paulraphael

This is how I do it. I like it without eggs. 5 garlic cloves 1/4 tsp coarse salt 1/8 tsp xanthan gum (optional, to stabilize emulsion) 1 – 2TB vinegar or lemon juice 1 – 2TB water (enough to bring the total water + acid content to 3TB) 1-1/2 cups extra virgin olive oil (all quantities are approximate) -roughly mince garlic and put with salt in mortar and pestle -crush until it's a smooth paste -in a bowl or plastic container, mix acid and water. sprinkle xanthan over the top. allow to hydrate for a few minutes,and whisk until disolved. -scrape garlic paste into container with acid and water. whisk. -genlty whisk in oil (in small additions at first). be careful to let each addition to emulsify before adding more. -if emulsion breaks, it's because there's too little water to accomodated the amount of oil. try whisking in a bit more water or acid. If this doesn't work, get a new container with 1 TB or so of water (or more acid if you want to adjust seasoning) and gradually whisk in the broken aioli.

Most recipes include egg, but it's unnecessary. Not sure if they're traditionally part of aioli or not. Garlic has enough emulsifying power to make a stable concoction all by itself, as long as there is some water present (plain, or in the form of wine, vinegar, etc).

Ack! Reason may be early senility. Thanks for the catch, and for linking to Ittasan ... that's exactly who I had in mind. (and apologies in advance to anyone who gets Ittasan's theme music permanantly lodged in your head)

If you have a restaurant supply store handy, you can usually get good ones for cheap. The standard ones are simple; aluminum with a heavy wire in the rim. The only differences are in weight. Heavier is better and a bit more expensive. The lincolns and volraths that Mitch mentions are among the heavy ones, but there are others (mostly no-name) that are as heavy. Ones that cost $15 to $20 at the fancy kitchen store typically cost half that at the restaurant store. And if you're lucky, you can get used ones for next to nothing. They'll probably be well beaten and ravaged by commercial dishwashers, but perfectly functional in the oven. I have some lincoln sheet pans (and no name equivalents). I also have a few Chicago Metallic pans. These are aluminized steel, which conducts a bit more slowly. Generally i use them interchangeably, but for some things that I want to brown less on the bottom, I'll grab the steel pans. I also have a stack of battered, used sheet pans picked up for $2 a pop. I use half sheet pans for practically everything, so I'll pick up more cheap ones whenever I see them.

