Strip cabbage of its outer leaves; rinse the head well and pat dry.
Now slice the cabbage in half through its tough, fibrous core with a long, sturdy knife.
Cut each half in half again through the core. This will expose the core to make it easy to remove.
Holding each cabbage quarter upright, remove the tough core.
Now you can slice the cabbage into long, thin strips for slaws, salads, soups or stews or thicker strips for braises and sautés.
The word "canola" is a derivative of the phrase "Canadian oil, low acid."
Let's break that down a little further. Canola oil was first developed in Canada (in the 1970s), so that takes care of the "cano-" part of the word.
What about the "-la" or "low acid" part? Canola oil is made from varieties of rapeseed that contain very little amounts of something called erucic acid. Rapeseed naturally contains high levels of erucic acid, which has been suspected of being toxic to some animals in high levels.
People have been cooking with rapeseed oil for centuries. However, given the suspicions about its cumulative negative health effects, breeders began developing rapeseed that contained only small traces of erucic acid. And that's how "cano-" got its "-la".
When you want a dish to have quintessential garlic flavor that permeates each bite, mince it. You can mince with a knife, or a garlic press.
Either way, you need to free the individual cloves. To do that, press down on the head with the heel of your palm. Apply firm, even pressure so the cloves don't fly all over the place.
To peel an individual clove, cut of the hard stem end where the clove attached to the bulb. Either stop the cut just short of the skin on the other side and peel the skin around to remove it, or make the cut all the way through and squeeze out the clove. The older the clove, the easier the skin releases.
You can also peel it by setting the side of your knife blade on the clove and pressing down until you feel the skin release, though not hard enough to pulverize it, or the skin will get mixed in with the garlic.
To mince with a knife, smash the peeled clove with the side of the knife. Then just run your knife back and forth across the smashed clove, chopping as you go until it's as fine as you like.
If you don't want individual little pieces of garlic and have a press, just put the whole peeled clove (or cloves, if you can fit them) in the press and squeeze. Use your knife to trim away any clinging garlic.
How to cut a carrot on the bias
How to cut a carrot on the bias
When you prep carrots and other vegetables for dishes where their form really stands out -- like salads and stir-fries -- it's nice to cut them on the bias. Cutting this way increases the surface area of each slice, makes a thinner cut easier and just looks better.
To cut a carrot on the bias, chop off and discard the the root and stem, then slice the carrot at a sharp angle. Hold it firm against the cutting board for stability with one hand but keep your fingers tucked under and away from the blade.
Recipe: Carrot Mint Salad (Cookthink)
Recipe: Carrot Salad With Ginger Miso Vinaigrette (Cookthink)
In the 1500s, Europeans found turkeys in Mexico, domesticated them back at home and then repatriated them to the United States when they settled in the new world.
America's big, bland national bird was prized by Pilgrims and it's still the main event at our annual feast of shared blessings and family feuds.
Ben Franklin's suggestion that the national bird be changed from the eagle to the turkey was largely ignored, as was his cooking advice. For an "uncommonly tender" turkey, he unkindly recommended electrocution.
Farm-raised turkeys may be too fat to fly, but lithe wild turkeys do just fine in the air.
What do we mean by shimmering oil?
What do we mean by shimmering oil?
Shimmering oil is hot oil that is nearing its smoke point.
At room temperature, common cooking oils like vegetable and olive oil seem fairly thick. Put them in a pan and heat them though, and they thin out when you swirl the pan. As they get hotter, they tend to "flow" and coat the pan more easily.
In the right light, when you look at oil that's at a good temperature for sautéing -- nice and hot, but not yet smoking -- it shimmers. It forms "tines" like those on a wine glass. It looks colorful, iridescent even.
Shimmering oil is good for sautéing because it increases the chances that the food won't stick. Hot oil immediately seals the bottom of food, creating a natural barrier between it and the bottom of the pan.
When you want the flavor of ginger to permeate a a sauté , stir-fry, sauce or braise, mince it. For the most ginger flavor, mince it finely and add it toward the end of cooking. Cooking ginger longer mellows its flavor.
We usually start with what we call a "thumb" -- a piece of ginger roughly the size and shape of your thumb. To make the thumb easier to peel, start by cutting off any small protruding parts. You can peel and mince these separately.
We like to peel ginger with a spoon. Because a spoon is dull, it easily takes off the soft skin and leaves most of the aromatic flesh behind.
Slice the peeled thumb lengthwise into planks, thick or thin depending on how fine you want your mince to be. After you slice away one or two planks, roll the thumb over on the flat side for more stability.
Stack the planks and slice them lengthwise into matchsticks.
Now just gather the matchsticks together, rotate them 90 degrees, and slice them crosswise to complete the mince. For a finer mince, just run your knife across the pile a few times, chopping as you go.
Chopping is probably the most common way to prep an onion. Chopped onions show up in anything that needs the basic, earthy pungent flavor that onions give. Chop them larger for longer-cooking dishes like stews and rustic soups, and smaller (call it a dice if you like) for anything from salsas to sauces to ragouts.
To start, cut the onion in half through the root. The root itself will help keep the onion together for chopping
Rotate the onion 90 degrees and cut off the papery end (not the root end). This will make the skin easy to peel away and discard.
Peel back the onion's papery skin. It's often easiest to peel away the first layer of the onion along with the skin.
Make a series of diagonal cuts (roughly 45 degrees) into the side of the onion. Keep more space between the slices for a large chop. Make the cuts closer together for a small chop or a dice.
Now make a series of horizontal cuts to finish shaping the chop or dice.
Finally, rotate the onion again and slice crosswise against the checkerboard pattern you made in the onion. The chopped pieces will fall away from the onion.
