You might think that adding more of a good thing would make things better? And, yes, that’s often true, up to a point. Beyond it, however, you may see the law of diminishing returns where adding progressively more of a single factor yields progressively lower benefits.

And we should also never forget that “more is different”.

The sketchplanation is a homage to perhaps my favourite comedy sketch with an early-career Simon Pegg in the series Big Train: the cake factory (video). Well worth two and a half minutes.

PS. If you follow by email, rather than Instagram or Twitter, I apologise for the last few weeks’ irregularity. Had a little mix-up with Mailchimp, but hopefully all good now.

Law of diminishing returns

Traditionally, stocks have the flavour and gelatinous collagen-y thickness that comes from cooking bones. Broth was cooked not with bones but with the meat itself. While a jus is a sauce made from the pan drippings, usually from a roast. This simple distinction I learned from Thomas Keller.

Now, you can also have vegetable stock, so some other useful distinctions between stock and broth include that, generally, stock is intended to be used in the preparation of another dish rather than eaten directly like broth. As such, you would more likely use whole vegetables in stock to impart the flavour, but still scoop them out afterwards, while a broth would have cut vegetables ready to eat in the broth itself.

Stock, Broth, Jus

If you like pomegranate but are put off by the prospect of the effort of pulling out each individual seed and spraying pomegranate juice across the kitchen, then this is a fun and handy tip.

a bowl of water helps stop spraying when pulling them apart and naturally separates the light fluffy pith from the seeds, and 

whacking them on the back with a spoon is a surprisingly effective and fun way of making the seeds shoot out.

Deseed a pomegranate

Before getting started in your kitchen both Thomas Keller and Gordon Ramsay picked out this safety tip to stop your chopping board slipping while cutting. Just lightly wet a piece of kitchen towel or a tea towel and lay it flat between the surface and your chopping board. Hey presto! No slipping while cutting so all your fingers stay intact even with those tricky butternut squash.

Stop chopping board slip

I’d never really thought this through before, but just a tiny lip makes a massive difference. Should be a standard feature on pretty much every saucepan.

How a lip stops drips.

The classic “use cutlery from the outside-in” still holds, but I realised there’s a little more to it than that. And I learned what a charger is.

Amalgamation of tips from the cookbook I use most, the Joy of Cooking.

Set your table in time-honoured positions.

Boiling point of water vs altitude in ft.

Cooking at altitude

Roll limes before squeezing and you’ll get more juice

The art of cooking leaving a sparkling, untouched, kitchen

Ghost cooking

Gelato, sorbet and ice-cream

Vinaigrette, rehydration mixture and Pimms.

Useful mixtures and their proportions

And save a little more time for life. We switched 8 years or so ago and haven’t looked back.

Use crushed garlic and ginger in most of your cooking

Rules of thumb for cooking steak

Never rush an onion (from Gordon Ramsay), avoid moving chicken if you can, and don’t stir fry too much - best keep stir fries to 1-2 person portions max.

3 Miscellaneous cooking tips

Every time I stop and think about a microwave I am reminded of Arthur C Clarke’s 3rd law of prediction:

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Right up there with wifi and MRI. All just magic.

Also, I think you can use microwaves that little bit better when you understand what’s really going on.

On microwaves

Or, buy a rice cooker. You won’t regret it. But still no peeking.

Sketchplanations tagged with cooking