paulraphael

Good point ... the swedes seem to know something too. Quite a few of the Japanese makers use some flavor of Swedish steel.

Hiromoto AS Tenmi-Jyuraku series: http://japanesechefsknife.com/TenmiJyuraku...HEIGHT:%20187px It's a sandwich of Hitachi Aogami Super steel, clad with soft stainless steel. You're right that it's not a traditional Japanese knife. This wasn't meant as a review of those, since they're intended primarily for Japanese style cooking. I don't have much use for a single bevel knife and am not interested in the traditional handle style. The Hiromoto is considered a "western style" Japanese knife, which is confusing, because what they really mean is a western-inspired shape with Japanese refinements, made with Japanese steel and blade geometry. It is different in a number of ways from a European style knife: The blade is thinner, the belly is shallower, the bevel angles are more acute, the bevel is asymetrical (though still two-sided) and the steel is harder. It can be made as sharp as any double bevel knife; the limit is how much edge fragility you're willing to suffer.

Octaveman suggested that I write about my entry into the world of Japanese knives. I decided to wait until I had a bit of experience, including learning how to sharpen. It's now been several weeks and my one Japanese knife has spawned a couple of siblings. Background, prejudices, etc.: By nature I'm not a collector, and tend to find a good, all purpose tool, and use it to death. I'd used various low and middle end European style knives over the years before upgrading to a Schaaf Goldhamster chef's knife about five years ago. This knife wowed me every time I used it, and I used it for everything from mincing herbs to slicing roasts to hacking apart chickens. In the years I owned it I sharpened it on stones once; frequent steeling kept it sharp enough to shave with. Nevertheless, all the recent noise about Japanese knife nirvana got under my skin, and curiousity got the better of me. After a mind-numbing amount of research and discussion with the sociopaths at knifeforums.com, I decided to try a Hiromoto AS gyuto in the 240mm length. This knife has been getting a reputation as an excellent value. It has a very hard, high end carbon steel edge, clad on both sides with stainless. It's available directly from Japan for $130 from Japanesechefsknife.com. Their service and shipping are outstanding. Out of the box, the knife stuck me as light (but not feather light), slim, and nimble, in spite of being an inch and a half longer than what I'm used to. Fit and finish were not quite up to the standard of the German knife, but the blemishes (mostly around the handle) were easily touched up with sandpaper. In use, going back and forth between it and my german knife, it felt sharper but not dramatically so. On a scale of one to ten, one being a butter knife and ten being Star Wars light saber, the Hiromoto felt like and 8 and the Schaaf a 7. This is where learning to sharpen came in. I bought the sharpening DVD from Korin.com, which is good for the basics. I also read tons online, and finally decided to start out with the so-called scary sharp system, which uses silicon carbide sandpaper mounted to glass, rather than using water stones. This mimics the way stones work, and while it's expensive in the long run, the intitial investment is much lower than with good water stones. I also purchased a horsehide strop from handamerican.com, which works with half-micron chrome oxide abrasive powder. The learning curve was pretty easy. I'm still a beginner, but find it straightforward to get a good edge on the blade without destroying it (so far). Needless to say, this is already more investment in time and gear that I ever would have imagined for maintaining a knife! I've now spent close to the cost of my German knife in tools and educational materials, just for taking care of the Japanese knife--and this is without having invested in real stones. An advantage is that I can tune the edge to perform the exactly the way I like. The hard carbon steel can handle angles anywhere from the 15 degree (on each side) factory angle to a scalpel-like 5 degrees. The tradeoff is fragility. The sharper angles make a chip-prone edge that needs to be babied more than I'm probably willing. What I've ended up doing is leaving the factory angles on most of the knife, but thinning the three inches near the tip to 20 or so degrees. This allows it to slip easily through onions and hard garlic cloves when push-cutting the vertical cuts, but keeps the chopping edge stout. Even at the factory angles, this is not intended to be a heavy duty, all-purpose knife. Anything hard or tough that can grab the edge is capable of chipping it. If I need to hack up a bird or chop chocolate, or hand a knife to someone not used to treating it like a surgical tool, out comes the German knife. So now, with the refined edge and mirror polish from the strop, the performance is considerably better than it was out of the box. It slips effortlessly through anything, if you can get some forward or backward motion to the blade. It really likes to slice. It does less damage to the food than any knife I've used. An apple sliced with the Hiromoto will not brown, even after 45 minutes. It doesn't bruise herbs. It goes through onions silently (none of that telltale crunching sound). It's so easy to slice things to transparent thinness that I have to remind myself no to. After experiencing all this, I expected the German knife to feel clumsy in comparison. But remarkably it doesn't. I'm amazed that this thing with the factory angles and minimal maintenance can come so close. It does all the things the Hiromoto does, just not quite as well. Sometimes the German knife requires effort. If the Japanese knife does, it means I'm doing something wrong. Conversely, the German knife does things that the Japanese one can't, or at least shouldn't. In the end, the Hiromoto has become my main knife, and the Schaaf gets used more for the heavy cutting. The best thing I can say about the Hiromoto is that it makes prep work fun. Time will tell if this is still the case after the New Toy Mania wears off. I would heartily recommend this knife, but only to someone willing to invest in learning to sharpen and maintain it. And it's a big investment, in both time and tools, compared with what you need for a softer, thicker knife. The advantage of the Japanese blade lies partly in its geometry, but largely in its ability to take and hold whatever edge that you give it. This advantage is lost if you're not playing an active role in its tuning and upkeep. These are sports cars, not family sedans. Choose acording to your disposition! Before I stop rambling, I want to mention the other two knives I bought. One is a Mac 270mm bread knife. This thing is wonderful. For $60, it's the first good bread knife I've ever used. It cuts the bread, rather than crushing it or sawing it into a pile of crumbs. When it needs sharpening, though, I'll have to send it to a pro. Luckily It's not getting hammered on every day. The other is a 3" Al Mar chef series paring knife. This is the first paring knife I've ever liked. I had a Schaaf, but unlike the Schaaf chef's knife I never cared for the parer. It didn't fit right in my hand, and I could never get it razor sharp the way I want a paring knife to be. The Al Mar, in spite of being from their inexpensive line, takes a sharp edge easily. I put a very thin, very asymetrical bevel on it, and it holds up fine ... not surprising, since a paring knife spends little time banging into a cutting board. This knife was $50 well spent.

