Intimidating ingredients and techniques

I'm usually pretty confident in the kitchen, there are however, certain ingredients and techniques I shy away from. I'm pretty good at hiding them too. For the most part I learn by example. In truth I am a creature of habit and it takes me a while to experiment outside my comfort zone. This post is intended to publicly "name and shame" my food fears.

 

We all have our hang ups, hesitations and stumbling blocks and I think one of the main reasons why I started this blog was to push myself out of my cooking comfort zone. So some, but by no means all foods and cooking techinuqes that intimidate me (and I wish I was good at) include ...

 

cooking with...

 Fennel bulbs

artichokes
quinoa

gelatin leaves
green paw-paw/mango

sago

 

and...

baking bread
making fresh pasta

deep frying things

pickling and preserving

 

I'm sure for some of you these are second nature - if you have any tips or recipe suggestions, please add them to the comments of this post or send me an email!

 

Today I am starting small - with a couple of purple artichokes I bought from Balcatta Growers Fresh; a great little deli/green grocer down the road that has an awesome range including fresh ricotta, yummy Italian breads and an exciting fruit and vege section, which today included massive bags of eggplants for $3 and local garlic.... I chose purple artichokes over green - mostly because I havn't seen them before. I stuck to a very simple recipe -

Steamed artichokes served with a garlic, lime butter sauce

 

 

photographing these babies is like food porn....

 

I read up online how to prepare them - if you steam or boil them seems all you need to do is cut off the top ~ inch of the artichoke and if you care about presentation you cut the tips off the outer leaves and rub with lemon. I chose to steam them instead of boiling them to try and retain the nutrients as much as possible.

 

 

 

online people recommend to steam for 20-40 minutes depending on the size of the artichoke. I think mine were pretty small, after about 25 minutes I could push a satay stick straight through the steam without any resistance.

 

 

while they were steaming I made the lime-butter-garlic sauce.

 

~ 50 gm butter

2 cloves garlic

juice of 2 limes

parsley

 

 

On a low heat, gently melt the butter with some coarsely chopped garlic. Once the butter is melted keep heating through for a minute or so. Add parsley and lime juice and you're done!

 

 

 

Once your artichokes are cooked - the technique is to pick off the leaves one by one, dip them in something (like a butter sauce) and with your teeth, scrape off the fleshy inner bit that is close to the base of where is was attached....

 

 

I don't have a history of being a big artichoke fan and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about! When I first started eating it occurred to me that it just seemed like a convenient excuse to eat your own weight in butter. The outer leaves are a little tough, low on edible flesh and bitter if you eat the wrong bit...

 

However the deeper you go, the more tender and tasty it becomes. then once you've eaten the flesh off all the leaves (some of the inner ones I ate almost in entirety) - you reach the inedible choke - the fuzzy flower like part - which after you cut out - you're left with the heart, which was by far the highlight.... (I didn't even stop to photograph it)...

 

 

conquering your fears, even those of intimidating food, is always rewarding!