paulraphael

I haven't heard of that particular defect in a KA. But heavy mixing, like pizza dough or pasta, can put stress on the the lock tha holds the head down. If you're working much with dough, I'd strongly suggest going with one of the bowl lift models. I thought they'd be less convenient than the tilt heads, but I find the opposite to be the case. The big mixers have a much wider bowl, which makes it easy to add ingredients while the machine's running. You never have to worry about the lock on the tilt head ... there isn't one.

We used to make up to 120 gallons a day, using three white mountain 5 gallon rock salt and ice freezers. It wasn't pretty, and a day rarely went by without a couple of broken gears, but the ice cream was good. The shop used a commercial base that was customized for us by a local dairy. It used egg yolk for the emulifier and the usual natural gums for stabilizing. The key to good texture was the hardening cabinet ... I think it was about minus 60 degrees F. We emptied the soft ice cream from the machines into 5 gallon tubs and stacked them into the hardening cabinet. After 24 hours in there they were hard as granite. Then they rotated into the walk-in freezer (probably around zero degrees) and after a day or two in there they rotated into the scooping cabinet (probably around 5 or 10 degrees). We also sold pints, paked by hand right out of the machines and hardened in the pint containers. These were retailable. I don't know how long the shelf life was supposed to be. In general the ice cream didn't last long. We dated the tubs and didn't like anything to stick around in the store longer than a week, but I don't know if it would actually get icy a few days past that.

Has anyone done a blind taste test to see if they can really taste iodide or anti-caking agents? I think the way to do it would be with non-sea salt (so there aren't other minerals confusing things) and with the salt disolved in water (so the texture can't be an influence).

That shouldn't be hard to arrange

The other night I cooked dinner at a friend's house and brought my 270. One of her cutting boards was made of glass (Ack!), and the other was wood, but measured about 5x8 inches. Which was actually ok in one sense, because there wasn't room for anything bigger on the counter. To my surprise, it wasn't all that hard to work on the wee board. Lack of counter space was a worse problem than the big knife. My only concern was trying to keep the blade from banging into things like the dish drying rack and the coffee maker. I didn't need to do anything like mince a big pile of herbs, luckily. But basic things like chopping an onion were easier than they'd have been with a small knife. Just being able to make the horizontal cuts with one slice instead of sawing back and forth ... that kind of thing.

That's the poetic name for sodium ferrocyanide

Not a non-sequitur at all (maybe what you mean is that it's a specious argument? But it's not that either). The general premise of a question like the one this thread is based on might be summed up as this: your greater responsibilities as a human being are often best realized through the skills and opportunities afforded by your profession. So what are you going to do about it. I don't want to speak for Alice Waters, but I'm willing to bet she considers her public service work as integral to her career as chef, not as anything extracurricular. And I think a big part of her mission is to get other chefs to think similarly. It should be obvious that the question implies responsibilities beyond the most basic contract of the job, and ones which are likely to be the subject of some debate. No one host a seminar on a question that could be answered by one sentence.

I've done some research on this topic. So far I've never come across a sablee recipe that's similar to a sweetened pate brissee, but many sucree recipes that are. The recipes that describe pate sucree as being made from creamed butter and sugar are essentially identical to pate sablee. This is likely the original definition of pate sucree; traditionally there may have been no such thing as pate sablee ... I'm not sure when the term first arrived. Looking at Larousse Gastronomique (1st english language edition), there's no mention of sablee, but sucree follows the creaming method. Looking farther back, to Escoffier, basically all the pastries (including brisee) are made by this method. The ones that don't fully incorporate the butter into the flour are the truly laminated pastries (feullettee, etc.). So, it seems that there's been some evolution not just in the terminology but in the pastry itself. What used to be called sucree seems now to be called sablee. Which means that sucree has at least in some cases morphed into something else. The usage I've seen that isn't redundant with sablee, is basically a sweetened version of pate brisee. Does this make any sense? The real conclusion is that the methods and names have not stayed consistent over the years. Nowadays they mean different things to different people. But if you're looking for a distinction between sablee and sucree, I've found that sablee always refers to sugar and butter getting creamed together, while sucree sometimes refers to the same thing and other times refers to a sweetened brisee. Some of my recipes and notes on different pastry doughs for tart shells can be downloaded here. Edited to add: Mary Elizabeth is adding to the confusion by showing sablee recipes that aren't creamed! I'm aware of Herme's recipes, but haven't included them in this discussion because he's usually doing his own thing ... I generally assume his recipes aren't examples of anything traditional.

