LazBro
Prolific Poster 
Posts: 10,049 
|
Post by LazBro on Sept 5, 2017 8:29:57 GMT -5
A friendly, upbeat cousin to my thread about the cooking operations we hate. What cooking operations do you love to do? What are your favorite steps, techniques, processes or experiences? |
|
LazBro
Prolific Poster
Posts: 10,049
|
Post by LazBro on Sept 5, 2017 8:33:15 GMT -5
I'm sure I'll think of more, but I'm short on time now and have just the one. I love preparing mise en place. I don't always take the time to prep every ingredient before putting the first thing to fire - I'm a home cook, not a chef - but I usually do at least some mise en place, and there's something so satisfying about taking that time to chop all of the ingredients and lay them out one by one. So comforting knowing that I'm not going to be in a mad rush once I turn up the heat.
I also love knife work. Slicing, chopping, dicing, etc ... so probably this has something to do with it.
|
|
Gumbercules
AV Clubber 
Get out of my dreams, and into my van
Posts: 2,987
|
Post by Gumbercules on Sept 5, 2017 9:42:55 GMT -5
Perfectly pan flipping an egg. I don't do it as often, since I now try for the french-style omelettes instead of the half-moon diner style. Or if frying an egg, I don't want to break the yolk when it lands (which I've done and covered myself with hot yolk splatter too often). But throwing something up in the air and having it gracefully land back in the pan just feels like fun in the kitchen.
|
|
Smacks
Shoutbox Elitist 
Smacks from the Dead
Posts: 2,904 
|
Post by Smacks on Sept 5, 2017 10:07:24 GMT -5
Well I'm not the most accomplished chef but I do well what I do well. I like to make sauces and condiments so I'm going to say emulsifying. I love my immersion blender so much. I like good old-fashioned whisks as well. I've been working on perfecting my honey mustard dressing (it's not complicated AT ALL).
|
|
Trurl
Shoutbox Elitist
Posts: 7,494
Member is Online
|
Post by Trurl on Sept 6, 2017 6:07:35 GMT -5
Eating?
|
|
LazBro
Prolific Poster
Posts: 10,049
|
Post by LazBro on Sept 6, 2017 7:40:17 GMT -5
Not always my favorite part, actually. Especially after a really long prep, like barbecue or a holiday meal or something. Sometimes I'd rather bask in a job well done and just have a beer instead. |
|
|
|
Post by Ron Howard Voice on Sept 6, 2017 7:49:19 GMT -5
Not always my favorite part, actually. Especially after a really long prep, like barbecue or a holiday meal or something. Sometimes I'd rather bask in a job well done and just have a beer instead. This reminds me of the barbecue a friend of mine pulled off Sunday. He came bounding in the door saying, "That's it. I'm retiring. I will never do better than this. These are the best. ribs. ever." And he basked in his job well done, had a few glasses of wine, and then finally sampled one of the ribs and said, "It's dry. Guess I'm not retired." His favorite part was definitely the cooking. To answer the OP: it's dumb and tiny, but I really love stirring. Agree with Smacks that immersion blenders are fun. Adding the spices is great, especially if you take a big ol' sniff of all of them when you open each jar. But the best part is when you go take a leak and come back and realize the entire kitchen smells amazing. |
|
|
|
Post by pairesta on Sept 6, 2017 8:50:27 GMT -5
I could have sworn we talked about this in a thread already? Anyways, yeah it's mise. Particularly Italian mise, because I've been cooking that way for 20 years, and it's familiar ground. I'm having fun with out-of-comfort zone cooking like Vietnamese or Chinese or Indian, but invariably I'll think I'm mise-d up, then check the recipe again and oh, shit, there's a sauce or a spice mix I have to make first, so dig out the blender or spice grinder. And it adds to the chaos. Labor Day night I made an Italian-style "wine harvest meal" that I've been making for years. I know it almost by heart. So it was so easy, fun, and relaxing to do, particularly with my daughter helping. At one point I had onions sauteing as a base, and threw in some fresh chopped rosemary. Like Ron Howard Voice talks about above, that smell. It's comfort and home for me: fall is coming and I'm making a braise. It actually triggered a mild crisis for me. I'm having fun with my cooking project, yeah, but who am I fooling. I know Italian. I've been cooking that way for 20 years. Everybody who's had my food knows my Italian food and loves it. Why am I bothering with any other way to cook? |
|
Gumbercules
AV Clubber
Get out of my dreams, and into my van
Posts: 2,987
|
Post by Gumbercules on Sept 6, 2017 13:49:08 GMT -5
I could have sworn we talked about this in a thread already? Anyways, yeah it's mise. Particularly Italian mise, because I've been cooking that way for 20 years, and it's familiar ground. I'm having fun with out-of-comfort zone cooking like Vietnamese or Chinese or Indian, but invariably I'll think I'm mise-d up, then check the recipe again and oh, shit, there's a sauce or a spice mix I have to make first, so dig out the blender or spice grinder. And it adds to the chaos. Labor Day night I made an Italian-style "wine harvest meal" that I've been making for years. I know it almost by heart. So it was so easy, fun, and relaxing to do, particularly with my daughter helping. At one point I had onions sauteing as a base, and threw in some fresh chopped rosemary. Like Ron Howard Voice talks about above, that smell. It's comfort and home for me: fall is coming and