paulraphael

The board works if I'm making a couple of sandwiches or something similar that's going to finished right there and that doesn't take a lot of prep. Otherwise, there isn't enough room, and there's no convenient way to move the mise to and from the fridge, the stove, etc. etc... What size board do you guys have that holds all your prep? My main board is 16x22, my protein board is 14x18, and i have a couple of smaler ones for this and that. My kitchen would be unworkable if I had piles sitting around on all of them. I use 16oz deli cups with lids for small quantities; 32oz and 64oz glad/ziplock containers for medium quantities (these are great, because they're square, so they take up very little room, and they're cheap); metal mixing bowls for large quantities. My 2nd fridge is a lifesaver for big meals that can be pepped in advance. I keep a couple of shelves empty, so it's easy to slide in up to 4 half sheet pans full of prepped food whenever i need to.

Beard's method is really old school. If you're making sauce for one of the kings of France, just take it a bit farther: poach another chicken in the resulting stock. And then another. What to do with all those chickens? Feed the staff. Or the dogs! His majesty's picking up the tab. The method gets economical for restaurants by substituting good quality trimmings from any butchery you do. At home, if you don't want to be up to your eyeballs in poached chickens, you can substitute some meaty, well de-fatted roast chicken carcasses, and maybe a package of chx thighs from the supermarket. A lot of chefs are exploring the possibilities of sous vide bags for sauce making. You can slow poach something like duck thighs or a capon in some stock in a vacuum bag. The juices that fortify the stock will make it amazing. I don't have the toys I'd need for this, but I'd like to give it a whirl.

I think the best thing you can do for traditional brown sauces is to abandon using highly reduced stock as a sauce base. I've heard people argue that this is the classical method, but it's not. Originally, glace de viande (veal stock reduced about 10 times) was used as a supplement, largely for texture and savor. The Nouvelle Cuisine movement substituted glace de viande for demi-glace, but not directly; it was part of a rethinking of sauces, whereby sauces were made with stocks and very flavorful essences, and were thickened with reduced cream and mounted, and rounded out with glace de viande. Today in many mid-level restaurants, people are taught that glace de viande IS demi-glace, and as a result they make sauces that have all the trappings of a great sauce ... deep color, rich texture, good clarity, good roasted flavors ... but that lack the essential, three dimensional flavors of meat jus. This is because long reduction, while concentrating large flavor molecules like sugars and acids, boils off all the aromatic molecules that give a sauce depth, dimension, and character. Many chefs today are getting away from overreduced stock in interesting ways. A way I like, which Alain Ducasse has taught to many chefs, is to start with a veal bone stock, and slowly reduce it while adding multiple immersions of meaty bones and meat trimmings, using meat of the type you'd like to use to flavor the sauce. Beef, vennison, lamb, or whatever. It's a hybrid technique, part 19th century classical, part 21st century scientific and frugal, part 18th century exhorbidant. It makes the best brown sauces I've tasted, although i haven't yet managed the level of clarity I've gotten from other less tasty approaches.

I'd seek specific, qualified medical advice.

It should be recycleble, so you don't have to feel all that bad about tossing it. Another possibility is keeping it around as a wrecked pan, for anything that you're afraid might wreck a pan. sanding it and turning it into a plain aluminum pan would be fine if you have the time and need a project. wear a dust mask! There's nothing toxic in the nonstick coating, but fine dust, including aluminum dust, will do bad things to your lungs. If you replace it, the restaurant supply store will be your best friend. Commercial versions cost $25 or less for 10" fry pans. They're less pretty than calphalon, so you won't feel as bad when the inevitable happens again.

I've had good results from a microwave with small quantities ... like reheating part of a braised dish for one or two people. For larger quantities, doing slowly on the stove is probably a little easier and better. I think the best would be in a sous vide bag in a waterbath, but purists of the simple art will chase me out for suggesting it ...

You could probably summarize some personality types by their knife/car price ratio. My current chef's knife cost 3/4 what I paid for my last car. I finally sold the car this summer. Public transportation gets me where I need to go--crappy knives don't!

If anyone wants to be a guinea pig, I've been curious to know how that releasable foil would work in place of parchment ... especially if could be re-used for more than one pie.

What temp is your oven?

What I find easiest is to measure and mix all the dry ingredients together, and then scoop out 1/4 of them and set that pile aside. Then add all the water, roughly mix, and autolyse in the fridge for 40 minutes or so. Then, mix this very wet dough for a few minutes. This is gluten development on steroids because there's so much water. Then add the dry ingredients you scooped and mix briefly, to bring the hydration level down to where you want it. Here's Jeff Varasano's description. Here's my version (uses commercial yeast instead of starter; is a few thousand words shorter than Jeff's)

I used to be obsessive about the heavy copper pans. I don't obsess over them as much, but I still chase other people away, because the prices have gone crazy and I'll never be able to replace them if anything happens. I'm more obsessive now about my small assortment of knives and sharpening stones. Not a collecting obsession as much as a technique obsession.

another option would be to use dextrose powder. or fructose. no mess. you'd want to use a bit less because it's pure glucose (no water).

