Dakki
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Posts posted by Dakki
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-Hitachi White (shirogami) are carbon steels, VG-10 is stainless. The VG-10 has pretty great edge-holding so the difference in that aspect will be academic. The carbon will be easier to sharpen, and have an advantage in taking a highly-polished edge, if and only if you have the appropriate eq. Additionally, many people prefer an edge that is not so highly polished in slicers. VG-10 does have a bit of a rep for chipping out when used by, er, medium quality manufacturers such as Shun, but that will not apply to Hattori.
-270mm works for me, but I'm just a home cook. If you're slicing up a whole tuna, you'll need one of those specialized, katana-sized knives.
-A chef's/gyuto will do pretty much anything the slicer can do, but some tasks are easier with the slicer. You'll have to decide if it's worth the investment for yourself.
Hattori has a reputation for doing VG-10 just a little better than anyone else, so if I was set on Japanese stainless they'd probably be my first choice (right now, ask again tomorrow). That said, I'd probably go for a good carbon steel (not necessarily the Masamoto, or even Japanese).
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Here's a question: What would you lot be willing to pay for a pan shaped in your favorite "classic" Griswold shape, with a smooth cooking surface?
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Is there something wrong with EVOO on popcorn?
Not "wrong" per se but way down the list of preferred fats for popcorn. It goes:
butter
neutral vegetable oil
margarine
dripping
mineral oil
baby oil
the burnt-up stuff you collect in a can to keep it from clogging your drain
motor oil
fat rendered from people who abuse extra virgin olive oil
extra virgin olive oil
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Is this connected to the egregiously silly and consistently wrong Salon column?
"EVOO" on popcorn, indeed.
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"Extra Virgin Olive Oil" on everything.
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Black Velvet tastes like college, to me.
Starving student days! Anything and Coke, cheap mezcal/charanda/aguardiente consumed ironically but also because that's all we could afford.
Chivas tastes like weddings, negronis taste like things that only seem like a good idea while you're on a truly massive bender.
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I present to thee a clip from "Maru Botana," an Argentine cooking show.
The whole thing is an abomination but the really juicy stuff starts about 4:20.
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Whole milk/cheese > sugar IMO.
In Mexico there are entire breeds of chiles that are used for flavor only, no heat. Additionally, many chiles are marketed in different stages of ripeness or processed (dried, smoked, pickled) in different ways to achieve radically different flavors. I could see someone with low tolerance having the flavors "masked" by the heat, though, particularly with the hotter varieties.
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BREADING CHICKEN IN 10 STEPS
1 Switch to decaf
2 Soak chicken parts in spiced buttermilk (optional)
3 Salt/pepper/chile powder chicken
4 Coat chicken GENEROUSLY with spiced flour
5 Gently shake off excess flour
6 Rest chicken until flour has wet through (5-10 minutes I guess?)
7 Repeat steps 4 to 6, once
8 Fry chicken
9 Rest fried chicken
10 Serve, be happy
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In comparing the two, plastic die vs. bronze die, the geometry of the die must be completely identical in every way. For instance, if one is thicker than the other, the comparison will not be valid.
I think a valid comparison would be better achieved if the experiment took into account design differences (if any) between the two types. There are probably differences besides just the material used. Shouldn't we compare common, commercial dies? Or better yet, industrial dies on an industrial machine? (I realize this is not feasible for us, just thinking that would be the best way to test this).
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The way I understand it is bronzes are pretty much any copper alloy, bronze with no modifier (eg "aluminium bronze") is -usually- copper/tin, and brass is copper/zinc. So I'd say brass is arguably a bronze.
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We looked into this material some time back for a different application. The stuff has some really interesting properties w/r/t strength, toughness and corrosion resistance and I did wonder how it would work in a knife. Costs must have gone down, as it was prohibitive at that time.
There's some very obvious hype in the video/website that gives me some pause.
My take? We could skip the nonsense and get a job shop to make a few up.
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I don't necessarily think pop-ups and supper clubs should be illegal but I would be interested in hearing from others why they think it shouldn't be a level field.
It's not a level field now, and I think it's kinda naive or even disingenous to pretend that it is. The whole process of licensing, inspecting and regulating food-serving venues is a barrier to entering the field and serves to protect the established businesses against competition, and favors people with access to capital, education, "connections" etc. over those who don't. This is not trivial.
The upside is that the same process enforces certain minimum standards of hygiene and safety.
When pushed beyond common sense, ie enforcing the rules for the sake of enforcing the rules, the system throws up results that are weird and not in the general public's interest.
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I think this series is quite good, myself...I also think the girl is quite cute, for some reason...
This is the best. Thanks for linking it.
For some reason I feel like I'm watching outtakes from Veronica Mars?
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I'm one of the few people I know in real life who actually enjoys hosting big family meals like Thanksgiving or Christmas, because I like the challenge of figuring out what to do and when each step needs to be done and how to make sure everything happens on time.
I can relate to a lot of the posts here -particularly Porthos', and I think us engineering types are overrepresented in this community- but quiet1 really hit the nail on the head for me. I'm the eldest son of a pretty traditional Mexican family, and there's a whole lot of expectations with regards to hosting family gatherings on the holidays and so on that I enjoy fulfilling in my own morbid way.
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For example, I have a partner; she's my wife and she's nicknamed Significant Eater.
I love that nickname, weinoo.
