8 Kitchen Tricks Worth Knowing

A kitchen is a laboratory. Even the simplest dish is a chemistry experiment with several variables, and knowing how a few of them behave makes everything easier.

Here are eight that come up constantly.

1. Test an egg’s freshness with water

Drop the egg into a glass of water.

A fresh egg sinks and lies flat on the bottom. As an egg ages the air pocket inside grows, so an older one stands upright, and a bad one floats.

If it floats, throw it out.

1. Line the vegetable drawer with paper towel

Paper towel absorbs the moisture that condenses around vegetables in the refrigerator, and standing moisture is what starts them rotting.

Change it when it feels damp. This alone will add days to the life of most produce.

1. You do not need to cut a whole lemon

If you need a small amount of juice, skewer a hole in the lemon with a wooden skewer and squeeze out what you need.

Put the lemon back in the refrigerator and the hole seals itself. Far better than half a lemon drying out on a shelf.

1. Butter the cut face of cheese

Before putting cheese away, spread a thin layer of butter over the exposed cut surface.

The fat keeps the cheese from drying out and going hard at the edge. Simple and it works on nearly everything soft.

1. Keep bananas separate

Bananas release ethylene gas as they ripen, and the gas accelerates ripening in everything nearby — including other bananas.

Separated, they last noticeably longer. This is also why a banana in a fruit bowl will ripen everything else in it.

1. Store dairy at the back, not in the door

Yogurt, cream and cream cheese last longest in the coldest, most stable part of the refrigerator — the back of a middle shelf.

The door is the worst place. It warms every time you open it, and that temperature cycling is what sours dairy early.

1. Revive crystallized honey with gentle heat

Crystallized honey is not spoiled — the sugars have simply come out of solution.

Stand the jar in a bowl of warm water for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until it clears.

Avoid the microwave and avoid boiling water. High heat destroys the enzymes and delicate aromatics that make good honey worth buying.

1. Do not chase the milk, save the pan

Once milk has scorched, the flavor is in it and nothing takes it out — salt included.

What you can do is stop it happening. Rinse the pan with cold water and leave it wet before pouring in the milk; the film of water keeps the milk from bonding to the hot metal. Heat gently, stir, and never walk away.

If it does catch: pour the unburnt milk off the top immediately into a clean pan, without scraping the bottom. The scorched layer stays behind and you rescue most of it.