Go cook...it's still morning here.
Life's too short for chopping & mixing
- Thread starter Harry Cobean
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Steve Kroll
Wine Guy
CWS4322
Chef Extraordinaire
Sigh. But I like chopping and mixing. It's that other stuff I do most days in lieu of hunting and gathering that life's too short for.
At least my wife occasionally gets to hunt, if not gather. Thursday, she dealt with a 4-foot rattlesnake on the porch. The Internet service tech came by, and he wanted it for his dinner, and she gave it to him. So I guess it qualifies as hunting for food.
So-does rattlesnake really taste like chicken?
Actually....no, it doesn't. When fried, it has a taste that is delicately reminiscent of very lean pork that was fried in oil that had been used to cook fish in...but in a good way.
To me it tastes more like frog legs than chicken.
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Harry Cobean
Executive Chef
kind of squid like flavour then,hoot? not had frogs legs for a couple of years now.used to be able to buy them at the chinese supermarket but haven't seen them for a while.bit like squid really in that you either have to flash fry them or cook them long & slow.anything inbetween & you've got rubber,but with more bounce
!!
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Harry Cobean
Executive Chef
albacore tuna steve? blimey,over here a can of albacore is about 3 or 4 times the cost of your standard tuna.nice tho'
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Harry Cobean
Executive Chef
more room for the grey goose that way CI don't like peeling & chopping onions. Haven't bought these in awhile, but they're good in a pinch.
No more tears.
!
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Harry Cobean
Executive Chef
work smart not hard eh? likin' itMore time to mix cocktails.
NYBrit
Senior Cook
I might have to try those chopped onions. Peeling and chopping onions is my least favourite thing to do.
Greg Who Cooks
Executive Chef
okey dokey this is guilty pleasures "all grown up" 3D the sequel.no no no vicar,nothing for you to worry about!!.you know what? sometimes life is too short for peeling,chopping,mixing & marinading.sometimes i just don't have the time.sometimes there is stuff out there that i think "y'know what 'arry the ingredients are exactly what i would make that with & it probably tastes just as good as mine so why make it yourself(or should that be myself?)"
here' some of mine.i've shown you mine now you show me yours
ps you probably gathered there's a kind of garlic,chilli & ginger think going on there!!
I'm sorry harry (you don't use the caps key, right?) but life is too short and too frenetic to not enjoy chopping and mixing.
I used to have a signature here, "Asian chef chops for 2 hours then cooks for 10 minutes." I'm not Asian but I enjoy Asian cooking, and I'm very much harried (no relation to you) by life, and I often find that chopping and measuring and mixing ingredients, particularly in the mise en place method is very soothing, almost a cooking version of yoga or meditation. (Asian cooking often occurs within mere minutes particularly stir fry, and you need to either measure your ingredients before starting or you need to be an intuitive Asian chef with unlimited ingredients prepared the afternoon before dinner so you can just add however much you want as the cooking proceeds. This is how Asian restaurants work.)
I find that chopping soothes my mind and calms me and lets me focus on the character and smoothness and uniqueness of ingredients, and when I focus on that, many of my everyday problems recede into the background.
Chopping is a kind of meditation.
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Greg Who Cooks
Executive Chef
Here is a cooking with garlic shortcut tip. I've used it often.
One day perhaps once a week (maybe an off day) chop several heads of garlic into a fine mince. Press it down into a small dish (perhaps one of your mise en place dishes), then pour the smallest amount of EVOO over the top to prevent the garlic from being exposed to the air. Maybe mix a small amount of EVOO into the minced garlic before covering with EVOO.
Minced garlic is almost always used in recipes that use cooking oils too, or at least the EVOO interferes with few recipes that do not use cooking oil. The oil keeps the minced garlic from oxidizing (or whatever it does) when it comes in contact with air. When you use some just press down the rest with a spoon and make sure it has a light covering of EVOO, and cover the dish with plastic wrap to keep out refrigerator smells. (I press the plastic down to conform with the garlic surface to exclude as much air as possible.)
Minced garlic can easily last a week or more with this technique, and IMO is almost indistinguishable from freshly minced garlic.
I've used the same technique for finely chopped ginger and also with finely chopped shallots.
One day perhaps once a week (maybe an off day) chop several heads of garlic into a fine mince. Press it down into a small dish (perhaps one of your mise en place dishes), then pour the smallest amount of EVOO over the top to prevent the garlic from being exposed to the air. Maybe mix a small amount of EVOO into the minced garlic before covering with EVOO.
Minced garlic is almost always used in recipes that use cooking oils too, or at least the EVOO interferes with few recipes that do not use cooking oil. The oil keeps the minced garlic from oxidizing (or whatever it does) when it comes in contact with air. When you use some just press down the rest with a spoon and make sure it has a light covering of EVOO, and cover the dish with plastic wrap to keep out refrigerator smells. (I press the plastic down to conform with the garlic surface to exclude as much air as possible.)
Minced garlic can easily last a week or more with this technique, and IMO is almost indistinguishable from freshly minced garlic.
I've used the same technique for finely chopped ginger and also with finely chopped shallots.
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Harry Cobean
Executive Chef
they are good nyb,just chopped/fried onions & olive oil.i always dump them in a sieve to drain first,there is a fair bit of oil in there & enough clings to the onions after draining.found them in delia smiths "how to cheat at cooking",so if it's good enough for delia...............
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Harry Cobean
Executive Chef
life is too short for the caps key too
!!100% with you on all you've said,especially the meditation bit.90% of the meals i eat,i cook from scratch.colleagues at work don't understand why and apart from the obvious,i tell them that that's how i wind down after another 10 hours savage entertainment at the hands of an uncaring public!!
i live alone so don't have to plan meals/times ahead & very often don't know what i want to eat when i set off to work in the morning,so the advance prep may be wasted on the "well it seemed like a good idea at the time" principle.i usually call at tesco on my way home,which is why my fridge usually only has the basics & my booze in it!!
fortunately i am now in a position where i don't have to work the long hours or number of days that i used to,so will have more time for meditation
.the point of the thread was that there are very good products out there that can be used when time is short,not as a 100% substitute.......if you did,that would spoil the fun to be sure greg!!
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Harry Cobean
Executive Chef
i probably use garlic & shallots on a daily basis greg so with you on that.i prefer shallots to onions because i find them sweeter than the onions we get over here imo & the "torpedo" shaped ones are sweet enough to use raw in salads etc.
in work "my area" includes a massive,predominently asian area,where street after street is nothing but mosques,sari shops,indian sweet shops,gold shops,asian food shops & some of the scruffiest looking but best darn asian restaurants/charcoal grill/tandoori dives going
!i buy the cofresh frozen minced garlic/ginger from there.it's 100% pure garlic or ginger....no oil or anything else added & @ less than £1 for over a lb of garlic/ginger a bargain.tesco also sell it in their asian section
i find that,as with frozen peas,it is almost better than "the real thing" & my asian friends/clients use massive amounts of it but,as in my previous reply,it's there in the freezer if needed,not as a substitute
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Harry Cobean
Executive Chef
now there's a surprise kez!!
!!
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Harry Cobean
Executive Chef
ohhhhh yesssss youuuuuu dooooooI don't know what you're talking about Harry
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