paulraphael

I can't find much research on hydrogen peroxide as a sanitizer, except in specialized situations like breweries. Which seems strange—it's great stuff, is very safe to use, is non-corrosive to metals, doesn't damage textiles, etc. etc.. When I worked in a commercial kitchen ages ago we used Ajax-like stuff that said "oxygen bleach cleaner" on the label. It was peroxide based. The idea is that it wouldn't attack stainless steel the way chlorine bleach does. But I never see this stuff anymore. I recently found a Clorox hydrogen peroxide disinfectant online. The stuff is great—I used it to clean up the house after a recent bout of norovirus left the place disgusting and infectious (I won't go into details). This stuff is packaged for hospitals, with a huge label that tells you how to use it to kill everything. It's non-toxic and actually smells good! But it's a strong disinfectant, not a sanitizer. My only guess about peroxide's unpopularity is that weak solutions of it are unstable. They just last a little while, and then you just have a bottle of plain water.

Is this based on any research? Sounds dubious to me. Sandpaper comes in grits finer than the fiber structure of the wood. And I don't think the problem is microgrooves; it's deep grooves. FWIW, David Smith the Boardsmith finishes his wood boards with a belt sander before shipping them to customers. The surface is like glass.

Just don't use a planer on an endgrain board. You'll destroy the board and probably also the planer. 2nd hand advice from the Boardsmith.

Sandpaper (in a palm sander) has worked fine on all my boards. It probably depends on the depth of the grooves. I cut lightly, and use a serrated knife on my bread board only, so I'm not dealing with deep valleys.

Thanks for posting, Lisa. That's all very interesting, although it doesn't suggest that the quats are getting into the environment kitchen sanitizers. The small streams / muddy areas suggests that these quats did not originate in kitchen sinks that's drain to municipal sewers and sewage treatment. I suspect further study will show that the environmental quats are coming from other sources. Some of these sources they mention are new to me ... hand sanitizers and shampoos. These strike me as bad ideas.

In response to the original question, the most important thing with plastic cutting boards is to throw them out when they get deeply scored. Someone around here said they had luck sanding them smooth, but most people say they melt and make a gummy mess if you sand them, which makes them disposable. Beyond that, washing them thoroughly in hot, soapy water is the most important step, and is usually all that's necessary. Sanitizing is a perfectly reasonable precaution (I do it just as a good habit), but unless you're cooking professionally or cooking for people you know to be immune-compromised, it's optional. Vinegar is slightly effective. I think quaternary ammonium compounds (from the restaurant store or online) are the best all around (see above). Doing a thorough job with the washing is always most important. Sanitizers of all kinds (bleach included) are ineffective if there's any food residue on the board.

In what sense is quaternary ammonia less eco-friendly? It's non-toxic at working dilutions. It doesn't damage stainless steel or textiles like bleach does, it doesn't form carcinogenic dioxins like bleach does, it doesn't produce irritating fumes like bleach does. The only time you need test strips is if you're using it as the final rinse in a hand-washing sink and you want to make sure it hasn't been exhausted. Or if you want to check that your employees have mixed it properly. If you're mixing working solution in a spray bottle, you don't need test strips. The shelf life of the working solution in a bottle is over 6 months. I bought my 1-gallon jug of concentrate in 2008 and it's about 2/3 gone now. The concentrate has an indefinite shelf life. When it's gone I'll probably get tablets, like these. At under $9 for 150 gallons of working solution, price isn't much of an issue. I can see just two potential issues with quats: they're not effective against norovirus, which is one of the more common sources of foodborne illness. And they leave a germicidal residue on surfaces. This residue can remain active for many hours, possibly even a few days. There's some concern that this could play a part in creating sanitizer-resistant strains of bacteria. This is a hypothetical concern with quats, but the same phenomenon has been shown to be real with triclosan, which has led to efforts to ban triclosan in antibacterial soaps and hand cleaners.

