paulraphael

I've thought about this a bunch and have been discussing it with my butcher. For just a tenderloin, I think the practical limit is 10 days to 2 weeks. The other possibility (a good one ... but would take a lot of commitment to do at home) is to age the whole short loin. Then you have the option of butchering it to strip steaks and tenderloin, or leaving it whole and serving as regular t-bone or porterhouse.

The ones I'm talking about are, for all practical purposes, cured. And in many cases also smoked. And they tend to be delicious; the Niman Ranch Jambon Royale is one of my all time favorite cooked hams. By the way, it's not necessarily true that cured meat products don't have to be cooked. Nowadays many foods are lightly cured, for the purpose of adding flavor, but the cure isn't long enough or intense enough to eliminate the need for cooking.

Some other ways to avoid biocides: -don't eat any salt -don't eat anything that's been exposed to smoke -don't eat any herbs, spices, onions, garlic, or other aromatic vegetables

good call! get a few. a bunch if you can. restaurant supply. sometimes you can get used ones for a song. just make sure the oven in your apartment can fit a half-sheet pan. i've had wee stoves that required quarter sheet pans. for parchment, there's a reseller on ebay who sells it in flat sheets, so you don't have to deal with annoying rolls.

You're way ahead of the curve on this project. You know what you want, it's all reasonable, you're not looking for "sets," and you plan to invade the restaurant supply store. I'm just going to throw out a few suggestions based on your list. Knives: for your situation, Forschner is a perfect choice. Durable, capable of taking a decent edge, not too hard to sharpen, and cheap. I'd get the 10" chef knife (my preference is the wood handle) and the $5 paring knife. You can probably skip the bread knife ... a forschner chef knife is robust enough for crusty bread. If you cut a lot of bread, go for the bread knife too. Then get a 1K or 2K waterstone for sharpening, and a steel. this isn't a premium performance solution, but it's cheap, serviceable, and might even survive your roommate. Mixing bowls: try the restaurant supply store, or ebay. Lids are convenient but not necessary. Plastic containers: it's hard to beat deli cups in 16oz and 32oz sizes, and the super cheap glad and ziplock containers. I have tons of all of the above. Stock Pot: restaurant supply. Stainless with a disk bottom, or plain aluminum. Fry pans: you could do it all with a 10" black steel pan. Restaurant supply, or buy online from Matfer Bourgeat (less than $30). Or get a nonstick pan for eggs (resto supply) and a clad, stainless and aluminum pan (not disk bottom). I'd go resto supply for the nonstick (cheap, recyclable) and volrath or all clad for the stainless. 1.5 qt saucepan: I'd get a good one. something responsive. stainless clad vollrath or all clad. For your mystery pan (rice pilaf, saute, etc.) I'd consider a rondeau ... 5 or 6 quarts. can be a stainless pan with a disk bottom, or a clad pan. this could do small amounts of pasta as well. Skip the pasta insert. Miscelaneous that you didn't mention: tongs, whisk, spatulas (bamboo and silicone), palette knife and/or fish spatula, strainers / collander ... I'm guessing you could come in well under budget.

How about some Somalian ingredients?

Good find! Niman's site says "Despite USDA regulations, it's probably more accurate to say that our uncured products are naturally cured. Instead of adding nitrate or nitrite chemicals, we use celery juice, a source of naturally occurring nitrates. During processing, the nitrates in celery juice are consumed by lacto bacteria--anaerobic organisms similar to the friendly bacteria in yogurt--that like a salty environment. Over time during the natural curing process, the nitrate in celery juice is consumed by the lacto bacteria and converted first to nitrite, then to nitrous oxide, a gas that dissipates into the atmosphere. The amount of natural nitrates remaining in the finished product depends on whether and when the meat is cooked, as cooking halts the dissipation process. Like cured products, natural curing inhibits bacteria, helps prevent meat from going off-color, and deepens flavor. I wish they'd just say "naturally cured." Not that the alternatives are unnatural in any meaningful sense (as opposed to the regulatory one). It's just helpful to know that a ham is a ham!"

Is there anything "unnatural" about the saltpeter that's been used for centuries? Even if that's what they mean, uncured seems both odd and deceptive.

