IndyRob

With the key word 'accessible' from your original post, I thought about what I might want to cook through. The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook came to mind. No, no, not for the quality of the recipes (though I find them reliable), but for the breadth. It's not as big as, say, The Joy of Cooking. 100 pages of it are just picture of the dishes. But at 8 per page, that's still around 800. I suppose I could opt to ignore beverages, desserts, breads, or whatever. My main thought is that if I were to commit to such a thing, I'd like to come out of it with a large repertoire - not necessarily of individual dishes - but of techniques and combinations and experiences - and generally a larger food vocabulary. I might look for a similar but smaller book. I think I'd want some diversity. American Cuisine is generally safe for me but some might want to choose, say, Mediterranean or Asian cuisines. I think Julie and Julia is an example of this with French cuisine (but not just one, but two volumes - yikes).

This topic caused me to wonder what accounts for the red color and in my search I stumbled on a large list of graded 'Irish Red Ales' (including one by Michelob, of all companies).

We are talking at cross purposes because Mssr. Maillard doesn't enter into this because the question is not about flavor. I did suggest the possibility that the meat was killed instantly, but I don't buy that given that it was taken to a lesser degree of browness than from the pan in previous iterations. The fact that it would then take a longer cooking period logically follows. We both brought up high browning temps because we can. But even my power burner on my expensive stove can't produce much more than 400 degrees in a pan (my grill can kill that). But there are a lot more good stews created on a daily basis in this country than people with high BTU capability. Bottom line: stews don't need great heat. Stews often need more time.

Because you have smaller pieces. As you say - "The point is to brown the outside without cooking the inside" The stew meat at my supermarket comes in at about 1 inch in the longest direction, A proper steak at the same place has a minimum dimension of 1.75 inches and is far more tender a cut. You simply cannot look at any piece of meat and think "that plus Maillard = good". It doesn't work like that.

A link or two to those would be interesting. Thanks. Cool. I do that too. My fillets sear at around 765 degrees. But that has nothing to do with stew meat. In my estimation, you'll ruin the stew meat in less that 30 seconds.

I'm put in an awkward position of disagreeing with Chris while he was agreeing with me (at least on one point). But fond development is not at issue (if it were, I would agree with Chris on this point). Flavor was not part of the original problem. It was texture/toughness. I would find it plausible that deep frying the meat might cause a resistance to braising by either sealing out the braising liquid, or by just absolutely murdering the meat in the first place. But cbread said the meat was browned less than usual. I think that regardless of the wisdom of using that much oil, the browning was clearly not as much as previously experienced by other methods. And there is no better heat transfer medium than deep fat. Far better than a pan. No pan could ever introduce 375 degrees on every square millimeter of a morsel. Frankly, this might be an innovation (if not wasteful of oil). A fond can come off a braised meat just as it might leave a pan. I'm more convinced than ever that cbread's last sentence in the original post is absolutely correct. Just gave up on it too soon.

Isn't stew, by its very definition, one of those peasant dishes that exists in order to provide a use for inferior cuts? Isn't the designation of 'stew meat' meant to describe cuts that aren't good enough to be used for anything else?

I'm guessing it wasn't cooked long enough. Since you didn't brown it as much, this may have added to the work the braise needed to do. I did a random survey of some stew recipes and the shortest time I found was 1 3/4 - 2 hours. I know I've done more than one pot roast that stubbornly refused to obey the clock.

Can we throw some cheese in the car's gas tank if we run out? Care to elaborate for us uneducated how this is petroleum based food? No, I don't believe you could run a car on it. But if it were to be heated, it might stand a better chance of working than petroleum jelly. Yet, with enough cheese powder, petroleum jelly could be equally unworthy of the name 'cheese'. But the Kraft Cheese-like stuff is a requirement for a classic American diner style grilled cheese.

Click on 'found it' at the end of the second paragraph of the first post.

The pasta part of it is priceless (beginning at around 20:00). After Martha 'helps' Eric freaking Ripert with his pasta rolling, she brings the rolled pasta over to Tony for cutting. As soon as he begins to handle the dough she says "No, don't mess that up." Tony brushes that aside as deftly as he rolls and cuts the pasta. Martha then swoops in with another admonition and whisks the pasta away. At this point Tony is clearly at his limit. He looks behind Martha at Ripert but he's not looking back. Then he looks to the audience who clearly get it.

A brief soak and it should rub right off. I think you'd need to see the immense ease with which the dried dough comes off a plastic bowl. No brief soak. No soak of any sort. No rubbing whatsoever. Just an upending, maybe a smack, and a rinse.

You can google 'freezing basil'. There are some seemingly plausible strategies involving freezing in olive oil.

I want to try this, but lack the equipment you have. I think I saw it first on the Spain No Reservations episode. Aerated spongecake batter nuked in a plastic cup and torn up to resemble fluffy coral for a dessert plate. It's better demonstrated if you can find the No Reservations clip.

