Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Kitchen Gear / Recipe File Mandoline Reign
Posted by Carrington Fox on Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 6:44 AM
Of course, the main purpose of this posting is to use the above headline, and for that I almost apologize. Still, I recently pulled my mandoline out from behind the waffle iron and ice cream maker--I don't know how it got lost in the cabinet-cave of neglected wedding gift appliances--and sliced up some cucumbers. It took about .25 seconds to shave the cuke down to a nub--approximately the same amount of time it took Google to search the pun "Mandoline Reign," which, yes, has been used, and usually in reference to something Ron Popeil made.
I added some olive oil, apple cider vinegar and kosher salt to the cucumber disks, and voilà: a salad to make my family utter the blessed words "Mommy, you are a genius."
Something about slicing things really thin makes them great. I have this same epiphany every time I come across a salad of thinly shaved apples and fennel or a pile of paper-thin pickled ginger. Or potatoes chips.
In fact, after the cucumber triumph, I mandolined some red potatoes that I had on hand and tried to deep-fry them. This did not work. They sizzled for, like, eight minutes in peanut oil (Paula Deen recommends two to three minutes for homemade potato chips) and were still flaccid. I researched the matter and learned that red potatoes are too sugary to deep fry with success. So I'll stick with sweet potatoes, which work like a charm. Huh?
In any case, what are some other good uses for a mandoline?
Comments (8)
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Slice zucchini lengthwise, with your mandoline. The strips should be a bit thinner than the cukes in the photo above. I like to par boil the strips by lowering in a fry basket for 5ish sec to bring out color and flavor (but this is not necessary).
Pat dry and toss the strips in a light olive oil and lemon juice vinegarette.
To serve, twirl the strips in twisty curls on a plate, shave pecorino cheese with a potato peeler over them in layers adding toasted pine nuts. It's delicious!
I love my Benriner (mandoline), but it scares me to death. I'd like to find a cut-proof glove to wear when using it. Does anyone know of such a thing?
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It is good for first aid training practice of serious slicing wounds.
I actually prefer to push my fingers toward my 10 inch blade 3 horsepower table saw, cutting some nice wood.
Trying to shmoosh a piece of anything towards the mandolines deadly blades stops me cold. The thing is scooting all over the counter, there is crap flying everywhere and then that last bit of potato gets caught in the blade and you have to poke at it with a stick or sumpin'
There's a restaurant named "Sweet Tea Diner" in South Nashville in the Lowe's shopping center on Old Hickory. They have a cucumber/onion salad that consists of very thick slices of cucumber and onion. They desperately need a mandoline or maybe just a good knife.
Microplane makes a cut-proof glove for that exact purpose. I use it with my scary Zinsser mandoline with all those interchangeable blades. It's a pain to get it out and install the right blade, but GAH, is it ever a mo-sheen, and goes into the dishwasher, too.
@WLS1119, that's my pet peeve, too, those chunky onions. Like, is there someone who eats those?
I don't have the fancy metal one - I have a plastic one called a "V-Slicer" that was like twenty bucks somewhere - Sur la Table, maybe? I'm surprised how much I use it. It really comes in handy when making slaw for homemade banh mi. It takes like ten seconds to make it since I don't have to julienne ten thousand different vegetables by hand.
It also makes awesome waffle fries.
