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DerekW

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Everything posted by DerekW

  1. As a wailing child growing up in Scotland, my cuts and grazes were anointed with a product called 'Germolene' which I remember as being Pepto-bismol pink. It also reeked of something like artificial Wintergreen. Arriving as an adult in North America I was astonished to have a soft drink foisted on me which smelled and tasted like the cut-salve of childhood. Yech. For all those of you who grew up with the root beer stuff, I invite you to imagine encountering a soft drink which tasted like household cleaner or bleach. Hard to work up an enthusiasm
  2. Great blog! Kudos to you for trying the 100 mile thing - I've often wondered about how few places will support habitation if [when?] long-haul transportation costs go through the roof. We would be living from a root cellar for six months of the year, and we don't have a root cellar. That block could be levelled in an afternoon with handtools, I believe. Since this isn't a woodshop forum I'll not go into details, but if you want more information let me know, or PM me. cheers Derek
  3. Caveat: my beer brewing is much better than my bread baking; I'll approach the question from that point... There's a good explanation of the role played by alpha amylase in starch to sugar breakdown on John Palmer's excellent online How To Brew web-book. Casually used, the term diastatic applied to malts usually just means that they have enough enzyme to convert their own starch to sugar. If you read the information Palmer supplies you will note that the enzymatic activity takes place in a fairly narrow temperature band. You would need to hold the dough at that temperature for a while to see any difference at all. cheers Derek
  4. ...beaten to the post by ChefZadi... cheers Derek
  5. As others have remarked, the pace of these classes does not favour lingering careful camera work. Great fun. With the customary caveats and apologies for dubious photography and iffy plating... From the first week: Salmon poached with fennel, here topped with a salmon 'bacon' [belly, wok-smoked] Salmon in a potato horseradish crust with a lemon beurre blanc... ...and from week two, seared duck breast with a pan reduction sauce, polenta and an orange & walnut salad. Butchery: Two Chefs, one side of pig, and a generous helping of anatomy lessons.
  6. Are crown cap bottles more popular overall? I think I see more twist-offs than straight crown caps these days. Hereabouts at least, the decision is in part an anti-tampering issue. Bottles with twist-offs are required to be sold in closed boxes. Whether for manufacturing reasons or otherwise, twist-off necks are thinner glass, and the durability [hence long term cost] of the bottles may be higher. cheers Derek
  7. As it's been ages since I was over that way this may be a little out of date, but at one time the Pepperpot Spice place in Londsdale Quay used to carry a great range of hard to find hot sauce. Better range than anywhere outside of mail order in those days. Might be worth a call if you're going to be nearby. cheers Derek
  8. Ooh, here's a game I can join in More often racked than rolled, here's what's around at present: From top to bottom, a wood and leather strop for polish finish on fine edges [using green compound], then an old friend, my Z&H 8" Chef. The first real knife I owned, I've had it for decades and it fits my [fairly big] hands comfortably. Next is a Watanabe Santoku [Kuro uchi Blue in stainless]. Simply wafting it in the general direction of food causes things to part like the Red Sea; A recent gift. Some years back, the tool company Lee Valley sold off a number of Sabatier knives which had been sitting in storage [in some cases for over half a century]. The rustic looking item is a copy Lee Valley commisioned of one of the most popular of the old knives, a 'farm kitchen' knife. The copy has a resin impregnated handle and a carbon steel blade. This example had been placed in their bargain bin because someone had returned it complaining about the blade discolouring. [duh]. As a fully paid up card-carrying 'edged tools' junkie I felt compelled to give it a new home. The original idea was that the blade might be reprofiled to work as a heavy boning knife, but my butchery aspirations await a suitable opportunity, so for now it stays 'as is'. Below the farm knife is a Z&H 'Santoku' pattern which was originally purchased so that the rental kitchen would have a half way decent general purpose knife, and it has proven to be all of that. Once I'd had it a while I became aware that there was some controversy about these hybrids. I'm a little embarrassed by the "as seen on TV" and "as used by Chef X" notion, but the knife itself is workmanlike and needs no apologies. Although the all stainless thing looks at first glance to be a cleaver of sorts, it is [or was described to me as] a fruit knife, and has a light blade, more at home with apples than turnips. I've accentuated the narrow included angle it originally had, and it still holds an edge