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RETREVR

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Everything posted by RETREVR

  1. EVOO may be appropriate when writing a recipe, but even then it implies that the cook is incapable of selecting a suitable oil (wich may be the case). By the way, most EVOO on the market is pure rat piss and you would be better served to select an oil on its taste rather than its virginal status or how long the neck of the bottle is. For 90% of applications you don't really want EV, you just want OO. The term foodie used to bother me. Now I think it is the perfect term for santuko toting, EVOO drinking, food snobs. The term "maters" for tomatos pisses me off..especially when they are about $300 a box. Using the descriptor "sublime" when you don't know what you are tasting.
  2. I agree that stuffed pastas can be individualy frozen and then bagged. I have had little luck drying my pasta. I becomes very brittle and breaks up upon cooking. If I am going to use it the next day, I will go ahead and cook it, shock it, and refrigerate. Any recomendations on adjusting a recipe for drying pasta? My pasta is a combo if semo and AP flour egg and oil. Any idea on how the percentage of semo helps or hurts a pasta hold up when dry?
  3. Until they stop charging me 50% more for a left handed knife I will never use Japanese. ← You might check out http://watanabeblade.com/english/ I don't know what his policy is on leftys but if you are ordering a hand made peice it may be no price difference. I have had a santoku for years. I can not think of a task that a santoku performs better than a chefs knife. I take that back...I use mine fo flip pancakes when I am camping. Most of the santukos are so short that you must lift them up and use more of a slicing motion. A usuba would be a better choice for this type of action. Global makes a vegetable knife that I would also prefer. I used to keep mine on the line because it was a good size for a limited space and it had the "safety tip" that santokus are known for. The safety tip is probably why you see them on so many "when waiters cook" shows like Rachel Ray's.
  4. I have had a chefmate copper bottom saute pan for a few years. It has held up nicely. I had been eying the set for $79 that has two saute, two sauce and a small stock. Well, about two months ago I walked into target and bought the set for $39 on sale. These are not all clad by any means but they are good pans. All the saucepans in the pro kitchen I work in are aluminum. I brought in one of the chefmates for when I need a nonreactive surface. I ended up using it for sugar a few times which uncovered some weeknesses in the pan design. The side walls are very thin and the bottom is very thick. Look at a top quality pan and you will find an even wall and floor. The side has a dent in it as well. Listen, these are good pans. They are not all clad though. I just wish I had bought a few sets.
  5. I have been thinking about it lately. I have some vegi base that a supplier dropped off. We don't use bases. I might try gelling that. I have put gelatin in a sauce before but have not done enough research on it to say I know what I am doing. I used other thickeners at the same time so I don't know for sure how the gel performed. Some thickeners break down after extended time on heat. I don't know if this is the case with jello. I would guess no. Tell me what you find out.
  6. RETREVR

