Do Vegetables Taste Better If They Are Hand Chopped

Do you like chopping vegetables?

When I was a child, I loved the sound people chopping vegetables and meat.Chop chop choooooooooooooooooooooooooop.Full of rhythm, energy and… yummy expectations.It was the sound of Chinese New Year.In north China,chopping veggies and meat = making dumpling fillingsand,dumplings = Chinese New YearIn a time meat, oil and almost everything was scarce, it was the once-a-year feast.I remember my mom told me this:Since most families make dumplings on New Year eve, you will hear chop chop chop from all directions of your neighborhood. That makes people who can’t afford meat or oil to make dumplings feel too shameful to let their neighbors know it. So they would chop chop chop their empty chop board to make the sounds.I imagined how sad it would be. I felt so lucky to have real dumplings after the yummy sounds.My mom still has the habit to share dumplings she made with neighbors, though it often surprises young couples living next door who barely know us. (But a few days later the newly weds brought us their handmade sticky rice balls! Yay!)My hands and arms are too tiny and weak to wave two knives at the same time as quickly as raindrops. In fact, I’m so bad at chopping I even need to hold one knife with two hands. Like this.Still, I love the sound of chopping. Because it brings yummies, gratefulness and warmth.(All images are from the internet.)

Food Preservation: If vegetables are chopped and refrigerated, will its nutrition value be completely lost?

No, the nutritional value will not be completely lost. If chopping is convenient for you and will increase your vegetable consumption, do it. Some vegetables are suited for such treatment, some are not. You are likely aware of browning and other enzymes which escape when vegetables are cut and their cell walls are broken. In all cases, oxygen and air exposure is your enemy. You may want to cut and store vegetables which generally keep well: carrotssweet potatoessquashturnipcelerycabbage (will brown)potatoes (under water)Avoid doing so with 'fruit' type vegetables. tomatoesbell pepperscucumbersYou will accelerate the spoilage of leafy greens by doing so, but it can be greatly convenient to cut them up. Make sure you wash and dry them very well before storage. The same applies for herbs, dry them like crazy!

How do I preserve/store chopped onions, tomatoes and bell peppers?

Freezing unprepped vegetables can be challenging. Even the frozen vegetables you can buy have undergone a process to keep them from breaking down and spoiling. If possible, just buy what you need for the week for fresh produce.If transportation or finances restrict weekly shopping, you may want to learn a few basics of how to properly freeze produce, so it retains all or most of the flavors and benefits of fresh. No fruit or vegetable will ever have the taste or the texture of fresh, but there are ways to freeze them that will provide safety and still leave you with a usable product. Freezing Tomatoes . Blanching vegetables is done on a mass scale for the products you find in a grocery store. Right after blanching, they are flash frozen to preserve color and as much flavor as possible. You can do this on a much smaller scale at home, and can store even the most delicate vegetables in an airtight container or bag for up to 10 months. Your home product will only be as good as the produce you buy. If you have bruised or mealy vegetables, you will end up with frozen bruised or mealy vegetables. Try to buy produce in season, at peak times. The cost will be lower, and the produce will store better. Most products can be frozen this way, and for vegetables it works pretty well.How to Freeze Onions And Green Peppers | LEAFtvCanning 101 | Getting Started Canning Guide, Tips & How-To. A more time consuming process, and does take space to store the products. Canning allows for a slightly fresher product, with more true-to-taste flavor than freezing. The biggest down side for most people is time needed to do this. Add to that the supplies needed initially are not very cheap, but can be used over and over, and that you need the cabinet space to store the canned foods, and it becomes more daunting. From experience, I can tell you in the long run it saves money, and I can take advantage of local produce during peak seasons, and enjoy that produce all year long through canning. Our growing season in New Hampshire is short, so canning is one of the best ways to enjoy our local produce until the next season. I can also flavor each as I want, and limit sugar and salt. Of course, there's no preservatives, or added colors and artificial flavors either.

What can I put on the Brussels sprouts to make them taste better other than butter?

Thanks for the A2A, Robert. There are many great recipes for this question already, but here is my method to add to the mix:Wash Brussel sprouts with cold water and let drain. Cut off the dry stem end and peel off any floating leaves. Cut the larger sprouts in half lengthwise - you want the halves about the same size as the tiny Brussel sprouts.Halve one small onion and cut into thin slices. Heat up a large pan and add one or two tablespoons olive oil. Add onions and saute over medium heat until translucent. Add a teaspoon of minced garlic (or 1/2 teaspoon of granulated garlic). Toss in the Brussel sprouts and stir to combine. Add 1 tablespoon of any type of broth or water, cover pan loosely and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes. Remove cover and sprinkle sprouts with a dash (1/4 teaspoon) of confectioner’s sugar (this helps reduce the bitterness and caramelize the sprouts), a dash of Cajun seasoning and dried marjoram leaves, and salt to taste. Toss lightly and turn the heat to high for 1 or 2 minutes to brown them a little (no stirring at this point).

Do you prefer using a knife or food processor for your vegetables/fruit when cooking, and why?

I nearly always use a knife. For one thing, I am usually cooking for only one or two people, so that kind of volume doesn’t justify using a food processor.For another thing, the food processor makes random cuts. Most pieces may be the size you want, but not the shape; most piece maybe the size you want but some of the pieces will be large and some of the pieces will be small.Then of course there is the cleaning. Sometimes you can chop all your stuff together, or sequentially without washing between; but if you want different cuts you have to switch between blades or discs or whatever and it just too much mishegoss. And you have to wash it all.With a knife you can do just what you want, and all you have to clean is the board and the knife.I use a food processor for making purees, where I think it works better than a blender; and I use it for hummus or other thick stuff that needs reducing to a smooth paste.Edit: Upon further consideration, I recall that I do use the food processor for chopping vegetables, if I am chopping a large amount of them all to uniformly small bits for something like meatloaf or bolognese.