Knife Skills, Herbs & Spices and Korean Food

Today we actually got to participate in the making of our lunch. Our instructor, Elliott Prag (contributor to Vegetarian Times by the way), taught us knife skills. Why didn’t I learn this 30 years ago!!! One of the first things they tell you in knife skills is something we all know but most of us ignore – ALWAYS WORK WITH A SHARP KNIFE! How many times do we say – “Oh I’ll just cut this onion quick I don’t have time to sharpen my knife.” Then what happens – it takes you twice as long to cut the onion AND the knife ends up slipping and you cut yourself. So step #1 – make sure you have the following items – a 10” Chef’s (or French) knife and/or a Japanese knife, a paring knife, and a sharpening “steel.” Use the steel every day that you use the knife. (There are lots of videos on You Tube that will show you how to do this). Have your knives sharpened professionally from time to time.

We learned lots of knife cuts today – matchstick (or julienne in French), roll cut, dice, mince, chiffonade, etc. Cut onions, garlic, carrots, celery, fennel, and escarole. All these went into the making of a vegetable stock which eventually became a white bean and escarole soup. This was served for lunch with a salad and a vegan mint and pistachio nut pesto on toasted whole wheat baguette slices. OMG this pesto was incredible! Since Vegans don’t eat cheese the pesto included umeboshi paste and sweet miso to replicate the taste and saltiness of cheese. The pistachios are a nice change from pine nuts and the mint was not as overpowering as I thought it would be. You could also use walnuts (which as we learned yesterday has Omega 3).

Herbs and Spices were next. Before we talk about this I want you all to leave your computer, walk into your kitchen, open your spice cupboard and throw out all the spices that you’ve had longer than a year. That’s right – throw them out! My guess is that if you smell them they won’t have any smell and if they do they won’t actually smell like the original spice. Key thing here – buy your herbs and spices in small quantities from a market that has a high turnover. Buy Organic! This is important. May spices are irradiated and buying Organic can help protect from that. Now here is another part you won’t like – you really should buy your spices whole then toast them lightly in a dry pan and grind them in a spice grinder (a small coffee grinder that is reserved just for spices). Okay, okay I know you aren’t going to do this. So just please try to buy the freshest spices you can. The taste is amazingly different. I’ve had a bottle of Chinese Five Spice powder in my kitchen for a couple of years and every time I’ve used it the spice didn’t seem to do much for my dishes. Yesterday Chef Elliott made it from scratch and it was unbelievable. He took pitted dates, filled them with whole roasted almonds and dusted them with the Chinese Five Spice. I know this sounds weird but the combination of the sweet date, crunch almond and spices was fantastic!

Okay I am running late this morning so I need to wrap up. The reason I didn’t post last night was because I didn’t get home until 10:30! Very exciting to be out on the town. Met up with my young cousin Jeremy who has been living in New York on an off for the last seven years. I haven’t seen Jeremy since he was 12 or 13 and he has turned into an amazing young man. About seven years ago Jeremy decided he wanted to move to New York so he packed his belongings in two boxes, bought a plane ticket to New York, grabbed a cab and told the cab driver to take him to the cheapest hotel in Times Square. The rest is history. I wish I had half the “chutzpah” that he does. So Jeremy and I had drinks on the roof terrace of 230 Fifth Ave overlooking the Empire State Building. What a spot! Jeremy is also a big "foodie" and loves to cook so we talked about food a lot!  He took me up to Korea Town where we had Bi Bim Bop with lots of little appetizers – Kim Chi, eggplant, some green leaves that I didn’t recognize, seaweed salad, etc. Great stuff.

Off to school now. I’ll be back tonight!

P.S  One correction or addition to yesterday's blog.  While Chef Judith likes to preheat her pan before adding oil Chef Elliott does not.  He likes to put the oil into a cold pan and bring it up to temp.  Cooking, like everything else in life, has many options and you need to find what works best for you.