phatj

I have this idea in my head for a relatively minimalist chili that's sort of inspired by the recent Bolognese cook-off - it will involve ground meat and sausage (Chorizo, probably, definitely not Italian) plus minced vegetables (debating whether to use just onion, or some vegetable blend) cooked low for a long time with chili paste, stock and milk (yes, milk) and perhaps some wine or beer. Then add cubed chuck, more diced onion, diced tomatoes, more chili paste to taste, plus more stock if needed and cook until the chuck is tender. Aside from the milk, this is all pretty traditional, but does the milk make it not chili? My theory is that the milk in Bolognese sauce, after hours of cooking, adds a richness to the sauce without any discernable dairy character. I think that would work well in chili too. Does this sound OK to the chili experts here?

I've had that happen too - now I cover the dish with a paper towel, corners folded down under so it won't go anywhere.

I got a trio of KAI Pure Komachi 2 knives (6.5-inch santoku, 3-inch paring, tomato/cheese serrated) and am seriously impressed. I think I've seen these in stores and dismissed them because of the crazy colors and the price - $10 knives can't be any good, right? Crazy sharp out of the box (well, plastic blister pack), and from a little research it seems that they actually will hold the edge pretty well. Nice comfortable handles too (though they're hard plastic though - could have a tendency to get slippery).

I never got around to making this back in November, but tonight I found myself with a big hunk of leftover rare roasted leg of lamb in the fridge, so I decided to do something like a Bolognese. The bones plus some scraps of meat and fat are simmering in the crock pot now, and earlier I sauteed sofritto, then added the lamb along with a big blob of tomato paste. Once the meat was cooked I added a bit of milk, just enough to make it a little saucy, then turned off the heat. This mixture is going to sit out on my deck overnight while the stock simmers. Tomorrow morning, I'll strain and defat the stock and add it back to the crock pot along with the meat mixture, then set it on Low (or maybe on Warm?) and let it go all day. Note: I have no wine in the house, and while I do have some bacon, my wife doesn't like it.

Man, I need a better supermarket. I would have stretched my budget to pick up a bunch of those chickens and chuck roasts. Not only do I never see chicken below about $.89/lb or chuck under about $2.99/lb, I hardly ever see chuck roasts as large as 3 lb, let alone 4.

Interesting, I have a couple of fairly nice bamboo spoons (for Wal-Mart purchases, anyway) that are the only wooden implements I own that I won't put in the diswasher. The rest are sub-$1 implements that are basically disposable - they wear out from use before showing significant water damage.

I was raised on discounted meats, what we sometimes referred to as "green beef". Today, I never, ever look at the dates on packaged meat in the supermarket, and every time I go to the store, I scan the meat section for the reduced stickers looking for interesting bargains. (Today they had a whole leg of lamb for $2 a pound! Unfortunately, I didn't have the money in the food budget to buy a 14-lb hunk of meat even at that price.) I can't ever remember getting bad meat as a result of these habits.

And back to this question: the answer is "get a cheap benchstone and learn to sharpen freehand." It's not rocket science and it's pretty hard to screw your knife up permanently as long as you stay away from power tools. *UPDATE - on a whim, I bought a combination stone at an Asian grocery. The thing was labeled entirely in what I'm guessing was Korean, without even any discernible numbers that might indicate grits. The grits seem to be "pretty coarse" and "less coarse". The results aren't pretty (the blade has some significant scratches) but the edge is MUCH better than it was. I'm sold on freehand sharpening - I figure if I do this once in a while when I would otherwise steel and I'll keep the knife plenty sharp enough for my needs indefinitely, no? My only problem now is that the edge is very "grippy" to the point that it bites into my cutting board unexpectedly at times. I'm assuming getting a fine grit stone will help take care of both that and the scratches?

I was under the impression that "bay-sil" was the accepted American pronunciation. I've never heard it with the short "a" sound (as in "cat") except as a man's name, and then only as spoken by English people (as in Fawlty Towers).

In my experience in the US, croissant is most commonly pronounced "cruh-SAHNT", with an English "R" sound, and the "T" is definitely vocalized. And I'm OK with that - generally Americans trying to pronounce French as French people would come across sounding absurd. (Myself definitely included - I was once pretty good at French but now I'm better at nitpicking others' pronunciation than at speaking it myself. )

I was inspired by this thread to make some popcorn tonight. My go-to is butter with a little Sriracha sauce, and of course salt.

A combination of a bad recording and over-enunciating. It's pretty much as Hassouni put it previously - NWAH-yee praht.

The Wikipedia article you cited earlier corroborates this, actually. Perhaps the Prat name was not originally French.

Ah, gotcha. I agree with all of that, but unless my fridge is unusually crowded I wouldn't bother repacking the leftovers.

Why?

Pretty sure Gewürtzraminer and Pouilly-Fuisse are incorrect as presented. The "ü" in German is pronounced closer to the English diphthong "oo", though there's no true phonetic equivalent in English. And Pouilly-Fuisse is misspelled - to be pronounced as listed, it would require an accent aigu over the final "e", which it correctly has: Pouilly-Fuissé. My French and German are both a long time ago though. ETA: just realized Gewürtzraminer was misspelled as well, the "t" and "z" being transposed. FG, did you type this up yourself from a hard copy?

I'm a little surprised about the apparent prevailing opinion here. I'm no expert, but I've done pulled pork myself a few times and have brined each time. No hammy taste, and no texture problem with the finished product. But then my brines are simply salt and water - maybe adding sugar to the brine would make it taste hammier?

Oh, yes. "Chicken Spread" is a product whose time probably will never come.

...marinate several pounds of chicken in a mixture consisting largely of pureed raw pineapple.

I was under the impression that to benefit from low-and-slow cooking such as pot roasting, a cut should contain a lot of connective tissue (that makes it tough with normal cooking methods) and a lot of fat, which helps keep the meat moist during long cooking. Chuck meets both criteria, but I didn't think round meets either. I was surprised to hear from someone recently that they made a very good pot roast with bottom round. I had always thought of round as a cut best suited to roasting rare, slicing thin and serving with a flavorful sauce. Can anybody set me straight here?

Hm... seems my idea of a Bolognese sauce was a little off - I thought of it as a tomato sauce with meat and mirepoix and milk. Seems like the "traditional" recipes use far less tomato than I have when I've made it. I'd like to try this.

My lunch today is a roast beef panini, made on ciabatta garlic bread with leftover prime rib, sauteed mushrooms and onions, crumbled blue cheese, and sliced provolone.

I already have a gyuto, but I'm intrigued by the possibilities of a nice nakiri (even if, at best, this wouldn't really be one - but maybe if I can get it sharp I'll find out I could use a real one).

So I own a Cutco Vegetable Knife (an unsolicited gift), which, after reading this thread, I now realize is actually a nakiri, at least in shape. It also has a very thin blade profile so with proper sharpening it might actually function well as a nakiri - but the standard Cutco edge, while adequate for most American home chefs, is NOT up to the kind of paper-thin slices that a nakiri should be able to do. Anybody else own or use one of these? Is it worth keeping? It's been sitting in my knife block for a long time mostly because I didn't want to offend my in-laws who must have spent considerable money on it.

Yep, I wouldn't consider doing it any other time. My kitchen unfortunately has no venting to the outside unless I open windows. Well, even with windows open on two sides of the room on a 20 degrees F January night, it will get up around 90 F in the kitchen. It would make the entire house uninhabitable in the summer.