nickrey

The answer for me as a pretty active home cook is cuts once every year or two; burns a few times a year. A good claw grip and caution seems to help markedly with keeping cuts at bay, despite my inherent clumsiness. My two "best" cuts have come from using a mandoline, which takes a nice little slice right off the top of your finger that takes forever to heal. Just recently in a spurt of self-protection, I invested in a kevlar/stainless steel protective glove: the mandoline doesn't hold any fear for me anymore.

This question is likely to get different responses depending on the type and level of cook answering. It seems that cookbooks will always be something that novice cooks can go to, perhaps following step-by-step instructions for a recipe and comparing their output with the pictures. Intermediate and advanced cooks seem to go to books less to follow a recipe slavishly but rather for ideas or to explore a body of work and cooking philosophy (eg. Heston Blumenthal's Big Fat Duck cookbook or, as Fat Guy mentioned, the Alinea cookbook). I think I was typing this response at the time that Fat Guy made his post so please forgive any repetition. I find more and more that I use the Internet to get ideas before cooking a dish. Once the selection is narrowed to recipes that seem to best capture the essence of the dish, I pick the best parts out of these recipes to create my approach. The Internet is probably better set up for this as you can use search engines to locate many recipes in a very short period of time. I'd also like to reinforce the key role that eGullet can play in bringing our cooking alive. Knowledge can be broken into two different categories: explicit (what is written in recipe books) and tacit (knowledge that is acquired through experience and is hard to cover in a cook book). It is tacit knowledge that takes a recipe from average into the realms of excellence. I find contributions to eGullet perfect for the acquiring the hints on making dishes that take them this extra step.

I know it's not the UK but after reading this thread I asked at one of the shops of a local premium providore whether the downturn in people going to restaurants and reported return to entertaining at home had impacted them positively. The manager told me that they had a 5% increase in business that he thinks is directly related to the impact of the economic downturn. Factor in a loss of business as a consequence of changes in circumstances and that is a lot of people moving to entertaining at home.

Tonight's dinner. Sous vide salmon (47 degrees Celsius for 45 minutes; sealed in bag with salt, pepper, sprig of fennel leaf, frozen cube of olive oil). Leftover Greek salad. Triple Cooked Chips. Onion, white wine and cream foam [floppy foam ]. I make salmon skin crackling and position it vertically in a slit in the salmon. Unlike others who say that people may dislike the salmon, I've never had a negative comment: once you prepare them for it being lukewarm, it's fine.

Are you sure? Because she also has a "Curry Bible" featuring recipes for "curry" from all over the world. ← I have Indian Cookery and the Curry bible and they are very different books.

Being an Australian who grew up with the concept of a salad (ham and salad/chicken and salad, etc) sandwich, my impression is that this was/is a shorthand way of asking for a sandwich with salad vegetables. That is, a sandwich with such additions as lettuce, tomatoes, onions, cucumber, soggy plastic canned beetroot, etc. It was always considered a more healthy alternative to meat alone. Dressing was typically not included when I was growing up: remember, this was a country at this stage where you could only buy olive oil at the pharmacy. So my implicit conceptualisation at that stage and possibly my reflex response when asked to define "salad" is something that contains what we would loosely define as "salad vegetables" and something that is eaten cold. No reference to dressings or salt; although it is traditional to be asked when ordering a salad sandwich if you want salt and pepper with it. Also in Australia, we typically eat a salad with our main meal rather than before it. This leads to interesting stand offs with wait staff when travelling in the US as we wait for the main course to be delivered before starting our salad while often they are waiting for us to finish our salad before delivering the main course. I'm interested to hear how someone would ask for such a sandwich overseas, or indeed if anyone would. Is it part of Australia's, rapidly diminishing, English heritage or something else. How about Canada and the UK? By the way, particularly in Sydney, we're just as likely today to be heard ordering a bento box, noodle dish, stir fry, or the like for lunch now.

This topic got me thinking about my white truffle oil (made in Spain but packaged and sold by a local providore, Simon Johnson), which does smell and taste like truffles. The label says: "Extra virgin olive oil, white truffle (5%). The infused oil matures for a month before it is bottled to intensify its strength, aroma, and flavour." It has a small chunk of truffle sitting in the bottom of the bottle. Comparing the smell directly with that of oil in which shaved truffles are stored, it is far less pungent but seems to have the same notes (a bit like a muted, recorded, song versus one performed live). Over extended periods of storage (as recommended, in a cool place out of direct sunlight), it does lose its flavour but seems to keep it longer than people have stated here.

