Quarantine Recipes That Require A Lot of Knifework

[Chang]

Bored out of my mind at home and finding myself losing motivation and inspiration. Just had a couple new knives show up at my door, so my fingers are gettin' itchy again. Any ideas?

Before anyone says cut veg for stock, my freezer is already filled to the brim with veg for stock, stock, and my fridge has stock ready to go.

 

[panda]

Spring rolls

 

[Kgp]

Bored out of my mind at home and finding myself losing motivation and inspiration. Just had a couple new knives show up at my door, so my fingers are gettin' itchy again. Any ideas?

Before anyone says cut veg for stock, my freezer is already filled to the brim with veg for stock, stock, and my fridge has stock ready to go.

Red beans and rice. I use ham bone and about a pound of diced ham instead of a ham hock. Great recipe!

Ken

http://www.greeneggers.com/index.php?option=com_recipes&Itemid=71&func=detail&id=1370

 

[Nemo]

Ragu.

https://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/threads/ragu.33676/

 

[stringer]

Meatballs
Brunoise every vegetable you can get your hands on. Saute to au sec. Season. Chill.
Mix 1/4 veggie mixture with 3/4 ground meat of your choice by weight.
Scoop into meatballs with a portion scooper onto a small sheet pan. Freeze.
To eat, roast balls in oven for 15 minutes from frozen.

I usually do
Onions
Garlic
Carrots
Ginger
Lemongrass
Jalapenos
Bell pepper
Parsnips
Fennel
Mushrooms
Tomato
Zucchini
Summer squash
Eggplant
Etc.


With ground beef, pork, chicken, or turkey.

I make a huge batch ahead of time. After they freeze I put them in gallon freezer bags and pull out what I need each time.

 

[boomchakabowwow]

Just made a veggie Lo-Mein tonight. Almost wire me out slicing and dicing.

 

[M1k3]

Mirepoix and Trinity.

 

[dafox]

Stir fry

 

[dafox]

Meatballs
Brunoise every vegetable you can get your hands on. Saute to au sec. Season. Chill.
Mix 1/4 veggie mixture with 3/4 ground meat of your choice by weight.
Scoop into meatballs with a portion scooper onto a small sheet pan. Freeze.
To eat, roast balls in oven for 15 minutes from frozen.

I usually do
Onions
Garlic
Carrots
Ginger
Lemongrass
Jalapenos
Bell pepper
Parsnips
Fennel
Mushrooms
Tomato
Zucchini
Summer squash
Eggplant
Etc.


With ground beef, pork, chicken, or turkey.

I make a huge batch ahead of time. After they freeze I put them in gallon freezer bags and pull out what I need each time.

I'm gonna do this!
Great idea.

 

[rickbern]

Borscht

 

[stephen129]

French onion soup
Anything that requires mirepoix, the holy trinity or soffrito.
Maybe a cajun/creole stew. Jambalaya?
Caribbean brown chicken stew

 

[TSF415]

Minestrone. Make veggie stock. Do a perfect small dice off all small veg you can find. Mix together and wala.... of course there’s other seasoning I do. If anyone’s interested I’ll post

 

[YumYumSauce]

Stir frys, slicing cabbage, segmenting oranges, cleaning asparagus, chopping parsley, peeling everything with a knife, practice decorative cuts, breaking down chicken yakitori style. You can get like 20 something pieces, I tried it last week. Very fun

 

[stephen129]

A big salad
Coleslaw

 

[Supraunleaded]

Salsa, Jambalaya /gumbo (as previously mentioned), Spanish chicken rice (I left out the olives and reduced the amount of wine/stock), breaking down chicken Yakitori style.

 

[OnionSlicer]

This is a good thread. I've made @stringer meatballs several times, with varying veggie mixes and meat-to-veggie ratios (as much as 2-to-1 meat to veggie, it worked fine). First time I froze them though, they ended up sticking together pretty hard after a few weeks, so now I interleave them with parchment paper.

 

[luuogle]

Spring rolls
yellow onion
Nappa cabbage
julienne carrot
couple cloves garlic and inch ginger grated
ground pork
fish sauce
oyster sauce
fish sauce
sesame oil
soaked thin vermicelli noodles in hot water cut into bite-size pieces
salt
pepper

Start first with soaking the vermicelli noodles in some hot water. Then start on cutting the veg you want enough to be a quarter of the mixture. Slice the onions and cabbage then julienne the carrot. Add the onions to the pan first, then carrot, and finally cabbage. Just cook long enough so the veggies are cooked through a lose a lot of their moisture. Spread onto a tray and allow to cool down. Get the garlic and ginger grated while the veg cools down and chop up your noodles into bite-size pieces to be mixed in. Mix the veggies, vermicelli noodles, ground pork, add fish sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, salt, and pepper I like using white pepper. Fry off a little bit in a pan to check for proper seasoning. Then it's time to roll some spring rolls. Heat your oil to 350 Fahrenheit and fry until golden brown drain on paper towels.

 

[chefwp]

jambalaya, pasta bolognese, minestrone, to name a few

I love this Ina Garten recipe for 'winter minestrone'

 

[chefwp]

Borscht

I love borscht, but I admit I always put the disk in the food processor to shred the beets.

 

[stringer]

This is a good thread. I've made @stringer meatballs several times, with varying veggie mixes and meat-to-veggie ratios (as much as 2-to-1 meat to veggie, it worked fine). First time I froze them though, they ended up sticking together pretty hard after a few weeks, so now I interleave them with parchment paper.
View attachment 140600View attachment 140599

The key is to freeze them "IQF" style. As in individually quick frozen. I freeze them on sheet pans with a tiny bit of space between. And then after they are rock solid I move them to Ziploc bags for long term storage. To reheat I just roast them from frozen with a bit of oil and salt and pepper.

 

[OnionSlicer]

The key is to freeze them "IQF" style. As in individually quick frozen. I freeze them on sheet pans with a tiny bit of space between. And then after they are rock solid I move them to Ziploc bags for long term storage. To reheat I just roast them from frozen with a bit of oil and salt and pepper.

That's what I've been doing, maybe I'm not letting them freeze long enough? How long do you leave them on a sheet pan before transferring to bags? I think I did ~45 mins the first time, they seemed pretty solid but still stuck together later in the bag.

 

[stringer]

That's what I've been doing, maybe I'm not letting them freeze long enough? How long do you leave them on a sheet pan before transferring to bags? I think I did ~45 mins the first time, they seemed pretty solid but still stuck together later in the bag.

Overnight at least.

 

[rickbern]

@OnionSlicer Make a Persian shirazi salad to go with it. Plenty of dicing there

https://www.themediterraneandish.com/shirazi-salad-recipe/

 

[rickbern]

@chefwp I’m an idiot, I use a four sided grater.

 

[DitmasPork]

Bored out of my mind at home and finding myself losing motivation and inspiration. Just had a couple new knives show up at my door, so my fingers are gettin' itchy again. Any ideas?

Before anyone says cut veg for stock, my freezer is already filled to the brim with veg for stock, stock, and my fridge has stock ready to go.

Depends on the type of knife work? Yeah, the pandemic had me cutting, slicing and dicing a lot. Here're some ideas from my covid kitchen-era.

Rustic French apple tart—for a bit of finesse and making something pretty.

Butterflying a fish—to work on fish butchery skills.

Uzbek 'Korean style carrot salad'—for repetitive cutting.

 

[captaincaed]

Lots of variety in this recipe

Also Stringer's crispy onions require a little finesse, and they're super delicious.

 

[Dan-]

Pretty much anything requiring brunoise will get you there. Here's another option: Recipe: French Laundry's Halibut