paulraphael

This fits my experience. I sometimes use one to check the pan temperature before making things like crepes. It doesn't make me a better cook, but it's nice to know the pan is ready without having to make a couple of lousy crepes first. For this it only works on cast iron or teflon; on stainless surfaces the readings are so far off, it's almost as if I'm getting the temperature of whatever's reflected in the pan's surface. It would theoretically be helpful to check baking stone temps for pizza making, but mine doesn't go high enough. I haven't found it useful for measuring the surface temp of food.

This kind of analysis is so situation-specific that it's beyond the bounds of any general discussion. Electricity is generated many different ways; gas is extracted many different ways. Every type of production, and really, every individual well and power station and mine and wind farm is going to have a different energy cost per unit energy extracted. And then what about the energy cost of building the facility? Amortized over what life span? What about the energy cost of energy delivery? Of fuel delivery to the energy plant? It goes on and on. At this point we'd remiss to not discuss the energy cost of food production, which in many cases is higher per kCal than for gasoline. Which is to say, riding a bike to work after eating a Kobe steak may be worse for the planet than driving your grandpa's Cadillac. But none of this is really relevant to which stove is more efficient.

I think the real comparison is with gas. Gas is inefficient but gives great control and a great cooking experience. Induction gives similar control with greater efficiency. I'd be bummed to cook on a standard electric range even if it were magical and used no energy at all.

I've experimented with lapsang souchong, but have had better results in savory dishes. I'd love to use it for a smokey dessert. So far my attempts have tasted pretty off-kilter.

Life is a lot easier with steaks and chops if you aim for about 1-1/2" thickness. This is thick enough that's it's easy to sear without overcooking, and still easy to present in a lot of attractive ways. And cooking times stay reasonable—a little over half the time of 2" chops. What cut are you using? For sous-vide I've used chops from the rib or loin, which don't need any additional tenderization time. If you're doing shoulder chops or sirloin, that's a different story; there's I'd go for a few degrees higher temperature and many hours of tenderizing. For the tender cuts, I set the circulator to 59°C, aiming for an interior temperature of 58°C. This takes 2 hours for a 1.5" cut; 3 hours 20 minutes for a 2" cut. I'd dispense with the brining, but it won't hurt anything [edited to add: these cooking times include pasteurization to core. Checked with SVDash App]

The range of what we call beer is so big that it makes any comparison tricky unless you agree on terms. Beers like Belgian lambics practically cross over into being wines, with their fruit ingredients and long aging. They're not just complex but are complex in many of the same ways as complex wines. But if you compare typical beers to typical wines, a difference, as I see it, is in the type of complexity. Wines are like artisinal bread, where the challenge is to get as much flavor and as much control as possible with just one ingredient. Wheat or grapes. Beer is more like pizza. There's artisinal bread at the foundation (if you're lucky), and then it's about whatever else the chef wants to throw in. That's a pretty reductive comparison, because wine's ingredients themselves offer a different kind of complexity. Grapes are subject to terroir, which for the most part barley and hops aren't. And wine develops much of its flavor while barrel aging and bottle aging, which the great majority of beers don't. So I think wine complexity is a bit more about subtlety, and appreciation of a craft that offers the maker a lot of constraints. While beer complexity is more about range and creativity. It comes from more of an anything-goes culture and is made with a process that offers few constraints.

Ah, ok. Sorry for the confusion. That sounds like a good solution. I'd think just water would do it.

In general, you can expect an inverse relationship between hardness and iciness. Maybe counterintuitively. To make an ice cream softer at freezer temperature, a greater proportion of the water needs to be kept in its liquid state (by dissolved solids that suppress freezing point). The presence of of more liquid water means that more is available to migrate and glom onto existing ice crystals, making them bigger. I'm in the process of adjusting my recipe to make it a bit harder, for this reason. Ideal serving temperature for ice cream is a little warmer than a typical freezer anyway ... 6°F to 10°F. It just means letting the ice cream warm up a bit before scooping. Most home recipes are too hard even in this temperature range. But if you're getting into pastry chef territory and adding milk solids and alternate sugars, it's easy to suppress the freezing point beyond what's ideal.

It uses lambda carrageenan, which is magical stuff. I use that in my own homegrown stabilizer blend and don't know why it's not more popular.

It's the math that's getting you; ingredients for whatever you're putting the glaze on will scale according to volume / mass, but a glaze scales according to surface area. If you cut the main ingredients in half, you should probably cut the ingredients of the glaze by 3/4.

Sounds like there are some practical advantages to the lower wattage consumer circulators, like the 800 watt Anova.

I find it good for things like ravioli filling ... where texture and dryness can be fixed by other ingredients. If there's a lot I save some for my cat, who surprisingly only likes it ok.

How can one be serious about cooking salmon and not want to be with it during the whole process? I had no idea people actually cooked salmon without having it with them in the tub. That would be like not swimming with it before catching it!

Burgers! SV today and then freezing to bring to parties Saturday and Sunday. Working out the details on a new recipe.

Well, they actually do burn a lot longer and more consistently. If you do a side-by-side test it will be obvious. This is because they're denser, so there's more stuff to burn in a given volume ... and less easy access for air. Because of this they also burn at a lower temperature, and are slower get started. It's all tradeoffs. match the qualities to the kind of cooking you're doing. I like to have lump on hand especially for if charcoal has to be added to a grill that's already going. It will be ready much sooner. I also prefer lump for searing food that's been cooked sous-vide. Just because it burns so hot. But for a casual day cooking outside, I find briquettes make life easier, just because of the steady output and longer life.

