IndyRob

The last time I was at an Arby's drive through, I belatedly noticed the they were offering Kraft branded Macaroni & Cheese as a side item on their value menu. I was immediately intrigued but had already ordered. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Familiar, cheap, comfort food that is virtually-idiot proof and (probably) included some sort of mutually beneficial marketing arrangement. So today I had 30 minutes for lunch which presented an opportunity to return for a sampling of said fare. Somehow, by unknown means which evade my imagination entirely, Arby's have managed to screw up the preparation of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. Upon unlidding the expected styrofoam container, I found a top surface that was beginning to dry out. Okay, well they obviously don't do these to order. They're probably sitting under heat lamps or some such thing, and this is a new item that they're not moving quickly yet. But underneath lurked a milky, decidedly non-faux-cheese tasting bland failure. Not even yellowish. Perhaps this was a result of a single team member with a lax manager. But I imagine that with a partner such as Kraft, which has quite a lot on the line in this deal, they would have been meticulous in their training. Has anyone else tried the Arby's Mac & Cheese? This episode makes me want to find another store to see if it was a fluke.

To me, they're one of those things that just almost work. It appears that newer models than mine may have been redesigned to extrude downwards as opposed to horizontally. I seem to recall that there may exist a heated bowl for the KA. Extruding right into the cooking water might be just the ticket.

I suspected that most, if not all, comments were indeed referring to the roller and nearly cancelled the post, but decided to just leave it and raise my error just as an alert for possible misunderstandings such as my own.

For me, with little experience/ability with fresh pasta, I slightly prefer the hand roller. I much prefer the KA experience all the way up to turning on the motor. Even at the slowest speed I start to feel a little like Lucille Ball working on the chocolate conveyor. The pasta comes out fine but there are the combined problems of trying to regulate a consistant length while keeping the strands from sticking together. I feel more confident working more slowly at a pace I control. If I had some more skill and/or guidance I might prefer the KA. But I think the hand cranked roller has some other advantages as well. I think you can get a larger sheet out of it as well as have a finer control of thickness. And having said all that, it just occured to me that there isn't a singular KA pasta attachment. There are rollers and extruders, as well as, I find now, a press. I was referring to the extruder, so I may have invalidated my post .

I can't offer any definitive answer, but was intrigued enough to do some searching. Apparently, these things are, despite the 'unflavored' labeling, CO2 trapped in hard sugar (or a sugar mixture with the necessary ingredients to create CO2 when they come in contact with water). The need to flavor with a fat based substance is apparently necessary to prevent premature 'detonation' of the rocks by introducing water. I found an article about creating your own at ehow.com (generally, I find articles on this site dubious, but it seems reasonable) http://www.ehow.com/how_4842725_make-homemade-pop-rocks.html The big problem for a savory application would be finding a substitute for the sugar. Perhaps someone else will have an idea. I'm not sure about the suitability of pop rocks for a savory food, but I imagine that habanero pop rocks would earn an automatic inclusion on Man v. Food. ETA: Maybe a barbecue sauce....

Underdog special (Really...? Not one eliminated chef could throw Bev a bone?). I like that Bev came through, but Nyesha would've been the more dramatic comeback after fighting through more challengers.

Well, we got the black chicken.

I freeze pizza dough all the time (frozen after kneading and balling). I usually make enough for six pizzas and put one or two in the refrigerator to cold ferment and freeze the rest. I also buy frozen dough loaves for when I want freshly baked bread. The regular instructions for the bread is to put in a greased loaf pan, cover with plastic wrap and leave to thaw and rise for 6 hours. In practice this method seems to a take a bit longer so it might be possible to do this before going to work and come home to a fully risen loaf. For my pizza dough, I usually just transfer it to the refrigerator 1-3 days before I need it. In emergencies I've found that I can thaw it quickly by putting the dough in a ziplock bag, getting rid of as much air as possible and putting it into a sink of room-temp water.

He hasn't. Well, I don't know. Wikipedia seems to think he has. Although elsewhere I did notice a reference to "...was on a team that..."

I hope that we'll see a long run to the end. Having the last chef eliminated pop right back in the end would be less satisfying than a sleeper candidate who has been quietly knocking off a succession of rivals.

Well, a nathanm appearance with MC as the Quickfire prize was a pleasant surprise. I didn't know that he had won a barbecue competition.

I had the impression that sous vide was adopted by commercial producers long before it hit fine dining. But I may have that confused with molecular gastronomy techniques in general. After some searching I found an abstract that does seem to indicate that sous vide is widely used in commercial food service (including products for hospitals). I suspect that it's just not being advertised as such. 'Meat Cooked for 72 Hours in a Vacuum' is probably not great a marketing message (plus, 72 hours is a lot of time and energy for commercial producers). Even many chefs who've used sous vide have seemed reluctant to admit to it. But I do think there is an opening for 'fresh sous vide', or more generally, just freshly cooked, take away heat-and-eat. I was talking to someone who is a manager in a supermarket recently and he said that, by far, the most profitable area of his store was the salad bar. I think that if someone were to expand that to a variety prepared foods that just need to be assembled and lightly heated, they could do well for themselves. Put it in an office building atrium and do donuts, danishes and bagels in the morning, a salad/sandwich bar in the afternoon, and take-home around quitting time.

