paulraphael

I have this problem when I've been too enthusiastic about greasing the pan or griddle. The pancakes get slippery, and fall off the turner before I want them to. Whatever they lose from the crash damage gets made up for by the extra butter flavor. A griddle is a beautiful thing. I used to use a big pan; now I use a griddle inherited from my grandmother. It's a commercial thing, bare aluminum, about 1/8" thick (pretty heavy). It fits over 2 burners and handles 6 pancakes at a time, without a lot of crowding. You don't have to be a genius with accurate flips to avoid collisions.

Some reasons for a longer knife ... -as you said, it can more efficiently go through a big pile of things. but that may or may not be important. -it can slice more efficiently. even something as small as an apple can be hard to slice all the way through in a single stroke with a 6" blade. your goal is to pass through the food in one slice, without changing directions. every time you saw back and forth, you tear the flesh of the food. slicing something as small as 3 inches with a 6" knife gives you a maximum of 3" to move the knife. But in reality you have less, because the steeply curved part by the tip is less useful for slicing. with such a small knife you will end up sawing back and forth and demolishing a lot of food instead of slicing it. -it lets you chop with less fatigue. the shorter the knife, the steeper the angle that you need to tilt it (and your wrist) to raise the back of the knife high enough to clear the food. a long knife allows a much more relaxed motion. I think your biggest issues are handle size, knife weight, and balance. Some knives just work better for small hands than others. In a European knife, I strongly recommend the Messermeister chef's knives. I bought the 8" version of this knife for both my mom and my girlfriend. If you prefer a Japanese knife, there are many that are extremely light and have small handles. 8" is really the minimum if you do anything more than chopping an ocasional onion. If you go the Japanese route, you might even find yourself prefering a 9-1/2" knife, if you have room on your work surface.

Here's my formula for crêpes, adapted from multiple sources. Some French recipes have up to three times the number of eggs; I prefer a less eggy taste, so these use the egg primarily for structure. You can use more if you like. Savory Crêpes -1-1/2 cups all purpose flour -3 eggs -1-1/2 cups (approx) milk (for extra light crêpes, substitute water for half of milk. For dense ones, substitute cream for half of milk). There's no need to measure—just use enough milk until the consistency is right (like heavy cream for normal crepes) -1/2 tsp salt -3 TBS melted butter Sweet Crêpes -1-1/2 cups all purpose flour -3 eggs -1-1/2 cups (approx) milk (for extra light crêpes, substitute water for half of milk. dense ones, substitute cream for half of milk) -3 TBS liqueur, rum, or brandy (Optional. Reduce milk by whatever amount you add—total liquid should be about 1-1/2 cups) -2 TB granulated sugar -1/2 tsp salt -3 TBS melted butter (more can be used to discourage sticking if you're not using a nonstick pan) Mixing - Combine dry ingredients and eggs in mixing bowl and add just enough milk to allow flour to incorporate. A wooden spoon or spatula works best at first. Once ingredients are incorporated use a whisk to gently form a smooth paste. don't overwork. - Gently whisk in the rest of the milk and the liqueur (if using) Use more or less milk as needed to get consistency right. - Strain, pushing any thickened batter through strainer with a wooden spoon or spatula. - Ideally, allow to rest covered in a cool place or the fridge for 2 hours (or up to 24 hours). This is optional to relax the gluten and improve tenderness. If you want tender crepes and don't have time to wait, substitute 1 TB of cornstarch for 1 TB of the flour, or use pastry flour (NOT whole grain) - Stir in melted butter. Note: batter can also be made in a blender. put liquids, eggs, sugar, and salt into belnder. blend until mixed. add flour, and blend until just incorporated. then butter add butter. blend for 1 minute on high speed. scrape down sides with a rubber spatula and blend a few more seconds. Cooking - Pan temperature is important. If too hot, batter will seize and cook before it spreads. If too cool, crepe will stick. Go for a medium heat, at which butter foams and then subsides. - Butter surface of pan, with a pastry brush or paper towel. If using a nonstick pan, I only butter once at the beginning, to check pan temperture. - Add batter with a scoop or ladle. A 1/3 cup dry measuring cup is about right for a 10 inch pan. Rotate the pan to cover surface with a thin layer. Pour off excess. If thin layer doesn't stick, pan is too cool. If batter sizzles on contact with pan, pan is too hot. - Cook about 1 minute, until batter loses its sheen or starts to brown at its outer edges. Turn with spatula, using fingers to help. If crêpe starts to tear when you turn it, it probably needs a bit more cooking. - Cook second side about 45 seconds. - If crêpe still tears, try beating another egg and whisking it into the batter. If that doesn't work, try adding 2 TBS flour (made into a thin paste with milk) to the batter. Or, if batter is too thick, thin it with milk. - Crêpes can be refrigerated up to 5 days, or frozen. stack with plastic wrap between them, and wrap whole stack with plastic. NOTE: Basic proportion is two eggs and 2TB butter per cup flour, with enough milk to adjust consistency. That's all the measuring you need to do.

