IndyRob

Just watched Rick Moonen's video recreating the dish. No crust on the bottom, no pea salt, I don't think the herbs were fried. I'd never even thought to question these videos before.

I'm not sure if I would agree with this. Although I think 'comes cleanly off the bone' is a better rib experience, if I'm at a table, I wouldn't have any problem with 'falling off the bone'. It is certainly much better than still clinging to the bone. I went to a place in Illinois that Bon Appetit chose as their best ribs in America one year. The were the best I'd ever had, but I didn't really care for the much vaunted 'bark'. To me, it's blackened shoe leather. But under that was wonderfully pink, tender, flavorful porky goodness. So I think if you can get the job done without drying the outside for so long, it could be a good thing.

I was playing with this a few months ago and got the best results by wrapping a strip of bacon around the dog in a spiral fashion, securing the ends with toothpicks and throwing in the oven. I don't remember the time or temp, but you're really just cooking the bacon to the stage you want. The hot dog can stand some over cooking (as evidenced by grill charred dogs, and deep fried 'rippers' that people seem to like). One thing I found was that using a hot dog that's good by itself results in overkill when you add the strong bacon flavor/texture. The bland, whitish dogs used in Detroit under mounds of Greek Coney sauce would probably be good. From there it's just looking for the right flavors which led me close to condimentia.

Alas, my challenger for Arby's is nearly extinct. Rax is down to a single restaurant in a few midwestern states. And to add insult to injury two closed Rax Roast Beef stores I knew of were razed and replaced with Arbys. The Rax roast beef product is very similar to Arby's. But while still sliced paper thin like Arby's, it somehow retains it's juicyness. In the unlimited division, while I favor the French Dip, I feel as though there's still room for a better new idea. It may involve mushrooms, and gruyere and a baguette. A restaurant near me had a very good steak and cheese sandwich, but it's really a one-off preparation where the bread played a large role - perhaps more than the beef. Pastrami would be right up there, but I agree that it doesn't really fit the spirit of 'beef sandwich' any more than a salami sandwich. These kind of transcend the 'beef' label.

Bad rabbit. Bad, bad rabbit. I think in a previous thread I got freaked out about this and did some googling and found a similar statistic. While I don't intend to repeat this practice after that, I've often used room temp infused garlic oils after six months or more (although always heated to frying temps when used), I don't think it's a necessarily bad thing to put the problem into perspective. Given the fact that I'm still alive, and that I hear more about salmonella problems than botulism, I can't help but feeling that there might be a Douglas Baldwin-esque (in reference to his conviction that lower cooking temps can be proven safe) admonition lurking in the wings. I am making no claims, just acknowledging a data point that seems oddly out of place.

Hot cocoa mix is worth doing. You can customize your own mix. I once tried premixing dry ingredients for pizza dough. That turned out to be pretty pointless. Now I just make bigger batches and freeze some dough balls.

And here I was about to point out that Tom mentioned that he's never been south of Rome and that he needed to get down there. Well, it was a good hypothesis while it lasted.

I wasn't suprised. Mike knew his pasta was bad, but that was the only real problem. If Tre's risotto texture was all that was wrong, I would agree that it was a lesser sin. But there was the veg problem as well.

Aren't bananas a sort of miracle food even when slushified? The base offers several different directions to pursue.

We don't really use 'sussed', but as clever as it might have been, I agree that it would be blatant cheating if true. The fact that dim sum was not leaving the kitchen was a mystery to me. I've made 3 dozen potstickers for personal use and wouldn't really be intmidated by having to do 180 (well, maybe just a bit). But I could have done it, and as soon as service started I wouldn't have cared if I had a steamer or a pan on a stove. Potstickers would be flying out. It is the only Top Chef full service challenge ever that I thought I could have accomplished. I wouldn't have won, but I would've easily beat the chicken feet. If Dale just cooked for the judges, he should be eliminated..., um, post-episodus.

Many won't agree, but for me, Pickeled anything would send me scurrying. I sort of agree with the X, Y ways, in the sense that it sounds more like a demonstration than a meal/dish.

I'm skeptical - as salt (in any form) tends to dissolve upon being introduced to moisture.

Why would one need to reduce a salt to a powder for a rub?

I can't let Marcel go without some sort of requiem. At the beginning of season 2 I thought what I'm sure most people thought; Here's the new Stephen, put in a blender and remade, but with the pretentiousness and overconfidence coming out of completely different culinary orifices. And he certainly came out of the gate that way, equalling Stephen's embarrasing feud with Candice with his own - in an episode-losing feud with Betty. But as the season wore on, a fascinating thing started happening. Good - really good - 'cheftestants' started melting down at the mere thought of losing to Marcel. As the animosity ramped up, so did the mistakes. Cliff blows a very good chance in an after hours segment, Sam's mental game is probably fatally compromised while shopping. In the end, Ilan is dripping with so much bile that by now I'm actively rooting for Marcel (despite feeling that he doesn't really deserve the title). At the start of All Stars, I thought that I had seen some maturity beginning to show itself in Marcel. Even his hair seemed calmer. But the old Marcel started to progressively creep back (and did his hair really grow back in the course of, like, three episodes?). If it was a repeat of his season 2 strategy it was a mistake - the competition is much stronger this time around. Ultimately I felt that justice was served. Marcel has been put in his place. And IMHO, that place is behind Elia and Jenn. He lost it as a restaraunt chef.

