Lisa Shock

Sherry is the wine most appropriate for 'the elevenses' -from a distant memory of a book I read in college. How about a terrine accompanied by cornichons and assorted cheeses? -And maybe a side salad? (just don't wrap it in bacon!) Finger sandwiches are a good option. Make sure to make them colorful. Poach a couple pieces of chickens and make curried chicken sandwiches with diced mango, maybe a swiss cheese variation on pimento cheese (add chopped chives for more color), cream cheese with pesto and sliced tomatoes, ham salad (maybe add a little chipotle or bbq sauce to the mayo), you get the idea. 4-5 sandwiches cut up makes a big spread. Extra points for different breads. Decorate the platter with small bunches of grapes and maybe some strawberries and you're set. If you ran the broiler briefly, you could toast up a sliced loaf of bread and make an assortment of bruscetta.

I guess this is what 'small plates for sharing' is all about.

I was glad to see Phillip go, his final words were very telling. -He once again hammered at the judges for wanting things to their own personal taste. I found this to be arrogant and very insulting to the judges. I have been an ACF judge at some small local (C-CAP) events and once filled a last minute vacancy at a national event as (you guessed it!) sanitation judge. Now, I don't know the TC judges, the audience doesn't really know what guidelines they follow, if any. But, I would like to think that in setting up the premise of the show, someone was thoughtful enough to put in place basics, like health and safety (no raw chicken), if you name a food it should conform to the description (like don't call your pancakes crepes unless you can roll them), dishes should look good, dishes should have contrasts of texture and flavor but also harmony, etc. But the most important thing is that a judge set aside personal tastes. For example, I don't like asparagus and I never serve it at home. However, it shows up in competitions regularly and as a judge I evaluate it like any other item on the plate: is it trimmed and cleaned properly, is it easy to pick up with a fork (or fingers) and eat, is it cooked properly (not too crunchy, not too mushy), how is the sauce, is there some sort of innovation present, etc. Every judge has personal likes and dislikes, but, the position demands those be set aside. You know when you take the job that you will be forced to eat a wide variety of foods and they will not all be to your liking. Phillip accusing the judges of using personal taste means that he has no clue about what he did wrong. If he doesn't wake up soon, he will never be able to grow as a chef because he cannot accept criticism and learn from it. On the risotto, I would cut some slack for that, I have done it, you need to know how, though. When I was just starting in culinary school, we had risotto in class for the first time and we were instructed to use stock from a giant communal stockpot (made by a different class) to make it. As a vegetarian, I decided to experiment, which is normally not a good idea in school -you make the dish as demonstrated. I made my risotto with water to which I heated with salt and a couple tablespoons of fresh herbs in a bouquet garni, so, I guess it was technically a tisane, not just water. Anyway, I told no one, and placed it for grading with the other students' plates. I got an A and a commendation for best dish of the day. I thought the historic challenge was interesting, but wonder how much time they really had for research, people commented that they didn't really get recipes. I have to agree that not choosing Renaissance Italy was a sad oversight. This week, I liked the idea of the main challenge, but, I think the time allocation was weird. 3 hours the day before then 1 hour the day of doesn't allow for a lot of fresh produce prep and would be an issue if you wanted to make fresh tortillas or some other quick bread. Quame's comment that he didn't have a waffle recipe (have not remember) makes me wonder about the rules: are the chefs allowed to bring some personal recipes with them? Still, waffles aren't that difficult, and there's a wide range of recipe tolerance, he should have made them from scratch. If he had, I don't think he'd be going home, I think a certain brah would have been headed to LCK. The latest LCK was great, my only complaint is that 15 minutes really limits what you can make. You can't get a potato peeled and cooked in that time. If you use a bread, it has to be a pre-made one.

IIRC, the carrot based dressing was invented in the US (maybe at Benihana, as many copycat recipes give them credit) at one restaurant and got popular enough that a co-packer started making it and selling it to restaurants across the US. I read about this years ago, I cannot find the source. I've been searching online for the source for a couple of days now, to no avail. I live in the US, and while I have visited Japan, I have no idea if the dressing is or was sold there.

I have found that cooking blueberries can decrease their flavor. I too like adding lime to blueberry items. I suspect that the path to success may lie in infusing certain berries in grain alcohol, to make an extract, rather than using puree.

