Fat Guy

Well . . . I was in touch with the pastry team last week and got a heads-up that "things are really starting to happen now." So far I don't think there has been any revision to a projected August opening. I'll try to visit this coming week and see what I can learn.

That's my understanding too Sam. Most recently I've seen "poeleed" foie gras on the menu at Ducasse NY to mean pan-seared, whereas I was just googling for poeler and got "Poeler: A mode of braising meat, covered" from ChefDirect. I hope we can get Jack Lang to comment here because on the Boris_A foodblog thread he posted some serious etymology research on this very question.

("Poeler" is I believe another way of describing what we would call braising)

The best thing I've ever read on braising is the braising chapter of James Beard's Theory and Practice of Good Cooking. Everybody who is interested in basic cooking techniques should acquire this book, because it is organized around techniques (braising, roasting, frying, etc.) rather than in any of the more traditional cookery book schemes. In any event, to answer this question, Beard begins his chapter on braising thus:

You don't mess around. Looking forward to a report of the official visit!

They're two different species of burgers so a direct comparison is somewhat difficult, regardless of the nexus of target-audience and location. Starting with the meat, Shake Shack uses a 4 ounce patty made from sirloin and brisket (with a very juicy fat-to-protein ratio) seasons it thoroughly and cooks it on a griddle whereas NY Burger Co is doing a 6 ounce patty made mostly from chuck (we were told 80/20 by Mel Coleman and the two owners) and broiled, I think unseasoned, on a grill. Two very different styles. That being said I like the Shake Shack patty much better. A theoretical NY Burger Co patty ground on premises, coarser, and less densely packed might give the Shack Burger patty a run for its money, but not in its current form. I hasten to add I wouldn't go nearly as far as "flavorless, overcooked, bland" in describing the NY Burger Co patty, and I think the photographs indicate we're hardly in "hockey-puck" territory. I thought it had a good beef flavor, was cooked through but not dry (the Shack Burger is also cooked through), and was unseasoned like most burgers in New York, even most of the most celebrated ones. I'm not exactly sure why everybody in the world doesn't season their burger patties as a matter of course, but NY Burger Co is hardly unique in apparently not doing so. When it comes to everything else, NY Burger Co is much more competitive. To those of us who fixate on the patty -- and I'm certain Mr. Cutlets is in that category! -- the conversation is already long over. But for those who give equal or similar weight to patty, bun, toppings, and condiments, there is more to be said. I think both places have excellent buns, albeit different. Shake Shack uses a buttered potato roll cooked on the griddle; NY Burger Co uses a toasted brioche roll. It's hard to find fault with either. When it comes to condiments and toppings, NY Burger Co is clearly the leader. The Shake Shack's stuff is good as far as it goes, and clearly Shake Shack has made the decision to do a small number of things well, but NY Burger Co has incredible depth and breadth in this category. I don't think there is a strong rival anywhere in New York City in that price bracket. NY Burger Co is also strong on ancillary items and permutations. The smoothies are terrific, the fries are quite good (I doubt the Shake Shack will be able to compete on this front any time soon), and there are all those salads and other types of burgers. I should note that these observations are based on eating the two establishments' offerings within about half an hour of one another.

We were checking out the "Spoon Burger" recipe. But we're not looking for the easy way out. We want to make a condiment, dammit.

So says this source:

There's an article by Julia Moskin in today's New York Times dining section making the case for New York's Chinese restaurants' share of the barbeculture. Worth perusing, and I should note that the non-review articles like this one tend to pass into the premium archive rather quickly so don't delay.

Are you in New York City? If so, you might try walking in and making the reservation in person.

