Cooking Facts and Tips

  The saffron is the most expensive spice in the world. Even the very little amount of a saffron gives golden yellow color and fine original taste to a products.

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  The world record of alcoholic drinks consumption belongs to Luxembourg.

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  They buy lobsters alive, with both attached claws to guarantee freshness.

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  To differ raw egg form boiled one, spin both eggs on a table surface. It is harder to spin raw egg, and it will harder to stop its spinning by touching, than the boiled one.

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  To make eggs for traditional Japanese bento, or «lunch box», freeze an egg, than shell it, cut into 2, 3, or 4 pieces, and put on the frying pan. The egg is being thawed out and fried simultaneously. It provides rich portions and works an esthetic effect.

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  To strengthen aroma of a lemon before cutting it is recommended to scald it with hot water.

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  Use 2 teaspoons of soda or 4-6 teaspoons of a baking powder for 1 kg of flour.

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  Useful recipes of the culinary books written on plain, become harmful in mountains. And the food which is prepared by inhabitants of plains under the books, wich are made by mountaineers, boils soft. At the same time inhabitants of mountains should eat the undercooked food if they prepared strictly under the recipes written by those who lives on plains. The reason is the difference in atmospheric pressure which makes water to begin to boil in mountains at lower temperature.

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  Vanilla, coffee-mocha, chocolate and cinnamon are considered as “heavy” satellites of wine, though shades of their smells are present in aromas of various wines.

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  Vegetable salad with onions will be more tasty, if put finely cut onions in a colander and wash with hot boiled water.

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  Very few people knows, that the true borshch is a soup from cow-parsnip. The majority of people consider today this plant as a weed. In old times the broth from cow-parsnip on beet kvass were named a borshch.

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  Walnuts would be hulled easier if place them in a hot oven for 15-20 minutes .

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  Well baked pie should be well whisked. It should have a characteristic consistence and correspond to such qualitative parameters: at biscuit — small pores, elastic structure, golden-yellow color with a brown shade; at sand — consistence slightly crumbled and breaking up at mechanical influence, yellow or light brown color; at puff — thin lamination, color — from light-cream up to brown; at baked pastry — an elastic-elastic consistence.

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  When an egg is very fresh, the cooked egg white may stick to the membranes inside the shell, making the egg difficult to peel. To make any egg easier to peel, crack the shell all over by rolling the egg between your hands. This breaks the shell into tiny pieces and makes it easier to get each tiny piece free of the white.

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  When you eat sushi, which have been handmade in your sight, you must eat it also with your hands, so you show respect to the cook. This traditional Japanese custom is called “skinship”, and the dishes made by hands are supposed to be much more tasty.

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