Interesting. I've never heard that one. I'd be a little worried about this encouraging things to dry out. Anyone done this? It was much easier to cut straight down (with the grain, actually) but I wanted bias slices. Most boning knives are too short to do it one stroke. A sujijiki might be good, but considering how thin and sharp the gyuto is, I wouldn't imagine a suji would damage the surface any less. The thin height of a slicer/boner mostly helps when you slice something fatter than a 1 inch steak. I wish I'd tried the Mac serated slicer. Might have been at least as bad, but at least I'd know!

Right, this is what I assume he means. But the fingerlings I've been getting all seem to be one type. I'd like to know the actual variety. They have a distinctive, strong flavor, and dark yellow flesh. Could they be Rattes?

I seared a 1 inch thick yellowfin tuna steak yesterday, browned on the outside, and basically raw for all but the outside 1/8" or so. It was dredged in some crushed black pepper and coriander. I cut it on the bias into half inch or so slices. And I expected this to be easy with my 240mm Hiromoto Gyuto. The knife is sharp enough to fillet newsprint into 1/2 milimeter slices, but it had a rough time with the tuna. Not the raw part, which it slid through, but the browned exterior, which just crumbled and shreded. After a couple of ugly slices, I tried my cheap (but still pretty sharp) slicing knife. No better and no worse. I did not think of trying my Mac bread knife (also sold as a meat slicing knife) Maybe the wavy edge would have been a better solution. Any thoughts on what's best for the job?

I'm in love with these things ... they're delicious roasted, pureed, or whatever. But I just read in Peterson's Vegetables that it's not a potato variety at all, but can be any number of different kinds. The one's I've been getting are from whole foods, are a deep yellow/orange color on the inside, with a red skin, and are oblong, about 2 to 4 inches long. Any idea what they are?

I have the crepe pan ... the only reason I got it is that it was on closeout on Amazon a while ago for $26 ... about a buck cheaper than the commercial nonstick pan I was looking for. It's fine. Exactly as good as, but no better than, any other heavy gauge nonstick pan. I expect it to last a while, but only because it gets used infrequently (just for crepes and certain delicate fish). And no one else uses it, so I can be sure it doesn't get used with metal utensiles or washed with abrasive scrub sponges. It's nicely made, and prettier than the commercial pan I was planning to buy. But not $60 prettier. When it comes time to replace it, my budget will be the same. If I don't get lucky again and find something else like this on closeout, I'll happily buy the commercial war horse. I have no problem spending $$$ on pans in some cases, but not on anything disposable like nonstick pans.

FG, do you want to include crepes in this discussion?

Yeah, right? I can't understand why it's so hard to find un-ultra pasteurized cream.

The way to know for sure is to check the ingredients. "Cocoa processed with alkali" means dutch process. I agree with the posters who say fat percentage is an important variable, and this can be harder to find out. It could make a difference in recipes that use a lot of cocoa. It also makes a difference in shelf life; the higher the fat content, the more perishable.

No. There are a lot of techniques for making pancakes more tender ... they include low protein starches like these, or cake flour, or sour cream, or buttermilk. I stay away from them in general (with ocassional exception of buttermilk), because for my tastes they make the pancakes too tender. I don't like pancakes that deflate or disintegrate after soaking up syrup or having fruit tossed on top. It might come down to mixing methods. If you're at all agressive while mixing the ingredients after they've been moistened, you're going to develop extra gluten in the flour. This can result in tough pancakes. But if you mix gently, pancakes stay tender even if made with unbleached AP flour. I use a rubber spatula, and after pouring the wet ingredients into the dry, I mix by scraping down the sides of the bowl and basically folding the dry and wet ingredients together until they're all moistened (but not homogenous). It's important to thoroughly mix the dry ingredients by stirring, before adding the wet ones, because they won't be properly distributed otherwise. If I'm looking for extra lightness and airiness, then in addition to the chemical leavening I fold in a whipped egg white. The resulting texture is great. The batter tends to sit pretty tall in the pan if you do this, so you'll need to cook with lower heat.

