Perhaps you paid close attention and have absorbed a lifetime’s worth of recipes from your mother. Maybe you just inherited a certain confidence to experiment from her own savoir faire. Our mums and their cooking tips have often been the deciding factor in whether we went on to be interested in home-cooking as grown-ups ourselves.

You talk, we listen. We received over 500 stories from our Spring Chicken Facebook Community.  There was a vocal minority who weren’t allowed anywhere near the kitchen while their mum was cooking. A fair few of you laughed that your mothers were rubbish at cooking so precious little was learned! But the majority of you had some fabulous tips to share.

So we have combined our Spring Chicken tips with 36 insider insights, gleaned from the many famous chefs who say they owe their start in the kitchen to their mums. Scroll down for some fantastic cooking hacks and top tips!

(and don’t forget to share your own in the comments section: let’s teach this internet a thing or two!)

From A-Z: 36 cooking tips from famous chefs

A quick way of stripping herb leaves off their stems is to pull them headfirst through the holes in a colander - from inside to outside so that the leaves left behind are stowed in the bowl of the colander. (Giada de Laurentiis)

A simple Chang family tip: melt butter with miso for a wonderful savoury flavour for corn on the cob, grilled shrimp and fish (David Chang)

Adjust the knob on your stoveside pepper grinder for appropriate seasoning: fine for soups and sauces; medium for general peppering; coarse for steaks and fish (Gordon Ramsay)

Always brine your chicken before roasting, for extra flavour and juiciness. Soak in cold, salted water, then pat the skin dry (Phareus Samuelsson)

Basil does not like the cold of the fridge. Treat it like cut flowers and put a bunch of basil into a little water in a glass or small vase, out on your kitchen counter. (Rachael Ray)

Easy mamma tip, this: add a generous pinch of coffee to any chocolate dish for added intensity (Ina Garten)

For 20 minutes off a baked potato, dig in a teaspoon as far as you can push it (Phil Vickery)

For herbs that are going off because you haven’t got plans to use them, warm up some honey in a pan. Then add the chopped herbs and let it steep on low or no heat, then store in a jar: delicious on cheese, toast, in vinaigrettes and in marinades (Alex Guarnaschelli)

For an instant wow factor, substitute lasagne sheets for ordinary pasta when serving with hearty sauces. Cook the lasagne then rip the sheets artistically for that oversized tagliatelle appearance that looks so good on the plate (Gordon Ramsay)

For meatballs that don’t fall apart, roast them in an empty egg carton. Spray first with oil to stop them sticking (Alton Brown)

For my mother’s luxury guacamole, add mango, chilli oil and fresh lime juice to your usual ingredients (Marcela Valladolid)

For outrageously chewy choc chip cookies, substitute the flour with strong bread flour (Alton Brown)

For really gooey brownies, my mum taught me to bake’em for 15 minutes, take out and rest them for 15 mins. Then bake for a final 15 minutes. Magic! (Alton Brown)

For the best mash, peel your potatoes AFTER boiling them. This way the water isn’t absorbed and the flavour is preserved (Gordon Ramsay)

For the perfect fried egg, 2 tbsps oil, heated; slide the egg into the oil then spoon the hot oil over the top… (José Andres)

For the perfect omelette, add a little bit of warm water when beating the eggs. The water steams when it hits the pan and makes the mix even fluffier (Neil Perry)

Freeze your stock in muffin trays. Ice trays just produce tiny, unusable cubes whereas stock blocks the size of muffins are tons more useful (Anthony Bourdain)

If you want to freeze a loaf of bread - slice it beforehand, as thick as the toaster can take. The thinner the slices, the more icebound they get. Or break into large chunks, then cook from frozen in the oven (Ina Garten)

If you’re wanting to fry meat, but are out of butter or oil, use mayo instead. The eggs in the mayo form a tasty crust around the meat (Alton Brown)

It’s butter all the way for the best scrambled eggs. Add them to melted but not foaming butter, then add a spoon of cream or creme fraiche at the last minute (Gordon Ramsay)

It’s not worth taking short cuts with potatoes. Always boil them from COLD then they heat evenly and end up cooking through quicker. (Sunny Anderson)

My friend’s Italian mama showed me this tip. When cooking fresh pasta, have the water level just over the pasta and, once it boils, reduce the heat immediately to merely a simmer (Alton Brown)

My mama taught me that the way you season depends on its temperature. Your palate receives the flavours of cold food more slowly, so season cold foods more heavily, hot foods less so. (Wolfgang Puck)

My mum was waste not, want not. Stale crisps left out overnight? Into the microwave for 10 secs! (Ainsley Harriott)

Non-stick pans simply don’t get as hot as ordinary pans, so keep them for frying eggs and pancakes. For crispy food, the more metal, the hotter the oil gets, the crispier the fry. (Amanda Cohen)

Save money when using the oven by using every other inch of it. Use any space left over to roast fruit, veg, or anything that's lying around slowly going off. Roasted food keeps longer anyway! (Joe Woodhouse)

Sometimes a recipe calls for wine to be added but perhaps you add too much and it tastes a little sour. A knob of butter will counter that (Alex Guarnaschelli)

Top tip from my mum: you need your butter at room temperature? Grate it with a cheese grater - all the flakes of butter will then warm in no time (Carla Hall)

Use a whisk when cooking mince, to break up the lumps (Selin Kiazim)

Use that dusty sandwich toaster for cooking veg: purple sprouting broccoli, leeks, cavolo nero - they all wilt artistically! (Jane Baxter)

When barbecuing, steer away from actual BBQ sauce until the last minute. Instead, concentrate on marinading well ahead and grilling the meat with marinade only until the last five minutes. Only then slather on the BBQ gloop. Otherwise, the sugar in the BBQ sauce will crystallise and burn. (Spring Chicken)

When cooking pasta, add a splash of the pasta water to whichever sauce you’re preparing alongside. The starches in the water bind the sauce together and the salt you’ve added to the water, seasons the sauce. (Scott Conant)

When making burgers from scratch, my mum would always put a thumbprint in the top of the patty when she was done. It stops the burger bulging up, so it cooks more evenly. Strange but true! (Bobby Flay)

When rolling out dough, cover your chopping board or worktop in greaseproof paper and oil your rolling pin instead of using flour in the traditional way. Flour actually changes the consistency of the dough! (Paul Hollywood)

Yorkshire puds? Easy: 8 eggs, 8oz flour, pint milk. Rest mix overnight and pour into very hot roasting tin with half an inch of sizzling veg oil or lard. Cook in hot oven for half an hour. (James Martin)

You can avoid burning butter by adding a tablespoon of oil to bring up its smoking point (Julia Child)