Last-Minute Kitchen Secrets

July 1, 2018
Beginning cooks often despair when recipes fail or foods burn. Versatile Green (Last-Minute Travel Secrets, 2016; The Electric Pickle: 50 Experiments from the Periodic Table, from Aluminum to Zinc, 2017) comes to the rescue with hundreds of tips to overcome just about any sort of kitchen disaster, from a missing ingredient to wilted greens. Who'd have imagined that one of the most useful kitchen utensils would turn out to be a pair of used, clean panty hose? Panty hose serve as strainer, cheese maker, corn desilker, and makeshift fish poacher. No kitchen twine? Truss your turkey with dental floss, but make sure it's not minted. Floss makes a great cheese slicer, too. Burned gravy can be rescued with a dab of peanut butter. Oatmeal can thicken soups and stews and stretch a meatloaf. Two of Green's more unusual pieces of advice are using coffee grounds to deodorize a refrigerator or freezer and adding a bit of instant coffee to jarred tomato sauce as a flavor enhancer. Even experienced home chefs may find new insight here.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)