Two more from the Simpsons ... Moe (on his first date in years, at Springfield's snottiest French restaurant): "Give me the best thing you got and stuff it with the second best thing you got." Homer (at a protest against animal testing at a cosmetics company, he sees pigs that have been tarted up with lipstick and mascara): "So sad. Yet so sexy. Yet so delicious!" And my favorite food quote of all time, from Alain Ducasse (spotted a while ago in someone's eGullet signature): "Desserts are like mistresses. They are bad for you. So if you are having one, you might as well have two."

Interesting that that's all there is in bisquick. I wonder if it just has more salt than what I'm used to in pancakes, and that gives it the KFC bicuit flavor I'm noticing.

That's curious. I've had a number of carbon steel and cast iron pans, all well seasoned. I love them ... in many ways more than non-stick pans (which bug me, because of their disposable nature). But the non-stick pans have always been way more slippery, at least before they started getting destroyed.

I'd be interested in trying this method if I ever encountered an oven that could be set to 140 (and reliably hold the temp). Mine doesn't go lower than 170, and it's not terribly stable at taht setting. No matter what, I pull the meat way before 135 ... that's hotter than I want it to be after resting. For what it's woth, if you use a really high temp, like 500, you do not end up with an inch of well done meat. maybe a quarter inch ... a tiny fraction of the whole thicknes of the roast.

I make pancakes every weekend. It might be the only thing I'm really an expert on. Over the years I've analyzed and tried just about all the major variations, and have developed my own basic forumula. I only sometimes make the basic formula; usually it's some minor or major variation. Sometimes I'm looking for thinner, or thicker, or some kind of flavored version. I grew up on bisquick pancakes, but they don't taste like pancakes to me anymore. They taste like KFC biscuits. Not in a bad way, but they're not what I'm after. I want pancakes to taste like butter and lightly toasted cake. I sometimes make buttermilk pancakes, but find them to be too tender most of the time unless I can eat them right out of the pan. If I'm looking for the tart flavor of buttermilk, I just make my regular recipe with cultured butter. Here's my basic recipe: 1-1/2 cups AP flour 1/3 cup sugar 1-1/2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt 1 whole egg 1 separated egg 3 TB butter 1-1/8 cup milk -melt butter and set aside -stir together dry ingredients in a mixing bowl -whisk egg and egg yolk into another bowl, until frothy -whisk in melted butter -gently stir liquid ingredients into solid ingredients -whip egg white to soft peaks -fold egg whites into batter This is leavened both by baking powder and the whipped egg white. The result is a light, fluffy texture that still has enoug body to hold up to syrup, fruit, and a bit of handling. It can be made with a single, unseparated egg, or with both eggs separated and the whites whipped (for thick, light, almost cloudlike pancakes). Here's a flavored variation that I especially like (also on recipe gullet): Ligurian lemon poppyseed pancakes 1-1/2 c all purpose flour 1/3 c sugar 1-1/2 tsp baking powder 1 T poppyseeds (approx) 1/2 tsp salt 1-1/8 c whole milk 1 whole egg 1 separated egg 1 lemon, zest and juice 1-1/2 T unsalted butter 1-1/2 T olive oil -lightly toast poppyseeds in a small, ungreased saucespan, until they release their fragrance. -add butter and let it melt. turn heat very low and cook for a few minutes. -set aside 1TB of the sugar for the whipped egg white. mix zest into the remaining sugar in a mixing bowl, with your fingers, until moist and fragrant -add other dry ingredients to sugar/zest. stir to blend -separate one of the eggs and set the white aside, preferably in a copper mixing bowl -in separate bowl whisk the yolk and the whole egg into milk -whisk in melted butter/poppyseed slurry and continue whisking until frothy -stir in the olive oil -gently stir liquid ingredients into solid ingredients until eveything is moistened. do not beat. do not worry about lumps -start preheating pan or griddle -with electric mixer or baloon whisk, whip egg white to soft peaks -add tablespoon of sugar, and continue whipping to firm peaks. don't overwhip; they should still be glossy and moist. -stir lemon juice into batter -fold egg whites into batter (This recipe inspired by Pierre Hermé)

well, i'm sure it's more nonstick than a worn out teflon pan (like any pan that's seen year or so of real use), but not a new one. the nice thing with carbon steel is that the seasoning can be renewed easily and they last basically forever. i'm sure the idea of a dedicated omelette pan comes from seasoned iron retaining strong flavors and odors. before teflon came along, moste omelette pans and poelles were made of seasoned carbon steel; you didn't want to cook todays eggs with the pan that cooked last night's bluefish.

