Thursday, July 29, 2010

Culinary tip, nuts, nuts, nuts

Crap, I have have been having writer's block lately.  At least I have a little culinary knowledge so I can post a recipe or something when I have a blank.

OK how many of you hate when you are chopping nuts and they go all over the place?  Would you like to know how to resolve that?  Simply toss your nuts (men get your mind out of the gutter) with a little water or oil, just enough to coat them, then chop them.  You will find they won't go everywhere.  

Keep one thing in mind.... Your recipe.  If you are baking cookies I wouldn't suggest tossing your nuts with oil (crap that sounds soo sexual) as it will affect the flavor of your cookies.

That reminds me of one of the favorite things for a guy to say to someone if they were toasting nuts in the oven at work.  "Hey man, how are your nuts doing?  They smell burnt"  When nuts are burning in the oven it is a pretty distinct smell to the point where you can usually tell what kind of nut it is.  One day my cook was toasting almonds in the oven and he forgot about them and I told him "you better check your nuts" without thinking about how it sounded coming out.  The staff got a laugh out of it.

That reminds me of another awkward moment.  When I was chef of a resort in the Maldives it was New Year's eve and I was doing an Italian station so I imported all these Italian products for the evening's event. One thing I got was a three foot long salami that is only available at that time of year.  I was speaking to one of the guests and he asked "Chef what will you be serving tonight?" My reply was, (as I was holding up my hands about three feet apart to show size) "you should see the size of the salami I got."  Right after I said it I realized how it came out and we both had one of those awkward silences and then busted out laughing.  I started to correct myself and explain that I had this sausage from Italy that is huge and fortunately he understood.  Thank god it was a man with a good sense of humor I was speaking to.

1 comment:

  1. Great advice for avoiding pieces of nuts splattering everywhere, will definitely use some oil next time I am cooking with them.

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