I may have posted this in one of the other threads, but long ago my wife wanted a KitchenAid mixer. I shopped around and found a Kenwood (which I think is no longer available in the U.S.). It had all the features, add-ons, more power and was about half the price. I don't think she was impressed. But as it turned out I became the primary user anyway. Eventually we remodeled our kitchen with a lot of stainless steel and black appliances. The white plastic Kenwood went into a cupboard while a sleek black KitchenAid took its place. But now the Kenwood is back and stands proudly, if perhaps wastefully, beside the KitchenAid. In retrospect it was superior in every practical way but one. It has a plastic bowl. Plastic bowls can absorb fat which could kill your egg white whipping efforts. However, I also found that plastic bowls (whether by the same fat absorption, I'm not sure) can be a real boon with bread doughs. Dried bread dough can develop a death grip on stainless steel. In the plastic bowl I can leave dough residue to dry completely and it flakes effortlessly off. Pretty much a wipe down is all that is needed. So, I don't know if such an option exists today, but I think it would be worth finding out if interchangeable bowls are an option.

It turns out that this is old news but I can't find mention of it here.... I was reading Anthony Bourdain's Travel Channel blog about the 100th episode and noticed the first entry in the comments section concerned an appearance by him and Eric Ripert on the Martha Stewart show. Apparently he was gracious despite Martha's interruptions. I had to try to seek this out and found it. We start with a dog teaser followed by a table discussion with a centerpiece of durian - during which, oddly, Tony is barely able say anything more than that he's tried it. Martha begins to loose her inner Zimmern and then it's time to press the two chefs into a production of a coq au vin. Tony remains amazingly gracious and even lets a 'nubbin' reference go untouched. But towards the end all becomes clear as it's made clear that the purpose of the appearance is Bourdain and Ripert's upcoming Sirius/XM radio show on the Martha Stewart Living channel. A stint of five weekly shows. It turns out that this was all earlier this year. There are some youtube clips and blog entries, but I've yet to find any place to listen to the whole shows. Hopefully they have or will find a home and not be lost to the ages.

There's an English Muffin Topic here, but I've found that I like Thomas' and some agree. I wish they had a fresher feel when bought (most of their competitors are found in the refrigerated sections whereas Thomas' are found in the bread aisle), but after toasting they're still quite good (and require an amazingly small amount of butter).

Ooooh, I like that. For an American comfort food grilled cheese, the petroleum based Kraft American cheese-like substance is a must. But the Texas Toast angle is pure genius. After finding a brand of flour tortillas I particularly like, I must admit to an unnatural desire to roll cheese and anything I can find into a tortilla and wax paper and nuking it until properly heated and steamed (can be pan fried afterward if you want crispy). It took me a surprisingly long time to use canned chili and cheese to come up with something burrito like - except for breakfast burritos (another case where the Kraft cheesish stuff is required).

Good point. Consider this story. A politician posts two newspaper articles on her campaign website without permission. She gets sued. Not by the newspaper, but by a company that looks for infringements and then buys the rights to the content that was infringed. It makes sense for the newspaper since they aren't in the business of suing people, and these people are. Bartenders don't have the infrastructure or expertise to manage an IP portfolio. All of those licensing and IP protection issues are better handled by, well, big corporations. Extrapolate that to its logical conclusion and bartending could get quite scary (or quite boring).

Making English Muffins from scratch. In my head it still doesn't seem like a big deal, but after the only time I ever tried, it just seemed totally not worth it. Perhaps a little like a Parisian trying to make their own baguettes.

I've already been on record as to that. And very specifically. It's available to you upthread.

Here's the problem.... I asked them and they said it was expressive. That proves it. Yeah, I don't think so.

It seems that there are at least four different kinds of IP law being addressed here in a willy nilly fashion. I am not a lawyer but still feel compelled to respond to the best of my ability. Copyright covers the expression of an idea. You can't copy my reporting of a news event, but you can report on the same event independently. I can't sell pictures of the Mona Lisa, but Andy Warhol could do his own version (well, except for that being dead thing). But a list of ingredients is an instructional and not an expressive thing. Most food blog recipes probably would qualify as expressions of an idea if they were copied. But if just the ideas were used, there would be no violation. But if you're trying to protect your turf, why have you published the method? And if you haven't, copyright does not come into play. Patent laws protect the idea itself, but it has to a be a non-obvious idea. Sous vide cooking would've probably have been a good candidate for a patent. Your cocktail making method might be as well. But whether your idea your is worthy of patent protection is up to the courts. Trademarks protects the brand name. It has nothing to do with the product, but the words and marks related to popularizing it and protecting an identity. Trade secrets are protected and that means keeping your mouth shut. Coca Cola has been very successful with this for over 100 years. If your idea is good, marketable, and non obvious, this is clearly your best option.

Jeremy Clarkson had a pretty powerful blender on Top Gear once... Might need some refinement though.

I think it just got more than annoying. A sandwich truck beats French cuisine and then gets sent home for not being able to create a great catfish dish using a panini press? Leave it to the Food Network to come up with a good concept and then screw it up trying find a way of getting Tyler Florence his face time. Ah, well. At least it caused me to visit Austin Daily Press' web site where I got a chuckle...