Dave the Cook

Last Christmas, I received a Calphalon grill pan. I don't know which line, but it's the one with the polished v-shaped handles that Fat-Guy goes on and on about. The handle is actually OK, but the pan warped its first time out. (Looking at the construction, it's easy to see why.) I'm still using it, but I'd like one that doesn't rock 'n' roll so much. Today, I got an e-mail advertising this LeCreuset piece at what looks like a pretty good price ($40): Does anybody have any experience with it? Any other recommendations?

We agree on this. Between Lodge and LeCreuset, I use it a lot. But with C/I you can't tell the condition of the fond (or Cajun roux) as easily as in S/S. Also, C/I is slower to heat and (often more important) slower to cool.

So that's what they're for! Thanks, Mamster. This makes sense, especially in light of the demographics in the areas where I've seen them. But I do wonder why I never see the thicker cut that HdT found in other parts of the city.

I have a bottle of this on my desk! It's a chelating agent. I also have a bottle of sodium lauryl sulfate. You want my job so bad. You're really Clark W. Griswold, Jr., aren't you?

I've wondered about using the oven, too. I really like this idea. I think I'll try it for beef stock. Nickn--I had the same question, but in the end, I don't think you need to worry about providing additional heat at the bottom. Here's my theoretical support (subject as always to the caveat that my science education was gleaned mainly from Firesign Theatre recordings and the tattered paperbacks of Isaac Asimov): 1. You will always have material of varying densities within the pot. As the ingredients are extracted and become mixed or saturated, or as the solids become hydrated or dehydrated (all these actions effectively define the making of stock), they will become more or less dense, thus providing some motion. 2. Since heat always rises, your oven will be slightly warmer at the top than at the bottom (except at the very bottom where the heat source is), and your pot will always be slightly warmer at the top, too. This differential means you will always have some motion due to convection, even in a closed, well-insulated pot. 3. You will always be leaking heat out the top, because the lid, even on a high quality pot like yours, does not fit perfectly enough to prevent vapor loss. 4. The longer the pot spends in the oven, the less advantage the All-Clad provides. Over time, with a perfectly insulated oven, everything would achieve the same temperature and convection would stop--full cladding or not. But they aren't perfect--and the sound of your oven thermostat clicking on and off (and the slow but relentless evaporation of your liquid) should be reassuring proof that convection is in action. Where the All-Clad excels is on the stove top, because the cladding lets you move heat from the bottom to the sides--a great advantage when boiling, reducing or simmering with a bottom-bound heat source. Since in an oven the heat is already at the sides, a thinner pot would actually be better. Theoretically. Do you have an All-Clad sauté (3 qt.) or fry pan (9" or 10")? if you do, how do you like it? I lost my big sauté (an old Cuisinart) in a household move and need to replace it, so I'm looking for advice. Thanks for the salt pointers. I'll probably be in touch about the Maine stuff. Let me work on my palate first.

When I did purchasing for a restaurant (this goes back 20+ years, but things are probably the same), mayonnaise was purchased according to oil content. The top of the line was Kraft Extra Heavy Mayonnaise, at 81% oil, all the others being less. Since warehouse clubs often buy in restaurant packs (hence the gallon jug), I suspect you were looking at a high-percentage-oil mayo. Doesn't excuse the terminology, though, does it? Makes me want to grease my axles. My theory, FWIW, is that MW also has a much higher proportion of acid, in the form of vinegar, perhaps cider vinegar. Joy of Cooking has a slaw dressing recipe that calls for mayo, sugar and cider vinegar that tastes suspiciously close to MW. Oh, I get it-- . Sorry, Bux, I was about give you the actual temperatures for pasteurization. Oh hell, I can't help it--144 F for 30 minutes or 160 F for 15 seconds. Let's see Hellman's put that in a jar.

I think of an English-style short rib as a good-sized hunk of meat attached to a length (two to four inches) of rib bone. It has a good bit of external fat; the meat hunk is layered with fat and connective tissue as well. My mom used to grill or broil them medium rare (chewy, but great beefy taste), but most people braise them. The big challenge with these is rendering all the fat. Flanken are cut across the rack 1/2- to 3/4-inch thick. In this way, more of the marrow is exposed; the rib cross-sections are joined by a segment of meat and connective tissue. To me, they don't seem to have enough meat to be worth bothering with, but that's just my opinion. A lot of people like them. I think that most of time you see a reference to short ribs, the English style is what is being discussed. If flanken are the topic, the term is usually explicit in the name of the dish. It seems to me that you used to see English short ribs all the time at the grocery store. These days I see more flanken, and when I asked the "butcher" at Kroger about the other kind, he was stumped. I had to draw him a picture to get him to understand.

