Resident Chef Peter Gorton is an award winning Master Chef of Great Britain and has been cooking since the age of 16. Here are Peter’s top 5 cooking tips that every home cook needs to know.
Rice basics
Rice is divided into three main categories, long grain, medium grain and short grain.
To store white rice, keep it in an airtight container and use within 1 year. To store brown rice, keep in an airtight container and use within 6 months.
Perfect rice
To cook the perfect white rice, use 1.5 cups of rice to 2 cups water for long grain rice.
Method: Bring the water to a boil in a saucepan, add the rice, reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer until the liquid is absorbed (about 12 minutes). Remove from the heat and immediately fluff with a fork to release the steam. Serve it immediately or let the rice rest, covered for 30 minutes.
To salvage bland or poor quality rice, toast it over medium heat in a skillet until the rice begins to turn opaque, 5 minutes toasting intensifies the grain’s flavour.
Pasta is Italian meaning ‘dough’ or paste. 95 percent of commercial pasta is made from durum wheat semolina, the milled flour of the hardest grained least starchy wheat.
Lentil tips
Lentils are one of the oldest cultivated crops in the world. Unlike other pulses, lentils do not need to be soaked but they should be rinsed before boiling. Cooking times vary – unhusked lentils need about an hour, husked whole ones around 35 minutes and puy and split lentils about 30 minutes. They will more than double in volume when cooked.
Happy Cooking!
Peter
For more information about Peter visit www.petergortonmasterchef.co.uk