paulraphael

Well, I like the idea of avoiding the calcium chloride flavor. In the chocolate it just tasted like salt, but it ruined the fruit. Do the lactate and gluconate not have flavor? Are there problems with making those substitutions? I'd be grateful for recommendations on sphere molds. never used them. Sounds like they're easier Than i had assumed.

I thought about freezing in molds but was hoping for something easier. I don't want to use xanthan because i want to mimimally influence the texture when it's melted. I just want it to adhere to iteself better so it's not just a mess when making the balls. If I could use a mellon baller that would be great. No unpleasant taste in the chocolate from the calcium chloride, but I made some spherized straweberry this morning that tasted like road salt. It's an acquired taste.

So, half a decade or so after everyone got sick of spherification I decided to start doing it. I needed to bring something to an erotic dessert party, and thought chocolate truffles that explode in the mouth would be the ticket. It worked pretty well. People loved them, and made incredible faces, wondering about what was going on in there. One friend said they were like "yolks of the ganache vulture" ... a name that has stuck. Unfortunately, making them was a gross process. My assumption that a mellon baller would work for scooping the cold ganache into the alginate was thwarted by their crumbly texture. I ended up forming the balls by hand, which left me looking like I was covered in poop. Here's the recipe (it's for reverse spherification): 175g heavy cream 30g liqueur 15g sugar 3.2g calcium chloride 100g dark chocolate, chopped The chocolate is chilled in the freezer before making balls, and then soaked in hot water to melt the centers before serving. Two thoughts I had are substituting invert syrup for the sugar, and adding gelatin (enough to give them better adhesion while cold, but not so much as to thicken them noticeably while melted). Any better ideas?

A few words on the actual mixer problems ... I think the majority of mixers break from abuse. Few people understand how fragile the transmission of a planetary mixer is compared with the direct drives of machines like blenders and food processors. You can demolish a 90 Quart hobart by throwing frozen sticks of butter into it ... it doesn't happen often because the people who own these know how to use them. I don't think this is the case among people here on egullet, but if you read some of the complaints elsewhere on the web, the posters don't inspire much confidence. A source of real mixer problems is that KA doesn't instruct their customers to properly break in the mixers. I've heard from more than one technician that the food-grade grease in the gear housing is extremely viscous until it warms up. In a new mixer it will have settled into the bottom or sides of the gear box where it is relatively useless. If you unpack a new mixer and make a full size batch of low-hydration bread, you are possibly taking years off the life of the mixer. The mixer should run unloaded for many minutes, preferably in a warm room, and should be used for a few light duty tasks before being worked hard. This will liquefy and distribute the lubricant properly. Among the real flaws that have caused mass headaches for KA users is the plastic gear housing issue mentioned by Ericthered. The earlier version of the "professional" bowl lift mixers had a thermoset plastic gear housing (earlier mixer designs used the chasis of the mixer itself as the housing, which was solid but made assembly and service much more labor intensive). The housing would get hot under load, distort, let the gears fall out of alignment, and then gears would break left and right and the housing itself would fail. This was a disaster for many people who used the mixer for what it was advertised for. KA eventually found a contractor that could injection mold the cover from magnesium. This material is rigid, heat-stable, and dissipates heat efficiently (it even has a built-in heat sink). That problem was solved. It only persists in that KA refused to acknowledge the origninal design as a flaw, and so they will not offer the new cover as a preventative measure (it's a drop-in replacement) nor will they tell you what serial numbers use the old vs. the new part. At this point, though, it's very unlikely that you'll get a plastic one, even from the refurb store. I got my mixer as a refurb and the first thing I did is pop the cover to check the gear box. The remainder of the problems seem to be sample variation. The gears in these units are not industrial quality. They spin on bronze friction bearings, not sealed ball or roller bearings, and there's a fair amount of wiggle room. The gears themselves are not precision machined. It follows that a certain number of mixers made this way are going to fall outside of spec and have more problems than others. Unfortunately, and once again, if you demand Hobart quality you'll pay Hobart prices.

