4 easy ways to add flavour when cooking

Stuck in a rut in the kitchen? Still making the same old dishes with the same old flavours? If so, check out these easy tips for incorporating new and exciting flavours into your regular meals:

• Instead of buying dried herbs and spices in those tiny bottles and cans (with the big price tags), try your local health food store.
• Most health food stores sell them in bulk, and ounce for ounce, gram for gram, they're a whole lot cheaper than the bottled kind.
• They're usually fresher, too, and many are organically grown.
• The per-kilogram (per-pound) prices, even at the health food store, can seem daunting, but you can scoop out a generous amount that is pretty cheap when it gets weighed up because dried herbs and spices are so light.
• There are some differences in quality too. One of the ingredients in the supermarket's chili powder was salt, which is not always included in the health food kind (but you can always add your own salt if you really need it).
• The health food store chili powder may have a richer spice mixture, with eight spices to five for the supermarket variety (not counting the salt).
• Some health food stores mention prominently that the spices and herbs have not been irradiated. Irradiation is a very common treatment in all kinds of herbs and spices.

• Say goodbye to bottled and dried mixes, bouillon cubes and artificial flavours that the food industry would like you to use in soups, stews and gravies.
• Elizabeth David writes:  "if every kitchen contained a bottle each of red wine, white wine and inexpensive port for cooking, hundreds of store cupboards could be swept clean forever of the cluttering debris of commercial sauce bottles and all the synthetic aids to flavouring."
• Don't use cooking wine. It's not of good quality, and it's typically loaded up with sodium you don't need.
• To make excellent gravy for roast meat, strain the fat off the pan drippings, add 125 millilitres (1/2 cup) wine and scrape off the meat residue in the pan. Cook on high heat for a couple of minutes — that gets rid of the alcohol in the wine — add a little water and cook for about two minutes more.

• Celery doesn't get much respect. It appears most often in soups, stews and casseroles, where, in a supporting role, it adds some of its distinctive flavour. But it's rarely the star, except in Cajun and Creole cookery, where with peppers and onions it is part of the "holy trinity."
• Why not let it shine? Add chopped celery — not cooked to death, but crunchy — at the last minute to creamed dishes. It adds taste, texture and a surprise element.
• Here's another surprise:  an easy relish that livens up a traditional accompaniment to pork. To a pint of applesauce, add 250 grams (one cup) chopped celery and 15 grams (one tablespoon) horseradish.

• We all know that butter has saturated fat, and too much saturated fat isn't good. However, good health is less about avoiding one particular food than about your overall eating patterns.
• Don't think you're protecting your health by using margarine instead of butter. The margarine makers would like you to think that, but don't let them kid you. They've made a whole industry out of fear of butter.
• Many great cooks — and healthy ones — swore by butter.
• Julia Child was ridiculed as the "cholesterol queen" for her love of butter and cream, but she remained an advocate for good butter and good food until the end, which came two days shy of her 92nd birthday in 2004. She also believed in enjoying butter (and everything else) in moderation.

These simple tips are sure to spice up your dishes and make them more exciting and delicious. Try a few the next time you're in the kitchen -- you won't be disappointed!

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