I don't know about New York, but good news if you're willing to get on the PATH train with your pellet gun ... http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071030/od_af...at_071030183620 "NEW YORK (AFP) - Squirrel eaters in the US state of New Jersey have been told that the bushy-tailed rodents are likely safe to eat, after earlier being advised the unlikely delicacies could contain toxic metals. The Environmental Protection Agency said earlier this year it had discovered high levels of lead in a squirrel taken from near a waste dump in the Ringwood area and advised people to eat the rodents no more than twice a week. Officials have now said the test results were an error."

Does anyone have a commercial dishwasher? I've never used one, but have heard impressive things. I stumbled onto a book at a used bookstore that was about the home kitchens of famous chefs. Some had modern, commercial looking, stainless-everything facilities; others had exposed wood, warm colors, homey, cozy, un-restaurant looking retreats. But every single one of them had commercial dishwasher, either in plain view or hidden away. The chefs bragged about the 30 second duty cycle (or something ridiculous like that). I'm sure the things sound like commercial jets taking off, but if it's over in 30 seconds, who cares?

I ordered a box of half sheet size from that ebay store. Will let you know how they are. High hopes ... I'm tired of cutting it off the roll and watching it roll up again.

A friend of mine who worked for years as a waitress understood what shockingly few waters ever figure out: most problems will be forgiven if the wait staff acknowledges them. When she gets slammed and gets behind schedule, she just checks in with the tables. Acknowledges things are slow, lets them know she hasn't forgotten about them, and conservatively estimates the time. All the tension and bad feelings evaporate when she does this. If there's a complaint about the food, she takes the customer's side and puts the wheels in motion to find a resolution. Real basic stuff ... I'd think anyone who's eaten at a restaurant would figure this out. So when I get crappy service without acknowledgement, I'm less inclined to start making up excuses like "maybe they're understaffed." If they are, why haven't I been told what to expect? Why hasn't anyone even acknowledged the problem? The obliviousness and lack of communication is a worse offense than mistakes and slow service.

For me, the most important quality in a roasting pan is its ability to conduct heat through the bottom at a rate that lets the drippings brown without burning in the time it takes the food to cook. Of course, this is a pretty wide window, but some materials do better than others. It seems to be a factor of conductivity and also surface finish. Dark exteriors absorb radiant heat and tend to burn the fond. Thin pans conduct heat quickly and tend to burn as well. Ceramic pans often conduct too slowly and produce inadequate browining. This is where I've found the stainless clad aluminum to do well. It also performs well on the stove when you're deglazing. The two clad roasting pans I've owned conducted so evenly, they were useable as griddles over two burners.

