Dakki
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Posts posted by Dakki
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Nope, not concerned about the ethics of flesh-eating. I'd prefer animals to be treated humanely before they're slaughtered but I don't exactly lose sleep over it.
However, I'm deeply concerned about the environmental effects of flesh-eating, particularly the depletion of wild fish populations.
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C. Sapidus, gorgeous wings.
RRO, that octopus sausage looks brilliant. If you want to seed the peppers and stuff them with cheese next time, that should bring down the heat some. I like them grilled like that.
Okay, for my offering I bring you tacos de tripa with three different tomatillo-based salsas. On the left, a simple salsa verde with shredded cilantro, on the right, salsa de chile morita, and top, salsa de chile de arbol.
Image is straight from the camera with no post whatsoever.
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I like to use a ripe tomato, myself, for this purpose.
And if you need to get really sharp, the standard is hair splitting.
Loupes are good for identifying wire edges, burrs, etc.
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You should know the one published study (AFAIK) on the subject strongly suggests wood cutting boards are much better from a food safety standpoint.
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You have to wonder what kind of people the marketers are.
"Okay, this board can be used to chop vegetables and slice meat. Maybe we should bundle it with a board that can be used to slice cheese and bread?"
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Looks good. I found the description amusing.
Chop fresh vegetables for a chef's salad or slice strips of meatOH MAN ALL THIS TIME I'VE BEEN BUYING MY VEG CHOPPED AND MY MEAT SLICED
THIS WILL BE SUCH A MONEYSAVER
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Noticed this week we have a whole bunch of unused abrasive stones at the shop. These come as freebies when we buy a diamond grinder cup (they're used to clear the cup from metal particles that can clog it) and are unmarked in any way; the sales guy for the supplier doesn't know anything about them, either. Grits vary from "ridiculously coarse" to "somewhere between medium and fine" (determined by touch). I grabbed a couple of the finest ones. These appear to be white aluminum oxide and measure roughly 2x10 cm (~0.8x4").
Out of the box these presented a jagged, uneven surface that was much too rough to be used on a knife but a few passes over a worn-out file broke off enough of the peaks to make them usable. They also had some small stained with what looks like some brown liquid (machine coolant from the manufacturing process?). Obviously QC is not a major concern on a "freebie," and neither of these small defects interfere with the original intended purpose.
I freehanded an edge on my good ol' Dutch-issue Victorinox. Stone was moistened in water before use. The stone's small size would have made tabletop sharpening very awkward so I held the stone in a three-finger pinch in one hand and moved it over the knife held in the other, always moving away from the edge. Edge is rougher than I prefer but it shaves arm hair perfectly.
(Knife for scale. Dimensions are identical to a standard Swiss Army Knife.)
As you can see from the photo, the surface of the stone is not flat, but wear will even it out. The stone has some tendency to clog, which is expected of aluminum oxide; a scrub with an old toothbrush and some powdered dish detergent (or even a little hand soap) will clear the material.
I won't suggest these stones are a replacement for an EdgePro or some good bench stones but I think they're just the thing to keep in your toolbox, tackle box, etc. for emergency maintenance.
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I always thought that margarine was called "artificial" or "fake" because it was developed as a substitute for real butter?
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I don't think this conversation makes a lot of sense out of context.
Anyway, flip once for the good people who like it medium-rare, three times for the crazies who faint if they see pink.
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I'd say that proper grilling of meats isn't all that easy, either. I've had far more bad steaks in backyards across America than good ones -- people buy the wrong cuts, marinate when they should dry rub. Dry rub when they should marinate. Fire too hot. Fire too low. Ash on the meat. The taste of starter fluid. The taste of "no fluid" briquettes. And people seem to uncover and flip meat ENTIRELY too often.
You listed a few things that can go wrong with grilled meats - I'm sure there's a few more. They're all fairly obvious flaws. A ribeye or sirloin requires little in the way of preparation and there's a reasonable margin of error in times and temperatures. You could teach a reasonably intelligent child to competently grill a steak in an afternoon, unless they've picked up bad habits from Mom and Dad.
BBQ is quite a bit more complex, not to mention hermetic. Dry or wet? What sort of wood? What style? What sauce, if any? Are we doing pork ribs, butt, beef ribs, brisket? Chicken, turkey? Poultry doesn't count. We're doing beef cheek and tongue - but that's not even BBQ, that's barbacoa. Let the temperature get too high, there goes the whole batch. Let the smoker run dry, ditto. But wait, this isn't even a water smoker. What the heck?!
So if grilling is hard, what's easy? Green salad? I've had my share of terrible salads - an incompatible mix of badly washed, tired greens with soggy croutons swimming in bottled dressing. So green salad is hard. And so on.
Everything's relative. Grilling well is simpler than BBQ'ing well.
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Maybe he's talking about grilling (vs the Southern USA meaning of BBQ)? I also think "real" BBQ is pretty easy to screw up, but there's only so much that can go wrong with steaks on the grill.
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The steel used in Global knives has a reputation for "stickiness," which can make burr-chasing a PITA. I don't think it's particularly hard (compared to other j-knives) and the EdgePro stones should have no problem cutting into it, but if you're comparing to Euro-style knives it's going to take longer to remove a comparable amount of metal.
