Favorite secrets, tips & tricks in the kitchen?

I'd like to offer a counter point to mise en place. If you are experienced enough, you probably know when the recipe has downtime, and what ingredients are needed when. I prepare what I need until the next time when the cooking becomes passive.

Cleaning as I go would be great, but our two person household electricity usage is already at 4 person household levels, and hot water is electric… so I do that after eating all at once.

For #3 and for people that might not have sodium citrate handy, adding a slice of American cheese to cheese sauces will do the same thing as there's plenty of sodium citrate in there to go around.

You just blew my mind with the baking soda!

MSG is amazing, never deserved the hate it got.

I don’t have any tips that most don’t already know. I cook with simple ingredients. I save and freeze a bit of stock and cook with stock where I can. It adds a bit of depth that oil/butter doesn’t.

For my stock, I’ll save vegetable scraps and freeze it until I have enough. Then boil it down for a few hours. Vegetable is fun to play with. You can add different flavors, and different elements depending on the vegetables you use. Mushrooms will have a unique umami.

Same with seafood stock, I’ll save shrimp shells and fish heads and boil (simmer?) it down. Chicken stock I just boil the bones down after I roast a chicken. For beef, same thing, I’ll roast the bones for more flavor and boil it down. Also I’ll add carrots and celery to the boil for more flavor.

In a similar thought, I love to use coconut oil when cooking when I want a sweeter taste. And finishing a dish with some sesame oil can add a really good flavor. (Sometimes I’ll lightly toss noodles in sesame oil after they’re cooked, or do the same with roasted veggies)

Regarding MSG. I'm convinced that MSG is a complement to salt. If I had to choose between adding just salt or MSG, I'd go with salt.

I make a "savory salt" mixture that I use in place of salt everywhere except for things like pasta water.

It's 90% salt. 7.5% MSG. 2.5% I+G. All by weight.

If I didn't have I+G, if just do 10% MSG. But the I+G seems to additionally boost the MSG.

For #3, I've tried that in the past and ended up with sorta gritty and weird textured cheese. What might I be doing wrong?

Interesting, never heard of rue. Translated it to German and never heard of Weinraute either :D I’ll have a look at the store the next time. And I’ll also give sumac a try.

Caraway is very commonly used in Germany, but my South African wife does not like it, so I very rarely use it.

I must say I’m a bit lazy with herbs, and I just buy "italian herb mix".

For other spices, I always have chili (we love hot), pepper, salt, tumeric, all-spice, one hot curry madras mix, and nutmeg.

Depending on the recipe, I also have a lot of different dried chilies, and usually some standard fresh ones (jalapeños and habaneros)

One thing I’d like to recommend you: toasted ground coriander seeds. Toast them carefully over low heat until they release oil, grind in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle. Use for most meat dishes, but also goes into some salads. Widely used in South Africa, especially in their traditional Boerewors, which is why I stock it.

Hey, cool. I never knew what to do with my sumac. I can't wait to try the eggs. Anymore sumac suggestions?

Recently got a carbon steel pan as part of my de-plastic-ification process. I use those for years frying or something sensitive like eggs, the huge ceramic pan for everything else.

Can't say I feel the need for metal cleaning utensils though, seems like that would be more for stainless steel pans? Just wiping cleans the CS pan, and the ceramic pan can't take metal.

Edit: wanted to add: I agree, carbon steel is great :D

I never got this. Maybe it's because we don't have or want children, and are only us two. But dishes take me ten minutes every day. And I have a bunch of higher quality things that can't go into a dishwasher anyway. If I had the space, is probably still get one, but I just don't see how saving 7 minutes a day is a big thing.

Some people like to think they’re super water-efficient doing the dishes, but they’re not; dishwasher saves water.

About that. I know of one study done in Europe on this, and it was paid for by dishwasher companies, and didn’t exclude outliers like the guy who used about 400L of water doing the dishes by hand.

I once measured water and power usage of me doing the dishes by hand, and it was both below what I found online for dishwashers.

If you do 2-stage cleaning (soapy hot and cold clean water), then dishwashers will be better because they don’t. Amount and source of hot water governs if you are more energy efficient. The advantage of dishwashers is that a badly used dishwasher is far more efficient than badly (= wasteful) handwashing, and even efficient handwashing is not much better than dishwashers (though I wouldn’t know how to calculate production and recycling of the dishwasher itself, not even what order of magnitude that is). Which was, as far as I remember, also in the conclusion of the study, unless there has been another one since then.

Very true. Love my plastic spatula but they don't have scraping power, so when using one you get the impression everything is sticking.

I recently got a carbon steel pan. While I have a metal spatula, I prefer using wooden utensils, they do double duty with my ceramic pan.

I have been phasing out almost all the plastic I have at home :)

I have a metal spatula from ... maybe the 80s? that is now falling apart, but every replacement I've tried is too stiff compared to my battered old friend. I like how it bends under pancakes to allow a good, high flip. I love how I can scrape all the crusty bits off my cast iron pan and get them all frying into whatever the dish is. It wasn't a special purchase at the time, but the modern ones are all too thick or stiff. Do not like.

On wooden spatulas, I have a dead-flat bamboo one I use to stir soups and roux-based sauces. It was dead cheap from my local asian market and I ended up buying 10 of them to give as christmas stocking stuffers. Not sure it if this example is as flat as mine, but it is similar.

I like acid, though mainly we use ACV, lime, and lemon.

For wine (mainly in stews), I actually have port wine, thanks to the high alcohol content, it doesn’t go off.

Also: slow cooker. I gave mine away after I got an instant pot, but as I said, WFH. For people who go to work, a slow cooker is amazing. Throw food in, turn it on, have it done when you are back. Hot early or late doesn't matter.