Raw Ingredient and Mise en Place porn thread. - Page 192

sooooo cute!

I know!

That's a lot of work, though. I do four regular sized ones and I am sick of it.

The first one to tell me that I should've cut more carefully gets a signed "fuck you too" e-card from me. This literally took me 1.5 hours with a filet knife to cut and clean (15 long and thin carrots, 10 stalks of celery, (4 onions))...

Why do you need so much mirepoix?

One big batch of bolognese. I expect dinner to be ready at 10-11pm. (6pm now) Might take a lot longer though because of the huge proportions and "just" 28cm Staub cocotte. Will take quite a long time to evaporate 750 ml of milk and 750ml of white wine by simmering. Whatever, maybe I'll eat it tomorrow (and for the rest of the week, lol).

b,

here's the thing. If that's mirepoix and will not be visible in a finished dish, then it looks fine. But it should not take 1.5 hours. Esp. the oinion should go very quick.

Also, why a filet knife??

Just moved out, lack of knifes. Will order a Forschner chef knife tomorrow. (and maybe some Japanese ones later, not sure yet)
I know, but I actually hurried. Especially the carrots (so long, so thin) and celery took a long time -- washing, peeling, chopping. The onions maybe took 5-7 minutes (because it's not really comfy with a filet knife).

Celery is relatively easy if you don't care how it looks. Wash, peel, smash to level out the "U" then do one or two parallel w/board lengthwise slices, then julienne & chop.

When I have to do a huge mass of mirepoix, I go out of my way to buy really big mutant carrots. Makes it much easier.

I half the celery in the middle and peel a good amount of the skin (inside the U) away.

The carrots were the only fresh ones. They had bigger ones, but they were "old ones". Carrots, I peel, then half them lengthwise. Sometimes I cut them in half in the middle if they're too long. Then I make some horizontal slices, depending on the thickness 0-3. Then lengthwise thin slices ("vertical"), and then I chop. I don't know whether there's really something to do wrong, but maybe you've got an even better technique.

I bought a book on the principles of mise en place by Dominique Corby. Really good book, it shows pretty much all of the ways you can break down each vegetable.

MGM consider Trying out Masterchef 2013?

i'd go a step further and say that's way overdone for a bolognese. all of those vegetables are just going to melt into the sauce after all that cooking. chopped is not only fine, it's what's been used in bologna for the last 100 years or so. unless, of course, you mainly wanted it for the exercise (and the picture to post in SF ... maybe we ought to have mirepoix circles like shoe circles).