paulraphael

That's interesting, too, thanks for posting. It contradicts what I posted above about there being no legally recognized designation for Kobe in the U.S.. But! It only covers beef labelled "Certifed Kobe Beef®" ... which I've never encountered. You can still throw around the world "Kobe" in other phrases with impunity, as it seems everyone does. Reminds me quite a bit of balsamic vinegar, which practically doesn't mean anything anymore. Anyone can call anything they want Balsamic. But there's an official designation for Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale ... which means it actually has to be the stuff that was once just called balsamic vinegar.

What I've read from Japanese chefs says unequivocally that the tender cuts are cooked beyond rare. There is an insane amount of marbling, and if the fat doesn't melt, it's unpleasant. It's possible that the way the beef is raised, the fat is higher in unsaturated fats than typical beef, and so would melt at a lower temperature. I'd still assume they cook it somewhere north of 54°C / 129F. I haven't been to Japan, so have only had fake Kobe.

This is interesting ... it says that before 2001 there was a small quantity of Kobe beef imported into the U.S., just as there is after 2012. Which still means that in the ensuing 11 years, everyone selling Kobe beef here was lying, while before and after, it was only most people. The passage distinguishing Kobe from Kobe-style does not sound like a U.S. legal designation. It just looks like a clarification of language for the purpose of this document.

Yeah, I think I'd rather do my taxes. From what I've heard, the biggest nuisance in NYC is actually filing the plan and dealing with getting it reviewed and approved.

I want to share a strategy I've worked out for determining cooking times. This is all about short-cooking (without added time for tenderization). When I first got the Sous-Vide Dash app, I was confused that the suggested times were all much longer than times given in the tables in Modernist Cuisine. In some cases the differences were close to 50%. I exchanged some emails with Darren Vengroff, the app's developer, who explained that the app strictly follows the best models for heat propagation. The issue is the long tail of the curves: you might get within 1/2 degree after 30 minutes, but that last final bit can take a long time. This is why Myhrvold recommends setting the circulator to 1°C higher than the target temperature. But I find that this still leads to surprisingly long cooking times. It occurred to me that we habitually use the core temperature as the target temperature. This makes sense in cases where you need to pasteurize food all the way to the core, but in practice it means either 1) if you set the water bath temperature higher than the target, you will have a gradient, and every part of food besides the center will be cooked higher than the core, or 2) if you set the water bath exactly to the core temperature, cooking times will be extremely long. After a bit of experimenting, I've started following the Mhyrvold recommendation of setting the bath 1°C higher than the target temperature, but then in the SV dash app, setting the core temperature 1/2°C LOWER than the target temperature. This achieves two things. It significantly shortens cooking times, actually bringing them into a range that's roughly similar to the MC tables. And the gradient, if it's perceptible at all, puts a larger portion of the food close to the target temperature. Of course I'm not talking about huge gradients like you see in conventional cooking. I don't notice this kind of gradient at all when cooking beef. But with salmon, it's perceptible, and can actually be pleasant. You get a very subtle range of textures, from less cooked than the target at the center to slightly more cooked at the edge.

Evenness of heating over the whole bottom of the pan is important. Evenness of heating over time isn't an issue for any pans on the stove. That's something you look for in a dutch oven or other braising vessel, so it can even out the huge temperature swings of an oven. There aren't any advantages to a saucepan that responds slowly to temperature change. Generally the more responsive the better. But the importance of this depends on the kinds of sauces you make. If you make hollandaise family sauces, reduced cream sauces, chocolate sauces, or anything like a creme anglaise, responsiveness is important. If you make tomato sauces that just sit there and simmer, it makes very little difference. The best materials for a sauce pan (at least the conductive part on the bottom) are thick copper or aluminum.

Blether, that may be so, but those are examples of corruption. The mislabeling of Kobe here is is legal, and so it's completely rampant and it's hard to know what to do about it.

If you have really good Belgian beers or lambics, drink them. Anything full-bodied, and possibly on the dark side will work for cooking. The beer can flat and even a bit stale ... won't matter. The more delicate flavors are going to vanish.

When you see kobe beef in the U.S., you are probably being lied to. In Japan, Kobe is a legal designation. Beef doesn't just have to come from the region, but has to come from specific cattle that have been raised under strict rules governing everything from their feed to their living conditions and daily handling. No U.S. governing body recognizes this designation, so here, Kobe can be attached to anything. Most commonly it designates beef from wagyu cows, which are pretty good cows, but only responsible for a small portion of the true kobe beef quality. Up until 2012, no Japanese beef of any kind was imported to the U.S.. So everything labelled kobe was a lie. In the last two years, tiny quantities have been imported, under new regulations. But the name is still unregulated here, so how can you know what's real Kobe and what isn't? You'd better check the fine print. When I see restaurants offering $8 kobe burgers, I walk away, because it just seems like an insult to everyone's intelligence. It makes me wonder what else they're lying about.

