Recipe Request - What lets me use my knives for lots of cutting

[captaincaed]

Home Cook here. What recipes do the real cooks know to require a little too much cutting?

I really enjoy using my knives, but most recipes seem like they're over before they begin.

Here are some of my current favorites, but I'm open to new ideas, especially if they have some unique/fancy presentation.

Thanks in advance!

 

[daveb]

12 qt Cambro of mire poix or trinity. Then it's time for soup, gumbo, or whowever. And you'll know the knife like you've slept with it.

 

[MontezumaBoy]

+1

12 qt Cambro of mire poix or trinity. Then it's time for soup, gumbo, or whowever. And you'll know the knife like you've slept with it.

I like making paella (remember the sofrito), confit biyaldi (slicing for the most part), ratatouille (slice/chop/mince), salsa (lots and lots of cutting if you want) and/or french onion soup to zen with my knives especially when the veggies are good.

 

[Paraffin]

I tried to think of the meals I make as a home cook with the most knife action. Obviously we don't get anywhere near what pro kitchens deal with.

For vegetables I guess it's vegetarian chili. Always a fairly large batch, so we can freeze extra. Lots of sliced and chopped green and red bell pepper, carrots, celery, along with the usual tomatoes, garlic, onions, and chili peppers. Bulghur wheat to replace the meat (we're not vegetarians, and also do the meat version, this is just fun for something a little lighter). That's the recipe where my nakiri gets the most action, practically an all-afternoon project.

For meat, it's trimming and slicing up meat for the grinder -- a big pork shoulder, or several chuck steaks and sirloin steaks. I use a long 190mm petty knife for that. Trimming excess fat and slicing into strips is a lot of work for the amount of grinding I like to do in one batch.

Those are the two tasks that guarantee I'll be stropping or sharpening the knives before taking it on.

 

[carlBC]

if i make two weeks of dog food and fill the freezer that's a few hours of veg prep there depending. if you have a pet ask your vet about making their food, will give you lots to chop.

Or make an ungodly amount of onion soup and freeze some. i can't imagine any other scenario at home i'd get close to a 12 qt cambro aside from pet food or onion soup for years. It is fun to prep that much veg though occasionally if you can find the excuse. I like Paraffin's suggestion of portioning/trimming meat.

 

[panda]

salsa
ragout
ratatouille

 

[boomchakabowwow]

Chinese food. We don’t use knives at the table. Everything is prepped and cooked to be essentially “bite sized”

 

[Sleep]

Zucchini canneloni filled with brunoise ratatouille. Customers have chosen it for a 300-400pax function next month. It's alt drop but still gonna be painful to prep. Ugh!

 

[ecchef]

Kinpira gobo. That’ll give ya a challenge.

 

[Xenif]

How about this dish? Feel like who ever invented the dish had knife testing in mind.

https://youtu.be/dyqy3L_ErYU

 

[HRC_64]

For me, soup and salsa doen't really stand out for recipes where the knife impacts the final product,
because the food is boiled or macerated as part of the recipe.

So i have a slightly different though process about the recipes that I really appreciate using a "good knife",
although this is going to be personal for everyone so YMMV.

1) Lots of advanced or bulk prep (where the cut quality means the ingredients hold better, not to mention better food-release comes into play).
2) Recipes where your cutting impacts the presentation, the surface/area ratio of the food, or actual mouth feel.
3) Certain cooked proteins, where the quality of the cut are noticeable, similar to No2

For the latter category, something as trivial as cucumber salad can be more enjoyable if you sheet the cucumber and cut it in long strips. This now takes dressing in a differnt way (∆ surface area/mass ratio), it seeds the cucumber which reduces excess moisture, and the peel can be re-intergrated into the dish (nutrients, color, and texture) without excessive toughness.

see, eg

[video=youtube;hyB3UHK8hpA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyB3UHK8hpA[/video]

 

[DitmasPork]

Of course it depends on what cutting technique and knife style rocks your boat.

Dishes that require a lot of knife work when I visit Hawa'i':

• Hawaiian poke—cubing ahi, chopping onions, chilies, scallions, limu seaweed, ginger.
• Gon lo mein—chopping scallion, julienne of carrots, celery and char siu.
• Doing fresh basil pesto with just a gyuto.
• Coleslaw.

A knife-work heavy dish that's on my personal bucket list is Richard Olney's legendary stuffed, braised, whole oxtail—requiring the patience and skill to bone out an entire oxtail and mincing meats and ingredients for the sausage-like stuffing.

