paulraphael

Maybe tell us what you're looking for, why the Demeyere interests you more than the Mauviel, etc.. Not sure what criteria you're using. Those are high quality pans with the same materials, but differences in construction and performance characteristics.

The pre/post seasoning issue has been well studied in laboratories and kitchens. We can say for sure that there is no issue with pre-salting drawing juices out of the meat and drying it out. The only issue is that if you salt too far in advance, the meat will start to cure, and change flavor and texture in ways you probably don't want. This is an issue with very long sous-vide cooking ... if you're going to be holding or cooking at low temperatures over 4 hours or so, it may be best to salt afterwards. Hervé This writes about this. Re: Caramelization, check out articles on Maillard reactions.

If your covered soup pot were as well sealed as a canning jar, there wouldn't be any issues. But it isn't. As the soup cools, the air above the soup will cool and contract, sucking outside air into the pot. This outside air isn't sterile (at least not in my kitchen) so you'll be introducing microbes. Once the soup cools below 130F or so, it becomes microbe food, and by the time it reaches room temperature, it's a microbe feast. It's best to leave the lid off, to hasten evaporative cooling. Between this and water bath, you can usually get a small batch of soup cool enough to put it in the fridge in a reasonably safe amount of time. This winter I've been making a lot of soup in 7qt dutch oven, and have relied on our various polar vortices for rapid cooling. When it's 15° out, you just put the covered pot out the patio / snow/ roof / fire escape, and it will be cool enough to put in the fridge within a couple of hours.

I think I see the disconnect here. Dcarch's numbers are correct, but they don't seem to be accounting for all of the circumstances. First, the ice is only one vehicle among several cooling the soup concurrently. The others include evaporative heat loss and conduction though the sides of the containers. The speed / efficiency of these cooling modes is proportional to the temperature difference between the soup and the environment, so it will proceed very quickly on its own in the beginning, especially if the soup is transfered to a number of smaller containers (which increase surface area for both evaporation and conduction). Placing the the buckets in a water bath in the sink will speed this process even more. Depending on time constraints, you may not even need the ice wands until the soup temperature drops below 140F (at which point you want to minimize the cooling time, and also at which point the temperature differential is going to be helping the process less). Another difference between the theoretical model and the actual soup: soup is not 100% water. Unless you're making ammonia soup, every non-water ingredient has a lower specific heat than the water. All those starch and protein and fat molecules store less energy per gram. While a viscous or chunky soup may impede convection more than a pot of water, it will in fact require less energy transfer—and therefore less ice. It would still seem you'd need a lot of ice. Just not the crazy amount suggested by the Pysics 101 scenario.

The one time I made steaks sous-vide there was no lack of flavor. Does "conventional" mean grilling? A couple of schools of thought in the steak world: "smoke and char flavors from the grill are essential to steak" and "smoke and char flavors from the grill detract from the steak." I think the varying quality of the meat has a lot to do with this. I belong to the second school, but my circumstances can't be divorced from this. I live in one of the few spots in the country where prime, dry aged beef is available retail, and I consider steak a special treat ... something to have every couple of months, and a reasonable excuse to destroy the food budget. If either of these circumstances were different, I'd be buying less flavorful meat, an my prefered method would probably be the grill. If not sous-vide, my favorite method for top quality steak is the stovetop. I've had plenty of good luck with both high/low temperature confentional sauteeing, and with the slow and steady Ducasse method. It's possible that both these methods give the meat enough time on the heat to infuse some smoke from the fat in the pan to infuse the meat. I don't know. One thing I'd like to improve with my sous-vide method is the char. I would like to go a little longer, perhas on a less hot pan (relying more on time and maillard-enhancing ingredients) and to use enough oil to concuct heat deeper into the surface irregularities of the meat. I don't know if a pre-sear would be worth it or not. It takes a lot more time and energy to sear a cold piece of meat; so it's more challenging to keep the heat just to the surface.