I've had great results with high temp roasting. A tenderloin is so thin that it takes very little time for the inside of the meat to come up to rare/medium rare temps, so I see little need to slow down the process. the point of very low/verys slow roasting is to encourage the enzyme activity that takes place between 70 degrees and cooking temps, but with a piece of prime tenderloin, I haven't felt the need to do it. What I've done is this: -Preheat the oven to 500, with the roasting pan in the oven, while the meat comes up to room temperature. pat the meat very dry after trimming. -take the roating pan out and put in on the stove on high heat. coat it with clarified butter. -put the tenderloin in the pan and lightly brown it on three sides. -with the fourth side down, put it in the middle of the oven. -cook til the internal temp is 110 to 115 degrees. -pull it out and tent it lightly with foil. let it rest in a warm place for at least 15 minutes.

The fast method should make a lot of sense for rich or semi-rich breads ... anything with added butter, milk, and especially sweeteners, herbs, etc.. These breads don't depend as much on the enzyme-developed flavors you get from long fermentation. In my own limited experience, I'm not even sure I can taste the benefits of long fermentations with bread that has a lot of stuff added.

Some good sources of info on this are On Food and Cooking, by Harold McGee, who goes into the science of soluble flavor compounds, and any Indian cookbook that delves into technique, like the ones by Madhur Jaffrey and Camilia Panjabi. The Indians are the herb and spice rocket scientists of the food world. They've figured out the different flavor profiles of any given spice when cooked dry, in oil, in water-based liquid, and for varying amounts of time when cooked all these ways.

I'd like to hear from a metalurgist on this, but my impression is that clad metals don't present any galvanic corosion issue. You need more than just two "dissimilar" metals. They need to be dissimilar in a way that one behaves like an anion or cation relative to the other, and you need some kind of electrolite between them. When you have this kind of condition, the whole assembly turns into a battery, and the metals deteriorate pretty quickly. I remember this being an issue with some early generation carbon fiber bicycles, that were made by gluing carbon fiber tubes into aluminum lugs. There's a relative charge between the carbon and the aluminum, and the epoxy being used functioned perfectly as an electrolyte. The bikes performed beautifully, and then in a few weeks spontaneously fell apart. Kasumi style knives, with various kinds of stainless and carbon steels clad in various kinds of iron and other stainless steels, have been around for a long time. And if there were issues with galvanic corrosion, you'd expect to see it between the clad layers, resulting in the knives delaminating. I wouldn't expect it to express itself as rust on the cutting edge.

That's why they age full primal cuts, and not individual steaks. By the time it's cut into a steak, all the nastiness should be gone (part of the reason you pay so much per pound is the amount of meat lost to desication and spoilage). 7 weeks is a long time; I'm used to 3 or 4 weeks. Some of the very expensive butchers go 6 or more (like Lobels in NYC). I've heard that the extra time leads to very pronounced changes in flavor. Please let us know how it is.

They're my new favorites. I ran out and rented Shaun after seeing Hot Fuzz. And I just found out that they did the "Don't!" trailer in Tarrantino and Rodriguez's Grindhouse. Genius!

I don't have any problem with you stating your opinion like this. You're telling us your subjective experience and letting us draw our own conclusions. It's important to understand the difference between this kind of experiment and a scientific one. "This seems to have worked for me" doesn't let anyone else draw firm conclusions, because the sample size of the experiment is 1 (you), there are no controls for the many other variables in your diet and your life, and so no way to absolutely separate the change in sugar consumption from other factors. And there's no way to control for any influence brought to bear by your expectations of the result. This doesn't mean what you experienced isn't true, only that it's impossible to draw any conclusions that would have scientific weight. If someone did a study on a hundred people, including a control group that received a placebo treatment, did it double-blind (so neither the researchers nor the subjects knew who was in the placebo group), and changed only one variable in the diets and lifestyles of the experiment group (refined sugar consumption) and then measured both objective results (like blood lipid levels) and subjective results (how they subjects feel), you'd have the basis for solid scientific evidence. There are mountains of such evidence showing negative health effects from even moderate quantities of trans fats. There is no such evidence, that I can find, against moderate amounts of refined sugar. And none that I can find showing important differences between refined and unrefined sugars.