&roid

Exactly what I'd always thought but these two comments made me wonder:

I've read through all of the sections of this amazing labs session and I've just finished my first attempt at braising short ribs. one question I have is how best to store the meat/juice overnight. There are a couple of posts in the Q&A that mention the idea of separating the meat from the liquid overnight, problem is I can't find any more information on this. Is it really the best way? All I've ever read before (especially things like McGee) seem to suggest that cooling an storing meat IN the juice is the best idea as it somehow rehydrates the beef, is this wrong? top marks to any quick responses as I'm going to have to go to bed soon!

Right, not sure how "July 4th" fried chicken is but woke up this morning and decided to do a meal from your side of the atlantic tonight. I read through most of this thread and went shopping. decided to do the recipe from martha stewart but had to cheat a bit and only had the chicken in the buttermilk for about 2 hours (I'm so bad at planning ahead with food!). I used 50:50 vegetable shortening (Trex) and Beef dripping and intended it to be a semi-shallow fry approach but really it was deep-frying. I cooked it at about 350F for 10 minutes or so which left the dark meat amazingly juicy and tender, white meat was a bit far gone for me after about 8 minutes in the second batch. The coating was amazingly crisp, a bit overly dark for me and could have been better seasoned, also it had a bit of a taste of burnt flour about it - does this all sound like I should try a lower temperature next time?

I've had a Wolf pro wall hood for the last 8 months or so - a PW362418 with an 81131 900cfm internal blower. I use it over a 36" wolf cooktop which goes upto about 50-60,000 BTU with all 5 burners on full. Not sure how much it would cost in the states but it was about £1500 here in the UK so may be above budget (though you can get less powerful motors than the 900cfm one I went for which would save a bit). I can't speak highly enough about it, I have been absolutely amazed at its ability to get rid of smoke/smells from my cooking. The noise level is pretty impressive considering how well it works - on the lower settings it is way better than the cheap and nasty vent it replaced and still does a good job with normal cooking; if you're browning or wok cooking you will notice more noise but I think that is just the nature of the job - certainly, there is little noise other than air moving, not like the old vent which was lots of screaming mechanical noise and little or no air moving. Just for some examples of what it copes with: since the new kitchen has been fitted I have NEVER had any condensation on the windows, previously making pasta/risotto/anything with boiling liquid would cover all my windows in loads of water. I have a black iron skillet that I like to get VERY hot for browning meat, 10-20 minutes of heating, groundnut oil and batches of meat over ten or twenty minutes, lots of smoke which previously would have left the room unusable for an hour or more now leaves literally no trace within a couple of minutes of finishing. We spent a long time researching and planning our new kitchen and I'm really pleased with all the different bits (big fridge, boiling water tap, wine fridge, decent german oven are all great) but there is nothing that has impressed me as much as the hood. oh yeah and the baffles are a doddle to clean, just pop them out and stick them in the dishwasher. EDIT - just re-read some of the OP's ducting points - the hood I have uses 10" round felxible ducting, ours goes up about 2ft, through one 90 degree bend then another 8ft or so. I had originally though I should get an external motor (or inline one) but was advised against it by wolf here in the UK, for the sort of lengths we are talking about there are apparently few benefits in this sort of setup to removing the motor from the kitchen - as already mentioned almost all the noise comes from air movement rather than motor noise so the cheaper internal motors are fine - I was sceptical but am glad I listened!

Its wrong to think there's any universal rule! If you have a good, modern, high accuracy oven with an electronic control to the nearest 1°C, then believe it until the results force you to question its accuracy. But if you have an antique with a mechanical switching thermostat that seems to require different cooking times or temperature settings as compared to what your trusted recipes state, then question it, check it against ANY plausible reference and adjust to improve (or get someone in to do it.) Cheap 'oven thermometers' may not be super accurate, but they will likely be more accurate than many people's oven thermostats. Particularly in the kitchen, before accepting ANY advice being offered blindly (such as by tv chefs and others unaware of your individual knowledge, kit, circumstances or experience), its well worth asking yourself if that advice really applies in your specific case. ← Hi Dougal that's exactly what I was getting it: the mantra of "get an oven thermometer, the thermostat in your cooker is rubbish" seems to be so ubiquitous that it seemed everyone just accepted it as the truth without questioning if the oven's own workings may actually do what they are meant to.

