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dougal

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  1. Interesting to see the dishes here and compare them with those in Jason Atherton's rather nice (but slightly misleadingly titled) book "Gourmet Food - for a fiver". Its a bit misleading, because the basic premise is a materials cost of £5 per head for a two course meal, for four. You'll probably spend over the £20, because its a 2010 book, because you are unlikely to have ell the sundries in the cupboard, because sundries like cooking wine and saffron aren't included in the costings, and because you will have oddments left over (half a batch of aioli, 3/4 of a lime, half a cabbage, etc). But the budget isn't really the point - though there are no silly-expensive ingredients. Its about low-stress home preparation of starred-restaurant-style food. Recipes are written restaurant-style 'prep & assemble' without assuming the assistance of a brigade working alongside you. "Home Entertainment" might have been a better title. I haven't seen the Maze book, but this one does seem to be very close to Pollen Street Social.
  2. ... with most recipes making 4 servings? I don't believe Keller is suggesting that's the way his kitchens actually work. That definitely sounds like it isn't written for the home cook! I do have 'Manual of a traditional bacon curer' (but I wouldn't recommend it, except to the insatiably curious) where the bacon recipes are essentially 'per pig', and the sausage recipes tend to use 40 to 60lb of meat. Maybe the need for a sympathetic editor is a distinguishing characteristic of books aimed at the industry rather than the consumer market? The 'Manual' definitely was lacking one - there are quantities unspecified ("an appropriate quantity of ...") and rather a lot of loose ends left hanging.
  3. I appreciate functional stainless steel. I dislike its use as decorative trim to boost "added value" (and thus price). Advanced corrosion has had me shopping for a replacement gas barbecue (garden grill). Lots of those are "stainless steel" - but sadly its principally used for trim rather than structurally or for the not-on-show firebox ... I don't want something that looks like a gleaming range out in the garden, but I'd like something that didn't require much maintenance to ensure durability.
  4. Hold on a minute! What (apart from Escoffier) are you calling "pro" books? I have rather a lot of food books, and I was trying to think which of them might describe real 'pro' (precisely as done for business) cooking. If we leave aside baking books, I'm not sure I have ANY 'pro' books. I do have lots of book-of-the-restaurant titles, but they don't tell you what they actually do in the restaurant! The thing is that 'home cooking' and the published recipes have an expectation of 4/6/8 people sitting down to eat the exact same thing at the exact same time. Now, I've been in restaurants where the occasional dish is designed for 2 diners to share - but don't recall experiencing the whole table always being required to order the same meal ... (OK, there's downstairs at Chez Panisse, but I've only eaten in the Café - and I haven't been to Sally Clarke's ... so there are some exceptions, but not very many!) I don't think I actually have ANY books that describe bulk prep to hold points (with holding how-to detailed) followed by individual finishing and assembly at short notice. Which is what almost every restaurant has to do. Les Halles is a signpost. Strangely, maybe 'Under Pressure' comes closest ... and Tom Kitchin deserves an honourable mention for 'From Nature to Plate' (AmazonUK link) albeit that it is clearly written for the home cook!
