k43

AK - I'd be interest in some of your paprika. Are you the Spice House at Spice House? If not, where? (Googling is difficult, since most places with "spice" in the name are porn.)

I've read a Famous Expert's grilling method (probably from one of the "visits with chefs" articles in the NY Times) that recommended flipping every 30 seconds or so after the initial sear to keep the juices inside the steak rather than letting them go to waste by dripping down onto the coals. By the way, why does everyone say don't move the meat once you put it on to sear? Does that produce more fond? If so, what about the advice to drop a steak on the grill or hot pan and immediately move it once to keep it from sticking and then don't move it again?

Little bugs LOVE paprika. They seem to materialize inside the can. If you have a can over 6 months old, ***always*** take a glance inside, or, better yet, pour some out on a plate to check for signs of infestation.

For stocks, I recommend Formaggio Kitchen. Formaggio Kitchen. They reduce them to a powder that can be kept in the cupboard, and the quality and intensity is amazing. Their prices are also well below Demi Glace Gold.

Portugese linguiça sausage (a/k/a chouriço) is similar to chorizo, but has less paprika and more pepper and garlic, plus red wine. Excellent linguiça is available by mail order from Lopes Sausage Co., 304 Walnut St., Newark, NJ 07105, 973/344-3063.

The emulsion is called Beurre Monté. Here's a description: Beurre Monté Beurre monté is a stellar cooking medium. It's used constantly in the professional kitchen. However, it's an emulsion, something too many home cooks seem to fear. An emulsion is only a uniform mixture of two substances that don't readily combine by themselves, like oil and water. A vinaigrette is an emulsion. So is mayonnaise. In fact, a stick of butter is an emulsion. You can see that when butter melts, separating into clear fat, milk solids floating on top and water at the bottom. Lobster tail, removed from its shell and poached in beurre monté, is like none other you've tasted–sweet, rich and remarkably tender. The addition of water gives the lobster a silky texture wholly unlike that of lobster fried in plain butter. It's also the perfect baste for pan-roasted meats. A few spoonfuls of beurre monté over a pork tenderloin, filet mignon or chicken breast keeps the meat moist, flavors it, helps to ensure even cooking (since fat conducts heat so uniformly) and gives it a beautiful browned color. You can even use it as a warm butter bath to rest meat in before it is served. A sautéed veal loin resting submerged in beurre monté maintains the perfect temperature and does not dry out; the density of the surrounding butter prevents juices from leaking out of the meat. You can then add some of that same beurre monté to a saucepan with some sweated shallots and, say, a purée of watercress, for an elegant sauce to serve with the veal. It can also be eaten straight as a dipping sauce for bread. 1. Cut 1/2 pound unsalted butter into small pieces. 2. Bring 1-2 tablespoons water to boil in a medium-size saucepan and lower heat to just below the boiling point. 3. Whisk in a small piece of butter to form an emulsion. Add additional butter, one piece at a time, whisking constantly to maintain the emulsion. Move the pan off the fire frequently to avoid burning. When done, the sauce will look creamy and fluffy, almost like a hollandaise sauce. 4. Quickly remove from heat, cover it with plastic wrap or a tight-fitting lid and keep it in a warm place, such as a double boiler or bain marie. It can be kept for hours until you're ready to use it. Any that is left over can be stored in the refrigerator, where it can be clarified to be used for frying. KRS

The LC tagine is glazed on the inside and outside. In the tagine thread, Paula Wolfert says that the magic is in the unglazed surface. (Also, the LC is very expensive, while the unglazed ones are reasonable.) In the braising thread, the LC Dutch oven got high marks, though it was criticized for its high price. I'd say the consensus is stick with the LC Dutch oven and get an unglazed tagine.

I like the Season brand cross-packed sardines in olive oil, which are tiny and quite good, with a distinct sardine taste. They may have a different brand name in Canada where jayt90 is. Here's what the tin looks like: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...447206?v=glance

Be sure to keep it refrigerated and use it fast. It goes rancid quicker than almost anything.

