Top 5 tips learnt as a chef

It’s been pointed out to me that there’s certain things that I subconsciously do when I cook, that people would’ve never thought about doing! This has come from years of working in professional kitchens, you pick up some tricks of the trade that help with the speed of home cooking.

Split ganache

Sometimes there nothing you can do from preventing a ganache (chocolate and cream/liquid mixture) from splitting (when the fat separates from the solids). My top tip is to put a splash of water in a saucepan, bring it up to the boil and whisk 1 spoon of the ganache into it, continue whisking in one spoonful at a time until it all comes back together.

Speed up your preparation

The main thing I learnt whilst training is that it’s quicker to do all of the same actions at the same time. So if you were to slice some onions, you would peel them all at the same time and then go to slice them all! Turns out to be much more time effective.

Mash potato pie topping

What happens when the pie filling (like a shepherds pie) is too runny when you want to put the mash on top? You end up not being able to fully cover the liquid. I’ve found that, as well as making the mash slightly more loose, if you spoon the mash around the outside edges first and then fill up the middle it prevents leakages!

Getting filling to the top of the piping bag

Instead of pushing the filling to the top of the piping bag. If you fill it before cutting the top off and swing it round in a circular motion (for some scientific reason) the filling perfectly moves to the top of the bag.

Clean your whole surface

One thing I used to get constantly shouted whilst in professional kitchens, was at about is the state of my work surface and how I cleaned it. Turns out it’s much more effective to take everything off the surface, clean the whole thing with hot soapy water, rather than having to manoeuvre the cloth around the appliances and not clean it all properly.