Turned vegetables

Recently at work I was having a conversation with a colleague of mine, regarding the old way of cooking.  She said to me people don't cook like they used to.  The flavours are very monotonous nowadays, with people and chefs using parsley, thyme, basil and oregano in almost everything.  Well I agreed with her on that one, because for the most part that is true.  Look at herbs in the supermarket, its mostly parsley, thyme, and basil with a bit of mint, chives, and sometimes tarragon.

My question is why don't we use a wide variety of herbs and spices like we used to?  Why do we cut vegetables into wedges, sticks and cubes, why don't we go out of the box a bit.  That is what brought me to making Friday night dinner at home making chicken with turned vegetables all cooked sous vide.

Now before I get into cooking vegetables sous vide,  I want to explain what turned vegetables are.  First of all its an old technique in which a person uses his/her paring knife to trim the vegetables down in size to about 1.5 inches tall looks like a wine barrel with 7 sides.  So for generations culinary students have been saying its a waste of time and money when you can cube the vegetable and still present  the food nicely.  But I think that part of your appreciation for food is in learning how to handle food.  Also it takes time, you slow down and you cook, and of course cooking is relaxing, its a way to throw your worries away.  I would compare it to golf, but I think I am one of the very few people who is ok with a maxed out handicap in golf.

For example the other night I sat down on my couch turned a bag of potatoes and 5 turnips for dinner.  Best time I have had in a while.  You appreciate the vegetable, appreciate where it comes from and then also appreciate the finished product.

I wondered why techniques were in my opinion thrown out the window in North America.  We go to fancy restaurants and see the same thing over and over again.  I wanted to know the roots and my trip to France definitely satisfied my craving for real french cuisine, and French traditions.  I was working a busy dinner service at Les Bistrot De Lyon, and the Chef asked me to turn potatoes for the following day for a certain dish on the menu.  I gladly said yes, because I hadn't practised this since Culinary School and George Brown College.  So I brought up my 10 lb bag of potatoes from the cellar, (yes the potatoes were kept in dark cold place as intended), took a  bucket filled it part way with cold water and started turning my potatoes.  The chef came back a few minutes later to check up on me and commented at how slow I was working.  I told him back in Canada you don't see turned vegetables very often.  He reminded me of the reason of my trip and took a potato in one hand, pulled out a paring knife and quickly turned a perfect potato in less then 20 seconds.  I stood there imitating his every move and continued to practise my vegetable turning every night soon becoming the restaurants official vegetable turner, (well I gave myself that title).

So for dinner I turned potatoes, turnip, zucchini and fluted mushrooms.  I plated it family style like it was done back in the times of Escoffier.  I really enjoyed practising this art that is unfortunately in my opinion gettign lost in the wayside.

So directions for turning vegetables.
Hold the vegetable in your hand, cut the top and the bottom so you have an even top and bottom to hold the vegetable properly when turning.  Using your paring knife make a half moon shaped cut from top to bottom in one swift motion, so there is a smooth rounded edge now to your vegetable.  (pictures are posted below)

Cooking:
Root vegetables: I put the vegetables in a bag with some fresh garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil.  Vacuum sealed in and dropped it in the sous vide machine set at 190 and cooked them for 1 hour.

Mushroom and zucchini:  I seasoned it the same way as the root vegetables, but cooked them at 180 for 15 minutes since I needed gentler heat.