A guest post by Mel Barrett
Mel Barrett writes a regular cookery column for the Wholesome Food Association. Mel is a former management consultant who, since leaving the corporate world, has worked with butchers, bakers and canapé-makers (and many others too!) who share her passion for food produced with integrity. She has written/co-written publications for Sustain (the alliance for better food and farming) on bread and London’s food economy, and is currently developing a new kind of cookery course. She has two young daughters. To see Mel’s growing collection of cookery columns, click here.
For those wondering where this rather meandering and verbose series is going to end up, let me remind you of our starting point: we are in search of some kind of system to help the domestic cook get dinner on the table night after night, without reaching for the recipe book.
finely shredded vegetables
In Column Two, I suggest that a system is eminently possible because, although the scope of possible cooking outcomes is vast in number and complexity (there are millions of potential dishes), there are actually comparatively few inputs (ingredients), to which we perform the same standard processes each time: we cut; we heat; we combine. Recipes tell us exactly what to do, specifying cutting techniques, heating methods and ingredients. In order to dispense with the ‘what to do’, we need to understand the ‘why’. We have started down the path of explaining why we might select one ingredient over another in previous columns on flavour and colour (though there is more still to come on this subject). Column Six tackles heat. This column is all about the blade – not how to wield it (there are courses and cookbooks aplenty on ‘knife skills’), but why.
Escoffier, legendary French chef who presided over the kitchens of some of London’s grandest hotels at the turn of the last century, wrote of a “frantic love of novelty” amongst the wealthy dining classes, which saw him labouring away at night, “completely broken with the fatigue of a heavy day”, in an attempt to discover original combinations which would “produce a vogue”. Thankfully, no such pressure exists in the home. But we do need inspiration. One technique we might borrow, used by professional innovators such as product developers, is to create new from old, whereby an existing idea or product is reconfigured using different combinations of existing variables. The task is “not so much to see what no one has yet seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees”. (Arthur Schopenhauer.) In the kitchen, size and shape are two such variables.
What, then, can we see when it comes to size and shape? Thanks to a panoply of gadgets and implements, the only limits are our imagination. All foods can be left whole, cut to a size so small that the individual pieces are no longer discernible, or reduced to a range of dimensions in between. Food can be formed into geometric shapes (e.g. squares, rectangles, circles and ovals), organic shapes (irregular shapes commonly found in nature, e.g. rough stones and leaves) or symbolic shapes (precise man-made shapes with meaning, e.g. hearts and crosses). However, altering shape and size can affect flavour, texture and the ease with which the food can be prepared, so before substituting willy–nilly, here are a few considerations:
Shape
1. Geometric versus organic
Which shape to select is principally a matter of aesthetics, always subjective. Regular geometric shapes can suggest formality, particularly if they are arranged on the plate in a structured way. Oval shapes are considered more elegant by some than round. Ordered repetitive arrangements can be visually pleasing, for example layered rounds of potato in a gratin. Regular geometric shapes can be achieved in the following ways:
- Round foods (e.g. beetroot, radishes, certain types of squash, balls of mozarella), cylindrical foods (e.g. courgettes, carrots, cucumber; spring onions, baguettes) or oval shaped foods (e.g. potatoes, aubergines) can be sliced widthways into rounds (using knife, slicing attachment on blender or mandolin), or into wedges. Rounds can be cut in half to create semi-circles.
- Hollow or layered round foods (e.g. onions or foods which need seeds removing such as pumpkins) can be cut into rings and then crescents, or into wedges
- Cylindrical foods can be sliced on the diagonal into ovals.
- Firm foods can be cut into cubes (dice) or rectangular sticks (batons); vegetables can be shaped into oval barrels (‘turned’) with a turning knife.
- Soft foods can shaped into balls using scoops or ballers, or ovals (‘quenelles’), using two spoons.
- Minced or pureed foods can be formed by hand, mould or syringe into a variety of shapes.
implements for grating and pureeing
More naturally shaped shavings, slivers and chunks suit informal dishes, for example, rustic salads and stews. Irregular shaped foods, for example Jerusalem artichokes, peppers or small heads of cauliflower, can be sliced widthways or lengthways into interestingly shaped slices. Cylindrical foods can be sliced lengthways into long curvy oblongs (using knife, slicing attachment on blender, vegetable peeler or cheese slicer), or ‘roll cut’ (sliced on the diagonal then turned 90 degrees before each additional diagonal cut) to form pleasing shapes common in Chinese cooking. Soft foods (for example roasted peppers; bread; cheese) can be torn by hand. Leafy vegetables (e.g. cabbages and herbs) can be rolled into cylinders then cut with scissors or knife into undulating ribbons.