Why not take this argument to the logical conclusion and say that as a human being, your only responsibility is to your own needs and desires-- and all else is sheer vanity. It could be so, but then I'm grateful to all the obscenely vain charlatans who stroked their egos by making the world a better place ... like Ghandi, Mother Theresa, Lincoln, M.L. King Jr., the Dalai Lama .... Looking at mere chefs, we risk being blinded by the vanity of someone like Alice Waters, who works as hard to improve the food people eat in inner cities as she ever did at her restaurants.

A nonstick pan is probably the worst choice for searing a big piece of meat. The coating is an insulator and slows the transfer of heat. Also, this is the one application where you really risk heating the pan up so much that the teflon breaks down. Not only will it kill the pan, but the gasses that it liberates are not good for anyone. You don't need nonstick. Properly seared tuna will release from any metal. If you have a high BTU stove, any pan with a plain metal surface will work. If you have a typical home stove, you want to use a pan that has enough heat capacity to store a lot of energy. In other words, it should be heavy. The idea is that it should stay hot enough to brown the meat even after the initial loss of heat from the cold meat going into the pan. Cast iron works well, as does heavy aluminum or copper. On a home stove, you want to preheat the pan on highest heat for a good five minutes. With something as heavy and non-conductive as cast iron, you might need to go longer. Water splashed into the pan should leap out of it, or form little beads that skitter around on the surface. If the water just hisses and turns to steam the pan isn't hot enough.

Sweetened brisée is usually called pate sucrée. Sablée means "sandy" ... it's usually a whole different animal. I guess you could debate if a traditional sablée is even really pastry. It's more like a cookie dough. Sablées are made like you describe, with creamed ingredients,or at least thoroughly mixed flour and fat, and a texture more like a sugar cookie or a fig newton. The sablée recipes I've seen have eggs in them, but I'm not sure if they all do. Eggs are an optional ingredient in brisée and sucré doughs.

I didn't consider that part of the definition because it strikes me as a bit contrived. I've never heard genius defined by that standard before. You could be describing "a person of greatness." But I don't believe that geniuses, in the conventional sense (who in many cases seem to be socially awkward computer programmers, with off-the-charts cognitive abilities and bad personal hygiene), are generally obligated to be a great men or women. In this case the dictionary captures my sense of conventional usage: genius |ˈjēnyəs| noun ( pl. geniuses ) 2 a person who is exceptionally intelligent or creative, either generally or in some particular respect : one of the great musical geniuses of the 20th century. That standard here is "exeptional" ... which can be interpreted pretty broadly. Ok. End of semantic droning. Back to food.

If we accept this definition of genius, it still leaves a lot unanswered. How do you quantify complexity? How complex is it to arrange different patterns from the twelve musical notes in the western scale? How complex is it to play chess ... a game with just six kinds of pieces and 64 squares? How complex is it to arrange different colored paints on a canvas? With these questions in mind, both gastronomy and neuroscience strike me as vast landscapes ... ripe ground for discoveries of genius proportion. On another note, some of the attacks on people's originality strike me as equally unhelpful. Sure, Adria didn't invent spherification. Likewise Dali didn't invent paint, and Mozart invented neither the chromatic scale nor the piano. But all three used their chosen media to create things that are (at least in some important ways) unlike anything people have experienced before.

Good info here, but I disagree that there's no benefit to letting the hanger age in the bag. As with any meat, enzyme action will tenderize it a bit. This has nothing to do with collagen in the cut. I wouldn't go crazy; there's a risk of spoilage if you don't have the temperature low enough or if you go too long. A couple of days would be reasonable. You won't get any of the flavor benefits of dry aging. As far as I know, hanger isn't dry aged, but this is because it's a small cut, independent of any bones or larger primals. If you dry aged enough to make a difference, there'd be nothing left after you trimmed the dessicated meat! Also, someone mentioned mixing oil and butter to raise the burning point of the butter. This is a kitchen myth; it doesn't work. The milk solids in the butter will burn at the same temp no matter what you cut the butter with. For buttery goodness with seared meat, you can use clarified butter, or better yet, sear with a high heat oil and then finish with butter on lower heat.

I hope you're planning to document this adventure.

