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ermintrude

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    Meat tenderizers

    in Kitchen Consumer

    Posted · Edited by ermintrude (log)

    Not a chance. Those machines can never tenderize meat. They only make meat more chewable. Meat fibers will be just as tough.

     

    dcarch

    I did a trial with some stewing steak, one I did nothing with,the other I used the jaccard on then cooked both sous viide at 60C for 4 hours with a small of gorgonzola in each bag, the jaccarded steak was preferable and softer than the non jaccarded steak. Interestingly the small amount, and I mean a smear, of blue cheese really brought out the beef flavor and was eaten even by a guest who will not eat any form of cheese.

    Why would you take the skin off pork belly?

    in Cooking

    Posted

    It *is* odd, about that sous-chef at Per Se expounding on toxins being processed in pig skin - and human skin (and presumably not elsewhere). Is that person still there at Per Se, and if so how do they regard his, um, food credentials?

    You can believe a lot of wacky things that are only incidentally about cooking and still be a great cook. Eric Ripert for example, believes that menstruating women can't make mayonnaise without it breaking.

    Interesting, a friend of mine who is a female head chef, told me she can't make mayonnaise at that time of the month. I'd never heard of Eric Ripert comment before.

    Crinkle Cut Fry Cutter

    in Kitchen Consumer

    Posted · Edited by ermintrude (log)

    as long as you bake them in a very hot oven, they might give you a decent 'fix' :huh:

    Don't bake them. Deep fry them in hot oil.

    You know Heston's triple cooked chips? Well, these fries are also triple cooked. First they are parboiled, then cut, then fried, then frozen. When you deep fry them, you supply the third cooking step.

    I used to go through a lot of effort to make triple cooked chips. But when I discovered that deep frying frozen fries produces a result which is close to, or superior to the Heston method, I gave it up.

    Not quite they are cut, parboiled (In burnt hay water can add a twist), when cool placed in the fridge uncovered for an hour to dry (you can shorten this under vacuum I believe, and overnight works) , fried at low temp to cook, can then be left till needed and get a high temp fry to crisp. The recipie's here http://www.channel4....ed-chips-recipe

    I've been frying frozen fries for years as oven chips are the spawn of the devil, but they are not the same as heston triple cooked. The chips as they are cut before parboiling are practically falling apart and get lots of "edges" due to bits breaking off, I tend to lose a third of whole chips, they then get dried, and the first cook finishes the cooking and does seem to stabilise them from disintegrating. The final stage makes them wonderfully crisp (think a good roast potato) but fluffy inside,

    Many places that server triple cooked chips skimp some of these steps, and while they may be boiled, fried and finally fried and are triple cooked they are not Heston triple cooked chips.

    All that said, to make the full on Heston chips it's a right labour of love to do properly and you can tell the difference but it's not worth the work unless for a special occasion or for the joy of cooking to make them, so most of the time I'll deep fry frozen oven chips like you ;-)

    The California foie gras ban

    in California: Dining

    Posted

    All that said, I still think that, whether or not gavage itself causes the animals undue stress, that force-feeding animals way past the point they'd gorge on food in nature is not a pleasant business,

    Now if they did it for humans certain fast food companies woud be up S%$t creek without a paddle!

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