    Smoked salmon

    Unless I am confusing my salmon....isn't the coho the "troutlike" salmon, in that it is a fairly small salmon. If so, you can smoke those puppies in no time. Actually you can smoke them at a relatively high temperature for a fairly short time (in smoking terms). I think I have even smoked them stove-top before.
  7. Non-stick is junk...unless you are making an omlet. A roaster would make a mighty big omlet. Non-stick is a vast conspiracy of cookware makers to get you to replace your cookware every five years. That maviel roaster at williams sonoma someone linked is a nice peice. I was lucky enough to buy one at auction for $5, but I might consider buying another one for $70. I am sure they are phasing them out in favor of the non-stick version. Buy the non-stick and replace it every five years. Buy the traditional finish (Aluminum....thick, thick, aluminum) and your great grandchildren will be using it to roast turkey in their nuclear convection ovens.
  8. Update: I baked the cakes today. Turns out that part of the order is to be chocolate cakes. The recipes are from 1935 and don't seem to be terribly accurate. They were designed to be made in 9" round pans. The customer said to just "go ahead and make them in 9"x13" sheets. Well, problem number one. When you bake these recipes in in a rectangle pan, they end up about as flat as a loaf of bannana bread. This is OK if you are slapping icing on it and serving it out of the pan. We are not. I tried turning the temp down on the convection. I tried less mixing. I thought maybe the levening should be adjusted. I came to the conclusion that the sheets were just not going to produce a flat enough product. I had a novel idea: Use the pan the recipe was designed for, regardless of what shape the customer whimsicly decided upon. So I go with the 9" round in the tuned down convection oven. Still a huge slope. I now go to a 9" round in the conventional oven. Still a big slope. Now people. If this was to be a layer cake (as both recipes are written to be) I could simply level them out stack them up and call it a day. These were to be single layer. The rims were about an inch and the center was about 3 inches tall. If you put frosting on shit....you still have shit. I went to walmart and bought a couple of sweat bands. By the time I get back to the kitchen I look like Bjorn Borg. To make a long story short: 9" rounds with water-soaked sweat bands around them in a conventional oven= wicked even cakes.
  9. This forum rocks. Thank you. The suggestion of making ornaments on parchment is a good one. I am in Colorado, so humidity is usually not a problem. I have made cages using the bottoms of laddles before and they held up very well. Peon-I saw your thread and have been watching it. I have spun sugar by drizzling over dowels. If you do this a lot, I think the best thing to use is a cut-off wisk. I am not a pastry wiz. My basic reference is aon older edition of this book: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...032927?v=glance It is not the end all book but has enough basic preparations to get me in trouble.
  10. Task: We have an order for burnt sugar cake a few days from now. The customer was kind enough to include the recipe that she wanted, not to mention some magical cake flour she wants us to use. The chef did a test run. The cake was fine (oddly enough "non-magical" cake flour works fine). However the icing sucked and the chef couldn't figure out why. Anyway On the way out of town the chef told me that I would have to do the order and that the icing would be a problem...have fun. So. I need to review the recipe. However, If anyone has a tried and tested recipe for a burnt sugar icing, I would be greatful. (I always get carmel when I try to burn sugar... or is it the other way around) Did I mention that the order is actually for several cakes? I will do them in sheet form. I am not sure how big of sheet though. THe chef told me just to flip them over and ice them. So I am thinking that several small sheet cakes will be the deal. I don't have collars for full or half sheet pans anyway. The notes on the recipe from the customer mention that she wants spun sugar on the cakes. No big deal, I thought I would spin sugar and and drape it on top. The chef said I should just drizzle the sugar over the cake. Did I miss something? I have never seen this done and am sceptical. Anyway. I thought I would ice the cakes, do a little piping work on the edges, drape the spun sugar and call it a day. Any sugestions on decor or presentation of the sugar?Thanks
  11. I make a salmon mouse and pipe it onto english cucumber that has been decorativly zested and sliced on a mandolin. I suppose you could make those salmon roulades small enough to fit on a cucumber. I just like the freshness with salmon. I made italian sausage in a puff pastry purse today. Quite often we make a little puff pastry tart which contains brie and raz jam. Last week we did brie en crout and couldn't get anybody to touch it. After the first few people attack it, it looks like a greasy mess on the platter. Lamchops can make a great app. We call them lambsicles. Roast the racks as you like then slice them into chops. I like to see the carnage at an otherwise civilized event. Very small new potatoes on the half-shell are good....if you have a little caviar laying around. Shrimp always seems to get snapped up. Try wrapping large shrimp in bacon or pancetta. Make a tequila marinade or whatever. Serve with guacamole or whatnot. We did roasted aspergrass wrapped in procuitto today. I wish they would quit putting asperagrass on the menu this time of year. We do bruscetta of all sorts. One simple one that has good eye appeal is a basic toast with herbed olive oil, topped with fontina then one half of a calamatta on one end and one strip of roasted pepper on the bias on the other end. Don't used canned peppers. Just julienne a red pepper season and toss with olive oil and roast in the oven. Like I said....it is very simple, but looks and tasts great. One bite is soo different from the other. One of our biggest hits is a mini pannini with tapenade and fresh mozz. The funny thing is that the general public will gravitate to the "less foo-foo" items. Take a room full of doctors and lawyers and offer lamchops and caviar on one table and offer coctail burgers and grilled cheese on another table. Guess which table will get more action.
