For years my knife skills have been a point of insecurity.  If you watch enough cooking shows, you too may share my issue.  I have bought DVDs, books and eagerly gone to demonstrations.  I had a friend who is a CIA graduate spend some time with me trying to show me how to use my knife properly so that I can gain speed and consistency without losing a damn finger.  My husband has treated me to several wonderful knifes that I love.  Knifes so sharp that I think if you mess around you could take your hand off at the wrist; forget about shortening a finger tip.

As I’m writing about knife skills you may be wondering why I have a photo of a De Buyer Mandoline at the lead of my post. Please be patient with me.  I’ll get there.

Finally, I found the Rolling Pin, a place in my area that teaches cooking classes and more importantly teaches KNIFE SKILLS 1 and KNIFE Skills 2.  Reading the description I really was not sure if I was going to learn much.

Choosing the correct knife for the job and knowing how to properly use it is the secret to fast, easy cooking.
Learn the basics of knife construction, how to choose the correct knife, safety, sharpening, and proper storage of knives.

You will practice proper techniques for chopping, mincing, slicing and julienne.

We will use our skills to make Homemade Winter Vegetable Soup and Designer Grill Cheese.

I felt pretty confident on all of these topics, however, KNIFE SKILLS 1 is a prerequisite to KNIFE SKILLS 2; and there was lunch, wine and an afternoon away from the house all for $35 so I went for it.  My $35 was VERY well spent.  I know about knife construction, I’ve educated myself on cutting boards and proper sharpening; and I know the mechanics of a dice, julienne, mince etc.  But I couldn’t seem to move the food and knife across the board in a harmonious manner — I looked something like a caveman trying to pull a square wheel.  It wasn’t pretty.

In 2 minutes Chef Dave (an owner at the Rolling Pin which also offers demonstration classes and stocks an amazing array of kitchen implements) had me cutting faster and more consistently than I’d been able to do on my own in a year of practicing.  I had been trying to circumvent nature and cut in a right angle where my left hand fed the food to my right (knife) hand at a 90 degree angle.  I was always fighting with getting the food to move, cutting felt clumsy, and I thought I was never going to get it right.  I began to feel that knife skills were like basketall and I would never have the coordination to do it right.  Nope, I just needed the right coach.  Chef Dave taught me about my cutting triangle and I’m extremely grateful for that lesson.

I liked class one so much that I instantly signed up for class 2 which took place this past Saturday.  In retrospect I wish I had let a few weeks pass rather than jump on my enthusiasm train.  This way I could have practiced more and came with more questions.  In Knife skills 2 we did cover how to sharpen and care for your knifes a little more and I think the information was presented really well, especially for people who want to cook more but aren’t cook book, cooking magazine, cooking blog, cooking TV junkies like myself.  Not many people read Larousse Gastronomique or McGee like a novel – I’m that dork who does.

In KNIFE SKILLS 2 We diced, we julienned, we peeled onions and then — we broke out the mandoline.

I have a few silly fears; such as  I’ll run right off a cliff to escape a honey bee (true).  I watch too much “Criminal Minds” which leads to all kinds of irrational fears.  I am also afraid of cutting my damn fingers off.  I don’t think this is totally irrational, as  it’s a common injury.  What is irrational is the certitude with which I believe(d) my mandoline was going to cut my damn fingers off (When I’m talking about the loss of them, they are indeed my “damn fingers”  as in “Honey can you hurry home, I cut my danm finger off trying to make french fries with the mandoline, I think I need to go to the hospital.”)

Each of our  stations had a mandoline to practice with.  We were cutting long strips of eggplant and zucchini to grill and making apple matchsticks for a salad. Not wanting to be a complete sissy or get caught hiding in the bathroom, I used the mandoline (without a finger guard as I was instructed because the core acts as a natural guard) to julienne apples into matchsticks.  At first I struggled;  I couldn’t get the apple to go through the mandoline because I was hesitating.  Then I did what Chef Dave told me to do and focused on the bottom of the mandoline vs the blade.  Voi La! I made that mandoline sing.

