Kitchen Reference

Someone asks it in our kitchen most weeks, usually mid-argument over a pan of curry that has already done a lap of the fridge: how many times can you actually reheat this? The short answer is once. But the number on its own is misleading, because the real risk is not about counting heatings at all. It is about how many times the food has crossed the temperature range where bacteria breed. Once you understand that, the rule stops being an arbitrary rule and starts making obvious sense. ...

Eggs are the item I most often find myself with too many of. A box bought when there was already half a box in the fridge, the three yolks left over from a pavlova, the four whites left over from a custard, the dozen from a neighbour with more hens than sense. For years I treated eggs as a use-them-or-lose-them thing, and a fair few got binned as the date crept past. Then I learned you can freeze them, which felt almost like cheating. You can, and it works well, but there are a couple of rules you have to get right or you end up with something unusable. Here is how to do it properly: what to do before they go in, how long they keep, and how to bring them back safely. ...

Bread is the thing my household wastes more of than anything else, or it used to be. A loaf that seemed like a good idea on Monday is dry by Thursday and properly stale by the weekend, and half of it goes in the bin having never been anywhere near a plate. The freezer fixed that, and it took me an embarrassingly long time to work out why. Freezing bread is not a compromise or a way of rescuing something past its best. Done right, it is genuinely the best way to keep a loaf, better than the bread bin and far better than the fridge. Here is the whole thing: what happens to bread when you freeze it, how to do it so it comes out well, how long it keeps, and the one habit that leaves you disappointed. ...

There is a particular pause that happens over an open packet of meat that has been in the fridge a day longer than you meant. You lean in, you sniff, you turn it over in the light, and you try to decide. I do it too, and the checks are worth doing, but I want to be straight about what they can and cannot tell you. Your senses catch meat that has spoiled. They do not catch meat that is dangerous. Those are two different things, and understanding the gap between them is what keeps you well. ...

Cheese is the thing I always over-buy. A block of cheddar bought for one recipe, a wedge of something nice from the deli counter that felt like a good idea at the time, the tail end of a Christmas that produced more cheese than any household could reasonably eat. For years I assumed the freezer was off limits for all of it, so a fair amount ended up going hard and sad in the fridge. It turns out I was half right. Some cheese freezes beautifully. Some really does not. Knowing which is which has saved me a lot of waste, so here is the whole picture: what freezes well, what to leave alone, and how to do it so the cheese is still worth eating on the other side. ...

Milk is the one thing my fridge is never without, and it is also the thing I throw away most often. A four-pinter comes home, the week goes sideways, and by the weekend I am standing at the sink wondering whether the last inch is still drinkable or a science experiment. For a long time I guessed. Now I know the actual rules, and they are simpler than the guessing ever was. Here is how long milk lasts once you have opened it, why the date on the bottle is only half the story, and the one line you should not cross whatever your nose tells you. ...

Buttermilk is the ingredient that always catches me out. A recipe for scones or American pancakes calls for a cupful, I go to the fridge sure that I have some, and of course I do not, because buttermilk is not something most of us keep in the door next to the milk. The good news is that you almost never need to go to the shop for it. There are several swaps that do the job well, and a couple of them use things you already have. Here is how to make a buttermilk substitute that works, which one to reach for, and, so it actually makes sense, what buttermilk is doing in the recipe in the first place. ...

Mince is the workhorse of my kitchen. A big pan of it on a Sunday quietly becomes bolognese one night, chilli the next and a cottage pie by Thursday, which is exactly why the “how long is this still good?” question comes up so often in our house. The honest answer is shorter than most people assume, and mince earns that shorter window for a reason worth understanding. So here is how long a batch of cooked mince actually lasts, fridge and freezer, and the handful of rules that keep a batch-cook from turning into a bad night. ...

This is one of those kitchen questions where the confident one-word answers flying around online are all a bit wrong, because the real answer depends on something the question leaves out: how did the meat thaw? A pack of mince that defrosted overnight in the fridge and a pack that sat out on the worktop all afternoon are not the same problem, even though both are now soft and both are staring at you asking to go back in the freezer. So let me give you the version I actually use, which starts with that one question and follows it honestly, food-safety facts and all. ...

Chicken is the one thing in my fridge I never gamble on. We cook it two or three times a week, it is cheap enough to replace, and the illness it can hand you if you get it wrong is genuinely miserable. So when a pack has been sitting a day longer than I meant, I do run through the checks: the smell, the colour, the feel. What I want to be honest about here, and what most articles gloss over, is what those checks can and cannot tell you. They catch chicken that has spoiled. They do not catch chicken that is dangerous. Those are two different things, and knowing the difference is what keeps you well. ...