I'm making a braise. It actually triggered a mild crisis for me. I'm having fun with my cooking project, yeah, but who am I fooling. I know Italian. I've been cooking that way for 20 years. Everybody who's had my food knows my Italian food and loves it. Why am I bothering with any other way to cook? I'm of the opposite mind about familiarity and mise en place. If I'm comfortable with a dish, I know when to add stuff, when to stir, and what I can streamline. So, for example, I'll start onions on the pan and will know I can mince two cloves of garlic before I need to shake/stir the pan, and I have 30 seconds to then get my tomato paste from the freezer and cut off a small chunk and throw it in the pan before the garlic starts to burn. But for a dish I haven't made before, or a type of cuisine that I'm not familiar with similar style cooking (like how szechuan dishes bloom dried peppers in oil, then let it cool), I'll look over the recipe 3 times, and not only do my mise en place, but arrange the bowls/containers so things get added sequentially, or separated if they don't get added to each other. |
|
fab
TI Forumite
strange days
Posts: 1,617
|
Post by fab on Sept 6, 2017 14:03:58 GMT -5
I like to sautee and pan fry stuff. I like the sizzle and the way it throws off scents as proteins break down and all that good stuff. I guess it's because I'm a very average cook. I can follow directions pretty well and know my way around a lot of basic recipes, but most pan-frying doesn't require extra thought or much in the way of prep. it's hard to fuck up frying stuff, provided that you don't set the temperature too high like I sometimes do in an effort to hurry things up at the start. within reason, as long as you don't burn it, the end result will be edible! and delicious.  |
|
|
|
Post by Wallet Inspector on Sept 6, 2017 14:26:19 GMT -5
I really like toasting panko for some reason. Plus it's easy and if you throw in the right herbs and spices, it makes any boring pasta more tasty.
|
|
Crash Test Dumbass
AV Clubber
ffc what now
Posts: 7,058
Gender (additional): mostly snacks
|
Post by Crash Test Dumbass on Sept 6, 2017 14:31:08 GMT -5
I think the "wet hand, dry hand" method of breading food has a soothingly rhythmic quality to it, even if I always mess it up at some point, and hate having to clean up afterwards.
I was going to say "pounding out meat" (for piccata and the like), but I think I hurt my earballs flattening some chicken cuts with a frying pan the other day.
I also really like stock-making, in that you put a bunch of garbage into a big pot and walk away and then a few hours later you have some of the most wondrous liquid imaginable.
|
|
LazBro
Prolific Poster
Posts: 10,049
|
Post by LazBro on Sept 7, 2017 7:29:02 GMT -5
I'm of the opposite mind about familiarity and mise en place. If I'm comfortable with a dish, I know when to add stuff, when to stir, and what I can streamline. So, for example, I'll start onions on the pan and will know I can mince two cloves of garlic before I need to shake/stir the pan, and I have 30 seconds to then get my tomato paste from the freezer and cut off a small chunk and throw it in the pan before the garlic starts to burn. But for a dish I haven't made before, or a type of cuisine that I'm not familiar with similar style cooking (like how szechuan dishes bloom dried peppers in oil, then let it cool), I'll look over the recipe 3 times, and not only do my mise en place, but arrange the bowls/containers so things get added sequentially, or separated if they don't get added to each other. I do that when brewing beer. I write out each timestamp of my hop schedule on a different sticky note and lay them out in a line, and then place containers with the appropriate hops beside them. |
|
|
|
Post by Liz n Dick on Sept 9, 2017 13:06:39 GMT -5
Not always my favorite part, actually. Especially after a really long prep, like barbecue or a holiday meal or something. Sometimes I'd rather bask in a job well done and just have a beer instead. This is so true! It often seems like the more I work on a meal, the less interested I am in eating it. And it's less that I want to bask in the awesomeness and more that I think I resent how quickly the eating goes. Like, if I spend days on cooking something it better take days to eat it, dammit!  |
|
|
|
Post by Liz n Dick on Sept 9, 2017 13:25:07 GMT -5
As someone who prefers simplicity in her cooking, I have to agree with Gumbercules about the joy of familiarity in the kitchen. My absolute favorite kind of cooking is when a process is so deeply-ingrained that it's effortless. But also when it's impromptu. I get the most joy out of those sort of MacGyver meals -- "okay, these are the things we have on hand, and we want to be eating in an hour. How am I going to make this happen?" And then, like, tapping into my building-blocks repertoire, but still coloring as far outside the lines as possible. I love being able to be simultaneously creative and ruthlessly efficient. For a more specific operation that I love, I definitely have to go with fermentation pickling. Talk about simplicity! I just adore assembling a bunch of vegetable components, cramming them into a jar, and then pouring in clear saltwater. Then putting aside a picture-perfect jar of seasonal-fresh gorgeousness... and coming back in a couple of weeks to a cloudy jar full of some fancy-ass new thing. It never ceases to seem like magic to me, and is the ideal amount of effort for my lazy ass. |
|
