Vanilla Beans
Tuesday, July 23, 2013 at 4:00AM 
By Ben Mims
For Cooking Newbie, a blog for beginner cooks
In many of the recipes I develop, I often call for vanilla beans. Their best quality, aside from flavor, is their ability to impart any plain panna cotta, cake, or ice cream with a pleasing, speckled appearance, thanks to the seeds within the vanilla bean itself. And unlike vanilla extract, which is made from soaking vanilla beans in alcohol for several weeks, the seeds from the bean carry a noticeably different, more refined vanilla flavor and aroma.
To get at those precious seeds couldn’t be simpler: Hold one end of the bean on a cutting board with your finger, and using a paring knife, insert the tip of the knife on the bean just below where your finger is holding it. Keeping pressure steady, slide the knife down the length of the bean until the end, splitting it in half. Then, turn the knife over and place the blunt side of the blade against your finger and, pressing down, rake the knife down the length of the bean to remove the seeds; repeat with the other half of the bean.