Smithy

I'm glad, for your sake, that you bought both the mortar and pestle set and the batik. I'm glad, for our sakes, you showed them to us. They are beautiful! Do you remember what made those brownies so special? I had some a couple of days ago that were more fudgy and chocolatey than any I've ever had before, and they're in the running for my personal favorites.

Welcome! What sorts of food do you especially like? Do you cook from scratch, or prefer to let someone else do the cooking so you can be the appreciative recipient? :-)

With regard to the peak activity point: I haven't seen a graph, but I got the idea from the video that it's more nearly a steady rise with a very abrupt drop at the deactivation temperature. A graph would be good, wouldn't it? I don't know whether these links will work, or for how long. I know the lecture videos were posted to YouTube, but so far I've only accessed them via login to the edX course. That said, I know they've archived the lectures and homework. Here's a link to the ATK video on steak: https://courses.edx.org/courses/HarvardX/SPU27x/2013_Oct/courseware/d13e7aef954441bd8f2d58dc70df5518/e7c1eb5c84604d15bb130956eb5831b1/ Here's a link to the transcript: https://courses.edx.org/c4x/HarvardX/SPU27x/asset/ATK.txt Please let me know whether these are accessible; the "https" at the beginning makes me wonder. There may be a more direct link of which I'm not yet aware.

Mgaretz, I had to move back from my keyboard to prevent drooling on it. If you haven't posted your recipe and methods already in one of the smoking topics, please enlighten us.

Here's what I mean about my preferred turners. Note that I use these for turning meats in pans, and for scraping the bottom of said pans during the cooking; none of these is ideal as a fish-turner although I use them that way anyway. I generally use these for pan-frying, sauteeing and sweating vegetables: any time I want to be able to scrape the bottom of the pan to get every last bit up into the finished dish, I use one of these. The turners* at left and right are made of nylon or a similar heat-resistant plastic. Note that the bottom edges (what I referred to as the edge away from the handle) are rounded, not straight. You can see that they only make contact with the board in a very small area - less than 1 cm on the black turner. That may give a slight advantage for getting under something that's flat in the pan, because the slight arc allows a more gradual entry under the material in question. It's terrible for trying to deglaze a pan and scrape up the browned bits; because of the small contact area I have to make multiple passes to get the entire pan bottom. The center turner is flat along the edge in question. It cleans a good 12 - 13 cm worth of the pan bottom in one pass. I haven't had trouble using it to get under meat that I'm trying to turn, so I'm not sure that the 'arc' in the other two is useful, really. This particular turner is my favorite, but because it's metal I can't use it in a nonstick pan. There is also a design question to be considered as to the radius of the corner curvatures - in this picture, the bottom left and right corners of each turner. A very square corner can't get into the rounded corners of a pan (where it goes from the flat base to the sides) without potentially scratching; too shallow of a curve makes it difficult to get into the corners at all. In this respect, the blue turner on the right comes closest to ideal for me. A third design question that I may have touched on is the thickness of each turner: in this picture, from front to back. If a turner is too thick it's difficult to get it under something to be turned; if it's too thin, it's too flexible for my purposes. The blue one at the right is almost too thick, but its width (side-to-side in this photo) makes it the best choice for certain purposes. Each of these turners has a use in my kitchen. I generally use the metal (center) turner on my stainless or cast iron pans and the left (black) turner on my nonstick pans. The larger surface area of the right (blue) turner makes it the best choice to support and turn large items such as large cuts of meat, bread, pancakes, or fish. As for eggs: all three of these turners have slots or holes. Those are traps for scrambled eggs, sticky sauces and brown bits. They're especially annoying with scrambled eggs. For that reason I'd like to find a turner or two with a solid surface. I used to have some, but they suffered from being too flexible to be good at turning things or too sharply-cornered to be effective in the pan corners, so I gave them away. I hope this is helpful. Sometimes I go on at great length, only to find I've baffled the listener. If it isn't clear, ask again. *Actually, I usually call them spatulas but I'm trying to distinguish them from the soft rubber bowl-scraping spatulas. Edited to add: When I had solid-surface turners, I did not have trouble with suction making it difficult to release food. Is that supposed to be the reason for those slots and holes?

I'm looking forward to the references, too; there's a lot of information that I'd like to get in more depth. I just reviewed the transcript of a lecture given by Dan Souza of ATK during last fall's edX course. He noted that calpains and cathepsins are particularly important enzymes in breaking down proteins, and that they're active but slow at lower temperatures (e.g. dry-aging in a refrigerator); the rate of reaction goes up with temperature until the shutoff point. In other words, they are active in living mammals but not at the rate a cook might prefer. Specifically, he said cathepsins, which break apart a range of proteins and work on collagen as well, work better as temperature rises but deactivate at 122F. The upshot of the strategy is to tenderize meat by raising its internal temperature to 115F (allowing for a 7F margin of error) and holding it there for some time, to allow the enzymes to do their work. He mentioned calpains as the other of the two most important enzymes and noted that they work on the proteins that hold a muscle fiber in place within a particular muscle; however, I can't find in the transcript where he specified their shutoff temperature. Judging by paulraphael's information above, he may not have thought them as worthy of keeping active as the cathepsins. Edited to add: I'm not trying to contradict paulraphael's "peak activity at 122F" statement; Souza specified it as the shutoff temperature, but I suspect rounding for convenience in one source or another. It's also possible that Souza meant 122F is the maximum temperature at which cathepsin is still active, although that isn't what he said.