I had a very dusty De Buyer mandoline at home.  Yesterday I busted it out.  I made ratatouille (Julia Childs Recipe) and a roasted duck (also Julia).  I went through several potatoes (tonight is steak with frites)  and made fries.  I used the finger guard, but I made friends with the mandoline.  And for that I thank Chef Dave.

April 6 I’ll be starting the Cooking 101 class — join me!

If you are in the Tampa Area:

The Rolling Pin
2080 Badland Drive
Brandon FL 33511
813-653-2418

I bought this little dandy a couple weeks ago thinking I’d use it to make sauces in my non-stick pans.  It’s cute, heat resistant and safe on non-stick coating — what’s not to like?  After plunking down my $18 and it finally arriving in the mail I couldn’t wait to use it.  So I made Chocolate Pots de Creme.  I learned the answer to my fate tempting question (what’s not to like) the hard way.

The problem is that the tines of the whisk are too flexible to stand up to a thick substance so you are barely stirring and certainly not whisking the ingredients.  I was hugely underwhelmed by this product.  The tines are not strong enough to whip volume into egg whites let alone whisk a heavy sauce.

Whineaux Verdict:  Keep your money!

Tis the most wonderful time of they year …. And also the time when foodies like us get invited to every single potluck party in town because they know they can count on us for something good.

After my rampant travels at Thanksgiving I have not been at 100% and simply can’t keep up with all the parties, all the shopping, all the fun things I want to do; and cook elaborate dishes for potluck dinners.  Luckyily the folks at Beemster Cheese saved the day for me by sending me some of their amazing cheese that I could use as a cheese plate.Cheese plates are elegant and much less time consuming than preparing an entire dish.  And when it comes to cocktail parties people are so used to the shrimp wheel from the deli, a selection of perfectly square mass produced “cheese food squares”, fruit and little smokies that your plate of interesting cheeses will stand out, making you look like a rock star without making you spend an entire afternoon in the kitchen.

I’ve mentioned my trip to Netherlands a few months ago, the quintessential images that pop into my head when thinking about Netherlands are windmills, bikes and HUGE wheels of cheese:

Cheese Delivery Bike in Amsterdam

(This photo isn’t all that relevant; I’ve just been dying to use it and I’m pretty sure this is my best shot!  It’s a custom delivery bike placed in front of an incredible cheese shop)

Beemster is a supplier to the Royal Court of the Netherlands, one of the highest honors a company can earn in Holland.  Beemster produces several types of cheese including farmer style cheese, goat cheese, light cheese and their classic line. Their cheeses are made at Caring Dairy on a pasture reclaimed from the sea in 1612 and sits 20 feet below sea level.  The terroir of the dairy contributes to the unique and amazing flavors of their cheese.   Caring Dairy is dedicated to sustainable farming techniques and partners with other companies of the same mindset such as Ben and Jerry’s.

I was able to sample the Beemster Classic wihch is made from cow’s milk and salt and aged for a minimum of 18 months.  It’s 20% lower in salt than most other Dutch cheeses, but it doesn’t taste like it.  The cheese has a great nutty flavor to it.  It’s wonderful on a cracker I also used a bit in some soup, over pasta, and over vegetables.  The cheese enhanced the flavor of all of the dishes.  I really like it with a little honey for the sweet to contrast the salt.

I also was able to sample the Beemster X.O. which is also a cows milk cheese and lower in sodium than other Dutch cheeses.  The difference is that it’s aged for 26 months giving it a texture that I would compare to Parmesan.  I am one to eat hunks of Parmesan, but it’s a strong cheese and I think I’m not exactly normal in that respect.  For most people I would sugest using this cheese exactly as you would Parmesan — cook with it, grate it over food for flavor.  I had a big glass of Sly Dog Cabernet going on when I was tasting this and frankly I was in heaven.  I did not want to take the cheese plate to the party — but I did. (“What Baxter, you ate an entire wheel of cheese?  I’m not even mad, I’m impressed” — Ron Burgundy)

My cheese plate; it’s missing something crucial; a sweet element.  I *thought* I had some fig preserves at home and was going to put them on the plate with the cheese but when I started plating I discovered that I had fig paste that expired in August. Faced with presenting a complete cheese plate or poisoning my friends I chose to eliminate the sweet element (dried fruit would also be a nice touch) .  Even though my plate was incomplete it was also devoured before anything else.