There are several aspects to sous vide cookery. The "barrier" phenomenon is one of them, but only one. To the extent a differential in density will act in furtherance of containment and exclusion, there are similarities to the barrier that a vacuum bag supplies. But that's not always or exclusively what a cook is trying to accomplish with sous vide equipment. In most cases something is placed in the bag -- seasoning, herbs, sauce, etc. -- in addition to the main ingredient. So there is what you want kept out (the "poaching" liquid) and what you want kept in (all those herbs and such). Sous vide cookery allows you to make both choices. In addition, what is kept in behaves differently under vacuum conditions. Absorption is quicker, deeper, and more uniform -- there is essentially a multiplier effect. On top of that, I think it would be hard to maintain sous-vide-caliber temperature accuracy in fat. Most dishes that are done as confit or poached in fat do not require that the temperature be exactly 141 degrees for 20 hours -- they offer a lot more leeway. In short, it's easy to use sous vide techniques to replicate the confit process; it's a lot harder to use a confit-like process to replicate sous vide cookery.

Okay now I need to find one of these things. Is this eBay item what you're talking about? http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...ssPageName=WDVW

Isn't meat color a question of temperature, not time? Restaurants manage to do plenty of slow cooking. There's nothing about the configuration of a restaurant kitchen that makes quick cooking mandatory. Slow cooking is basically just a part of mise en place, like dicing vegetables or making stocks: you have to make a prediction as to how many customers will want the dish, you prepare that many portions, and if you underestimate you 86 the item and if you overestimate you have tomorrow's staff meal. Braised dishes are ubiquitous at all levels of restaurant -- short ribs, lamb shanks, etc. -- and prime rib and roast beef are easy enough to find in both the US and UK. Cassoulet, coq au vin . . . you can get all this stuff in restaurants. In the poultry department, there are plenty of restaurants, though not typically haute cuisine ones, and vendors that specialize in rotisserie chicken, which I would characterize as a slow cooking method. And of course sous vide cooking has opened up a whole new area of slow cookery. I certainly agree that some things are better at home, though. Indeed I think that would make a good topic, separate from this one.

I thought that time was reserved for angioplasty . . . Sorry, identity crisis. Again.

I probably got the information from you! Here's an interesting description of how kosher collagen casings are made: http://www.devro.plc.uk/products/dev_kosh.htm

What can a $15,000 Rolex Submariner do that my $30 purchased-at-Costco Casio G-Shock can't? Utility is only one criterion by which value is judged. Beauty, uniqueness, materials, craftsmanship . . . all these factors and more influence a product's perceived value. In addition, utility can often be a question of purpose. For a professional underwater demolition expert a Rolex is a worthwhile expenditure from a utility standpoint, but for the casual SCUBA diver the G-Shock keeps better time, has more features, and will not be placed at any risk at normal recreational SCUBA depths and conditions. Professional sushi chefs, as well as some chefs in Western restaurants who care about this sort of thing, use very expensive handcrafted Japanese knives because they believe the cuts they make are better, truer, and cleaner than what you'd get with a Wusthof. They can apparently tell the quality of a knife by looking at the cut surface of a piece of fish. Japanese gourmets "eat with their eyes" and some will argue that the appearance of a good cut is reflected in texture and flavor as well. Such knives are a pain to maintain. A Wusthof is probably the better choice for most casual users. But for those who want the very best for a certain purpose, the price of expensive Japanese knives may be justified. And for the rest of us these knives are objects of beauty. By the way, not all Japanese knives are expensive. Korin sells many knives in the $75-$200 range.

Wow, amazing report. I look forward to subsequent installments. One note on nomenclature: a kosher or kosher-style frankfurter does not as far as I know generally have a natural casing. My understanding is that most natural casing materials are unkosher aka trayf, either because they come from pigs or from unkosher parts of otherwise kosher animals. There are some kosher frankfurters with casings but the casing is typically made from some sort of vegetable starch and they tend not to be available in supermarkets. I'm sure John could explain a lot more about this.

I don't have anything currently planned for that date, though it's way outside my workable time horizon for planning so I will have to give a final answer during August. Count me in until you hear otherwise, though. Just one from my team, I think.

Just a side note on storing wine for cooking, since this seems to be Mamster's goal: the freezer is a great tool. Wine that is to be used in cooking doesn't suffer from being frozen. I have a bunch of little Zip-Loc bags in my freezer full of leftover bits of red and white wines. I rarely need to buy wine specifically for cooking, because those last few ounces in so many bottles tend to supply all my needs.