The idea of extended cooking is somewhat misunderstood around here. It can potentially do just two things: -increase the solids content through evaporation. -get the milk proteins to work more efficiently as ice cream emulsifiers For the first function, this method is no better than simply adding solids in the form of nonfat milk. I'd argue that it's worse, because it's less controllable and is time-consuming. The second function is irrelevant if you have other emulsifying ingredients in the formula. Like egg yolks. Commercial ice cream makers like Jenni's use heat denaturation because they want to avoid eggs (an esthetic choice), and they want to avoid additional emulsifying ingredients (a marketing choice). If these aren't your concerns, then there's no compelling reason to go through the trouble. There's a slight chance that if you made two versions side-by side with identical final formulas (one made with heat reduction, one made with additional cream and nonfat solids and other solid ingredients) you'd get slight textural and flavor differences. But I've never seen this done—certainly not in a controlled, blind taste test. If you want to experiment with heat denaturization, at the very least do it logically and leave the eggs out. I've written about using denatured proteins as emulsifiers here, and as stabilizers here. The truth is that the published science on these topics, with regards to ice cream, is scarce. Most of the practical knowledge lies behind closed doors at places like Jeni's and Haagen Dazs. Jeni might give you some hints if you ask nicely but the big guys won't.

Some chefs / restauranteurs will buy just about everything used except refrigerators and freezers. They're money pits if anything's wrong with them, and you have to know an unreasonable amount to to effectively inspect them yourself. If any are local, maybe you could hire a repair person to inspect it? I see the dilemma. Blast freezers cost a fortune.

There shouldn't be any health concerns. The meat isn't breaded, so you're not adding fat. I haven't used the deep fry approach, but people I know who do this all fry after sous-vide, so they don't lose the crispness to the water bath. And they all get a deeper brown and more serious crust than what I'm seeing in your pictures. I'd suggest playing with oil temperature and time, and either just sticking with the post-fry, or try it both before and after.

Thanks Diana, the starter's going great. My goal is pizza, but have been making one or two big boules a week and am gradually refining the process. I've been finding most of my information online. I realize I don't care too much about formulas and styles; I'm not trying to build a repertoire of different kinds of bread. I have an idea of the kind of daily bread I like (a S.F.-like sourdough boule with a bit more subtlety) and what kind of pizza dough (about 3/4 of the way from NYC to Naples). What's most helpful is sources on the science and on techniques. The folklore and self-contradictory advice and anti-science makes me lose my mind. I don't know how anyone puts up with it. My best source so far has been at pizzamaking.com. I've found things like temperature/activity graphs for wild yeasts and lactobacilli. Between this and understanding gluten development it seems you could make whatever kind of bread you wanted. I've already disowned a lot of what I've learned from Peter Reinhart. I've made pretty good bread by his methods, but his arguments go against the science. You can make the same bread or better bread by faster and simpler methods. I'm intrigued by Hamelman ... maybe I'll get his book. But may be content with the web for a while. I'll check out wildyeast blog and perfectloaf. Thanks again!

I think Deryn's idea would probably work. It's pretty close to a baked hollandaise sauce (minus the wine). The whipped yolks in a hollandaise are called a sabayon—the French version of zabaione / zabaglione. A contemporary approach would be to use an N02 siphon. Blend the yolks, sugar, milk/cream, put into the siphon, foam into your custard cups, and cook in a water bath. I'm guessing it would maintain its foam structure.

I, for one, welcome our new popsicle overlord. Can you school us a little on how you make these?

Has anyone tried making pistachio paste with a vitamix or similar blender? I make nut butters all the time in mine, and contrary to what I was told, get results that are as smooth as anything from the store. Results depend somewhat on the oil content of the nuts. Almonds (which are similar to pistachios) need a little added oil to blend smooth. But pecans and walnuts have more than enough on their own. I wouldn't want to do this all day ... these blenders are irritatingly loud, and a bit of a pain to scrape out. I got a silicone spatula that's the right size for contours of the jug, and I use earplugs. For once a week or so it's pretty painless.

