dcarch

"---will almost never be dulled cutting meat and vegetables" My blade is made of D-2 tool steel. D-2 is used to cut other steel and still remain sharp for a long time. "almost never" is not an exaggeration if you are only cutting meat and vegetable. dcarch

A good steel knife will almost never be dulled cutting meat and vegetables. Go to youtube and look for a few sushi chef slicing fish, the main blade never touches the cutting board. If you keep a general use knife for rough cutting, and a very sharp knife for fine cutting, you will not need to sharpen your knives very often. dcarch

"-----BTW, if you haven't tried microfinishing films, they are pricey, but last a long time when used with a little mineral oil. ------" Wet/dry carbide sandpapers are not expensive and last a long time. They take no room to store. They come in many grits, rough to very fine. dcarch

A great way to help sharpening by hand is the "Sharpie" trick to keep the correct angle. dcarch

"Golden Sand Shrimps"!!! dcarch

Anna N – A very healthy, delicious and fast meal. I also have some frozen meatballs I need to use up. SobaAddic – You have been posting some stunning pictures and meals! Patrickamory – and the same for you too. Wonderful meals and great pictures. Robirdstx – what is the sauce for those perfect crab cakes? Ann_t – the Cappelletti shows the high level of skills of yours in the kitchen. Huiray – I always enjoy the diverse cross-cultural recipes you can come up with. Mm84321 – You are an artist in both food preparation and presentation. Kim – Thanks. And thank you for the lamb and lentil inspiration. I happen to have the right ingredients to copy yours. FrogPrincese – Those who has made clams can tell instantly your clams were cooked at the exact temperature. Paul Bacino – Very nice halibut cake. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - Very much in need to use up leftovers in the refrigerator. A few recent attempts. dcarch Leftover beef tenderloin on asparagus stems and quinoa. Leftover roasted chicken Leftover ground turkey, tofu in pesto sauce on asparagus tips.

Thanks. I cheated with the stuffing. My " instant " stuffing: Lean ground turkey mixed with "Stove Top" stuffing. dcarch

I totally agree with you. For food that has a structure that is some what porous, the vacuum method will work very well. dcarch

By airless, I meant the absence of oxygen as well. Such as in the bottom part of a bowl of soup, which essentially has most of the dissolved air and oxygen boiled away. dcarch

Plastic bagging can only give you an airless environment, no different than say, the bottom of a bowl of soup.. You need a solid container such as a glass bottle or a metal can to create an environment that is less than atmosphere pressure. dcarch

Salt and nitrites in bacon preserves it. dcarch

The pump is the cheap part. A $20.00 tire pump can be easily turned into a vacuum pump. I have done it. It's all the other controls, heat seal, etc. dcarch

I have a laboratory vacuum machine. I had plans to try vacuum drying at room temperature to concentrate stock and to make bouillon cubes. Haven't done it yet. I am not sure about vacuum infusion for non porous food. I don't know if you can force anything into solids (food with no voids or bubbles, for instance, it is impossible to compress water). Certainly not atmospheric pressure at about 14 lbs/sq. in., which is the maximum you can get with vacuum, regardless of horse power of the motor. Even a pressure cooker can give you 15 lbs/sq. in. of force. As a matter of fact, after vacuuming all the air out and you seal the bag, there will be no pressure inside the bag, it will only be airless. You are mostly marinating, not infusing. If you can in fact force infusion, than it would be much more effective and easier using pressure. A cheap $20.00 tire air pump can give you 100 lbs/sq. in. of pressure. dcarch

Huiray, those are great videos. Thanks for posting. Cleaver is an amazing kitchen tool. In addition to the many cutting techniques shown on the videos, I have seen even more clever uses. I would say 90% of the time I will be using my cleavers. Just yesterday, I had a whole salmon, I used the cleaver to chop the salmon into steaks. Today I had BBQ ribs. There are connecting soft bones between each rib, a cleaver just chopped right thru. You do need a lower quality cleaver for hard chopping and a good quality one for slicing. A good quality cleaver is still very inexpensive. dcarch

Stuffed cabbage can be fun. People will try to figure out how the stuffing got inside a head of cabbage. dcarch

Back on topic, just for fun to speculate: I mentioned that "Heat Pipes" are used in many application for fast heat/cold transfer with no moving parts. And, a Peltier junction device is a solid state electronic cooling device with no moving parts. If you merge the two into a stirrer, that would be a very interesting stirrer for cooling soup. It gets better, those of you who have one of those personal refrigerators, which use Peltier device for cooling, not compressors, may know that the Peltier device is reversible. By flipping a switch to change polarity, the same refrigerator becomes a heater. How about you can use the same stirrer to cool or to heat up the soup? dcarch

