Tips from the masters (no not me!)

Recently I attended a cooking class at the Sunshine Coast's Spirit House Cooking School.  Every one I talk too has either eaten there, done a class there or it's on their to do list.  Can I say.... do not wait any longer, get down to Yandina and get eating and get cooking.  It is the best way to learn great recipes and pick up nice little tips from the professionals.

Here are a few little tricks that we learned throughout the day.  You probably know them, but they were 'aha' moments for us:

• don't ever use white wine vinegar in Asian cooking as it's far too strong
• only use vegetable oil in Asian cooking, e.g. Rice Bran oil
• use white peppercorns, as the black ones are too strong
• in working out how many serves a recipe makes have a look at the protein, in Australia we allow 150g or so per person
• lime juice loses it's flavour and colour very quickly, so don't squeeze them too far ahead of time
• to 'peel' ginger, just scrape a teaspoon along the skin
• use coconut cream for curries and coconut milk for desserts
• use your mortar and pestle to grind things up for quick cooking curries, as you've already started to break them down and release the flavour; use your food processor to blitz things for longer cooking curries as they will have longer to break down
• with a master stock, strain it after using, allow to cool, scrape off the fat and freeze; you must boil it each time you re-use it.  If it starts to thicken make a new batch and add it in to the original batch, and it will keep on getting better and better each time.

Happy cooking!
P.S. I'm not responsible for making that pineapple look that beautiful, but I did chop it up later!