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Tag: Cooking Lessons from The Kitchn

  • How To Make Limoncello

    How To Make Limoncello

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    Prepare sugar syrup: Prepare a sugar syrup of at least 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar — bring the water to a simmer and stir in the sugar to dissolve; allow to cool.

    → You can play with the ratios of water to sugar. Start with 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar, taste the limoncello, and add additional sugar syrup gradually until you reach a flavor you like — up to 4 cups of water with 4 cups of sugar. More water will dilute the alcohol base, making a less alcoholic, milder, and smoother-sipping liqueur. More sugar will make a sweeter limoncello.

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    Emma Christensen

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  • The 2-Ingredient Chocolate Mousse I Swear By for Dinner Parties

    The 2-Ingredient Chocolate Mousse I Swear By for Dinner Parties

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    READ MORE…

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    Meghan Splawn

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  • This Is The Best Way to Freeze Cookie Dough So It Lasts for Months

    This Is The Best Way to Freeze Cookie Dough So It Lasts for Months

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    We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All prices were accurate at the time of publishing.

    There are any number of reasons why you might want to stash some cookie dough in the freezer. Maybe you like having treats on hand in case company stops by. Maybe the first day of fall kickstarted your holiday baking gene. But we’re friends here, so let’s be honest: Frozen cookie dough in our freezer means warm, gooey, fresh-baked cookies any time we want one. Here are the best ways to freeze your favorite cookies for later.

    How To Freeze Cookie Dough

    For the purpose of freezing, let’s divide cookies into three main categories: chunky cookies, tender slice-and-bake cookies, and cut-out cookies.

    How To Freeze Chunky Cookie Dough

    Chunky cookies, like chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin, freeze best if you portion out the dough beforehand. Scoop out the dough just as if you were about to bake it, but then freeze it instead. Once frozen, the little balls of dough get sealed up inside a plastic freezer bag — when you need a cookie fix, just grab as many as you want to bake.

    How To Freeze Slice-and-Bake Cookie Dough

    By slice-and-bake cookies, I am referring to any fairly smooth, fairly tender cookie, like shortbread or sandies. These get pressed into logs, wrapped in wax paper, and frozen solid. They can be crumbly right out of the freezer, so when you’re ready to bake, let them warm for a few minutes before slicing. If you can plan ahead, letting the logs thaw in the fridge for a few hours is even better.

    How To Freeze Cut-Out Cookie Dough

    Last but not least, we have cut-out cookies, like sugar cookies and many holiday cookies. The dough for these cookies can be frozen in disks just like a flaky pie crust. When ready to bake, thaw until pliable and continue with the recipe. Freezing the dough for cut-out cookies is a little less of a time- and labor-saver than the other cookies, but it’s handy to break up the work of a big cookie-baking project or if you start a batch of cookies and get interrupted in the middle.

    Most frozen cookies will need an extra minute or two in the oven. Otherwise, prepping and baking the cookies is exactly the same as in the recipe — you’re just giving them a freezer vacation in the middle.

    Reasons to Freeze Cookie Dough:

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    Emma Christensen

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  • How To Reheat Turkey So It Never Dries It Out

    How To Reheat Turkey So It Never Dries It Out

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    How to Reheat Turkey

    The best way to reheat turkey is in a 350°F oven. Place the turkey pieces in a baking dish and drizzle with a few tablespoons of stock and/or butter. Cover the dish with foil and heat in the oven at 350°F for about 30 minutes.

    Alternatively, you can microwave the sliced turkey (cover with a damp paper towel) in a microwave-safe dish at 50% power in 1-minute intervals.

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    Meghan Splawn

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  • The Easiest Vegetable Stock You Can Make at Home

    The Easiest Vegetable Stock You Can Make at Home

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    All you need are some chopped up vegetables and fresh herbs.

    We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All prices were accurate at the time of publishing.

