Dave the Cook

I did Maggie's butt, er, Nigella's shoulder last weekend. I employed the high-temp thing, but went easy on the spice rub, so I'd have more flexibility in the final dishes. First night: pulled pork with a spicy sauce made from chicken stock, tomato puree, molasses and sherry vinegar (and small amounts of a bunch of other stuff). This used up most of the crispy exterior bits, and the sauce disguised the dry external layer. I hate to complicate a wonderfully simple recipe, but I'm considering brining next time. Second night: carnitas, with tortillas, bell peppers, onions, red rice, and a watermelon/orange/red onion salad. Third night: I was left with a meaty bone, the balance of the flesh having been depleted by lunches and late-night snacks. So I dropped it in a pot with a pound of pinto beans, a few bay leaves and a shredded ancho chile. I was thinking that I was done with Nigella, but the stock created by the bone and the seasoning was so wonderfully rich and porky that I strained out the bay and the chile and used it as the base for an excellent chili (which also consumed the pintos).

The difference is that with unsalted butter, you know how much salt you're using.

I agree that Mario has an excellent basic Osso Buco recipe. Isn't the one in the book the same as the one on the Food Network web site? Here.

Is your oven relatively new or old? I have an ancient gas range and oven and I'd be worried about leaving it on whilst I slept. But then again, I'm a pantywaist. Colonel, I think you were busy (getting married, moving, smoking a loon, maybe) when we all joined together to save Maggie's butt the first time she did this recipe.

Just to be fair, I think most manufacturers (Calphalon included) offer a lifetime warranty for their serious cookware. You're right, and I think AC does, too. I was cautioning that the LC knock offs don't carry a guarantee even though they might be quite adequate for some time. I should have been clearer. To be even more clear, I don't recommend Calphalon to anyone. But it's perfectly adequate stuff for oven braising, even if it's not my (or your) first choice. In this particular application, all you really need is a container to hold the contents, since over the period that a good braise takes, the conductive properties of the vessel are far less important than on the stove top. Alton Brown oven-braises in an aluminum foil pouch, for crying out loud.

Just to be fair, I think most manufacturers (Calphalon included) offer a lifetime warranty for their serious cookware.

Right. I was just throwing a number out for comparison purposes.

Not really, and especially not if you're braising in the oven. The main functional issue is how tightly the lid fits. In my experience, Calphalon lids are pretty loose compared to the weight and fit of LC. This means your liquid needs to be checked more frequently. Now, if you're taking the dish to the table, I don't think Calphalon aesthetics can compare with enameled cast iron, but that's a matter of opinion.

PR is $14.99/pound at my local (chain) grocery store in Atlanta.

As shrimps have neither back- nor breastbone, I don't believe they qualify for spatchcocking.

That is a pretty good deal. But looking at the other items by that manufacturer, they seem to work strictly in aluminum and cast iron. I know a lot of restaurants use giant aluminum pots for stocks (especially brown stocks), but I wouldn't recommend them for white or fish stocks, and most home cooks don't have the luxury of dedicated pots for different stocks. On this particular item, the material isn't mentioned, but I'd make sure it was stainless steel before buying. Good advice on labeling, Rachel. I've found myself mistaking beef for chicken -- not to mention the mix-up when the 12-year-old decided to make Coca-Cola cubes. He and Kate's fiance would get along fine.

I have freezer issues, too: two and a half teenagers means I have to fight for space with pizza, ice cream and chocolate-chip cookie dough, and every inch is precious. So I go a step further than Rachel and reduce it to a glaze, so that one ounce is equivalent to one cup of stock. This happens to be the size of a compartment in a standard ice cube tray, so I freeze it, pop it out and bag it: twelve quarts of stock is 48 cubes. When I need a cup of stock, I put a cube in a measuring cup and fill it up to eight ounces. Since the cube is also a glaze, I can also just toss it straight into a pan to give a sauce a beautiful finish and extra flavor.

Siphon it.