I've been corresponding with Michael Laiskonis, Le Bernardin's executive pastry chef, for over a year. I found him through his blog, where he explains his approach and techniques with unusual eloquence. There are other pastry chefs with James Beard awards and three Michelin stars, but Chef Laiskonis is the first I've encountered with a combination of great vision, deep technical curiosity, and the ability to speak easily about both. Like many creative titans, and all of my friends, Chef Laiskonis is a poor judge of character; he invited me to work in his kitchen in spite of my obvious lack of credentials and housbreaking. Such a rare opportunity demands preparation, which in my case consisted of a full week chanting, "don't knock anything over." I've had a chance to study Chef Eric Ripert's book, On The Line, which details everything backstage at Le Bernardin, including the 10 by 14 foot pastry kitchen that cages up to six pastry chefs and production people, who craft individual pre-desserts, desserts, tasting menus, and petits fours for up to 300 guests a night. The possibilities of elbowing a chef in the eye, stepping into a bucket of glucose, or capsizing an entire speed rack of tuiles and spherized pear nectar seemed almost infinite. Happily, the training worked; drama seekers will have to wait a little longer for posts about self-inflicted palette knife wounds or kitchen evacuations. The greatest barrier between the average schmo and the kitchens of Le Bernardin may not be their standards but their architecture. Finding the kitchen required trips up and down different stairwells, U-turns through basement catacombs, and conflicting directions from a cook and an elevator repairman. I thought of the scene in Spinal Tap, where the band wanders the bowels of the venue in search of the stage. At one point Maguy Le Coze, co-owner and co-founder of the restaurant, stormed passed me in a subterranean passageway before pushing through an unmarked door. She looked appropriately sleek, intense, and French; as one would expect, she didn't look up at the hapless stranger wandering the stairs. When the kitchen doors finally appeared around a corner, it was only a matter of minutes before I'd been introduced to the crew and handed a chef jacket and propane torch. There was some mention of a tour, which never materialized (when I got home, 12 hours later, I realized that I never even saw the bathroom). Instead, production went into full swing. It was a slow night; the restaurant was somewhere around half capacity, but still every guest gets a pre-dessert, a dessert and a plate of petits fours, and at least one table had arranged for a special dessert tasting menu. I spent most of my day working on the petits fours, which consisted of a round financier with pistachio and a macerated cherry in the middle, a chocolate cup filled with praline cream and sprinkled with ground toasted almonds, a beignet, and a wafer of white chocolate topped with a duo of gummy cubes (mango, and ... something red). My accuracy on some of the ingredients may be off; I only nibbled on broken ones and that was during the tunnel vision of production and assembly. While the plate of petits fours comprises 4 bites, there are actually 10 components, each of which has to be prepared separately, sometimes in several steps, before final plating. The morning production crew had already prepared many of the ingredients and components for us to assemble. By the time you pop one of these scooby snacks in your mouth, it's probably been worked on by five or six people over the course of many hours. The work requires some precision, but perhaps not as much as I'd first assumed. Ricardo, the sous chef, would typically show me one example and then cut me loose to do the rest. In my effort to perfectly duplicate his, I occasionally resorted to using tweezers where he'd used a plastic spoon. I loosened up a bit when I saw him laughing at me. We cranked out the fours in waves, stopping when we ran out of plates, starting up again when a fresh stack came back from the dishwashers. I spent much of my downtime observing others plate the main desserts—a skill I would like to acquire, and one I'm ecstatic that I didn't have to fake in that setting. Every dessert has multiple components, some of which are delicate tuilles or disks or other brittle constructions. The saucing is a mix of geometric precision and loose brushwork and squeeze-bottle painting. The overall effect conveys sophistication and a bit of playfulness, and remarkably avoids the over-constructed, self conscious displays that were in vogue in the 90s (and never quite went away). I have philosophical issues with some kinds of saucing (like small dots of sauce, or piles or smears of dry powder), but when Chef Laiskonis uses these techniques he does so with restraint and to such great esthetic effect that I found myself wanting to steal some of his designs. I spent some downtime watching the hot kitchen. Compared with some high end kitchens I've seen, Le Bernardin's is austere; it's about as small as imaginable for the size of the brigade (slightly smaller, actually ... the canapé station is a pair of wheeled carts with portable burners, tied to the end of the pass). The equipment is all solid and immaculate, but traditional and decidedly un-fancy. I saw no hint of induction hobs, immersion circulators, anti-griddles, or rows of chefs plating microgreens with surgical tweezers. It looks like a restaurant, in the most traditional sense. The line cooks moved with a higher adrenaline swagger than the pastry cooks. Their kitchen may demand it; the chaotic environment feels like a war room compared with the pastry kitchen's operating room calm. All the cooks I watched handled the onslaught easily. There were no losses of control or focus or communication. Based on a few minutes' observation, my one negative surprise was the level of knife skills in some of the cooks; I saw some brutality inflicted on herbs and fruit that seemed out of place in such a shrine to refinement. On the line, however, everyone performed like a rock star. I have doubts if my wee brain could handle such simultaneous demand for volume, spontaneous organization, and perfection. Back in the pastry kitchen, I handled some miscellaneous jobs like unmolding frozen goat cheese hemispheres (which would then be spherized in sodium alginate), and unmolding and cutting to size small logs of corn custard that had been formed with various hydrocolloids. Whenever I found Chef Laiskonis taking a break from running the ship, I pestered him with questions, on everything from his opinions on the Michel Cluizel chocolate varieties they use, to ice cream theory, to the finer points of reverse-spherification of fruit purées. His loyal lieutenants, Ricardo and Jesus, were able to shut me up a few times over the course of the evening by handing me a beautifully plated dessert and a plastic spoon. Of course, after indulging in such a creation I only had more to talk about. There are maxims about keeping one's eyes open and mouth shut; alas, there are also compulsions that keep one's life interesting while keeping one mostly unemployable. One unexpected surprise was Chef Ripert's visit to the pastry kitchen. He was as gracious and charming in person as he is on television; he seemed like a boss who wants to create an environment where his workers feel comfortable and motivated to do their best work. I don't know how many chefs of his caliber spend as much time as he does in the kitchen ... I suspect not many. I didn't see him micromanage, but I saw him observe, and check in many times with the heads of various teams. When introducing us, Chef Laiskonis said, "Paul's been stalking me for about a year now." Chef Ripert replied, "I understand. I had to stalk Michael for two years to get him to come here." Our final plates went out around 11:30 pm. We had already cleaned up most of the pastry kitchen; an easy task compared with the near-demolition going on next door on the hot side. Six pastry technicians making tiny sculptures just don't make the same scale mess as forty pirates slinging a thousand pounds of fish through a million BTUs of fire. And the line cooks are denied the most rewarding cleanup task of all, which fell into my hands: putting away the ice creams and sorbets. I first knew Chef Laiskonis as a long-distance ice cream guru. Having my hands on all dozen flavors of his daily stockpile felt like some kind of industrial espionage (except, of course, that I am without anything resembling an industry). I came away with two flavors I'd like to shamelessly ape (crème fraîche sorbet and praline citrus ice cream) and a much more rounded sense of what my guru's up to. We said our goodbyes after Chef led me through the catacombs and back to the real world. I don't think I expressed enough gratitude to Ricardo and Jesus for their patience and friendliness in the kitchen; they helped make a potentially nerve-wracking experience both comfortable and educational. I may have an opportunity to do a similar stage on the hot side of the kitchen ... If so, more will follow. The full report, with links and pictures, is posted on the underbelly blog.

