Tuesday's Tip

Sometimes the simplest change in preparation can make a big difference in taste. I’ll give you a “for instance” from my own cooking journey: When I was learning to cook, I sometimes didn’t give as much attention to detail in the size of how to cut, slice and dice components of a recipe. I recall a certain chicken and vegetable stir-fry I was preparing in which I hastily cut up the chicken in larger-than-usual stir-fry pieces. It completely altered the beauty of a stir-fry. Instead of uniformly sautéed components, the chicken overwhelmed the vegetables and just sort of “didn’t work.” I remembered this experience last week when I made a new recipe, Slow Cooker Moo Shu Pork. The recipe called for very thinly sliced pork, which can be tricky to slice thin…unless, of course, you use a trick I did in preparing the Moo Shu: Pop the pork in the freezer for about 20 minutes or so (depending on how big a piece of pork you have) to make thin slicing much easier. The slight freeze firms up the meat which allows it to be handled and sliced simply. Of course, an adequately sharp knife helps a lot too. By the way, you have *got* to try the Moo Shu recipe. It was fabulous and almost too easy to believe. SPC