Shalmanese

It's context based for me. Things like marinades & brines, I take overnight to mean the longer the better (within reason). Things like beans, overnight means until they've achieved their maximum size or longer. For dough rising, overnight means roughly 8 - 10 hours. Things like leaving meat unwrapped to dry out the surface, I take overnight to mean 24 hours and no more than 48 hours. If you understand the chemistry, then all you're really concerned about is where the peak of flavor and texture occurs.

Plenty of the competitors have perfectly decent restaurants where they turn out tasty food but, for one reason or another, don't adapt to the reality format of top chef. The ability to tweak a dish over the course of months is completely different from the skill of coming up with a dish on the fly in a few minutes & nobody is going to not eat your food in a restaurant if it comes out exactly 8 seconds late.

One thing I've slowly managed to teach myself over the years has been the fewer types of serviceware I own, the happier I am. All growing up & through college, I lived with a random mish mash of plates, bowls, cutlery & glasses, either donated, bought or borrowed & not returned. It wasn't until I moved into my most recent place that I got to finally design the arrangement of the kitchen into something I was happy with. In the process of moving, I made the decision that there would only ever be one model of any type of serviceware and it's made the organization of my kitchen innumerably easier. Every plate, bowl & glass has it's predefined place. There's never the problem of big bowls going on top of small bowls, plates piled in not quite an aligned fashion, shuffling aside one piece so you can reach another. And because everything has it's own place, the storage of everything is radically more compact, fitting into a single standard width cupboard. I was lucky enough to pick up a service for 18 in fine bone china for a complete steal at an estate sale a few years ago and these have become my everyday plates. There's a large plate, a shallow soup saucer & a smaller plate. For glasses, we have 1 dozen Ikea Mjod glasses, 6 of which are out at any one time. As each glass breaks, we replace it with a new one at roughly the rate of 1 every 3 months. The small bowls are also from Ikea, the big bowls are from Daiso. I also have a few decorative pieces which I've got stashed away in other parts of my kitchen. Some black triangular plates, some long rectangular plates, a big serving platter etc. But I would estimate 99% of my eating comes from these 5 types of plates. What I'm looking for now is a way to consolidate the rest of my serviceware in a way that maximizes both convenience & versatility. Currently, my cutlery is still a random assortment as I've not yet found a model that both feels great in your hands and is also affordable. Another area I have no idea how to tame is storage for cooked items. I started out with a set of round pyrex bowls with the blue plastic lids but, like the lost sock conundrum, I seem to only have left lids that don't fit bowls & bowls that don't fit lids. The pyrex is also not stackable and comes in too many different sizes so I have an full cupboard just dedicated to pyrex. Also, prep bowls is another area that I would like to completely revamp. Currently, I have a set of large, cheap metal mixing bowls which I use to store large amounts of chopped stuff & I tend to use either ramekins or the small Ikea bowls but this isn't very space efficient for my prep area. I'd love to have either one or two different type of prep bowls that could accomodate the majority of those tasks. In short, I'd love to hear tips from other people about effectively consolidating serviceware to minimize the amount of futzing around in the kitchen.

Lobster used to be something fed to criminals and slaves. Tuna belly was considered no better than dog food until just a few decades ago. Oysters used to be a free snack food given out in bars to keep people drinking. Sure, there are some foods which could be considered underappreciated today but it's hard to think of many examples that had such a reversal in status. If a visitor from 100 years in the future came back, would there be anything they would consider that we also similarly criminally under appreciate? About the only thing I can really think of is bone marrow and even that has a large degree of respect within foodie circles although not with the general public. Tied to this, I wonder how such foods were perceived by the foodie elite of the time. Sure, quite a lot of people are driven by fads & consensus opinion but true foodies learn to trust their tongue more than other people. Could they also not recognize the inherent deliciousness in those foods?

A request from someone on the east coast: Can you try making a lobster roll dressed with lobster mayo made from sauteing the shells/roe in a neutral oil and then report back about whether this is superior to the standard recipe? I feel like this would be the perfect use for a quick mayo.

What about an Aero Garden? The lowest end ones are just on the edge of your price range. Does he have a spice grinder? It's $20 but it's a great tool in the kitchen. A lever style citrus press is also highly appreciated in my kitchen. Alternatively, some high end fancy ingredient might be nice. Maybe saffron, vanilla beans, truffle salt or fancy olive oil. What about cocktails? There's a number of fancy pieces of barware that are nice to have.

What's the difference between using 2.5 oz of a 80 proof spirit and 2 oz of a 100 proof spirit? It should be a little less diluted but are there any other flavor differences?

For a brine, I go strictly by weight. 3% for a normal brine, 2% for mild, 4% for aggressive. Measure the water into the vessel you're brining in until it covers the meat, take out the meat, add in the salt and dissolve, then add back in the meat. This is so much simpler and less error prone than cup based measurements. Personally, I don't see much of a difference between a salty, wet marinade & a brine. On the surface level, it would seem like the same chemistry is happening so I only brine when I want *just* the salt flavour.

I finally tried this again tonight. The mayo sets up stiff when cold but the emulsion holds. With a pork fat mayo, it's about the texture of soft pate. It's still definitely spreadable but it's a different texture from oil based mayos.

