Erica's Cooking Notes

🍆 Cooking notes of @_ericaxu. Follow for cooking tips and food facts. I try to tweet 3 of them every day. That's 1095 food tweets a year! 🍆

[Erica's Cooking Notes @ericasnotes]

13. Don't waste your shrimp shells! Pan fry them with a little bit of butter, and boil in water for a quick, flavorful shrimp stock. #EricasNotesTips

[Erica's Cooking Notes @ericasnotes]

12. Don't assume the temperature displayed on the oven is right. Calibrate it for best baking results. #EricasNotesTips

[Erica's Cooking Notes @ericasnotes]

11. Cut and fry up some store bought wonton skin to add some crunch to your salad! It's not healthy but it's super delicious. #EricasNotesTips

[Erica's Cooking Notes @ericasnotes]

10. In an egg, there are the outer thin egg whites, and the inner thicker whites. For a picture perfect poached egg, drain the thin whites. The thick whites hold its shape well.

[Erica's Cooking Notes @ericasnotes]

9. Canned tomatoes are sometimes better than fresh ones. Canned tomatoes are picked at the best times and kept that way. #EricasNotesTips

[Erica's Cooking Notes @ericasnotes]

8. If you want softness, use cake flour (low protein). If you want chewiness, use bread flour (high protein). Basically, protein = gluten = chewiness. #EricasNotesScience

[Erica's Cooking Notes @ericasnotes]

7. Buns collapse when you open the lid? Try drying them first in room temp to form a hard shell, which prevent them from collapsing after being steamed. #EricasNotesTips

[Erica's Cooking Notes @ericasnotes]

6. For juicier meats, prep early and brine them overnight in a salt solution. You can also add whatever spices you like to the brine to subtly flavor the meat. #EricasNotesMethods

[Erica's Cooking Notes @ericasnotes]

5. Don't make French fries from scratch if you don't know your stuff. Like, Modernist Cuisine level of know your stuff. There are just too many things you can get wrong. Stick with store bought frozen fries.

[Erica's Cooking Notes @ericasnotes]

4. To keep the fire going in a grill, add some small wood chips as well as large logs. #EricasNotesTips

[Erica's Cooking Notes @ericasnotes]

3. Meats like chicken wings, bacon, and pork belly will release lots of oil. You don't need to add oil. Remove oil after pan frying them instead - save the fat to flavor other things! #EricasNotesTips

[Erica's Cooking Notes @ericasnotes]

2. You can separate the gluten and starch by washing a dough. #EricasNotesMethod

[Erica's Cooking Notes @ericasnotes]

1. Modern tomatoes taste bland because their GLK2 gene are disabed. And that's because GLK2 causes tomatoes to be a bit green and people wanted wholly red tomatoes. Basically, GLK2 got left out through artificial selection. Want sweeter tomatoes? Try heirloom tomatoes instead.