    Every time we make vegetable stock, we wonder why we ever bother buying it in the store. It’s so easy! Chop up some vegetables, cover with water, and simmer. Done. You’ll have enough stock to make your soups, casseroles, and pilafs for weeks to come, and all in just a little over an hour.

    The Best Vegetables for Vegetable Stock

    When making a basic vegetable stock, you want vegetables with neutral, but savory flavors. Some recipes recommend adding garlic and other strong spices, but unless we know how we’re going to be using the broth, we prefer to add those kinds of seasonings when we’re actually making a dish. We also don’t add salt to the stock for the same reason. Onions, carrots, celery and mushrooms are the ideal starter vegetables for stock, but feel free to swap any of these for leeks, tomatoes or parsnips.

    Saving Vegetables for Broth

    We keep a big resealable bag in our freezer where we can throw vegetable odds and ends: vegetables that have wilted beyond saving, the green parts from leeks, trimmings from carrots, and so on. Once this bag gets full, we use the contents to make broth.

    Vegetables to Avoid When Making Vegetables Stock

    Seems contrary to the title but not every vegetables is destined for vegetable stock. Starchy vegetables like potatoes and turnips will make for a gummy, cloudy vegetable stock. Beets overpower their aromatic counterparts. Zucchini and greens beans become bitter when slowly simmered for as long it takes to make this stock.

    Simple Upgrades for Better Vegetable Stock

    While vegetable broth is a basic building block of the kitchen it doesn’t have to be boring. Consider adding leftover Parmesan rinds to your vegetable stock. Kombu is powerful addition, mostly for its thickening and umami abilities.

    Two ways to add more flavor to your broth are to roast the vegetables beforehand or to let them sweat (start to soften and release their liquids) for a few minutes over the heat before adding the water.

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    Emma Christensen

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  • How To Spatchcock a Turkey (An Easier, Simpler Way!)

    How To Spatchcock a Turkey (An Easier, Simpler Way!)

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    We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All prices were accurate at the time of publishing.

    While some might believe that the whole Thanksgiving meal centers around the picture-perfect carving of a whole roasted turkey at the table, we’ve found that it can be tricky to cook a bird with such out-of-proportion dimensions and a very thick breast evenly. There’s an easy technique of preparing the turkey, however, that gives you more control over the cooking process and cooks the turkey a lot faster too: spatchcocking.

    This technique is borrowed from a method often used for chickens, but we’ve taken it one step further by spatchcocking in a traditional Latin American way. Here’s a new way to spatchcock your bird for faster, better cooking this Thanksgiving.

    An Easier Method for Spatchcocking Turkey — the Latin American Way!

    In the traditional technique of spatchcocking, the backbone is cut out of the whole bird. The result is a wide butterflied bird where the breast is in the center with a leg on either side. This allows the bird to cook more evenly and more quickly.

    A few years ago, however, I learned an alternative way of spatchcocking that I liked even better. In Argentina and other parts of Latin America, the backbone is kept intact. Instead, the cook pulls the legs away from the body, and uses scissors to cut through the thin ribcage on either side of the breast. The breast is pushed up and away from the legs.

    The result here is a long butterflied bird with the breast and wings sitting away from the legs. It’s definitely odd-looking, a bit like a frog, but it also cooks more quickly (only about 1 1/12 hours for a 15-pound turkey on a grill) and evenly than a bird that is not butterflied.

    In this tutorial we show you how to spatchcock a bird in this way, but we also go one extra step of completely removing the legs from the rest of the turkey’s body.

    Why Try Our Spatchcock Method?

    Here’s why I like the Latin American way of spatchcocking for turkey, as opposed to the more traditional “flattened butterfly” method.

    Our Spatchcocking Tips for Success

    If you plan to try this technique with your Thanksgiving turkey, here are a few things to keep in mind.

