Dave the Cook

I continue to recommend welder's gloves as the cheap alternative (though not quite as cheap as the old wrapped towel, which I use just as often). The problem with mitts and towels is you lose the use of your fingers. Since you can move pots and pans in and out of the oven with ease (nothing like having free use of your opposable thumb), you start to feel invincible. You are not, as I found out last night. Without thinking, I picked up the cast iron handle that is used to move the grates on my grill. It had been sitting at the edge of the coals. No problem for about 30 seconds, but then the glove got hot and did not cool off, even after I released the handle, which I couldn't do immediately, lest I drop a five-pound, 500-degree grate on my foot. I had to shake the glove off -- no burns, but it was close. It remained uncomfortably hot for two or three minutes. The expensive alternative is insulated Kevlar, used by glass blowers, among others: click here. Thirty-eight bucks, but worth it, I think, for 2000 F protection and the use of your fingers, which, as everyone knows, is the only thing that elevates us above cats.

This seems pretty simple to me. In most contexts, "steaming" sounds classier than "boiled."

Lots of "girls" are successful and accepted by men without a hint of sexism (there are more than a few on this site). And plenty of men get nailed here when they overreach -- Emeril Lagasse, Bobby Flay and Jamie Oliver come immediately to mind. Note that it is rarely their cooking that takes the hit. It's their attitudes, their egos and their ambitions that offend. My observation is that that offense is transgender in nature. I've seen AW a couple of times on the show belonging to that other target, Martha Stewart. She is charming and informative, but like Martha, she seems oblivious to the fact that what she thinks people ought to do (and I use "ought" in the moral sense, as Alice often does) is simply not possible for many, many of them. This creates a great deal of resentment on the part of the preachees -- they feel like they have been given a choice between guilt or heresy. Some choice! Having read and digested many Martha posts on this site, and having to come to a reappreciation for her because of that, I'm willing to give AW the benefit of the doubt -- maybe I already feel guilty and Alice is simply uncovering it. That's not her fault. But the article (rgruby's synopsis, anyway) that opened the thread makes her sound like a hypocrite, and moral hypocrites are easy (and, sad to say, often justifiable) targets. (I'm pretty sure Rachael, Nigella and Sara get smacked down as often by women as by men. So if you want to play the gender card, we'll have to discuss reverse sexism, too.)

I must defer to guajolote on quantities, since I've never actually made it. I was just the idea man on this one. OTOH, since Dean did the actual work (with some help, I gather), and the Heartlanders were nice enough to be guinea pigs, and have approved it, I might try it myself.

nano-nanoo

Speak for yourself. And welcome, FistFullaRoux.

Very cool! I am honored and humbled. (Yes, I'm serious!) And glad it worked.

Did any of these articles answer the question about why it's a flavor enhancer? I couldn't find the answer in any of them. I couldn't find anything either. jsolomon's information gets us a bit closer, perhaps, but doesn't seem to apply unless heat is involved. So why watermelon tastes better with the tiniest bit of salt remains a mystery. Taste receptors have channels that respond to different compounds. When the channel is excited, the nerve that runs between the taste bud and the brain gets triggered (it's a little more complicated than that, of course, but that's the gist of it). There are specific channels for each of the four tastes (sweet, salty, bitter, sour), though the excitatory mechanism in each case is different. As I understand it, umami works at a higher level by causing multiple channels to interact. Although there is a specific channel for salt that responds to the Sodium ion, my guess is that there is some sort of ionic interaction between the Sodium (Na+) channel and the other channels, perhaps causing them to open (or close) in the presence of certain other materials. After all, salt doesn't make everything taste better, and it definitely masks some things -- I sometimes find myself pitting salt against lemon juice, for instance. The citation rxrfrx provided alludes to this. Either that, or it's nanobots. It's interesting that a lot of research is concetrating on the genetics of taste, using fruit flies as subjects. Turns out that female fruit flies have taste receptors on their genitalia. Less tittilating but more cogent is that the salt receptor in particular seems to have evolutionary significance. Here are some sites that are (sort of) on point: The Molecular Mechanisms of Taste Transduction and Coding Sense of Taste ChemoReception

I, too, have lots of warped Calphalon.

How about: roast the tomatoes in a slow oven with a head or two of garlic. Bathe the steak in lime or lime juice, soy and a little brown sugar for an hour or so, then grill to medium rare. Let cool. Slice the steak thin on the bias. Wrap a rosy slice around a chunk of tomato candy, a clove of garlic and a basil leaf (or oregano leaves) to make a sort of flower. Secure with a toothpick, sprinkle with coarse salt. Garnish with a tiny basil or oregano leaf (or basil flower sprig, if you've got any).

Good God, Archie, you really are the Science Guy! Thank you so much for this. I am sorely tempted to try . Really. Just can't think of a way to determine whether a pan has reached 600 degrees. Steel mill, perhaps? Just send the pans to Dave the Cook. Those who can, do. Those who can't, post on eGullet do-it-yourself threads. Some gas grills can hit in excess of 700 degrees, as can charcoal fires. I've heard Big Green Egg folk claim up to 850 or so.