  5. A couple of inter-related points. You'd need to be weighing a SMALL quantity, perhaps about 1 gram (see later), with an accuracy of better than the ±25% variation between your different spoons. An ordinary kitchen scale (reading in 1 gram 'clicks') simply cannot do that. At best its precision is ± half a gram. So even if it were absolutely accurate, its limited precision (displayed sensitivity) means that there is a ±50% uncertainty in the measurement. In case I've lost you, I'll put it another way -- your scale should show "1g" all the way from 0.5g to 1.5g - you could be anywhere in that range, a 'by 1g' scale cannot do better -- and so such a scale is not suitable for weighing a "one gram" quantity accurately. Its fine for accurately weighing out 400g of flour for baking a loaf, and massively better than a measuring jug for the 260g of water to make the dough, but its not very good for the 8g of salt for the same loaf, and the "4g" of instant mix yeast can only be hoped to be between 3.5 and 4.5 grams --- the limited precision limits the overall accuracy possible for small quantities. I wouldn't dream of trying to use my kitchen scale to measure the quarter gram of Vitamin C that I would add to the example loaf. And then there's the question of sensitivity -- how factors like friction in the scale limit whether or not the scale can "see" a small change in the load. Yes, this most affects real % accuracy with small loads ... So a scale that only reads in whole grams is not suitable for measuring one gram quantities. Where does this 1g quantity come from? Well, first of all that is how much Vitamin C there is in a typical "One a day" high dose tablet. You only need about 4/100ths of a gram per day to prevent scurvy. The RDA is about 8/100ths of a gram. The US FDA seem to think that 2g per day is the "tolerable upper limit". Doses of up to 6g per day are likely to produce 'digestive upsets'. (My jar label has a warning of this possibility beyond 1g/day.) I weighed a "2.5ml" (half teaspoonful) measure of my own Vitamin C crystals at very close to 2.5 grams. So a quarter teaspoonful is about 1.25 grams. (CMA digression: Volume measures for solids are rubbish. If your crystal size is different, YMMV, and then there's the true size of my spoon...) So, two things from that: a quarter teaspoon is already a pretty big dose, and the quantity to be measured is no more than one and a quarter grams. For precision measurements of quantities of rather less than 10g (for the uses listed previously), I have found a cheap "pocket scale" to be both useful and affordable as a supplement to my kitchen scale. (But they are not rugged ...)
  6. Vitamin C crystals. And the one spoon was off by about 1/4 I would say. Honestly, a scale and a recipe/prescription giving weights would make a lot of sense. Take a look on eBay for a "pocket scale". About the size of a bar of chocolate. To weigh 200g maximum with a 0.01g sensitivity is a useful specification. Your accuracy should be well within a tenth of a gram. And costing about US$12 to 15 (delivered, even to Canada, but there's a chance you might be asked for import duty I suppose). Such a thing is brilliant for accurately measuring tiny quantities of curing salts, yeast, vitamin c, modernist/molecular additives, even stuff like Mycryo for chocolate ... Absent a scale, if you were to be using it in solution, you can get cunning with a "standard solution". Lets say you wanted 250mg (0.25g). That's not very much. But use any convenient smallish measure. Perhaps a 1/4 cup. Its accuracy doesn't matter for this! Put 4 measures of water in a bowl. Mix in 1000mg (1g) of Vitamin C - that's a standard tablet here, so no measuring, just dissolve it. Now, use the same measure to stir the solution and take out one full measure. It contains in solution, pretty damn accurately, 1/4 of what was in the original tablet, and thus 250mg (0.25g) of Vit C. Without needing to 'measure' anything accurately! Of course you can apply a similar method to get fractions other than 1/4. And by doing the dilution in several stages, you can get really tiny quantities super-accurately. (One scoop of that first solution plus four more of water gets you 50mg in a scoop from the second solution. Repeat the 1+4 dilution and you'd have 10mg in a scoop from the third solution...) ADDED - but of course Vitamin C isn't harmful (or usually detrimental) in slight excess, so precision isn't terribly important. However, you need to be a bit more careful with saltpetre ... !
  7. Of course measuring spoons aren't accurate! They are a simple (but distinctly inaccurate) measure for solids, and, because of the different meniscus with oil and water (for example) not terribly good for different liquids either! And as for "heaped spoons", well, its just to give you a sense of things, rather than an accurate measure! While a "UK tablespoon" is now defined as the (metric) 15ml, isn't the US tablespoon supposed to be half a fluid ounce and so about 14.8ml ... ? Regarding 'making friends with metric' the secret is NEVER to convert. Just use the units as quoted. If it says "200 grams of flour", set the scale to grams and weigh to 200. Don't even think about how many ounces it might be. And when you want to half, double or maybe make one-and-a-half times the given quantity (perhaps because you were making for six rather than four), I guarantee that you'll find the maths much simpler using those metric quantities.