Fat Guy: your oddysey is inspiring. Please keep it up--I'm really looking forward to a recipe for an iced tea worth making.

So we have a pact, right? Instead of using Hellman's as our backup mayo, we're all switching to Miracle Whip.

Self-pasteurizing? Absurd.

I'd bet there's fodder for a whole new "guilty pleasures" thread here. Some things are better stale. I love graham crackers when they get a little soft and crumbly. And there are scads of people who swear Marshmallow Peeps aren't worth anything until they've gone crusty. Not that anyone on eGullet indulges in Peeps. Too ...

If you don't mind, Suzanne, a slight amplification: You don't necessarily have to get everything out of the pot, although that's the way this recipe works. But if you're doing a pot roast, after searing the meat, you typically sauté the mirepoix. In that case, the vegetables usually have enough water in them to deglaze without going to the trouble of a separate step. If not, you can always add a little liquid after the mirepoix is ready (but not before, or the mirepoix will just steam), and finish the deglazing then.

Thank you. Maybe I should try mayonnaise next?

Hellman's is my fallback, also. For the record, I'm pretty sure they invented bottled mayo.

To this day, the second I enter a school cafeteria, I smell sauerkraut and sloppy joes, and I get bilious.

I'm impressed by FG's memory, but nowhere in that chapter are maggiethecat's questions really answered. Edited after checking reference to The Curious Cook.

I'm not from NJ, but we all have a stake here--how about filling us in? How does the NJ Supreme court stack up politically? Who appointed the justices? Or are they elected? Based on what I've heard, it doesn't sound like there's a loophole for the 45-day rule.

Suzanne: truly, I am flattered.

Semi-educated guesses: 1) They probably use more acid. Vinegar and mayo? What do you use? I don't use both. I don't think. I haven't made mayo in a while...on to firmer ground... 2) Processing temperatures have significant effects on the ability of acids to neutralize bacteria. I bet you refrigerate your mayo as soon as is practical, because you're afraid of killing somebody. But a 30- to 60-minute rest at room temperature allows the acid to do its job better. It's counter-intuitive, but it's true. Acids work better at elevated temperatures. 3) They can bottle the stuff in more sanitary conditions than you possibly could. Do you check the chemical and biological purity of each ingredient before processing? Do you have air filters on your HVAC that trap anything larger than a few microns? Do you sterilize your containers right before filling them? Do you pull a vacuum before putting on the lid? 4) Pasteurized eggs. 5) Pure thoughts and wholesome living. I'm sure some other smug bastard has other or better or more accurate ideas. But just because we often think of food processors as the enemy doesn't mean they don't know what they're doing. And it doesn't mean you don't either. I'll bet your mayo is much better than their's.

This thread is not at all what I thought it would be. I haven't been this disappointed since the debut of the Barenaked ladies video.