I always get mad at people who insist on squeezing every mango, avocado and tomato whether they intend to buy or not. I think 45% of fruit spoilage is from people squeezing. You can see the dents on the fruits. I am paying a lot more because of fruit abusers.
I am with you on this, dcarch. I always want to ask those people what they imagine they're really checking for.
Also: The public's aversion to "mushy" tomatoes is why supermarket tomatoes taste like cardboard. Tell your friends!
... He's not an impulse shopper so we don't end up with "canned curried octopus from North Korea". However, if I send him for something we haven't purchased before or for a long time, invariably he gets it wrong.
Hey, your loss. That NK canned octopus is pretty fantastic
I shop by myself because I live by myself. On the rare occasion I accompany someone else grocery shopping, I either get frustrated because they rigorously work off a list and try to check it off as fast as possible (thereby missing the fantastic pears one aisle over) or leisurely stroll through the supermarket with no regard to checkout rush hour or how long we've been in the store while I'm craving a smoke.
Yeah, us single shoppers are pretty spoiled.
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Interesting. I was imagining some beer-guzzling grizzled Marine sharing the recipe for fried goat guts he got from a wizened old granny in some random SEA village. That would be a great show!
If I may inquire, what were the circs around working with military chefs? Also, what is a military chef? Like a mess cook?
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Looks like a really nice gadget. The chicken shots in particular show some really nice coloring. Sorry if you answered this before, but what temps does it reach?
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So I recently found out that along with whitebread, insipid internal channel PBS and foreign propagada network Voice of America (and the similar Radio Free X supposedly-private-but-established-by-act-of-Congress networks), the USA have a whole network for their armed forces, of which the centerpiece is the aptly named Pentagon Channel.
Well, the channel itself is apparently dying, and from what my US enlisted friends tell me, won't really be missed, but I was intrigued by this show.
(Copyright stuff: It is my understanding that media produced by and for the United States Federal Gov't including the Department of Defense is essentially in public doman so it should be OK to link this here.)
I haven't started watching it, but I thought I would link it and get a conversation started. Has anyone seen this?
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Pfft, it's called "One Stone Honing." I'll turn in my smart person card now.
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What is the real difference in an oil stone and a water stone?
With waterstones, the abrasive action is done by the slurry formed by detached stone particles and water. Oilstones' abrasive particles cut while still rigidly attached to the stone itself. You can actually use water with (new) oilstones.
The straight-edge razor community has developed (rediscovered?) a really interesting technique to essentially vary their waterstones' grit by althering the thickness of the slurry. I'll post a link as soon as I can remember what the heck it's called.
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I certainly would not dispute the expert in their finding that "The peak temps measured, walked up to 2000°C for split seconds in the very surface (some microns)."
My question would be how does heat effects the metal when it is only microns thick. Is it possible that it actually enhances the hardness of the metal? The rapid cooling by the large high heat conductance of the metal underneath is like oil quenching hardening.
I don't know if such incredibly small amount of heat can have any effect. It is like when you comb you hair with a plastic comb, you can actually generate a million volts of electricity.
dcarch
I think I didn't make myself clear. :-)
Absolutely true if you use a belt sander. You will mess up a good blade.
I was wondering about wiping a few times on abrasive paper which can cause high temperature microns thick.
dcarch
OK, I was confused then. My bad.
Yeah, I think that is just an example made to illustrate a larger point - that temperature can spike extremely high in small volumes of material even with slow (hand) grinding, and the effect will be much greater with a (much faster) powere tool. As you can imagine, the temperatures reached in a microns thick knife edge would be enough to "burn" the steel if you applied that energy continously for several seconds.
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I certainly would not dispute the expert in their finding that "The peak temps measured, walked up to 2000°C for split seconds in the very surface (some microns)."
My question would be how does heat effects the metal when it is only microns thick. Is it possible that it actually enhances the hardness of the metal? The rapid cooling by the large high heat conductance of the metal underneath is like oil quenching hardening.
I don't know if such incredibly small amount of heat can have any effect. It is like when you comb you hair with a plastic comb, you can actually generate a million volts of electricity.
dcarch
That conclusion is not supported by Landes' book, or so I'm told. Unfortunately I don't speak German. My secondhand understanding is that empirical experiments have pretty conclusively proven decarburizing and other ill effects occur in knife edges subjected to uncooled power grinding, both bench grinder and belt grinder types, even with "commonsense" tricks such as soaking the blade in ice water beforehand, etc.
Short version: There seems to be at least some evidence that the practice is bad for knife steel, plenty of evidence that it just plain removes too much metal too darn fast, and no discernible upside unless you're charging for the service. I for one am avoiding it.
Looking for Japanese sujihiki/knife
in Kitchen Consumer
Posted
You're good with the stones. If you want to improve on what you have, I'd suggest a 3K of your choice (1 to 5K is kind of a big leap), and the Chosera 10K which is nearly legendary for kitchen knives. Anything over that and you're in straight razor territory.
Call me crazy but for the money ($300ish?) I'd think about checking out Bladeforums and Knifeforums (or British Blades if you're in the UK) and see if there's a 'smith whose work really appeals to me. I might end up spending a little extra but that just means making excuses to the landlady for another month, right?
Bill Burke is a current favorite for me (check this out), but nobody calls me subtle. There's a ton of talented makers out there, each with their own style. It would be worth really studying the market, see whose styles you like and who has a good rep.