What kitchen tasks do you love doing?

[maggiethecat]

I second making puff pastry, and doing anything at all with phyllo.

[Country]

Getting mise en place done and finally ready to start cooking.

[janeer]

I second making puff pastry, and doing anything at all with phyllo.

I love making puff paste too, and pastry in general. And I love peeling apples (honest), getting the whole peel off in one continuous, very thin, spiral. Beating egg whites. Searing. And zesting, I like zesting.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

I loathe chopping and dicing, get terribly bored attending stove-top cooking and can't abide making cookies since my attention wanders before the last batch is out of the oven.

But I am happy washing dishes and cookware that I love. It involves handling stuff I identify with and is a source of instant gratification: you have dirty stuff on one side and sparkling clean on the other.

Of course, the satisfaction only lasts until someone starts to eat again and upsets the zen balance....

[Peter the eater]

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

That's as impressive as it is creepy. I think I'm on the same page -- give me a whole critter with all the bits intact. I love the kitchen tasks of dispatching, plucking, skinning, filleting, shelling, etc. Shrink-wrapped styrene trays have their place but they're just not as much fun.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Filleting fish. Also a lot of slicing/dicing/julienne tasks that others might do with a mandoline or the slicing disks of a food processor, I enjoy doing with a knife. Making clean, neat cuts feels like the reward for maintaining sharp knives.

[Dexter]

Making fresh pasta.

Sharpening my knives.

Making stock (any kind, really).

[Kathyann]

Cutting up veggies. Kneading bread. Cooking anything with my grandkids

[lindag]

Making bread.

Every part of the process, from start to finish.

But especially the aroma of the loaf baking in the oven. Divine.

[Martin Fisher]

I love making tomato conserva, sausage and stock.

[angevin]

Slaughtering live lobsters. Quickly and efficiently with the knife tip severing the head in two.