The fish, the knife, and Stephen Yan

MasterChef New Zealand has started airing yesterday over on One.  Exciting stuff.  The only problem is, it's in the same time slot as Nigella's Kitchen and Jamie Oliver's The Naked Chef!  Guess who will win over airtime in  our house.

Anyways... since it's MasterChef time once again, Brett McGregor (previous MasterChef winner) has started coming out in the Countdown commercials once more.  Not that I pay much attention to the commercials, but he did advise to head on to YouTube, search for countdownnz, and learn how to properly cook fish.  Sounds interesting enough, so here I am in front of the computer trying to find there that video is.

Tada!  Video on top of this post.

I also found something equally nice.  A short tutorial on knives, plus some techniques on how to chop a number of veggies.





The claw technique described here is something I know a long way back.... back to the time of Wok with Yan in fact.  From the 80s/early 90s!  He was my first ever cooking teacher on TV!

And look what I found on YouTube:


What a coincidence... he also taught a bit about sharpening the cleaver, and how to chop meat using the claw technique!  And the starch solution!  He always has this on hand.

*sigh* how I miss the 80s.

Ah, back to the knives.  Countdown has this promo whereby you get a sticker for every 20 dollars you spend there.  Collect enough stickers to get a really nice knife.  I hope to get at least one.