paulraphael

I know there's often a debate about this, but after spending a year brining chickens before roasting I stopped. I didn't like the effect it had on browning, and I realized the juiciness was artificial ... chicken juices replaced with salt water. The way to get the breast meat and dark meat cooked properly is ... cook them properly. The breast needs to be held about 10 degrees cooler than the legs. There are lots of ways to do this, but the easiest I've found (by far) is basically barding. Cover the the breast meat with something, like foil, for roughly half the cooking time. This was standard practice for hundreds of years when spit roasting fowl in front of a fire. They used fat, not foil, but the effect was similar. For some reason we've lost this useful practice, but retained ones that make no sense in an oven (like trussing).

I'm working on chocolate ice cream right now. I'm pretty close to getting what I want, which is: very intense bittersweet chocolate flavor with lots of depth, good body (but not chewy), fairly slow, creamy melt, and a creamy but not at all greasy mouthfeel after melting. If anyone wants to be a guinee pig, here's the version of the recipe I'm going to test next week (the last version still needs to get eaten!) 612g (2-1/2 cups) whole milk 75g (1/3 cup plus 1 TB) granulated sugar 30g (3T) nonfat dry milk 14g (2T plus 1tsp) cocoa powder (i'm using pernigotti) 11.2g (1 TB +1 tsp) cornstarch 1.4g (1/2 tsp) powdered gelatin 1 g salt 227g (8 oz) bittersweet chocolate (i'm using valrhona guanaja) 115g (1/2 cup) heavy cream 10g (2 tsp) vodka or alcohol based vanilla extract -thoroughly mix the sugar, cocoa, dry milk, cornstarch, gelatin, and salt -whisk the dry ingredients into the milk while heating in a saucepan. disolve thorougly. -bring to a light simmer until it thickens. -stir in the chopped chocolate until melted. -just barely bring to a simmer again -cool in an ice water bath -stir in the cream and vodka/extract -chill overnight -no need to strain. freeze in the machine. -allow to harden in a very cold freezer (minus 5 degrees F or colder is ideal) -serve at normal serving temp (6 to 10 degrees F) to make half: 306g whole milk 37.5g sugar 15g nonfat dry milk 7g cocoa powder 5.6g cornstarch .7g powdered gelatin .5 g salt 113.5g bittersweet chocolate 57.5g (1/4 cup) heavy cream 5g (1 tsp) vodka or alcohol based vanilla extract Butterfat: 6% Cocoa Butter (guanaja and pernigotti cocoa): 9% total fat: 15% nonfat milk solids: 8%

In the past I've used canola oil or grapeseed oil, but I just found some info online (no reliable source given) saying that refined safflower oil has a smoke point of 510 degrees F. That's pretty impressive. Is anyone familiar with this oil? Pros and cons? Other strong choices?

The OP was interested in Santokus, right? I don't think it's true about $100 knives if you look at other Japanese brands. Just a quick look at Korin and JCK showed plenty of knives in this price range from makers like Misono, Hiromoto, Glestain, Mac, Tojiro, and Suisin. I'm sure you could find lots more. Who has the hardest or best steel is always up for discussion, but all the ones I saw are made with excellent, hard knife steels, either stainless or very high carbon. The cheaper shuns look like a very good value, but one thing for sure is that carbon steel edge on the Hiromoto will completely spank the edge on the Shun. But there are bigger issues with geometry. The shuns are made with blade thicknesses closer to what you'd expect from a German knife. Some people like this; others don't. I sense that a lot people who like the way Japanese knives perform don't like it. These issues are much more significant than the effect of any texture of the cladding. If you like the damascus look, then great. You have a gazillion options. Just know that this choice is generally unrelated to performance, and that you might expect to pay a bit for it.

My assumption is closer to the opposite! Creating that pattern costs money. No matter how automated the process (and in a $100 knife, it's done completely by machine), it's going to be more expensive to make the decorative cladding than to make a plain, purely functional cladding--like regular type 405 stainless. So think about two $100 knives, one with damascus and one with plain cladding. The makers of the latter knife had more money left over for other parts of it. Like the core steel, the fit and finish, the grinding of the edge, etc. etc... At any price point, I think you tend to find better performance in things that are simple, as opposed to things with decorative flourishes and bells and whistles. There are exceptions here and there, but I think that's a good general principle.

But this has nothing to do with the damascus pattern. There are lots of clad knives that use regular soft/resilient stainless steel on the outside of a hard knife steel core. The real comparison should be with knives of a similar quality, either clad or solid.

The machine you use will also make a difference. Horizontal ones that spin fast give you the most overrun. I don't know what home models work like this ... maybe there's something out there.

The damascus pattern would only effect the knife edge in a true damascus ($$$$$) knife. In the more common faux damascus (clad) knives, the layered cladding doesn't go to the edge.

Some people think food is less likely to stick to the slight texture. But some people think it's more likely to stick. Most consider it pure decoration. There are a few makers of true damascus blades out there. In this case it's one way among many to get both hardness and resilience out of a blade. I've never used one of these knives though; they start at around ten times my budget!

Adding some nonfat dry milk is also supposed to increase whipability. It will also suppress the freezing point, so the ice cream will be softer at any given temperature.

Is a carving fork a good idea? I don't like the idea of poking unnecessary holes in meat. I ususally use tongs or my fingers, but sometimes it feels inneficient. I'm wondering what people like to use for roasts, birds, and fishes. Especially people working service at good restaurants.