The cleanest fillet jobs I've seen have been done with Japanese technique and a deba. The caveat is that it's more technique intensive, and different types of fish require more radially different techniques when using a deba. This guy has posted dozens of videos showing technique for different fish. There's a lot to learn. Western style is easier to learn and also faster (and the knives are generally cheaper). I'd like to get a deba and put in some time learning to use it ... but I happen to enjoy this kind of geekery.

Just to clarify, when I said ask the Boardsmith, I didn't mean ask your friend, I meant ask David Smith, who posts here from time to time. He's done his research on wood and glue and construction choices for cutting boards, and gets a lot of feedback from the chef and knife nut communities. He's also been generous with advice for masochists who want to make their own.

Thicker = heavier (less likely to move around), less prone to warping, and longer lasting (eventually you'll have to sand out knife grooves). I think 1-1/2" is probably minimum for an endgrain board. But you don't want it to be too thick; it effects the height of your work surface and unless you're tall the added height can become a problem. You also want it light enough that you can move it to your sink easily for cleaning. Rubber feet are important. Without them, the board will trap water underneath and warp. The Boardsmith can chime in on prefered woods, and also on how to align the grain to prevent warping. Maple is always a safe choice. People I've know who did this as a home woodworking project said that it's a LOT of work!

Beer pairing is easier. Wine can work fine but depends on the condiments. If you're putting anything very acidic or pungent on the burgers (hot mustard, etc.) that makes wine tough. If you're going easy on the condiments, you can pick just as you would for other beef dishes. My beer preference would be for something that doesn't go too far either in the sweet/malt area or the bitter/hops area. Anything light to medium bodied with a good balance.

