Sunday, September 7, 2014

Kitchen Trick - Woody Herbs

How much of a pain is it to get the leaves off tarragon, rosemary, etc. In my world it is a huge PITA. So I cast around thinking about how to do it. I came up with this when making tarragon mustrd this morning.

I wanted something like the pile on the right while starting with the things on the left


Step 1 - remove the leafy top bits. The stems there won't hurt.
Step 2 Poke the woody bit from the top through a hole in a colander.
 Step 3 Pull the stem through from the outside of the colander leaving the leaves in the colander
The leaves stay in the bowl, and the woody stem comes out cleanly.

Kitchen Trick - Marking Bowls

Do you ever need to know the weight of what you put into the bowl before zeroing the scale? Yeah, I know it shouldn't happen, but I have been caught out a couple of times. My simple cure? I write the weight of the bowl on the bottom using a sharpie. Then if I need the weight of the contents, no need to dirty another bowl - just subtract the weight of the bowl from the total weight.
Of course, being better organized would help too!