  12. I remeber my first post on this thread said something to the effect of "copper..who needs copper". Well I have been bitten by the bug. I bought a few peices in thrift stores. I also picked up a calphalon copper sauce pan cheap. The dammed thing is made in china but has performed very well as my sugar pan. It is really nice to have a consistent thickness so your carmel doesn't get too dark along the sides of the pan. I still can't see spending $150 on one pan at this point. But I am in the "buy one when you find a bargain" crowd. On a side note... I had a gig the other night at a home. I walk into the kitchen and there sits a wolf six-top with flat-top and double oven. Cool. ....Untill I tried to get standard full baking sheets into it...or half pans into the smaller oven...or hotel pans to go in lengthwise, or deep half hotels to fit any of the racks without removing another. What a joke. The knob could possibly be the most over-engineered thing I have ever put my hands on. Sure was nice looking though.
  13. Did the prep cook not de-vein the shrimp? I would like to change my answer to: Lardons with a side of spag.
  14. If you like blue cheese, you might like this. I put them on the menu the other night. Blue cheese truffles Mix blue cheese with just enough cream cheese to get a good consistency. Cover a red grape with the mixture and roll it in your palms. Roll in chopped toasted nuts. Walnuts or pistacio are my favorites. You can use the type of blue that you prefer and can season the cheese or add an herb element if you wish. Trust me, they have enough flavor and texture variety as is. Another one is rissoto croquettes. Take a cooled rissoto(anyflavor you like...wild mushroom is good) and form into a ball. Insert a chunk of cheese, roll in breadcrumb and fry. For home cooks, it might be better to make more of a cake than a ball. Then pan fry them. Way better than the best crab cake and a hell of a lot cheaper to make. I like to use goat cheese. Fontina might be another good choice. That reminds me...we used to make brioche(sp) with goat cheese in the middle. The texture of the cheese is like shaving cream when it comes out of the oven.
  15. I used to make it with ricotta, any assorted dry fruits, chocolate chips(tiny), powdered sugar, and galliano. Engredients are mixed to quantities that suit your tast. The Galliano is a distinct flavor that most people can't put their finger on when they tast it . ....trying to remeber if I used any form of egg.....I forget. A quantity of marscapone could be used. You could always fold in beaten egg whites or whipped cream to lighten it up. Might have used a little vannilla also.
  16. In my limited experience with coating truffles.... You can't have them very cold - This will cool down the coating and make it hard to work with - This will make the coating crack when the truffles come back up to temperature(the ganach will expand) I made about a hundred today. I think my coating was Callebaut (there was only a bit left in the block). I have not developed my dipping technique yet. I used a dipping fork and draped a spoonfull over each, tapped excess then placed on parchment. They looked OK. I garnished them with a single almond sliver (to take the eyes away from my not so perfect coating). One batch was cafe the other was cassis. Have fun
  17. Most demi used anymore is not espangol based, but it depends on the application. If I am making a plated tenderloin, I will generaly use a reduction. This is often mounted with butter. If I am making the same dish for 100 people, and the sauce will be in chaffer, I will use something similar to escoffier's demi. If I am making pork or chicken, or even fish, I will use a lightly reduced veal stock with a slurry. The beauty of having a moderate slurry demi, is that it is neatral enough to use on many dishes, yet if you need to, you can recuce it by half in a pan sauce to bring out the meaty flavor. Part of what you want out of your stock is the gellatine. My reduced demi could be used to make a flack jacket. Has anybody played around with using gellatine as a thickener for stocks?
  18. I wouldn't get so bogged down in hard and fast, this sauce MUST go ONLY with THAT pasta, just some generalities: Fresh pasta goes best with cream or butter-based sauces Dried pasta goes with olive oil-based sauces Short stubby pasta, or tubes, go best with thick, robust sauces like meat ragus. String pastas go well with seafood or vegetables. There are certain dishes that are classic pasta/sauce combinations, and usually you will see them listed as such: Fettucine Alfredo, Tagliatelle Bolognese, Bucatini all'Amatriciani, etc. But don't get too worried about specifics otherwise. ← Rules? What rules? I might add that it is good to consider the size and shape of your ingredients in relation to you pasta shape. For example: A quater pound meat ball might not be the best match for angel hair. Chopped clams might mingle well on the other hand. If I were making a pasta salad I might julienne red peppers to go with penne but small dice them (or half julienne) to go with elbos. Some of the conventions seem strange. For example: I would never make a tuttu de mare and serve it on spaghetti. Great on linguini, not so good on spag. Not because the pasta is much different. It just doesn't look right. Same thing with meatballs on linguini. Don't get me started on the time I caught my mom cooking cappellini and spaghetti in the same pot for the same duration.
  19. My simple favorite is shitakes sauted in brown butter tossed with a short pasta and reggiano. My not so simple favorite is mussels steamed with garlic, herbs, leaks, butter, wine, a touch of pernod, and a splash of a basic marinara. Marinara is a bigining...rarely the end.
  20. All science aside....Cider vinegar might be a better choice than white wine vinagar. Hell, white wine might be a better choice than vinegar at all. You are lucky (or have a good olive oil) if you can make your aioli without getting a funky bitterness....(which is part of the reason to use lemon in the first place).
  21. 200 shouldn't take very long. I don't have a disher...I will have to order one. Your first recipe is similar to what I started with. You can add any flavoring you want. Orange zest rocks. Make a few batches or separate large batches into a few different pans. You can rotate them in and out of the freezer to keep a workable consistency. I scoop with a mellon baller. I then round it off while it is in the baller. I then stick the baller over a sterno for a second and release the ball. Pretty quick when you get it down. I haven't had time to perfect a coating. I generaly use powder...they are called "truffles", and I don't mind them looking that way. I have a few hundred to make this week also.
  22. RETREVR