I also took a page from my friend the Chickenless Chick.  She recently posted about drunken baked brie that she made for a Christmas party.    I had a wheel of brie hanging out and decided I had to try this.  I followed her method except I used Cognac instead of brandy.  This HUGE wheel of brie was also devoured.  I have to admit, while it was baking I was a little skeptical because the alcohol smelled very strong.  But, one bite into that melty yummy buttery creamy brie and I was transported to happy town.  The walnuts gave a nice crunch, the brown sugar on top caramelized almost like Creme Brulee and the tangy flavor of the brie balanced everything out.  Again, easy way to look like a rock star.  Check out the Chickenless Chic’s Blog if you get a chance.

Happy Holidays!  Remember it’s about enjoying the time with friends and family, not killing yourself with elaborate recipes.  I know we’ll all do so to some extent because we are crazy like that; but take a shortcut here and there so you have time to sip your wine laugh with friends and try to predict what wonderful things 2010 will bring us all!

Cheers!

The Whineaux

About two years ago I was in the Le Creuset outlet with my family looking at this exact Swissmar Raclette with the granite top and seriously pondering purchasing it.  I remember it being priced at close to $200 and it was right after Christmas so even though I wanted it, I was hemming and hawing.  As I danced around in front of the delightful device well healed hooligans in their smug cashmere sweaters bombarded the store told me how much fun it would be how much they loved their unit and then bought the last one in the store.  THE NERVE!  I was a bit heartbroken.

While I never forgot that moment (obviously I’m the kind of person that lets things go easily), I didn’t go on a mission to get a Raclette.  That is until I saw a post from Salty Seattle about her Raclette Party.  My obsession went into overdrive and I had to buy one.  After much research and price comparison I bought the Swissmar KF-77045 – it’s the granite top with the red base. Overstock.com had great prices.

When it arrived, I was ill-prepared to “play’ with my new toy (read: I had a poorly stocked pantry); but I couldn’t contain my excitement.  At 4:00 in the afternoon when the UPS man dropped off my prize I stopped everything and boiled potatoes and melted cheddar cheese over them in the trays.  Bill and Tyler were in love,  there was something about watching the cheese slowly melt, then bubble and then crisp up that was memorizing.  We each cleaned our plates and looked about for more, but sadly for now, this gooey snack would have to do.

Then, on a trip to the market, I found Raclette cheese, little smokies, dried red wine sausage, lamb chops and a thin sirloin (Tyler is not a huge fan of lamb, but that’s another post in which I attempt to convert him).  We stopped by our French pastry shop and picked up a loaf of just out of the oven bread and a couple of pastry treats that didn’t last long enough to photograph.

With much officiousness, I cleared the table, put the grill in the center and fired it up (you know I had no idea what I was doing right?  But someone had to be in charge).  With the granite top they recommend at least 15 minutes for it to heat up (or you can heat it in your oven, but because that method sounds like an amazing way to get a trip to the burn ward;  I just put it on the appliance, turned it on and kept my distance.)

I had marinated four of the cutest lamb chops and one small sirloin in olive oil and a paste of fresh parsley, fresh oregano, basil and roasted garlic.  I boiled some baby potatoes, and set up my fondu tray with smokies, cornichons, bread, and potatoes.

We started with the bigger pieces of meat on the top.  There was MUCH less smoke than I anticipated which is a good thing.

Bill and I sipped wine while we tried to keep Tyler from burning himself on the grill.  For some reason he only wanted the pieces farthest away from him!