 

[Panamapeet]

Ragu

 

[DamageInc]

ham and potato soup

diced ham, diced potato, diced carrots, diced onion, diced celery, chopped garlic

 

[captaincaed]

I tried to think of the meals I make as a home cook with the most knife action. Obviously we don't get anywhere near what pro kitchens deal with.

For vegetables I guess it's vegetarian chili. Always a fairly large batch, so we can freeze extra. Lots of sliced and chopped green and red bell pepper, carrots, celery, along with the usual tomatoes, garlic, onions, and chili peppers. Bulghur wheat to replace the meat (we're not vegetarians, and also do the meat version, this is just fun for something a little lighter). That's the recipe where my nakiri gets the most action, practically an all-afternoon project.

For meat, it's trimming and slicing up meat for the grinder -- a big pork shoulder, or several chuck steaks and sirloin steaks. I use a long 190mm petty knife for that. Trimming excess fat and slicing into strips is a lot of work for the amount of grinding I like to do in one batch.

Those are the two tasks that guarantee I'll be stropping or sharpening the knives before taking it on.

This is fantastic, I can't believe I forgot about chili. And my freezer is starting to empty out recently...

 

[captaincaed]

salsa
ragout
ratatouille

Ratatouille +1 - I remember this being a kid pleaser too

 

[captaincaed]

How about this dish? Feel like who ever invented the dish had knife testing in mind.

https://youtu.be/dyqy3L_ErYU

You are a mad man. Where did you find this gem?

 

[captaincaed]

For me, soup and salsa doen't really stand out for recipes where the knife impacts the final product,
because the food is boiled or macerated as part of the recipe.

So i have a slightly different though process about the recipes that I really appreciate using a "good knife",
although this is going to be personal for everyone so YMMV.

1) Lots of advanced or bulk prep (where the cut quality means the ingredients hold better, not to mention better food-release comes into play).
2) Recipes where your cutting impacts the presentation, the surface/area ratio of the food, or actual mouth feel.
3) Certain cooked proteins, where the quality of the cut are noticeable, similar to No2

For the latter category, something as trivial as cucumber salad can be more enjoyable if you sheet the cucumber and cut it in long strips. This now takes dressing in a differnt way (∆ surface area/mass ratio), it seeds the cucumber which reduces excess moisture, and the peel can be re-intergrated into the dish (nutrients, color, and texture) without excessive toughness.

see, eg

[video=youtube;hyB3UHK8hpA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyB3UHK8hpA[/video]

Of course it depends on what cutting technique and knife style rocks your boat.

Dishes that require a lot of knife work when I visit Hawa'i':

• Hawaiian poke—cubing ahi, chopping onions, chilies, scallions, limu seaweed, ginger.
• Gon lo mein—chopping scallion, julienne of carrots, celery and char siu.
• Doing fresh basil pesto with just a gyuto.
• Coleslaw.

A knife-work heavy dish that's on my personal bucket list is Richard Olney's legendary stuffed, braised, whole oxtail—requiring the patience and skill to bone out an entire oxtail and mincing meats and ingredients for the sausage-like stuffing.

Thank you both for the different take, especially the emphasis on changing surface area to mass, better mouth feel, etc. The cucumber salad reminds me a lot of Som Tam (the flavor seems dramatically different depending on how it's sliced and macerated with the dressing). Although damn you, because now I'm going to be looking for a single bevel knife and I'm already over budget on camping toys this season.

Coleslaw is also a great idea - getting a really good slaw can step a good BBQ experience up to a great one. I've had bad, good and downright subtle slaws that I remember acted more like a wine in terms of cleansing my palate between ribs.

When I get a recipe done up, I'll be sure to post a pic or two

 

[Keith Sinclair]

A refreshing cold soup is Gazpacho. Always better when vegetables are cut small with a sharp knife.

 

[Cashn]

Chorba. Recipes vary wildly but the one I’m used to includes carrot, onion, parsnip, potato, and a few more veggies/herbs that I can’t remember diced as small as possible. Meatballs as well if you want to really do some mincing. And stock for the base let’s you do some chicken butchering. Meat balls are beef I think? Idk, been forever since I made it. Recipe came from my stepdads mom in Israel.

 

[captaincaed]

Tonight's adventure was nicely sliced cabbage, carrots and onions for slaw to accompany my Thai pork ribs marinated in soy, ginger, lemongrass and honey. Basically, legalized crack.

And served on Corel because I'm oh-so classy.