Blind cooking: 10 tips from chefs
19 June 2012
A blind contestant has reached the final stages of a US version of the
television cooking competition, MasterChef, highlighting the
difficulties faced by blind chefs. Emma Tracey, a producer on the BBC
Ouch! disability blog and talk show, who has been blind since birth,
says cooking provides many challenges.
Christine Ha, who is 33 and gradually lost her vision over a decade,
made it to the final 18 of the MasterChef competition after impressing
the judges, who include Gordon Ramsay.
Ha says she has to depend a lot more on the other senses to cook -
taste, smell and how ingredients feel at different stages of cooking.
To taste everything - and to know how a perfectly cooked steak or fish
fillet feels - is useful advice for any cook. So in what other ways do
blind chefs manage?
1. Hazelnuts top left
On MasterChef, Ha is allowed an assistant to guide her around the
unfamiliar kitchen and collect ingredients. Other than that, she is
expected to follow the same rules as her sighted rivals.
But when cooking at home, she has no need for such assistance. Like many
blind cooks, she knows her own kitchen inside out - and everything is
always put back in its place.
Tom Lewis, head chef at Monachyle Mhor in Perthshire, remembers the need
for strict organisation from when his mother Jean ran the restaurant's
kitchen. She started it after losing her vision, and it was a smoothly
run operation.
"You have to put ingredients back in the same place each time," he says.
"In mum's kitchen, everything was as it should be - hazelnuts in the top
left of the pantry, sugar bottom right."
2. Audio labelling
Being blind on MasterChef
The biggest challenge is working in a new kitchen.
"I have an assistant who acts as my feet and eyes. I can ask her to go
and get me equipment, etc, but I can't cook while she is gone. I have
had to learn to work closely and communicate with her. The flow of how
we communicate has been really important so that I can work as quickly
as everyone else.
"The advantage for me, if there is any, is that I am not able to see
what others are doing and just have to be concerned with my own kitchen
station."
Many of the men and women that cookery expert Sue Pallett advises at
online blindness communityThe Accessible Friends Network , are not able
to memorise the entire contents of their pantry and so must find a
non-visual way to label items.
Blind from birth, Pallett uses Braille labels, but over the years she
has developed a number of strategies to help others to identify their
ingredients.
"If there are two containers which feel exactly the same, some people
will put an elastic band on one and a piece of sticky tape on the other.
Or tactile magnetic letters can be useful, particularly when labelling
tins."
More hi-tech options are available, allowing the blind cook to record an
audio message on a special label, which is then attached to the container.
As well as identifying the contents, this message can also include
additional information, such as use-by dates and cooking instructions.
3. Listen to the sponge cake
Smell, taste, touch and even hearing are used by blind cooks to identify
similar ingredients - using icing sugar instead of cornflour, for
instance, would have disastrous consequences for a dish.
Blind chef
Image caption
In China, a contest was held involving blind chefs
Pallett, who teaches blind people how to cook, says that if you have a
refined sense of hearing, it is sometimes possible to tell that a sponge
cake is done "when it stops ticking", or sizzling.
She is keen to point out, however, that this is not by any means a
foolproof method and that timing is more reliable.
"As blind cooks, we are not able to continually open the oven door and
check whether a cake is done, so I use a timer.
"When time is up, I press my fingers down lightly on the top of the cake
and if it springs back easily, then it is done." Baking guru Mary Berry
also recommends this method .
4. Smell the garlic
"My sense of smell has really come into play since I lost my sight,"
says Ha, whowrites the food blog Blind Cook .
"I know when garlic is just fragrant enough and when it is going to tip
over to being too burnt or bitter.
"With a pan on the stove, I add some water and if it splashes in a
certain way I know that it is hot enough for whatever I'm cooking."
5. Mark the temperature dials
Pallett uses small, brightly coloured pieces of sticky-backed rubber
called bump-ons.
They come in many shapes and sizes and can be stuck on to anything,
including the temperature dials of cookers and kitchen timers.
