10 Things You Should Know How To Do in the Kitchen

For the sake of argument I'm going to include advice here on the dry pasta that the majority of us cook at home and that presents the most problems.

There is really one big tip you need to remember in order to cook the perfect pasta, and that is to give your pasta plenty of room to move - those babies like to dance! Give them a big pan with plenty of water. If you keep your pan at a rolling boil then the pasta will keep moving and won't stick to each other, or to your pan. For taste, don't forget to add salt to the water, but under no circumstances add oil. This 'anti-sticking' method just does not work -- you just end up with a slick of oil on top of the water.

Most baking recipes will require that you use soft butter, or butter that is at room temperature as it's easier to combine into the mixture -- lumps of butter in your frosting anyone? (yuck!).Yet, how many of us forget to take that butter out of the fridge in time? Luckily there are plenty of tricks you can use.

• If your butter has one of those foil type wrappers then you can put this straight into a warm bowl of water, or for other wrappers put it inside a Ziploc type bag first and then into the water.
• Give it a whiz with your electric mixer for a few minutes to soften it before adding your other ingredients. Or, if you don't have a mixer then get physical with your butter and give it a bash and a roll with a rolling pin (with a sheet of parchment paper above and below to prevent any sticky mess).
• You need to be careful with this one, but you can put it into a microwave to soften up. Only do it in blasts of 10 seconds (or less) at a time otherwise you'll end up with melted butter pretty quickly.

So we have two problems here, we want a nice evenly chopped onion -- that everyone else seems to do so easily -- and we don't want to cry in the process.

First, let's address those tears. You are less likely to need tissues if you use a red onion rather than a white or brown one, but obviously this depends on the recipe -- sometimes only a big Spanish onion will do!

Now here comes the science bit... When you cut into an onion a form of gas is released which is the reason for the tears. There are many methods bandied around, but the sure fire one that works is to breathe only through your mouth and not your nose. If you breathe through your nose then you are inhaling that gas which goes straight up the nose and aggravates your tear ducts.

Of course, you could just remember to breathe through your mouth only, but whilst concentrating on chopping you could try holding a wooden spoon handle (or similar) in your mouth; keeping your mouth open and forcing you to breathe that way only. Personally, the thought of drool on my utensils is usually enough to motivate me to just remember to essentially cut off my nose from the breathing process when chopping, but I'll leave that to you!

As for the chopping, the best way is to cut off the top bit of the onion (the pointy bit), peel, and cut the onion in half through the middle of the root.

Lay an onion half face down on your chopping board. Make cuts through and down the onion, but do not cut into the root -- keep your cuts maybe 1/2 inch away from the root. If you want slices then all you need to do now is to chop off the root and you are left with perfect slices and no mess.

For a chopped onion, turn your onion 180 degrees and chop to create your little onion pieces, finishing at the root end.

Essentially with both of these methods you are using the root as a holder for the rest of the onion as you chop.

There are several ways to do this, but here are my favorite two.

Chop the root and the very end off the garlic clove; this should now make it easy to peel. With the skin removed, use a micro-plane or a Parmesan grater and grate it into a paste. As a matter of note, this is the method preferred by Nigella Lawson.

Or, you could use a garlic press (also known as a garlic crusher). These are less stinky on your hands, but the washing up is more tricky. The main point here is that you can save on time, and make that washing up easier by not peeling the clove before you place it in the press. Most of these gadgets are strong enough to squeeze out the garlic flesh, leaving behind the skin in the press for you to pick out afterward.

With that spiky exterior it's no wonder most of us go for the prepared pineapple in the store, but cutting a pineapple isn't as hard as you might think.

First chop off that spiky hairdo, and the bottom of the pineapple too -- now you have a sold base to work on. Cut down the pineapple to eliminate a strip of peel each time. Work your way around until all the peel has gone.

Now cut down the pineapple through the center of the core to leave you with two halves. Cut again to leave you with quarters -- now the core is easy to get to.

Take each quarter and cut off the corner; this is the core. The core is much harder than the rest of the pineapple and is easy to spot.

Now you are free to cut these quarters lengthwise to make spears, or to chop as you wish into delicious chunks.

After all this peeling, slicing and dicing, your chopping board is in need of a clean. This method works well with any type of chopping board, but specifically for wooden ones.

Although we likely all do it from time to time, it's not a good idea to wash your wooden chopping board by immersing it in water, or using washing liquid. Believe it or not, the best way is to use a damp cloth to eliminate the bulk of the mess, before reaching for a lemon and some sea salt.

Scatter salt over your board and rub it all over with half a lemon. The salt works as an abrasive, the lemon as a deodoriser, and the chemical reaction between the two makes a great natural cleanser.

First of all you can help yourself by not using the freshest eggs for hard boiling. Really fresh eggs leave no space between the egg and shell at all and are much harder to peel. Obviously don't use eggs past their date; be guided by what's on the box, which is usually 3 weeks from the date of laying.

After boiling your eggs for 10 minutes put them straight into cold water. After a few minutes, replace the water with more cold water. The quicker you get your eggs to cool the better; you can even add ice to the water.

Once cooled, tap your egg first on the bottom (the wider end), and then on the top. This should have released the membrane around the egg to make peeling easier. Now begin peeling from the middle of the egg. It's as easy as that!

Stock cubes are always useful to have on standby, but making your own stock is so super-easy to do it's ridiculous.

The best thing about making your own stock is that it's a great way to use up veg that are past their best. If a carrot is a bit bendy then that can be used, and many others can be saved from the compost fate in the same way.

All you need is a couple of pints of water in a large pan, and then throw in whatever veg you want to use. The only ones to stay away from are your strong green veg like cabbage, broccoli, sprouts and so on. Root veg are a tasty bet, so thrown them in chopped into halves at least to release the flavor. Add a halved onion or two, a few peppercorns, and any herbs you want to use up as well.

Two of my favorite things to add flavor to a stock, that you would definitely throw away otherwise, are parmesan rinds and the stalks from herbs. Boil it up for at least 40 minutes or more and it will reduce down to a delicious stock. Sieve through to get rid of bits and either keep in the fridge to use as necessary or stick it in an appropriate bag and whack it in the freezer.

Well, I guess you think this one is kind of silly; even five year olds know how to peel a banana. But stay with me!

The usual pull back on the stalk method only works well when a banana is between green and that perfect yellow color. Once bananas begin to get spotty and brown (and still totally delicious), you are likely to be met with a non compliant stalk that leaves you with banana puree oozing out the top of your banana.

The answer is simple; peel it from the bottom. Sounds ridiculous but it works. Press the edge of your nail under that black bit at the bottom and it will release easily. Then you can peel up the banana, instead of down. I promise it works!

It's such an attractive fruit, and yet the mango foxes the best cooks when it comes to cutting it.

Good news first - there's no need to peel it. The bad news is that there's a big stone in there that you have to cut around.

The mango stone is very flat, and you can determine where it is by looking at your mango. Basically we are looking to cut two cheeks off each side of this stone; the flatter side of the mango is what you want to cut, not the narrow side edge.

With these two cheeks cut, you now have two options - chunks or slices - but both begin the same way.

Cut lengthwise into the mango flesh, but do not cut through the skin and create strips. You can now either use a spoon to scoop these out into mango slices, or cut the same way again at right angles to create square shapes. To release your mango chunks, turn the mango cheek inside out until the pieces stand up like a mango hedgehog; you can then cut these chunks off more easily.

Are there any other apparently simple things you want to know how to do in the kitchen but don't? Don't be shy! Please leave a comment below and I'll include it in the next article 10 More Things....