So, you are stuck with this premise? Is the whole class stuck with the same premise? The conditions that would make this possible would be something like: 1) Creation of a walled garden of Pinterest recipes, aka your pre-defined menu, that your chefs have tested and have practiced enough to cook quickly and efficiently. Or are you still allowing people to just send you any recipe with 24 hours' notice? 2) Being located no more than, say, 2 blocks (running distance), from a pan-asian supermarket, and a regular supermarket. Also, being close to a food distributor's warehouse will be essential. -Unless, of course, you decide to go with just a limited menu (like a regular restaurant) and simple preparations. 3) Lots of equipment. Combi ovens, convection ovens, steam injected ovens, deck ovens, wood fired pizza ovens, proof boxes, smokers, deep fryers, pressure fryers, grills, salamanders, gas cooktops, steam jacketed kettles, rotovap, centrifuges, and more! Lots of different pans and gadgets. -Unless, of course, you decide to go with just a limited menu (like a regular restaurant) and simple preparations. 4) Lots of kitchen space. Even if your seating was just for 20 people, with each one getting a radically different meal, you're going to need a lot of cooks and lots of space for that equipment. I see the kitchen alone as having to be 3,000+ sqft.-Unless, of course, you decide to go with just a limited menu (like a regular restaurant) and simple preparations. 5) Lots of dry storage space, like 1,000+ sqft, plus an enormous walk-in refrigerator (400+ sqft) and a huge walk-in freezer. -Unless, of course, you decide to go with just a limited menu (like a regular restaurant) and simple preparations. 6) A system for dealing with food that gets sent back or unhappy customers. Will you keep several servings of the ingredients on hand in case a cook messes up a dish? 7) Training FOH to deal with new issues, like how a group showing up late or early could affect their food. (if someone ordered a simple stew that takes 6 hours to make, but they show up 3 hours early...) 8) If you are allowing customers to submit recipes, you're going to need a training program for your cooks so they can all become skilled in slicing sashimi properly, stamping corzetti, pulling rice noodles, making souffle potatoes, etc. Not to mention knowing how to clean and reassemble all of the equipment. You will also wind up paying them more than the going rate, to keep the good ones. 9) You'll need some sort of waste program, you'll generate a lot more of it than a regular restaurant. Some places send their garbage off to farms as pig feed or compost. Some cities regulate its handling. 10) Will you reject some customer requests? If so, how will you handle that? Say a 4-top orders, 3 order basic stuff like chicken pot pie, salmon steak, and lasagna. But the fourth orders something you cannot get like croquettes of canned sealmeat? One day, when we have robots that can cook, and replicators, a lot of this would be easier. The main issue I see is the dichotomy between your post stating that you would be encouraging people to submit their own random recipes, and reward them for it, and, your statement that, " Overall though, it would really be focused on popular, simple, and doable recipes." So, my question is, when and where will someone be testing, accepting or rejecting, these recipes? What will you do if someone submits as an order one of the many pins that exist right now for a real timpano (a genuine one can take 3-10 days to make, and serves 20)? You stated, "Basically, a partnership with the social media app is part of the business plan. They would help hire the big chefs and get the whole thing off the ground." So, you are expecting Pinterest to hire chefs to test the recipes that random people around the world are making pins for? Or, are you expecting famous chefs to sign up (and get paid by Pinterest?) to write recipes for your restaurant/Pinterest partnership, which will then be your set menu?

I have taught pita making in culinary school from the LCB cookbook and the CIA baking program. And, I learned while attending LCB. Maybe I'm just incredibly lucky, but, I don't recall any serious issues happening. Even lackadaisical students who didn't really put much effort into the project made them just fine. (and we made them within the time frame of one 5 hour class, no long fermentation periods, no poolish, no biga, no pate fermente. I think problems may be arising for you from perhaps rolling them too thinly, that or maybe proofing issues.

