In watching Nigella's show last weekend, she used cinnamon sticks in two
separate dishes. One was the chicken mughlai and the other was a rice
pilaf.
In her chicken recipe she calls for breaking one piece in half.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_35405,00.html
In her pilaf recipe she calls for breaking one piece into 3 pieces.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_35407,00.html
http://tinyurl.com/3blpu4
"I will say though, that when Nigella broke up her cinnamon stick she did it
in smaller shards than I'm used to seeing. I usually just snap mine in half,
hers broke into more pieces than that. I wasn't so concerned about eating
around them, just that the pieces themselves looked sharp in case you did
mistakenly bite down on one."
This concerned me a little when she did this. I would only break it into 2
pieces outside the pot, and then put it in. Then I would probably take it
out after cooking. But who wants to bite down on shards in the chicken; but
the pilaf, at least one could see them.
Dee Dee