TOP AND TAILING ONION Before you peel an onion, you need to ‘top and tail’ it. This means that you use a knife to cut a little bit off the top where the leaves grow from and then a little bit off the bottom where the roots come from. CUT AN ONION IN…
INGREDIENTS Violets (edible flower) Egg white Caster sugar Baking paper Tray Small paintbrush METHOD Line the tray with paper. After picking the flowers, stand the stems in a jar of water. The flowers must stay dry. Beat the egg white with a fork or small whisk. Hold one violet and use the paintbrush to carefully paint the…
MASHING POTATOES & PUMPKIN Start with large chunks of cooked potato or pumpkin in a straight sided saucepan. Use a potato masher to keep squashing the vegetables until they are smooth and there are no obvious lumps. You have to use your muscles when mashing so it might be easier to move the saucepan to…
SAFETY IN THE KITCHEN ALWAYS ASK AN ADULT TO HELP WHEN COOKING! NEVER COOK ON YOUR OWN! Use safe cutting techniques when working with knives. Ask an adult to show you how. Turn the handles of saucepans to the back of the stove so that they won’t get knocked over as you work. Always turn off blenders…
BOILING LIQUID To boil liquid, the saucepan needs to go on medium-high heat until lots and lots of bubbles rush to the surface. At this stage, the liquid is very hot and in the case of water, is 100°C. Food is rarely cooked in boiling liquid for long; normally it is brought to a boil…
Not all vegetables need to be peeled before they are eaten but they all need to be washed well first. Old potatoes should be peeled but baby potatoes just need to be scrubbed; young carrots also don’t need to be peeled before they are eaten. The recipe will tell you whether to peel a vegetable or…
Vegetables such as cabbage are shredded so that they can be used in coleslaw and for cooking in the microwave, steamer or frypan. To shred a cabbage, it first needs to be cut in half and then each piece needs to be cut into half again. Cut out the hard core as this part isn’t…
Vegetables and cheese are grated so that they are very thin; much thinner than can be achieved with a knife. Grated cheese is used in sandwiches and salads and hard cheeses such as parmesan are very finely grated to sprinkle over Italian dishes such as spaghetti bolognese. Graters come with different size holes. The larger…
Across Australia, school canteens use the ‘traffic light’ system to help teach kids to make healthy food choices. Since this is already familiar to them, Smarty Plants has used the same symbols for our recipes so that little chefs can make good decisions on what they cook and eat. GREEN TRAFFIC LIGHT – Eat Often…
SLICING VEGETABLES To slice a vegetable, hold it onto a chopping board with one hand whilst using a knife to cut it into disks. These can be cut very thinly or fairly thick but all pieces should be the same width. DICING VEGETABLES Diced vegetables means to chop…