I just found something that Michael wrote on the subject. This is about sorbets, not ice creams, but is probably somewhat relevent: Trimoline can usually comprise 1-5% of the total mix, while glucose (which we will use in powder form) is often used in a range between 5-10%. Trimoline is just invert sugar in powdered form. He also seems to prefer sugars in powdered form rather than syrups. Unfortunately I don't have anything from him where he discusses the reasons for using both glucose and trimoline.

You might also be able to find dextrose at a health food supply store. This is pure glucose ... no other sugars, no water. I think it would be ideal substitute for corn syrup in ice cream. For increasing sweetness, I'd use powdered fructose or trimoline. I think it's better to use powdered ingredients when possible (no need for extra water in ice cream) and also pure ones (no question about what the proportions of sugars are. I'm going to have a chance to talk to Michael Laiskonis next week. He's been my ice cream guru ... I'll ask if he uses invert sugars in ice cream, and if so what his thoughts are.

I use glucose syrup from a cake supply store. It's like corn syrup but pure glucose and much more concentrated (so you're putting less water into the recipe). Ideally I'd use powdered dextrose, but I can't find it locally and haven't gotten around to mail ordering it. If your only concern is hfcs, I'd let go of that one. There isn't a shred of scientific evidence supporting any of the apocalyptic claims about this stuff. It's basically invert syrup derived from corn. Corn syrup (mostly glucose) is subjected to an enzyme reaction (like what's been used in the preparation of many food products throughout the ages) so that a portion of the glucose is converted to fructose. The "high fructose" part is really a misnomer; most hfcs formulations have no more fructose in them than table sugar.

Darienne, you can use invert sugars instead of corn syrup, but there will be differences. The biggest difference is the level of sweetness; invert syrup will be 50% or so sweeter, so you will use much less of it to get the same flavor. This may or may not defeat your original purpose for using the corn syrup; I gather you're using it to raise the freezing point of the ice cream, which depends on both the freezing point suppression of the sugar and its quantity (and by implication, its relative sweetness, since you don't want to be forced into making ice cream that's too sweet or not sweet enough). I'm not sure about the freezing point suppression of invert syrup relative to corn syrup. I'm going to take a wild guess that it's similar at similar hydration levels. This being the case, invert syrup would be most helpfurl if you wanted your ice cream to be sweeter, without significantly changing the texture. You can get much of this effect by just using table sugar, but the syrups can help prevent sugar crystalization, which can be an issue with some ice cream and sorbet flavors.

Matfer makes a pretty decent fish spat for nonstick pans. I have one, but stopped using it when I stopped using nonstick pans for fish. I've found that if you let fish brown properly before touching it, the skin will actually release on its own when the maillard reactions get to a certain point. And bare metal does a much better job of browning. It also lets you see how well browned any butter or pan drippings are. I much prefer a standard fish spat to a palette knife when dealing with most fish. The wider blade gives more support. I like palette knives and spoons for scallops, wee fish, etc...

I agree with everyone. Love the lamson sharp fish spat. It's not the nicest, but it works as well as you could ask and it's cheap. Also Love my palette knife. The two are not completely interchangeable. Plenty of times when I want one and not the other.

I've been experimenting with my coffee lately. Trying to figure out why I've been making better coffee at my girfriend's apartment with a whirly blade grinder, no measuring, and no timing, than I do at home where everything's done with laboratory precision. I'm starting to gather that my grind is plenty coarse, and that I wasn't brewing long enough. I've always gone 4 minutes. I tried 3 minutes at the recommendation of many people and everything got exactly worse. So I went up to 5 minutes, which sounds long. Everything improved: better body, and the acidity brought into balance. I haven't played with the grind size much ... I'm keeping things close to the coarsest setting on my Baratza Maestro burr grinder. Seems like shorter brew times give thinner body and more pronounced acidity; longer brew times more body and more bitterness.

