paulraphael

Re: Australian coffee, Toby's Estate has moved into NYC and has been warmly received. My local shop now carries it in place of Stumptown. It seems to be in the same league but a bit more reasonably priced.

It's possible that what you're calling "light roast" and what people at Stumptown and Heart and Counter Culture call light roast are quite different. The term is obviously subjective and ambiguous; without side-by-side pictures it's hard to know what anyone's talking about. To get into the ballpark, I believe these guys are all roasting lighter than what was common in France and Italy (at least 20 or 30 years ago) and quite a bit lighter than what you see at Starbucks. I don't think any of them do a truly pale, very light roast for their standard offerings, especially for an espresso (which would be overly bright and acidic). Which also leads me to scratch my head when you talk about light roasts making coffee that tastes like dirt. Typically you'd expect the opposite; the lighter the roast, the higher the acidity. Too light = too bright. Unbalanced w/r/t tartness vs. sweetness. How long do you rest the coffee after roasting?

What do you mean? When we cook food to pasteurization—to make it safe—we base our times and temperatures on data. At least that's what I do. I don't have a lab to analyze my food.

The guy who used to be the fish butcher at Le Bernardin in NYC (and maybe still is) used to talk about this. He was one of these near superhuman kitchen workers, who needed to be replaced by two or three guys on his days off. He cut everything perfectly without any waste. He talked about the right degree of sharpness ... too dull and and the cuts were rough; too sharp, and when filleting certain kinds of fish the knife would sever the pin bones rather than sliding the flesh off of them (if I remember correctly). This does seem to be technique-specific. Japanese fish butchers use a deba, which is single-beveled and traditionally extremely sharp, except at the heel where it's given a back-bevel to withstand cleavering through bones. But in Japan the approach to butchering fish is completely different and so the concerns are different as well. I suspect Japanese-style butchering is a slower, more involved process than what they use at Le Bernardin.

K.C. taught me how to cut, so I think I can speak to this. He didn't keep chives in the fridge as a matter of course; it was a demonstration. The idea being that if they stay fresh for days, they'll definitely stay fresh for a few hours. Which allows you to cook more efficiently: instead of the European method of cutting your herbs at the last possible instant (during service when a million other things are going on), cut them first, when your knife is at its sharpest. There's no penalty if the knife is truly sharp.

I did this test with chives and the difference was evident after 45 minutes. The herbs you're cutting there (for whatever reason) just aren't that susceptible to enzymatic browning, so they're not showing much difference.

Your meat was pasteurized when the heat went off, so the danger is from anaerobic bacteria, like c. perfringes and c. botulinum. These love warm temperatures in a low-acid environment in a bag where there's no air. They produce toxins that are not destroyed by normal cooking temperatures. It's impossible to say how likely this was in your situation. I don't think there's any way to predict the presence of these organisms on raw meat, or any way to test for the toxins (without a chemistry or biology lab). My guess is that the probabliity is low. But the stakes are high. Like daveb, I'd be inclined to eat it but not to play Russian Roulette with guests.