2. Solid versus hollow
Hollow shapes are perfect vehicles for trapping flavour. Consider whether there is a natural cavity which can be used, as in whole birds or vegetables such as peppers. If not, pockets for flavour can be created by scooping out soft centres before or after cooking (e.g. stuffed courgettes); by slicing horizontal cuts in flat, firm pieces of food (e.g. stuffed chicken breasts); by shaping malleable foods (for example, ridged tubes – rigatoni – and ‘little ears’ – orrechiette – made from pasta dough) or by rolling food, such as pastry, boned meat and cabbage leaves, around the flavouring.
Size
1. Large versus small
Foods presented whole can make a striking visual impression. Good candidates are those which convey an impression of bounty or extravagance, and can be easily shared at the table (e.g. a whole salmon; a truckle of cheese; a rib of beef), unusual or beautiful varieties (e.g. globe artichokes) or small foods, for example, scallops, quail and young vegetables such as new potatoes or young carrots (which should be no thicker than your little finger, according to Jane Grigson). There are practical reasons too for avoiding the knife: delicate food will disintegrate when cooked if cut too small (for example flakes of fish in a pie); large pieces provide good surface area coverage in a layered dish.
Small pieces can look dainty or elegant. Practically, they make for faster cooking and easier nibbling (important if food is to be eaten with fingers or chopsticks), but longer preparation times (if there is no food processor to hand). Very tiny pieces are more smoothly blended with other ingredients (e.g. in rosti, patty or stuffing), and easier to chew (why tough or fatty or cuts of meat are often minced). When it comes to ingredients used for flavour or texture, very small pieces can be dispersed throughout a dish, imparting magic to every bite (for example, a dish of purple sprouting broccoli sprinkled with garlic-and-olive-oil coated breadcrumbs is a very different dish to the same vegetable served plainly with garlic bread on the side). And of course, serving large chunks of pungent ingredients (e.g. raw garlic, chilli, ginger) will not endear you to the faint-hearted. .
2. Thick versus thin
Thick pieces – chunky wedges, fat chips – are suited to informal, everyday dining. Thin pieces, requiring greater skill and effort to produce, are associated with finesse and refinement. Thinner pieces have a greater surface area to volume than their thicker counterparts, which means more of the food is exposed to whatever substance they are surrounded by. This is good news for flavour lovers, should the coating be a delicious marinade; bad news for calorie counters, when it is fat (why French fries are generally more calorific than chunky chips). Food to be oven-roasted is best cut thick: too thin and it will dry out before browning. Conversely, meat, fish and vegetables destined for the more intense heat of the grill, barbecue or frying pan are best cut thinly, to avoid the problem of the surface becoming charred whilst the centre is still underdone (see Column Six, ‘How to cook anything’). Food which is difficult to chew or digest when raw can be enjoyed when it is cut very thinly, for example, certain vegetables, such as courgettes and celeriac.
3. Uniform versus irregular
If an ingredient is being cooked, it should be cut into even pieces, to avoid some being overdone whilst others are underdone. (Ingredients which cook at different rates should be cooked in stages). If ingredients are just being assembled then it is a matter of aesthetics. Precisely cut vegetables are one of the hallmarks of classical French cuisine, a sign of finesse. Anyone can hew a rough cube from a potato, but there will be no Cordon Bleu certificate for you if your petit brunoise (very small dice) are not 3mm cubed; your concasse (small dice) 6mm cubed; your fine julienne (thin sticks) 1.5 cm by 1.5cm by 5cm and your ‘turned’ vegetables 4-5cm with seven equal sides and two blunt ends. Preparing quantities of vegetables with such precision at speed takes much practice. In my opinion, the home cook has no need for such precision.
So, the next time your mind goes blank as you contemplate the question of dinner, consider using size and shape as your inspiration. Try vegetables paper-thin and raw, instead of chunky and cooked (shave ribbons of courgette and dress with lemon and olive oil for a delicious side dish; mix fine lengths of celeriac with mayonnaise like the French), or seek out young specimens of vegetables you would normally chop, and serve whole as a main feature of a salad. You never know, you may come up with a new global sensation, just like Escoffier…
References
Davidson, Alan, The Oxford Companion to Food, Oxford University Press, 2006
Escoffier, A., A Guide to Modern Cookery, William Heinemann Ltd, 1952
Grigson, Jane, Jane Grigson’s Vegetable Book, Penguin Books, 1980
Krogerus, Mikael and Tschappeler, Roman, The Decision Book - Fifty models for strategic thinking, Profile Books, 2011
Spaull, Susan, Bruce-Gardyne, Lucinda, Leiths Techniques Bible, Bloomsbury, 2003
This column content © Mel Barrett, 2012