Knife Skills: Pinch and Claw

Chad Ward, author of An Edge in the Kitchen, a book on knife sharpening and such has helpful video on a basic technique of knife skills. 

There are a few other knife grips and techniques to cover in other posts, but most of the chopping done for cooking, Chinese cooking especially, this is how it's done. The technique is the same for the cleaver-style Chinese chef's knife as well. 

Watch Martin Yan carefully in this video. You'll notice he does the same Pinch grip. But he tends  to move much faster. He's chatty for a while, but he gets there.

The pinch grip is about control and precision. It's usually a slow process for a home cook to pick up get as fast and precise as these videos. Home cook's simply don't prepare enough food to develop the skill quickly. That's OK. Stick with it and it will come. The benefits are better looking food that cooks properly, as well as efficiency with the tools and less waste. 

I want to compare how classic French technique uses this skill with how a home cook can use a variation that's particularly helpful for Chinese cooking. 

The Julienne cut.

In French technique and fine dining, the julienne cut is much like an even match stick, something also referenced frequently in cutting meat and vegetables for the wok. 

The French square off the section of carrot. The sides should be saved in a freezer bag for stock, don't waste them. Or snack on them. 

Make even perpendicular cuts through the block to form even planks. As you get close to the other side, it can be hard to hold. Lightly pinch the whole block of cut and uncut carrot together and make the last few cuts.

Stack the planks together horizontally and cut through evenly again as before.

These are ready to use as julienne carrots. If you want to go one step further, you could cut across your sticks into an even cube the french call Brunoise. I want a piece of carrot similar in size to a grain of cooked long grain rice. Make those cuts, a sort of stubby julienne. There will be a little extra most likely to trim off the last section. Again, those are saved in your freezer bag for stock.

A simpler technique but not as exact is to cut the carrot on the diagonal. Shingle the slices together. They should be mostly shingled from your cutting process. Shingling the carrots gives the efficiency of the stacked cut, but in a line that is more stable all the way to the last cut on a thin carrot or two.

Chop the shingled carrots again for match sticks. With my skills, its not as precise as the french technique, but much much faster.

This works for most vegetables you want in this shape. The primary exception is onion. That's a topic for another time.

A final few slices for rice grain size pieces. It's not as precise, but if I need higher precision cuts for a formal occasion, I know how to do that too.

And here's the carrot in some fried rice. 

Chinese Steamed Fish

This is a great dish of simple, elegant, outstanding flavors.

If you haven't had a fish steamed in the Chinese style you should definitely order one at a restaurant. Sadly in my experience, they're usually on the menu reserved for the Asians or in a special section of authentic dishes, and then in a dinner for 4-6 at that. It deserves to be readily available on the menu.

Jaden Hair of the Steamy Kitchen Blog has already written an entertaining recipe for steamed fish that really works. She takes a few extra steps that keep the flavors bright and up front.  Of note are two batches of aromatics and two batches of seasoning. One set of aromatics and seasoning is used at the start, then discarded when the cooking is done. Then the fish is hit with a batch of fresh seasonings just before serving.

Recipe link one more time just to be clear:
Steamed Fish of the Steamy Kitchen Blog

The bamboo steamers are usually too small to hold a fish of any common size. You could cut it up, but part of the enjoyment of this dish is the drama of a cooked whole fish.  A 12" or larger steamer is useful here, but you can adapt a wok to the job. I used a 2 tier 30cm steamer, two filets in each layer.

Over your boiling water, lay bamboo, wood or steel chopsticks in a tic-tac-toe pattern in the wok.

Set a heat proof plate on top of the chopsticks. Glass, stoneware, ceramic will all work fine for this. Be careful not to jostle the wok while steaming this way as the set up tilts easily.

Cover with the lid and start timing it.

Don't use plastic or melamine chopsticks as they'll soften under the heat. The bamboo chopsticks may well warp after a few uses too.

If you're not near a vendor of whole fish in a size or variety that works for you, fillets or frozen pieces work just fine.

We enjoyed some tilapia fillets this way tonight.

Not everyone in my family enjoys cilantro so I omitted that aromatic.  Even without the cilantro, you really should try this dish.

Turkey Tamales

This is one of my preferred uses for leftover turkey. How your turkey was seasoned and cooked is not a huge factor in the result but latin flavors in the first cooking of the turkey are a nice touch too. Turkey is worth cooking all year, not just at the holidays so you can experiment with different flavors and preparations.

Tamales include a few sub-recipes unless you can find some of it pre-made for you. You need to make a chile sauce to flavor the filling, and you need to make masa. If you have a preferred Mexican style chile sauce, use it.

