Boris_A

For me, lamb and lamb fat has a tendency to be slightly sweet. I'd say he didn't want to sweeten the taste further. For me, the most interesting thing with his recipes are the many sub-recipes which are helpful to create compositions of your own. Most recipes as a whole are way too complicated and labour- and ingredient intensive for a home cook. I see this oeuvre as standard piece of work about a modern or maybe neo-classical, but not avant-garde cuisine.

In the French edition, there's no mention of butter in the jus d'agneau. And after a quick scan through many pages, I couldn't find a recipe where a sauce based on jus was mounted with butter. ????

As a comment, not a question: for me, the alufoil vessel is an interesting (because stretching to limits), but purely academical research. I'm paying ~50 cents for an one-way alufoil vessel, but I'm sure I can get a 0 cents, reusable braising vessel (a suitable pan) within 2 weeks when carefully watching what people is throwing away at the scrap iron collecting place. And sametime, I just cannot imagine of anyone in real life who cares about braising subtleties and cannot spend $10-20 on an el-chepo, new pan suitable for braising in an oven. But I'm interested in the results about braising in an alufoil vessel as well.

There can also be found "dissolver" in wine (hopefully only in the nose ) and "rotten forest foliage" (synonym for compost). As for diesel, there's the French expression (especially with Alsatian rieslings) gôut de pétrol.

Depends on the chef who prepare it, I guess.

Short rib of beef is a very unusual cut here. Actually, I've never seen one from close (but I'm going to try once in the future). What's the size of a single "cubes" inchwise? I'd like to cut the shanks accordingly. Further I'm thinking of browning all pieces at once in large saute pan and to distribute them evenly to the vessels, not forgetting the bits and pieces and some diluting liquidity as suggested. Wrt. browning, a comparison between an alufoil vessel and an iron cast vessel is impossible anyway. Comments?

As I understood #1, we're trying to search the differences between braising qualities of all 4 vessels. Maybe different coloured pins to mark the pieces in a vessel? Other possibilities? What's a recommended minimal size for beef pieces (me: shanks)? How much beef I'm going to need for all 4 lab series?

These codes would have made a lot of sense in medieval towns, when a fire was REALLY catastrophic. In a suburb with widely spread homes, there should be more tolerance and self-responsibilty. All in all, commercial ranges are pretty safe. The most endangered items are your fingers and your hairs when turning on a 35KBTU burner. A pro-style-stove is definitely less dangerous than a rifle. "You have to take my Molteni from my cold hands..."

Or Jaguar and Daimler. But today, Rolls is a BMW and Bentley a Volkswagen and they are completely different. C'est la vie.

Many years ago, when Molteni was bought by Electrolux, quite a bunch of Molteni people left and went to Bonnet-Cidelcem, a pure French company, and continued with Molteni-style there. Bonnet was the leading innovator for high-perf. induction modules. All those huge installations (I've seen a 12x12ft one piece island at the Molteni factory in production) are every inch made to measure. Many of them use induction and iron cast flattops side by side. The surrounding worktops are made from 1/8" thick stainless steel, the frames are built of rectangular steel tubes. Indestructbale. If I'd construct a (holiday) home high up in the mountains, where you have to heat 10 months out of 12, I'd go for a Rayburn of Aga-Rayburn, a stove which prodcues hot water and central heating. This would be financially and energetically quite attractive.

It's a Molteni and you can have the same equipment by Bonnet. Bonnet does offer a simplier styled variant (without enamel and chrome/brass finish), but with the same technical specs as the high-end range. I guess two years ago, when the Euro was at $0.80, you could have had a standard Bonnet with a large flattop for $6000. But as nathanm said, the brand doesnt' matter. The onyl additional issue I had was that Moltenis hadn't a certification for Switzerland, but for the EU only. I had to order an individual approvement performed by the gas supplying company. The guy who came knew that an EU certificate is covering all safety issues (notably thermcoupled valves).