First I said I will not continue to discuss further with you on the previous topics, which were mostly about laws of physics, as beating a dead horse may be objectionable to some members. I am afraid again to disagree with you on this new topic, I am sorry to say that you are wrong again. A typical residential refrigerator uses only one compressor for both the freezer and refrigerator. The thermostat, depending on the model, uses different designs to balance the temperature between the two. To complicate the matter, the thermal mass of food stored in the two compartment varies. If you read the instructions which come with the refrigerator, you will be instructed to wait a few days each time you adjust the temperature to give time for the balance to re-establish. And by the way, What do you mean by the difference between a commercial refrigerator vs. residential? Most home refrigerators are also frost-free. The defrost cycle using hot air goes on a timer, typically 6 hours. A large pot of boiling soup will confuse the thermostat for a few days, depending on how much food is in the freezer and in the refrigerator. dcarch

MelissaH, I idolize Jacques. I have met him a few times. He is more than a chef. I encourage everyone to Google “Jacques Pepin, artist, painter” He is a museum quality artist. His method can work very well. 150 gallons of soup made his way can be 100 gallons of concentrated soup, then add 50 gallons of ice, then into the cooler. The time the soup spends in the “Danger Zone” may be acceptable. I know many people have problem with this, but I am not the only one. For my personal use, I frequently make soup, cover the soup, and leave the soup overnight on the stove. 212F basically sanitizes the soup. (Yes, I know about autoclave temperature is required for true sanitizing). A large pot of boiling soup in the refrigerator can totally mess up the thermostat for many days. dcarch

You almost have enough to make orange wine. dcarch

Are you sure the beef is the same as before? Not all beef of the same cut taste the same. It depends on when and where you buy it. dcarch

With all due respect, I disagree with you – (my words in red) “ -Finished soup is poured into several15-20lt (4-5 US gallon) mayo buckets. (7 buckets needed for 100 L of soup in total) -Buckets are put into a sink filled with cold water (for 7 buckets of soup), the water level comes up to or slightly lower than the soup level in the bucket. The cold water may be augumented with ice (make ice, add ice), or it may be replenished with fresh cold water as it warms up (add some more water). -An ice wand(s) is placed into the bucket(s) -Ice wand is agitated every few minutes. (for all 7 buckets, change ice wand again and again) -Once soup has hit 10 - 15 C, it is taken out of the water bath (all 7 buckets), the ice wand removed (washed and sanitized, and find a clean place in the freezer to be re-frozen), and is trucked into the walk-in cooler where cools down further to +- 5 c. “ (7 buckets to be washed and sanitized) Are we clear? I am very clear that you feel all the above is simpler and easier than flipping one switch on and then off on the refrigeration machine. Please, for gawd's sake, instead of argueing with me, take the time to call up your local health dept. to verify this. I know it's easier to argue on this site, but, just do it, O.K.? No need to call. I don’t think I ever argued with you for one second that the clumsy method is approved by the health department. The question is will they disapprove a cleaner, easier and more precise temperature control system. Filling an ice wand with a thermal gel is worth discussing--it's a lousy idea. -------- However, the gel filled containers never touch the food, and the gel-filled containers do not go through extreme temperature swings like an ice wand does. Sorry, you are wrong. The gel packs touches food all the time, the last time I ordered steak. They are rated for extreme temperatures for both cold and hot use. -If the icewand is filled with glycol or some other thermal gel and the wand leaks, at worst you may poison people and at the very least, you have to throw out the soup. Wrong again. The gel is rated non-toxic. Yes, heat pipes and geothermal equipment are good ideas. But at what cost? In order for a heat pipe to work you have to pump liquids through it. This means cleaning and sanitizing a pump and other equipment, provided you can pump a 3-bean soup or a chunky chicken noodle soup throught the heat pipe. You are completely 100% wrong about heat pipe operations and principles. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Enough entertainment for other members. Reporting the following experiment I just conducted, and this will be my last post on this topic. I boiled 10 lbs of water. I froze 1 lb if ice. Thermapen measured water temperature to be 210 F (evaporation cooling from 212 F) Infrared remote thermometer measured ice to be 4 F Melted ice in hot water. Water measured 188 F afterwards. In other words, for 220 lbs of soup, 22 lbs of ice can only bring the temperature down to 188 F. Most likely the soup will be hotter than 212 F when it is boiling, because of the salt contain and the oil will prevent evaporation cooling. Now I have a lot of respect for the Soup Nazi. LOL! dcarch

MelissaH, that is a very clever way. Jacques is always clever. However, I think his method is to cool the soup down for immediate consumption, not for food safe handling based on health inspector's requirements, which, here in the USA is to be colder than 40F. dcarch

Excuse my very poor wording. Let the food cool down by itself to still hot enough food safe temperature first, then rapidly cool thru danger zone to cold enough food safe temperature. Thank you for the chance to allow me to be more clear. BTW, it that a typo? ""the danger zone" of 40- C -20 C", -20C?!!! dcarch

Since there is no definition as to what is rare, medium rare, well done, etc. I proposed that all restaurants must acquire equipment to record internal temperature of each dish, and each dish must be accompanied with a print out of the cooking temperature for the patrons to review and sign off before consumption . dcarch

PID temperature controllers. So many people are buying them to configure their own sous vide cookers and smokers. dcarch