We each cooked our cheese to our liking — Tyler couldn’t wait, he wanted his as soon as it was melted.  Somehow we talked him out of taking it straight from the pan and into his mouth, thereby preventing what would have been a very painful burn!  I cooked mine until it was bubbled, brown and crisp.  Almost like a chip and Bill had his somewhere in between.

We had a lot of fun having dinner this way and can’t wait to do it again.  I’m sure that we’ll use it at least once during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

What did we drink?  I was conflicted, we had red meat that would be lovely with red wine, but that cheese was meant to be eaten with a dry riesling.  However if you read anything I write you know red wine reigns supreme at our house — so.  Seven Artisans Meritage joined our little party.

Next time, I would put down a table cloth that I don’t mind getting some splatters on to protect the table.  I was surprised at how easy it was to clean the granite cooktop.  It was very browned when we were done.  We let it cool and I thought I was going to need to soak it overnight to clean it, the food and browning easily slid off.  Very easy to use.

Au Revoir!

A couple weeks ago I received an announcement for the new Silver Spoon Pasta cookbook.  The pitch:

The Silver Spoon, THE SILVER SPOON: PASTA (Phaidon Press; October 12, 2009; $39.95 hardcover) presents a collection of more than 350 authentic and definitive pasta recipes for all fans of this tasty Italian staple. Whereas The Encyclopedia of Pasta is more of an A to Z “history” of pasta, our book shows how to actually prepare the pasta dishes.

I own the original Silver Spoon and it is an amazing reference of Italian recipes.  I was excited to review this book based on my previous experience.

The book is divided into two categories, dry pasta and fresh pasta.  Most of the dry pasta dishes seem to be side dishes more than entrees, which makes sense as pasta is typically one of four courses served in Italy, whereas in the U.S. we tend to order pasta as a main course.

The ingredients in the book were easy to come by.  In the original Silver Spoon cookbook they embraced the notion of waste not want not, and many of the cuts of meat recommended are unavailable or undesirable to the squeamish American palate.  The Silver Spoon Pasta relies on easy to find, commonly appealing ingredients (except for some of the pasta shapes).  The downside is that the recipes became repetitive.

I made two dishes from the book, a angel hair and Gruyere and a baked angel hair pasta mold.  The angel hair and Gruyere turned out very nice and was eaten quickly by my family.  The recipe itself would be no surprise to a frequent cook.  It was written as a vegetarian dish, I added chicken and mushrooms because if I don’t have some meat, I don’t feel like I’ve eaten.  Essentially you made a bechamel sauce and added Gruyere then I topped it with chicken breast sauteed in butter with salt, pepper, roasted garlic and mushrooms.

The second dish intrigued me because I’d never seen it.  It was a baked angel hair pasta mold.

To make it, I prepared a roux and added some cooking water from the angel hair pasta.  After the sauce thickened, I added three egg yolks and folded in the whipped whites of three eggs.  All of this went into a 9 inch round cake pan and I topped it with my red sauce.  As I mentioned before I can’t have a meal without meat, so I also cooked a rib eye for the three of us to share.  I’ll post that marinade recipe soon because it was YUMMY.

The pasta mold received a ho hum review by the family me included.

I also passed the book along to a friend of mine from Sicily.  He liked it and picked several recipes he wants us to prepare together.  He did comment that he wished there were more photos.

Overall I think this is a good cookbook for a beginner.  The techniques are easy for a home cook and there aren’t many requirements for specialized equipment or tools.  While each pasta shape and origin is described, the information is basic. It would have been nice to have included substitutions to in case you can’t find the pasta they suggest as many of the shapes in the book aren’t commonly stocked in American grocery stores.

I saw it this weekend at Costco for about $22 if you are interested.