Interesting that some recent forum posts have enthused about salting your salad to bring out its flavours as it appears that the word itself comes from sal (latin for salt). So turns the wheel back on itself. Etymologically speaking: "Salad, a term derived from the Latin sal (salt), which yielded the form salata, 'salted things' such as the raw vegetables eaten in classical times with a dressing of oil, vinegar or salt. The word turns up in Old French as salade and then in late 14th century English as salad or sallet." ---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford Univeristy Press:Oxford] 2nd edition, 2006 (p. 682) Thank you to food timeline for the quote.

mmmm, those looked good! May I ask why you used the same temperatures for both fries? ← My theory is that it seals the potato so not as much oil is absorbed. This may, however, be a personal fiction. In practice, and as you can see from the pictures, it works very well and I don't have to reset the thermostat so double bonus.

They look great. I wish you fried a batch all the way through on the first frying session to see if a second session is necessary. It seams to me that a 20 minute boil is excessive. How was the texture? ← The twenty minute boil makes the outside of the chips very rough. When they are cooked subsequently, these become micro ridges that the oil crisps. I wish I could have posted the sound of the chips but it is something like very fresh potato crisps. The inside seems to set again during the refrigeration such that when it is cooked the final time, it is a very soft, creamy texture. The product has an extremely crisp outer layer with an inside that gives the sense of eating a well boiled potato. Combine this with salt and, well you get the picture. As for only doing the one fry, I haven't done it. One of the threads above compared single with double fry methods: the double fry was superior. Whether this is the same in totally pre-cooked potatoes is open to question -- maybe next time.

I use the Fresh Meal Solutions Sous Vide Magic PID and was having problems getting the parameters correct. The auto tune came up with values similar to those of e-monster, which I thought were quite unusual given what is written in the manual. Also, when I tried them, it was not maintaining the temperature as well as I wanted. I use a rice cooker (Tiger brand, admittedly a smaller one because of space limitations in my kitchen). It had been overshooting the set temperature and took ages to fall back it because of the rice cooker's extremely good insulation. Reading through the SVM manual, I found an adjustment that limits the power output of the device. It is expressed a a percentage of power and in essence reduces the output wattage according to the percentage set. Once I set mine at 75 (75%), the refinement of PID parameters was much easier. It now maintains a rock-solid temperature and does not overshoot the target as it used to.

Thought it was about time to post a picture of triple cooked chips. Being an impatient sort, these took about two hours potato to plate rather than having overnight stays in the fridge. First peel and cut into chip shapes, soak in water to remove some starch and prevent oxidation. Next boil for around twenty minutes, they should not only be fully cooked but almost on the verge of falling apart. Onto wire racks and into the fridge for around forty minutes. Next bring deep fryer up to 180 C (350F) and fry chips for around four minutes (until very slightly coloured). Drain and pat off excess oil with paper towels. Put back on wire rack and back into fridge (thirty minutes). Next do the third cook in 180C oil until at desired colour. Drain chips, again pat off excess with paper towels. Serve. The product gives a very audible crunch when bitten in to, is soft, fluffy and fully cooked in the middle and the crunch lasts all the way through a meal. Here is a picture (sorry it's slightly out of focus, pulled the camera out mid service to snap it).

The history of fine dining as you have outlined is really inextricable from the development of different approaches to cooking and their impact on what restaurants are. You can get a great start in your search by consulting this thread, which presents a timeline and list of key players in the movement from classical French Cuisine through Nouvelle Cuisine to Techno-Emotional (ie. el Bulli) Cooking.

I'm back again. I'm just about to do the first cooking of some fries I cut. I'll boil, then dry and put them on a rack to dry more. I'll do the first fry tomorrow evening. After I do the first fry, I'll definitely be doing a second fry of some of them shortly after. But for the rest, can I hold them again for a day or two without much loss of quality, even though I've already held them for a day after the initial cooking? Pam wrote she used to do the first fry, then freeze them until needed. Can I do that with this method, too? So it would be: boil--dry--fridge overnight fry on low--drain freeze for an unknown period of time (no too long, but longer than a week, probably), then do second fry from frozen or hold in fridge overnight (or two), then do second fry. And about the freezing, I thought potatoes were supposed to deteriote when frozen. Is that different with fried potatoes? ← Can I chip in (forgive the pun). I asked the question earlier. Why is the first fry a low fry if they are already cooked? It seems counterintuitive and should lead only to greater penetration of the oil because the deep fry barrier is not created. Shouldn't it be a fry for a short time at the final cooking temperature, then freeze, then cook from frozen in the final temperature oil?

Not is this part of the world and in Japan where sushi/sashimi originated; whatever gave you this idea? edited to add: That having been said, you should only ever use high-grade salmon; it is kept quite separately in our fish markets.

Temperature, working on the philosophy that I want to take it to temperature and hold it there. In my opinion, this whole thing of cooking to a higher temperature and watching the time to ensure that it only reaches a lower temperature defeats one of the major advantages of sous vide cooking, which is precision in the final temperature reached. edited to add: Plus the meat was 65mm thick, I took the time from table 2.3 of Douglas Baldwin's guide.