Whole Foods lists a bunch of hams in their deli case as "uncured." But these are not fresh hams; they're clearly cured. They're pink, they taste cured, and the ingredients all sound like curing ingredients to me. The one I buy most is the Niman Ranch Jambon Royal. Niman calls it uncured too. But everything I see written about says that it's dry cured before being smoked. Seems like they're full of it. But I don't know why you'd want people to think a ham is uncured. Has curing become a bad thing in the minds of the half-educated? Is there anything legitimate that Niman and WF might be trying to convey?

What kind of pan are you using? I've found pyrex pans to work best for browning pie shells. For tarts I like black steel. All the other suggestions are good ones. Though I treat Cook's Illustrated methods as a kind of last resort. Their techniques often seem like the brainchild of a committee of amature scientists, who psych themselves up for baking by smoking a bowl and watching MacGyver. Which isn't to say their methods don't work ... just that there's probably an easier way. My recipes tend to look like CI recipes when I'm halfway done with them, before I've had a chance to streamline.

Stabilizer and emulsifier describe the roles of certain ingredients. Emulsifiers are chemicals that help dispersions of oil and water hold together. In milk and cream and butter, the proteins in the milk solids act as emulsifiers. They aren't very strong, so it's easy for Philly style ice cream to separate and get grainy. In French style ice cream, proteins in the eggs act as powerful emulsifiers (just as they do in mayonnaise and caesar salad dressing). Gelatin and mustard also work as emusifiers. So do chemicals like soy lecithin and polysorbate 80 and all kinds of other things you see on food labels. Stabilizers, narrowly speaking, are chemicals that keep big ice crystals from forming in the ice cream ... when it's churning, hardening, or being stored. They work by thickening whatever portion of the water is unfrozen. And there's always some percentage of unfrozen water in an ice cream. This is why it's scoopable, and not rock hard. Because of the way they work, stabilizers also modify the texture. We typically use hydrocolloids for stabilizing ... including cooked egg proteins, gelatin, cornstarch, or gums. And these all affect the mouthfeel of the ice cream in different ways. For ice cream made at home or by a pastry chef, I think the texture modification qualities of these chemicals are more important than the stabilizing qualities. But we still call them stabilizers.

I was making fun of myself ... thought I was the first one to use the big word in this discussion Just acknowledging that when I say things like 'hydrocolloid,' some people start running for the door.

Yes, alcohol is yummy ... but it's also antifreeze. The right amount can give an especially soft, scoopable texture. Too much gives you soup. It depends on the proof of the booze you use. For instance, you can use much more liqueur than you could rum or brandy.

short answer ... anything that disolves in water and causes some kind of thickening. If you've ever thickened gravy with flour, then believe it or not, you're an old hand with hydrocolloids. Cornstarch slurry, arrowroot, and gelatin are other examples. The fancy name came into vogue when cooks started using less conventional varieties, and shopping at the chemistry supply stores. So when you hear someone mouthing off about hydrocolloids, there's a good chance they're using agar or alginate or xanthan or other kinds of gums and modified starches.

If you prefer the texture of philly style ice cream, and plan to eat it right away, and are happy to adjust your serving temperature to whatever suits any given ice cream recipe ... then you can get away with just milk, cream, and sugar. But if you want additional control over texture, then you're going to be adding emulsifiers and stabilizers. Period. That's what the eggs are in French style ice cream. Emulsification, stabilization, texture modification. I just don't happen to think eggs are the most elegant choice for this purpose, begause they taste like F'ing eggs! I don't want my ice cream to taste like cooked egg yolk. Egg custard does create a wonderful texture. I haven't found a perfect substitute, so I minimize the eggs rather than eliminate them. I find that I don't taste them when there's only a couple per quart. I make up the difference with minute amounts of hydrocolloids, which are able to modify texture without adding or diluting flavors. With this kind of combination, I can get the precise texture I want, without any flavor penalty. The resistance to deflation and ice crystal formation is just a fringe benefit. Some other ingredients I use pretty religiously: -nonfat dry milk. It lets you control the disolved solids, which influences the sense of body, and also the freezing point. A little bit helps keep the ice cream from being rock hard at normal serving temperature (6 to 10 degrees F). -alcohol, either as vodka or as vanilla extract (which I make with vodka). Fine tunes freezing point without affecting body. May also intensify some volatile aromas. -salt! Balances and intensifies most other flavors. I think it's criminal to leave it out of desserts. My ice creams have about 1/10 % salt by weight. Too little to notice; enough to make a difference.