Ghoul, you are correct about the belt drive in the Hobart mixers. I looked at the diagrams and it appears to deliver power to the transmission before the speed is reduced and the torque is increased, which makes perfect sense.I I don't find reason to agree with your assessment of superior Kenwood quality. It doesn't take much of a search to find plenty of people complaining about broken Kenwood mixers. The difference is that the complaints on this side of the Atlantic extend into the near impossibility of getting good service. KA mixers break all the time, but if they break under warranty, KA's doting service people apologetically send you a new one ... all the while maintaining the happy illusion that you're the first person this has ever happened to. If a mixer breaks out of warranty, parts are available everywhere, and the repairs are pretty straightforward. Plenty of independent techs can do it for you or you can figure it out yourself with online help. I don't doubt doubt that the situation is reversed in other parts of the world. If I lived in Europe, I'd buy a Kenwood. No way would I buy one here. I would greatly prefer it if KA did better quality control, but I understand their gambit. Probably only a small percentage of their mixers actually gets used. Most are eye candy and wedding present fodder. If ten percent of the five percent that get used breaks, then perhaps it's cheaper to pay for after-sales service than strict QC. Annoying as hell, but I get it. If anyone actually wants Hobart quality, you're going to have to pay Hobart prices. No way around that. The best bet is to often to buy used, if you live near a city that has restaurant supply stores and authorized technicians.

I've looked inside the Kenwood / Cuisinart / Delonghi mixers. If anything they strike me as a notch down from KA in robustness. For one thing, they are belt-driven, something that seems like a curious choice in a high torque appliance, and one that you never see in a professional mixer. As far as reliability, I get the impression that the Kenwoods and rebranded Kenwoods are about as spotty as KA and everything else. The big difference is that in the U.S., there is excellent warranty service on KA but not Kenwood; in Europe the situation is reversed. I think the smartest bet, if you are going with a consumer planetary mixer, is KA over here and Kenwood over there, and realize that there's a decent chance with either that you'll need warranty service. Just be sure to use the bejeezus out of thing in the first year so you'll know something's wrong before too late. The other choices are a professional mixer (like Hobart) at around four times the price, or a spiral mixer (like Electrolux) which require a different working style and which have different abilities and limitations. As far as the plastic gear goes, Shalmonese is right. This did not represent a cheapening of KA mixers. They used a plastic gear (originally phenolic) since 1909. It was eventually changed to nylon. The larger bowl-lift mixers have an all-metal drive train. They get their protection from a thermal shutoff switch. This is a newer design. I find it works well, but it's by no means free of QC issues. My first one went back after 3 months. It didn't break; it just gave hints that something was wrong with the gears. The replacement's been going strong for 4 years. I definitely recommend going to KA's site and getting a factory refurb. The prices are excellent, and the only downside is a shorter warranty (but if you get a bad mixer, it won't take you a year to figure it out).

There are many things in the world to be worried about. Teflon isn't one of them (unless you're a bird, and someone's incinerating a non-stick pan in the next room). PTFE is so innert in the human body that it's used in permanent installations, like artificial joints, artificial heart valves, and vascular grafts. The only reason to avoid teflon in cooking is that it's a lousy surface for 95% of cooking. If you're cooking eggs, or very delicate fish, it's perfectly fine. You will die of something one day, and it almost certainly won't be your omelet pan or potato chip bag. The chips themselves might be a culprit.

I wish you'd do your own research before posting distracting statements like this. First—most of the research in question is done at the university level, with funding form the NIH and grants from other public health agencies. All of it goes through the scientific journal peer review process, which, while far from perfect, is the best system our species has yet devised for controling bias. Second, and please think seriously about this—the only reason you've even HEARD about the dangers of any plastics is because of research published by the very same people and institutions that you are now systematically dismissing. If researches were universally corrupt and in collusion and wanted to hide something from the public, it would be the easiest thing in the world. But they took on the research, they chose to spend their limited grant money on it, they got the results, and they went through the (substantial) trouble of publishing it. If you trust the intitial reports that say "this stuff might be hazardous," why would chose to dismiss continued research that modifies those initial findings? This is how science works: continued research supports, contradics, or refines the initial findings. We are learning that plastic is something to consider, but not blindly fear. This is good news, IMO.

If you're interested in using the pressure cooker to make stocks — one of the most interesting applications of the technology — be sure to read the cooking issues blog post on the subject. Interestingly, pressure cooker designs are different in fundamental ways. Some allow you to make stocks that are better than conventional ones, and others do not.

One of these is right down the street. They were on the short list, but they close at 4pm on xmas eve. I'm a bit worried about trying to hold a pizza that long. What's their pizza like? I just checked this place out in person ... they give you an unbaked pizza to take home. I don't have high hopes for the quality, but as far as convenience it's tempting. I think baking our own will be a good fallback position.