So, based on location, price, and possibility of reservations, we ended up at Chez Michel ... a 9:30pm reservation the night before we had to get up at 4:45 to get to the airport. And worth it. Everyone in our group loved it. Didn't exactly fit the mould of the upstart / experimental new restaurant, but I gather from reviews that the chef has reinvented the place a few times since the 90s, and has hit on something that's part traditional Breton and part unique. We spent a lot of time with the chalkboard menu. Even the native French speaker in our group needed help deciphering a few of the dishes. We were surprised by how casual the place was, and how inexpensive. Reviews had me expecting higher prices (not our usual experience). The chef himself sauntered around the dining room, answering the waiter's questions and at one point spending about five minutes recommending wine. He was expansively friendly, spoke no English, and with his rustic / Serge-Gainsbourgian good looks seemed to have been delivered straight from Central Casting. I wish we'd had the time and budget to visit some more places, especially more contemporary ones, but this was a great meal and a restaurant I'd recommend to anyone. Day to day we found the bread and pastries to be relentlessly good, but the restaurant food to be only decent ... probably because it was too challenging to get away from places that thrived on tourist traffic. Fresh fruit was absolutely perfect everywhere, including corner shops and tarts at lower end patisseries. Vegetables are more of a challenge ... our friends in Paris have to travel and research to find veggies that taste anywhere near as good as they look. The fish we found at various markets and a Bon Marché was excellent and stupefyingly expensive. i ended up cooking dorade, rather than the more interesting looking varieties, partly because I couldn't identify the others, partly because I couldn't afford them. We had a loaf of bread from Poullin, the one they call their specialty, and it was completely unremarkable. But our friends' local baguettes from la Parisienne are as good as any I've had. We could have eaten baguettes and nothing else and been happy. We loved the 4 and 5 Euro bottles of wine. Coffee everywhere came out of automatic machines ... big espresso machines at cafes, little Nespresso abominations at people's houses. It was all uniformly good ... better than the average cup you find in NYC, worse than the best cups. We spent a few days in Rome afterwards. Espresso was better. Even the touristy gelato was pretty good (nut flavors especially). But food overall was really bad. The nicest restaurants had decent food (but not memorable). Everything else a disappointment. Nice statues though. Maybe this should have its own post. Thanks again everyone for the tips!

That Konosuke is quite similar to the Ikkanshi Tadatsuna gyuto I've been using for past 5 or 6 years. It's my favorite style of knife, since the thin edge geometry lets it cut efficiently even after losing its fresh-off-the-stones magic. When it gets dull, it still works better than a heavy chef's knife ... except for the kinds of things a heavy chef's knife does better in the first place, like cutting tough, woody, stemmy things, beheading fish and chickens, chopping chocolate, etc.

Yes, that's my experience as well. I think it's just something that people aren't educated about, and don't want to be educated about. The topic bores them. They want to have a Good Knife, but don't want to pay any attention to it. Use it on glass cutting board, throw it in the sink, the dishwasher, the drawer, and maybe five years from now say "huh, maybe I should get this thing sharpened." This is why I bring my knives when I go anywhere to cook, and why people who come to help cook in my kitchen they use my girlfriend's knives (she doesn't care) and not mine. Unless they care enough to let me teach them. Which has happened maybe twice ever. But in my pontifications about very sharp knives vs. sort-of sharp knives, I wasn't even thinking about the typical home knife drawer. Those knives don't even have edges on them. By sort-of sharp, I'm talking about those knives when they were brand new, or when freshly sharpened on a coarse stone or ceramic rod.

Seriously, Rotus, if you haven't had Stumptown or Intelligentsia, how do you know that no commercial roaster can roast as well as you? Considering that I'd never encountered well-roasted coffee anywhere in NYC before those two came to town, I can only assume it's not easy. The home-roasted coffee I've had was indeed better than Starbucks ... I'll leave it at that.

Rotus, do you think Stumptown and Intelligentsia coffee tastes like dirt? Or maybe you're using a different definition of light roast than they are.

Do Stumptown and Counterculture beans taste like dry dirt dust to you? Maybe your idea of light roast is lighter than what they're talking about.

as of when?

I have to agree with the glaring Aussie barista snob in the first post. As good coffee availability has improved, i've noticed my favorite roasters all use a light roast. I had a long conversation with a rep at Stumptown about this; she simply said that the darker the roast, the less the intrinsic quality of the bean comes through. Once you get to "Italian Roast," it hardly even matters what you started with. This is why dark roasts are favored by companies like Starbucks. I've noticed the same pattern at companies like Intelligentsia and Counter Culture (although I buy less of their coffee and haven't have talked to anyone there ... I can't say for sure they don't roast anything dark). Anyway, I'm sold. By far the most complex and flavorful coffees I've had are light roasts. Dark roasted beans taste to me much more one-dimensional.