With print-to-order companies like Lulu and Blurb, this could be done with no investment besides volunteer labor. I've already designed a couple of books that were printed by these services. They don't do ring binding as far as I know. But the book could be designed so that people have the option to cut the spine off and punch their own holes.

The research I've seen from the last decade seems to dismiss the idea that there only a half dozen or so discreet tastes. Much of this yet to be supported by multiple studies, but my impression is that there are over a dozen known tastes, and a likelihood that more will be discovered. Among these are several distinct forms of bitterness, at least one metalic taste, alkalinity (we perceive it as soapiness), and fat. This is in a addition to umami, which may still be uncategorized, and non-taste physical sensations like pungency, "coolness," and tanins.

I haven't gone as far as tasting them side-by-side, but I tweaked the dark muscovado version until it tasted the same as my memory of the light muscovado version. All of this will depend on the actual molasses content of the light and dark sugars you're using ... expect some variation. I don't even know how consistent any given brand of sugar is over time. I'm guessing that exotic sugars like the muscovados could have more inconsistencies than the more industrial products. What surprised me is that in the brands I tried (inda tree and billingtons) the dark muscovado seems to have way, way more molasses than the light. I wasn't expecting to have to change the proportions as much as I did.

More true with hogs than with any other animal I know. They seem to process food very little before turning it into fat; this is why hogs that feed on apples taste fruity, hogs that feed on acorns taste nutty, hogs that feed on slop taste ... I've never raised a hog but have tasted some of the startling differences between varieties of Spanish ham. In these cases I believe the breed is often similar but the feed varies significantly.

Oh snap! I've recently rejiggered the recipe for dark muscovado. i did it to economize ... dark costs the same but has gobs more molasses in it, so you only need to use a fraction as much as you do with light. Your cookies were just much darker and heavier on the molasses flavors than the normal recipe. Who knows .. you might like your version better. For me, too much molasses overwhelms the butter and nut and vanilla flavors. Here's the update.

VG-1 is one of the best knife steels available. But i wouldn't trust calphalon to know what to do with it. When consumer companies like them sell OEM knives, they're usually designed by marketing people to appeal to an uneducated western consumer. Generally the edge geometry is much closer to what you'd expect from a european knife, so you don't get very good performance. I'd stick with companies that actually sell knives in japan, especially ones that get respect among pro users. By the way, VG-1 is essentially the same steel as sandvik 19C27 and Hitachi gin san ko, which are used on some of the highest performance knives made. But these companies generally ride on their own reputations, and don't make a big deal out of the steels they use.

My cousin, a chef in Milwaukee, needs some fresh ideas. He's 62, doesn't own his restaurant, has little saved for retirement, and is struggling against an economy that's made chefing harder even than usual. On top of it, he was recently in a car accident, and has been suffering from back pain ever since. I don't know how debilitating or longterm this injury is. He has not made a big name for himself in the culinary world in Milwaukee (is there one?) but is highly competent. And he's more educated and articulate than the average chef; before culinary school he pursued a doctorate in some other discipline. He speaks and writes well. He's also taught in culinary school, years ago. What kinds of options might be open to someone in his position? Back trouble or not, it seems his days on the line can't last forever. I'm thinking he needs to pursue a more non-traditional path, like maybe working for a food manufacturer, in management for a large food service company, teaching of some kind, consulting of some kind ... But I don't know what the real world looks like in these fields, especially not in that part of the country. I'll be happy to pass on any ideas.

Yeah, those straight gauge heavy aluminum ones might be the cheapest option that performs well. I have a 20qt version from the restaurant store. Only drawback is that the bare aluminum is reactive with acidic foods, so it wouldn't be a great choice for something like 20 quarts of chili. For stocks or poaching big things they're great.

They're similar but different. Sometimes tapioca starch gets sold as arrowroot, but tapioca is cheaper and easier to manufacture.