At least in North America table salt contains iodine whereas kosher salt contains no additives. They also differ in texture. Table salt has a beach sand consistancy while kosher is made up of tiny flakes which are easier to control with the fingers. With Diamond having a different texture than Morton, I have a hypothesis that some perceived differences could be down to famaliarity or comfort with a given texture, rather than pure taste. Being familiar with Morton, I suspect I might tend to over season if I were to use Diamond. And just for some objective measurements, I just weighed a tablespoon of Morton's Kosher and Morton's Iodized table salt, and the kosher was 16 grams, while the table salt was 18. I had expected a larger difference.

It seems to me that there are two, maybe three, distinct reasons to use salt; Seasoning, Moisture Management (presalting steaks, brining), and maybe a textural element (pretzels being a prime example). For seasoning, I'd say that I like to put off adding salt until the final stages of cooking. It's better to add it after everything has reduced to the proper consistancy, and you can taste the effect of any salt that came to the party on the backs of other ingredients (e.g. ham). Of course that's not always possible with things that get mixed before cooking - like bread or meatloaf. But generally, I put it off as long as practical.

Sorry, I have to veer a little off topic here, but perhaps Boudreaux's Butt Paste, could soothe some of these hot sauce induced maladies.

I'd rather them keep salt out of spice blends altogether. That way I can control it myself. Okay, maybe I can understand its inclusion in, say, a spice rub that's meant to be used right out of the jar. But their position seems confused. They say that all salt is the same. Okay, great, I'll buy a store brand for less than a dollar and not have to pay for shipping. Then I can put handfulls into my pasta water without fretting. But if they really want me to use less salt, wouldn't they want to sell me specialty salts and price them like saffron? Then I'd be very sparing in my application.

As the guy who uses a Presto Kitchen Kettle as his immersion (non)circulator, these looked very attractive to me, even though I already had a Foodsaver. I actually had one in my hand in the grocery store when I thought to look at the refill bags. I saw the price, did some mental calculations, shreiked a little, and quickly put back the $3 hand pump. They kill you on the price of the bags. The Foodsaver is the same way. But I'm now buying compatible Seal-A-Meal backs for half the price. I think it would work well for low temp applications - especially if you unexpectedly needed to do sous vide on the road without all of your stuff. But a reusable air check valve that could be used with any ziplock bag would be a much better product.

I too have read that all truffle oils are artificial. Then, one day I was at a specialty butcher shop and was waiting for the current customer to be rung up when I noticed jars of small black truffles (3-4) in oil. The label said black truffles in oil, not truffle oil. The price was somewhere around $30 for a small jar. Immediately, my impulse buy mechanism was in full-on conflict with my BS detector. The BS detector won out on this occasion by appealing to my cautious nature, but I've been curious ever since. Has anyone ever seen/tried these?

I'm not just interested in this topic in general historic food. I'm interested in currently popular (specific) recipes with long histories. Ultimately, the one with the longest continuous history. These wouldn't be enduring dishes. They may have endured for a time, but are not enduring. French Toast is clearly enduring, specific, popular, well documented, and ancient. It was a good find. Payasa seems to be something that could mount a strong challenge if we can vett the details.

I'm using a very specific and non-traditional sense of 'dish'. I'm not saying bowl porridge isn't a dish, just that it's not a specific dish. Perhaps I should have used 'recipe', although that may have invited a different set of differing interpretations. Stew is similar to porridge. It's more of a genre than a specific dish/recipe. Kentucky Burgoo would work (although not exactly ancient, or popular outside of Kentucky). Boulliabaise is another stew (some may argue soup though) that is completely different. Shaman Ooklid's Persimmon and Pear Oat Porridge would work (if it actually existed and met the other criteria).

The problem I have with porridge is that it's basically just a cooked ingredient. As you point out, it has been developed independently by Egyptians and mesoamericans (and probably many others). Rice is similar, well actually, aguably it is porridge. And that is another problem - porridge can be made out many different ingredients. It's a catchall for any one of various boiled cereals, not a specific thing. I'm looking at a 'dish' as being a unique creative expression, usually (maybe always) requiring a combination of ingredients, and hence a specific recipe (some variation of which will be assumed, because that's just what we do with recipes).

Originating somewhere between 8000-5000 BCE, tamales could be a runaway winner, but it seems unlikely and difficult to ascertain. From a little browsing it looks as though the Spaniards found them in dizzying varieties, so at that point, tamales seem more of a genre than a dish. It's very possible that within those varieties was something that that was faithful to the ancient version. But as time wore on, one site says, tamales homogenized. It would be amazing and exciting if the ancient tamales survived that selection process, but it would almost be too good to believe. Jenni, I imagine that India could be among the best places to look, and Payasa may be a good candidate. I'm not sure rice cooked in milk would be enough, but the first recipe I found had a lot more to it than that.

Carbonara is very recent (well, I think, I haven't looked it up). But I think Pastizzi predates it by a mile, and is far more sophisticated. I wasn't suggesting that. Only that they could have existed at the same time.