How to cook for better flavor? Here are some very practical tips that you can save for future use.
1. When making bone broth, add a small spoonful of vinegar. This helps dissolve the phosphorus and calcium from the bones into the soup and preserves the vitamins in the broth.
2. When boiling eggs, adding a little vinegar to the water can prevent the shells from cracking. Adding salt beforehand also works.
3. When cooking seaweed, adding a few drops of vinegar makes it tender faster; you can also add a few spinach leaves.
4. When boiling dumplings, add a large green onion to the water or add salt after the water boils before adding the dumplings. This will make the dumplings delicious and not stick together. When preparing the dough, add one egg per 500 grams of flour. This will make the dumpling skins firm and not sticky.
Three Fresh Boiled Dumplings
5. When boiling noodles, add a small tablespoon of cooking oil. This prevents the noodles from sticking together and stops the noodle water from foaming and boiling over.
6. Use boiling water to cook fresh bamboo shoots; they will cook quickly and be crispy and delicious. To prevent the shoots from shrinking after cooking, add a few mint leaves or salt.
7. When cooking pork stomach, never add salt at the beginning. Add it only after it's cooked and ready to be eaten. Otherwise, the pork stomach will shrink and become as hard as beef tendon.
8. Stewing an old chicken: Add twenty to thirty soybeans to the pot to stew with it. This will make it cook faster and taste fresher. Alternatively, before killing the old chicken, first feed it a tablespoon of vinegar, then slaughter it and stew it over low heat. It will become very tender. Or, add 3-4 hawthorns, which will make the chicken meat easier to tenderize.
Five-Finger Peach Stewed Old Chicken
9. When cooking old chickens or ducks, high heat will make the meat tough and unpleasant to eat. If you first soak them in cold water with a little vinegar for 2 hours, then stew them over low heat, the meat will become fragrant, tender, and delicious.
10. When braised tofu, add a little fermented tofu or its juice for a more aromatic flavor.
11. Before making braised pork, marinate the meat with a little borax. The cooked pork will be rich but not greasy, and sweet and delicious.
12. Before frying potatoes, first boil the sliced potatoes in water for a short while. This forms a thin layer of gelatin on the surface of the potato skins, and then you can fry them.
Fried Potato Balls
13. When frying pork chops, make 2-3 cuts on the parts with tendons. This will prevent the pork chops from shrinking.
14. When frying a sunny-side-up egg, just before the yolk is about to set, pour in a little cold water. This will make the yolk more yellow and tender.
15. When frying eggs, add enough oil to a flat-bottomed pan. When the oil is slightly warm, add the eggs. They will cook slowly, resulting in a beautiful appearance and they won't stick to the pan.
16. When stir-frying eggplant, add a little vinegar to the wok. This will prevent the eggplant from turning black.
Stir-fried Eggplant with Green Beans
17. When stir-frying bean sprouts, add a little butter first, then add salt. This will remove the beany smell.
18. Stir-frying meat slices: Slice the meat thinly, add soy sauce, yellow wine, and starch, then beat in an egg and mix well. Stir-fry to separate the pieces; after the meat changes color, add the seasonings and stir-fry for a few more seconds. The meat slices will be delicious and tender.
19. After slicing the meat, soak it in a baking soda solution for a while before stir-frying. This will make it especially fluffy and delicious. For any sweet and sour dish, as long as you use a ratio of 2 parts sugar to 1 part vinegar, you can achieve a perfectly balanced sweet and sour flavor.
20. When making sweet and sour fish, sweet and sour vegetable stalks, etc., add the sugar before the salt. Otherwise, the "dehydrating" effect of the salt will promote the coagulation of protein in the dish, preventing it from "absorbing" the sugar, resulting in a sweet outside and a bland inside.
Sweet and Sour Fish with Tomato Sauce