This as part rave, part rant. I'm hoping people will stores for Marie Sharp's hot sauce, which is the best I've ever had. I realize everyone has an opinion about hot sauce ... how else could there be so many on the shelves? But for now I want to talk about two: Marie Sharp's and Melinda's. Once upon a time, I tried Melinda's habanero pepper sauce, and was hooked. It was then the best I'd ever had. It was hard to find, and when I saw it at a specialty shop, I stocked up. Then some time after moving to NYC, I started seeing it everywhere. It seemed that for once, something good had found an in with the public. And then I stumbled onto this article in Belize Magazine. In short: Melinda's was owned by a Belize farmer named Marie Sharp. She created the recipe so she could sell the habanero's her farm produced. Sadly, she wasn't wise to international trademark law, and her American distributor screwed her out of the product name and labelling. They basically stole her product, and started making a quasi-clones sauce with Costa Rican chiles. Marie had to start from scratch. And so the Marie Sharp's brand was born. I get angry every time I see Melinda's now, which is often. Whole foods, lots of specialty stores, my local food coop: Melinda's. I think some of the places would switch to the authentic brand if they knew, or at least if their customers made some noise. Has anyone tried Marie's? The classic version that I linked to is great, but my favorite may be the green habanero and prickly pear cactus. Incredible.

I'm guessing both are important. I never thought of using walnut oil, but it's an ideal choice. It's so high in polyunsaturated (poymerizing) fat that its a traditional ingredient in paints and varnishes. It's up there with linseed/flax, and tung oil. The light coats are helpful because they keep the oil from running and forming drips and puddles. Oil thins when it heats, so heavier coats that look like they'll stay put at room temperature can start dripping in the oven.

There's been a ton of research on different materials, and while microbes behave slighlty differently on different ones, there's little practical difference. Plastic and rubber can go in the dishwasher; wood can't. Wood and rubber can be sanded smooth; plastic can't. Nothing sanitizes itself. All of them can be well cleaned in hot soapy water, as long as they don't have deep knifegrooves. Sanitizing is about killing the majority of the microbes that remain after washing (killing all of them would be sterilizing ... you'd have to shrink-wrap the board afterwards, and it wouldn't be sterile anymore once you opened it in the kitchen). In practice, doing a good job washing is probably enough. Restaurants are required to sanitize. And it's a great idea if you might be making food for anyone who's immune compromised. I do it because it's a useful habit, and because its easy.

I'm leading a more domesticated life this year. Cooking has shifted from experiments in art / science / decadence to a means of feeding people. I'm still trying to figure it out! The possibly cruel irony is that this coincides with the new availability of cheap immersion circulators. I've had to borrow circulators for special occasions in the past. How many of you find sous-vide cooking useful for your daily meals? And how many of you like sous-vide for cooking things besides meat? I've always used it for fantastic pieces of meat, but this isn't what I'm cooking every day. If you have sources on techniques / approaches for sous-viding things like green vegetables, root vegetables, and god knows what else, I'd love to check them out.

The thing to consider with bamboo boards is that they're a kind of engineered wood product. Which means by volume and by weight there's a LOT of glue. I don't know how you'd ever find out what kind of glue a manufacturer uses, but many of the glues are much harder than the bamboo itself, and also harder than what makes for a knife-friendly surface. There are also ecological issues. Bamboo is a fantasically green renewable resource. But many of the glues used in making the composits are not. You can read discussions about this in regard to bamboo flooring; some studies suggest that air polution from the glues during manufacture is a significant problem.

Any possibility that someone will do for vacuum sealers what they did for immersion circulators (make a fully functional one for 80% less money)?

Some good news ... I think food processors are better than stand mixers for pastry dough. They're great. They work so quickly the butter won't melt, and they give you a ton of control over the size of the butter pieces. Stand mixers do bigger batches, and may be better for pastry styles that blend the fat into the dough (pate sablee, etc.)

I've used safflower and sunflower oils to good effect. I don't know how they compare to flaxseed oil, but both are very high in polyunsaturated fats and it polymerize easily and durably. I've used them to get longlasting results on several cast iron pans, a huge carbon steel wok, and an aluminum griddle. I wasn't sure if they would work on the griddle ... that was an experiment ... but now the thing is black as night, even, and durably stick-resistant. I usually use safflower because where I shop it's a lot cheaper. People may be having problems with sticking because polymerizing is only part of the process. You actually have to burn the oil a little. The resulting carbon soot mixed in with the polymer gives the stick resistance. Pure, clean polymerized oil is sticky. I like to buy brands like Spectrum, that print the smokepoint on the label, and then set my oven to 25° higher. I prefer the oven to the stove because it heats the whole pan evenly. Then it's just what everyone's saying: very thin coats wiped on with a paper towel, cook until smoky, repeat. You can put a bulletproof coating on anything in under an hour. Just don't expect miracles. "Seasoning" isn't teflon. If you're cooking eggs you still need good technique and a lot of attention.