I did a small one (4.5lb with bones) on Christmas Eve for four. I had some challenges with transport issues and dodgy thermometers, but it turned out okay. One objective observation...We wound up with two 'butt' slices (as my wife and I like to call the end slices - be it beef or baguette) and two interior slices. Carving for three will leave just one interior slice, which is what I think of when I think Prime Rib. But arguably, the butt slices are better.

Alton Brown's "I'm Just Here for the Food" books are really good for the basics. Very approachable, but in a way that led me to 'invent' sous vide (only to quickly find that I was 40 years too late).

*facepalm* Reading this, I just realized I left the bones (and some meat and fat) from a rib roast I made to take to my son's house. And I just got a pressure cooker. *doh!*

I did this this year (as I have in the past) and had an odd occurance. I have a probe thermometer with the cable that plugs into a unit. This unit will display the temp, but also transmit the temp via radio to another unit I can put in front of me while I, say, watch a football game on TV. That last bit is unrelated, but I think it's kind of cool. Anyway, I inserted the probe and while the roast was sitting on the counter, the temp eventually read 38F. Totally expected as it was just out of the fridge. I put the roast into a 500 degree oven and immediately turned the temp down to 200. Within a few minutes, the temp read 56 degrees. No way. The tip of the probe was as close to the center of the (admittedly smallish) 4.5lb roast as I could get. I reasoned that the 500 degree temp was conducting heat down the probe and figured that it would eventually resolve itself with the lower roasting temp. I used a second manual probe thermometer periodically to do sanity checks. Initially, the temp was off by 17 degrees and by the end it had gone down to 10-12 degrees off. This was a thermometer I had used without issue before. And it seemed to start out reasonably this time, but quickly got out of whack.

I've thought that a gratin can be cheese or bread crumbs or both. I checked the gratin entry on wikipedia and that appears to be the case. But interestingly, the scalloped part appears to come from slicing the potatoes in a scallop (as in seafood) style. But I agree with incorporating both aspects. Preferably in a thin layer to balance the scallop(ing?) with the gratin. [ETA] crumbs

I just watched a couple of episodes of Chef Hunter and was pleasantly surprised. It's been mentioned here but doesn't appear to have its own thread. Two chef candidates square off for one job opening at a notable restaurant (the first one I saw was the downtown Les Halles location) by developing some specials and running the kitchen for a night. It's wonderfully devoid of artificial drama, suspense, voiceovers, gimmicks, or celebrity chef interlopers. It does sound like they got the announcer from Gordon Ramsay's Fox shows, but his contributions are mercifully brief. Yes, there is the last minute choosing of the hired chef, but beyond that, they simply film each night and present them in a well edited format. If there's a fatal flaw, it may be that there's too little suspense. But I found it refreshing to see an honest contest play out without much artificiality.

I'd agree with that except for the following.... I like using grams and milliliters, There are clear advantages, especially when working with liquids of a water-like density (since there are direct, easy to calculate correlations between volume and weight). But temperature measurements don't really benefit from this in any practical sense in the kitchen. It really comes down to the difference between two scales. And the Fahrenheit scale is a bit more accurate if we're giving temps using integers. There are 180 notches on the Fahrenheit scale between freezing and boiling, and only 100 notches on the Celsius scale.

Perhaps we should have a separate topic for Last Chance Kitchen. There's a spoiler aspect since even those who can watch it on the 'net may not do so immediately.

I use a Presto Kitchen Kettle (I think they're calling them Multi-Cookers now), Food Saver and a Thermapen. But I have gotten by using a pan, a Ziplock bag and a cheaper digital probe thermometer. I don't have any circulation and I don't think it's an issue for what I do. I routinely test with the Thermapen at different locations in the bath and never notice much, if any, difference in the Kitchen Kettle. The biggest downside is needing to stabilize the temp at the beginning. I have to set it initially to some marks I've made on the dial with a Sharpie. Then as it gets into the ballpark, I keep tweaking the dial until it's holding the temp I want. From there it requires minimal attention and doesn't vary beyond 1-2 degrees F. That's close enough for what I do (meat primarily). I've been meaning to test the manual Ziplock pumps. I think they'd work pretty well for low temp applications. Then, one could get into sous vide for under $50. 80% of that is the Kitchen Kettle, but you're also getting a deep fryer, slow cooker, and with its frying basket, it proves pretty handy for pasta as well.

Indeed. While reading some earlier posts I was thinking that I'd never say frahnce when referring to France in a conversation in English. And of course, regional variations become local dogma. New Orleans is pronounced N'awlins, and Louisville is pronounced Loowahvul (after Le Roi Loowah, I presume). And I take care never to miss an opportunity to mispronounce crudite. "Oooh, look...crud-ites!"

I had the exact same reaction. I was rolling on the couch. Once in a while, they start off on a tangent and wind up hitting it out of the park.

Don't tell Freddie Mercury! "She keeps the Mow-ay & Chandon in a pretty cabinet...." How about this pronuciation? To my ear she's saying 'noy-dee prat'.

That looks awesome. Is that a full sheet pan, or a half?