at that. Since confession is good for the soul, I've also included the cheap and nasty stainless Yanagi pattern [complete with fake hammer marks] which I picked up [more bargain bin fun] to see whether I really wanted a single bevel slicer. The jury is still out. Near the handles of these can be seen a folding diamond hone. At the opposite side of the image is an Ikea [don't laugh, please] ceramic 'steel'. While not manufactured to particularly high tolerances - it is bent, hard though that may be to believe - it's a pretty useable tool for touching up some things, such as the little carbon tourner. Most of the real sharpening is done using a linisher, which when fitted with a coarse belt can reprofile deformed blades. Touch up sharpening is done with a 15 micron mylar belt on the same machine. Next to the ceramic rod is one of those ancient Sabatiers, this one a stout carbon blade with Wenge scales, dating from [iirc] the Thirties, and beside that is a Frosts laminated blade which I handled with some scrap purpleheart to make a small but sturdy butchering knife. The spearpoint parer is stainless, and another trusty friend picked up in the great Sabatier sell-off. And here's where they usually rest: When I was throwing together a prep station to augment the miserable rental kitchen it was an easy option to make the backbar of the chopping top into a knife block of sorts. The 'block' portion is only a couple of inches deep, and the blades are suspended under the worktop out of harms way. cheers Derek
  9. Welcome back indeed! If you departed the "scene" in '97, you may not have come across John Palmer's excellent online version of his book How to Brew. For someone like yourself who has already been down the all-grain with decoctions route much of the information will be old hat, but for any neophytes observing your progress the e-book might be a useful background text. Palmer's a professional metallurgist, and a bit of an engineer-type, so I found his information on mashtun manifold design to be lucid and helpful. When the frozen weather means I'm unable to brew outdoors, I've been doing a lot of what are essentially half-batch recipes [fly sparged, all-grain] in a simple setup in a tiny apartment kitchen. While I'm kegging those into 3 gallon kegs, I'd suggest the half batch thing even if you only have 5 gallon kegs available - the batch size is big enough to overcome any issues in recipe scaling, but small enough to encourage lots of experimentation. As you will of course know, there is no problem with using a full size keg to secondary and serve a half-sized brew. No pesky hop utilisation calculations to deal with, either. cheers Derek
  10. Thanks for all the information on stuffers, folks. My local supplier has just taken delivery of a "budget priced" vertical crank unit, and I'm going to go out and take a look. If there's a Chinese factory turning them out then I guess what I'm being offered is probably the same unit as NT carry. And I'm definitely not coming home with one of those iron shoes Good luck with the KA, Lauren cheers Derek
  11. Hi Choux While I've obtained small quantities from butchers who make their own sausage, probably your best [and most economical] bet is to contact Stuffers Supply Company. They're out in Langley, and have pretty much everything you might want. I'm fairly sure that they do mail order within Canada. I'm heading out there next week to buy a stuffing engine, having cursed the KA attachment pretty comprehensively while making our first batch of sausage from 'The Book' last weekend. Great sausage though.... In case you haven't found this out for yourself, it seems that "pink salt" is an American thing; here in Canada the same Nitrited curing salt is not dyed pink. I got some funny looks when asking for "pink salt". Of the various synonyms used, "Prague Powder #1" seems to be the most common. cheers Derek
  12. Great pictures, thanks Chris! [ smoker envy] What are you using as a stuffer? We had our first attempt at making 'entry level' sausage [pork picnic shoulder with ginger and herbs] at the weekend, and while all went well [juicy, tasty, mmm good] I can't say that i thought much of the stuffer attachment on the Kitchenaid grinder. The book warns as much, but... We ground, then paddled, then ran the squodge through the grinder/stuffer without blades, but it was really hard to get a smooth constant feed. Since the squodge was sticky, it would form a seal around the push stick and vacuum the meat back from the casings when we withdrew the pusher to continue feeding. Our local serious sausage supplier has a cast iron press available for about $100, and a serious crank operated unit for about $300. They've got one that's closer to $10,000 as well I try to avoid the worst excesses of kitchen gadgetry, but there will be more sausages in our future if i don't have to go through the push-pull stuffing process again. What would really bite would be spending the $100 and then deciding next week that I should have ponied up for the $300 crank unit. So what do the prolific sausage stuffers among you use? cheers Derek
  13. DerekW