    Panko

    You can use panko for tons of breading aplications. Calimari comes to mind. When I was a teenager (worked in a japanese restaurant) we made a dish called pankodon chicken. I am not sure how authentic it was but it was tasty. You take a rice bowl and top it with a chicken breast (sliced)that has been breaded in panko and fried.Then you top it with a sauce of sorts. Mix up soy based sauce. This should be a watery consistency. You can put what you want in it but I am thinking soy sauce, garlic and/or ginger, maybe a little rice wine or rice wine vinegar. It had a little sweetness to it, so maybe a little molasis or brown sugar as well. Anyway Heat your sauce in a very small saute pan (6-8"). After the sauce is hot, scramble an egg and drop it in the sauce to cook. Throw some green onions in. This will make a sort of floating omlette.Now remember the rice bowl with the panko fried chicken? Pour the sauce with the egg over the top.
  23. To me, totinos party pizza is a terrible pizza.....but it is an outstanding cracker. I hate picking one up late at night at the corner store. Someone I know always walks in. It is like buying condoms and having the clerk page for a price check. Little Debbies rock. The pastries for a morning duck hunt. The nutty bars for afternoon. The cakes for dessert in camp. This is typicaly a road-trip or hunting food. Most of them are a quarter. You can fill the glove box for a couple bucks.
  24. RETREVR

    My old trusty knife

    I agree. Take it to someone that can taper it down a little. The other problem with the Wusthofs is that as you wear the blade down, the bolster becomes a real obstacle when sharpening. You might have someone grind down the bolster so that you can get an edge on the whole blade.
  25. I made a tuaca ice cream with a blackberry sauce...it rocked. I want to try an Alfredo ice cream paired with something for an app. Probably summer seasonal though. Sweet Tea sorbet is another on my list. The grapefruit is killer right now for sorbet. Hefe-wiesen (sp) sorbet How about Red bull and vodka I digress
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