paulraphael

The cutting board thread resurfaces ... I've had a maple Boardsmith board now for five years, and love it. I prefer it to my giant maple countertop, primarily because cleaning it is easier. The endgrain construction also resists getting marked up, and is supposedly easier on knife edges. Dave's advice is to get the biggest board that you can clean in your sink. For me that was 16x22— I had a restaurant pot+pan sink in my kitchen. I've downsized now, and can use the new sink (a more pedestrian 16 x 21 home sink) with just a bit of awkwardness. I'm still happy to have the big cutting board but sometimes use a small one for small tasks. Some thoughts on nice endgrain boards: -get a bench scraper. It's the best tool for cleaning as you go, and for keeping the surface smooth. Sanding is required for removing serious damage (I haven't had to do this). Never use a wire brush. -a good board conditioner will preserve the looks and health of the board. A new board will be incredibly thirsty for the stuff; eventually you may only need to wipe some on every month or two. Board conditioner contains mineral oil and wax (usually bees wax, sometimes some carnuba wax). Dave sells his own, or you can make it, or you find other brands. I've made my own, and am now using Howard brand, which seems a bit better than my homebrew and is pretty cheap on Amazon. -sanitizer solution is a good idea, especially if you cook for strangers and don't know who might be immune compromised. Sanitizing comes after washing; it's not a substitute. You can't sanitize a dirty or oily board. The idea is to kill most of the last remaining microbes. Bleach solutions aren't very good on porous or semi-porous surfaces like wood. They're actually ineffective here. They also smell, irritate mucus membrains, and will spot your clothes and disintegrate your towels. Vinegar / lemon juice is also ineffective ... there's a lot they won't kill, including viruses like norovirus. The best thing I've found is restaurant sanitizer that contains quaternary ammonium compounds. They're odorless and non-toxic and don't irritate skin or damage fabrics. Just spray a dilute solution and let it dry. The same stuff is used in rinse water when hand-washing dishes. You can pick it up at any restaurant store. -These cutting boards are not for use with a heavy cleaver or serrated blades. By heavy cleaver I mean ones used to break joints and behead fish and poultry. These will hack up the surface of anything, so use a cheaper board. People disagree with me on the serrated blade part. It is ok to use, say, a good scallop-edge bread knife if you're very careful with it. Just keep in mind that a serrated knife is a saw, and it will carve grooves in your board if you use any pressure at all. I don't want to have to sand my board every month just to keep it sanitary, so I use a different board for bread (the only thing I have a serrated knife for).

My super awesome 8 foot stainless steel table, originally from some restaurant in Providence, more recently from my darkroom, is moving to the kitchen. I just fitted it with a maple top and noticed that it's nowhere near level. Like, it's an inch higher on one side than the other. The feet look like some kind of levelling foot (see pic). I could not get them to budge with my vice-grips. It's not surprising that they could be frozen with some gunk, but I don't want to get a giant pipe wrench if the things don't actually adjust. Does anyone recognize this kind of foot? Is it indeed a levelling foot, and if so, does it just screw in or out? And is there a more elegant solution to unsticking one than a pipe wrench? Finally, if I can't adjust the feet, any thoughts on another solution? I'm thinking something plastic with a divet in the middle to stick under the short legs, maybe something I can pick up at the hardware store.

I just got my first not-dumbphone and am wondering what's good. The CIA's Professional Chef appp looks amazing, but a bit steep for me at the moment ($50) A really good app with volume to weight conversions would be perfect. Also something with a library of ingredient facts, formulas, etc. etc.. Thoughts?

Ice cream makers with a bowl that you freeze in the freezer can also work well. I find that the icre cream attachment of a KA mixer, if used with a well-designed formula and frozen in a 0°F freezer, will freeze a 1kg batch of ice cream in 9 to 12 minutes. This is for a drawing temperature of 23°F. I absolutely agree that inexpensive compressor machines are a problem. The best choices are freezer bowl machines are or high-end, high-$$ compressor machines.

