During the holidays we spend precious time in the kitchen dicing and chopping, prepping for cornbread dressing and an assortment of sinful casseroles. For me, chopping was the most difficult part of cooking until I attended a Knife Skills Class at Central Market.
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| Chef Tre Wilcox (Top Chef) – Central Market Cooking School |
Seriously Life Changing. No joke.
If you learn the proper way to chop—and there is a trick to each veggie—you can add hours (years?) to your life.
Learning to dice a bell pepper was one of THE coolest things I learned. And yes, I am easily entertained, BUT if you have wrestled a bell pepper, attempting to remove the seedy-meaty part without it sailing across the countertop and/or without slicing off a finger, only to end up with oddly misshapen chunks, this is amazing.
Ok, ok, OK! So many people don’t eat bell peppers. First I say to you, the yellow and red ones are amazingly sweet and pack double the Vitamin C of the green ones, so give them a shot (Doug Henard) before you completely discard this veggie. Secondly, this chopping method works for tomatoes… Who doesn’t eat tomatoes? (Doug Henard?)
Rinse and dry the pepper. Be sure your knife is sharp.
This goes without saying, but I said it anyway.
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| Dairy Hollow cutting board/pepper/knife:) |
Slice off both ends of the pepper so that it will stand level and upright (as if you were planning to stuff it.)
Slice vertically through one side of the pepper so that you can
lay it on its side to open it up like a book.
Now you can easily get at the meat and seeds.
Lay your knife flat on the edge of the pepper
where you opened it, with the blade facing toward the center meat.
Carefully unroll the pepper as you firmly slide the blade
over the pepper, slicing
away the meat membrane in one piece.
(Careful of your fingers…)
(I should have my left hand on top of the pepper,
unrolling it, but that
hand holds the camera…)
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| pictures are blurry as my left hand holds the camera… |
Voila!
Now you have one strip of pepper that can be divided into two pieces,
making it easier to handle.
making it easier to handle.
Discard the inner workings of the pepper into your compost or trash.
(This part is made almost entirely of water. If you use it in a sauce,
it will be soggy.)
it will be soggy.)
Cut the individual pieces into sticks.
(The proper word is julienne.)
These are perfect for a veggie tray w/ Ranch dip…
Line up the sticks and dice them.
Now you have uniform diced peppers to stir fry or to top your salad.
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| Salad I made at Dairy Hollow:) |
Yay! I told you. Cool beans.
talya
Musical Pairings:
You must have been slicing and dicing in your sleep according to the time of this post. We eat red and orange and yellow peppers at least three times a week and I shall never cut another pepper without thinking of you. LOL!
Ha no I wrote this in October while at Dairy Hollow making lunch one day for my writer friends:) just getting around to posting:))
And this is another reason I think you blog is AWESOME!…Not only for the fact that it’s an enjoyable read that leaves me laughing or at least, smiling…not only for the fact that it raises memories from the deep hallows of muh brain…haha…but also because it’s very informative!…By the way, the Grits Souffle recipe you shared with us, is AWESOME!….
gracias:)
What, no “Hungry Like the Wolf” by Duran Duran? 🙂
…or “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”?
Kaa your songs probably are better. Maybe I was too hungry to think of one. But the one I selected makes me laugh.
Yeah, yeah, all that work for a pretty salad. I prefer to cut mine–or pull it apart–down the middle, finger-pull (clean fingers, of course) the innards into the compost pan in the sink, then cut or pull each half into two pieces (quarters). Place 3 pieces in a baggie with a paper towel to absorb moisture, eat the fourth piece with your luncheon sandwich. I agree that yellow and red peppers are sweet and wonderful, plus good for the body. I keep them in the crisper until ready to eat. Your blog is beautiful, even with one hand on the camera.
I love this story and appreciate the chopping information. It has always amazed me how folks can chop away and talk at the same time. I’ve watched my son do this when he is home. He’ll have all four burners of my stove loaded with pans of good smelling food. He’ll flip the food in the pans without spilling a drop and will chop away as he’s looking you in the eye…telling you some cooking story or sharing a recipe with me. I’m aways afraid he’ll leave a finger on my counter but has never so much as scratched himself. I love it when he’s home. I love it too when I can go out to Kiawah Island and enjoy his good food!!! Thanks again for sharing! Take care, Timmie Lynn