  8. Yes, it all depends ... ... on the adhesive, as Mjx said. ... on the label material. Plastic labels are pretty impermeable, so soaking them in anything doesn't do much. They are usually strong enough to peel though, especially with a bit of warmth (from hairdryers, central heating radiators, sunshine, or even a low oven). When peeling, and trying to get a delicate label to hold together, go slowly. A smaller force for a longer time will separate the adhesive with less risk of tearing the label. ... and on the substrate. A pan scourer will remove stubborn residues from glass, but don't think of using one on plastics. Be very careful with plastics and organic chemical solvents - whether proprietary sprays, lighter fluid, nail varnish remover, or whatever. Surface damage may not appear immediately, so 'testing on an inconspicuous area" may lead to overconfidence. And of course, be careful with (thermo)plastics and heat. For removing stubborn sticky traces from delicate surfaces, including soft plastics, try using fresh clear sticky tape (Sellotape/Scotch tape), in a repeated touch and peel motion. The old adhesive sticks to the new adhesive, so you can (again gently) peel it away. WD40 is a remarkable solvent. It worked beautifully the other day to remove sticky resinous sap after cutting a Cupressus Leylandii - and that is one very tenacious natural adhesive!
  9. As always, Lakeland have a gadget on offer ... http://www.lakeland.co.uk/14939/Chicken-Egg-Topper
  10. See upthread Any second device gives a useful 'sanity check'. While most PIDs will provide High and Low alarm outputs, the thing is that the alarms are depending on the same sensor, and same sensor-reading electronics as the controller is depending on. To protect against problems in those areas, you need a second system. And to see how the temperature in the bath might vary - away from the primary temperature probe, again you need a second measuring system. For basic sanity checking (watchdog functionality) it doesn't have to be particularly accurate. But you might perhaps be more interested in datalogging the temperature at other point(s) in the bath ... I'd agree that for long cooking, brief variations (as when adding other stuff to the bath) are irrelevant. But for short (timed to the minute) cooking (seafood? eggs?), you'd like fast recovery to the target temperature after loading the bath, with minimal overshoot.
  11. "Sprouted wheat" is usually called "sprout-damaged-wheat" because, as it is, its pretty poor for breadmaking ... BUT grain that has been sprouted, and then roasted is usually called "malt". You can't make bread from malt as the only flour. A little malt goes a long way. A very long way. Too much malt produces (in Hamelman's words) "a gummy crumb" - which sounds familiar! (See page 364). The very act of sprouting boosts Amylase enzyme content of the grain (and thus flour) many thousands of times. You do want some, but not too much, Amylase. And you get lots and lots of Amylase from Malted/Sprouted grain. Longer fermentation would allow more enzyme (inc Amylase) activity - and thus a gummy crumb. A long and slow fermentation of whole grain flour (rich in these enzymes) is thus courting this specific problem. This thinking is one of the reasons for Reinhart's "2-pack-epoxy" technique, the subject of his "Whole Grain" book. In essence he is doing the enzymatic stuff in a seperate bowl to the leavening stuff, and only bringing them together for a quick final rise before baking. See Page 41 of "Whole Grain Breads" for his discussion on "damaged" grains, malt, amylase and the "Falling Number" test. So, nutshell upsum: long wholegrain fermentation can cause gummy crumb, and too much sprouted wheat WILL cause it. Put the two together and its an absolute certainty. Its not clear what else may be done either in processing or milling the "sprouted wheat flour" that Reinhart speaks of. It certainly sounds rather different to flour made from ordinary sprouted grain. I was learning about sprout 'damage' in this 3-year-old thread http://www.danlepard.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1829
  12. The sides simply indicate what material is actually in contact with the food, and whether that is different to the exterior of the base. My suggestion was that the food could be exposed to higher maximum temperatures in a pan that was NOT mounted on top of a distinct 'induction heatable' base, but that higher localised temperatures could be produced in a simple all-ferromagnetic pan. Obviously, the pan's heat-shedding capability also matters - a bigger pan (more surface area) would be expected to lose more heat than a smaller one (other things being equal), and thus a bigger-than-optimal pan would equilibrate at a lower maximum temperature. For most cooking, evening out the heating across the pan base is a highly desirable goal. And so any "flame-tamer" effect is a positive benefit. But for pan-searing, its about hitting the highest temperature, and a "flame-tamer" effect would be unhelpful. If you want to partially "char" the food surface, you need temperatures rather higher than the smoke point of normal cooking oils. In pre-sv times, I never had any problem char-grilling in a ridged-base cast iron pan on a 4-burner induction cooktop. Unfortunately, I don't have the wattage figures to hand for comparison.
