KensethFan

I just saw an advertisement on the Food Network for a new show called "Secrets of a Restaurant Chef" with Anne Burrell as the host/chef. Most of you will know Anne from her appearances as Mario Batali's sous chef on Iron Chef (apparently in 23 episodes). Anyway, the way the show is set up is that Anne teaches the home cook techniques and tips on cooking restaurant food as she says "without the crazy ingredients and so they are less intimidating for the home cook." I looked on the FN website and saw that the first five shows are: 1. Bolognese 2. Roasted Leg of Lamb 3. Roasted Chicken 4. Seared Bass 5. Grilled Porkchops She has the cooking chops to teach and share. She is very qualified. It might be interesting to see how it goes. I just hope its a "real cooking show" and not the typical watered down FN garbage. Guess we'll see. What do you think?

Another trainwreck in the making.

This is gonna be really cool!!!! Being from Ohio and very close to the Cleveland area, I've had a chance to eat at Lola and interact with Michael. Can't wait to see him on Dinner Impossible. Perfect fit.

My guess on this would be that you add the carrots, ginger, onion, and corn oil into the pan. Then you add a portion of the carrot juice, reduce, add more carrot juice, reduce, and so on until the carrots are soft. BTW: I think Alice in Wonderland would have been a great movie to choose. One could get really creative with that.

Having recently been introduced to the incredibly yummy world of beef cheeks I thought it might be fitting to start a thread relating to them? How do you cook them? What are some of your favorite recipes? What are some of your favorite things to do with them?

Ok. Let me clarify. For stock-based soup (creating a volute) I would use: 1 Tbsp flour: 1 Tbsp Fat : 1 cup stock - for a thin soup 2 Tbsp flour: 2 Tbsp Fat : 1 cup stock - for a thick soup or thick sauce (like thick gravy) For creamy soups (creating a béchamel) 1 Tbsp flour:1 Tbsp Fat :1 cup milk or cream - for a medium soup (Cream would make it much thicker) 2 Tbsp flour:2 Tbsp Fat :1 cup milk or cream - for a thick soup (Cream would make it much thicker) Really, the best way is to try a little prepared roux at a time and get it to your desired thickness. Using thickening agents like roux is not an exact science so sometimes we must experiment. For béchamel sauces, it can depend on the type of milk we use (i.e., skim, 2%, whole, farm milk). Thus, we might have a thicker béchamel with farm milk or whole milk when we use a 1:1:1 ratio than if we use skim milk. I have found that stock behaves differently than milk - milk in a 1:1:1 ratio will generate a thicker liquid than will a stock in a 1:1:1 ratio. Bottom line: It is best to prepare some roux and use it a little at a time to obtain your desired thickness. Hope that clears things up. Sorry for the confusion.

Looks to me like Blais is the best of the bunch. This, of course, means they will create some type of drama to find a way to kick him off the show. Since it appears he has little competition (except maybe Stephanie) they must get rid of him so it doesn't look like he "smokes" (pardon the expression) the others. So, I don't look for him to stick around very long. BRAVO must have drama and having someone with so much experience does not drama make. The best of the bunch are generally doomed unless they are a "villain" which is not the case with Blais.

What's your recipe? I'd love to try it.

I would just use a 2:2:1 ratio. That being: 2 parts flour/2 parts fat/1 cup liquid (your soup) Sauces like bechemel are usually 1:1:1 Soups are usually 2:2:1 Superthink preparations are usually 3:3:1 Hope that helps.

Well, I did find a place that supplies duck pruciutto for a pretty decent price. They also sell duck breast for making your own. I also found a lot of information whilst surfing around about making your own. So, I think I'm gonna either buy some and try it, make it myself, or do both and compare. Most likely both to compare. It's www.hudsonvalleyfoisgras.com. I did think of a good idea particularly in the case of the Coq au Vin. I could use chicken fat (smaltz) to render some turkey or beef bacon (turkey might be the best) and then use that "bacony" smaltz to cook the chicken in. That might be a nice compromise to get that smokey flavor without the pork fat. Thanks for all the replies so far. They have set me on the right track. Of course, more ideas are certainly welcome!!!

I finally had a chance to visit Lola last week. The food is phenomenal - especially the beef cheek pirogi, the sweetbreads, and the duck confit. I am so glad I live close to Cleveland!!!

I have some recipes that use salt pork, slab bacon, or lardons (i.e. coq au vin and a few others). I don't eat pork products of any kind. Does anyone have any idea what I can use in its place?

This show is the biggest trainwreck of all the trainwreck programming we have seen on FN. Listening to Marc Summers and especially Guy Fieri is absolutely, positively painful.

