On 1/5/06 9:24 PM, in article "mikehende" > wrote:

> I wonder how Chinese food cooks dice their carrots? I can't believe that
> they do this by "hand" since we are talking about cooking a LOT of food? I
> have been looking for something to dice carrots quickly but came across
> only 2 "As seen on TV" dicers that people say are only gimmicks. Anyone
> know of anything that works?
>

Yes, they do this work by "hand". In a ordinary Chinese restaurant kitchen
they work usually from 10 am to 12 pm. Between lunch and dinner hours lots
of work is done. On one day they might only prepare meat and duck and on
other day you might only clean vegetables and precook them. So are the
carrots also cleaned and diced by hand. The amount of diced carrots
necessary for the Chinese kitchen is little compared with the those used by
huge catering or lunch service kitchens (schools and companies and so on).
This fact makes huge cutting device(machine) in a small, otherwise
overcrowded Chinese kitchen an obstacle. I once seen a cook clean and cut
50 kg of carrots in 2 hours. Wow!!! practice makes prefect!

MB