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Kids' palates differ from adults', and a lot of the things that appeal to "foodies" are acquired tastes that don't apply to the general population anyway, so don't expect the zucchini blossom salad with goat cheese and a raspberry vinaigrette to be a big hit on the kids' menu.
As an aside, I can see the healthy foods thing being a big problem if you eat out three nights a week, but when I was growing up restaurant meals were special occasions when you could eat what you like instead of what mother wants you to eat, and I don't think I suffered much for it.
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You've had two out of three fail.
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By the way, I strongly recommend against the Paula Dean 12 Qt stockpot available at Walmart, Target and other places. I bought 2 and they both had the enamel coating start cracking off.
Enameled steel is pretty much disposable cookware. The coating is fragile, and any tiny crack will expose the underlying steel, which will in turn corrode and damage the enamel further. I grew up with it and it remains cheapest and most common stuff around here, although light-gauge stainless is making strides.
(*waits for the flood of contrarian posts from people saying their wonderful Italian grandmother cooked with the same enameled pot for six hundred years and how dare we judge them*)
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There's at least a smidgen of evidence that obsession with food and fine dining can be caused by brain trauma.
I suppose I've been knocked out a couple of times. Years ago. This might become a good excuse for lots of things.
I don't think I known anyone who hasn't had at least one fairly severe frontal head injury, and the interest in food among them seems to reflect the general one in the population (i.e. a few don't care at all, or are intensely interested, most fall somewhere in the middle; my mother, thanks to many years of intractable epilepsy, must have one of the most bashed-up anterior cerebral cortices of anyone I know, and is in the middle ground).
The research paper is suggestive, but it isn't intended as evidence, and the abstract, at least, doesn't mention the (at least as numerous) cases of people who have sustained severe head injuries to the right anterior cortex, and just become run-of-the-mill sociopaths with no special interest in food.
Same experience here. One sister had a tumor the size of a lemon taken out of her cranium and another has epilepsy; neither of them have any interest in food preparation beyond the occasional batch of cupcakes. I've suffered a couple of bad blows to the head, and post here; another brother, who AFAIK has never suffered an injury worse than a bloodied nose in his life, was local chili cookoff champion in '09 and probably spends a significantly larger proportion of his income and free time on cooking-related projects.
Anyway, now I'm wondering if there's any statistical relation between sociopathy and being a "foodie." That would explain a few things.
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All of them?
Hey, I can accept that some good cooks are going to have different habits but some habits are going to be more typical of a good cook than others.
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I remember when I liked to mess around in the kitchen and was fairly terrible at it. The idea this might still be the case gives me nightmares sometimes.
Anyway, antique spices, nonstick or enamel steel everything, all serrated knives (or even worse, only steak knives), plastic spoons and spatulas in place of wood/metal/silicone, unhygienic kitchen, lots of convenience foods and box mixes, tired veg, bottled dressings.
So pretty much what everyone else mentioned.
The only new one I could think of was tired, leathery tortillas. There is no excuse.
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Dakki - She was a 60 pounder. What camera did you use for the tacos? That is really nice for no post-processing.
Thank you very much ScottyBoy. The camera is a Canon Powershot A590 IS, and the shot was done offhand in natural light.
I don't think I sufficiently expressed my admiration for your pig before. This is the kind of cookery I enjoy the most and your post shows me how far I still have to go. I'm intensely jealous.
And then you have to rub it in with the potstickers (love the B&W shots btw) and the fried squash blossoms. I call disloyal competition!
Finally, sweet ink, dude.
Dakki, great tacos, and I have to go google to find out what chistorra is.
Thank you, kayb. Chistorra is a sausage originally from the Basque country, brought over to my part of Mexico by settlers from that area, then "mexified" over the years by local charcoutieres and blah blah blah. BACON JAM?! GINGER MOJITOS?!
Dakki - that meal is just beautiful. I'm quite entranced by texture of your tortillas..I don't know exactly what I mean by that, other than I'm jealous I'll never find ones as good as those here!
RRO, thank you. The trick to corn tortillas is to heat them (if they need heating - a real purist will eat them still hot from the tortilleria, the tortilla bakery) fast enough - in fat (as in this case) or directly over the burner. I'm lazy and buy mine shopmade but I'm sure there's a source for nixtamal corn flour in AUS - if you use that, you'll get superior results compared to mine.
And, seared tuna with umeboshi-dressed greens. Are you trying to make me move to Australia?
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Did you use an aluminum pot? Those can react with greens and affect color and flavor.
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The thin ones do.
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Rico, thanks. All credit for the photo goes to my dining room window, which seems to let in just the right amount of sunlight between 6 and 7 P.M. this time of year.
I highly recommend trying chistorra (and other mex charcuterie)if you like chorizo - I can't imagine there's a shortage of Latin markets in Dallas. I like it best grilled over medium-high coals.
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Nice pig, ScottyBoy. How much did it weight?
Here's today's offering: Another run at Mexican charcuterie (chistorra, this time) in a tortilla with cheese. Salsa is tomatillo and chile de arbol and yes, that's the natural color. Weird, right?
Photo uploaded directly from camera, no post whatsoever.
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But then we wouldn't have Gwyneth Paltrow's wonderful blog and cookbook!
Jeweler's Loupes > 30x for Evaluating?
in Kitchen Consumer
Posted
I do the "paper test" exclusively to find unsharpened bits along the edge. Paper will catch and tear instead of cutting.