I forgot this topic existed. And am glad no one was overly confused by my abbreviating locust bean gum "lcb." I've done a lot of experimenting since last year and have completely ditched this Migoya formula, but not locust bean gum, which seems to be the best of the conventional gums for taming ice crystals. The xanthan / lbg combination forms a pretty strong gel. The base will turn into a thick pudding when it ages, and will need to be turned into a fluid gel with a stick blender before you can spin it. Even then, the viscosity will be very high; more than what's ideal for most ice creams. This formula might work for a very low-fat or no-fat ice cream that benefits from the gelling (to make up for a lack of creaminess. Xanthan is also not the most efficient stabilizer. I've ditched it and now use a more conventional combination of locust, guar, and carrageenan (I use lambda carrageenan, because it doesn't form a gel in dairy). Right now my favorite ratio is 4 : 2 : 1, with the total of this used at around 0.15%. There's a lot of wiggle room. If you want more body and chew, increase the guar. If you want a thicker, creamier melted viscosity, increase the carrageenan. I've written about this in much greater detail here.

I'd think that would be an interesting hack to compensate for less-than-stellar chocolate. I really don't want to add something like espresso powder to the good stuff.

People develop recipes all different ways. Some are more systematic than others, making the process more efficient, and making it based on reasonable decisions rather than guesses. I'd suggest, for starters, 1. Find a couple of food science books/sites that are written to your level. Take the time with them. Without the basic principles you're flying blind. 2. Use principles from those sources, and use recipes you know to be excellent as starting points. 3. Use weights only. Ideally find professional sources that started out in gram measures; otherwise convert, like you've been doing. If no one else shares a good conversion table I can put one up somewhere. 4. Figure out proportions, so you can see how the ingredients relate. Baker's percentages were invented for flour-based recipes, but work well with anything. Make the main ingredient the 100% reference. Or figure out ratios, or overall percentages. Whatever's easiest to wrap your head around. 5. Try to be methodical. I'd say "be scientific," but in reality few of us have the patience or resources to follow the standards of good science. We're probably going to change more than one variable at a time, and we probably won't double-blind test every result. So just do your best, within reason. 6. Document everything! Keep your old versions. I keep everything as text files on my computer, labeled v.1, v.2, etc.. My girlfriend thinks I'm crazy not to use GitHub, but that may be beyond my personal nerd horizon.

After a lot of years' trying, I think I've finally made a good chocolate ice cream. This is by far the hardest standard flavor, and one that's usually just ok—if you're looking for both intense chocolate flavor and good texture. The basic principles for were -very good chocolate (I used Michel Cluizel Vila Gracinda single origin, 67%) -very good cocoa powder, to increase the chocolate content without excessive amounts of cocoa butter (I used Michel Cluizel dutch process) -low milk fat, to compensate for the added fat from chocolate (I went to 10% milk fat) -no eggs. no need for yet another fat source -all added sugar in the form of trimoline and dextrose. These sugars soften the ice cream, fighting the cocoa butter's hardening effects. -lecithin as an emulsifier, since there are no eggs -a stabilizer blend that's tweaked to get the texture right. The results are pretty insane. My only complaint is that it's a bit like pudding when it melts in your mouth, but I'm not sure what to do about that. It IS pudding. Formula for about 1L: 460g (1 cup 7 oz) whole milk 45g trimoline 50g cocoa powder (best quality) 65g dextrose powder 3g soy lecithin 1.2g salt 1.2g locust bean gum 0.6g guar gum 0.6g lambda carrageenan 130g (4.7 oz) bittersweet chocolate (best quality, 67–72% cocoa solids, chopped or in pastilles / chips) 240g (1 cup) heavy cream 10g vanilla extract (optional) (Add trimoline to milk. stir together powdered ingredients. add to milk in blender, blending on highest speed for a minute. add chocolate. blend on high for 2 minutes to emulsify. briefly blend in cream and extract. cook to 80°C. homogenize for one minute in blender. chill. It's going to be very firm after aging. Zapping with the whisk attachment of a stick blender will thin it enough to spin in the ice cream machine) I'll do a more thorough post on chocolate on the underbelly blog. Maybe after a couple of minor tweaks.

There are other types of maltodextrin. The tapioca version is usually used for solidifying fats (like in instant cake recipes, or experimental dishes). The other kind I've seen comes from brown rice or corn. I don't know the functional differences; I've just heard about it being used to boost solids in industrial ice cream. Edited to add: I just looked around and it doesn't seem like there are any functional differences. Edited again to add: There ARE functional differences. You might have to talk to reps at the manufacturers to sort them out. Here's a bit of info.