Here’s the recipe that they included with the pitch:

RIGATONI WITH MEATBALLS Silver Spoon Pasta

RIGATONI WITH MEATBALLS

Rigatoni con Polpettine

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Cooking time: 1 hour

Serves 4

11 ounces ground meat

1 sprig chopped flat leaf parsley

½ garlic clove, chopped

1 egg, lightly beaten

all-purpose flour, for dusting

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, thinly sliced

1 celery stalk, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

1 sprig chopped small fresh rosemary

1 ¾ cups bottle strained tomatoes

12 ounces rigatoni

1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

salt and pepper

Combine the ground meat, parsley, and garlic in a bowl, then stir in the egg and season with salt and pepper. Shape the mixture into small meatballs, dust with flour, and set aside. Heat the oil in a pan, add the onion, celery, carrot, and rosemary and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes. Then add the meatballs, and increase the heat to medium. Cook until the meatballs are lightly browned all over, add the bottle strained tomatoes and season with salt. Lower the heat, cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 40 minutes. Cook the rigatoni in a large pan of salted boiling water until al dente, then drain, and tip into the pan with the meatballs. Mix well and heat through for 2 minutes. Transfer to a warm serving dish and sprinkle with the parmesan.

About two weeks ago I received a set of 6 POURfect bowls, 12 POURfect measuring cups and a POURfect Scrape-a-bowl.  I love having lots of different sized bowls in the kitchen because I believe in the French philosophy of mise-en-place.  I prep and measure (when absolutely necessary) all my ingredients prior to turning on the heat so that as I start to cook the dish I am not distracted chopping or finding a missing spice bottle while the food burns.  Because of this I was expecting to adore the POURfect bowls.  And I did enjoy using them.  I prepared several types of dishes, (cookies, meatloaf, stew, cake) so that I’d use them in a variety of situations.

If you are a baker I think you will love them.  It’s nice to be able to separate the wet ingredients from the dry in bowls that alloy you to easily pour into a stand mixer.  I’ve found myself covered in flour more than once trying to add flour to the mixer from a regular bowl.  The drip-less spout is handy for adding dry and wet ingredients to the mixer.  You can crack all your eggs in the bowl and add them one at a time very easily.  And speaking of cracking eggs each bowl has a ledge right by the handle that perfectly cracks the egg in half.  I have to be honest when I saw that feature pointed out on the documentation I was skeptical of it’s importance but after using it — it’s nice.  It’s almost like slicing the egg in half.

One thing I didn’t like about the bowls was the measurement marking.  They are raised in the plastic in the back of the bowl.  There’s no additional color so they are really hard to read and not useful in practice.  You’ll still need your measuring cups (dry and wet)  the only real use was for eyeballing.  The other issue I had with the bowls was using them in prep putting ingredients like aromatics in they were difficult to remove because they were too big to go through the spout.

The bowls are priced at $15 – $40.00 MSRP depending on which set.

The next item included was a set of 12 measuring spoons.  I’m not sure if they were trying to be cute; but they included a spoon for drop, dash, smidgeon and pinch.  The result is 4 unnecessary spoons in the set which clunk around my already packed kitchen gadget drawer.  They do have English and metric measurements which is helpful if you have cookbooks from Europe.  Their shape makes it easier to get them in some spice bottles and they’ll be durable.  But all in all I think there are too many spoons on the ring.  The measuring spoons are $12.00 MSRP.

Last but not least, in fact my favorite is the Scrape-a-bowl mixer attachment.  The attachment is available for KitchenAid 4.5 Tilt head ($40.00 MSRP), KitchenAid 5 Artisan ($40.00 MSRP), KitchenAid 5qt Bowl Lift ($42.00 MSRP), and KitchenAid 6qt Bowl Lift ($42.00 MSRP)

I love this product.  The one they sent me is red and white.  I used it to make meatloaf and a cake.  It perfectly scraped the bowl no lumps of ingredient on the bottom.  One of my pet peeves (in fact the only pet peeve I had about my stand up mixer) was the paddle attachment and having to stop and scrape, now I don’t have to.  I think if you only add one thing to yoru kitchen — this should be it.

If you’re interested in buying POURfect products, please visit Shop POURfect

Video of me using an immersion blender to make cake frosting  Click here to watch (1:46)

Video of me unpacking the POURfect Samples (mine are red, prettier than the white) Click here to watch (1:18)

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