One of these is right down the street. They were on the short list, but they close at 4pm on xmas eve. I'm a bit worried about trying to hold a pizza that long. What's their pizza like?

Thanks everyone. Butcher and Larder looks a great choice.

My family's Xmas eve tradition has always been Giordano's pizza and champagne. We would buy it half baked, finish it off at home, and dig in while passing presents around. Bliss. But last year just about everyone spontaneously came to the same conclusion: the pizza is not very good. It was a bit deflating to wake up from a delusion that goes back to childhood, but man, that pizza is basically a deep dish cheese casserole in a pastry shell. The little kids didn't like it, the grownups could barely get half a piece down before feeling queezy, and I found myself missing Brooklyn. So what are some better choices? I've become a convert to the neapolitan-styled pizzas of New York's new wave. I realize these things don't travel so well, and I don't know what's available in Chicago, in the downtown / near north / lincoln park region. Preferably near north. We'd like something delicious that can be taken home, and that could survive the trip and being reheated or held in the oven. Any ideas?

I'm at my parent's for the holidays, and have been unable to continue my ridiculous tradition of flyning from NYC with a dry-aged roast in a cooler in the belly of the plane. It will be a small crowd for xmas this year and I'm thinking about lamb racks. Who would have something really good? Preferablly not too far from downtown or the Lincoln Park area? I've been browsing Yelp but don't find too many trust-inspiring reviews. Paulina meat market looks good, but is stratospherically expensive (the lamb there costs about double the wholesale price of lamb from the best couple of farms in the country) so I worry that all the money goes to the boutiquiness of the place. I would love a no-nonsense place that sells great quality meat, ideally from some identifiable farm that whose reputation I can check out (I realize this last bit may be asking too much). Thoughts?

This seems to be new over the last couple of years. It corresponds (surprise!) with the Tojiros getting more expensive. The blades also look much thinner than they used to ... a good thing. The Tojiros I saw last year at Korin definitely had a sharper factory edge than most knives, but they were still not close to their potential.

You get a hopelessly inconsistent and messed up edge from dished stones. A convex edge comes from changing the angle of the knife while you sharpen. Unless you are using an edge pro, or have almost supernaturally consistent sharpening technique, you will produce edges that have some concavity.

Yup. The coarse stone made deep scratches, which gave you an edge with big teeth. It will work really well on things like rope, or fibrous cuts of meat. Or your wood cutting board. The trick is to follow that stone with one that's fine enough to leave much smaller teeth, but not so fine that it takes you hours polish out the scratches from the previous stone. Moving to a stone that's half as coarse (a grit number that's twice as high) is usually a safe bet.

KA vs. Elecrolux is really about planetary mixer vs. spiral mixer. Each has its advantages. Commercially spiral mixers are usually used for making huge volumes of dough. The design allows lots of dough to be worked without as powerful a motor or heavy gearbox as a planetary design. Planetary mixers are more popular for all-purpose use because of their versatilty. There's a lot of information online; bakers and pizza makers ask this question often. If you REALLY need a heavy duty mixer, the best option may be a used 20 quart hobart. They often go for close to the price of the 5qt hobart, because no one wants to crate or ship the things. This of course depends on your being near a city where you can find one. They're not as huge as they sound. They sit on a countertop, and work just like any other 3-speed planetary mixer. A lot of people who run wedding cake businesses out of their homes use these. You can make bread in them all day long.