These guys have been my favorite roaster for the last couple of years. They moved into New York and practically took the town from some of the local roasters (guys like Gorilla coffee, who excel at graphic design but don't seem to know much about roasting). Then this fall, I'm seeing that a lot of coffee shops that used to serve Stumptown or sell their whole beans have switched brands. I'm seeing replacements like Heart Coffee (unimpressed by my first try) and Toby's Estate (still deciding). When I've asked people behind the counter, I get cryptic answers. The suggestion is that Stumptown's quality has declined, but no one's coming out and saying it. Other possibilities, of course, are that they've become more expensive or harder to do business with, or that I'm only imagining a pattern. Any thoughts, from NYC or elsewhere?

We probably agree about that, although I don't like putting people in boxes like "normal cook." It seems more about priorities and temperament than anything normative. I actually like the working style and esthetic of the European knife and Cordon-Bleu techniques. The idea of a jack-of-all-trades tool (chef's knife) that always does your bidding and can be quickly and simply maintained (steeling) appeals to me tremendously. The question is if the appeal of Japanese-style cutting and sharpening techniques outweigh the costs—which I see as additional education and a more heightened need for attention. Different cooks are going to answer that differently, but I don't think it has to do with who's more "normal" or who's more professional. I think I'd mentioned in an earlier post that at a Michelin 3-star seafood restaurant where I staged, I saw all kinds of knives and all kinds of techniques. Everything from garden-variety Wusthoff to laser-thin gyutos with wa-handles. What I'm getting at, is that it's for the cook to decide. The benefits to sharp knives (in the Japanese sense) are real. So is the investment in new skills, and the added attention they require. No one can make the cost/benefit analysis for you.

Tell that to all the chefs in Japan. Here's how I like to show off with a sharp knife: all the cuts look great, all the herbs are fresh and vibrant, even though I cut them two hours ago, I finished prepping the food 20 minutes faster than I otherwise would have been able to, I don't have to stop and steel the blade to keep the edge useable, and even if I did this all day long I wouldn't get one of those knife calluses on my index finger.

Actually, I don't think many butcher shops use especially sharp knives. They get their cutting ability from a moderately sharp but very toothy edge. Most butchers use forschner or dexter kinds of knives, sharpened on a grinder by a sharpening service, and maintained on a steel. Commercial grinders use a coarse-grit that gives a toothy edge; this does a great job ripping through the sinewy, slippery texture of raw meat. A thinner edge with a mirror polish cuts even better, but the advantages are less significant with meat that's going to be cooked. Any time you see someone maintaining a knife with a butcher steel, you know it's not a very sharp edge. A thin, mirror-polished edge would get trashed by steeling. Thin edges need to be maintained on waterstones on on strops. What you're seeing in those butchering videos is the skill of person with the knife. They're slipping the blade perfectly through the joints of the chickens or between the muscle groups of the cow, so the knife has to do surprisingly little work.

Yeah, victorinox doesn't make a big deal about their steel, but it does seem to take a better edge than the usual German suspects. I just use their utility / boning knives, and for that purpose keep a fairly burly edge on them, but have noticed they'll go pretty thin. Some of the Japanese and Swedish steels can go much thinner. My gyuto is made of hitachi ginsanko (basically the same steel as vg-1 and the Swedish 19C-27), and I sharpen practically like a single bevel knife. About 10° on the outside, and nothing more than deburring it on the inside ... a barely visible bevel. This steel doesn't hold an edge exceptionally long, but the nice thing with this thin geometry is that it cuts pretty well even when dulled. If you used it for a long shift, it would be way duller at the end than at the beginning, but still way sharper than anyone's German knives were at the start of the day. The trick with a knife like this is to start with all the most delicate stuff (herbs, etc.) even though it means they'll sit longer. Finish with the more robust ingredients.