Here's my current template for sorbets. I believe there's room for improvement; after some more experimenting this summer I'll do a sorbet post. No matter what, all fruits are different, and so this can't be anything more than a general suggestion (this will be pretty close for berries, way off for lemon). I'm glad you did that experiment with reducing some of the watermelon. It sounds like it didn't hurt. I'd be curious to know if it made much positive difference. Crumbly textures are always the challenge with sorbet. You get them because there's just so much water, and therefore so much ice. There's no milk fat making things creamy, and there are usually far lower solids levels displacing and controlling the water. I have yet to make sorbet that's as creamy as ice cream, but it's definite goal. For approx. 1000g final product: -70% (700g) puree (after hulling, pitting, straining, etc.) you may need up to 33% more than this in whole fruit. -Total sugar, including sugar from fruit (measure or use chart) should be 18% Sugar composition should be: -0-30% sucrose -40-70% dextrose (reduce or eliminate if using alcohol) -20-30% trimoline (I’ve been using more and more dextrose, since it’s least sweet and suppresses freezing the most) -Water for syrup: -30% minus weight of added sugars -Stabilizers: -0.2 to 0.3% of sorbet stabilizer blend: 4 : 2 : 1 : 1 LBG - guar - lambda carrageenan - kappa carrageenan for 1000g: 1.5g LBG, 0.75g guar, 0.38g lambda carrageenan, 0.38g kappa carrageenan -0.07–0.1% salt -In citrus flavors, up to 3% / 30g nonfat dry milk -In herbal flavors, up to 0.7% / 7g herbs -up to 1% / 10g lemon or lime juice to balance acidity (optional; taste puree) -1% / 10g fruit brandy optional in fruit flavors or for alcohol-centric flavors: -up to 7% 80-proof booze (no more than 3% pure alcohol) (reduce water to equal amount) -total solids should be 33% -fruit solids: see chart -sucrose / glucose solids: 97% -trimoline solids: 82% -glucose syrup solids: 63% ********** -disolve all solid ingredients into water (pre mix stabilizers into sugar). -bring to a simmer and remove from heat -if using herbs, cover and let cool at room temp for 30 minutes -chill at least 4 hours -blend to break gel into fluid gel -strain any herbs from syrup -puree and strain fruit / add any citrus juice / alcohol. chill. -mix syrup and puree; spin in ice cream machine -draw at -5°C / 23°F -harden in freezer

Interestingly with ranges, the very high-end products (DCS, Bluestar, Wolf—at least before they were bought by sub zero) are much simpler than lower end models. Fewer electronics, simple controls, etc., and yet they still seem to have poor reliability records. At least this is what I've read over the years. I've always had cheap ranges, which perform poorly but almost never break.

I'm activating my very first sourdough starter and am wondering if anyone has recommendations on the best sources for sourdough bread knowledge? I have Ed Wood's book ... it's alright, but goes out of its way to take a folksy tone and to avoid technical talk. I'm not sure if it's up to date on modern breadbaking techniques. Also have Reinhart's Breadbaker's apprentice. What's the word on his approach to sourdough? Any other great sources, online or off?

I think a restaurant would have to put a notice on the menu. Vegetarians also want to know if there's gelatin in the sorbet.

If you're cooking it a long time over lower heat (like Ducasse) whole butter won't be a problem. If you're searing at high temperature and then finishing on low heat, the old trick is to sear with a neutral high-heat oil, then spoon butter on after you turn the heat down. Keep letting it brown, and keep basting it over the top with a spoon. The steak isn't going to "soak up" the butter flavor no matter how you do it; you're just giving it a coating of butterfat that's been flavored by all the browned butter solids.

Well, maybe, with caveats. You can make a delicious meal with any pasta, but if the pasta itself isn't excellent, some of your cooking craft is going into compensating for this. If you're starting with premium pasta, you'll have other options open ... like making dishes that foreground the pasta itself. I can't buy any of my favorite pastas in my neighborhood, so usually what's the shelf is a couple of mid-level brands (like DeLallo, which I find much better than DeCecco or Barilla, but still not special). I just make different kinds of dishes with these pastas. I use more sauce, and make the dish about the sauce.