I usually get some crystals. I suspect it means some of the sugar hasn't inverted. It's never been a problem.

The food question that sends me to the interwebs more than any other is ... how much water? It's a bit different for every kind of rice, and varies a bit with cooking techniques. And then theres quinoa, couscous, and all the other rice analogues that cook in similar ways. Does anyone have a one-stop source for all this info? Prefereably an accurate one?

You're right, the Chinese cleaver is its own category. And I know people who don't use anything else, even when they're making meat loaf. I'm sure I've left out whole cultures. Someone's going to mention the Italian Mezzaluna, and I have no idea what's traditional in Iran or Thailand. Maybe I should have left out the traditional Japanese knives, and just focussed on families of knives made in European-derived shapes for Western cooking.

This subject comes up often, and I realized people are practically speaking different languages when it comes to knives. Unlike 25 years ago, when all the knives available in the West were European-style and fairly homogenous, we now have four distinct families of knives, with different materials, designs, intended markets, and associated techniques. There's room for all of them. But chosing a family is more than a matter of price or esthetics. You're also choosing a set of appropriate techniques, for cutting, sharpening, and basic care. Moving from a Wustoff to a Suisin will not guarantee that you'll cut better, even if you believe (as I do) that the Suisin is the superior knife. Trying to use techniques that work on the former will trash the latter. I think of a knife as a platform that's designed to support a set of sharpening and cutting techniques. A high-end knife will support a higher lever of these techniques. So its potential is higher. But out of the box, and without any additional education, it may not be better at all. And after a few weeks of incorrect use, it may end up an expensive desk ornament. It's best to understand the potential, and the costs, associated with each family of knife. Here's a very brief breakdown of the knife families. My descriptions should be undersood as unreasonably broad generalizations. If you dig into each knife company's catalog, you'll certainly find many exceptions. Finally, I'm listing brands as examples, not specific recommendations. That could be the subject of a hundred other threads. 1. Traditional European Knives: (These are the only knives most of us knew about until 20 or so years ago) Examples all the Solingen German knives Sabatier French knives* Forschner Old American brands (Chicago, Lamson, etc.) Pros: -Very durable. -Can handle a reasonable amount of abuse. -Work with the European techniques taught in most cooking schools and most online courses (like the eGullet course), or with no technique at all. -Chefs knife designed as a jack-of-all trades, so it cultivates a very economical set of techniques. You can do 95% of everything with a chef’s knife and paring knife. -Very easy to maintain on a steel Cons: -Soft steel and fat edge geometry limit these knives’ performance, and require forceful technique to cut well (rock-chopping, etc.) 2. Japanese Crossover Knives: (these are knives made in Japan for Western consumers. They are designed to be used by people used to European style knives, with little adaptation) Examples Shun Global Wasabi Pros: -Higher performance edge geometry and metalurgy when compared with Euro knives -Close to the durability of Euro knives -Can handle a reasonable amount of abuse -Can be sharpened with their factory edge geometry, for use with traditional European techniques, or can be modified with a higher performance geometry, for more refined Japanese techiques. Cons: -Metalurgy and edge geometry is still lower performance than professional Japanese knives -Some of these knives are a pain in the ass to sharpen. They are harder than European knives, and while softer than professional Japanese knives, sometimes use proprietary allows that resist sharpening stones (especially Global). -Price/performance ratio is often disappointing Japanese Professional Western-Style Knives: (these are knives made in Japan for cooks proficient in Japanese cutting and sharpening techniques, and who prepare Western-style food. The category could also include hand-made or small production knives made in other countries in this style). Examples Masamoto Aritsugu Suisin Misono Mizuno Tanrenjo Tojiro Hiromoto Kikuichi Sugimoto Takeda Mac Sakai Takayuki Ikkanshi Tadatsuna Hattori Ryusen Fujiwara Kanemasa Glestain Shigefusa Some non-Japanese hand-made knives in this style (This list is U.S.-Centric only because of my ignorance) Carter Kramer Devin Thomas Harner Cut Brooklyn Pros: -These tend to have superior metalurgy to European and crossover knives -Edge geometry varies from robust profiles similar to crossover knives, to extremely thin and high-performance -Will generally take a sharper edge and keep it longer than Euro or crossover knives -Allow a range of more refined and efficient cutting techniques. Allow different approaches to prep (if knives are sharp, herbs and fruit will not discolor or lose flavor for many hours after cutting) -At the lower end of the price range, price/performance ratio is fantastic Cons: -general-purpose knives (like the gyuto) are more fragile than Euro and crossover knives. They require more delicate technique, and more specialization (you’ll need a heavy knife, like a German chef’s knife or westerd deba, for heavy cutting). -You’ll also need sharpening skills. Don’t even consider these knives if you’re not willing to invest in waterstones (or an edge-pro system) and the skills to use them. Most of these knives don’t even ship with a sharp edge on them. -Below a fairly high price point, the fit and finish of these knives is often crude. They are seen as utilitarian tools for cooks. A $100 gyuto will probably look a lot cheaper than a $100 German knife, belying its better performance. -It’s hard to get educated on the skills to use these knives. Good information is scarce. The best sources are chefs who have trained in Japan but who cook Western food. Some of them have made instructional videos. -They are habit-forming! Your spouse and your therapist have a limited attention span for your new knife hobby. Traditional Japanese Knives (These are single-edge knives designes specifically for Japanese food preparation. They are the most sophisticated and specialized of all kitchen knives. Their utility in preparing Western food is questionable, but some cooks use them as a matter of pride and because they enjoy learning the precise and relatively unforgiving techniques.) Same brands as above. There are literally dozens of different traditional knife designs, but the primary ones are the usuba, wich is designed for cutting vegetables and is the most challenging knife to use correctly; the yanagi (what we often call a sushi knife), for slicing protein, and the deba, which is a thick, stout knife for filleting and butchering fish. Pros: -highest performance knives available Cons: -most specialized knives available. They are designed for very specific ranges of techniques, many of which have limited relevance to Western cooking. -the learning curves are steep. Many online videos are available on subjects like using a deba to butcher every imaginable fish variety. But it won’t be easy. And if you want to learn to use a usuba correctly, you will probably want some one-on-one, and a few bushels of daikons, and some internet bandwidth, and some bandaids. *Sabatier knives are hard to generalize, because they are made by so many companies. The best among them, like the carbon steel K-Sabatiers, have excellent steel and very thin edge geometries. Their performance is closer to that of the professional Western Japanese knives than to other Euro knives.

