paulraphael

Jars of mustard: take off the tag Gold-spoked Hummers, black-windowed Lexus limos, cases of Crystal and Courvoisier (any of which might appear in one of my hip hop videos): leave the tag on. Bling bling!

can you be more specific about the texture of the shell? that's the part with all the variables. the salty taste is just a matter of how much salt

some good info here: http://baking911.com/cookies/chocolate_chip.htm and http://baking911.com/recipes/cookies/chocchip_3ways.htm

My favorite style of burger is my aunt's secret recipe, which i've since learned she stole from a Julia Child book long before I was born. The basic idea is to mix some raw egg and and finely chopped onion or shallot (very lightly sautéed) in with the ground beef. Other seasonings, like parsley, worcestershire sauce, salt + pepper, can be mixed in too. They can be grilled or broiled. These burgers are especially moist and flavorful, and hold together nicely. The egg seems to bind them, and add moisture as well as fat. I think Julia's original recipe is much more specific and involved, but the basic idea can be freely interpreted, and has always gotten great reviews from my friends.

Paul, Darcie has a regular electric cooktop. She uses cast iron on her induction hob. Darcie also has beautiful cookware purchase when copper was cheap and the US$ was expensive. She liked it so much, she bot a copper sink. Tim ← ahhh, got it. missed that.

Plain copper or aluminum would NOT work. Ferromagnetic implies iron-based. Copper or aluminum would have to be clad in magnetic stainless to work. ← This has been my understanding too, but now DarcieB is saying her 2.5mm copper cookware works on an induction stove. As far as I know, all the 2.5mm copper out there is lined wither with tin or 18-10 stainless (neither of which is magnetic). Wassup??

The copper works at all? I was under the impression that the pan needed to have a significant amount of ferrous metal to work. Interesting.

My Madagascar grade b beans have been brewing for two weeks now (12 beans, 500ml cheap vodka). The extract smells amazing. Compared to the store-bought madagascar extract in my fridge, it's paler in color, but has a bigger, richer, more rounded smell. Even after one week, it was smelling pretty good. Then it had sharper notes to it ... i could still detect a strong presence of vodka. Now the vodka smell is almost entirely gone. I can't wait to check it out after a couple of months.

I wondered about this with cookies; some more experienced bakers warned me that it wouldn't work so well. that i'd get tough, not chewy. not sure if this would be similar with something as moist as a brownie.

As far as the original question, I believe pretty strongly in buying one piece of cookware at a time, based on what you like to cook. Do some research to make sure your using the best technique possible, and then figure out which material and shape piece best supports that technique. Some generalizations ... stainless steel is the most versatile cooking surface for most techniques. With care it can last forever, it's reasonably nonreactive, and the light color makes it much easier to see what you're doing. With good cooking technique, the only thing that will stick to it is the pan juices that you want to stick (with the exception of some foods, like eggs or delicate fish, which need some kind of nonstick surface). Enameled cast iron is fantastic for soups and braises. One advantage is its complete nonreactivity, so you can actually go from the stove to the fridge and back again. Nice wiith the big batches you're likely to make. Seasoned iron or steel is great for browning or blackening or fast sautés, especially things that might stick and that you're not planning to deglaze. Teflon-type nonstick surfaces are ideal for eggs, crepes, fish with the skin ... other things that stick like crazy. They should be seen as special purpose tools for this. They're crappy general purpose pans ... they brown poorly, and are fragile, no matter what the manufacturer tells you. Buy cheap ones, and only the ones you actually need. for sauces and sautéing, responsiveness is important. A shiny, stainless surface helps a lot too. Clad aluminum/stainless is great. Copper with a stainless lining is bliss. Except for a 10" pan, where copper is too heavy and imbalanced to toss ... go for aluminum. One of the most useful pans is 5 to 6 quart rondeaux (or casserole, in america). it can be used for large amounts of sauce or rice, small amounts of pasta, braises, sautés, fricasés, steaming or boiling vegetables, making small quantites of soup, etc. etc.. i have an anodized aluminum one; clad aluminum/stainless would be great. copper/stainless would be really great. stockpots etc need to affordable and light enough to pick up. Stainless with an aluminum disk bottom is great. Anodized aluminum is great, too, but likely not worth the price. My bigggest one is a plain aluminum commercial pot (6 or 7mm thick) that was cheap and works brilliantly. No good for acidic ingredients, but you probably won't make 20 quarts of tomato sauce.

I have le creuset (light, smooth finish) and Descoware (dark, semiporous, staub-like finish) dutch ovens. I prefer the light one. Sticking is a non-issue. If I'm not browning things, then nothing sticks. If I'm browning things, then I want the juices to stick and brown. The light finish just makes it easier to tell the difference between browned and burnt. But it's not a big deal for this kind of pot ... I happily grab whichever one is the right size.

Evidently not! We seem to have some ideas about what it is, but it seems that the people curing the salmon differ. I've been a New Yorker for years (and ordered a lot of lox on bagels) and just found out what it really is right here.

Ray, what are the similarities/differences in the alloys used in surgical instruments and 18-10 steel? And what do you think of the citric acid/edta process? if I have a pan that already has a salt pit or two, would it make sense to try something like this? Would there be any risk of damage (to pan, self, or planet)?

Yup. Not counting prep time it takes a couple of minutes. If it takes much longer the airiness of the sauce will probably be compromised. If you don't have a decently responsive pan and heat source, this will be difficult to do without curdling the eggs. otherwise it's pretty straightforward. turn up the knob and whisk like crazy. when it starts to thicken it will pull together and the bottom of the pan will start showing. keep going for a few seconds, and then pull the pan off the fire, continuing to whisk for 15 seconds or so. then you can drop the heat down and incorporate the butter.

there's a recipe for passivation with citric acid and edta (tetrasoidium salt) here: http://www.thefabricator.com/TubePipeProdu...icle.cfm?ID=888 these are both lurking in my darkroom boxes somewhere. seems like a safer procedure. what i'm curiuos about is this: passivation is supposed to occur spontaneously with 18-10 steel in the presence of oxygen. does chloride corrosion somehow stop this process from occuring (after the salt and water are washed away)? if not, then it seems like chemical passivation would be unecessary.

i haven't noticed much difference between one steaming device and another. one that i like is a retired calphalon double boiler insert (i always just use a mixing bowl for double boiling) that i drilled full of holes. for bigger batches i have one of those pasta inserts that drops into a stock pot. sometimes when i'm lazy i do it without any kind of insert ... just throw the veggies into a pan with a little simmering water. kind of like a high heat braise. the ones on the bottom get cooked a little more than the ones on top, but it all works out. usually the reason i steam is for time/energy conservation. it's so quick to boil that small quantity of water. but in general i think i like the results of boiling better, if it's done correctly. i think boiling got a bad rap from people using too little water. if you treat the veggies like pasta and dump them into a big pot of raging, salted water, they cook so fast and stay incredibly crisp. a boiling vs. steaming clinic would be interesting also ... see which veggies prefer which methods.

I just took a look at the article on Herzmann's site. It's a nice article, but confusing in that he lumps together liaisons and 'finition.' Sometimes they're the same thing (like with beurre mainié), but often they're unrelated. The liaison is the binding agent that thickens the sauce. It can take many forms. it can be integral with another ingredient (flour in demiglace, gelatin in glace, vegetable starches in purées). In other cases they're separate and added somewhere in the middle (reduced cream). and in some cases they're added separately, typically at the end (butter in various forms, refined starches). Finishes include butter, but also seasonings unrelated to the liaison ... like parsley or other fines herbes, acids, salt, pepper, etc.

Steven's summary is excellent. Some things to consider ... Thickness: traditionally sauces were made quite thick (enough to generously coat the back of a spoon). This was accomplished primarily by using a roux-thickened demiglace. Nouvelle sauces tended to be thinner, creamier. They tended to be thickened by some combination of gelatin (from glace de viande), reduced cream, and butter swirled in at the end. Many contemporary sauces are left unbound and are more brothlike. It's up to you, but you should plan ahead based on what you're trying to achieve. Usually the thinner the sauce, the more intensely it should be flavored. This is because you'll be getting less with each bite. For informal pan sauces, I often make them with stock and maybe wine, with a lot of aromatics to get an intense flavor. I then adjust the thickness at the end to give it just a bit more body than a broth. A simple way is to strain it and then swirl in whole butter off the heat. A bit of arrowroot starch can also work well if you don't want the richness of butter. texture: you can make a great rustic sauce by not straining. if you do this, you can make it nicer by chopping your shallot or other aromatics more finely and evenly. or you can strain, preferably through a fine strainer or chinois, for a velvety texture. flavor: in a simple pan-deglazed sauce made with stock, the ideal is often to simulate the flavor and mouthfeel of a natural jus. This is hard, because stock is never as good as jus, even after deglazing the pan. reduction intensifies flavors, but destroys many fresh and subtle flavors. An excellent solution is multiple deglazes (usually two is enough). here's one way to do it: deglaze the pan with healthy amount of stock, and reduce it down to nothing. allow it to brown on the botttom of the pan. As it's starting to brown, add your aromatics. then deglaze as you would normally. if using wine or spirits, reduce by half, or however much you normally would. If not, go straight to adding more stock. In any event, use less stock, and do not not reduce it. just simmer long enough to extract flavors from any long-simmering herbs you're using (thyme, bay leaf, etc.). For roasts, if you roast on a bed of aromatic veggies (onions, etc.), leave the veggies in the pan with the drippings and the fat, and reduce. the liquid drippings will brown on the bottom, leaving the fat floating. You can then simply pour the fat off (a strainer helps you hang onto the veggies). the veggies can stay in the pan through the second reduction, too. this greatly enhances the flavor. if you're going to strain, do so before adding the liason. The idea is you get intensity, and added roasted flavors from the first deglaze. after the second deglaze, the remaining stock is not reduced, so you get to keep its fresh stock flavors. This is similar to the classic method of making demiglace, where unreduced stock is added periodically to the reduction. I learned about multiple brownings/deglazings from James Peterson.

I'm not convinced by this, based on experience and on what I've been reading. I've seen the occasional pit in good quality stainless that's never been abused. And every article I've found on 18/10 stainless alloys (and its cousins) warns against exposure to sodium chloride in high concentrations. Passivation is an issue because chlorine bleach and sodium chloride remove it.

What a way to go.

Ha! Yeah, I find that Mr. Pepin dumbs down a lot of information before publishing it. There are reasons to use clarified butter in Hollandaise sometimes. See this thread: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=87733 Just don't try to use it in a beurre blanc.

Looks like a good subject for a test. I bet there is at least some relevence to the olive oil analogy. Even if butter is pasteurized, this happens at far lower temperature than sautéing. I agree with the idea that you're not looking for neutral flavor with clarified butter. There are plenty of cheaper, neutral flavored oils that can take high heat, for the times you don't want to taste butter. But even so, I have trouble imagining the difference between artisan butter and supermarket butter showing up in a sauté. If you use the clarified butter for other purposes (hollandaise sauce, etc.) I can believe it would make a real difference. If the difference is worth it to you or not is a different story. You'll definitely be clarifying out a lot of the wonderful flavors of that expensive butter. Much of a butter's subtlety is in the milk solids.

I may have to weigh the pans in question to really see if my experience reflects an apples/apples comparison. The differences I see in speed of heating/cooling seem difficult to account for in terms of conductivity alone ... considering we're talking about relatively thin pieces of metal. The vastly superior evenness of heating of the copper is purely a function of improved conductivity. But I'm still betting that the responsiveness issues are at least somewhat related to thermal mass. I could be wrong ... you got me curious. As far as the price of copper cookware, this is something I'm puzzling over. The prices have almost doubled since I bought mine 6 or 7 years ago. I had no idea I was investing in precious metals at the time. The price increase does correspond to big rises in the price of copper, but copper isn't THAT expensive. No more than a few dollars worth in a copper pan (vs. a few cents worth of metal in an iron or aluminum pan). I thought maybe it was the price of the laminated copper/stainless material (all the companies seem to use the same stuff). But the simple, tin-lined pans have gone up at the same rate. Any ideas?

The ideal vessel for making a hollandaise is a slope-sided saucepan. If the pan is of decent quality and you're using a gas stove, then there's no imaginable reason to use a waterbath. You actually want the sabayon to form quickly; if it doesn't, it's not going to be as airy as it might be. The way to get a light, smooth sauce is over medium-high heat, whisking constantly (this is the point of a slope sided pan ... either an evasée or one of those newer curved ones ... to let the whisk get into the corners). It's unvelievably easy. If you're paying attention you won't mess up. Try it once and I promise you'll never go back to a double boiler or blender. What kind of butter to use isn't a matter of dogma but rather of the texture you're looking for. Clarified butter is the best way if you want a thicker sauce; it's also necessary if you're making the sabayon with significant amounts of other liquid (for flavoring). But clarified butter lacks much of the delicate flavor of whole butter. Melted butter allows the lightest, airiest sauce, but since the butter is broken you tend to have a more fragile emulsion. It also can lack some of the delicacy of flavor of a sauce made with whole butter. Whole butter gives the best flavor and most stable emulsion, but will tend to give a denser sauce than melted butter, because of the added stirring required to melt it.

I've read that, and much more rigorous analyses as well. The physics still seems to point to thermal mass and responsiveness being reciprocal.