Yes. I hate the thought of nonstick roasting pans. Half the reason I roast is to get those pan drippings. And if you deglaze the pan, cleanup is always easy. I've used every imaginable roasting pan, and have sadly found that the best performing ones are expensive. And hard to find. I like aluminum clad in stainless steel, and there are fewer roasting pans available in this material than there used to be. I also like low sides ... I prefer to use a bed of vegetables to a rack, and high sides inhibit airflow. The only pan I've found that fits all my criteria is by Viking (made by Demyere, I think). Clad pans with higher sides are made made by kitchenaid, bourgeat, and maybe one or two others.

Oh, yeah, if you're talking about commercial baking the economics are different. At home there's no expectation of profit, just some fuzzy sense of the value of indulgence.

It's one of those cases where getting something that's 20% better might cost twice as much. How much $$$ is too much comes down to personal taste and personal bank accounts.

I almost fell over the first time I bit into some Cluizel. My heart has always belonged to Valrhona, but, the Los Ancones (sp?) bar that I had was like nothing else. If I were richer, I'd bake with it. As it is, Valrhona is about my upper limit for what to put in cakes and terrines. Much of the time I go cheaper, with bulk chocolate from Callebaut, El Rey, or something similar. There is a pronounced difference between these and the Valrhona, so I have little doubt there'd be a noticeble difference with the Cluizel. Only question is how much you're willing to pay for it. edited to add: I haven't tried Callebaut's single origin chocolates, only their basic unsweetened, and 70% and 60-something percent bittersweets.

It doesn't have to be tedious. The trick is to become sensitive to the consistency of the sauce, so you know when to take it off the heat. When you figure this out, there's no need to do it over low heat. I do it over medium or meidium-high heat, and it never takes more than a couple of minutes, and I've never had it curdle. I likee to stir the saucepan with a flat wood or bamboo spatula. Whatever you use, make sure it gets all the way into the corners, and make sure you're constantly stirring/scraping the bottom and the corners. This is where sauce is likely to curldle if it sits still too long. Watch the waves that the sauce makes. In the beginning it will slosh quickly like a thin liquid. As it reaches the right temp (around 165 degrees) it will suddenly make larger, slower waves. You may even see the bottom of the pan appearing and vanishing. If you're still not sure, run your finger across the back of the spatula. It should draw a line through a thick coating of sauce, and the line shouldn't drip over. When you're sure it's thickened, keep stirring over the heat for 15 seconds, and then pull the pan completely off the burner. Keep stirring off the heat for an additional 30 seconds. These final steps help insure that it will be throughly thickened, but not overcooked. A responsive pan helps. I'm also partial to slope-sided saucepans for this, since they make it easier to get into the corners.

Barbara Kafka has always given me good guidence on roasting with a lot of heat. I haven't used her turkey recipe, but it's here on her site, in all its 500° glory: http://www.bkafka.com/Recipes/roastturkey.html

I made pumpkin puree this fall (found some nice sugar pumpkins and cheese pumpkins at a farmer's stand) and really overachieved ... there's a gallon of the stuff in my freezer. I've been making pumpkin pancakes, but each batch uses half a cup A cake sounds like a fine idea. I've found a handful of recipes, and they all use vegetable or seed oils. Is there any reason not to use butter? Butter plus Pumpkin sounds like a more delicious combination to me.

Most of my friends have confessed to not actually liking turkey. The reason is that they perceive it as dry and usually flavorless. The flavorlesness probably comes from buying the cheapest factory birds possible, but the dry part is from not understanding how to cook poultry. There are a lot of methods that work, but if your method doesn't consider the lower cooking temperature of the light meat vs. the dark meat, the bird is doomed to mediocrity. The same goes for chicken, but being smaller, a chicken is a bit more forgiving. Cooking times are long enough with turkey that you have the opportunity to REALLY dry out the breasts. The 19th century french methods often relied on barding the white meat with fat or bacon for part off the roasting process to protect it from the heat. I find foil to be a simple substitute. I generally fold a piece in thirds, like a business letter, but with the two outer sections only overlapping for an inch or two (added protection for the part of the bird closest to the top of the oven). This stays on for about a third of the total roasting time. It allows you to roast longer and with higher heat, allowing a dark, crisp skin without raising the breast meat above 155 or 160 or so. I've never deep fried a bird ... not sure if an equivalent method would work for that.

for a 16lb turkey, I poach for 90 minutes, with the stock just below a simmer. Filling a 20qt stock pot halfway is just about right. You can make the bouillion in the stock pot right before putting in the bird. It takes about 2 hours.

