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Thursday, July 2
I decided to clean out my tool bag a couple of nights ago, after talking with my old college friend about some crazy kitchen stories. I haven't touched my tools in a long time, and when I took them out and spread them out on the table, i held each one lovingly, remembering my own adventures in the kitchen. Each one had its own story to tell.
What was left in the bag, was only half of what I had owned, the other half I hope are at mum's place. And it saddened me that I only had 2 knives left! These were my pride and joy - my original babies. I will forever have a thing for sharp knives.
I spent a lot of time baking bread when I was in college. Chef Tan and I were the only ones who took baking seriously and I would spend my extra hours kneading dough and dumping huge amounts of flour into the industrial mixer. A lot of my tools, like the 2 scrapers (bottom left corner), spatulas (top right corner), and circular dough cutter served my bread making purposes. There's nothing quite like the art of baking bread. People say that baking pastries and baking bread are the same thing. What a misconception!!! Bread making is an exact science, that can be tweaked after laborious hours experimenting for the right temperature, the right amount of sugar or salt, the right angle for the razor blade to achieve the perfect grin, how many ice cubes goes into the oven, do you use a stone plate oven, or a combi oven, basket or no basket? Each baker has his or her own tricks, her own formula. If there's one thing I miss about cooking, it's baking. I miss the smell of fresh bread out of the oven, and waiting eagerly for the dough to ferment to yield one of nature's most simple delicacies.
The two ring moulds were mostly used for presentation purposes, for moulding appetizers and getting that stacked height that was all the rage years ago. The cloth filter was used for the pain staking consommé process. All that trouble for a crystal clear broth! I remember doing a smoked tomato consommé, which involved smoking plum tomatoes over smoldering wood chips and tea leaves on a hot plate, then turning it into soup with the mirepoix mixture and finely minced chicken breasts, and using egg whites to clarify the soup. We had to then continuously skim the floating crap out of the soup and eventually remove all the stuff that we had added and what is left is just tomato water. Then begins the tedious process of sieving the broth through layers and layers of cloth filter, ladle by ladle to achieve the crystal clear consommé. It looked like water, because for some reason, the liquid loses colour after the filtering process - the end result is sometimes called an 'essence'. Add some gelatin and you get a gelée!
The needle like instrument is called a trussing needle, used for tying up the roast meat and poultry so they hold their shape. Which is why some steaks are unnaturally round and whole roast chickens always look so plump and 'together'. I don't know if you can actually use a trussing needle for sewing, but I imagine that it's sharp enough to go through some pretty heavy fabric. The syringe was used for adding flavoured 'oils' to soups. I had a special tube with a extra fine nozzle for doing dots or lines on plated items. My favourite base was a balsamic reduction with its dark colour and syrup like consistency.
Now, let me tell you about my babies. The smallest being my most treasured - the paring knife. I used it for almost everything. This was also the most frequently stolen item in the kitchen as someone else's paring knife was always in a 'better' condition than your own. So to prevent paring knife theft - I engraved my initials on to my set of knives. Problem solved. No one dared to touch my knives, or they risked losing an appendage. The knife set comes with a butcher knife (4th from the bottom right), a flexible fish knife, two chef's knives (one big and one smaller one), and a paring knife. Of course, over time, this collection has grown to include all sorts of speciality knives - a bread knife, and a tourning knife for the dreaded tournée potatoes/carrots.
I've always dreamed of owning a set of GLOBAL knives, well knowned for being the sharpest knives on the block, these bad babies can cost about a 1000 bucks each, depending on the size. Apparently they are forged using the same metal alloys as samurai swords, resulting in a super light weight sharp ass blade. If you don't possess ninja-like knife skills - I guarantee that you WILL definitely hurt yourself.
And who can forget the mandoline? Goddamn, these contraptions are like thumb death traps. I think almost each one us had suffered thumb injuries due to the blasted thing. Ours had no hand guards. -_-' Alas, we had no choice but to use it to get paper thin slices and uniformed julienned pommes frites.
I cleaned each of the tools carefully and put them back in my bag. Hopefully, I will get the chance to use them again just like I did, years ago.
Posted at 10:11 am by niks
 | | | chel
July 2, 2009 06:50 PM PDT
wish I still lived in my old home. Would turn you loose in there everyday for a 5star meal! =D | |
| | | Term Paper
December 2, 2009 01:30 PM PST
It's great to see fresh, creative ideas that have never been done before. | |
| | | Term Papers
December 7, 2009 03:21 PM PST
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no copyrights claimed for most images used. images gleaned from various internet treasure chests
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