipe).

Here are two representative reviews by Food Network wives:

SHALEY: I made it tonight for my husband and he was in heaven. He wants me to make it for his parents next time. That is the true test for a recipe. Thanks for this great comfort food recipe.

Karen: Tasty, easy, and my husband loved it. That’s important to note because believe me when I tell you, he hates everything. Imagine my surprise when he said it was delicious.

 

Double-Layer Chocolate Cake

Recipe from Gourmet (March 1999) featured on Epicurious.com

This old-fashioned cake, with its thick twin layers of deep chocolate cake and rich ganache frosting, is merely one of almost 500 chocolate cake recipes on the site. However, with 1,253 reviews and a 4 out of 4 fork rating, this is by far the favorite of the bunch.

As Epicurious reviewer “siguy100″ puts it:

When I made this cake people said some of the following things to me: ‘I just might have to hurt you.’, ‘I know you put drugs in this cake,’ ‘This is the best cake I have ever eaten.’

 

 Bourbon Chicken

Submitted to RecipeZaar.com by LinMarie

This copycat recipe mimics those juicy little bites of chicken that Chinese food court stands give away on tooth picks at the mall. The addition of both apple sauce and ketchup scares us a little, but after 1,659 reviews and a 4 ½ out of 5 star rating, who are we to argue with mass appeal?

 Let RecipeZaar reviewer “Kitty Kat Cook” speak for the masses:

One of the TOP-rated recipes in Zaar if not THE top-rated, and it took me soooo long to find out I had been missing out on a deliciously easy dish to prepare. My second favorite part was that I had almost everything in my pantry. I don’t think this review will make a difference to the 1000 others, but I couldn’t help it! It’s too good to not rate it. Thank you!

 

Submitted to AllRecipes.com by Lisa Kreft

Maybe it’s the generous addition of a crumbly streusel topping. Perhaps it’s a magic ratio that elevates the humble pantry staples into a triumph of culinary wizardry. Whatever it is, this banana muffin recipe has generated over 3,441 positive reviews — the most reviews of any online recipe we’ve ever seen — and a solid 5 out of 5 star rating.

AllRecipes member “Alison B.” sums it up with her review:

I just swallowed the last bite of a Banana Crumb Muffin, and they are ABSOLUTELY, AMAZINGLY FABULOUS!!!!! Fabulous, fabulous, fab-uuuuu-loussss!!!!

Photo Credit: chibi chef

 

. . . AND THE CULT FAVORITE:  Bacon Explosion 

Recipe from BBQaddicts.com

Because we wanted to write about recipes with mass online, we couldn’t ignore BBQ Addict’s angina-inducing Bacon Explosion.

The creators of the recipe intended to increase traffic to their site, and with 194 trackbacks and 441 comments, it looks like they succeeded. Bacon Explosion is essentially a giant log of Italian sausage, filled with chopped cooked bacon and wrapped with an artful lattice of raw bacon slices. The whole thing sits in a smoker for an hour, gets slathered in barbeque sauce and then sliced thick to serve.

Commenter “ac” put it best:

This is glorious. This is disgusting.

– Christina Lee

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