Yes, I made that point because the lore is widespread, but it's incorrect. The chemistry involved is basic. Once you've reduced charcoal to coals, it's going to be carbon and ash no matter the original source. Wood would be better if you jumped the gun and put the food on too early, but it still wouldn't be good. There are differences in density between the two that give somewhat different cooking characteristics, so the smart thing is to choose based on this rather than on worries about composition.

Refined flour in any airtight container. Square or rectangular ones make more efficient use of space on the shelf. Cambros or the equivalent are great; I use the consumer containers with the pushbutton lid. Either will keep critters out. Plastic is a 100% non-issue here. Even "bad" plastic like polycarbonate can't leach anything into dry flour. The only issue would be stinky plastics like PVC or EVA, but those aren't used in food containers. Whole grain flour should be stored in the freezer if you're not going to use it right away. Refined flour was originally developed to prevent spoilage. Whole grain flours have the germ of the grain which contains oils; these can go rancid. A ziploc freezer bag (or a double layer of them) with as much air as possible evacuated from it would be ideal. This will not make whole grain flour last forever, but I'd guess it would be good for a year or two.

It shouldn't matter what kind of charcoal you use. Whether you use pure wood or something else, it's important to wait til they turn to coals. At that point they're chemically identical: carbon and ash. Use lump if you want faster starting and higher heat; briquettes if you want longer, steadier output. I can't speak to the on-the-coals method. I wonder if imparts as much smokey flavor. It's been shown that fat flare-ups are actually the sole source of smoke flavors in grilled food (even though grilling lore says they're a problem). Does dripping fat get transformed the same way when it gets less air flow?

The question is what happens to the proteins in the yolks when you freeze them. And does it effect their emulsifying properties, their ability to thicken a custard, or anything else about their texture in a custard or ice cream. It's worth an experiment if you can't get an authoritative answer.

Parker's problem isn't that the wines he likes are bad; it's that they're homogenous. He's anti-variety. I like a big, punch-you-in-the-face cabernet. Sometimes. When I'm in the mood. Usually when the wine's the meal, not an accompaniment to the meal. But I also like other stuff. With respect to the contributions Parker's made to American wine culture, it's time he crams a cork in his ego-hole.

I haven't tried this, so maybe do some more research. Egg yolks supposedly freeze well if they're blended with sugar first. This is to provide some protection to the proteins, which could otherwise have their texture changed and their ability to mix with other ingredients impeded—I haven't been able to find a scientific explanation and haven't tested it. If you measure the sugar carefully and note it on the freezer bag, you can just subtract this quantity from the recipe. I don't know for sure that the sugar is necessary here, but don't think it would cause harm.

I made Negroni sorbet yesterday. It was pretty good. Soft, as you might expect, even though I reduced the sugars to about 13%. I changed the ratio to 1: 1.5 : 2 gin/vermouth/campari, since the gin probably offers more alcohol than flavor in this case. To boost gin flavors I infused a bit of thyme, clove, coriander, cardamom, and black pepper, and added a bit of lemon. In the future I'll eliminate the gin and try to infuse a better set of botanicals. Juniper berry of course, and citrus zest, and whatever else seems good. Anyway, as you can probably imagine, it's hard to go wrong with these flavors in a sorbet on a summer day.

Dishwashing detergent is toxic chemicals also. Every chemical is toxic if the dose is high enough. Table salt has a higher oral toxicity than some roach killers, but this isn't an issue, because you'd never eat that much salt all at once. The only issues to worry about are 1) if the chemical will leave residue on your pan that could be toxic, and 2) if it's dangerous to use. With oven cleaner, the answer to 1) is no. The answer to 2) is yes, moderately. But less so than using it to clean an oven, which people have been doing without dying from for a long time.

It's 100% about technique. If the pan is hot enough, the oil gets hot enough, and the food is dry when it goes in, it won't stick. Proteins will stick at first, before the browning reactions are complete, but that's normal. Don't touch anything at this point. If you pry proteins off the pan while they're still stuck, you'll have a mess. Wait until it releases easily before moving or flipping. This works for everything. You can cook delicate fish with the skin on like this (but I'd suggest practicing first with something less sticky / delicate). One of the best techniques for sauteeing proteins is to make a pan sauce by deglazing. You get a delicious, easy sauce and clean the pan, all in one step. If you're not doing that, just throw water into the pan while it's still hot and scrape it with a spatula. The boiling hot water does most of the work. I haven't put a pan in the dishwasher ever.

It's not even gasses; it's very small particulates that get airborne if you get a pan hot enough to destroy it and burn the coating off it. You'll kill a bird just as handily by seasoning a cast iron pan or burning something on the stove. The real takeaway is, keep pet birds out of the kitchen. There's some more info here. FWIW, all non-stick pans are essentially the same. So-called ceramic pans just have particles embedded in the surface to give it some more abrasion resistance. But such pans will still be destroyed by high heat, and will still lose their non-stick qualities—slowly if you baby them, quickly if you don't. None of these pans is dangerous for humans to cook with. If you read between the lines of that report (which is horrifically badly written) you'll see that most of the alarm is about the manufacture of PTFE products. Which is, of course, something to think about. My advice to everyone is to own a single cheap-ass nonstick pan, and use it just for eggs and the few other things they make sense for.