Dave the Cook

Sounds like the start of a great thread, Nick--"What's your greatest culinary sin?" Like mixing Dream Whip with canned chocolate pudding and selling it as chocolate mousse... (250 servings one desperate Sunday)

So there's no future in cloaking smugness with a veil of false humility? Damn.

They're called skimmers. I use one like this: The problem is that scum bubbles are often the same size (or smaller) as the holes in the skimmer. So I'm thinking about getting one like this: And thank you, mb.

For a long braise like this, I would go for 250. You're trying to accomplish two things: 1) allow the flavors sufficient time to meld; 2) melt the collagen in the meat to get that silken texture characteristic of a perfect braise. The first can be accomplished by braising until done, then letting the braise sit over night. But heat will accelerate reactions, and some reactions take place only in the presence of heat, so longer is better. The second you want to do without driving all the juice out of meat too early. It will happen eventually, because a braise is by definition well-done meat, and well-done by definition is dried out. But you want to replace the juice with the melted collagen. If the meat dries out too early, the protein matrix will tighten up, and there will be no place for the collagen to go but out into the liquid. It will make for great sauce but dessicated meat. The meat needs to remain at about 200 (collagen melts at around 180, if memory serves) for a few hours in order to allow complete conversion of the collagen into gelatin. I think it needs to be as high as 250 because you will have some heat loss from the oven and the pot. (If you've got a really well-insulated oven, you could try 225.) But at 300, I think you're going to be boiling most of the time, and this is what you want to avoid. This explains a common phenomenon. People say they don't like pot roast because it gets so dry. So they cook it less--and they like it less--so eventually, they don't cook it at all, which is really too bad. They need to cook it more--four hours for a 3-1/2 pound chuck is about right. But this is just my theory (and opinion, and I do go on sometimes). johnjohn, sorry if I'm explaining stuff you already know, when all you wanted was a number.

Saturday: Grilled flatiron steaks over hardwood charcoal Fries: russets soaked, then deep-fried (just once; too late for the full treatment) Grilled portobello and romaine salad--marinated the 'shrooms in EVOO, lemon and anchovy and grilled with the steaks; brushed the lettuce with the same marinade and did one minute per side while the steaks were resting. Whacked it all up and tossed--big hit. Next time will mix in some raddicchio and couple of the last summer tomatoes, maybe a little Parmesan. Stonehaven Shiraz-Cabernet I found for $7. Decent. Sunday: Grill-smoked beef ribs--I don't normally do beef twice in a row like this, but I had put off the steaks from Wednesday or Thursday, and the beef ribs were a special. I wanted to do pork, but they were four times as much, and I hadn't done beef in several years. Gave the ribs a dry rub of ancho, cumin, coriander, celery seed, garlic and onion. Cooked two hours by the side of a ~275 F fire. Ok, but a little disappointing--family expressd desire to have baby backs or pork spare ribs instead. Just realized in writing this up that I left salt out of the rub, and this probably had something to do with it. Blue cheese potato salad Black bean/red pepper/corn relish Rosemount Grenache Shiraz--nice match with the spice; we have this often with Cajun food. Since the grill was going for so long anyway, I grilled five zucchini and smoked a few links of spicy fresh pork sausage for use later in the week.

So egg flavor is less important than acid/fat balance?

I have to agree with JM. I spent four of the last six years in Houston. For all of its progressive talk, and all its admirable accomplishments, Houston still revels in its Westerness and its cowboy/oil-town-rowdy provincialism. Not that it doesn't have pockets of refinement--but my impression was that the market was well-served by what was already there. I think there are a number of other cities in the South and Southwest (even in Texas) where your friend's chances would be better. If it's got to be Houston, look at the Woodlands (of course), the downtown areas where some gentrification is going on, and Clear Lake, where there is some young money. No offense, Jess.

In the course of tracking down all the wonderful information you guys have provide, I found out the following: Apparently, Copco was broken up a few years ago. What's left of the old company makes teapots and gadgets, but no pots and pans. That part of the company is controlled by Aga, the oven people, and is not easily obtained in the US. (Historical sidenote: Sam Farber, founder of Copco and nephew of the founder of Farberware, come out of retirement to start Oxo, the company that proved you really could get people to pay $19 for a manual can opener. He was inspired by his arthritic wife's struggles with everyday kitchen equipment.) Note on Griswold, for those unfamiliar with it: Wagner (of WagnerWare fame) bought the Griswold castings. Eventually Wagner got out of the cookware business. Thanks for all your help. A few minutes ago, I bought a Lodge 11-1/4" round pan. It was $15 on Amazon. Following FG's sage advice, I added a cookbook and got free shipping. I'm $15 ahead of the LeCreuset price. This was what I wanted to do in the first place, but the swoop of those handles (useless as they may be), kept tugging at me. Maybe when I 'm rich, I'll buy one and set it out as an objet d'art. Nice to be back on the One True Path. By the way, the real deal-killer was LeCreuset's warning about using heat above medium. Don't they expect people to actually use these things? Anybody making book on the upcoming Fat-Guy vs. Margaret "The Wuss" Pilgrim match?

I've been giving this a lot of thought, and I have some ideas about how to extend the shelf-life of homemade mayo. As I was working through a protocol in my head, it occurred to me that perhaps no one is really interested in doing it. Do you folks want longer-life homemade mayo? If you do, what are the characteristics that you are least willing to give up? Some possibilities that occur to me: -"eggy" taste - texture - choice of fat (and by the way, what is the fat of choice?) - other taste components

I have the Lodge version of the two-burner grill, and I loved it when I had a gas cooktop. Now I have a ceramic top, and it is unworkable. One of these days I'll replace the range, but until then I need a single-burner solution. Also, the dishwashers complained that it was too heavy.

Seductive, isn't it? What's the deal with Griswold?

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?