    Keep in the mind that this style of spatchcocking means that the thick breast is not flattened out very much so in my testing, I found that the legs actually cooked faster than the breast. To deal with this, I start cooking the breast first and then add in the legs a bit later so that the white and dark meats were done at approximately the same time.

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    Christine Gallary

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  • How to Pop a Bottle of Champagne With Zero Fear

    How to Pop a Bottle of Champagne With Zero Fear

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    How To Open a Bottle of Champagne

    To open a bottle of champagne, remove the foil from the top by pulling off the tab on the side (this is usually a red string). Remove the foil from the on top of the cork. Untwist the wire covering from around the cork and discard. Use a kitchen towel to carefully move the cork back and forth slightly with one hand and use the other to hold the bottle of champagne in place. Repeat this motion until the cork comes out of the top.

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    Emma Christensen

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  • This Easy Homemade Spice Mix Is My Secret Fall Baking ingredient

    This Easy Homemade Spice Mix Is My Secret Fall Baking ingredient

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    We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All prices were accurate at the time of publishing.

    During fall, pumpkin spice-flavored treats make their appearance just about, well, everywhere. But do you even know what’s in it? Here’s what it is and why you should make it at home. (Hint: It’s as easy as it gets!)

    Is There Actually Pumpkin in Pumpkin Spice?

    For years, I thought pumpkin pie spice really had pumpkin in it. But there’s no actual pumpkin in pumpkin pie spice. It’s simply a blend of the traditional spices that go into a good ol’ fashioned pumpkin pie.

    Read more: Pumpkin Spice Is Not Actually What Pumpkin Tastes Like

    What’s in Pumpkin Pie Spice?

    If you go the store-bought route, pumpkin pie spice blends can vary by manufacturer, but typically contain the more sweet-smelling spices, like cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and ginger. Allspice and mace are also common ingredients.

    What’s the Best Ratio of Spices?

    The most classic blend puts cinnamon front and center, with slightly less ginger and just a pinch of allspice, cloves, mace, and nutmeg. But making the blend from scratch means you get to choose the ratio!

    Go for some extra ginger, or skip the cloves if you can’t stand the flavor. Trust me, once you’ve made your own, you’ll never want to buy a commercial blend again.

    Why Should I Make My Own?

    In addition to being able to customize it to your liking, making your own spice blend costs less than buying a big jar of something pre-made, especially if you already have most of the spices. It’s also better to make smaller batches so you use up the blend before it starts to go stale and loses its flavor.

    How Do I Use Pumpkin Pie Spice?

    While you can use it to flavor your morning latte, pies, and other baked goods, you can also sprinkle it over hard squash before roasting, spice up some whipped cream, or mix it into some yogurt or ice cream base — it’s quite a versatile spice blend.

    Ways to Use Pumpkin Pie Spice

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    Christine Gallary

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  • The Easy Secret to the Best-Ever BBQ Chicken

    The Easy Secret to the Best-Ever BBQ Chicken

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    Meghan Splawn

    Meghan was the Food Editor for Kitchn’s Skills content. She’s a master of everyday baking, family cooking, and harnessing good light. Meghan approaches food with an eye towards budgeting — both time and money — and having fun. Meghan has a baking and pastry degree, and spent the first 10 years of her career as part of Alton Brown’s culinary team. She co-hosts a weekly podcast about food and family called Didn’t I Just Feed You.

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    Meghan Splawn

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  • The One Step You Should Never Skip When Making Pie

    The One Step You Should Never Skip When Making Pie

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    What To Know About Blind Baking Pie Crust

    To blind bake pie crust, prick the crust all over with the tines of a fork and line the unbaked pie crust with aluminum foil, or line the crust with parchment paper or aluminum foil then add pie weights.

    Bake the crust until the edges are golden, then remove the parchment paper, foil, or weights, and continue to bake the crust on its own until dry and flaky, but still pale for a partially cooked crust, or until a light golden brown for a fully cooked crust.

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    Emma Christensen

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