I like this trick and use it in some recipes. In a couple of cases when I've used too high a proportion of the dry milk the results tasted bitter, so I try not to go too far. Another approach is one Michael Laiskonis uses ... he reduces and browns cream instead of butter. It's a bit more effort, but the yield in milk solids vs. fat is much higher

I'd be curious to know what the fastest boil would be with 120 volt hob. Theoretically, you could run a 2.4 kilowat unit, if anyone made one, and if nothing else was on the circuit. If the thing is actually 90% efficient, and you don't lose significant amounts of heat to the air (big, useless Ifs, I realize ... ) you could theoretically boil 15 gallons of water in 15 minutes. Who are you feeding?

A comment on Tri2cook's list ... all these ingredients have unique properties, as far as how they behave at different temperatures, the exact nature of the textures they produce, and their interdependencies with other ingredients. There may be two that are equally viable as an ice cream thickener/stabilizer, but you'll much prefer the results with one of them. Also, some that are listed as excellent combinations are considered so because they're hyperadditive ... meaning that in combination they're more efficient than either one used alone. When you're making ice cream in small quantities, this can be a double edged sword, since most of these gums work in minute amounts anyhow. I'm ok with measuring 0.3 grams of something, but if I have to start measuring 0.03 grams, I'll be annoyed (and I'll be saving up for a new scale).

Michael Laiskonis's blog is a treasure trove. He knows more about ice cream than anyone else I've encountered. The Alinea book also has some well-studied recipes and approaches. There's a French book that's supposed to be the holy grail of high end ice cream, but its price has so far put it out of my reach. Unfortunately, most pastry chefs seem to buy pre-blended stabilizer mixes. Undoubtedly the blends include well tested mixes of gums and other colloids. But I don't like the approach. It's like buying curry powder instead of mixing your own spices. It puts you at the mercy of a company's whims (what if they change the formula?) and it cheats you out of any opportunity to learn about the individual ingredients. I've been working it out on my own ... starting with basic home recipes like David Lebovitz's, and gradually tweaking them, with knowledge picked up here and there, to improve the flavor and texture. So far I've gotten pretty comfortable manipulating cornstarch, xanthan, and gelatin. I hope to get my hands on some other potions eventually. I doubt anything out there will magically create textures that I like more than what i get now, but some may well do a better job preventing ice crystal growth, or graininess with brown butter flavors, etc. etc.

Sure! But there's no reason to do so. And cornstarch will break down gradually with extended simmering. I'm curious about this too, but Ice cream isn't the best place to test the concept. You want the milk to taste fresh, not cooked, so it's best to heat it as little as possible.

Opinions aren't all created equal, and the opinionated pastry chef just doesn't know what he's talking about. Cornstarch is a refined starch. It doesn't need to be boiled ... in fact boiling will break it down. It does need to be set with heat, but this happens somewhere around 140 or 150 degrees F--lower than than the thickening temperature of egg custard.

In general I find whole chocolate (when it's good) to have more interesting and more complex flavors than even the best cocoa powder. But cocoa can provide greater intensity. For baking, I think cocoa powders lower in fat offer the most flexibility; they make it easy to mix whole chocolate, cocoa powder, and alternative fats (like butter) to fine tune the flavor, intensity, and mouthfeel. I have not tasted cocoa powder-based cakes or brownies that are as good as chocolate-based ones. But I often use SOME cocoa powder in my recipes for the flexibility it offers. In my brownie recipe, the cocoa also acts as a drying ingredient ... it works alongside the flour to help hold the things together.

In my experience, to get a crackly top conventionally takes a higher sugar content than what I want. I like dark, dark, bittersweet chocolate! There's a simple solution. Hold back a little bit of sugar from the recipe, and sprinkle it on top before baking. I know it sounds too simple to work, but it does.

Amazing. Have you considered putting some kind of pan on the ground instead of foil, to catch drippings? I always felt that roasting was great advance over grilling (which presumeably was invented by cave men) because it allowed you to catch the drippings. I don't know exactly what the traditional arrangement looked like, but I think it involved a pan sitting on top of embers.

Since the idea was to get as much dark chocolate into the brownies as possible (without them falling apart), "heart of darkness" seemed like a fitting name. I also happen to like Joseph Conrad... Later I found out that some cookbook author was using the same name for a completely different brownie recipe (not much chocolate; tons of candy and stuff in the batter. The horror! The horror!)