All About Food: Useful tips for peeling, popping and more

I am always looking for new food tips online, in books and magazines and from friends and readers. Here are some new ones that I hope you will find useful.

1. This is my favorite new tip. To get fluffy popcorn faster, with fewer unpopped kernels, soak the kernels in water for 10 minutes, then drain and pop as usual.

2. When you have bread that is going stale, add a piece of celery to the bag and close it tightly. The celery will provide moisture and resuscitate the bread.

3. To keep potatoes from budding in the bag, put an apple in with them.

4. To shell a fresh coconut, try this trick. Put it in the freezer overnight, then whack it around the equator with the dull side of a cleaver. You will be able to peel off the meat with ease. You will also be able to save the frozen coconut water.

5. When cooking rice, add a teaspoon of lemon juice to each quart of water. It will keep the rice fluffy.

6. To test an avocado to see if it is perfectly ripe, flick off the little button on the stem end. If it’s green, the avocado is ripe. If it is brown, the avocado is going to be mushy. For avocados that are not ripe, put them in a paper bag with a banana or an apple. Both types of fruit give off ethylene gas, helping the avocados to ripen much more quickly.

7. Here is another one I especially like. Put your ice cream, in the container, into a zip-lock plastic bag. It will not freeze as hard and will be easier to scoop out.

8. When defrosting meat, pour vinegar over it. This process will tenderize the meat and reduce the temperature so it defrosts more quickly.

9. Peeling garlic is always a pain, but try this. It does the job in 10 seconds. Smash the cloves with the heel of your hand and toss into two equally good-sized metal bowls, using one as a top for the other. Shake the bowls really hard for 10 seconds, and voila. The cloves will have shed their peels.

10. This is an old tip that is great if, for example, you are preparing a lot of hardboiled eggs for a party. Boil the eggs and drain the water. Shake the pot back and forth to crack the egg shells, and then add enough water to cover the eggs and let them cool. The shells will slip off easily.

11. If you over-salt a pot of soup, throw in a peeled potato. It will absorb the salt.

12. Try this: Turn your toaster sideways to make grilled cheese. (I confess I haven’t done this myself, but it’s worth a try.)

13. I don’t use much baking powder, but I do need it in some recipes so I keep it on hand. However, it tends to get old and therefore becomes useless. To test it, add a teaspoon of it to a glass of water, and if it doesn’t fizz, toss it.

14. Another surprising fact: Common yellow mustard is an excellent soother of kitchen burns. Rub it on cold in a generous amount. It seems to work faster than most other remedies.

15. If you want to remove toxins and pesticides from fruits and vegetables, including organic, soak them in a 1-4 ratio of vinegar to water for an hour.

16. Try microwaving stale tortilla chips or potato chips. Spread them on a Pyrex dish or other microwave-safe plate and cook on high for one minute. Then remove them to a double layer of paper towels on a plate and cool before serving.

17. A shortcut for shucking corn that works pretty well is to cut an inch off the thick end of the cob and just slip off the entire husk. This method will also remove most of the strands of silk.

TERRY MARKOWITZ was in the gourmet food and catering business for 20 years. She can be reached for comments or questions at m_markowitz@cox.net.