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Entries from Talk tagged with 'technique'
Chinese Dumpling and Soup Technique
My daughter's friend visited us for dinner the other night. It was great fun, because she brought some dumplings she and her mother had made (Chinese dumplings - the family is from Southern China) and wanted to show us how to cook them, as my daughter had mentioned how much she loved dumplings.
As I seem to not be able to keep this within a 1500 character message, this will be continued in the next post. :)
"Proper" techniques I just don't use...
Whether it's out of habit, obstinacy, or a simple lack of mastery, it seems every cook has at least one technique they do their own way. Not just among friends, either. Most professional chefs seem to have at least one of these quirks.
I'm sure I have many, but the two that come readily to mind are:
Chopping onions. I know how to do it the "right" way (i.e., keep root intact, make horizontal cuts then vertical, etc.), but I just don't do it. Reason? My way works fine for me, and the proper technique is a hassle, and doesn't seem to offer any real advantages over mine. In other words, pure obstinacy. (It makes me so happy to see an occasional pro use a technique similar to mine.)
Cracking eggs. I can do it one-handed but I always use two hands. Why? Mostly habit. But also because my eggs are usually of the brown variety. They have a thicker shell and a VERY tough membrane, which lend themselves to crushed shells rather than cracked.
Fess up. What do you do? Why?
Shortcut Secrets...
What are your secret (or, not so secret) shortcuts in cooking? Do you do everything from scratch except for that one little trick? What is it?
Mine is Annie Chun's Pad Thai sauce...no experimentation of my own with the million different possible ingredients has ever made home cooked pad thai taste so good.
I know you have them!