Same here: Would be interested subject to availability. Lunch followed by early dinner makes a lot of sense, especially since it allows for a hardcore sub-group to go on to MarkJoseph afterwards . . .

We've had a bit of a setback on the tutorial because Doug Psaltis, our mentor of sous-vide cookery, headed off to the West Coast to work for Thomas Keller at the French Laundry. So now either I need to find a new guru here in New York, or Nathan needs to visit Doug in Yountville and write the tutorial for us, or I need to win the lottery and open a beautiful little restaurant on my vineyard on the North Fork of Long Island where I can hire Doug to be the chef.

Thank goodness we have your team on the job now. Sam Kinsey and I were looking at the book today and feeling like a couple of complete ignoramuses. In about an hour we couldn't even figure out what poitrine fumée is, as opposed to regular American bacon, if there even is a difference. The book just calls it "smoked whole breast." Nonetheless, I'm still committed to doing some cooking from the book, as soon as I get three free days in a row. How much did Amazon.fr charge for shipping, and were there any other costs besides the book price? Looking forward, especially, to your photos if you make any of the dishes or your own variants.

Of the things I've tasted, the two big triumphs at the Shake Shack so far are the burgers and the plain vanilla custard. I'm really not sure there could be any way to improve upon the Shack Burger. Within that genre, I have never had a better burger. I haven't been to every one of the legendary California burger places, but I've been to several. The Shack Burger is I think made to the same standards as the best I've had in California but the beef is of very high quality and the blend of sirloin and brisket is a home run. The buttered potato roll is superb. The garnishes are the highest quality you're going to see at a burger place. The plain vanilla custard is likewise clearly based on excellent ingredients. There is no identifiable taste of stabilizers or anything like that, yet the texture is luscious and velvety and it just screams with flavor. I don't have the kind of experience with custard that I have with hamburgers, but standing alone the custard seems totally delicious to me. As for everything else, well, it's going to take awhile to try it all. I've made 5 Shake Shack visits thus far -- almost every day this past week and twice on one day. I haven't had a chance to sample the crinkle-cut fries yet because the two times I wanted to they didn't have any. They certainly appear to be frozen, as they arrive in large brown paper sacks -- but I'll find out for sure. It's possible to make very good fries from frozen, but I hope they eventually graduate to fresh-cut if not twice-fried. The frankfurters are very nice but could be improved upon in a number of ways -- I'll get to that list once I've tasted a few more. And of course the mixed custard items need a lot of work and are in my opinion terribly overpriced. But it's early still. I'm very optimistic about the Shake Shack. The Union Square Hospitality Group has never disappointed and I bet we will see a sharp curve of improvement through the summer and beyond. And for now, a couple of Shack Burgers with a half-bottle of wine and a vanilla custard eaten in Madison Square Park is one of the most enjoyable eating experiences in New York. Not bad for a place that officially opened two days ago.

The issue with Certified Angus Beef is that it's not necessarily different from beef bought on the open market, provided the beef bought on the open market conforms to certain standards of marbling, etc. The similarity in price indicates that the difference may be primarily in the branding, not in the beef. I don't think it's possible to answer the question "does the beef matter" by looking at the Certified Angus Beef brand, or by doing apples-and-oranges comparisons between dogs with different kinds of spicing. The test would really need to be performed with two beef samples of known quality difference, yet blended to exactly the same fat content and with the same spicing. I suppose this could be done at home. Can frankfurters be made without specialized industrial equipment?

It's too early to tell how the "Diner's Journal" column will impact the starred reviews, but looking at his "Diner's Journal" entries on a standalone basis it seems Frank Bruni is doing a much better job with these than his predecessor did. He's not afraid to write actual criticism, and it seems that he may be (wisely) using the "Diner's Journal" to cover restaurants he doesn't necessarily expect to review. Last week's piece on Garden Cafe was a nice bit of reporting and this week's exploration of Pure Food & Wine was especially compelling.