The paradigm sardine packing is olive oil. Anything else is ho-hum or worse. Sardines in water are inedible. Drain them and cover with olive oil, but even then they're chokingly dry. IMHO, everything else (mustard, tomato sauce, other oil) covers up the taste. I've tried them in soybean oil and found that the taste of the oil is thick and cloying. Therefore, it's best to go with the suggestions with strong tastes, like ketchup or sriracha. Sorry about that. Buy yourself some King Oscars.

Our house expert, slkinsey, has noted that All-Clad uses several types of construction. The MasterChef and LTD lines have a thick inner layer of aluminum and work well, though they're still overpriced. The others have a thin layer and do not.

SALT: Question for Paula Wolfert. You say use Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt and measure 22 grams per pound. Can I measure by volume? How many tablespoons of Diamond Crystal per pound of meat? (I'm aware that kosher salt weighs less per volume than ordinary salt, and the two brands of kosher salt are also different). Would 1-1/2 tablespoons of Diamond Crystal per pound be about right? How about 1 tablespoon of regular salt?

Rather than investing in a seal-in-plastic machine, can I do the sous vide by putting things in a heavy ZipLoc bag, making sure to squeeze all the air out? Has anyone tried this?

Mint is invasive but wonderful. Just keep it in a separate pot. I love rosemary. It does well indoors after the summer, too, after being in a windowbox. I just bring the windowbox inside. It's slow-growing, so get a well-started plant. Also, it gets straggly, so I usually get a new plant every year. Ditto for tarragon. Coriander grows well from the seeds in my spice cabinet. Thyme goes crazy outside, but always dies when I bring it indoors, even though I keep the box in a north-facing window (all I have). The glass blocks some essential wavelength. According to the greenmarket sellers, chervil hates being potted. It's always died immediately when I've bought it. Basil grows too big and I use too much of it to put it in a windowbox. The NYC greenmarkets have it super-fresh.

Good article in the LA Times this week. Requires free registration; annoying popunders. Link

See the recent thread at http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=65358

If you're going to halve the eggs anyway, use my mother's method. She would give the egg a sharp rap with the edge of a spoon, break it in half around the equator and scoop each half out with the spoon.

Slightly OT, but John McPhee has a great article in this week's New Yorker (not available online, unfortunately) on how lobsters are shipped nationwide.

The less you do with goose, the better. The fat makes it self-basting, and the taste of the meat is rather mild (unlike duck), so you don't want strong flavors mixed with it. I use a great and super-simple method from Shumacker's Hotel in New Prague, MN. The wet roasting melts out all the subcutaneous fat. Pull out excess fat from the neck and vent and reserve to render for many wonderful purposes. Cut off the wings at the elbow, remove the liver, heart, gizzard and neck from the cavity and scatter everything over the bottom of an oval roaster. Wash the bird thoroughly inside and out. Rub salt, pepper and caraway seeds inside and out. Put a large whole peeled onion in the cavity. Put the bird on top of wings, etc., breast up. Pour 1 quart of water around the bird, cover and cook at 350 for 3-1/2 hours or until done. It's done when you can pull the legs in opposite directions and they don't spring back. Drain the liquids and return the pan to the oven, uncovered, 10 minutes to dry and crisp the skin. Red cabbage, cooked with the fat you pull from the cavity, is the perfect accompaniment. Add caraway seeds here, too. They'll be quite different from the crisped ones on the goose.

The sainted Julia's fingertip test: RAW: Relax your left hand and lightly pinch the flesh between your thumb and your index finger knuckle. MEDIUM RARE: Turn your hand over and touch the meaty area below the base of the thumb. WELL DONE :-( :Touch the tip of your nose.

BEEF SHIN I got some marrow bones to roast, and the butcher offered me the beef shin they came out of at a good price. It was a real chunk of meat -- about 4 pounds -- full of fat, gristle, silverskin and tendons. In other words, it looked perfect for braising. I browned it in olive oil and threw in a couple of tablespoons of rubbed sage, half a dozen star anise, a small handful of black peppercorns, a couple of big sprigs of rosemary, a couple of bay leaves, a few whole cloves of garlic and beef broth. The meat nearly filled the pot, so the broth came about 3" up the side. I cooked on the stovetop it in a heavy stainless steel pot, glazed on the outside, with a thick aluminum disk on the bottom and a domed lid. Revere, I think. It took forever to cook. After 4 hours, the meat was like leather. When I came back after 7 hours, however, the transformation had occurred -- still a bit stringy, but falling apart tender. There was very little fat in the liquid. For some reason, it stayed in the meat. Also, a lot of liquid came out, and the meat was almost covered. Finally, the meat had shrunk quite a bit. We couldn't hold dinner until the braise finished, so we had it the next day with the sauce (which needed almost no reduction) over rice. Wonderful depth of flavor, though I still didn't like the stringy texture. The verdict: worth doing, but I think I'll stick with short ribs and chuck.