It strikes me that we've all been very helpful on ingredients and procedure, but if you've never made something before, what you need is a recipe, and we haven't actually provided one. Here's one that makes a rich broth and goes real quick: For every kilo of meaty chicken scraps, have ready one half medium onion and one liter of boiling water. 1. Hack the chicken into 2-inch (50 mm) pieces. Chop the onion medium. 2. Sauté the onion in a little oil until tender. Remove. 3. Sauté the chicken parts in a little oil until they are no longer pink. Remove. 4. Deglaze the pan with a little water or wine, or a combination. 5. Return the chicken and onion to the pot. Cover, set the heat to low and let the contents cook for 20 minutes. 6. Add the boiling water. Adjust the pot to a simmer. Cover and simmer for another 45 minutes. 7. Strain, refrigerate, skim fat. Done. Strain again if it's not clear enough, or use the egg white technique. Except for chilling, this whole procedure won't take more than an hour and a half. This may seem sort of radical, since we all learned that stock takes hours of gentle attention. I don't think it should have to. (Now, if I can just figure out a shortcut for beef and veal...) You don't need to skim because the initial sauté denatures the meat proteins, and they won't float to the top--they'll merge with the rest of the ingredients and be strained out in the end. Now, you can adjust with all those other wonderful things people are suggesting, adding them at step 6. If these additional ingredients require longer simmering, go ahead and simmer. You won't hurt the chicken. As for salt, last weekend I made two batches of stock, each using four pounds of legs and two quarts of water. In one I used 2 teaspoons of salt; in the other, I used none. Before doing this, I grabbed few books to check proportions. Cooks Illustrated, Joy and The Way to Cook all listed salt in this amount for two quarts of stock and four pounds of scraps. Rene Verdon and Michelle Urvater omitted it (both are more likely to use stocks as glaces than straight). So I'm not without precedent here. A visual inspection showed that the salted stock had developed much more gelatin. I believe this is because the salt accelerated extraction of the gelatin proteins. Presumably this could be overcome with longer simmering of the unsalted stock. We did a tasting of straight stock, a 50% reduction and a 75% reduction. There were no real surprises. By the time the salted sample was down to 25% of its original volume, it was roughly the equivalent of seawater, though the chicken background was still quite robust. What was a little surprising was how little salt was needed to make a big difference in the fullness of the taste. By combining samples, I determined that 2 parts unsalted to 1 part salted rounded out the stock without a hint of identifiable salt flavor (one taster commented that she felt like she was "drinking chicken"). Oddly, adding salt directly to the unsalted sample did not have the same effect--tasters could tell the difference. So unless you're making glace de voillaile, I recommend kosher salt at the rate of 1/4 teaspoon per quart. And if you have no scraps, I heartily recommend using legs and wings in the ratio of 3 to 1. This should boost the gelatin content sufficiently in the absence of feet.

I'm not sure I can add to what you probably already know, but just in case: The theory is that the dimples means less drag, so on delicate tissues (like fresh or smoked fish or ripe tomatoes), you can cut thinner slices. A corollary says that, on juicy items (tomato again, or rare roast beef), the dimples actually let the juices become a lubricant, thereby helping you get not just a thin slice, but a uniform one. My experience is that one tends to over-exert on large items like rib roasts, and on soft items like ripe, ripe fruits, and you end up with a concave face (on the roast, not you) or a crushed tomato. A granton edge lets you slice with less pressure, so you avoid this. Not to be confused with a serrated edge. I know people that swear by them, and they seem to be gaining in popularity. Suzanne can probably shed more light on the subject. Agreed, but it started out a little scary. The lead car had taken off without us, so we had to dress for the trip in our stage outfits. This was the late 70's, so we're talking lots of frills, lamé or spandex shirts, pants so tight you could tell our religion, maybe a little make-up that didn't get taken off from the night before. Three refugees from the planet of Alice Cooper, David Bowie and Yes, taking a mid-morning stroll through a Georgia mountain town, Deliverance running a tape loop in our heads. I'm sure we were a sight. But those folks were as nice as could be. Listened to our story, offered us sweet tea, talked about the weather while looking at our platform shoes, and let us use the phone to call a tow truck. Edit: Oh, yeah, sorry for wandering off. You guys get back on topic!

Maybe I'm wrong, and it's only in the Grand Prix line. My understanding is that the Kullenschliff edge is mainly for sushi. I don't do that sort of stuff, and I keep a good edge on my knives, so I don't miss it. On the other hand, I've never used a knife with one, except the good old long slicer (used on innumerable prime ribs in my restaurant days) so maybe I don't know what I'm missing. Suzanne: I'd been wondering about Messermeisters. I guess they're worth a look? Nickn--believe it or not, I found it at a yard sale in Clayton, Georgia. Our truck had thrown its drive shaft, and while we were waiting for help, we wandered into town, and there it was.

None that I know of, except price, but you seem to be willing to pay for what you want. In fact, based on this discussion, I'm planning to look at the same thing. Probably the main reason I like Henckel is the 5-Star handle. It seems to be made for the way I hold a knife. As for the spelling, since it is not a word of English origin, there is no right answer, only a commonly accepted form, which is santOkU. FYI, I believe they also have a non-Granton edge version.

I never could get into the Fender experience--the rounded neck (reminiscent of the subtle curve of a Wusthof chef's knife) and lack of fretboard. I'm first and foremost a bass player, but when I do need an electric 6-string, I've got an old Gibson Melody Maker. It's a plain, gritty-looking thing (Les Paul shape, but no bindings; dark, dark cherry finish; one double humbucker and one lipstick pickup), perfect for my trashy playing. Me, too. 7-inch (?) 5-Star. After that, a 6-inch utility (Wusthof) and a Dexter cleaver. Those cover the 80 part of the 80/20 rule.