Yeah, I thought the cuisinart mixer looked pretty cool in pictures. In person it looks absolutely ridiculous. So many things to break in so many ways, and a glowing, shimmering aura of cheapness. It really seems to have been designed by a marketing team and a photo stylist. Strange, because I've generally had good experiences with the company's products. I'm pretty well sold on KA, as long as I have easy access to their service (anywhere in the U.S., really) and have a chance to do some serious torture testing during the 6 month warranty period of the refurb mixers that I buy. I returned one a few weeks before the warranty ended. No catastrophic failure, but it seemed to be missing some kind of internal retaining ring, which led to all kinds of free play and odd noises. They cheerfully replaced it after it had powered through many batches of bread, pizza, cakes, cookies, ice cream, and ground meat. The new one seems like a keeper so far (knock on die-cast aluminum). For what it's worth, if a current model KA 6 quart model is failing at something that an old 5 quart was able to do, then there's something wrong with it. Quality control is all over the map; some mixers just run way too hot. If you have one of these, and KA doesn't get that it's a problem unit, hurry up and break it so you can try another one!

What do you like the kiritsuki for? What does it do better than the longer gyutos? I mean, besides look so much more badass.

How about ditching the spinner and just using a bunch of towels? The spinner takes up space and doesn't get greens completely dry.

About a year ago I bought a 240mm gyuto (about 9-1/2 inches) by Hiromoto. It's a great knife that I've enjoyed using. But a funny thing happened. Gradually the knife started training me to use different cutting techniques, and partly because of this, it started to feel too small. I never imagined this would happen, since I've used 8" chef's knives happily for years. I decided to try a 270mm (10-1/2 inch) version of the same knife. I was worried that it would be poorly balanced or that it would be unwieldy for tip work ... I want to be able to use use it for garlic and shallots and other small things. Well, I picked it up, started to cut with it, and couldn't believe how great it was. Where had you been all my life?? It was the perfect size. No unwieldiness. And the extra blade made me so much more efficient. I also realized that I like a slighlty heavier knife. The 270 in this model is 2 oz heavier than the 240 ... not much, but it just feels better in my hand. Many people love the lightness of a thin gyuto, but the 240 was so light that it always felt like it might fly away. The result was that I overgripped it. With the 270, I'm comfortable holding it lightly. The knife does the work ; my hand is just along for the ride. On saturday I made 3 quarts of salsa by hand, gratuitously brunoising the tomatoes. I wanted to do more! It was over too quickly. I don't know if how many people would have the same experience, but I'd urge anyone to try a knife in this size. I couldn't believe the difference it made.

One of the most misunderstood things about this topic is that your body responds to the glycemic index of the sum total of the contents of your stomach. You might read that a baguette has an incredibly high GI. But if you slather some butter on it, it drops dramatically. And if there's already a bunch of fat and protein in your belly, the slice of bread will hardly matter at all. That's good news for pasta, which is usually coated with very low GI fats and proteins. Endurance athletes look at this from the opposite side. How can I get these calories into my blood as quickly as possible? The answer is often some kind of long chain carbohydrate gel, but if there's already a ham sandwich in your stomach, you're out of luck. You'll be waiting a long time for those calories.

Interesting. I also wonder if it's going for a general skewering of traditional Japanese customs, and that the sushi bar is a perfect vehicle for this. A young generation mocking the old generation kind of thing.

I suspect if you went to Tokyo and followed any of the advice in the video, the result would be some kind of international incident. (Except for ordering panda sushi, and eating the salt out of the saucers in the doorway ... I'm pretty sure everyone does that).

Hate it? It's what they DO! James Peterson said his favoriite compliment was a cookbook customer saying "I love your _______ recipe, but I made my own version of it, substituting this and this and that, and it was delicious." It lets him know that the person made the leap from the recipe to really learning how to cook ... which is what he's trying to teach more than anything else.

The final word! All questions are definitively answered by this educational video. With subtitles, and remarkable precision:

Ok, the Taylor 9306 is really cool. I should suspend judgement until it's lasted a year without breaking (no other digital thermometer has ...), or at least til i've cooked with it. But after a solid half hour of playing with it, it seems like the coolest thermometer I've used. Found for $84 online; a lot steeper than than the $17 model it replaced. But it's got a thermocouple, an infrared sensor, pretty good ergonomics, and it's waterproof (or so they tell me). My only complaint so far is that the max temperature the IR sensor can read is 482 F. I would love it if it went higher. The probe measures over 600 degrees, which is absurd. "Would you like your tenderloin well done, incinerated, or turned to glowing gasses?" The probe seems accurate: I measured some boiling water and it was dead on. The IR sensor is harder to test. Details here: http://www.partshelf.com/taylor9306.html It was delivered to me at work. Within minutes I was pointing it at people and telling them how hot they are (within .5 degrees!)