  13. Suggest you don't pour ANY oil in the pan! Just wet the meat with it before it goes in the pan. You want to be at the oil's smoke point, or as far above it as you can get! Yes, it's definitely induction-friendly. ... Clearly! But is that the whole pan, or just a disc stuck onto the base?
  14. Since its the alcohol in the spirit that depresses the freezing point, you could briefly boil (or even flambé) the spirit to get the flavour with less slushiness. For smoothness, I routinely add a shot glass of Vodka (50cc?) to a batch of churning ice cream (ending up as about a litre). No point in boiling down that Vodka ...
  15. Not certain what sort of yeast you use, but the cakes of yeast I normally buy respond best to fluids that are well over human body temperature: As soon as the fluid has cooled to the point that can keep a finger in it for several seconds, in goes the yeast (I always proof, since dead yeast is a depressing discovery to make an hour into the bread-making process). At about blood temp, there's no sign of any activity for a good half hour. I would refer to Hamelman , at page 56 I note that Glezer suggests using up to 110°F to rehydrate "Active Dry" yeast - where the concern is largely getting through the layer of dead cells to get to the viable ones. Perhaps your compressed yeast is not 'fresh'? As noted, it progressively dies in storage. Its an awkward choice for domestic use. Temperatures higher than 110F (43C) for rehydration/proof are likely to be counter-productive. Brettscneider, for example, says yeast cells stop working (and start being killed off) above 45C/113F. Try using water closer to blood heat, and crumbling your compressed yeast more finely? But most importantly, a beginner using an instant-mix yeast does not have to contend with any of this. Just use water (or whatever the recipe wants) at blood heat for mixing, and then ferment at about 24C/75F, and you'll be fine. Time, rather than speed, is the important ingredient in yeast cookery.
  16. Temperature. Yeast can be killed by temperatures that your hand can withstand. Ideal is blood heat - just like a baby's bottle. You shouldn't feel it either hot or cold - just completely neutral. Yeast. There's a lot of misunderstanding and prejudice, even (and especially) from published authors. Its important to recognise what your author means by "yeast". "Fresh" yeast is the manufactured product introduced from 1900 or before. It has a very short shelf life. You would ordinarily "proof" it (with warm water, etc) - to prove to yourself that its not dead yet (and thereby get it started). The short shelf life isn't a disadvantage if your bakery gets daily deliveries, but its a real nuisance for the occasional home baker. It doesn't freeze well (despite what some will say), which is why it is never sold frozen by the manufacturer. "Active dry" is a product invented for military rations in the 1940's. It has a very long shelf life, being a robust, near bulletproof product. You still need to "proof" it, but the need in this case is just to get it going; its probably not too dead yet, but it has all the gastronomic quality expected of a ration-pack. And incidentally, it was originally called "actively dried", because its dried by heat - shortening the name to "active" was a marketing masterstroke. The beads of yeast are covered by a protective shell of dead yeast cells - which don't help the baked product quality, unless you like the "yeasty" taste. "Instant-mix" (marketing term: 'instant') yeast takes advantage of the instant coffee technologies of the 1960's and 70's. In a sealed pack, it has a long easy-care shelflife. Its a very good product, but doesn't need (or want) 'proofing' - which comes as a shock to traditionally-trained bakers unused to the concept of technological change. They are, quite literally, being asked to change 'the habits of a lifetime'. I strongly advice that you start with 'instant-mix' yeast, and recipes that are written for it, and sometime later, when you go back to try the other ways, you'll really wonder "why would anyone want to do it like this?" For a beginner, using the same yeast as the recipe calls for is important. Conversions can be made, but its a layer of complexity that the beginner can do without. Yeast specifically for bread machines is (usually but in the US is not guaranteed to be) of the instant-mix type. And "bread machine" yeast will usually contain lots of the additives that so enthuse devotees of 'modernist' cooking. You can find plain instant yeasts, but additive-loaded bread-machine-yeasts are much more easily found. Incidentally, don't worry about Ascorbic Acid or Sodium Ascorbate additives - its just the merest touch of Vitamin C - the most ethical of additives - and it's there for good reasons! The distinguishing characteristic of "instant-mix" yeast is that the packet instructions will speak of mixing the dry yeast with the dry flour. The product is really fine-grained, (as fine as poppy seed), but you can't see that while the pack is still sealed! So check the instructions! (Even though you intend following other recipes.) Brioche. Tricky place to start. The enriched dough is heavier, and so needs more 'lifting power' from the yeast -- BUT -- with lots of sugar and fat around, ordinary yeast actually slows down! So pro's would employ a special "osmotolerant" yeast (which they'd likely buy in an instant-mix form ...) Don't expect to find any in your local supermarket! Suggested reading: The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Reinhart. Not the last word, but a great introduction, using instant-mix yeast. And including a Brioche section!
