What is cooking, really? Some people look at it as an art, something that can only be understood intuitively and with feeling. These are the people who measure things “by eye”, given you frustratingly vague recipes and who always make things taste a certain way without really knowing why. “Oh, just a bit of that” they will say, without clarifying what “a bit” is or how one might even begin to guess. Making their recipes is like entering an escape room and knowing the way out vaguely involves something to do with that bookshelf in the corner.
Others see cooking as a science, where you can measure, track and closely calculate your way to a perfectly poached egg. This is the world of timers and strainers and tweezers and too many different size measuring cups. These people are equally maddening, stealing the joy from randomness and making food preparation feel like homework.
Most home cooks, I suspect, are somewhere in the middle. Scientists when they can be bothered or have to be. Tortured artists the rest of the time. It is difficult to make things taste the same each time you make them without being a scientist, but who has time for science when you just need to get dinner made quickly after work?
Freezing things to give them certain textures feels more science than art, but really it is a triumph of laziness over precision, so it is a little of both. You taught me that simply by putting things in the freezer they can be made tastier than before. It is one of those wonderful tricks that you think is normal because you’ve had it your whole life and I think is revolutionary because I haven’t.
Is it art or science? To be honest, it doesn’t really matter when the results are this good.
A&A’s Frozen Things
Put any of these things in the freezer and eat from frozen.
1. Roasted sweet potatoes. The best kind are the Japanese or Taiwanese yellow or orange flesh ones, roasted until soft in the middle and dry and like brittle paper on the outside. Cool and freeze after cooking. Eat straight from the freezer on a hot summer’s day, peeling away the papery skin like a burrito wrapper to reveal the sweet satisfying flesh as you go.
2. Grapes. Wash, dry and freeze. Somehow the freezing makes the texture even more appealing and the flavours more sharp. White grapes typically best here.
3. Pineapple. Skin, chop and freeze in bitesize chunks, or on sticks if you have the energy. Similar to grapes, enhances the texture and sharpens the flavours. If you’re feeling extra fruity, dip it in tajin just before eating.