3 Recipe Tricks for Your Cinco de Mayo Celebration

Most cooks know how long they like to cook corn in water. But move the task to the grill and you have to account for the heat’s varying intensity, which affects cooking time. So instead of solely relying on times, use this visual cue when grilling corn in its husk: As soon as the husk picks up the dark silhouette of kernels and begins to pull away from the tip of the ear, the corn is tender and ready to come off the grill.

If you need to squeeze a large amount of citrus juice, try this method. Place two or three quartered limes or lemons in the hopper of a potato ricer and squeeze the handles together. You’ll get a deluge of juice with hardly any effort.

We find that Hass avocados (the variety with dark, pebbly skin) are creamier and more flavorful than large, smooth-skinned varieties. Squeezing the fruit is a good way to determine its doneness—the flesh should yield to moderate pressure—but it’s also a good way to mistake a bruised avocado for a ripe one. To be sure, flick the small stem of the avocado. If it comes off easily and you can see green underneath it, the avocado is ripe. If the stem does not come off or if you see brown underneath it, the avocado is not ripe.