  17. Two questions posed by that picture -- 1 - It looks to me as though you were shallow-frying rather than what I would call "searing" (a near dry process). This isn't really induction-related, but you aren't ever going to get a pan of oil up to flame-like temperatures (the oil will burn at a lower temperature than a blowlamp flame ...). You need to be heating the completely dry pan, before exposing the (lightly lubricated) protein to the grill-hot dry pan. 2 - That pan. Does a fridge-magnet stick to the sides? Or does it only have an induction-friendly base? If its only the base, then, to some extent, the base is behaving like a 'flame-tamer' - which is only going to impact you detrimentally when you are going for max heat. If you don't have a ridged cast iron 'griddle-pan', maybe try a plain steel frying pan ... (but make sure the base is flat and not warped). Because the heat is being generated in the pan base, the pan is part of the heating system - it matters too! And, I have my reservations about the newspaper as well. Firstly, its not really needed. The induction 'cook-top' doesn't get hot enough to burn on any spattered grease. So clean-up is as simple as an immediate wipe-down. Secondly, even the thickness of the newspaper is going to reduce the heating efficiency. Try using a pan with a slightly warped (so not-quite-flat) base. The heating becomes uneven - hence my concern above about the flat base of a steel pan. The bigger the air-gap, the less that part of the pan is heated. Just lift the pan about a tenth of an inch off the cooktop to quickly stop the heating effect - that was all it took with my deDietrich. So even the thickness of the paper (especially if creased) is going to (even if only slightly) reduce the heating power to the pan. That newspaper trick makes for a memorable sales demonstration, but its not "best practice" for general use, and particularly not when shooting for maximum temperature. ADDED - And of course, from technophile50's info above, for maximum temperature, you'd need to be using "power cook" mode, bypassing any temperature sensing in your cooktop...
  18. Various issues? "Fully-automatic" machines like the basic FoodSaver models (and the machine bizarrely offered by SVS) are unsuitable for bagging liquids and sauces -- you need to freeze them before bagging. However, with manual control models its really no problem to evacuate/seal bags with liquids or sauces. With a "pump-while-I-press" button (called a 'Pulse' function by FoodSaver) and a "just-seal-it" button, and used carefully with mechanical sympathy, I can happily report that I've had no issues ... so far, at least! I do also make use of the variable pump speed - set to low speed - which my machine (a V2860 bought new but obsolete for the same price as the SVS model is now offered over here) fortuitously happens to offer. It cost a fraction of the price, and takes up a fraction of the real estate, of a chamber sealer. Mine can't do compression effects, but I can happily live without them. And the bags (from a catering supplier) are much cheaper than those Ziplocs ...
