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KensethFan

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  1. 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?

  2. 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.

    It says:

    "Roast carrots in saute pan with ginger, onion and corn oil. In stages, add carrot juice, cook all the way down and add twice more until soft."

    I don't understand this. Forgive me if this sounds stupid ... but to me, you roast in a roasting pan in the oven, or you saute in a saute pan on a stove. It sounds like he's  calling for you to roast in a saute pan on a stove -- right? I don't now how else you'd keep adding carrot juice and cooking it down. Any tips for roasting in a saute pan on the stove? And what's the difference between roasting and sauteeing when it's done on a stove? Thanks for any insight you could provide.

  3. 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?

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. When I saw the list of "Classic dishes", I was smiling. I'm pretty sure I could pull off anyone of them fairly well. I've been somewhat embedded in the so called classics the last couple of years. I usually research each one thouroughly prior to my first attempt. Except Chicken Piccata, I've been making Piccata in veal and chicken form since the 80's. My recipe is solid, I've openly shared it with anyone who asks and I've gotten many compliments. I use bread crumbs. So when they got to the Chicken Piccata, the first thing I said is "That's not chicken piccata!", as they were setting the plates down. Then the judges started discussing how chicken piccatta is made. All the judges agreed that you use egg and flour. Tom Collichio refers to the dishes presented as being A la Milanaise. Which is correct, sort of.

    From the Oxford Dictionary- milanaise, à la Dish garnished with spaghetti, tomato sauce, and ham or tongue. Also food dipped in egg and a mixture of breadcrumbs and cheese, then fried.

    Collichio then says that it's supposed to be prepared with egg and flour.

    Chicken dipped in flour and egg is what I know as Chicken Francese.

    Chicken Francese Recipe

    Back when I first started making the dish (Piccata) I used flour mixed with grated parmesagn, but at some point migrated to seasoned bread crumbs with parmesagn. Both are barely noticable and help the chicken to brown.

    Chicken Piccata Recipe from Bon Appetite 1998

    Anyways, my point is that everyone got it wrong, including me, for using bread crumbs. But, hey that's the way I make it.

    As a side note, I guess VEAL Piccata would have been too politically incorrect to do on the show. Odd that no one minds when they eat all that food with veal stock and demiglace, but put a tender piece of young calf in front of them and they scream like little girls.

    just my 2¢

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

  7. 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.

  8. 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!!!

  9. 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?

  10. 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.

  11. 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.

  12. 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.

  13. 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!!!!

  14. 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.

  15. 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!!!!

  16. 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!!!

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