Nigella’s cooking tips we wish we’d known sooner




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Microsoft and partners may be compensated if you purchase something through recommended links in this article.


Nigella says there are three crucial things that make all the difference to roast potatoes. These include using searingly hot fat (her preference is goose fat) and opting for relatively small potatoes, to optimize the crunchy outside to fluffy interior. She also says you should dredge the potatoes in semolina, rather than flour, after parboiling, and rattle the pan around to make the potatoes a little mashed on the outside, so they catch more in the hot fat.




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For her Christmas pudding, Nigella soaks the dried fruit in Pedro Ximinèz sherry – a sweet, dark sherry. It’s less of an extravagance than rum or brandy, and she says it gives a sensational result: “the Queen of Christmas puddings. It has to be tried, and clamors to be savored”.




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Nigella always uses Italian 00 flour in place of all-purpose flour in the kitchen. She says it is more finely milled, meaning it makes light cakes and “desirably elastic” pastry.




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When she makes her fish goujons, the beloved cook prefers to use seasoned Japanese breadcrumbs (panko crumbs) in place of everyday white breadcrumbs. She feels they give a much lighter, feathery result, while still producing a delightfully crunchy casing.




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Microsoft and partners may be compensated if you purchase something through recommended links in this article.




Microsoft and partners may be compensated if you purchase something through recommended links in this article.


Nigella makes a fiddly job so much simpler. She suggests you halve the pomegranate, hold it cut side down over a bowl, then give it a good whack with a heavy wooden spoon. Do this and the seeds should simply come tumbling out.




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Rather than stuffing a turkey or chicken, Nigella prefers to cook her sausage-meat stuffing in a terrine dish alongside the roast, to make life easier. She says: “a roasted slab of stuffing can be carved up to feed great numbers of people easily”.




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Microsoft and partners may be compensated if you purchase something through recommended links in this article.




Microsoft and partners may be compensated if you purchase something through recommended links in this article.


One chicken carcass is never enough to make a good chicken stock, so Nigella suggests you save the bones and carcasses and freeze them. Once you have at least three, you can crack on with your stock making.




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Microsoft and partners may be compensated if you purchase something through recommended links in this article.


When cooking pasta to go with a sauce, Nigella always reserves a ladleful of the pasta water before draining it. She then adds it to the sauce, which helps to lubricate the pasta. Don’t even think about tossing your cooked pasta in oil, either, or it won’t absorb the sauce.




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If you’ve ever come out with a slightly runny sauce when you make cauliflower cheese, try Nigella’s tip. Put the cauliflower florets into cold water, bring them to the boil, then drain immediately. Refresh with cold water to stop them cooking, then leave to drain fully in a colander. You can then put the florets in an even layer in an ovenproof dish and they won’t release too much moisture.




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Frying fishcakes for a large number of people is “hellish”, Nigella says, especially “with a load of people floating about the kitchen”. Try her tip, which is to bake them in a hot oven instead. Even better, instead of breadcrumbs, she coats them in crushed Ritz crackers or matzo meal.




Microsoft and partners may be compensated if you purchase something through recommended links in this article.




Microsoft and partners may be compensated if you purchase something through recommended links in this article.


Microsoft and partners may be compensated if you purchase something through recommended links in this article.




Microsoft and partners may be compensated if you purchase something through recommended links in this article.


“Schmalz” is the Yiddish word for chicken or goose fat. For a perfectly crisp skin on a roast chicken, Nigella suggests you take the nugget of fat out of the cavity of the chicken, render it down to a liquid in a small saucepan, then brush it over the breast before roasting.




Microsoft and partners may be compensated if you purchase something through recommended links in this article.




Microsoft and partners may be compensated if you purchase something through recommended links in this article.


Nigella wouldn’t be without her rice cooker in the kitchen. Hers is by Zojirushi: it cooks rice so well, and she loves the fact that you can just pop the rice in and turn the machine on with no fuss. The rice will stay good for 12 hours, too.




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Chopping dried apricots (and other fruits) is a fiddly job, as the sticky apricots always cling to your knife. Nigella always uses scissors to cut them instead. She also uses scissors to snip, rather than chop, bacon.




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Rather than using a garlic crusher, which is a bit of a pain to wash up, Nigella crushes garlic in her pestle and mortar. She adds a pinch of her favorite Maldon sea salt, too.




Microsoft and partners may be compensated if you purchase something through recommended links in this article.




Microsoft and partners may be compensated if you purchase something through recommended links in this article.





Microsoft and partners may be compensated if you purchase something through recommended links in this article.


Nigella’s tip for boiling eggs? If they are refrigerator-cold, they should go into cold water, then brought to the boil. If they are at room temperature, which is better, they should be lowered into the water once it starts boiling. She loves her breakfast egg boiled for four minutes, for the perfect ooze.




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Why not use your spiralizer to make light work of shoe string fries – just like Nigella does. These light potatoey treats make seriously great snacks or a nice accompaniment to a juicy burger too.




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When Nigella makes her “special chicken soup” for Passover, she says using chicken wings is one of the best, and least expensive, ways to do it, since they give more flavor, pound for pound. She also freezes extra matzo balls for a quick midweek supper to eat with rice, toasted pine nuts and fresh parsley.




Microsoft and partners may be compensated if you purchase something through recommended links in this article.




Microsoft and partners may be compensated if you purchase something through recommended links in this article.


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