Cooking With Vinegar Tips

• When you rinse your lettuce, cabbage and other leafy vegetables add 1 tablespoon of white vinegar to the water and insects and grubs will float to the surface making it easier to clean.
• If you are boiling fish then a great cooking with vinegar tip is to add 1 teaspoon of white vinegar to the water, as this will keep the fish firm.
• If you add a few drops of vinegar to icing sugar then it will set in half the time without affecting the flavour of the icing.
• Use a muslin cloth that has been dampened with vinegar to wrap cheese. This will prevent the cheese from becoming mouldy.
• A great money saving, vinegar cooking tip is to buy and roast inexpensive cuts of meat, but tenderise the meat by pouring on a little natural vinegar over it before cooking.
• Also if you marinate your meat in vinegar first before cooking it will help to kill any bacteria in it, which is important if you are cooking steak and like to have it cooked rare or medium-rare.
• If you enjoy having pasta that doesn't stick together then add a little bit of white vinegar to the water as it boils and the resulting pasta will be much less sticky.
• With both home-made and packet cake recipes you can add 1 teaspoon of white vinegar to the mixture to increase the moistness of the cake without affecting the taste.
• When you are beating egg whites to make a meringue just add 1 teaspoon of white vinegar to the egg whites, let it sit for a minute and then whip it in the normal way. The vinegar will increase the stiffness of the meringue without effecting the taste.
• Another use for vinegar is to make you own food colourings:
  - RED : Mix 1 cup of beetroot juice and 2 tablespoons of white vinegar. The water the mixture down to your desired colour and bottle it for use later on.
  - YELLOW : Mix 1 cup water, ½ cup white vinegar and the outer skins of 5 onions in a saucepan, boil for 10 minutes, strain and then bottle it for later use.
• If you add a little bit of vinegar to the water as you are boiling eggs this will stop the shell on the eggs from cracking and make them easier to peel.