paulraphael

I'd agree with this without ever having tried DeBragga in particular. I've tried all kinds of tomfoolery trying to get supermarket steaks to taste great. I've given up. If I can't get to a butcher that sells prime dry aged beef, I make something besides steak. Just not worth it to me otherwise. Supermarket beef is for stews and braises. This includes the "certified angus" choice beef (whatever that might mean) that they at d'agostino's in nyc.

It's obvious where the sci-fi community will go with this, but I wonder if it will open a new frontier for guys like Feran Adria. Synthetic meat analogs from the most inspired culinary labohratories. As far as feeding the hungry, I'm not sure I see the point of this. If the issue is protein and complete nutrition vs. resources, does lab meat have any clear advantages over traditional sources (soy, grains and legumes, etc. etc.)? I'm no vegetarian, but I suspect a traditional protein-complete meal made by an Indian chef would tantalize me a bit more than a filet de petry dish.

I think of custard as a pretty generic term ... it covers a wide range of egg yolk thickened dairy concoctions. Pastry cream, pudding (and the puddinglike dessert called 'custard'), creme anglaise, creme brulee, flan, cheesecake, and ice cream are more specific applications of custard. And as it so happens, pudding is in the news today: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/dining/2...r=1&oref=slogin

Another vote for the meat grinder. I have the biggest 6qt mixer and it doesn't strain at all with partially frozen meat. After few pounds the motor is just slightly warm. I did opt for a vintage Hobart meat grinder attachment. They're all cast metal. The newer KA ones are plastic and have a reputation for developing cracks (though aparently they keep working when cracked). The new ones have the advantage of going in the dishwasher. And costing a lot less than the old ones (always a feeding frenzy on ebay).

David Lebovits includes these instructions on his website: "To Peel the Banana: Hold the banana in one hand near the base. With your other hand, grab the top stem, and pull it firmly downward. If it gives you trouble, rock it back-and-forth, trying to break the area between the stem and the skin just beneath. If that doesn't work, take a sharp paring knife, being careful not to cut yourself, hold the blade facing away from you and make a small incision on the side of the skin near the tip. Set the knife aside the tear the skin of the banana using your hands, which should make the skin peel away nicely. Pull each side of skin down from the banana, exposing the fleshy fruit beneath. Once the banana is almost completely visible, firmly yank the skin down as far as possible and extract the banana from the skin. Discard the skin (it can be frozen, well-wrapped, for up to six month and saved for another use, if desired.) The banana should be used immediately. If not, it can be pureed then stored in a container with a sheet of plastic film pressed against the top, and refrigerated for up to 48 hours. (Disclosure: The International Association of Banana Peelers, Slicers and Blenders, nor any liquor companies, are sponsors of the site. The instructions for peeling bananas and the recipe are a direct result of my trial-and-error methods, which I developed exclusively for readers.)"

You win.

And it's easy to make: http://italianfood.about.com/od/aperitifsc...e/r/blr0492.htm

I haven't tried making ice cream since I did it professionally over 10 years ago. Probably because I don't want another single-purpose gadget (and because I know how much ice cream I'd eat if I had one). So I'm exploring options for making the ocasional batch (icluding liquid nitrogen). And I'm wondering about the possibility of using a blender. Partially freezing the ingredients, blending the bejeezus out of them, returning to the freezer to firm up, and maybe repeating once or twice. I've got a nice 1/2 gallon commercial blender that's in need of a project. Has anyone tried this?

I just made my first buns last weekend. They used Peter Reinhart's pain a l'ancienne dough (I happened to have some retarding in the fridge), so they weren't at all like conventional buns. They turned out like extra flavorful, chewy French bread. The crust was thick enough that I decided to steam them for a bit in the microwave, just so the crunch wouldn't be overwhelming. Anyway, I thought they were great; my girlfriend thought they were too crusty and chewy. So if you happen to like the hard roll style of bun, this is a delicious and easy way make them.

or dishwasher detergent, laundry detergent, or anything else strongly alkaline!

Usually I can get what I need from CI with a couple of minutes of browsing at the magazine stand. Like, what vegetable peeler is the best bargain. The recipes have generally struck me as uninspired. Someone upthread suggested that the CI approach is all science and no art, but I think there's more to the problem than that. It might be that the science part is done unscientifically. There's a lot of testing, but very little goes into designing the experiments to isolate variables and produce quality information. I'm grateful for this, because it would take teams of grad students years to get to the bottom of a single cake recipe if you were really thorough. And the result would feel like a trade journal, not a mag. But CI presumes thoroughness, and tone of authority, both of which seem unearned. Then take into account the alleged lack of artistry (which I agree with), and the result is a lot of long articles outlining flawed procedures, a vision (and quality standards) that are often poorly articulated, excessively fussy recipes, and workmanlike (but uninspired) results. It feels to me like chefing-by-committee. I love the general idea of CI. The execution keeps me from buying it.

