mgaretz

The santoku arrived on Monday - very fast considering I ordered it Friday afternoon pacific time and it came from Wisconsin. Kudos to CK2G. So far I like it. The handle's a tad chunkier than my Wusthof and a has a less rounded handle edge at the back, so it bites a bit into the heel of my palm. I may get used to it or try rounding the edge a bit. The blade is nice, out of the box it seems a bit sharper than my Wusthof (recently sharpened). I may get brave and try a light touch up with the 600 stone on the Edge Pro, but we'll see. The rest of the knives are due Thursday.

The good news is that freezing will have slowed whatever bad effects the air would have. So it may be a little better than if it hadn't frozen. And yes you've created American ice beer. Any ice beer produced in the US will have simply been frozen and thawed so they can call it ice beer. No ice will have been removed to increase the alcohol content - it would be illegal to do and still call it beer. The brewers don't want you to know this. Yes. I used to teach beer appreciation classes to the sales force of a major brewery. They were told that ice was removed by the marketing folks and were adamant that I was wrong when I told them what was really up. They went and checked and came back the next week admitting I was right. They do start with different recipe to impart a different flavor profile and have higher alcohol content.

The good news is that freezing will have slowed whatever bad effects the air would have. So it may be a little better than if it hadn't frozen. And yes you've created American ice beer. Any ice beer produced in the US will have simply been frozen and thawed so they can call it ice beer. No ice will have been removed to increase the alcohol content - it would be illegal to do and still call it beer. The brewers don't want you to know this.

Today I splurged and bought the Juice Etxractor and mash/purée attachments. I haven't tried the juice extractor (and it didn't receive a warm reaction from my wife and daughter when I brought it home) but tonight I made mashed potatoes with the mash attachment. Very nice! This attachment is basically a food mill designed for a food processor. It sits in the big bowl and comes with a specialized drive shaft to gear down the food processor's high speed, but it still spins pretty fast. It made quick work of two pounds of potatoes. Much faster a less hassle than my Roslé food mill. I thought the down side would be that clean-up would be more tedious. In fact, it cleans up easier than the food mill. So far, I am very happy with my Magimix.

You might consider a cleaver, such as the standard size Kagayaki or small Sugimoto Thanks ojisan. I do almost no chopping so I'm not sure what I'd do with a cleaver.

I have an EdgePro with the 220, 320, and 600 stones. (equivalent to 700, 2000, 5000 grits in the Japanese system)

Yesterday I had nice conversation with a lady at chefknivestogo.com and ended up ordering a Tojiro DP santoku with the Damascus style finish. It will arrive in a few days. $80 shipped. Then this morning I got a private sale offer from cutleryandmore.com for 25% off their already low prices on the Tojiro DP line (not Damascus). I ended up ordering a 9.5" sujihiki, 8" gyuto and a 6" honesuki. All for about $140 shipped. I couldn't resist! Today I also tried out some shun classics, some Miyabi fusion and kaizen knives, and a shun premier santoku. I liked the shun premier. Very nice knife. Comfortable handle, looks beautiful and cuts well. On sale for $99.95 at SLT but they didn't have any. I'm on a list. It's an option if I don't like the Tojiro. I didn't care for the shun classics. They seemed heavier and thicker than my wusthofs and only seemed to cut marginally better. I didn't think I'd like the handles but they were fine. The Miyabis were nice to look at, but didn't cut any better than my wusthoffs, maybe a bit worse, and the fusion handle was uncomfortable in my hand. I also tried a wusthoff nakiri. Yuck. It was heavy and thick. I'll report back when the Tojiros arrive.

First of all, I don't agree that the marinating will somehow magically make the meat more tender/juicy/succulent. Overcook it or under marinate it or use the wrong marinade and you can have shoe leather. I've made plenty of char siu by marinating, roasting and the charring. Sous vide is not only way easier, and as Scotty said, way more consistent, but also tastier (IMO, of course). My recipe is simple: First, I use a pork tenderloin. Not loin, but tenderloin. Pat dry then rub to coat evenly with NOH brand char siu marinade mix, dry. (this is a packet intended to be mixed with water to make a traditional marinade - we're using it as a rub instead). Put into vacuum bag and seal. Let it sit in the refrigerator for 10 to 24 hours. For me it's usually about 12, sealing it up the night before. Then into the bath at 140f for 5 hours. Remove, pat dry and baste with honey. Grill on all sides to get the char, re-baste the top with honey and let rest for 15 minutes and slice and serve if eating immediately. I usually let mine cool completely then slice and refrigerate for use later.

I'm thinking about getting a new Japanese knife. I have a Wusthof classic santoku with a 15 degree edge (that I put on with my new edge pro). It's my main knife. But I am thinking of replacing it or adding to it with a knife with better steel/ performance. So should I get a different santoku or a nakiri? What does a nakiri do better for vegetables than a santoku? I'm considering a Mac santoku and/or nakiri, and sur la table has a nice shun premier santoku on sale right now. Trying to stay under $100. Will I notice a big difference vs what I have now?

You suggested the recommended cooking times for tenderization, correct? Pasteurization is rolling out soon and that will probably come next. Tenderization and sometimes texture and overall effect. For example, you can cook chicken thighs just like breasts, and they'd technically be "done" and also tender, but people seem to prefer them cooked at a higher temperature and for a much longer time. Not sure what to call that.

Thanks Scotty!