Red Chile Sauce

1 tablespoon each ground California Chile, ground New Mexico Chile, Guajillo Chile. You can use other combinations of chiles to your taste preference of course.  I have to make my own ground guajillo chile from whole dried guajillos. You can see it's not as finely ground as the commercially ground chiles.
1 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds

Grind these seasonings together. It's OK to use preground cumin and coriander though the flavor is more distinct if you grind them yourself. Mortar and pestle the whole seeds is a fine technique. I've taken to using a cheap propeller coffee grinder for grinding whole spices and making such blends as this.

Spices in my grinder:

Spices after grinding:

4 medium onions chopped
10 cloves garlic sliced thinly
2 tablespoons bacon drippings or olive oil or a combination
2 1/2 cups turkey or chicken stock.

Melt the bacon fat over medium high heat in a large pan. Yes, you can use most any fat for this.

Add the chile spice mixture and stir to bloom its flavors in the hot fat, about 60 seconds.

When it's fully aromatic and blended with  the fat,

then add the onion and garlic.

Saute for a few minutes, to soften the onion.

Then add the turkey stock to cover the solids. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer.

Simmer 20 minutes.

 Scoop out the solids and puree. I use a hand blender.

Return the puree to the pan. I didn't puree in the pan because it would have splattered badly and the contents weren't deep enough to puree well and evenly. You can use a food processor or blender for this step too, whatever is most convenient for you.

Add 28 oz canned crushed tomatoes.

Combine, simmer another 20-30 minutes stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, soak a package of corn husks in hot water. And cut/pull your turkey into shreds. 

 Simmering away, be sure to stir it so you don't scorch your solids.

 It should be a nicely thickened sauce at the end.

For this batch, i was able to pick up a bag of tamale masa at a latin grocer. While convenient, when you purchase your masa pre-made, you don't have control over things like how much fat they used. Commercial masa has all been very fatty in my experience compared to when I make my own.

Husks on the left, masa in back, chile sauce up front, shredded turkey on the right.

I like to work on a dish towel or paper towel to absorb the water from the corn husk. Lay the husk out flat. The husk should be at least 6 inches wide on the trimmed end. Pick off any corn silk adhering to the husk.

Pull out about a 1/4 cup of masa.

Press it out into a square about 4 inches on a side and about 1/8 of an inch thick. I had some extra masa leftover which you can see at the bottom. I'll use that on the next tamale. Leave about 1/2 inch of space at the trimmed end of the husk. Certainly, you can make longer tamales if you have a longer wrapper.

Spoon on a generous tablespoon or so of chile sauce. More sauce is better than less and provides the moisture for this dish.  Darn the flash on my camera!

Top evenly with a layer of turkey.

Add on a little more chile sauce. Tamales tend to be on the dry side so plenty of sauce makes a better tamale.

 
Fold the edges of the masa together.

Continue rolling to cover the edge. A little sauce leaking out is not a problem.

Fold the bottom up against the tamale filling.  Yes, I prefer to make these with gloves on. Dries out my skin otherwise. You can tie the fold to hold it with string or a strip of corn husk, but it's not really needed.

Simply load the tamale into your steamer insert so that the tamale holds the fold in place. I have the steamer resting on its side so that gravity holds everything in place.

Repeat. You'll have some husks that aren't quite big enough for a tamale by themselves. Simply overlap the husks somewhat and 'glue' it in place when you spread out your masa.

Here is my pasta insert being filled with tamales to steam.  Lay it on its side as it gets filled up.  This way the tamales don't tip over and you can arrange them to hold themselves closed. You don't want to pack it tightly. You want some gaps for steam to move around the tamales.

And up right now that it's full and the tamales won't tip over.

Masa is just about gone as is the chile sauce. Turkey is all used up.

Add water to your pots to come up close to but not touching the steamer insert. You may need to add water to your pot during cooking if you can't hold at least 1 1/2 inches of water in the bottom.

Here is the steamer basket for my pressure cooker filled with tamales. Notice that the tamales are right up near the rim of my pressure cooker. The first time I steamed tamales in this pressure cooker, the masa rose up and blew through the steam release valve. I pack this steamer more carefully now and with a greater clearance near the pressure release.

Bring the pot to a boil, then reduce the heat to just hold the boil. Or with  a pressure cooker, bring it up to pressure, then reduce heat to just hold the pressure.

Cook in a standard pot for 45-60 minutes. 30 minutes in a pressure is sufficient. Other types of fillings and masa may have different cooking times. 

 All done. You can see how the masa expands as it cooks.

 Same for the pressure cooker.

Ready to eat. Hmm, I need better lighting.

 Unwrap the tamale and discard the husk.

Yummy.