Who accredits recipes on Pinterest? There are a lot of really, really bad recipes on that app. I can't tell you the number of times someone has shown me something on Pinterest and asked me to make it, only for me to explain to them that the item is not really food, like the so-called 'marzipan babies', or the photograph is so heavily styled with non-foods as to be inedible. Then, of course, are the people who want something like an elaborate 5 tier wedding cake with hundreds of gumpaste flowers completely covering it, that they saw on Pinterest, but, they absolutely will not pay more than $150 for it. A goodly % of the content on Cake Wrecks is from people who gave a commercial bakery a photo (and a goodly sum of money) when they placed their order, and expected a similar cake to be delivered. Duplicating other people's stuff is challenging at best. And, most online recipes serve 2+ people, most commonly 4-6, not individuals. Honestly, you're not going to be able to trust recipes until you have tried them at least once before allowing orders to be placed. Ultimately, you're going to have to have some employee with a test kitchen decide which recipes are "doable" for your place, thus creating a menu you work from. (will you pan-fry chicken, which takes 30-40 minutes, or buy a pressure fryer to make lots of chicken in just a few minutes? You wind up choosing between long wait times unable to turn tables with angry customers and, a big machine you might use once every 2 weeks.) -Just like menu development for any other restaurant. I have done recipe creation and menu development as a paid consultant. I don't see how anyone would convince Pinterest to hire certified chefs to vet their content, they're already making a killing passing around content that's 95% crap. If they had cared, they would have started out by vetting content, but, instead, they place responsibility of pin creators and third party website owners. Your restaurant would have to bear the costs, at which point, it's pretty much like any other place with a pretty Pinterest menu, which isn't a new concept. IIRC, I saw my first one in 2010. Maybe partnering with an organization that produces recipes, like Martha Stewart Omnimedia and just cooking up her fare would be an option. That said, I'd re-examine your premise from the viewpoint of consumer need. If you specifically want to lure millennials, look at their needs. They eat out more than any other generation, and, they eat McDonalds more than any generation -except that they don't want to recommend it to others. Fast and fast casual are their preferred types of restaurant. So, they don't want to cook much, are happy with very simplistic cheap food, and want to get their food as quickly as possible. Right now, the hip trend is ordering takeout via apps to speed things up. I'd look at ways to make a faster restaurant. That's what made the McDonald brothers rich, their place didn't really take off until they streamlined their menu down to 5 items and did a complete remodel to support volume production of those items.

Oh yeah, most people's recipes stink. There's a reason why restaurants use professional standardized recipes as opposed to home recipes, or those horrible recipe aggregate sites like allrecipes. Members here at eG generally have websites they trust for recipes, but that number overall is very small (like fewer than 10) compared to the millions of recipe sites out there. Aside from volume issues, professional recipes have been tested and retested, use standard units of measurements (no dashes or splashes, pinches or handfuls), and specifically particular types of ingredients. Sure, chefs pass around recipes, but, the smart ones wait until they have tested it (many times) before handing it out. Check out the kitchen scale manifesto. If you accept US home-user recipes you'll wind up getting cake recipes using 'cups' of flour, etc. where the actual amounts can vary wildly by who does the measuring. One cup of AP flour can weigh from 2¾oz - 6½oz. -Meaning that a recipe will turn out differently every time it's made, whether by one chef or a platoon of chefs. You also have substitution mania with home cooks. Sometimes, this can result in dangerous situations like chemicals burning holes in aluminum foil, then leaching into the food. Or just ruining your pan. And, there's what I call 'recipe drift' where people pass along their bad habits (like melting butter instead of creaming) and cheapo substitutions, which eventually morph into substandard recipes for the original delicious food. Offering a bounty to people who submit recipes will incentivize people to give you lots of recipes, while the cost burden will be on you to make them work. Professional cookbooks have already gone through extensive testing, in labs and in the real world. There's a huge savings in using the results of other people's research rather than starting out from scratch. For extra credit, interview a culinary school's program chair and ask why they teach recipes from textbooks instead of random recipes from allrecipes, etc. The one way I see this place working is like 50 years in the future, when someone has a really good 3D printer for foods, and/or replicator technology, but, at the same time it's too expensive for most home users to own. For about 20 years, until Star Trek-style replicators are affordable for most households, a novelty restaurant might be successful. You'd be starting with simple molecules and energy as building blocks and storage and recycling wouldn't be much of an issue. -Don't like the pie? Just recycle it back into basic molecules and re-use.