As an experiment, I planted coriander seeds out of a grocery store bottle. They sprouted vigorously, and I had fresh cilantro.

holy cow! 14"! that's not a Knife, that's a frickin sword. NICE though but i'd think it'd be rather impractical. ← Fred Bridge had them made with his personal imprint. I splurged for one on my birthday several years ago. It's great for splitting a chicken or chopping veggies, and the blade is so high you don't need anything else to scoop them up with. The worst problem is that my cutting board is too small, and, of course, it will take a fingertip off in a blink.

Here's an excellent article and recipe for beef tenderloin that I poached from the NY Times a few years ago: Poached Beef Tenderloin A bath of bubbling hot liquid is unquestionably the best way to cook evenly and precisely. Simmering water, broth or even oil is always the same temperature, and will never scorch. Most cooks know the gentle magic a hot bath can work on delicate fish or ramekins of custard. But it can also make a tenderloin of beef perfectly and uniformly rare. Whether you choose a two-pound piece, which will easily serve four, or a larger one, the procedure and results are so consistent and so effortless it is the ideal dish for a dinner party. Tenderloin has a texture closer to that of salmon than sirloin. And unlike most cuts of meat, tenderloin does not become softer as it cooks. The tradeoff for this supreme tenderness is a lack of distinctive flavor. It is generous to describe the taste as mild. There are a couple of ways to add flavor to poached beef. One is to work hard on the poaching liquid: begin with great stock, add extra vegetables, aromatics and perhaps some wine, and reduce it after the meat is done poaching. The problem is that this requires far more work than the dish really merits, and the meat becomes cold while you prepare the sauce. Although poached beef is great cold (there is nothing better for picnics), not so with warm sauce. A better idea, I think, is to poach the meat in plain water. You can add flavorings if you like -- a celery stalk, an onion, a carrot, some peppercorns and so on -- but these will just barely make a difference. Simpler and more effective is serving the sliced tenderloin with a variety of flavorful garnishes like minced shallots, good mustard, chopped cornichons, coarse salt, soy sauce, even ketchup. Your guests can pick and choose among them. Personally, I favor mustard combined with shallots and cornichons, which may remind older New Yorkers of the hot-dog relish once served at Nedick's. Ask the butcher -- a call ahead will help -- for the thick, chateaubriand end of the tenderloin, in one piece, tied. If you allow the meat to reach room temperature before poaching it, the cooking time will be reduced by a few minutes, but it will be no longer than 20. 1 3-pound piece beef tenderloin, from the thick end, preferably at room temperature 6 cups stock, or water plus a celery stalk, an onion, a carrot and some peppercorns Salt Garnishes like minced shallots, good mustard, chopped cornichons, coarse salt, soy sauce or ketchup. 1. Put the meat in a deep pan just large enough to fit it  a Dutch oven is usually ideal, but you can curve the meat into a wide saucepan, too. Cover it with boiling water or stock. Add a large pinch of salt if you are using water or if the stock is unsalted. Adjust the heat to medium, so that the mixture bubbles gently. 2. Cook until the meat's internal temperature reaches 120 degrees (use an instant- read thermometer), or 125 degrees for medium-rare. Remove meat and let it sit for 5 minutes, then cut into ½- to 1-inch-thick slices. Serve immediately with garnishes.

I've tried to enrich chicken stock made from scraps and bones of a cooked chicken by cracking the bones. All it did was darken the stock and, I think, make it taste burnt, probably because I prefer the taste and skin of chicken roasted at high temperature (450 F.). Would cracking raw chicken bones also increase turbidity?