How did it "die"? Did you open it up to see what broke? All the parts are available online for fairly cheap. The first incarnation of the pro600 had a plastic gearbox cover that could warp when it got hot and lead to gear failure. They then upgraded it to a metal cover, when they were able to find a vendor who could injection mold magnesium into the required shape. The new covers fit onto the old mixers with no modification. There are very few things likely to go wrong with that mixer that would cost more than $50 to fix. If anyone gets a new Pro600, I'd recommend these steps: 1) pop it open and make sure you got the magnesium gear cover. It's highly unlikely that there are old plastic ones on the market, but it's worth being sure, especially if you bought a factory refurb (and I would never buy anything but a factory refurb ... they cost $240, which is about what the thing is worth, and there are no addtional quality control worries). 2) Break in the mixer slowly. Do a lot of easy mixing, like cakes, whipped cream etc., before taking on bread or grinding meat. The grease in the mixers is a vegetable-based lubricant (for food safety reasons) that has some quirks compared with petroleum or synthetic lubes. It is solid when cold, and often settles away from the gears when the mixer is stored or shipped. Running the mixer gently lets the mixer warm up and redistribute the grease under gentle load. 3) After that gentle break in, work it HARD. This is your opportunity to find defects while it's still under warranty. I don't mean abuse it, but use it for the hardest tasks it was designed for. KA has very spotty quality control, as people have discovered. So do Viking, Cuisinart, and Kenwood. In the U.S., KA has better warranty service than the others, so I think they have the strong advantage here. I wouldn't recommend KA in Europe. If you do the above, and confirm that you don't have a lemon, you will have a very good mixer. I use mine hard, and it just hums along, getting only slightly warm under the biggest loads. It is not as mighty nor as well made as a Hobart, but it is as solid as anyone can expect for 1/4 the price.

Is the coating applied directly to the copper? When it loses its powers, I wonder if you could sand it off and just have the pan tinned.

Teflon lined copper is a depressingly cynical invention. A cruel joke on the consumer. Please don't buy it; maybe it will go away. There are ways to make teflon linings last a long time, but no ways to make them retain their non-stick properties for a long time. These pans turn expensive materials that could be used to make heirlooms into disposable (luckily, reclyclable) paperweights. None of this even gets into the unsuitability of nonstick surfaces for most cooking. They're terrifically helpful for eggs. They are useful for delicate fish, but even here, a bare metal surface used with good technique will give better browning, handle higher temperatures, and last essentially forever. On a separate note, I don't find that copper requires any special maintenance. I don't let guests wash my pans, not because they're hard to clean, but because they're expensive, and guests will find ways to destroy just about anything. But I just wash the things with soapy water (sometimes BKF on the inside) and towel dry. They only require special maintenance if you insist on polishing them. I consider this to a problem with the owner, not with the pan. Stop calling it tarnish, start calling it "patina," and go enjoy life.

Yes, that's the one I'm describing. But some people prefer the curved ones because there are no corners where sauce can hide from a whisk. Both kinds are basically the same idea.

No doubt. But unfortunately it's not an option because no one makes it in that thickness (there's some thick tinned copper out there, but it's not suited for the kinds of cooking where you benefit from thermal mass, because tin melts at such low temperatures). Also, there's very little cooking I can think of that requires huge thermal mass AND the responsiveness of copper. I like big mass for searing big chunks of things. A giant cast iron skillet does that just fine. For making hollandaise family sauces or reducing cream or anthing else where evenness and responsiveness are helpful in equal parts, I've never found anything as good as 2.5mm copper. Not to suggest for a minute that it's necessary. It just makes things a little easier, a little more fun.

It's very difficult to know for sure. There are good bamboo boards and bad ones. Probably many more bad than good, but I think your inclination is right to trust Epicurian Edge. They take their products seriously and probably research everything they sell. As far as hardness measurements for wood (someone else's question) the measurements indeed exist. The most common measure is the Janka scale. You can find charts all over the web. It's confusing, because similar woods from different regions measure radically differently. What I've been told is that the ideal hardness range for cutting boards is 1200 to 1600 or so. Lower and they're not durable enough; higher and they're hard on knife edges. With bamboo cutting boards, the issue is more with the copious amounts of glue than with the bamboo itself. Most cheap bamboo boards are essentially bamboo-reinforced glue, so the hardness / abrassiveness of the glue is what's at issue. Ok, sorry for the interruption, gentlemen. Please continue with the microscope slides and rockwell hardnesses of unobtanium.

So my Brick oven finally bit the dust - it no longer maintains its temperature. Suspect it may be something simple like dirty contacts and my SIL will be attempting to repair it. However, living without a small oven is not something I am prepared to do so I pulled the trigger and bought the Breville Smart Oven. .... Once you get over these quirks the oven is a joy to use. It's early yet as I have only had it for a week or two but so far, so good. I'm curious to hear your updates. I have the Cuisinart brick oven and it has NEVER maintained temperature accurately. I sent back my first one because of this and the second one had the same problem, so it's basically only usefull for toast and broiling. It's adequate for these things but in my mind very underpowered. I wonder how quickly the Breville makes toast, and how subjectively powerful the broiler is. If it's as good as all that, I may decide my brick oven is truly a brick.