Another caveat: don't bother with arrowroot starch. It's nasty in the presence of dairy in any detectable quantity. I didn't believe this warning, so had to find out for myself.

It was! If invited back next year I'll look for oysters.

Xanthan is unafected by temperature, so it will have equal thickening power when the ice cream is frozen as when it's melted. So it will have a strong effect on the texture of the melted ice cream in your mouth. The right amount can add a nice amount of body, without the greasiness you can get from huge amounts of cream, or the egginess and other flavor-masking qualities of huge amounts of egg custard. But if you overdo it, the xanthan will give you unpleasant textures. Xanthan-thickened liquids are thixotropic, which means they thicken more at rest than when the fluid is in motion. This is useful until the concentration is high; then you get textures reminiscent of snot. And in the frozen state the ice cream can get chewy or elastic. Gelatin's thickness is highly dependent on temperature. It's much thicker when cold. Once the ice cream is melted in your mouth, it doesn't have very much effect. But the actual melting qualities of gelatin (the transition from thick to thin) are very pleasant. Gelatin melts right around body temperature, and gives the same kind of melting sensations as butter. But without greasiness. If you overdo it, though, the ice cream can get too chewy in its frozen state, and can even get sticky in its melted state (like an over-reduced meat and bone stock). The idea is to balance the melting qualities of the gelatin with the unmeltable qualities of the xanthan, while avoiding any of the ill effects of too much of either. The right amounts will depend on the cream content and any egg custard content, and also on other factors, like flavor ingredients that include water or fruit pectin.

Thanks for all the advice, everyone. The trip was amazing. We stayed in an old house that used to belong to the painter Fairfield Porter (my friend's grandfather) and his brother Eliot, the photographer. Kitchen facilities were less rustic than promised: a pair of propane fridges, a propane cooktop with three burners, and a giant old wood-burning range. We ended up making two pasta dishes, one with assorted dry mushrooms, and one with a tomato sauce made with steamer clams we harvested from the beach. The clam sauce was great for the experience and tasted pretty good, but the mushrooms (dry porcinis, black trumpets, and morrels from NYC) stole the show. We also had some sauteed veggies and ice cream made with rosemary, basil, and thyme from my garden. The house had those ice cream-making soccer balls that you load up with ice and rock salt and give to people to kick around until everything's frozen. Amazingly, the things actually work. The freezers weren't cold enough to actually harden the ice cream, but it was still delicious glopped on top of sliced strawberries. Another highlight of the trip was local lobsters, which gave me the chance to anesthetize them with clove oil, according to Dave Arnold's methodology. After trying this once, I will never kill lobsters another way.

I'm off to Maine for 10 days, to an island with virtually no electricity or contact with the rest of the world. There is something of a small refrigerator, and a wood burning oven and a couple of gas burners. I've been told to not expect much temperature control. There will 14 of us. I'll be responsible for dinner on one of the nights. All shopping will have to be done ahead of time. The ideal meal would be delicious, manageable with the rudimentary stove, and not too heavy on ingredients that need refrigeration. Any brilliant ideas?

Sounds like way too much!

If this is for health reasons you're shooting yourself in the foot. Dextrose is only 70-75% as sweet as sucrose, so to get the equivalent flavor, you'll have to use 33 to 42% more of it. Dextrose is sugar. It's no less sugar than sucrose. Dextrose is indeed more hygroscopic than sucrose. For this reason a lot of pastry chefs add some, either dry or in syrup form to cakes and ganaches and confections. It's to keep things moist and to retard crystalization. But it's usually around 10%, never 100%. Glucose also tastes different from sucrose. I don't know anyone who prefers it. The taste is fine in small proportions but not large.

That's probably to hydrate / activate one of the gums. Annoying when a rep can't do more than read the instructions to you.