Just got to wondering why we all seem to accept that we should get oven thermometers instead of trusting the dial on the oven itself? why would the thermometer you buy in the kitchen shop necessarily be any better than the one that comes with the oven? I can well see how it may be better but should we just accept that it is better? example: I've just got a shiny new Miele oven (electric) which cost about £1500 (so what, $2000+ at the moment?), why would I trust the oven thermometer I have which cost about £5 to be more accurate? If it does hold true that cheap oven thermometers are better than most/all in built ones, why don't oven manufacturers use them instead? I think what I'm getting at is that unless you have a calibrated unit which you KNOW is right, why assume your oven's thermostat OR your separate thermometer are correct?

I'm always amazed by how quickly people think wine goes off. re-corked and refrigerated wine will easily keep a week and more likely two if you're using it for cooking. We did the experiment on a wine tasting course I did (two identical bottles, one opened on the night, one the week before - net result: very little difference). I'm sure there's nothing wrong with freezing wine for cooking but you may be able to get away with longer than you think in the fridge.

excellent, thanks for the replies, will try the gordon ramsey one from youtube (thanks trekflyer). Will probably try it with a bit of meat stock added though.

I've just trawled through all my cookbooks (not a quick job!) and can't seem to find a recipe for this, despite my and my other half being certain that we've seen one somewhere. Does any one have any suggestions for a good recipe? Google wasn't nearly as helpful as I thought it would be

the recipes are NOT the food themselves, it's the conversion of the written words, the ideas, into real edible food that is cooking. And it's this that's the real skill. Give 100 people a recipe and you'll likely get 100 different versions of the "same" dish. improvising (in any field) can only come after plenty of experience, there is not a single person who was able to improvise a dish the first time they stepped into a kitchen - we are not born able to do this stuff.

have a look at the 5 minute artisan bread thread in the pastry and baking section. makes amazing bread with little or no effort. even better is the pizza you can do with the dough - easily the best I've ever eaten at home and now that I've got a big bowl of dough in the fridge its ready within the time it takes the oven to get up to maximum temperature. a little tinned tomato/passata cooked down with olive oil and a ball of mozarella, beats any supermarket bought pizza hands down. oh yeah, and soup.

Does anyone have any suggestions of companies who install these labtops in the UK?

Hi, I think the cut may have had too much fat trimmed off it and this affected the end result but the quality of the meat was beyond doubt - local artisan butcher that we have a really good relationship with and have always had outstanding meat from. Interesting, I'll give this a go next time and see if I can produce better results. thanks for all the input guys

Hi Kerry, you may have something there, certainly this was the leanest of all the pieces I have tried. What sort of time/temperature combinations do you use?

Hi, This is my first post on here so looking forward to hearing people's thoughts on this problem. I've been making salt beef (or corned beef depending on which side of the atlantic you live) to take back to the family for Christmas for the last few years and have seen a steady progression and improvement. Unfortunately, it's still not quite how I'd like it, I've done a good bit of searching but I'm still not sure what I should try next. The problem I have is that although the taste was the best I've managed the texture was still a bit on the tough/dry side. Here's what I did so feel free to suggest anything I might try next time: brined in an 80:20 solution of water:prontocure (pre-made mix of nitrate, nitrite and normal salt) equal to half the weight of the 6.5lb brisket. I left the meat in for 7 days which was slightly too short a time (tiny area of grey meat in the very centre after cooking). I then rinsed the joint thoroughly in cold water and put it in a large stockpot with plenty of cold water, a couple of onions, some celery, carrot, cloves, juniper berries and put it on a very low heat, this took about 4-5hrs to get the water upto 65C, I then did another couple of hours at a slightly higher flame which brought the water upto about 75-80C. The internal temp of the meat was mid 70sC so I took it off the heat and cooled it in the brine before vac packing and taking it down for the holidays. It was very tasty but also very firm and needed to be sliced wafer thin to not be too chewy. Sorry for the long ramble but any thoughts?