Then all the blind cook must do is line the cooker knob's edge up with them.
6. Have a chopping system
Person chopping cucumbers
Image caption
The sharper the better
Preparing vegetables requires the right tools and a good technique, says
Pallett.
"Choose a short-bladed, unserrated kitchen knife with an ergonomic
handle, and a good chopping board."
Blind foodie Neil Barnfather adheres to a strict system for preparing
vegetables, especially while hosting dinner parties. And his favourite
kitchen utensil is his knife sharpener - a sharp blade is essential for
chopping accurately .
"When chopping, I tend to put the unchopped on the left, work in
progress in the middle and finished on the right. This saves time and
avoids confusion."
7. Saucepan, not frying pan
Sue Pallett using a food whisk
Image caption
Sue Pallett doesn't use a frying pan
Another aspect of cooking which could be considered risky if you can't
see, is working with hot oil. Pallett has found a way around this
problem - instead of a frying pan, she uses deep-sided saucepans.
"If you fry in a saucepan, everything is contained really well and
nothing is going to fly out over the top and cause a mess.
"I use a long-handled, heat-resistant, slotted spoon to slide underneath
the ingredients, gently turn them over and spread them out again. I
always face my saucepan handles to the same side.
"That way, I know where they are, and there's no chance of me knocking a
hot pot off the hob."
8. Carry as little as possible
When serving a meal to guests, Neil Barnfather's secret weapon is a
hostess trolley.
"It keeps food warm, so that I can cook one thing at a time. It also
saves me having to carry a loaded tray through to the dining room,
which, with a young family, or guests moving around, might not be a safe
thing to do."
He also draws the line at serving gravy to guests at the table, opting
instead to leave it on a heated serving plate in the centre so that they
can do it themselves.
9. Use talking gadgets
All three cooks use various gadgets to get the job done. Many of these
are regular pieces of equipment which have been repurposed.
Rolling out pastry
"Use a good, long, solid wooden rolling pin, flouring it before you
begin. Give your dough a quarter turn after every few rolls back and
forth for a good result, keeping a steady pressure will also achieve an
even thickness and a good round shape. When your pastry is approximately
the right size, check by turning your pie plate upside down, laying it
on top of the pastry circle, it needs to be just a little bit bigger
than the plate, with a small amount of pastry protruding underneath all
the way round."
Sue Pallett, blind cooking tutor
Watch Paul Hollywood demonstrate
For example, unable to go down the usual road of checking his meat by
seeing if the juices run clear, Barnfather uses a meat tenderiser, which
looks like a mini cheese-grater with a hammer-like handle. If, when
pushed into the meat, it springs back easily, then the meat is cooked.
"I use oven mits which go much higher up my arm than regular mits, so
that I don't burn the inside of my wrist when taking things in and out
of the oven," says Ha.
She also has a talking meat thermometer with her in the MasterChef
kitchen to ensure that her food is fully heated through. This is just
one type of specialist equipment for the visually impaired, sold by
blind charities such as RNIB.
When measuring ingredients for cakes and pastries, all three cooks rely
on hearing to use their talking weighing scales. These devices speak
measurements in a slow, clear voice, as ingredients are added to the
bowl attached.
For liquids, Neil Barnfather says that the talking measuring jugs
available are not nearly accurate enough to use. Instead, he remembers
how much each of his jugs contains and places a clean finger on the
inside of the container as he pours.
10. Serve up using a clock face
Like many blind people, Barnfather thinks of the plate as a clockface
and divides it into quadrants.
"I like to know that my meat is at 12 O'clock, vegetables at three and
potatoes at maybe six o'clock."
He takes mental notes on presentation and plate layout when eating in
restaurants, so that he can tap into current trends when cooking for
guests at home.
To serve, he plates up the meat or fish first and then arranges side
dishes around it. An ice cream scoop proves invaluable for neatly
serving mashed potato.
source URL:
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18491533
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