The best method I've used is based on George Perrier's recipe: poaching the turkey in court bouillon, and then roasting at high temperature. Perrier roasts at medium high temps, with the bird tented in foil much of the time. I get better results by poaching longer, then doing away with the tent. I roast at 500 degrees with a doubled piece of foil over the breast meat for about half the time (and some foil to protect the ends of the drumsticks from scorching). The result is crisp, mahogany-brown skin, and juicy, perfectly cooked meat (both light and dark). Only special gear is a big stock pot. Removing the bird from the hot liquid is a bit of a trick; Perrier advocates picking it up by the truss, which seems borderline suicidal to me. I put a smaller stock pot in the sink, and pour off the court bouillon, and then slide the bird into the roasting pan. Big mits and another pair of hands can be helpful. The poaching liquid forms the base for the next year's first batch of poultry stock.

The first thing i ever baked all by myself was a pound cake, while my girlfriend was out of town. I got halfway through mixing all the ingredients when I rememebered we'd lent our electric mixer to a friend. All I could find was one of those hand-cranked egg beaters. The batter was too thick to churn with that relic. Necessity being the mother of invention (or mother of something), I found inspiration in a hacksaw and an electric drill. I cut the handle off of the egg beater's crank, and inserted the remaining stub into the chuck of the drill. Voila: a two-handed, half-horsepower, Rube Goldberg-style electric mixer. It whined and bucked and splattered and tried to wrestle itself out of my hands. But I held on. By the time the batter was smooth, the room smelled like smoke, and the little plastic gears of the egg beater were ground down to nothing. The cake turned out ok! Would have been great, but the plastic gear shards didn't do much for the texture.

They're made of pine?? doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Someone who knows more about wood should chime in, but my sense is that pine is way too soft, has a grain structure that's too open, and would be too absorbent and dimensionally unstable.

I probably exaggerated ... just looked online and it seems the standard thickness is 1-1/2". still pretty fat! The buliding supply place that cut it for me warned that there would be burn marks on the side from all the friction from the radial saw. I'm finding a number of places that sell the material unfinished, in sections 25 inches x 8 feet, for under $200.

Standard butcher block countertops are around 2 inches thick ... warping isn't an issue (hasn't been for me anyhow). I forget what I paid, but it was probably 1/4 to 1/2 the price of a butcher block from the usual channels. I had a sander already, but it would have still been economical to get one (or borrow one) if I didn't.

I find a butcher block-sized cutting board to be indispensible. It's my main work surface that gets used for everything from chopping vegetables to rolling out dough. The smaller cutting board is for raw meat and poultry only. An excellent, cheap way to get big block is to buy a section of rock maple butcher block counter top. Just go to someone who sells it and have them cut it to what length you want. Depth is limited to standard countertop depth, but that's still a good size. I haven't seen end grain versions of this, but maybe it exists. When you get it home, put on a dust mask and grab a palm sander. About five minutes of minor effort will remove all the urethane finish. You can then put a couple of coats of oil on it. I've read a lot about oil on butcher blocks ... most recommendations are against using cooking oil, on the grounds that it becomes rancid. In my own experience, this just isn't true. I've oiled three cutting boards with olive oil since I've owned them--15 years, 12 years, and 10 years respectively. None has developed a rancid odor ever. In fact, after the oil soaks in, they don't even smell like olive oil. The level of protection seems reasonable; none of these boards has warped appreciably or split. I would be interested in hearing about anyone's experience with polymerizing oils (linseed oil or tung oil), which would presumably create a true protective finish.

One of my favorite passages in Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way" goes something like this: Q: If I start now, do you know how old I'll be when I'm finally proficient at baking/painting/dancing/playing piano? A: Yes. Exactly as old as you'll be if you don't. So get moving.

We made the pilgrimage to Patsy's in Harlem last night. It was very good. The crust was thin, but thankfully not "paper thin," as they advertise it. It had a delicate, crackly crispness on the bottom, and was feathery light in the middle. The edges were puffed and chewy. Compared with Una Pizza Napolitana, the crust was a bit thinner and more crisp. The flavor of the bread was primarily char, which was strong enough to overpower any subtle bread flavors. The Napoletana crust had a more subltle char and prominent nutty, sourdough-like flavors. The toppings at Napoletana were better quality. I like the Patsy's style very much, but it's still a bit floppy for my tastes. I prefer the crisp bottom to offer some support for the pizza when you hold it. The crust is also delicate enough that it turns soft and almost soggy within ten minutes. Definitely worth the trip. Next stops will be Arturo's and DiFara.