As a followup on pbear's post, a traditional way saucepan makers control the ratio of volume to surface is with a tapered pan. Most serious sauciers will have at least one of these slope-sided pans, called a windsor pan or an evasée. These keep the ratio of surface to volume fairly constant, whether you're using the pan for different volumes of sauce or using it for reduction. The sloped sides also make it easier to reach the whole bottom with a whisk—especially handy with emulsified egg sauces. Another version of these pans has a curved bottom, to make whisking even easier. These are sometimes called a saucier or chef's pan. You give up some of the even taper. Both styles are great; the difference is a mater of preference. My 1.5L evasee is my desert island saucepan. It's the one piece of copper I'd buy again if starting over. It's good for as little as 2 servings, or as many 18 or so.

-a way to sync with via bluetooth with a computer that could text you when you're not home (I know this would be complicated ... but I don't need remote contact if I'm at home with the circulator). -alerts in case of wide temperature fluctuations or power interruptions -ability to program multistage cooking ... like a precook at low temperature for increasing tenderness, followed by the final cook at higher temperature -ability to set an on-timer, so it can start heating the water a half hour before i plan to get home A more advanced app could have the features of the sous-vide dash app, but with better graphics and ability to control the circulator directly. But the developer of that app may be planning such a thing.

A big kerfuffle in NYC is a recent law requiring HACCP plans for any restaurant with a vacuum packing machine. All because of a health dept. that didn't understand sous-vide cooking, and so decided a wild and irrational overreaction was in order. This has placed a huge burden on restaurants that just wanted to cook food the way every other good restaurant in the U.S. and abroad is doing it. I'm not sure how they all manage ... if they're really creating these plans and filing them with the dept., and having consultants and inspectors checking them out all the time, or if they're just hiding the machines in the basement.

The other difference is that a lot of ice cream blends contain emulsifiers ... sometimes lots of mono- and di-glycerides, especially if they're intended for egg-free ice creams. These won't hurt anything, but sorbets don't need emulsifying.

It makes sense to use a stabilizer designed specifically for sorbets. Some stabilizing ingredients (like kappa carrageenan) react with calcium, so they'll give a very different result in a dairy formula than a non-dairy one.

It stands for Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point. Which is wonderfully awful and ambiguous. But it refers to a regimented set of rules for preparing food safely, including documenting the exact source of every ingredient and documenting times and temperatures of every step critical to safety. It's a colossal pain in the ass, and used primarily with foods that pose special hazards or when serving people who have compromised immune systems. It was originally developed for companies that manufactured food for astronauts. As you can imagine, a case of salmonella on the space station or a moon landing vehicle would suck more than the usual amount.

So, the early verdict is that these are great. Just like other twisty trays, but incredibly easy to release. And they stack in really positive and space efficient way. I also got a pair of the Tovolos, which probably won't see everyday use. My main issue with them is that the ice took hours longer to freeze. There's no air space separating the cubes. This would seem to be a tradeoff for the more efficient use of space. Also the cubes are bigger, and silicone may be more of an insulator than the plastic of the others.

Oh, yeah, it's just polyester. Wash and dry it with impunity. I use the microfiber towels exclusively for wet stuff, because it works so nicely. But I use cotton for handling hot pans, because the microfiber scorches and melts at a much lower temperature.

I picked up the habit of using side towels for grabbing pans from restaurant cooks. Now i won't go back. Pot holders feel clunky and are single purpose and don't easily stay on the handle of a pan. Oven mits, yikes. They gross me out ... has the inside of one every been cleaned, in the history of kitchens? Maybe some can be turned inside out and machine washed, but I've never witnessed it. The ones in my experience are petry dishes. I make an exception for a pair of silicone ones (the ones that look like sharks). These are borderline reasonable to clean/sanitize on the inside, they're waterproof (so you can grab hot things that could splash you, or reach into a hot sous-vide tank for something that you might damage with tongs). I mostly use them for reaching into a very hot oven when I'm afraid of bumping into something with arms, back of hands etc.. But that's like once a month.

Have you noticed that rubbing alcohol now has an expiration date? Ploy or not, I think mustard is something that loses potency as it ages. There's no magical date at which it's bad, but it will tend to better now than next month, no matter how old it is.

I used to live across the street from an ice sculptor who had to make big blocks of perfectly clear ice. His trick was to keep the water circulating ... he used something that looked like an aquarium pump. This apparently stopped air bubbles from forming.

I ordered a couple of Rubbermaid trays that good reviews on amazon, and a couple of the Tavolos. Expecting a hot rest of the summer ...

Preference? I like the beater blade so much I haven't used the original attachment in years, except for abusive things like crushing little rocks of brown sugar. But I haven't tried the others.

I have an earlier model of this Taylor that's super cool. Thermocouple, infra red, and it's water resistant. Taylor 9306N

Yeah, I figured the plastic twisty ones ... that's what I have now. I need some more, and the current ones are only ok ... I fight with them a lot and ice goes flying. I was wondering if they're all basically the same or any of them will make life better.

Those of you unblessed by the automatic icemaker deity, what sucks the least? Ease of getting the ice out, stackability, space savings, and durability are all plusses.