What kitchen tasks do you love doing?

[Darienne]

Tried to look for this topic and found nothing.

This morning I was making two chocolate mousses to fill our double birthday cake one with milk chocolate and Chambord, the other with 60% bittersweet and brandy, and realized although I made the cake with my stand mixer, I always choose to whip heavy cream with my little hand mixer. Very satisfying to whip heavy cream and watch the peaks form.

I also like to make my white counters bare and clean. Gives me great satisfaction. (I am a really messy cook).

What do you actually like doing that others might not like to do or would do the simplest way possible?

[Panaderia Canadiense]

I really really enjoy hand-tempering chocolate. I had a tempering machine but hardly ever used it and subsequently sold it, since I learned chocolaterie from a handmaker of chocolates and thus I gauge temper by the appearance and feel of the chocolate on my countertops and scraper. There's something very zen about hand-tempering as well, and I tend to use it as a bit of a meditiation on chocolate.

I also love using a handmixer to beat egg whites and heavy cream - you're completely right about the satisfaction of pulling the beaters up to watch the peaks, and you just don't get that using the Kitchenaid...

Another thing that I love to do that could probably be done faster and easier in the KA is to knead breads. There's something about the feel of them under my hands and the extreme messiness of the process (at the beginning at least, before the gluten has developed) that I enjoy greatly. There's also something wonderfully cathartic about the pounding and throwing of the dough after the doubling rise.

[Lindacakes]

Shelling peas.

Preparing (plumping, cutting, etc.) dried fruit or nuts.

Mixing anything, including cutting butter into flour.

Cutting out cookies.

Tasting batters and doughs.

Breaking the seal on jarred food, like peanut butter.

Washing dishes, flat dishes, not cups, not cutlery and certainly not pots.

Rolling dough.

[Darienne]

Washing dishes, flat dishes, not cups, not cutlery and certainly not pots.

Hmmm...I love hand washing my wonderful stainless steel mixing bowls which I bought in Moab of all places. Never seen any this heavy. And I love hand washing my Paderno pots which no one else gets to use (sorry DH). In fact, I love hand washing all stainless pots, pans, bowls, etc.

[Special K]

I love chopping onions. Chopping, slicing, dicing whatever, really. But onions are my fave.

I love loading and unloading the dishwasher. For so long I didn'thave one; then I had a crummy one; I've had a really good one for about two years now and I still am just thrilled with it.

I love cleaning the sink. If the sink is clean, my day is done.

[Kouign Aman]

If time permits, I like standing at the counter peeling roasted peppers. Its brainless and relaxing. And it can be combined with chitchat if appropriate.

[maggiethecat]

I make all my pastry, of any kind, by hand. I feel as if I have more control, and I find it -- fun!

[andiesenji]

Preparing things that most folks do not bother to make at home.

There is something extremely satisfying about making something as simple as butter. Wielding the butter paddles to achieve the perfect consistency is a task of which I never tire.

[eternal]

I would second the dicing, cutting, slicing. I like getting my ingredients ready. It is meditating and then the cooking experience is so much more pleasurable. When in a rush, I tend to try and prepare Just-In-Time but then I'm more likely to forget something and the whole experience is more stressed.

Watching a baseball game while shelling favas ain't bad either

[ruthcooks]

Turning out large quantities of food, as when I was catering, and finding shortcuts to doing so. Like devising a method of making little sandwiches (think ham on buns) with a minimum of work, so each one has fillings and spreads which go to the very edges of each piece.

And making an assortment of tiny desserts for holiday buffets. I would start out with four kinds, then when some started running low, I would make a fifth and sixth and add them to the mix and so on throughout the season, so each party had a different selection of choices. There might be almond paste tarts with apricot glaze, chocolate truffles, jam "strudels" and powdered sugar Mexican wedding cookies to start. Then perhaps lace cookies, fudge tarts and sugar dipped strawberries as replacements.

[Jmahl]

Lately I really began to like cutting up chickens. Funny but I seem to getting better and better at it the more I cut up.

[liuzhou]

Another playing with knives fan here.

The first time I filleted a fish was one of life's high points.

But any cutting, chopping, slicing task rocks my boat.

[judiu]

My knife skills suck (pardon the expression), so I have to pay major attention, but as I mentioned on the 'cooking zen' thread a while back, I can get zoned chopping food with the two handed cleaver action. I don't even have matching knives or cleavers; all my tools are replacements from after my house burned years ago, but it still works well!

[Lupinus]

Anything involving knife work. Slicing, dicing, deboning, etc.

I also rather enjoy kneading dough by hand. Good workout

[heidih]

I really enjoy the meditative act of peeling and deveining shrimp and peeling favas and other beans and peas.

I am fascinated by egg whites whipping up and enjoy doing it by hand if time and energy permit.

[andiesenji]

I also like playing with my various gadgets and appliances.

[The Supper Model]

kneading dough and making puff pastry by hand. Very cathartic and makes the final product even more enjoyable.

[thayes1c]

Making pesto the hard way, in a mortar. Pretty much using the mortar and pestle to make anything is satisfying, in a "my arms hurt but this is sure going to taste good" kind of way.

Also the cutting up of chickens and general chopping, dicing, mincing.

[patrickamory]

Mincing garlic.

[kayb]

Chopping herbs with my Alaskan ulu knife (looks like a small mezzaluna, but with just one handle) that a co-worker brought me back from Alaska. It makes short work of what used to be a tiresome job.

Grating cheese. And throwing the tiny piece left that's too small to grate to Lucy, the pug, and watching her snarf it up!

[Emily_R]

Hulling strawberries. And its a good thing I like it, because the garden is producing four pounds a day!

[_john]

making soba

[Ashen]

Mincing garlic.

I will second that.. I have and use microplanes , a mortar & pestle and we even have a garlic press that my wife prefers this . Still there is nothing quite like breaking down large quantities garlic into a puree with a blade to give me a sense of satisfaction. very weird.

[Mjx]

Boning pretty much anything with a scalpel. Ggod, I do love the precision...

[LindaK]

When work becomes especially high stakes and stressful, I find that simple tasks with a knife are the best therapy around. Food processor be damned. Having dispatched a pile of onions and garlic, now I'm off to chop a few cups of parsley and cilantro...thank heavens for cooking.