Awesome looking pork loin. I'm definitely going to have to try your technique. Thanks vengroff! Just remember that I use pork tenderloin (the little skinny ones that usually come vacuum packed) which I assume is different cut than just a loin. Any thoughts on my suggestion for the program?

Thanks! The red color is part of the packet.

I thought it meant burnt on a fork.

Thanks. We did, in fact, have fried rice with it. Posted that pic over in the dinner topic.

Today I made Char Siu Take Two. (Actually it's the 4th time, but take two rhymes with char siu!) This was probably the best batch I have made. It's not traditional in that it's very lean without the fat and gristle common in the char siu made with pork butt or shoulder, but that was the point! Previously I had cooked it for 4 hours at 130F. Today was 4 hours at 140F. It was, of course, less pink, but still tender and juicy and we all liked the texture much better. So this is the way I will be doing it from now on. To recap, I start with pork tenderloin. Rub it liberally with a packaged char siu powder (normally intended to be mixed with water to form a marinade) then vacuum seal it and refrigerate for about 12 hours. Then into the bath for 4-5 hours at 140F. Remove from bath and pat dry, then baste on all sides with honey. Char it on a very hot BBQ for a few minutes on each side (or you can do it under a broiler). Remove and rebaste with honey and allow to rest a while, then slice.

Char Siu made sous vide with pork tenderloin: Served with fried rice that included basmati rice (made in my new Panasonic Fuzzy Logic rice cooker), broccoli, carrots, sweet peppers, leeks and garlic from the CSA, peas, ginger, red pepper flakes, cashews, egg and soy sauce.

Yesterday I baked the pie and made coleslaw. The pie crust was perfect. The cabbage and carrots were shredded easily and fairly uniformly. As I mentioned in my earlier post about the waste, I am still very impressed with the lack of waste when shredding carrots - just a few chunks over three big carrots. The Cuisnart Elite would have left almost half a carrot (after shredding three) and been a bitch to clean. In fact the ratio of carrots to cabbage was higher than I wanted because of it. Still good slaw though!

I'm in the process of adding this, and in light of recent discussions in this thread I'd like to ask for some feedback. Specifically, would you be interested in the time required to pasteurize the surface, the core, or an option for one or the other? I've put together the basic code for both, and the results are pretty interesting, especially for large cuts of meat. For example, here is a scenario where we are cooking a 50mm steak to 54.4°C in 55.4°C water. This is basically what the app does today. w So back to the original question. Is this the level of detail and the kind of options you would like to see in the app? Is the surface-only option useful--i.e. do you trust your rancher and butcher that much? Or is core pasteurization what most people want? Finally, I'm currently going with 5 LR (100,000 to 1) for E. Coli, 6 (1,000,000 to 1) for Listeria, and 6.48 (3,000,000 to 1) for Salmonella. These are the same numbers Baldwin uses, but I'd appreciate any feedback on them. Thanks in advance. Both, please. But what I would really like is recommended cooking times for cooking effect. My roast may be done and pasteurized in 4:36, but would it better cooked for 24-48? I know this is no longer mathematics, but if I'm going to have a reference, then I shouldn't have to look somewhere else to find out how long I should cook something vs. how long I must cook it.

Well the Magimix 4200xl is here! So far I've made pie crust dough and sliced and grated some carrots. Their instructions say to use the dough blade for pie crust, all the Cuisinarts I've owned have you use the metal chopping blade. Well i thought I'd give their way a try. It made the dough in short order, but we'll see how it bakes up this weekend. The carrots came out nice, especially the grated ones. Hardly any liquid was produced. Waste, the pieces on the top of the disc that don't get shredded, was minimal - much lower than with the Cuisinart elite. I'm also impressed with the ease with which it cleans up. The manual could be much better. It needs more generic instructions/recommendations for different kinds of ingredients and procedures. It has some pictures and a few words, then goes straight into recipes. There are lots of recipes - a quick flip through didn't reveal much that floated my boat. To give you an example, the first recipe is for unsalted garlic butter for snails. Ok, it is made in France. I was hoping the DVD would be better. It's a joke. No narration. The recipes are a quick shot of the ingredients and pieces of the food processor you'll be using. Then a closer shot of the ingredients with text overlays showing some, but not all of the ingredients. Then a few motion shots of the process that leave out about half the steps and hope you can figure what they put in the bowl when. And some of the ingredients are unidentifiable. Pretty worthless! I'll report back when we eat the pie and I've used it more.

I would try something along the lines of a Pina Colada, with a dash of sriracha (or Tobasco) and a touch of cumin. I do something like this as a dip with crushed pineapple and it works very well.

If you want to make less work for yourself, you start with pre-shredded potatoes - aka frozen hash browns. You can take all or part of them and process in a food processor (with the onions) to get the consistency you're after. Personally I do about 1/3 of the potatoes this way and them mix back with the rest. Be sure to use a lot of onion. The most common newbie mistake is to not use enough onion.

Thanks Rico. I think I meant 'fine' in the sense that it was very similar to my normal method, which would be the slow cooker. I don't think I would do anything different and I'll definitely do it this way again. We had the leftovers tonight and of course it was better the second day. The barley had a chance to thicken the sauce more.

Someone from Magimix saw this post and contacted me through my blog (since she's not a member here) to let me know that there was a glitch on the WS site and the Magimix food procesors are not discontinued at WS. I checked the site this morning and they are indeed back on the site.

After my family declared "enough turkey!" I made beef stew in my new electric pressure cooker. It was my first time making stew in a pressure cooker. It came out fine. Chuck, new potatoes, onion, carrots, celery, peas and barley: