paulraphael

For anything requiring precision and a sharp knife, nothing I've used can touch a Japanese Wa handle. For heavier tasks that need a duller, sturdier chef's knife, I prefer a plain old Western handle. The exact handle size and style is unimportant. Two factors that matter: a rounded spine on the knife (so you don't get blisters) and no bolster. Traditional bolsters are stupid. They making proper sharpening impossible. My heavy German knife, which I like in other respects, had a big dumb bolster. I had Dave Martell Grind it down to get it out of the way. If I were buying a heavy knife now, I'd get a Messermeister or any lower-priced Japanese yo-deba (western handled, heavy chef's knives made for abuse). All these innovative handles look to me like they were created by marketing departments, or by inventors who don't really understand they're making one-trick ponies.

Cold brew seems to be a popular method for coffee ice cream, but I'm not so interested in it because it actually de-emphasizes the origin character of the beans. You extract fewer of the acids and aromatics than when hot brewing. I think this is why it's popular with casual coffee drinkers ... if the coffee beans aren't great quality, you can still get a satisfying cup out of them. But if the coffee beans are awesome, you lose a lot of what makes them so. The sugar and dairy tend to mute those acids and aromatics, so I think you'd risk getting coffee flavor that's all low notes. A final issue is that you get less extraction overall than you do from hot brewing, so to get equivalent strength you have to use more coffee. I'm already putting about $6 worth of coffee into a quart of ice cream ... it would be nice to not spend even more.

Interesting article at Serious Eats on the flavors of different garlic prep techniques. It's all based on one guy's non-blind tasting, so far from definitive, but worth a read.

I'd imagine "low" means speed 2, which is the only speed that KA recommends for bread. On 1 the motor doesn't get enough air flow and is danger of overheating. I don't know if the MC crew define their speeds. I think most people think of 4 to 6 as "medium." If you've got really soupy high-hydration dough I can imagine this working ... if for some reason you really need to beat the crap out of it. With firmer dough this seems pretty dicey to me. KA's top-end machines aren't really what bakers think of as commercial mixers, even though plenty of them get used commercially for smaller stuff. The one labelled "commercial" is distinguished by a few tweaks that make it easier to clean, so it gets an NSF approval. All the real commercial mixers (Hobart, Globe, etc.) change speeds through changeable gears, so they have monstrous torque in low speed, with no sacrifice of cooling power. But it's still not terribly hard to break them!

Kitchenaid's guidelines are not very useful for bread. They don't take into account hydration or degree of gluten development you're going for. You really just have to pay attention to the machine. Watch it, listen to it, keep a hand near the vent to feel how warm the exhaust air is, smell it. Don't wait for the motor to labor, or for the smell of sizzling hot motor windings. The only problem with the higher speeds is that when the mixer gets overwhelmed, it happens much more quickly. You'll have less time to react. You'll be more likely to break a gear than to just overheat the thing. But as long as it the mixer isn't showing signs of struggle it's probably fine. It's telling that actual commercial mixer companies like Hobart give more precise—and conservative—capacity recommendations.

Really? Has any researched actually linked aluminum to anything? I haven't seen any new evidence. If aluminum were a problem, then spinach and other leafy greens would be be a bigger problem than cookware. Unless you make acidic sauces in uncoated aluminum. Which would taste bad.

I can imagine that with some very lean, delicate proteins there could be an advantage to defrosting before cooking. At least with larger portions. Not because the speed of defrosting makes a difference, but because defrosting and cooking in one step will necessarily lead to the outer portions staying at cooking temperature longer than if you started thawed (the outside will defrost quickly; the insides much more slowly as they're getting heated by conduction). This could lead to the outsides being a bit drier. But I haven't tested this. It's possible that other people have and found no problems.

Very much so. In that evaluating taste requires more scientific rigor than most other senses. Scientific methods are designed to eliminate the influence of bias. Bias (expectations, associations, moods, habits) play a huge role in taste. Scientific methods also work against experimental bias (biases toward one result or another that are inadvertently built into the experiment), unrelated variables, and chance. It's not so uncommon today, when one chef says to another "X method tastes better than Y method," to ask, "did you do a blind triangle test?" 10 years ago no one would have known what that meant. Soon it's going to be Triangle-Or-It-Didn't-Happen.

There's a link at the end of the first post in this thread. The blog series includes a few recipes, mostly to illustrate the many pages of theory. My hope is that people can use the recipes as jumping-off points. You should be able to use the ideas to tweak a recipe in whatever direction you like.

There are many ways to get a creamy mouthfeel and freedom from ice crystals that don't require a 100% cream base, or even a 50% cream base. Milk fat is actually less effective at suppressing ice crystals than milk solids, and neither can compete with hydrocolloids, which work their magic in minute quantities. When you're no longer dependent on the cream for texture, you have the freedom use it purely for its effect on flavor. Some flavors work better with high fats than others. A high-fat vanilla or caramel flavor works well. Fruit flavors (in my opinion) lose some of their mojo unless the fat level comes down. High milk fat chocolate ice cream is just lousy. And for coffee ... it really depends on if you want a latte or a macchiato. I've never had a latte in my life and don't plan on it. I'm more biassed than many people against high milk fat ice creams. For me 15% or 16% is a nice point for flavors that play well with fat. I find 18% fat cloying, and 30% gross.

I'd suggest that the 100% cream and the coffee are fighting each other. Milk fat mutes coffee flavor, softening any brightness and slowing its release. To get all the flavor I was looking for, I started with my typical 15% milk fat and ended up backing down all the way to 10%. The creamy body comes from lots of milk solids, which don't mute the flavors anywhere near as much as fat. I'd also suggest that with proper extraction, you get so much natural caramel flavor out of most coffee beans that you'd only want to add actual caramel if you were going for something along the lines of caramel latte.

There's never just one right answer, but I found it surprisingly challenging to answer a more specific question: how can I get the full, thee-dimensional flavor profile of a single-origin coffee into ice cream? How can I get the kinds of intense flavor sensations I get from a one-in-a-hundred, brilliant espresso shot from a master barista? This is something I'd never experienced before.

That's true, unless you're using the raw processing software made by your camera maker. This will usually import your camera style settings. In general I think it's a poor tradeoff; camera companies usually write lousy software, and insist on keeping your files in proprietary formats that could cause problems down the road. The exception being PhaseOne, but if you have one of their cameras you don't need my advice on anything. I'd suggest that using camera styles is a shortcut, similar to shooting in jpeg. It's designed to speed your workflow, but isn't relevant if you're going for the best image quality. Using styles (or jpeg) is about trying to do your processing in-camera, using the built-in, small, not very good screen to make your judgements. Raw workflows are generally about capturing as much high-quality information as possible, and fine-tuning the color balance and density curves when you're in front of a good monitor. Nevertheless, I find that my default Lightroom settings are good enough for posting casual images online much of the time, without any tweaking.

If you shoot raw format, it should be easy to get good color balance from any light source. The only thing that will cause problems is mixed lighting—like, light coming from the window on the left and an incandescent bulb on the right, or incandescent bulbs with different color temperatures, or worst of all, an old-fashioned fluorescent tube somewhere in the mix. There are other reasons you should be shooting raw if you're at all serious about picture quality.

I've made several versions now with different coffees. It's striking how the origin quality of the coffee comes through the ice cream. Right now there's a batch in the freezer made with Stumptown Ethiopia Duromina, and one made with Long Miles Coffee Burundi Gishubi natural process, roasted by my friend at a local coffee shop. The difference is night and day. The first is like cocoa, caramel, and blood oranges. The second is like blackberries, blackberries, and more blackberries. I stopped by the shop last week for a quick espresso, and they pulled me one of the best shots I'd had in my life. It was the blackberry-bomb from Burundi. The owner happened to walk in, I told him how much ass the espresso kicked, and he said, "come back tonight, the producer is giving a talk." I came back with a pint of Ethiopian Stumptown ice cream. The shop owner and the guy from Long Miles flipped out that they could really taste the coffee. The Long Miles guy ate the whole thing. They gave me 100g of the Burundian natural process, which went into the next batch. Next experiment will probably something from Indonesia, just for something entirely different. This project is turning me into a coffee nut.

Fairway probably upgraded the oil quality. Bitterness is a desirable trait among the olive oil cognoscenti. If you want mild, are you sure olive oil is even the best choice? There are oils for cooking that won't add any flavor, and that come with other advantages. If you want olive oil flavor, you can add a bit of good olive oil after cooking. The truth is, virtually none of the inexpensive oil sold as extra virgin is extra virgin. Much of it isn't even olive oil. Some of it doesn't even contain olive oil. The industry is dominated by fraud at the distribution level, and the public just blindly believes that every bottle on the shelf can be extra virgin and can cost under $15. EVOO should be an exceptional oil, not the norm. It should be fairly expensive, and it should be used raw. There is never a reason to cook with actual EVOO. You're paying a premium for oil that tastes good because it wasn't exposed to heat! When I've needed a cheap, mild olive oil, I've had good luck with Whole Foods 365 store brand. It's labelled EVOO, which is almost certainly a lie. But it's inoffensive and affordable. https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/08/olive-oil-fake-larry-olmsted-food-fraud-usda/ https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/08/13/slippery-business https://www.oliveoiltimes.com/tag/olive-oil-fraud?page=6

I doubt many people get sick. It would take a lot of negligence and not a lot of ventilation. But this is the best explanation I've found for why nonstick pans eventually stick.

This study finds that pyrolysis of PTFE begins at 200°C (392°F). Zapp JA, Limperos G, Brinker KC (26 April 1955). "Toxicity of pyrolysis products of 'Teflon' tetrafluoroethylene resin". Summary is online here. It sounds like the reaction is very slow at this temperature. Abstract: Teflon (9002-84-0), a physically inert tetrafluoroethylene (116-14-3) resin, is discussed in a paper presented at the American Industrial Hygiene Association Annual Meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio on April 26, 1955, and it is noted that its pyrolytic products are toxic, and exposure to various mixtures of them will induce polymer fume fever in humans. The latter influenza like syndrome has not been reproduced in animals. Sufficiently intense exposure of animals to Teflon's thermal products, however, is generally lethal. The associated evidence of pulmonary edema, together with other early test results, originally suggested that hydrogen fluoride (7664-39-3) (HF) was the responsible toxic agent. The pyrolysis of Teflon starts at 200 degrees-C and proceeds slowly up to 420 degrees-C; at 500 to 550 degrees-C, the degradational weight loss reaches 10% to 5% per hour, respectively, depending on conditions. In the temperature range 300 to 360 degrees-C, hexafluoroethane (C2F6) and octafluorocyclobutane (C4F8) were identified as decomposition products. In the range 380 to 400 degrees-C, octafluoroisobutylene (also C4F8) could be detected and, at 500 to 550 degrees-C, the chief pyrolysis products other than tetrafluoroethylene (116-14-3) (C2F4) were hexafluoropropylene (116154), (C3F6) octafluorocyclobutane, and octafluoroisobutylene plus a complex residue of perfluoroolefins. Inhalation toxicity tests indicated that the octafluoroisobutylene gas, the most potent product, was approximately ten times as toxic as phosgene (75-44-5). The rat mortality factor seemed to be proportional to the product of exposure time and Teflon surface area as a function of pyrolysis temperature. Teflon 6, a lower molecular weight polymer than Teflon 1, produced more toxic pyrolysis products. Other kinds of industrial polymers were observed to produce lethal atmospheres under less drastic conditions than either form of Teflon There's nothing here about why 500°F would be chosen as the maximum allowable temperature; this might be based on some other studies. You can see from this summary that as temperature goes up, not only does the rate of breakdown increase, but the pyrolysis byproducts change. If you have an awesome commercial range and preheat your omelette pan to 500°C (932°F), you'll fill the air with octafluoroisobutylene, possibly helping with the vital task of population reduction.

This could explain why nonstick pans gradually lose their mojo. As I read it, they warn people about 500F because it's the point where byproducts can reach a concentration in the air that can cause health problems. 400F isn't very hot ... you'd have to be really careful when pre-heating a pan to consistently keep it cooler.

That's really nice, Anna. I'd consider ending it at "...and keep." Rakuten's imagination seemed to wane a bit in the last three lines.

Well, you gotta heat the water. I can maybe see it for plastic cutting boards, but I don't want to dunk wood ones water that hot. And it's not so practical for sanitizing fixed surfaces.

Rakuten's automatic translations may be the best thing that ever happened to avant-garde poetry.

High temperature sanitizing works the same way as pasteurization and sterilization. It's the simplest to understand sanitization, because temperature/time/death curves for all pathogens are well known. I've never heard of a health department not acknowledging it. It doesn't come up so often, because for the method to be practical you need a heat-sanitizing dishwasher. Water from the tap isn't hot enough, and if it were, it would do the same things to the dishwashers' hands that it does to the bacteria. That quotation about dipping a cloth in quaternary ammonium is a bit of a straw-man argument. It's basically saying that if you use those sanitizers exactly the way the manufacturers tell you not too, they won't work well. There are mountains of legitimate research on sanitizers. Beware of treating a single, non-peer reviewed article as gospel. Vinegar has many shortcomings. It's fairly weak against lysteria and e.coli. It's useless against most viruses (quats are ineffective against norovirus, which is the one real strike I see against them). Vinegar is absolutely more effective than not using vinegar, so if you're looking for a bit of additional insurance, there's no harm. Just don't overestimate it.

Oh yeah, that's mandatory. The albumin will curdle. But it doesn't bring bad flavors with it, so if it's a sauce I'm planning to strain, I might just strain the globs out at the end.

The link you cited really just showed generic information on the behavior of a bunch of sanitizers. It doesn't address the measured performance of any of them when sanitizing produce (you can read the same descriptions of these chemicals, practically word-for-word, referring to their performance on nonporous surfaces). Here's an FDA study analysis that directly addresses sanitizers on produce. This is the only one I could find that even addresses peroxide. It's not surprising that H2O2 isn't so popular; It's effectiveness is spotty, and it causes browning of some vegetables, bleaching of others. Excerpts of shortcomings: "Treatment of whole cantaloupes, honeydew melons, and asparagus spears with 1% H2O2 was less effective at reducing levels of inoculated salmonellae and E. coli O157:H7 than hypochlorite, acidified sodium chlorite or a peracetic acid-containing sanitizer (Park and Beuchat 1999)."" "Use of a 1% H2O2 spray on alfalfa seeds and sprouts did not control growth of E. coli O157:H7 (Taormina and Beuchat 1999b)." "... however, obvious visual defects were noted on the treated lettuce." None of this is damning. It appears to be safe to use. But it's also only marginally effective, and can discolor food. If I were looking for a produce sanitizer, I'd keep looking.