There's some controversy around the importance of mixing. According to one school, any method that distributes the ingredients and allows enough gluten form is as good as any other. According to another, the amount and type of mechanical mixing will affect how the dough handles, even if it's high hydration and has days to ferment. I find myself leaning toward the former with regular bread and the latter with pizza. The best pizza doughs I've made have been with mixing methods similar to Jeff Varasano's, which include autolyse, wet mixing (at about 100% hydration), and enough final mixing after the rest of the flour is added to produce a smooth and springy dough. Long retardation follows. My comparisons of mixing methods are hardly scientific, but in general I've gotten much better results with the intensive methods than with the more minimalist ones I use for bread baking.

Could be that all that bench flour stuck on the bottom of the crust and hardened. Anyway, congrats on managing to slide dough that wet into the oven at all. Especially on your first attempt. The parchment trick would let you get away without any bench flour. I also suspect you hydrated the dough more than you wanted to, because it didn't seem adequately hydrated when you first mixed it. An autolyse step can take care of this, and also allow you to get away with less mixing. The idea is to throw the dough together just enough to make a shaggy mass, and then let it sit covered in the fridge for 30 to 40 minutes. This gives the flour time to hydrate. Afterwards, you can finish mixing it, and you'll get to the texture you want with little work.

Question about the baking soda: will it have the same effect in an acidic environment, or does it work spefically by raising the ph?

a 4% sugar solution would be a bacteria extravaganza. My guess is that precision isn't all that important and you could wing it easily. 1/4 tsp of honey or glucose syrup in a shot glass of water will get you in the ballpark.

No!

Garlic does keep ... but that doesn't mean kept garlic is as good as fresh. And it's not really like a dried herb. It's an aromatic vegetable, just like an onion or shallot, and not dried in any way. I can't speak to the issue of pre-peeled vs. fresh flavor. But i know that food scientists consider the flavor of garlic to be incredibly complex. The aromatic compounds in garlic are volatile, and many of them are created by chemicals in the garlic clove reacting with enzymes or with oxygen. These reactions involve many compounds ... they're triggered or accelerated by any damage to the garlic's flesh, and mostly halted by cooking. It wouldn't be hard to imagine that peeled or storing garlic would cause changes. To get a practical answer, a blind test would make the most sense.

Jeffrey's regular aged beef in completely off the hook. If he had the reputation and could handle the volume I think he'd steal all of Lobels' customers. For grass fed beef, he's going to be the only distributor in the region for Hearst Ranch, in Southern California. Here's something to consider with grass fed beef from northern climes: much of the year there is no green grass. In some cases the cattle get fed grass silage in the off season, but mostly they get hay. Hay gives neither the marbling of grain nor the flavor of grass ... in a sense it's the worst of both worlds. This is why there's so much expensive but mediocre beef in places like the farmers' markets in NYC. I've had a sample of the Hearst beef. It's excellent. Being a marbling guy, I was skeptical, but both the texture and flavor were nice. An interesting alternative to the grain finished meat.

A tart's ability to be unplated and moved around gives it a killer advantage. Pies and tarts are notoriously hard to crisp up properly on the bottom. But you can heat up a tart on a skillet or griddle right before serving; it warms the tart, adds more browning to the bottom, and brings back any crispness it might have lost from sitting around. No mess. No more of that mushy pastry on the bottom that most people take for granted.

Yup. As a result there are some practical differences. A pie is usually served in the pie pan; a tart is usually served on a plate. The crispness of the crust and the lighter amount of topping allows it to be moved. A slice of tart can also be picked up and eaten like a crisp crust pizza, if your manners are no better than mine. Pies have more topping relative to the crust. Basically, pies are like deep dish pan pizza; tarts are like neapolitan pizza.

Do tarts count? I made an out-of-season apple tart to try some new ideas. This one has very little puréed apple in it ... just enough to carry the seasonings and hold the thing together. Most of the the filling is layer upon layer of paper-thin apple slices. Seasoning is primarily cardamom, with some lemon, corriander, and a couple of background spices. And calvados. And a ton of butter. The glaze is calvados and simple syrup gelled with pectin.

Here are some other videos. Some are supposed to be instructional, others just for fun. They all show good technique and are worth mimicking. Itasan18's deba techniques. (this guy has mad skillz and puts up new videos all the time ... worth subscribing on youtube. Scroll down for demos of various fish. KCMA's technique videos. (these are great demonstrations of Japanese knife technique with a gyuto) , of Top Chef fame (showing tip chopping, forward push cutting, and usu-zukuri on a flank steak with a gyuto, and also some basic cleaver techniques) making lunch with / worshipping his mizuno gyuto. He does a surprising amount of what looks like rock-chopping, but if you look closely you can see that the front of the blad is just kissing the cutting board.

What other hydrocolloids do you guys like for sauces? Is there anything that mimics the mouthfeel of gelatin, but that doens't congeal when it cools? How well does methycellulose work (in conjunction with natural gelatin)? I've heard of people using this because it thickens at higher temps, thins at lower ones ... so it balances the natural tendency of the gelatin. And--if you had to pick a colloid that gives similar qualities to an egg custard, what would it be?

Mutton got a really bad rap decades ago. I'm not sure about the reasons. But it seems like a lot of chefs are trying to bring it back. It's worth bugging local butchers about, or sending requests to online sources and farms. Let them know there's interest.