Quaternary Ammonium sanitizers are fine for dishes and silverware glassware. There's no bleach (which can pit stainless steel). Most of them are made with wetting agents, that keep the solution from beading up on the surface, so it dries without leaving spots. They're the standard for a final rinse in hand washing. Dunk your plates and wine glasses in the quats and let them dry. You're done. They're sanitized and they dry without spots and streaks.

Vinegar's better than nothing, but there's a lot it doesn't kill.

That product uses ionic silver, not colloidal silver. It's new .... I don't see any tests besides the manufacturers. It may be good stuff, but by the company's own description, it's for "hard, non-porous environmental surfaces (painted, glazed tile, plastic, non-porous vinyl, metal, glass)," which would not include wood.

I may end up doing that, but it would be 4 offending legs, since 2 of the 6 are too long. I'm trying some other things first. Amazon's cheapest 18" pipe wrench is on the way.

Everything I've read suggests that colloidal silver is an obsolete antimicrobial. It's become a trendy miracle substance in blogs and natural health articles, some of which advocate uses that the medical community considers unsafe (ingesting it!). Here's a rundown on sanitizers that are common commercially.

The torch is actually my first choice! I have one, and it's a hundred times easier than unloading everything from the table and flipping it upside down. No luck after first try with torch, though. My vice-grip pliers just aren't strong enough. No matter how tight I get them they slip.

Thanks Darienne! I must say, my heart sank at the "turn table upside down" intro. This thing is so big and my space is so small. It's a bit like "start by capturing and anesthetizing tiger." Was Ed's impression that it is indeed a levelling foot?