See if you can get a copy of Michael Jackson's (no, not that one) guide to pure malt scotch whiskies. It is opinionated but that's the aim of a guide book and it will give you good information for your new obsession (sorry, search) for pure malt. Welcome to the club.

I'd take the basbousa back to one slice (they can always come back for more). Perhaps slice two of your poached quince diagonally and push them out in to give a base onto which you can place the basbousa (staggering/overlapping the slices will give a nice rough edge which should look good). Put about half that amount of marscapone on top with a sprinkling of pistachios and put the sauce in a squirt bottle to do a spiral or zig zag across the dessert.

I did a Boston Roast tonight, high quality beef but a relatively low quality cut, normally used for Pot Roasts. Did it at 59 C (138 F) for six and a half hours. Vacuum sealed only with salt and pepper. On finishing, I heated a LeCreuset grill pan on our inside wok burner to full heat and quickly seared all round. The picture probably does not do the meat justice in terms of its colour (it was more pink than grey) but even so I think I'll go down a few degrees next time. The meat was very tender (my wife said it was the best roast meat she has had, although she is somewhat biased ).

I think the lower temp. first fry is to ensure that the potato is actually cooking through rather than browning too quickly and ending up with a dark exterior and raw interior. I've always done the two-fry method. At times I've soaked the cut chips in water, at times not. For a small batch at home, I cut, soak, drain and dry then double fry. Thanks Pam. This explains it for the double fry method; however, as the potato is totally cooked initially by way of being boiled first in the triple cook method I'm still left wondering whether a lower temperature is necessary on the first fry using that method.

I haven't read this thread before because it seems that this is very much a US-centric discussion. But here is something of a cross-cultural perspective. In Australia and a number of other places, we pay our wait staff a living wage. A tip is something you leave behind when you are extremely pleased with the service. On travelling, we are drilled in this mysterious practice of the tip and our conventional wisdom is around 15% of the bill. We pay this in recognition that your pay system is totally in violation of normal practice in most of the rest of the world. As outsiders travelling in your country, we may sometimes not be aware of normal practice and may be considered a bit rude when judged against your normal standards. If someone has been raised in your culture I'm at a loss to explain why they do not leave tips, unless the service is far from acceptable, when it would seem a legitimate protest. It seems a form of rudeness and insensitivity in your culture to not pay a tip when the service is positive, even if you are not that pleased with what the kitchen produces. As for discussions of potential earnings as we have seen in recent blogs, if you have the potential to earn more than others in equivalent positions, it may be that you are tacitly acknowledging the gamble involved in what you do. In this case, the rewards can far exceed the costs. To then argue that it is not fair may be trying to play both sides. If the consumer is paying this anyway, why not agitate for fair wages? Of course, your take home pay may wind up being less that way; which do you want?

Reading through the replies I have some questions: The double fry: why is the oil lower in temperature the first time around? As highlighted in some responses, this will increase fat absorption, which is not necessarily a desirable outcome. When I was growing up, some of my friends used to have parents with fish and chip shops and my understanding was that they did the double fry not only to make the final product crisper but also to preserve them when they were sitting out prior to the final preparation. As far as I know, they didn't use different temperatures between the first and the second fry. Is this a kitchen legend or has someone actually tried it? (I double cook mine at the same temperature, draining and cooling the chips between and they come out very well). When to freeze? My thinking is that you could do the initial preparation by boiling, cooling them in the fridge, then doing the first fry. The oil coating on frozen chips suggests that commercial producers do something like this (without the initial boiling and cooling). At this stage, they could be frozen, stored and later added frozen to hot oil for the final deep fry.

I use Heston Blumenthal's triple process method. Cut into chip shapes and heavy simmer/boil until almost falling apart (gives nice little ridges that crunch wonderfully after the second and third treatments). Carefully transfer to cake/bread cooling rack. Place in fridge and cool/dry (sometimes if I'm in a hurry, this is abbreviated and I dry with paper towels after a short cooling time). Next conventional double fry, once for a few minutes, drain and sit then the second fry until coloured appropriately (I do both at the same temperature -- 180-190C in Peanut [ground nut] oil). I've never tasted better chips. Even "non-chip eaters" (as if) have been tempted by these little wonders.

Boy are you lucky. 76 F here in Sydney and it's not even a warm summer's day.

If your friend is interested in some ideas for pizza recipes (both conventional and modern), a book has been written by an Australian chef called John Lanzafame, called Pizza Modo Mio. He comes well recommended, being a winner of the America's Plate world championship pizza competition in 2004 for his filled river calamari pizza. He then successfully defended the title in 2005. The book link is here. Like your friend, he uses thin and crispy crusts. He also combines this with a philosphy that less is more. A recipe for one of his modern pizzas: potato, anchovy, rosemary and white prosciutto pizza, along with a picture of the same can be found here (the pictures in the book are much better but this was the best I could find on the web). It also has a video of him making the pizza if you can get past the Aussie accents.