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KennethT

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Posts posted by KennethT

  1. I always figured that the layer of fat or caulfat acted as insulation to keep moisture from evaporating out of the surface of the meat. I'm thinking about the diagram in Modernist Cuisine talking about dry heat cooking of meats. I don't have it in front of me, but from memory, there was a desiccation zone (that's what would get browned) on the surface of the meat. Using a layer of fat inhibits the production of the desiccation zone I'd assume more through insulation and the creation of a moisture barrier, keeping the meat underneath cooler than it would have been without it.

    • Like 1
  2. 1 hour ago, weinoo said:

     

    These come from Fresh Direct. I have a standing Wednesday delivery slot, so there is no delivery charge per order - I think I pay once every 6 months.

    We have the same thing - we have a standing Sat morning delivery with the Delivery Pass or whatever they call it. I was actually one of their original customers when they started.  At the time, my neighborhood was one of their test neighborhoods - I still remember the weekend when they had people standing on all 4 corners of 31st and 3rd Ave handing out flyers with coupons for trying them out.  I still find their customer service to be great - anything comes in damaged or not good they refund it immediately. But I will say that their produce has gone downhill a bit since when they first started.  When they first started, they poached Fairway's produce manager, as well as their cheese manager.

  3. 6 minutes ago, weinoo said:

    I ordered two Cooks Venture whole chickens last week, as they were on sale at a very nice price. I think they are usually $4.49/lb. and they were at $2.99/lb.

     

    I spent an hour cutting and boning, ending up with 4 boneless thighs, 2 boneless breasts, 4 legs, 4 wings, wing tips, drumstick ends, backs, etc. The breasts and thighs got frozen, the usable parts of the legs and wings made scarpariello, and the bones, backs, tip, ends, etc. got me this:

     

    IMG_3381.thumb.jpeg.d61d4207fa23c5734423fccfd9ff1d47.jpeg

    On sale where? Not like I'm in any shape yet for any real cooking (or anything involving large pots of boiling water) but it's nice to know...

    • Like 1
  4. 17 minutes ago, TdeV said:

    With no experience with steam ovens, I've been directed to the CSO manual and @Okanagancook's excellent Excel spreadsheets (which are a compilation of recipes folks have posted to the CSO threads here). Because I'm new owner of an APO.

     

    I'd like to understand the underlying rules for steam ovens in general and the CSO in particular.

     

    In the Excel spreadsheet for CSO recipes, eG cooks chose both Bake Steam function and Broil Steam function to prepare Salmon.

    • Why would you choose one function over the other? What rules govern your selection?

     

    Bake Steam defaults to 30 minutes @ 350F (180C), can be set between 225F to 450F (62C - 230C)

    Broil Steam defaults to 10 minutes @ 500F (260C), can be set between 300F to 500F (62C - 230C)

    • Can one also increase or decrease cooking time in a function?
    • Do different parts of the oven come on in different function?
    • Are the cooking modes sequential or simultaneous? I.e. is there one long cooking mode using some amount of steam and the set temperature, or is there a "steam" phase and then a "dry" phase?
    • In other words, is the difference between Bake Steam and Broil Steam merely a "starting position" and, therefore, a Marketing button?

     

    Are you aware of material (ebooks, blog posts, interviews) which discusses what the engineers were thinking about as this oven was designed? I'm looking for a description of the ACTUAL programming for the device.

     

    Update of my status on APO thread.

    Bake steam uses both top and bottom heating elements with steam.  Broil steam just uses the top element with steam.  With any of the modes, you can set the time as long as you want.  In any steam setting, the machine initially gives a blast of steam and then adds more blasts of steam as time goes on.

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1
  5. 13 minutes ago, scamhi said:

    a dry aged burger blend from Flannery Beef.

    And grilled burgers with roasted sweet potatoes and home made cole slaw

    2018 Lapierre Morgon N (unsulfured)

    IMG_3580.jpg

    IMG_3583.jpg

    IMG_3587.jpg

    I love Morgon - especially when they get some age on them

    • Like 1
  6. 21 minutes ago, btbyrd said:

     

    Thanks! My family has always, and I mean always, cooked burgers on the grill. I've always considered the "grilled, roughly 1/3lb burger" to be my personal burger-making style; its what I grew up with and it's what I've been making my entire adult life. But I recently got a small Blackstone griddle and decided to give the smash variety a try; we love them at restaurants, but never made them at home because we haven't had a cooking surface large enough to cook them efficiently. But oh my goodness, this was probably the best burger I've ever made, and I doubt I'll make them another way for quite some time. As for the fries, they were hand cut. I follow a modified version of the ChefSteps thick cut fries recipe, the potatoes get a pre-soak in Pectinex SPL and are then blanched in simmering brine instead of cooking them sous vide. You blanch them until they're almost falling apart, let them dry, and do a low-temp fry to set the crust. Then freeze them and do a final high-temp fry to brown them up and warm them through. The fries are superior, but the downside of blanching them until they're almost falling apart is that they're very fragile and you end up breaking a lot of them. The batch in the photo was the busted/broken dregs of a larger batch that I'd used for steak frites and fish/chips. Just realized that I never posted the fish and chips, so here they are with the unbroken "fancy" fries:

     

    1632861131_FishandChips.thumb.jpg.29f8d8aca9bf11caae6d619f0fba494a.jpg

    Your fry method is like Dave Arnold's back in the Cooking Issues days... I did it once, and like you said, they are ridiculously fragile when taking them out of the simmering brine. I wound up with 80% mashed potato looking stuff that clogged the crap out of my drying rack and 20% amazingly awesome fries.