So, Ben and Prawncrackers, let's say I have a yen for wanton soup and don't happen to have any Chinese chicken broth on hand or the time to make a fresh batch of stock. I pretty much always have a variety of sizes of plain home-made chicken stock and the same of ham stock (made from smoked ham shanks) in the freezer. Could I combine them in a pinch to use for a wonton soup? My ham stock is typically pretty intense and when I make red beans & rice I usually add about 30 to 40 percent more water to the pot. What proportion of chicken stock to ham would you suggest? I'm thinking it shouldn't really taste hammy in the end, right? I would add maybe 2 tbsp of ham stock for every cup of chicken stock and then simmer it for 20 minutes with some ginger, garlic & green onions before removing them and adding in the wontons.

I was in the middle of making up a batch of kalbi short ribs today when I started thinking: sometimes, cooking is about skillfully ekeing out deep flavors from humble ingredients and impeccably balancing tastes. But with what I call "culinary no-brainers", it's just about piling on various different forms of deliciousness on top of each other in a largely haphazard way, secure in knowing the end result is going to turn out tasty no matter what. Kalbi short ribs, with their sweet & salty & fatty & meaty & charred from sugars caramelizing on the grill flavors is a perfect example of this. Of course, Bacon is the ultimate culinary no-brainer with it's salty, fatty crunch and it's pretty easy to improve upon virtually any recipe by adding some bacon into it. But I'm interested in other favourite culinary no-brainers. Truffles (both kinds) are great culinary no-brainers for me. When I don't have any particular inspiration for dessert, chocolate truffles are an excellent lazy way to impress people. As long as you make sure to get excellent chocolate and make the ganache correctly, you can pretty much just throw any random flavor in there and it will turn out great. What are all of your favorite culinary no-brainers?

Even if you get your $160 knife stolen every month, assuming a 40 hour work week, that's only $1 per hour. Assuming you're being paid $15 an hour, if you can save 4 minutes of prep work every hour with a sharp knife, it's paid for itself.

"[The Black Truffle] is treasured not so much for its taste or appearance but for its aroma, which has been likened to bedsheets after a night of abandon, slatterns who disdain to bathe, all that is dark and alluring about the human body and soul." - Alan Richman

Everyone did Sous Vide for that round and everyone, except for Kevin, had temperature issues with their dish.

Ginger, Garlic, Spring Onion, Star Anise, Szechuan Pepper Corn, Dried Chillis.

How is pouring 212F cream over chocolate any better than microwaving it to 120F?

The point of the game is to create a variation on the most recent recipe so the next poster should post a variation on Tomato & L'escarole Soup. Also, quoting the recipe in your reply will make it clear what you're making a variation on.

Create a variation of the last recipe in this thread. It could be swapping out ingredients, changing the cooking method, using it in a different cuisine. Be creative! I'll start: BLT Sandwich: Ingredients: Crispy Bacon Iceberg Lettuce Vine Ripened Tomatoes Mayo 2 slices of Toast Preparation: Slather toast with mayo, pile on lettuce, thinly sliced tomato and crispy bacon. Eat. Next!

Ah, that's exactly what it is. This chocolate is at least 2 years old at this point. I was always told that chocolate might bloom but it never "goes bad". I guess that only applies to eating, not baking. Curiously, the dark chocolate has been exactly as old and it never had a problem. Is it something to do with milk chocolate?

The dirty secret is that fishmongers get their fish in frozen and then defrost it for sale. Instead of buying the defrosted fish and then refreezing it, simply ask the fishmonger if they have some still frozen ones in the back which you can defrost at your leisure back home. Alternatively, shop at somewhere like Trader Joes which sells all of their fish frozen.

Are there any non-alcoholic stouts on the market or are they all lagers?

This has never happened to me before so I was wondering if some of you could help me diagnose the problem. I was making a ganache yesterday and it ended up with lumps of chocolate that steadfastly refused to melt. Small clumps of chocolate, maybe about the size of pine nuts stayed solid even after 5 minutes of stirring. When I checked the temperature of the ganache, it was 120F so it was definitely above the melting point of chocolate. The texture of the unmelted pieces was like peanut butter. I ended up fixing the problem by straining out the melted ganache & then going to town with a whisk to break up the clumps. I've never had a problem with ganache before so I'm curious what went wrong. Here's my procedure: Chopped up 300 grams of Ghiradelli milk chocolate with a knife Zapped it for 30 seconds in the microwave, stirred, zapped it for another 30 seconds. Put 200 grams of cream with orange zest, vanilla & orange liquer in the microwave until it just came to the boil, poured it over the chocolate Let it stand for a minute or so, then started mixing. I just finished making a dark chocolate ganache with almost the exact same procedure and it came out fine so I don't know what could have gone wrong.

There's two ways I like to do them now: Unspatchcocked, on a bed of potato wedges, 500F for ~40 minutes in a skillet. The chicken juices & fat are absorbed into the potatos for an ultra crispy chicken & wedges. Spatchcocked, seared on both sides in a pan. 3 - 4 minutes on each side will result in a tender & juice bird.

I would continue watching this show if it were half an hour but, as it is, there's simply too much filler to get me interested.

For a pavlova, I would definitely splurge on the king island. But every pavlova recipe I've seen asks for whipping cream, yours specifies double cream?