Pastrygirl, if it comes out the way you like then you're doing it right! I don't know Cremodan specifically. It could only substitute entirely for eggs if it includes emulsifiers. Getting rid of eggs means you need extra stabilization and also emulsification. If you're using stabilizers along with egg custard, you'll just end up needing less stabilizer to get the texture right.

A single one or two gallon batch ins't too tedious, but someone makeing a few flavors a day in those quantities will be stirring a lot of bowls floating in ice baths. This may be what pastry interns are for.

Recipes scale easily enough. The challenge is hardening big batches quickly enough to keep the ice crystals small. Ice cream stores use a hardening cabinet ... basically a -40° flash freezer. There are smaller versions for restaurants. The other issue is cooling custard-based recipes quickly enough to avoid health hazards. For big batches you have to use an ice water bath before aging the mix, which will get tedious.

The Migoya recipe I have specifies 0.35% stabilizers, made of 1 part xanthan, 1.75 parts lucust bean gum, 1.75 parts guar gum. This might work in lower quantities than your gums, since all three of these ingredients are synergetic (superadditive). But it might not! I don't have enough experience with carrageenan to offer any real guidance. My references say it forms a "firm, brittle gel," while guar, lcb, and xanthan are merely "thickeners." It's possible that carageenan just has a more radical effect and needs to be used in smaller quanities to keep the textures from getting exaggerated. This is just a guess. I think your inclination is probably right, to reduce the total stabilizers, or at least reduce the carrageenan.

That's a great point. I've noticed this when I'm not buying fancy cream from artisinal dairy. It's frustrating, because the cartons are vague about how much is in there. I've never tried figuring it out or compensating for it, but it probably makes at least a small difference. The carrageenan is used as a whipping aid.

Is there carrageenan in it? That will work much more powerfully if there's calcium around. Gums in general are really powerful, especially in certain combinations. It can be a challenge mixing in small enough quantities for home-sized batches.

For sorbets I use gelatin (0.15%) and xanthan (0.05%). Same ingredients but different proportions than for ice cream. People like pectin because it allows them say the sorbet is vegetarian, but I don't think it's as good a stabilizer as gelatin. If veggie is important, I'd go for the gums. They're more effective than starches and give better texture than pectin. Pectin exists on its own in many fruits. The quantity of stabilizer you use should probably be modified with this in mind. Here's some info I've compiled: High pectin content fruits: Citrus skins (oranges, tangerines, grapefruit, lemons, limes, etc. - the pectin is high in the skin but low in the fruit), tart cooking apples, crab apples, most plums, lemons, and wild grapes (Eastern Concord variety), cranberries and boysenberries. Blackberries. Medium pectin fruits: Apricots, rhubarb, quince Low pectin fruits: Cherries, grapefruit, grape juice, grapes (other than wild and Concord types), melons, oranges Very Low pectin fruits: Nectarines, strawberries, peaches, pears, figs, elderberries, raspberries, grapes (Western Concord variety), guava, pomegranates.

I don't have Francisco Migoya's Frozen Desserts book ... i read that it has a recipe for sorbet stabilizer made from some combination of carboxymethylcellulose, guar gum and locust bean gum.

Aging ice cream isn't about flavor; it's about allowing the fats to fully crystalize, and the proteins and polysaccharides to fully hydrate. This all improves body, texture, and whipability. Having the mix chilled as much as possible also speeds freezing, which gives you the smallest ice crystals. I don't know about cornstarch pudding mixes. Is this being used in an ice cream recipe? I experimented briefly with corn starch as an ice cream stabilizer and did not find it as good as gelatin or gums. Starches in general perform pretty poorly. Especially arrowroot. That's the biggest failed experiment I've had.

Cool, let us know.

