Shalmanese

The answer varies exponentially based on the age of the bread. Straight out of the oven, I'm 90% about the crust. 3 hours in and I'm about 50/50. By the end of the day I'm 90% about the crumb.

It's quite puzzling to me because, as far as I can tell, there are no mid range national chains in Australia. We have the American KFC/McDonalds/Hungry Jacks and the homegrown Red Rooster at the low end but nothing like Chillis or TGIF. So I don't know why chains are so stultifyingly present in American dining yet seemingly non existant in Australia.

Call me a heathen but I've found wine in cooking doesn't significantly degrade if kept in the fridge. I usually have a bottle of cooking red and cooking white in the fridge at all times and sometimes they'll be there for 3 months and they still taste fine in a dish.

Cook some lightly floured rainbow trout in a cast iron skillet and then deglaze with verjus ,throw in some grapes and almonds and butter at the last second and pour over the fish. it's an amazing flavour.

Eat vegetarian or reduce the amount of animal protein in your diet as much as possible. Almost any other action you can take pales into insignificance compared to this.

You have to step back and think about what you're trying to achieve. When you are sauteeing meat, what you want is to develop the maximum amount of fond and browness for maximum flavour. As the temperature you are cooking at increases, the rate of browning becomes faster, however, too high and the oil will start to break down and get bitter. Thus, the goal should be to keep the pan in that narrow range between 350F and 450F as much as possible. Cold meat coming into contact with a hot pan is going to cause a significant temperature drop, if you heat up the oil in the pan, then you can only push your pan up to 450F or so otherwise the oil will start smoking. Then, when you add the meat, the temp will drop out of your optimum range and you'll have to wait for the slow recovery time to bring it back up. If you have a dry pan, you can bring the pan up to something like 600F, 800F or so or even higher. Then, if you do it right and add the oil and then very rapidly add the meat, the entire thing should come into equilibrium right at around 450F and you can achieve a superior saute. The problem is if you do it wrong, you can get a lot of variability in your result. If you only heat the pan up to 300F, then dumping the meat in is going to cause the entire thing to stew, if you heat it too far then things could start burning before they brown. There's nothing wrong with the oil first method, its reliable and simple to do and it certainly produces an adequate sear. But the pre-heated pan just takes things to the next level. Of course, if you don't want high heat cooking like when you're sauteeing garlic or onions, then none of the above advice applies.

Vegemite? Fresh?

Could you link to where vacuum marinating has been debunked?

I think the pineapple flavour is important in SS sauce. Something always seems missing without it.

Here's something it took me a while to realise: Meat doesn't get brown if you rinse it. That layer of red stuff on the surface of meat is the stuff that turns brown. If you take it off, all meat does is get grey. Sure, if you cook it enough, it'll eventually turn brown but unrinsed meat browns like a charm and rinsed meat is a bitch to brown.

HFCS is liquid which means it's much easier to deal with logistically. You can store it in tanks, pump it with pumps and mix it quickly. It never clumps or clogs. Even if the subsidies were removed, retooling so many industrial processes to deal with a solid sugar rather than a liquid one would be a daunting task.

Man, I'm stuck with the conflicting desires of simultaneously wanting to be that pig and eat that pig at the same time .

Spaghetti with Peas. Steam some frozen peas until vibrant green, add some water and hit it a couple of times with a stick blender. You want it to still have a bit of texture. Salt and Pepper and toss with some pasta. I am perpetually amazed by the depth of flavour that you can get with such a simple recipe. It really is a revelation when you have it for the first time pure like that. But it's also a perfect canvas for additions. Garlic, onions, bacon, parmesan, butter, red chilli flakes and chicken stock all work really well in it. I usually like just picking 2 or 3 out of those and seeing how those flavours layer over the top. Fettucine with Brown Butter and Truffled Pecorino. This may be my absolute favourite way to enjoy truffles on a budget. Just toss some fresh aldente pasta in some brown butter and salt and then thinly shave on a generous portion of truffled pecorino. Each serving works out to only be $2 or $3 yet it feels like such a luxurious dish. Honey Mustard Chicken. I had a friend live off this and puttanesca for half a year. Saute some chicken, make a roux, add milk, cheese, honey and mustard and some other flavourings and then add back the chicken. A thick, creamy, flavourful sauce in minutes.

Chocolate risotto is pretty fun but ordinary. Maybe if you dressed that up a bit. I like the idea of building something with the same structure as a main course but made out of sweet elements like a lasagna.

I think it would work better if there was some textural contrast. Maybe if you very thinly sliced the celery instead of pureeing it and you served it with an oyster. I also think gelatin is not the best thickener for this, maybe agar would give a better flavour release.

At the risk of throwing myself under the flaming bus, I'll state that I was not enamored with Alinea. And I know I'm not alone in my thoughts. Though I can't say any review I've read has be "seriously" negative. ← I think it's about par for the course that in a 26 course tasting menu of that calibre, there's always going to be some standout dishes so I don't think there's been any seriously negative reviews. One the whole however, I tend to largely agree with snekse. For me at least, the few real duds were a serious disappointment and left me feeling ambivilant about it.

Uh... Was I the only one who thought Cantu was Japanese before seeing it? I liked the LN2 spheres, I thought they were a clever way of achieving their desired effect. I thought the laser was ridiculously useless though and the packing peanuts was just a dumb gimmick. I have a lot of respect for Cantu to be on the bleeding edge but it seems like sometimes they're too busy innovating to be reflective. I like how Morimoto basically rolled up his sleeves and said he can play the same game too with caviars, iSi whippers, LN2 and sous vide. Morimoto didn't show off any groundbreaking techniques but he used molecular gastronomy where it made sense.

The Murry River Salt is very pretty to look at and the texture is great. I would just get that, unless you're a major salt collector, nothing else is distinctive enough to be worth bringing back.

In Australia, all nutritional packets had to have a per serving and per 100 gram panel so you could quickly figure out the percentage of anything in your food. Here, the serving sizes are usually so ridiculously small and the accuracy is so low that it's impossible to figure anything out. I can't even tell 30% cream from 36% cream reliably at the supermarket anymore.

My favourite from a previous eGullet thread: The cooks made a batch of "special" scallops for the new line cook by carefully molding and breading chunks of lard. During the dinner rush, the new line cook was asked to throw some scallops into the deep fryer and, as soon as he threw them in, he was called away to do something else. He returns to the completely empty deep fryer utterly confused and gets yelled at by the chef and told to throw some more in. Repeat as neccesary until there is laughter all around.

When I moved to the US, I did a giant supermarket sweep. Here is what I brought over: Vegemite Tim Tams Cherry Ripe Violet Crumble Caramello Koalas Minties Fantails Tiny Teddies Fruit Rollups Pizza Shapes Thats a reasonably comprehensive list of Australian stuff you could ask to be brought back.

I was served Oysters with a verjus granite as an amuse once and it's now become my favourite way of eating them. The texture contrast and the slow flavour release makes for an amazing flavour. It's as subtle as a dash of lemon but far more interesting IMHO.

I've never heard of them. Are you referring to sloe berries?

Woo! It came today. I noticed the blurb on the inside cover referenced egullet.com and not egullet.org. Bad Tony!

There's often a confusion between Essential Oils and Oil. Oil like Olive Oil or Canola Oil is a triglyceride. Essential Oils are a giant class of chemicals which contribute to the aroma of food. Most Essential Oils are not Oil (triglycerides). Some Essential Oils are soluble in Oil so you can make a flavoured Oil by infusing it with Essential Oils but there is only a tiny bit of Essential Oils in the Oil... confused yet?