Another issue is sourcing ingredients and storing them. Which is going to drive your costs way up. 1) You'll pay rent based on sq footage, and, pay to cool the walk-in and freezer. You'll wind up storing a lot of extra food because there's a limit to how small an amount of some things, like rice, you can buy. You can't buy ½cup of forbidden black rice, so you buy a 3lb bag and store the leftovers. This will add up quickly into a huge vault of dry foods, and a walk-in that would be overflowing. Within a month or two, you'd need an enormous amount of storage space which equals $$$$$ annually. 2) Food wholesalers can't always get things to you in 24 hours, and, when they do, you will pay a premium for it. Generally, for a bigger restaurant, they deliver once a week. maybe twice a week if you place big bulk orders. So, you'll pay extra for the deliveries you do get, and wind up going out grocery shopping for a couple of hours almost every day. (you can do back door pickup 5-6 days a week at some wholesalers) You'll need to buy a van or small truck for your shopping excursions. 3) Local growers aren't going to like doing business every once in a blue moon, you'll pay top dollar for their delivery of, say, 3 yuzu fruit vs a regular place ordering a case every 2 weeks. Waste will be huge. If I order a slice of Lady Baltimore cake, you have to make a whole cake to serve me that slice. Fancy French places used to have certain set dessert items, and even then ate a lot of waste. They'd offer a cake and present the whole cake at lunch, sell as many slices as they could. Whatever was uneaten became part of family meal, and a fresh cake was made for dinner. Leftovers could be recycled a bit, but, your system wouldn't allow for a regular program to manage and use waste. Part of menu planning is sneaking in waste reduction. -Vegetable trimmings get used to make stock, which is then used to cook rice, for example. This only works consistently with consistent supplies of trim and a consistent need for the end product. You'll also face seasonality issues. People who want to eat fresh genuine Maine wild blueberries in January -when they are only in season for two weeks in early summer. And, of course, you're going to spend a fortune on staffing the telephone with caring, detail oriented people who can get the orders reasonably correct plus the executive chef who will have to write/research 50-500 recipes every day. Not to mention the staff who can cook a perfect consomme, slice a fugu beautifully, make a delicious terrine from elk liver, can prep a kidney properly, assemble a wafer-thin soup dumpling, make rice noodles from scratch, etc. Then, there's the pastry chefs needed. You might want to read a bit about they heyday of the original Delmonico's and the size of the place and the amount of staff needed to service their menu.

I have to agree with blue_dolphin. I have spent years trying to reverse engineer a couple of recipes, and still have not quite succeeded. If a customer requested those original items I don't know how they could be reproduced accurately. I have helped people here with similar quests, like the search for a cake that a grocery store chain no longer makes. I mean it's one thing to say, 'gee, I've never eaten matsutake mushrooms, make me this popular and famous dish featuring them' and another to say, 'I wish I could have grandma's crumb cake again -the one she never told anyone the recipe for.' Even some seemingly simple dishes have variations that create strong feelings among aficionados.

Well, in France, by law, only a 100% butter croissant can be straight. The 100% butter kind can be any shape the baker wishes. However, ones with any other sort of fat, even 1%, can never be straight.

At work, we would use full sheet pan size only. My home oven will not fit a full size pan, so, I use half pans. I guess I don't care about color. I already own some Silpats, as well as purely silicone mats in pink and one in red. Texture is a big issue for me. I like them to be totally flat, preferably shiny, for sugar work. One down side of Silpats is their texture. This project could be improved with a flat mat.

Do you have a place near you that makes the sliced/shaved noodles?

There are special concretes used for countertops, they can be purchased in white. One advantage is that in many cases, seams can be avoided. You have to research each of these products separately.

If the weather isn't too warm, you could make a large roast, or roast a duck or turkey. In some cases, you'd be wanting to rest the meat for 30-45 minutes, so, it would effectively be done and waiting for you as guests arrive. (I recall seeing a recipe for turkey that called for resting it for the same number of hours it got roasted!) Sides, could be held warm in the oven: dressing, roasted mixed vegetables, etc. Instead of salads, you could start the meal with an antipasti platter which could be assembled hours in advance and simply kept cold. Terrines and galantines could be another starter option, with maybe a relish tray. Of course, lots of great desserts can be made in advance, from easy things like pots d'creme or pound cake, to more complex items like charlottes.

I forgot to add that I also like to use Emmental/Swiss cheese instead of mozz, and/or occasionally a touch of smoked gouda or parmesean for flavor. I don't like cheddar, jack, or related cheeses. Not that it matters, go with what your family enjoys. That said, crusty, browned swiss cheese is pretty great. I have a stoneware bread pan from Pampered Chef that I often use to make the potatoes. Once they are cooked and cold, in the loaf shape, it's super easy to slice them into julienne strips.

