Practicing cuts with coleslaw

 

Hello!

I’m back with a, fresh, crisp and simple recipe.

I’m a huge fan of coleslaw, especially the original coleslaw from St-Hubert, a chain of casual dining restaurants in Ontario, Quebec and eastern Canada.

Coleslaw usually refers to a shredded cabbage salad with vinaigrette, usually left to pickle to allow the vegetables to imbibe the acidic flavour. One of my favourite things about coleslaw is the limited amount of ingredients necessary to prepare it.

In addition to sharing the recipe, I will be introducing some basic cuts: chiffonnade, brunoise and julienne.

Delicious coleslaw:

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cabbage
• 2 carrots
• 3 celery stalks
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1/2 red onion
• 1 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
• 3/4 cups white vinegar
• 1/2 cup water
• Salt, pepper and sugar to taste

1.   Mince the garlic and place in pot with mustard seeds and vinegar.

2.   Heat the previous and allow to infuse around 15min.  Allow to cool slightly.

3.   Brunoise the celery stalks and onion.

4.   Julienne the carrots.

5.   Chiffonnade the cabbage.

6.   Place all the ingredients in a bowl and pour lukewarm vinegar mixture over and toss.

 

 

Mincing garlic is made easy if you cut the clove in half lengthwise, place it face down on the cutting board, place your chef knife flat overtop and using the palm of your hand, forcefully crush the garlic. If your garlic is fresh, it should break up into a paste. At this point, chop it into small chunks until it achieves the desired size.

Infusing the vinegar will allow the garlic and mustard taste to diffuse into the vinegar and and intensify the flavour. You may want to add some sugar here in order to reduce the intense acidity.

A brunoise cut is a small 3mm cube cut. To achieve this with the celery, cut the celery lengthwise into 3mm strips, then cut the strips into 3mm cubes. Depending on the size, try to create a cube following the width of the celery.

A julienne cut is a 1-2mm x 8cm stick. With a carrot, it is attained by following these steps:

1. Cut the carrot two to three pieces depending on the size. Cut where the size change is evident (usually this varies from 5-8cm).You want your whole carrot stick to be approximately uniform in width.
2. Square off the carrot in order to make a large carrot stick.
3. Cut the carrot stick in 1-2mm thick plates lengthwise.
4. Cut the plates into 1-2mm sticks.
   

Chiffonnade cabbage.

1. Remove leaves from cabbage.
2. Remove central vein (the hard white center) from leaves.
3. Pile leaves on top of each other and roll tightly.
4. Shave 1mm sections off the rolled cabbage to obtain ribbons of cabbage.

 

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix together. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Toss and enjoy.

 

Depending on how acidic you like your coleslaw, you can play with the reduction time and pickling time, increasing both for a more intense flavour.
Of course you can also switch the ingredients in the recipe adding or removing some ingredients.