Paula Deen. She is so annoying. She really pours on that southern accent. I think she overemphasizes it. Nobody has that thick and annoying of a southern accent. She has to be faking it some at least. The older and more popular she gets, the more annoying she gets. Sandra Lee. What an annoying drunk. Waste of space on the Food Network. She doesn't cook. Might as well pull out the Betty Crocker cookbook. Be better off. Her cooking is pulled right off the pages of Kraft sponsored magazines.

I don't know if I can even get myself to watch this show again. Last season was really, really bad. I didn't even bother watching the finale or the show leading up to the finale. I'm not particularly a big fan of Molecular Gastronomy either which it appears is something this show will eventually make a clear focal point.

Finally, new episodes of Good Eats. I can't wait. That will be so cool. I love that show and was hoping their would be new episodes of Good Eats. Now, if we can get them to show Iron Chef (especially the new ones) in HD. Why this show is not in HD is totally beyond me.

Casey's been on top of her game for the last few weeks and again this week. She is out cooking Hung. There is no doubt about that. She is delivering the goods while Hung is just running his mouth in self-aggrandizement and truly failing to deliver. But just to keep things interesting and to fulfill the reality tv (non-reality really) role, they have to give it to Hung and keep the drama up.

Last I heard, it will premiere on Oct 7th. I believe at 9:00pm EST.

Definitely the best Iron Chef I have ever seen. I was not at all surprised that the score margin was 1. Two great, great chefs and Parmiggiano Reggiano too boot!!!! This was so cool!!! BTW: Mario used the bowl for his green pasta dish.

Maybe I'm just missing something, but it seems to me that nobody that has ever work in restaurants could possibly have knife skills as pathetic as what we saw with Casey. I really think this was a set up of some sort. Even the dishwasher in a good restaurant has better knife skills than that!!! I just don't know. It just seemed to pathetic to me to be real. She was probably crying less over the onions and the fact that her "knife wasn't sharp" (hard to believe and she could have asked one of her teammates to give her a sharp knife) and more over the fact that she knew she was forced to look pathetic on national television. I also think with as much as Tre screwed up, he should have gone home. But with his past record, I think Tre was either told he had to "take one for the team" because he was head and shoulders above the others and it would not make for good non-reality (oops, sorry....reality) TV or Tre decided that it wasn't worth it to go any further. Of course, with the above comment I made about Casey, if she really was forced to look pathetic, Tre might have decided that because of that, he would rather leave than at some point be told he had to look pathetic too. Who know? Just some thoughts. But I still cannot believe for one second that someone with the experience that Casey has could, in reality, be that pathetic at any mise of any sort. Rachel Ray can do better than that!!!!

Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain - very entertaining and informative. Hard to put this one down!!!

I never really bought into the "organic" thing. More of an excuse to make prices much higher than needed. How these people charge this much for milk (or any organic product) baffles me. I get raw milk from an Amish farm here in the Midwest. I pay $2.00 for a gallon of milk. No pasteurization to kill all of those wonderful enzymes that aid in digestion and no homogenization (take all of the vitamins and minerals out and then attempt to add them back in properly). Just plain, raw milk. Tastes much better than any of the horrible, processed stuff you buy at the store. That's about as "organic" as you can get. If figure if I have to buy the tasteless, barely digestible stuff from the store, I might as well get it on the cheap. The whole "organic" thing is just a rip off. BTW: I know someone is going to go on and on about how wonderful pasteurization is and how "safe" it is. In all of the years (38) of my drinking raw farm milk I have never been sick from it. My family has never been sick from it. We buy eggs ($1.00 per dozen) from the farm too. Never got sick from those either.

A-Best http://www.abestkitchen.com

It appears that not everyone agrees on the proportions for roux. I have racked my brain trying to figure this out. I have found that each source does not agree with another. Here is what I have found: 1. 3 Tbsp Fat / 3 Tbsp flour (3/4 ounce flour / 1 1/2 ounce fat) 2. 2 Tbsp Fat / 3 Tbsp flour (2 parts fat / 3 parts flour by volume) 3. Equal portions of fat to flour by weight 4. 2 parts fat / 3 parts flour by weight Does anyone know why there is such conflicting information out there? Is there a consensus on what the proportions should be? The conflicting information from many culinary sources sure does make it hard to understand such a simple creation!!!!

You could always look into Sitram. Look at the Catering line. These are great pans and they are not nearly as expensive as overpriced AC. The catering line is SS with a copper core. You can look at them at: www.sitramcookware.com. The best price I have found for Sitram cookware, especially this Catering line is at Amazon.com. I've been using this cookware for quite a while now. Great performance!!!