I make potato frittata all the time. I use a cast iron skillet, 12" for groups and my 100+ year old 4" pan for single servings. You can do either raw or cooked, however, raw shreds experience a lot of shrinkage. (the frozen type also shrinks an amazingly large amount, like you need half a pound for a 12" skillet) I personally prefer boiled potatoes that are then shredded. You can cook them days ahead of time. Don't forget to season the water, or use stock instead of water. Butter or oil your pan liberally, add the seasoned shreds. (I like to toss with salt, herbs, and finely diced onion before adding.) Let them get a bit crispy before adding the beaten seasoned eggs, lower the temp, cover to capture heat for a few minutes, then finish under the broiler. You can top with a little grated cheese before broiling, and let that brown a little. Sometimes, I like to top with tomato concasse and/or diced green chile before broiling. My favorite variation on this, however, is to take leftover scalloped potatoes, or potatoes Anna and use them as the base. To get extra browning, I start with beurre noisette. I take the cold leftover block and julienne slices off one end, then flip them on their sides into the pan. (so that what was formerly the heart of the casserole is now on the bottom) Heat through, then keep cooking until the outside is crisp, add the beaten eggs, let them get warm with the lid on for a few minutes then broil. I personally make scalloped potatoes pretty garlicy, this flavors the frittata pretty well. I also tend to use cheese (mozzarella) and cream, so the frittata crust retains some creaminess as the cheese doesn't meld into the egg layer so much, unlike cream or butter alone.

Yeah, since it only makes one loaf at a time it seems to fall into the home cook category, but the price and storage considerations are considerable. It might make an ok accessory for a grill, for people who regularly cook with a grill, have extra space on it or extra heat after cooking a meal, and who are really into good bread. That said, even the manufacturer considers a dutch oven to be just as good, but with some size/shape restrictions, and most of us already own a dutch oven. That ceramic hearth oven is larger and would accommodate several loaves.

Whoops! Yes, that's the one I saw. if you search on eBay, you can use their option to 'follow this search' and get emails when new items get listed. (look directly under the all listings, auction, and buy it now buttons) This may be your best option. But, I'll keep an eye out when shopping the thrift stores.

There's one on eBay right now for $18.99 with free shipping. Just search for KitchenAid Professional 670 and you'll see it.

Has anyone here tried a Fourneau cast iron bread 'oven'? It's a cast iron box that fits inside of a home oven, it kind of mimics baking in a dutch oven in that it holds moisture in a small space. The info on the website touts heat radiating in from all directions, but, IMO, a preheated oven does that, too. The Serious Eats reviewer used it with the ¼" MC steel.

1) Make sure your thermometer is calibrated and correct. Do not use a temp gun on sugar, it won't work correctly. (even if it did, you're mostly getting surface temps, which are not enough information) 2) Increase temperature slowly, and pull the pan off the fire just as it hits temperature, and shock the pan as quickly as possible. Have your bowl of ice water prepped before starting to cook the sugar. (this may also be useful in case of an accidental sugar burn to the skin) 3) Use a pan sized to fit the amount of sugar you are cooking -don't let the sugar be too thin, like 2oz in a 12" pan is too large of a pan. 4) Use a fairly heavy pan, not as heavy as cast iron though, but, also one with good conductive properties. This IS the time to use an expensive copper pot. Make sure the pan is well made, and level. -A cheap warped pan will not heat evenly. You want something that heats evenly and well, but will also cool quickly in the ice water bath. 5) Make sure the pot is clean. I have a sugar-work pot that I wrap in clingfilm after washing and drying so that it does not accumulate dust or microscopic oil droplets from the air in the kitchen. Every once in a while, I boil the whole pot inside of large stockpot to make sure that it's really, really clean. Once it's wrapped in clingfilm, I hide the pot so that no one can find it and possibly unwrap it and stick their (grubby) fingers inside. Hope this helps!

I suspect that not feeding people will be the downfall of team orange. I think this was forshadowed by the editors who caught people on the team wondering about the complexity of some dishes. I can't believe that no one thought about streamlining some dishes for speed's sake. I understand that the decision to focus on the judges led to their downfall, but, that said, how complicated were these dishes that they took so much time to prepare? There should have been plenty of time between sending out the apps and sending out the mains -especially since the judges take time to discuss what they are tasting. And, Carl's terrine bothered me. I know that it's common to see terrines where the pan is lined with bacon, but, this practice has always bugged me. The flabby steamed bacon has a very unappealing appearance and can be difficult to cut on the plate with a fork. He also needed to add something for color, and something for texture. This is why pistachios are so common in terrines; they add green color and crunch.

How about a BBQ mop?