Welcome, Stuart! I think you'll find yourself in good company here: passionate, curious, helpful cooks and learners at all stages, and from a variety of cultural backgrounds. The collective knowledge and experience is enough to spark spirited debate; you can get help and/or opinions about pretty much anything. As for technical issues: as you learn your app, feel free to ask the hosts via PM if you have forum-specific technical questions; as a rule, you'll be able to get answers either from the help files or from some technically savvy staff member. We're glad to have you join us!

Welcome to the forums, Sal / Gaius46. That's a very nice intro to your world, and from this windy, cold, drizzly part of the world it's particularly evocative. It sounds like you'll fit right in here: we have brewers and beer drinkers, braisers and grillers and cooks and generally all sorts of curious cooks. Come on in and join the fun! Maybe we can start a $100 hamburger topic. :-)

Interesting that you thought the wine improved with a day's breathing, Paul. I didn't get that impression, but I *was* pleasantly surprised that it was at least as good the next day. I just got back from a trip in which we brought a bottle of the Barefoot Malbec to the hosts. I've forgotten now which meal it accompanied - probably the grilled beef - but it was well-received by everyone. Does some brave soul want to start a new spin of the wheel^W bottle?

I held true to my moratorium on buying more cookbooks, saved by the fact that our library has this book. I've just checked it out and am trying to decide which recipe(s) to try first. The photography is beautiful. One small quibble with it is that I prefer a cookbook to have a comprehensive list of recipes within each chapter, or in the Table of Contents, to make it easy to see, say, all the vegetable recipes in one go. The Kindle version does not. There is an index at the end, however, and that saves one from having to 'page' through the entire vegetable chapter to find, say, chard recipes. I'm looking forward to trying some of these, but will have to wait to see which ingredients are available at our markets.

I love the expression 'flying sponge'. It's about time for me to start baking again: I'm home for a while, and weather here is drizzly and cold. Thanks for the inspirations!

I love duck, but rarely get it; it's difficult to find in our grocery stores and expensive then I find it, and I'm no duck hunter. Like gfweb, I'd like to know how the wild fowl compares to the domestic; I'm guessing that the domestic is fatter and the wild is more flavorful provided it's cooked properly. So - Shelby, please tell us what you can about what you cook, how you cook it, and how the flavors work out. Anyone else who can make the comparison, let's hear it!

CatPoet, there are a lot of us who believe that one can eat well on a limited budget. Good for you for demonstrating it! Shelby, it looks like you have a couple of really fun sunflower bowls in that spread. Am I seeing them correctly? I am a sucker for fanciful pottery and dishware. :-)

Following up on what scubadoo97 said, it sounds like the great start for a sauce to go over rice or vegetables, or simply the shrimp themselves. That isn't exactly a recipe, though. I'll look around - and I hope others do too - to see about finding something more specific. Welcome to the eG Forums, by the way!

Remember that he also stopped to position everything and take photos. I think it would take me somewhat less time without that extra step, but given my knife skills, I doubt I could do it in less than 45 minutes.

Welcome, Rachel. You've probably noticed already that there's lively discussion in the Spirits and Cocktails forum, as well as other beverages and all sorts of food. Come on in and join the fun!

That's another great tutorial, Soba. Thank you. I love the vibrant colors, so different than the results when a nice green vegetable just gets bunged into the microwave for 5 minutes.

That's a nice trick, Ashen. Thanks.

I think for the most part they've stopped providing cookbooks with microwave ovens in the USA, on the assumption that everyone knows how to use one by now, and in the interest of cutting the cost of publications. (User's manuals in this country continue to decline in the way of useful content, while gaining lawyer-friendly entries along the lines of 'do not try to dry your pet in this machine'.) (n.b. I made that example up, but have seen equally outrageous and useless admonitions occupying otherwise-valuable print space.) The microwave cookbooks I inherited from my mother generally have well-meaning but tasteless recipes.

That's a great post, Heidi, and I'm eager to try the recipe. Thanks for the link!

Crashed potatoes? Is that the same as mashed potatoes, or is there a special technique that I need to learn? :-)

Beautiful tutorial, Soba! Thanks for taking one for the team and showing how a small distraction, like taking time to take a photo, can throw your timing off. ;-) Tex, I'm with the others: those veggies probably were given a head start. Blanching as discussed above is one option. A short burst in the microwave, in a covered dish with a touch of water to steam, is another method worth considering. It probably won't be as beautiful as that blanch-and-shock method, but it'll be quicker. (Edited to add: I see rotuts, who posted while I was typing, had the same idea.)

I had to read that several times to see that you'd written not non-stick. ;-) I think that most soup and stew pots do not have non-stick interiors, but I know of some exceptions; my camping soup pot is nonstick because it's lightweight and I picked it up for a song at a garage sale. I still use a metal ladle, because the ladle doesn't scrape the bottom of the pot. At home I use stainless steel pots. I can see the value of a plastic / melamine ladle to protect the surface of, say, a nonstick shallow pan or wok containing a thick sauce. Maybe others will chime in here to explain their use of plastic ladles.You also asked about my design criteria on turners. I'm waiting until I can post a few pictures or sketches, to make everything clear; it'll be a day or three. :-)

Allow me to add my welcome to the others'. You should fit right in here!

Host's note: a series of discussions about how to get molds for chocolate clean that began here has been moved to Lior's new topic, "Cleaning Molds for Chocolate", which can be found here: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/148665-cleaning-molds-for-chocolate/. This was done to allow the problem and solution to be discussed in one location after this excellent report has faded into the background.