FWIW, I installed a commercial range iny my flat here in Switzerland. Interestingly, the codes are pretty similar. 1) They didnt' care about commercial or not. The fact that commercials become very hot at the outside is a problem left to you. The manufacturer printed "For professional use only" on the frontside of the users manual, on the bill of delivery and on the invoice, and with that I think he's out of the game when your kid (or you, for that matter) has some burnt fingers. 2) Code required for every open burner (commercial or not) no-flammable materials covering the structure within a 3 ft radius from any open burner. I have a paneeled ceiling, so I had to mount those 60 minutes fire protected cement paneels under the wood. (Let me add that here finding a solution together with inspectors is almost always possible. The just appreciate to be contacted before you install such crazy things, as they are also glad to avoid the hassles created by a fait-accompli.) 3) Code required an ignition coupled ventilation (translates to: forced supply of fresh air) as soon a s your total output from burners is more than 150kBTU. Mine is a meager 90kBTU, so there was no issue. 4) I installed a commercial range hood with a strong ventilation, and I never regretted it. However, I had to create two wholes in the wall with spring loaded (?) coverings tu assure enough air flow when all windows closed. I love the open 18k and the 35kBTU burner, especially when preparing large pots and foremeost when blanching. The water starts to boil again within a handful of seconds, and that's really great. OTOH, I can reduce the fire to absolute simmer heat, and because they have large burner diameters, they spread the low heat very evenly. But in the end, we bought it because of it's large, asymmetrical 35kBTU flattop: The flattop requires 15-20 minutes preheating, but after that it's really fun. You can cook with two running burners only, but with eight pans, if necessary. If you use pro-style copper pans, you go with a really low fire under the flattop most of the time. It's definitely economical for a professional kitchen. It's an overkill for a private home, but compared with all those completely superfluents SUVs out there serving mostly to get some shopping bags back home from Wal-Mart , it's an overkill of almost humble dimensions and with much more fun or creative factor. At least for us.

I was wondering if you were going to comment Boris! I remember you making the same comment about Gruyere when you blogged. As much as I like Italian cheeses, apart from Parmigiano-Reggiano, all my faves are French, English (recent Neil's Yard convert) or locally made artisan cheeses. A. ← I repeated a outworn joke. Sorry. My core message was inteneded to be: with food, we see only personalities, styles and maybe history. The notion of "French" or "Italian" is mostly misleading. How many times the sentence "There's no Italian cuisine, there's only regional cuisine" was repeated. And still we are framed in discussing "Italian" cheese. A tragedy, somehow. Those Swiss who make Sbrinz have (culinarily) nothing to do with those Swiss who who make Gruyère. Food is not a soccer game or an olympic event. In matters of pleasure, there's never a A beats B by 1:0. Next time I'm going to visit Denmark, I'm going to pay attention to the cheese variants mentioned by eGulleteer oraklet. I'm looking forward.

The father of Parmigiano-Reggiano is Sbrinz from Unterwalden. And France has 700 different cheese varieties because they still try to imitate real Gruyère. But I have to admit, both France and Italy are producing some decent cheese.

Some Mauviel 2.5mm items are available with brass or with iron cast handles alternatively. Personally, I like the Mauviels very much because of their sturdy, ancient look and because I can get them at good prices (at Dehillerin, Paris). Much lower than Falks (here in Europe), as long as you are prepared to renounce of the else very practical curved lip. I also do like the patina outside which builds over time. A matter of taste, of course.

It was his training method: he rested for the whole day before the race. Speaking of good, old times:

