There is a lot of cookery content out there in the world. A quick scroll through TikTok reveals thousands of cooking videos, each one with millions of views; hundreds of hours of recipe footage uploaded every day. Wading through this noise of at-home influencers and cooks is an impossibility.
Now we’ve enlisted the help of London’s top kitchen talent to shed some light on a few hacks to make home cooking that little bit easier. From the fastest way to peel garlic to preserving herbs for longer, these are the tips and tricks they’ve picked up in their professional journey, for you to use at home.
Revealing trade secrets? Hardly — but these hacks will save you time, money, and energy when you’re called upon to cook your next dinner party.
Rahel Stephanie, Eats With Spoons
Courtesy of Rahel Stephanie
Saving time at service is a priority in a professional kitchen, as is the importance of prepping ahead. This particularly applies to foundational elements of Indonesian cuisine like bumbu, or Indonesian spice pastes, which often combine shallots and garlic with additions like chillies and turmeric to create different variations such as yellow or red bumbu. These pastes can be easily made and importantly, stored in the fridge or freezer, making them a fantastic time-saver when your guests arrive. Preparing these in advance and storing them to have on hand allows you to quickly and efficiently whip up a variety of flavourful recipes at home including curries, stews, and stir-fries.
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Our advice would be, instead of using a Teflon-coated nonstick pan, turn your stainless-steel pan into a “never-stick pan”. You do this by heating up a dry pan and then coating it with oil. Stainless steel always gives a better cook and it will save you time and money in the long run.
Luke Farrell, Speedboat Bar
Benjamin McMahon
Did you know you can steam and smoke food in a wok? To steam, put two chopsticks in the wok horizontally, and put a plate on top. Fill with water until just underneath the chopsticks. Put whatever you are steaming on the plate and bring the water to a boil. Put your wok lid on. Pieces of fish take about eight minutes. To smoke something, put a bit of foil in the base of the wok, add a handful of jasmine tea, a spoonful of sugar, some uncooked rice and heat. When it is smoking, add your ingredient to the plate as before and put on the lid to envelop it in smoke.
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I like this hack for making a quick infusion. Take your infusing ingredient, such as herbs, berries or citrus and add it to a bottle of spirit — gin or vodka — seal the bottle tightly and put it through your dishwasher. The heat speeds up the infusion process, so take it out, leave it to cool and mix in with a tonic or in a cocktail. You are left with something very special in a short space of time, and with very little fuss.
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Press Shots James Moyle
This hack lets you cut loads of small cherry tomatoes at once, a task that can become a bit of a chore in warmer months! Grab a flat, plastic container lid and gather all of the tomatoes close together on a chopping board. Using one hand, gently press down on the lid so the tomatoes are kept in one place. Don’t let any strays fall away! Using a bread knife and while applying a light amount of pressure, you should be able to cut a good dozen tomatoes in half at once. Go slowly so you achieve an even slice. This’ll save you a good bit of time and it’s also quite fun!
Eleanor Henson, Spring at Somerset House
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Recipes tend to call for a “half bunch” or sometimes a “handful” of herbs, meaning there is often an abundance of herbs left over at home. The best hack I have learnt to combat this is to start freezing them. Hard herbs (such as rosemary or thyme) will crumble straight into a recipe from frozen, and softer herbs can be chopped, stored in an ice cube tray, frozen and sprinkled in at the end.
Rishim Sachdeva_TENDRIL
My best chef hack for the home would be to start making your own homemade aioli. If you blend a bunch of raw garlic bulbs and English mustard with a steady stream of good olive oil, you will get the lightest, fluffiest vegan aioli which is miles better than any shop-bought mayonnaise. It keeps in the fridge for just under a week so it’s perfect to make ahead of summer picnics or dinner parties. It can also be seasoned with flavoured oil — chive oil works so well — and is generally very versatile.
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It’s funny to me how easy it is to peel garlic cloves (and how often people forget to do this hack at home). Take a large bulb of garlic and break the head up and put it into a container with a sealed lid. Then vigorously shake the container for just 30 seconds or so and it will shake the skins off all the individual cloves. No tedious peeling required.