  19. It should be able to do gentle stuff without a double boiler. And yet it can get to working temperature astonishingly faster than any other type of electric cooker (potentially helpful for searing sv-cooked foods?) Many (most? all?) induction cookers efforts to keep their electronics cool will include a fan. Fans aren't completely silent, but shouldn't be loud, until their bearings are old or dirty - when they can make a variety of "old computer" type noises - but fans could be replaced cheaply. However there is another completely different type of noise that can be produced. This is due to magnetostriction (the effect that causes transformers to "hum"). But with induction hobs the hum is at a much higher frequency than the low tone generally associated with transformers. The 'whistle' should be way too high-pitched to be heard by humans, and the induction unit itself should be designed so that it doesn't resonate at audible frequencies. However some pans (perhaps some pan designs) can and do. And probably more do it at borderline-audible frequencies -- which will be noticeable to some people but not others. I only had one pan that I could hear - and it wasn't loud or unpleasant (for me, anyway). If you have exceptionally sensitive hearing, and/or you are unlucky with your choice of pans, this 'whistle' could be a problem for you -- but its no problem at all for most people. My guess would be that the "Power Cook" button might be a "just give me everything you've got" over-ride, whereas "Hold Temp" would bring the variable power control knob into play ...
  20. Jenni - have you any comment on the rather serious criticism on Amazon UK of a distinct lack of recipe-testing/proofreading? http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/0714859028/
  21. By early July, Mark Sargeant's Rocksalt and Smokehouse should be open. Accommodation - yes Fish'n'chips - yes Sunday evening - you'd have to ask ...
  22. And now Lidl, while sticking to their £5.99 price point, have made them BOGOF (so just 1/2p each more than Aldi).
  23. I was just gonna say, cheap saute pans are evidently the way to go. That is, unless you read the current issue of Bon Apetit, which disagrees greatly. As does much info on our own eG about pots and pans. As opposed to the "ring of fire" model that I have, that produces a mirroring "ring of carbon" in anything I try to cook over it? *IF* the flame is "evenly distributed" then you really shouldn't need any experimentation to tell you that the heat will be transmitted pretty evenly. However, IF you are using a typical non-uniform domestic heat source, then again, you shouldn't need "scientific experiments" to appreciate that a pan base that diffuses the uneven heating is going to be a good thing. It seems to me that the non-uniform heating situation is where experimentation might be useful/interesting - by comparison, just how well does copper/iron/cast-aluminium/tr-ply/etc actually diffuse point-source heating, as against the thinnest/cheapest cookware. The reality is that most real-kitchen heat sources are far from uniform. The two important stages of recognising that fact and advising on dealing with it, seem to have got lost in this 'ideal world' consideration. I'm just somewhat astonished that 1/ anyone would feel the need to perform experiments to confirm uniform heat transmission (even with a 'thin' pan) from a uniform heat source and 2/ that readers might mistake performance over an "evenly distributed" heat source as being any indication of heat-distribution-performance with a typical domestic heat source. Let me apologise in advance if I have traduced the authors' work, but this sort of thing is not exactly an inducement for me to spend $600+ (£375 Amazon) on this tome. And as for meat curing, allowing time to mature the product is distinctly traditionalist. Modernist curing is about speeding up the cure, by injection and tumbling - and using polyphosphates to bulk up the meat with water.
  24. Sous vide is about temperature, and time. So is ordinary cooking but you don't think about it in the same way. The veg needs to be cooked to 80/85C. But sv chicken would be better around 64C. Fine chopping helps things cook faster in a frying pan. They get up to temperature much faster. But no matter how finely chopped, veg won't cook properly at 65C, no matter how long you give it. And the fine-ness of chopping barely affects that non-cooking. Also, beating your chicken would give you a bigger wrapper, but it shouldn't be necessary for sv cooking to destroy the meat's natural texture. Again, conventional cooking would give you faster cooking after flattening/thinning the meat. And you might need to do that to cook/heat the stuffing before the meat wrapper is overcooked. But that overcooking risk isn't a concern with sv ... unless you try and cook the meat at veg temperature! SV allows you to cook each component at its ideal temperature, rather than trying to physically arrange and assemble things so that sufficient heat penetrates the stuffing before the outside is burned to a cinder.
  25. The steel knob is standard fit on their black cookware (here in the UK, at least). I think it must be a style thing.
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