One truly great expression of this genre is the "Gran Bollito Misto Piemontese", a dish of 7 different cuts. These are of beef and veal plus chicken and cotechino, each piece around 1 pound at least and all boiled individually. As with all boiled meats, keeping simmer temperature is absolutely crucial. It's a mythical dish, usually eaten for lunch and it's impossible to prepare it for less than 8-10 persons. It's served with 3-4 different classical salsas and some boiled vegetables. Every boiled meet aficionado should once make the pilgrimage to the Piemontese towns of Carrù or Moncalvo where all restaurants are preparing this dish every day. As for tafelspitz, I fear this is one of the most distorted recipes ever (outside Austria). I've seen so many recipes wrong on the cut AND wrong on the preparation. When prepared correctly, it makes for an excellent, relatively light dinner plate. 1) The required cut is a top round of 3-4 pounds with the fat layer outside. Everything else is not a tafelspitz. 2) You need an amount of water just enough to cover the tafelspitz and 3-4 chopped red beef bones. After boiling, skim carefully. After that, add the tafelspitz , two or three garlic cloves, some pepper grains and a bit salt to the vividly boiling water and reduce heat the get a slow simmer after 10 minutes. Skim again. Now boil for 1 hour, but never with more than simmer temperature. 3) Now add more salt, a celery root, 2-4 carrots, a parsley root, some green celery and parsley stems and simmer carefully for another 1-2 hours. After that, let it cool down for another hour. Never ever boil! That's the core of a true tafelspitz dish and can be served with some boiled potatoes and the cooked vegetables and horseradish. Some bones with marrow, condiments with hoesradish, mixed pickles, salad of string beans and many others can be added to complete the serving to a "boiled beef with garnish".

I guess somehwere up there, Fernand is reading here and ROTFLHAO. There's a story that once, there was a fire in some rooms of the Pyramide. They called the fire department, but they didnt' come, because they thought this just being another of Point's dreaded jokes. When Point learned why the refused to come, he couldn't stop laughing, the anecdote mentions.

The Japanese cook when photographed together with Mado, Point's wife, has roughly the same age as in the picture with Bocuse (right side). Bocuse was in Japan around 1970, Point died 1955 at the age of 57 and Mado looks quite older on that picture. Around 70, I estimate. And Point's cuisine stands for a lot of things (regional, fresh ingredients, a relatively small number of guests, no longer accepting the rigidity of Escoffier's rules, to name a few) but surely not for the lighter, healthier, less fatty style of Nouvelle Cuisine, not to mention of Japanese cuisine. I mean, just take a look at the famous picture by Doisneau, when Point had some healthy 320 pounds: can you imagine this travel-hating French colossus being impressed by Japanese miso soup and sushi? This notorious funster known by a thousand jokes and bonmots not having made a funny word about the Japanese dwarfs and their lean cuisine? I think before we should start a research by thousands of food lovers throughout the world and scanning the libraries all over about Points mysterious journey to Japan, we should want to know who exactly does claim such an event.

I had my first Cancoillotte in a traditional one star restaurant in the Franche Comté during the 80ies. I found it quite good, a kind of a poor man's Mont d'Or. I could immagine there's artisanal cancoillotte and there's industrial junk cancoillotte, just like with, say, Emmentaler cheese. There's a similar, traditional product (at least wrt. production method, I suspect) in Austria called "Kochkäse", "Glundner-Kas". You can buy it from very rich, creamy to fat free variants.

Gérard, you should stop reading Bourdieu's "La distinction". Art and its industrial production is maybe the last field which hasn't to endure any real critique, so no wonder everyone wants to pass the door and to fit in this room, no wonder everyone wants to ennoble himself with this notion. Haute Cuisine is dead, long live la Cuisine Médiatique.

Pia and Ingles, auguri e mille grazie! Ci vediamo. (Congrats and thousand thanks! We'll meet there.) Thank you Alberto, for arranging this wonderful chat! Let's rally!

FWIW, the 80% Stroh rum is rarely consumed as such. It's mainly used for 1) the notorious Jagatee (hunter's tea, something like grog), the stuff that many skiers in Austria drink before or Après Ski after the last downhill. 2) Rumtopf (rum pot), a large pot you start filling with fruits in early summer (strawberries, raspberries) and then continue with all kind of freshly harvested fruits during the season. You keep the fruits covered and hence preservated with Stroh rum. The high percentage keeps the proof high enough when diluted with the liquidity content of the fruits. Consumed during and after christmas day. Great stuff. Served warm with vanilla ice cream is a real crowd pleaser!

WTF is WOTN or WOTF or WhWOTN?

@Pan: that's what some medical studies say. All I know from immunologists here is that they are disencouraging from using desinfectants for regular cleansing tasks in households. Dilettant as I am, I think the following, general statment holds very true for the immune system: "Things are always more complicated than we think". Maybe the too strong reaction of the immune system is caused by stress of a less trained immune system? As far as I know, there's no conclusive theory about the cause of allergies.