Yes, Lily, you can do it at home, but you'll probably ruin your manicure. Are you still interested? You'll need: - steel wool - tin solder - flux (you can get it where you get the solder) - a heavy leather pad - something to lubricate the pad (try to find an old tallow candle, or hunt down some plumber's tallow -- your best bet is a hardware store in a gentrifying neighborhood that has a lot of old plumbing in it) - an area where you can heat the whole pan (not just the bottom) to about 600 F In a nutshell: Scour the interior of pan with the steel wool Coat the scoured area with the flux Melt the solder in the pan. Tin melts at about 450 F (as you discovered, though the solder melting point might be somewhat different). You want the pan evenly heated so the tin will flow over the entire surface. Smooth the solder around the inside of the pan, using the leather pad. Keep the pan hot so that the solder flows smoothly, but not so hot that it thins out. (Think about how thin oil gets when you overheat it.) Piece of cake. Allow to cool naturally (in other words, don't dunk it in ice water).

Man... my pet chicken is going to be really glad to hear that! But I'll bet the ferrets will be disappointed! A dizzy chicken is easier to dispatch.

While gelatin is a useful emulsifier, and can facilitate reduction sauces, the real powerhouse in any sauce involving butter is lecithin, which is abundant in both egg yolks (think mayonnaise and hollandaise) and butter (also hollandaise, though the amount of lecithin in an egg yolk overshadows the amount in butter). In The Curious Cook, Harold McGee describes making a butter sauce (meaning beurre blanc or an enriched reduction of pan juices) as the act of turning butter back into cream. The real key is temperature. If you maintain the contents of your pan between 100 F and 130 F, you can whisk all the butter you want into the reduction, be it wine and herbs or meat stock. You don't need to invoke superstition or arcane techniques like shaking, swirling or swinging a live chicken over your head. If I recall correctly (I don't have the book in front of me), he even demonstrates it with plain old water.

Nor I--but I always thanked the sugar for that.

I've never heard sugar mentioned in the context that Grigson uses -- in reference to brining. It's always been a flavor component. I'm inclined to agree with your comparison to searing, as well as your contention that results are what matter (though it's often helpful to know why things happen). My result: I've never had meat come out of a brine tougher than it was when it went in.

With all due respect, that's not reasoning, is it? She's going to have to do better than that. I think meat is submerged in a solution of salt, saltpeter and sugar, then removed from the solution and allowed to dry. In this case, yes, I could easily see sugar helping out, since it's hygroscopic. But that's curing, not brining.

I'd like to hear the reasoning on this. I've never heard it before. It seems to me that unless it's water soluble, it's not going to be able to infiltrate the meat in the same way as the salt. Even then, the size of the molecules could inhibit osmosis of some ingredients (I'm thinking of polysaccharides). So I don't usually bother with spice and herbs, since much of their flavor is in the form of oils. Aromatics like onions, garlic, celery and so forth seem (to me) to have limited success, unless you want to sweat them first or boil them in the brine and let it cool. More trouble than it's worth, in my book. However, fruit juices and ciders do work, as do vinegars. I often add lemon or lime juice to brines for chicken. On her foodblog, I think fifi mentioned sour orange juice for pork, and I've used sherry vinegar with tenderloins. I'm with Jim on the sugar. I'll add it in small quantities to pork sometimes.

This is my problem, I think. "Rationale" is just too close to "rationalization" in the dictionary for me to distinguish. I hadn't thought of kitties, but you're right there, too. Ever since I found a paw print in the butter, I've been more careful.

Unless you left the shell on the egg, I'm with AB. (I admit to bristling a bit at the word "rationale," as what he says is true.) Yes, covered, but that's to keep airborne stuff (and creatures) out. I don't think it has anything to do with acid doing its work.

even with surface area considerations? Surface area (related to granule size and shape) matters when you're measuring by volume. If you measure out a cup of Kosher salt, you'll see it weighs significantly less than a cup of table salt -- hence the differing proportions for different types. But a pound of salt is a pound of salt, regardless of crystal shape or size. And of course, once it's dissolved, surface area doesn't matter.

I spatchcock so often that I find I can remove the backbone with poultry shears (which is all you really need to do) plus cut out the breast bone and those funny shaped ones attached to the leg bones in around 2 minutes, so I almost always spatchcock. The added bonus is that I throw the raw bones into a bag in the freezer which I turn into chicken stock every time it fills up. Spoken like a man without benefit of three children (and no, ferrets don't count). Five minutes saved on bypassing a spatchcock is five minutes earned, especially on a school night. And while I save meaty scraps, too, I don't fret much if I miss a few. Whole chicken legs are so cheap, and so often on sale, that I don't mind buying a few pounds of them when I need to make stock.

Sam is on the money: either you made a mistake, or you don't like the results. The former can be remedied; the latter is a matter of taste. The most common error I see (aside from brining a kosher chicken, or one that's been injected with enhancements at the processing plant) is that of substituting table salt for kosher salt. Somewhere earlier in this thread, I gave proportions, but you can assume that table salt is twice as "powerful" for a given volume as Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt, and 50% more than Morton Kosher Salt. (Note that if you're weighing your salt, you should use the same weight regardless of brand or type.)

you didn't notice that more of the bird was on the grates? It was spatchcocked, dude. It was as flat and grateful as it could possibly be.

Whatever works, I say. Our differing results could have to do with a lot of factors: grill temp, brining/not brining, distance from the heat, which house the moon is in. And I exaggerated my experience. The fact is, I've never noticed that the brick made any difference at all, except to impress the neighborhood kids and gullible relatives. I don't flip it, and that's probably the biggest difference. If I left the brick on for forty minutes, skin side down, I'd probably burn the bird on the grate. Sometimes I will rotate it, depending on how the coals are laying/burning down.