Do you (or someone else) happen to have a directional guideline for the ratios of different ingredients? I have all of them separately so I would like to make my own mix. This is a big topic, because many of the ingedients are superaditive (meaning that 1+1 = more than 2). So it’s not just that each ingredient has a unique effect, but that many combinations have unique effects as well. I haven’t found a good primer on constructing combinations. My own formula took a lot of work, and it just includes two ingredients that exhibit no superaditivity. The Corvitto book offers only the most general overview. Evan at cookingissues.com sent me the following recipe: 
100g Xanthan Gum
175g CP Kelco Unflavored Locust Bean Gum
175g TIC Gums Pretested Flavorless Guar Gum
50g Mono-glycerides
50g Di-glycerides
[Mix all ingredients together, then sift and store in an airtight container.] This mix is intended to make up 0.35% of the recipe by weight. The glycerides are emulsifiers, not stabilizers. He sent me this during a conversation about eliminating eggs from ice cream. If your recipe has eggs, you could omit the glycerides and probably use a lower percentage of this mix. He recommends a minimum stablizer content of 0.3%, and a maximum of 1%. Unfortunately, this is nothing more than a recipe. There’s no theory or background included, so you’d be on your own to experiment. But it’s a starting point. This information originated with Chef Francisco Migoya, who used to be Thomas Keller’s executive pastry chef. I don’t know his ice cream first hand (sadly!)

I'm a big fan of the combination of gelatin and xanthan gum. These don't have the potency of the superaditive combinations used in commercial ice cream, so you have to use more. But this is a good thing if you're making small batches. You can measure these ingredients in 10ths of a gram instead of 100ths. I find gelatin to be unsurpassed in mouth feel and melting qualities. Its thickening power is dependant on temperature, so it has comparatively little effect on the viscosity of the ice cream after melting in your mouth. Xanthan is a stronger stabilizer in ice cream, and is unaffected by temperature. It thickens the mix even after melting. You have to be careful to not overdo the xanthan. Just like when thickening sauces, you can get unpleasant textures if the concentration is too high. I usually use about 1g/L gelatin and 0.3 to 0.4g/L xanthan. Most pastry chefs I know buy pre-mixed ice cream stabilizers. These usually include a combination of guar, locust bean gum, and some variety of carageenan. The mixtures can be pretty high tech and are effective in minute quantities. If you don't want to go crazy experimenting, these are a perfect solution. I shy away from them because I don't want to be dependent on any manufacturer for a proprietary formula. If they change or discontinue it, then I have to start over. This was my torment as a photographer, and it got me mixing things from scratch whenever possible. I also like the opportunity to learn how the individual ingredients work.

If I understand you correctly, while the ice cream is churning I should periodically take the temperature and when it is -5C, transfer it to a freezer container and put it in the freezer? I have a Thermopen so I can get quick readings. Would this hold true for sherbets and frozen yogurt too? If I understand you correctly, while the ice cream is churning I should periodically take the temperature and when it is -5C, transfer it to a freezer container and put it in the freezer? I have a Thermopen so I can get quick readings. Would this hold true for sherbets and frozen yogurt too? You don't want to take the ice cream out of the machine before it looks right. The idea is to refine your recipes so they will reach the right hardness and volume at the ideal temperature. I take the temperature of the ice cream when it starts to look finished ... this will tell me if it needs to go another minute or two. But more importantly it gives me feedback about a recipe. If the ice cream is hard enough but the temperature is high, then the recipe could use more freezing point suppression. Or if the temperature is low, it could use less freezing point suppression. You can also use drawing temperature to get feedback about the recipe's whipability. A significant part of ice cream's texture is from whipped cream. This is the foam component. Conditions need to be right for the fats to whip properly. The mix needs to be aged at least several hours at a cold temperature for the fats to crystalize. There also needs to be adequate emulsifcation in the mix (if you're using any eggs at all, this takes care of it). Stabilizing ingredients tend to enhance whipability. So, if you get to the ideal drawing temperature and the ice cream hasn't gained the volume you'd like, this is a hint that the fats weren't properly crystalized, or that the mix is understabilized. If you have get too much volume, it can mean the mix is overstabilized. Different machines also do more or less whipping, and if you use a Kitchen aid attachment, the variable speed can be used to adjust this.