I wouldn't use any scouring pad labelled "heavy duty" on any cookware. The sandpaper analogy is accurate; many of these pads have aluminum oxide abbrasives in them. This is essentially the same stuff that hard anodized surfaces are made from. They can eventually abrade through the anodizing. They're one of the few things hard enough to actually do so. I wish the pad makers would be more clear about how abrasive these things really are. I see people buying them for doing the dishes all the time, and they wonder why it looks like their cookware was cleaned with a disk sander. A softer pad with with a mild abrasive like ajax works well on all but the nastiest calphalon messes.

I posted an idea here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...0entry1556769 thinking that thread was this one.

One possibility is to make a butter/liquid based ganache instead of a cream based one. I have a similar recipe (chocolate butter sauce) listed here: http://recipes.egullet.org/recipes/r1994.html With less liquid this should be able to make a truffle ganache consistency. The ingredients would be chocolate, butter, and liqueur. It's a more fragile emulsion than a traditional ganache, so it's a bit harder to work with, especially if you have to reheat. But it's delicious. For strawberry you could make your own fragalo: http://italianfood.about.com/od/aperitifsc...e/r/blr0492.htm Or see if it works with fresh strawberry juice.

yep ... or "stable," as the manual says. I think the biggest barrier to people getting down with scales is habit. Using a scale sounds more complex to people, so they don't give it a chance (and find out how much simpler it is). And there's a chicken and egg issue. People say "why do I need a scale? my cookbooks are all in cups and teaspoons." And the cookbook people say, "how can we sell books that use weights? Nobody owns a scale."

You can do that? My 12" fry pan bulged out a couple years ago and I'm tired of propping it up with a salt shaker. ← Yep! Although I uncermoniously used a steel hammer (with a bit of tape on the end to protect the finish). My calphalon 10" frying pan and 2-1/2 qt. saucepan have been de-wobbled with said cave man technology. Heavy aluminum will warp if you use it a lot with high heat. I don't think there's any way to get around it. My calphalon is the old stuff (from when it just said "commercial aluminum cookware company" on the pans. It's 5mm or 6mm thick. I suspect this thicker aluminum is even more prone to warping than the the newer thinner stuff.

I have a lot of old (early 1990s) calphalon, and the anodizing has largely worn away on the insides of every piece. I haven't seen colorful swirls ... just a lightening of the gray and then silver peeking through. I use the pieces the same as always. Even though there's the possibility of acidic food leaching aluminum from the thinned parts, it hasn't been an issue in practice. No off flavors or colors. I do find it annoying, considering how much they boasted about the invulnerability of the anodizing. It's just not a very robust surface. I should add that the pans haven't been abused. They've been cleaned and handled according to the company's recommendations. I'm pretty certain the wear is chemical, not physical. There is no hint of wear on the outsides of the pans wear they get banged and dragged over cast iron stove grates. In the final analysis, I give the company a thumbs-down. Because of the impermanence of the anodizing, the unknown permanence of their newer surfaces, and my growing preference for stainless steel, I plan to replace these pieces with other brands when the time eventually comes.

Speaking of Julia, didn't she have a hamburger recipe with an egg mixed into the ground beef (along with other things)? This is how my mom always made them, and they were delicious. We always had them medium rare, but maybe the egg would help keep a well done burger moist.

I might be inclined to try some meat glace ... or even more ideally, some reduced stock made from unbrowned bones. Classical demi has a ton of flavor but not a huge amount of gelatin ... I'd be looking for the opposite. Anyway, I'd think that the right amount of fat (20% or so?) and some added gelatin might make for a juicy well-done burger.

I have no problem at all with paying for bread and butter. Partly because I hate seeing all the waste that's encouraged by free bread baskets. Partly because I get the economics, and would rather see it as an option than an assumption. Partly because I am weak, and when there is free bread in front of me, I eat it--all of it-- even when all that belly space should be reserved for the piles of good food coming shortly. But the bread and butter had better be good. Really good.

I wonder if there's an uncontrived way to add gelatin.

That's a mischaracterization of what's being discussed. Those who are concerned aren't demonstrating that they're somehow blind to the suffering of creatures sold dead at the supermarket. The issue is that in this case, we are doing the slaughtering ourselves, so we are in a position to make choices about how to do it. The questions being asked are reasonable. The current lack of solid, scientific answers to the questions doesn't change this. On the other hand, many of the dismissals of the questions strike me as smug, baseless, and strangely defensive.

That flat beater looks exactly like the coated beaters that ship with the lift-head KA mixers. In my experience, standard flat beaters work just like the one demoed in his videos. When adjusted right they have about 1/2 mm clearance on the bottom, and several mm clearance up the sides of the bowls. They're not capable of scraping the sides and fully incorporating everything in the bowl.

Beaterblade: http://beaterblade.com/ Sideswipe: http://www.sideswipeblade.com/ Scrape-a-Bowl: http://pourfectbowl.com/index.php?page=sho...emart&Itemid=28 Anyone used these or seen them in action?

If you review the scientific literature I think you'll find a lot of scientific speculation, but very little evidence supporting strong conclusions, on either side. So we're in the realm of educated guesses. Personally, when I see reactions that look just like pain reactions from other creatures, I'm inclined to think they could be evidence of pain.