To your original question, unfortunately I can't think of anything better than winging it and splitting the difference. I checked the tough-cut texture tables in the MC books, and they don't have anything on chuck. And I'm not sure what kind of flaky or pull-apart texture would work on a meat slicer. I've never used one, but my impression has been that slicers are generally paired with tougher, more cohesive cuts—the final tenderness comes from the thin, across-the-grain cutting. Not sure how well a slicer would do on something that readily flakes apart, either from a slicing or eating perspective.

Still a lot cheaper than anything I see. Must be a totally different economy. I'd be rather suspicious of anything called prime rib in the developed world being sold for $6/lb, regardless of the nominal grade. If I saw nice looking chuck for $6/lb, I'd happily sous-vide it. And I'd 100% think of it as poor-man's prime rib. Another angle on the prime rib: imagine what you'd have to do to raise a steer so cheaply that you could sell the most desirable parts for $7/lb. The thought makes me extremely uncomfortable.

You're not alone. But this can be a matter of degree. Sorbets are great, but a well made fruit ice cream can be great also. In the sorbet you taste an intensified version of the fruit; in an ice cream you taste fruit and cream. I agree 100% that the cream should be reduced and the eggs should not be perceptible. I'd suggest thinking more along the lines of what people in the U.S. consider gelato: aim for milk fat between 10 and 12%, and keep the eggs at or below two yolks per 1000g. If you go below this level of yolk, you may want to introduce another source of emulsifier.

Wow, $6/lb sounds like poor-man's prime rib to me. In response to Rotus finding the chuck inconsistent from part to the other, it can be helpful to specify the chuck-eye. that way you're mostly getting the prime-ribish muscle and not the other (myriad and assorted) ones.

I think this is the root of our disagreement. Technically, yes, no one needs anything more than a knife that's somewhat sharp in order to make little ones out of big ones. But there are serious advantages to knives that are "scary sharp" by western culinary standards. In Japan, such knives would just be called knives. If you have an extremely sharp blade, whole new culinary techniques become available. You're able to work with more finesse than what's possible with European techniques. It's unfortunate that the hybridized Japanese/western techniques aren't widely taught. There isn't a lot online or in cooking school. I was lucky enough to learn from a chef who'd trained in Japan. It was the second time I threw out everything I knew about cutting and started over again, and I'm pleased that I did. Possibly the biggest advantage is that your cuts will be cleaner and the food that you cut will stay fresher looking and fresher tasting. People don't believe me, but I can cut herbs hours before service and they will not turn brown. They will in fact not turn brown even in 24 hours (they'll eventually shrivel and dry out, or go limp and ferment, depending on climate). But I can make cuts that are so surgical that none of the oxidative enzyme reactions are triggered. I don't believe this is possible with a knife that's sharpened to western knife standards. A Wustoff knife right from the store isn't anywhere near sharp enough. This is why sushi knives are so damn sharp—sharper even than anything I use. You don't need such a crazy sharp knife just to cut fish. But to make cuts with a glass-smooth finish, that retain their uncut flavor from the kitchen to the table, and do so to the standards of a chef who's honed his palate for such things—you need blades that are sharp as hell. And yes, every cook at a serious Japanese restaurant hits the stones every day. The advantage I find in day-to-day cooking is mostly that I like the techniques more. Western techniques are about transmitting force to the cutting board, and compounding it with the shearing action of rocking the knife. The Japanese and hybrid techniques are about letting the edge do the work. Unless I'm cutting something tough (in which case I use my german knife or a cleaver), I NEVER apply force to a knife. I do all my cutting with just the weight of the blade. And my gyuto is very light. The grip I use on the wa-handle is more like what you use on a violin bow than on a western knife or a hatchet. It's more about guiding the blade through the food than pushing it I find this a lot more fun, and more interesting, and less tiring. Sometimes it's just a bonus that the cuts are all glass-smooth and surgical. I wouldn't suggest that cutting this way is mandatory. When I staged at a Michelin 3-star seafood restaurant, I saw people using a huge variety of knife styles and cutting styles. Which suggests there's no one right answer. That said, I haven't met anyone who's learned the Japanese techniques and gone back western-style cutting ... or to western standards of "sharp."