    • Like 3
  7. @weinoo if you're doing the confit SV, why not just leave the sealed bags in the fridge?  That's even more convenient than the freezer, and assuming the bags haven't opened, will last a really long time assuming you keep your fridge cold.

  8. 52 minutes ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

    Ooooooof!!!   Sending all good thoughts and our thanks for taking one for the team.

    I remember being in a fast food joint where the late teen-age fry-cook was the French fry oil in shorts and flip-flops.    Cringe-worthy.

    It is remarkable how many shophouse/street food  cooks I've seen in Asia who do deep frying or jet burner wok cooking wearing shorts and flip flops. I'm surprised more of them aren't completely scarred from the waist down.

    • Like 1
  9. 5 minutes ago, FauxPas said:

    Was the ER busy? Hope you didn't have to wait long! 

     

    Burns can be so painful, can you wear slippers? 

     

    Aside from pain and loss of your lovely sauce, the clean-up sounds messy as well. 🙁

    The ER was busy - it's NYC - it's always busy but they took me in right away, seen by a nurse almost immediately and saw the doctor maybe 40 minutes later. Unfortunately no slippers because the burn is on the top of the feet, just behind the toes - so nothing that would touch the top of my feet there - which is basically nothing other than the shoes I'm going to "modify"...   I am very lucky to have a wonderful wife who did all the cleanup when we got home from the ER.

    • Like 5
  10. 5 hours ago, CantCookStillTry said:

    I have to ask.. what did you Do/Drop? Assuming oil but wanting to rule out a rogue sausage / pancake attack. 😁

    Swift healing. I don't think I'm allowed to wear shoes in the house. Breaks some kind of code. 

    I was simmering a couple quarts of a really tasty red chile sauce for making red chile tacos. I had already cooked some chicken thighs in there, removed them to cool and pick the meat off the bones and was simmering the thick sauce just to thicken it further. At one point I got distracted and knocked the sauce pan handle and the pan started to slide off the stove and onto the floor. I grabbed the handle of the pot but in the process managed to dump the entire contents on my feet, floor and base cabinets.

    • Sad 15
  11. 35 minutes ago, heidih said:

    Isn't table sugar cane sugar? My childhood remembered jingle " C & H pure cane sugar from Hawaii". Most common table sugar.  The Mexican coke drama is with respect to corn syrup I think. US uses corn syrup; Mexico cane.

    I thought most granulated sugar was made from sugar beets as opposed to cane sugar.  If it's not specific, I'd assume it was made from sugar beets.

  12. 2 hours ago, Objective Foodie said:

    Absolutely. They manage the ripeness of the fruit very well, always preserving the acidity. 

     

    I have always been impressed by how Bordelais their Cabs/Merlot feel while using American oak.

    Yup.  but I think American oak gets a bad rap unnecessarily.  When used properly (properly toasted, and using barrels rather than chips/shavings) it can be just as good as French oak.  Personally, I think the cooper has much more influence on the outcome of the wine than the species of oak.  I think American oak got a bad rap in the old days because a lot of the cooperages were inexperienced with making wine barrels (as opposed to bourbon barrels) and just over-did things.  By now, they've come a long way.  But, some houses like Ridge have always done a great job with it.

     

    I remember having a conversation with Anne Gros (Burgundy)'s assistant winemaker and she was walking us through their cellar tasting us out of barrel (oh that Richebourg.... drool) and explaining to us how they request different toast levels depending on the ripeness they get that year.  It's not just a one size fits all decision.

     

    58 minutes ago, weinoo said:

    A friend of ours is a Ridge aficionado and has a nice stash of older stuff.

    Nice. Years ago when we had a weekly tasting group, someone brought some '70s and early '80s Ridge and we tasted them blind next to some very nice older Bordeaux... quite interesting indeed...

    • Like 3
  13. 17 minutes ago, Objective Foodie said:

    Steak, ale and stilton pie with confit potatoes; all from Quality Chop House in London.

     

    Paired with a fruity Zinfandel from Sonoma. Ridge's wines are always elegant.

     

    IMG_9209x.thumb.jpeg.642bb2074ed2b07e41b56048e270ee72.jpeg

    Ridge ages really well.  Their cabernet could pass for Bordeaux

    • Like 2
  14. I have a home built system that used to have circulation, but the circulator motor has long since died.  But the rest of the system works fine - just like a SVS... but mine uses any standard stockpot (it's just the base) so once I'm done using it, I can dump the water out of the stockpot and put the base away easily.

    • Like 2
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