Cooking Tips Every Homemaker Needs From a 3-Star Chef

Cooking is a daily chore for every household, but not everyone knows what to avoid. Take note of these 5 handy cooking hacks!

As the head chef of Ngoc Mai Vang restaurant, renowned on the 17th floor of Ruby Plaza, 44 Le Ngoc Han in downtown Hanoi, our chef oversees a menu comprising nearly 200 dishes daily, ranging from luxurious French-style ostrich stew to grilled Australian beef in red wine, and from simple stir-fried chicken legs to salt-fried field crabs.

Every day, the head chef at Ngoc Mai Vang is busy supervising a menu of nearly 200 dishes.

Having been deeply involved with Ngoc Mai Vang for quite some time, the head chef disclosed that he always has to pay attention to every tiny detail of each dish. Due to the extremely high and demanding standards of the restaurant, he has pondered over quite a few cooking tips that most housewives have yet to grasp. Today, he is pleased to share them with everyone.

Ngoc Mai Vang sets very strict requirements for each dish.

Making boiled dishes is not as simple as you might think.

Everyone thinks that boiling eggs is the easiest dish to make in the world. However, that notion is completely wrong!

Don't overboil your chicken eggs. The longer they boil, the greener their yolks tend to turn – a sign of insufficient iron sulphate formation in the yolk. Boiling eggs for too long will strip away their essential nutritional values.

Do you still think boiling eggs is the easiest dish to make?

In Ngoc Mai Vang's salad menu, there are quite a few dishes featuring chicken eggs such as seaweed salad, crabstick salad, etc. Hence, boiling eggs precisely has become an unchanging habit of the head chef. Nevertheless, many housewives still fall into this mistake due to the thought that 'a little more cooking won't hurt'.

Boiled eggs are a common ingredient in many salads of Ngoc Mai Vang

Not only when boiling chicken eggs but also when boiling quail eggs, up to 99% of housewives still make another mistake, which is adding instant noodles seasoning to the eggs.

Absolutely avoid adding instant noodles seasoning when boiling eggs

At Ngoc Mai Vang, boiled eggs served with salad, spring rolls, and rolled pho are always fragrant, golden, and naturally rich in flavor, thanks to the head chef here always emphasizing not to add instant noodles seasoning when boiling eggs. Because chicken eggs already contain similar components to instant noodles seasoning, adding it would only diminish the natural delicious aroma of the eggs.

Thanks to this, the egg dishes at Ngoc Mai Vang are always golden, rich, and naturally flavorful

Similar to vegetables, if boiled or cooked for too long, it will severely deplete the amount of vitamin C present, and the vegetables will not only lose their nutritional value but also become unattractive and mushy.

Vegetables cooked for too long will become mushy and lose their nutrients

If you visit Ngoc Mai Vang, make sure to stop by the countryside market stall to enjoy the fresh and tender taste of stir-fried and boiled vegetables, perfectly cooked! Especially, Ngoc Mai Vang offers a dish of Dong Quang stewed roots and fruits, which tastes incredibly unique and is not found in any buffet in Hanoi.

Important note when marinating and frying meat

In a buffet restaurant, marinating meat is always a crucial step because dishes such as stewed, stir-fried, roasted, grilled, etc., all require this process for support.

Marinating is an essential step for many dishes in a buffet party

However, if you marinate roast meat with salt for too long, instead of achieving tender meat inside and crispy outside according to standards, you will end up with meat that becomes tough and much harder to chew.

The famous imperial roasted chicken dish of Ngoc Mai Vang

If you use lard for frying, then abandon the notion that higher stove temperatures result in quicker and more visually appealing frying. In reality, if the temperature is too high, lard will produce a foul-smelling substance harmful to the respiratory tract and digestive system. Housewives, take note of this!

Not every high flame results in quickly and visually appealing frying dishes

However, the head chef of Ngoc Mai Vang still encourages the use of vegetable oil instead of lard when frying dishes, as the restaurant is implementing to ensure dietary health and reduce the risk of heart disease.

Ngoc Mai Vang advises you to use vegetable oil instead of lard for frying and stir-frying

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