I agree with Rachel and Alex that 16-quarts is the smallest size you should get, though I say this as someone who used a 12-quart pot for years. Pots made for home use get wider rather than taller once you reach a capacity of 12 quarts (commercial pots grow in both directions), so a 16-quart is not much, if any, taller than the smaller one. This lets you make more stock at once, without compromising your ability to see over the rim. Chefmate is very decent stuff for these puposes, as is Tramontina. As Rachel suggests, you can get Chefmate at Amazon (which is really Target): I've seen Tramontina at Wal-Mart. If you have a Farberware outlet nearby, check them, too. Occasionally they have an overstock on their Millenium line (the only one worth buying). This stuff is at least the equivalent of the other two brands. It's not worth it to buy any higher quality than what we're talking about here, unless you're into high-end stuff for its own sake. There's no functional advantage to say, an All-Clad pot for making stock.

Related to fifi's point, has anybody else come to the conclusion that sweet onions (Mauis, Walla Wallas, Vidalias, etc.) are a waste when it comes to recipes, like French Onion Soup, that involve long cooking? I find they turn bland, whereas the really pungent ones have enough character to survive and prosper.

You might check out Ca' Del Solo Big House White.

If Le Creuset or Staub is not in the budget, I'd have no misgivings about recommending Sitram Profiserie: 7-1/2 quart Rondeau With a matching lid, you can be ready to go for about $100. My first choice, like most everyone else on this thread, is enameled cast-iron. But the fact is, I often braise in saute pans, and they're stainless steel with disk bottoms, just like the Sitram Rondeau.

I found this one: Stove and this one: Cooktop and oven choices

I don't have salted butter in the house, so that's what I use -- and I add a pinch of salt to Hollandaise. Actually, I add salt to a lot of things that happen to have butter in them, but Hollandaise, like many things with a lot of lemon in them, can be tricky.

I'm not certain, but I think Varmint's incommunicado for the next couple of days. As for butt-bumping, have you checked out Varmint's kitchen (scroll about halfway down the page to see the layout)? Butt-bumping will be the least of it. Y'all are gonna be best friends by the time this thing is over. Edit: on the other hand, Mrs. Dr. Varmint's mother's kitchen is wonderful.

I believe the 80/20 rule applies to cookware: you do 80% of your cooking with 20% of your pots and pans. Someone suggested earlier that you keep the ones you use most often out on a rack, and the rest in a cabinet. I recall that you have a rack in your current configuration, so you might be employing some version of this already. If you're not, you might consider it. You only have to keep a few pieces pristine, you gain accessibility, and you can keep the ugly stuff hidden. This is pretty much the way I operate, and most weeknights, I only open the cabinet to retrieve the pasta pot. (Weekends don't count, of course.) I agree that a drawer configuration beats shelves. You can keep your biggest stockpots in the pantry. If you want to keep the present rack, we'll need to work it into the plan. Alternatively, you need to put a new one on your shopping list. I've seen racks designed to go around the sort of chimney you've sketched.

It's a completely different breed from the stock used for the usual broilers and fryers, but is nonetheless considered good eatin'. (Never had it myself.) Probably more than you want to know: Here and here. Ooh. Here, too.

I've seen this pattern, and I don't think it's as bad as FG is making it out to be -- as long as you aren't expecting faux stone. To be honest, it never occurred to me that it was supposed to be granite. More than anything, it reminded me of the linoleum floor tile in a house we lived in in about 1963. I felt strangely at ease.

I'm not sure how it's done now, and it probably depends on exactly what you need. I'd bet some has to be hand fabricated, but standard sizes and edges are probably done by a computer-driven machine. John Boos makes them in a bunch of different sizes. They start at about $50/square foot and go up from there. There are probably less expensive vendors.

On that stretch of Beaver Ruin (for those of you ouside Atlanta: yes, that's really the name of the road) between Indian Trail and Buford Highway, there's about half a dozen carneceria/groceries. Most of them have small kitchens in the back, and serve stuff from tacquitos to rolled flank to braised pigs' feet. The quality varies from store to store, and even from day to day, but at the worst, you'll get more and better food for your five bucks than Taco Bell could dream of.