22/12/2024
Queen Ihechiukwu shared these helpful tips for Christmas 😍😍.
In the spirit of the season, here are a few easy but effective tips to elevate your cooking this period and make your time in the kitchen more fun.
• Don't blend your ginger and garlic into your tomatoes for stew or jollof. It looses potency during the process of cooking down the tomatoes. Blend separate with oil and add directly to your stew after your tomatoes mix is cooked down.
• Male animals will always give you the best result for meat. Softer, tastier, shorter cooking time, lesser bones, better texture after cooked, increases in size after cooking instead of decreasing in size (as with the female counterparts)... Except for chicken.
Easy way to know which is which at the abattoir, pinch the hide (cow meat or goat meat) with your fingers, if your nail digs into the hide (kpomo part), it is very likely male, if your nails is unable to dig into the skin, it's very possibly female.
• For the perfect jollof, if you use 1 painter of tomatoes, then you have to use at least 1 and half painter of shombo. If you want to over kill, use 1 painter of tomatoes to 2 painters of shombo! The results will amaze you! (This ratio applies to making correct stew too)
• Forget Tatashe, it's too expensive. Buy shombo Instead in the ratio above and you will get same result.
• Don't fry your stew, Trust me on this one, your stew tastes much better when not fried 😊. Cook down your tomatoes mix, pour in the oil, season and leave to cook until the oil flaots. The result will amaze you.
• Tomatoes and shombo mix does wonders in egusi soup. Try it.
• If you unfortunately buy female meat and it's taking forever to cook, put as many Steel spons and forks as you can find into the meat pot. They act as a catalyst to quicken the process of cooking.
• If you are not a fan of Juicy grilled whole chicken or Turkey, you prefer the crunchy dry type, cook your whole chicken first before Grilling. You'd get the desired result.
• To grill the perfect catfish, use equal amounts of ginger, garlic and pepper. i.e, 1 cup of ginger to 1 cup of garlic to 1 cup of pepper, blend in oil. Season generously and use as your rub or marinade. The result is mind blowing.
• Sounds like a cliche, but Crayfish will take your soup from 20 to 100 in a blink of an eye! Buy small maggi, chatter Crayfish!
• Divide your Crayfish for soup into 2. Add first part to the soup water and the second part after the soup is already cooked. This is the final 10% you need to make your soup a 100.
• If you are a neat freak and you must wash your Crayfish, please was the entire thing after buying and sundry or ovendry it again before the day you need to use it! Wet Crayfish is a waste of Crayfish! The taste is never the same.
• Garlic will take your fried rice from 50 to 100 in a blink of an eye! Forget ginger, add garlic to that fried rice!
• It is called Fried rice for a reason, FRY IT! Stop pouring stirfried vegetables into a pot of cooked rice. No matter how good you think it comes out, it could be 10 times better simply by draining the rice in a sieve and stirfrying along with the vegetables.
• In the spirit of eating healthier, avoid salt as much as you can this period. You can remove it entirely from your diet but that's an entire conversation on its own, so for now, use the barest minimum salt as possible.
• To elevate your mayonnaise to a perfect salad mix, add lemon, honey, blended garlic, and blended chilli pepper to it. Leave sprite alone! 🤦♂️
• Instead of Cornflour as a thickener for your sauce, use dehydrated coconut cream. It works wonders for any sauce recipe where you need Cornflour.
Add your tips for us in the comment. Let's make the best meals this Yuletide 😊
