Kitchen Tips: Food Preparation & Storage
How to save cooking time? Many people have adopted a method which is to prepare the ingredients in advance and cook them directly after the food is taken out of the refrigerator. Food preparation is often planned by blocks of weeks. It is difficult to ensure the freshness of ingredients beyond the given time, and some foods need to be eaten in time to avoid the generation of harmful materials so that we ought to master the food storage methods.
There are many kinds of kitchen tools for food preparation and storage, including food storage bags, vacuum seal bags, plastic wrap, vacuum sealer canisters and ice cube trays.
About Condiments
· Chinese onion: Cut into sections and keep in cold storage with sealing bags.
· Spring onion: Be chopped or made into onion oil, and kept refrigerated with storage canisters.
· Parsley: Cover with plastic wrap and store in a crisper drawer.
· Ginger: Be made into ginger paste, juice or powder.
· Garlic: Preserve garlic slices with storage bags, and freeze the minced garlic with an ice cube tray.
· Onion: Cut into strips or slices and refrigerate with fresh-keeping bags.
Condiments are characterized by strong flavors which are easy to spread. Therefore, to avoid being tainted by each other, they need to be kept in bags or containers with better seals. What's more, garlic and onions are easy to sprout, so try not to put the whole ones in the refrigerator.
About Meats
Meats and ribs can be cut according to our recipes, and the general consumption will be stored in the vacuum seal bag. Lay the bag flat in the freezer and thaw the meat half an hour earlier before cooking. For some kinds of meats that need to be marinated, like chicken, chicken wings and beef, we can mix them evenly with seasonings in a sealed bag, divide them into small portions according to the amount of every meal and freeze them in the refrigerator. It's all right to make meats into semi-finished products. And the minced meat is more convenient to be defrosted, which can be used for cooking, making dumplings, sauces and so on.
About Vegetables
Leafy green vegetables can only be stored for a short time, most of which would lose the nutrients if we leave them uneaten within three days. So it is unnecessary for us to prepare a large number of vegetables. Except for making them into complementary, we can dry the water on the leaves and wrap the roots with paper towels, then preserve them in sealed bags, either. Other root vegetables or firm vegetables, like bell pepper, cabbage and celery, can be made into semi-finished products.
