Sunday 2 August 2015

Set of 4 Joie Garnishing Knives

In the kitchen section of a department store recently I came across a set of 4 ‘Garnishing knives’.  These are said to be very sharp with highly flexible blades.  They looked very useful but I couldn’t understand why anyone would require 4 of them.

I concluded that there must be more to garnishing  with a garnishing knife than first meets the eye and decided to buy a set – only £3 for the 4 so not a huge decision.

Having got them out of the packaging I found that they are indeed very sharp and highly flexible.  But there were no instructions included so I was not sure what to do with them.

I was certain there must be more to garnishing than the tomato wedges shown on the packaging (which had to be destroyed to get the knives out so could not photograph it – don’t you just hate that?)

A search on the internet produced a few suggestions for things to try and these included the aforesaid tomato roses, radish florets and carrot flowers, but I still found myself wondering why anyone would ever need 4 of the knives unless one were to undertake production line methods of turning out such delicacies.

Guess what my son and daughter will be getting for Christmas this year?

Saturday 1 August 2015

Beef Chilli

The apartment we stayed in in Aberdeen claimed to have a ‘fully-equipped kitchen for those that like to cook’.  It looked a bit basic to me but I thought I should at the very least put it to the test.

I chose something intrinsically simple and very familiar so I could improvise/cut corners if need be – a beef chilli.   I bought the ingredients at Marks & Spencer so no issue with the qualiy.

The first challenge was chopping an onion.  There were no kitchen knives of any kind but there were some steak knives with brutal, serrated edges.  I thought these would do a better job than the ordinary ‘eating’ knives so had a go.

Peeling it was OK, as was ‘topping and tailing’ – the main challenge was getting it into pieces of a size that would cook.  The steak knife seemed to have a mind of its own and attempting any kind of precision cutting out of the question so I decided to just slice (rather than chop) it.  I tried very hard to slice it thinly but ended up with irregular strips.

Choice of pans was a huge saucepan or a reasonably-sized frying pan so the frying pan it was.  At this point I realised I had omitted to buy oil of any kind.  There’s usually some of some kind in any apartment one rents as an oily bottle is not ideal for taking home after a short break, but here there was nothing.

I could have dry-fried them, which would have worked after a fashion but decided to fry off the mince in the pan first thereby releasing its fat in which I would fry the onions – brainwave!

This worked and having fried the onions, I added a teaspoon of the ‘easy’ garlic I had bought, having decided that while I might get away with cutting up an onion with a steak knife there was no way it would achieve anything with a clove of garlic.

Next I added a hacked up green chilli and a ‘chunked’ (rather than cubed) red pepper.  After letting these fry for a couple of minutes, I put the fried mince back in the pan and added a tin of tomatoes.  Having brought it to the boil, I turned it down and let it simmer for about 15 minutes, at which point I mixed in the tin of mixed beans I had bought.

About 15 minutes later it seemed ready to eat.  It looked a bit crude but edible – ‘chunky’ may work with chips but definitely leaves sliced onions looking the worse for wear.

It was OK – I was hungry which always helps when trying something a bit ‘different’ and I ate it, but I think I would have got fed up with chilli, as cooking anything else would have presented just too many problems.