I've been enjoying the book (just started reading it today) but wanted to comment on a couple of health-related pieces of misinformation. First is the assertion that there's no such thing as "24 hour flu," and that all cases of this are really food poisoning. What we generally call 24 hour flu is some form or another of Norwalk virus, which infects the lower digestive tract. It can be transmitted in ways besides food. But it CAN be transmitted by food, which brings me to the second issue: the recommendation to use vinegar instead of bleach to sanitize cutting boards. There are many foodborn pathogens that frolick happily in an acidic environment. Norwalk-type viruses are among these. Vinegar has no effect on them. Chlorine and peroxide bleaches are much more effective agains these viruses and other acid-resistant bugs. The book claims that wood "neutralized" the free oxygen in bleaches. Is this true? I'd like to see a citation of some credible research. I understand the appeal of vinegar, but the only evidence I've seen supporting it is a single study showing that it reduced e. coli on cutting boards. And the study was conducted by the Nakano Vinegar Co. Ltd .... so take it for what it's worth!

That's probably my #1 also. Then, the Cake Bible, by Barenbaum, and the Breadbaker's Apprentice, by Reinhart. I don't do a whole lot of cake or bread, but I like those books for the same reason I like McGee: they teach me what's going on. With that kind of knowledge (and with a little help from my friends) I can ween myself from the tyranny of recipes. If I want to make brownies, I decide how i want them to be, and then figure out how to do it. Much more fun for me than the endless recipe hunt. The internet is also a priceless resource. Both for the articles you can find, and for the communties of people who already know what you're trying to find out (like this one!)

Basically, alcohol and all disolved solids effect the freezing temperature. The amount of freezing point suppression you get from a solid depends on the size of the molecules. This sounds like pure geekery, but it's helpful to keep in mind with sugars. While all sugars will suppress the freezing point, monosacharides like glucose (dextrose) and fructose have around twice the freezing point suppression power of disacharides (like table sugar, or sucrose), because the molecules are half the size. Pastry chefs take advantage of this by vaying the proportion of sugars to control hardness. This gives you a lot more flexibility than just varying the amount. It lets you control sweetness and freezing point suppression separately. Another ingredient that helps is nonfat dry milk. This suppresses the freezing point and also adds body. Most of the professional recipes I've seen have fair amount of this. I was shy about using it at first, because I had memories of it tasting terrible. But if it's fresh, it adds nothing unpleasant to ice cream. Any added water, whatever form it takes (pureed fruits, etc.) will have the opposite effect. They'll raise the freezing point and make the ice cream harder at any given temp.

so what's the story? does the sugar just act as a wick, or does it actually burn? if it just wicks the alcohol, i don't see much of a problem. if the sugar burns, isn't there also the issue of a dessert with ... burned sugar?

It's about flavor, not consistency. It seems there are a couple of different points of view; some people like the flavor of cooked egg yolks with chocolate, and others think it's a distraction. I'm in the second camp. Chocolate is also one of the flavors that gets muted very easily by milk fat. Because of this I use less than half as much cream in chocolate ice cream as in most other recipes. The fat in yolks may have the same effect. In general, I use about a third as many eggs in my ice creams as most people, because I don't want to notice them. In chocolate I don't use any.

They list guanaja as as one of the chocolates recommended for ice cream. Along with quite a few others. But they don't give their rationale ... i didn't see any clear connection between cocoa solids or cocoa butter content and their recommendations. Agreed about avoiding the egg base. Though not sure why you'd need a stick blender or need to pour the dairy over the chocolate to emulsify it. I have no trouble just heating the milk and disolving in the chopped chocolate. There's enough liquid that it's not a fragile emulsion, like with ganache.

The only thing that surprises me about mroybal's recipe is the 25 minutes of machine mixing. That seems way excessive. I can't help but think that results would be better with a 20 minute or longer autolyse, much briefer mixing (maybe much of it with only a portion of the flour but all the water) and a decent amount of time retarding in the fridge.

Oh, I think you can you do as well as anyone here. The only secret ingredients in NYC pizza are territorialism and nostalgia! The best crusts just come from ones who work like serious pizza artisans. Una Pizza Napoletana imports wheat and sea salt from outside Naples, mills their own flour, leavens with natural starters, and ages the dough for three days before using. I don't know if Patsy's in East Harlem ever talked about their methods, but here's a website listing the hoops jumped through by a dedicated immitator: http://slice.seriouseats.com/jvpizza/ Anyway. As far as scaling goes, this is your recipe: Flour: 100% Water: 68% Yeast: 0.9% Salt: 2%

ahhhh, perfect. Thanks!

I've been looking all over both websites and can't find anything about which chocolates are best for ice cream. The callebaut site has a few recipes, where they mention using their 70% standard classic chocolate, but that's about it. Do you have any specific pages you can list?

On this subject, how would you say they compare with some of excellent lower priced butchers, like Florence Prime Meats and Ottomanelli & Sons?

And it's like any other manual skill: don't try to do it fast until you've learned how to do it right. Learn the right technique, and then practice it SLOWLY until it becomes second nature. The speed will come on its own. If you try to go fast before knowing what you're doing, you'll just reinforce bad habits. And you might end up adding your fingertips to the salad.

For a long time they've been the cheapest place in town for certain kinds of things. Organic milk (not too surprisingly), but also regular butter. I think it's like $3.70 a pound. Everywhere else in the city butter is $4.50 to $5.00. And for my most guilty of culinary and outdoor pleasures: Cliff Bars. 99 cents. Less than the discount drug chains. Worth a special trip.

I've been making a lot of ice cream at home. In an effort to not eat a lot of ice cream at home, I'd like to bring some of it to other people's homes. But it's kind of hot outside. Are there any compact, cheap, ingenious solutions to this? I saw in another thread that someone uses the freezer bowl of their ice cream maker for transport, but I'm hoping for something less bulky and fragile. Something like a quart or half gallon sized, soft sided cooler, or a wrap-around freezer pack. Thoughts?