    Sushi knives

    Hi Jeff Not so much a case of 'serve a functional purpose' as 'result of construction method'. Traditional Japanese blade construction uses very hard steel for the cutting edge. That hard steel will take and hold a sharper edge than the softer steel used for a western style blade. Global knives are more like a western style blade in their construction. Making the entire knife from the hard steel would give a result which was needlessly brittle. Instead, the hard edge is forge welded onto a softer, tougher, more resilient body, giving the razor like edge a lot of structural support. What you see is the difference between the two metals. cheers Derek
  14. DerekW

    Sushi knives

    Hi Jeff Enjoy your new knife! If I understand you correctly, the 'haze' you saw is the soft iron backing on a 'kasumi' constructed blade, and the glossy polished area is the hard carbon steel edge. I'm pretty sure that the Global is not constructed that way. IIRC kasumi means 'mist', so 'haze' is a pretty good description... cheers Derek
  15. DerekW

    Sushi knives

    Hi Jeff If you go looking for a 'sashimi' knife from Japanese blade suppliers you will see two main patterns - Yanagi and Takobiki. The concept of 'sushi knife' isn't one that I'm familiar with - I think it's a marketing term Main differences between a western style slicing knife and a yanagi [the usual 'Sashimi knife']? The western blade is usually bevelled on both sides, whereas the Japanese style blade is sharpened only on one side. That means you need to specifically order left-handed blades if you're a lefty. Most [not all] Japanese blades of this sort are laminated with an extremely hard but brittle cutting edge backed by a softer, tougher main blade. Compared to a western blade, that hard edge can be sharper, but it is also more easily broken or damaged. The Global knife you are looking at will probably be more forgiving in this last regard. Are your current knives of reasonable quality? Are they really, really sharp? You might want to check out the eGCI for information on knives and sharpening - there's lots of good stuff there. cheers Derek
  16. From your images it appears that Kershaw have slightly narrowed the included angle and left a fair amount of tooth. If you want mirror finish then you can get it by using a finer abrasive, and maintain the angle they have set. A commercial sharpening service whould be able to do pretty much whatever you ask for. As Shalmanese says, the degree of polish on your edges is a personal preference thing [although I'd suggest that the rougher edge is better for getting a bite on smooth soft shiny things such as tomatoes, and the mirror finish works better in meat. Personal preference FWIW, my Watanbe santoku arrived with a mirror polished edge, and I keep it that way, doing touchup on a leather strop with green compound. The blade is so fine compared to my German knives that it deals with soft stuff without needing 'tooth'.
  17. Preventing the beast from working loose from the spit: Perhaps this counts as cheating, but when faced with a similar situation [pig on spit] I had good results using the spit claws pointing outwards, inside the carcase, and a wrap of chicken wire mesh round the outside. Some soft iron wire cinches kept it all in place, even on a rented spit which had a huge backlash in the gearbox, allowing the whole kaboodle to rotate in freefall about 90 degrees once every rotation. cheers Derek
  18. Caveat: I don't own one of these boards. That said, the Epicurean boards are made of 'Richlite' which is a resin bond paper fibre product. and according to the manufacturer's website is "significantly harder than wood". That's assuming that Richlite have not made a different, softer, product for the cutting boards. cheers Derek [edit for fat-finger typing]
  19. DerekW

    Pantry moths

    For what it's worth, ladybugs are good bugs. They eat 'bad' bugs. We release them in the garden as aphid control. Guess what they like to eat if they can't get aphids? Moth eggs.
  20. It's not B&Js, but there's a gelato place near me [La Casa Gelato Website, sadly no list of flavours ] which rotates over 500 flavours [over 200 in store at any one time] and I swear I've seen about half of those wished for in this topic at one time or another - Baci and Toblerone; no problem. Try La Dua through Durian to Balsamic vinegar sorbet to Pear and gorgonzola to Mixed berries with jalapeno and on and on. Never had a bad one either, although there are lots I've never tried. They do have to stay in business, so there's lots of the more straightlaced stuff available. If you're ever in the neighbourhood....
  21. Hmm. On reflection, i think your suggestion is a bit more likely, and AFAICR, a dessertspoon is about 10ml. A more likely quantity for making a cake frosting, I guess. cheers Derek
  22. My best guess would be decilitres, although a capital D isn't the usual notation. [usually 'dl' in my experience] That would be 100ml each of butter and water. Decilitres aren't used much in 'the real world' but they're a part of the metric system as taught in schools &c. cheers Derek [transplanted from 'across the pond']
  23. Tuesday class seems to be basically the same as Monday, although I imagine CHef Tony changes things up just enough to keep himself interested. Case in point; I'm sure last week that he said we would be making ciabatta rather than a baguette [i'd have preferred the baguette, I think ] You sick people all feel better soon, OK? cheers Derek
  24. If the drawers are not deep enough to allow upright storage of your jars, perhaps the 'semi-recumbent' posture allowed by the drawer liners sold by Lee Valley might help. About thirty spice jars per drawer, if memory serves. cheers Derek
  25. DerekW

    fish balls

    Somewhere, I have a recipe for baking the non-fried fish-ball version in ramekins of an egg and shallot mixture. Thai, IIRC. Maybe it was a savoury custard rather than just eggs. Seemed like a neat idea anyway.
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