Borgstrom

In the mood for mala on Monday, so cracked open Kenji’s Wok book and made some mapo tofu

Beef and Broccoli from Kenji’s Wok book. Had a bit a Wagyu left over from Monday, so this version was a bit decadent…

Good idea on using oil when starting the charcoal - I’ll have to try that next time. I just picked up the chimney that doubles as a used-charcoal storage container — clever!

Absolutely. For my several-hour Memorial Day dinner I think I had about half of it remaining. I took all the charcoal out and placed back in the chimney, then quenched with water. You definitely don’t want to quench with water while still in the ceramic grill as the grill would crack. I’ve just ordered a new chimney that has a removable top and bottom that can be used to extinguish the charcoal instead of using water, avoiding the resulting steam/mess.

Binchotan has a reputation of being hard to start. In Japan they typically start it on a portable butane burner or commercial kitchen gas hob in a special pot with perforated bottom. I started in a chimney, but then stuck a MAPP gas torch up the bottom to get it going - you can see both on the ground in one of the shots.

It’s a ceramic “konro” grill I bought on eBay from a seller in Japan. It’s very traditional there (I lived in Japan for 5 years a long long time ago) for yakitori and other types of kushiyaki. A similar model is available here. This unit is made from diatomaceous earth, which relatively light and insulates very well. Outside of grill is warm to the touch while the binchotan charcoal inside is burning at 1000F+. This type of grill is meant to be used with traditional Japanese binchotan charcoal, which these days is very expensive (a box of it can cost as much as the grill) and hard to come by, but it burns long (4 hours +/-) and doesn’t emit much smoke. I’m using a “fake” binchotan from Thailand (I think) made from compressed sawdust. It seems to work very well, burning much hotter and much longer than typical lump charcoal I typically use in the US. I really like the grill because it is compact and efficient. So much so that I plan to sell my large Big Green Egg, which is really best for long/slow cooks of big chunks of meat that I’m not as in to these days. The 2-foot konro will do yakitori obviously, but it would also fit a couple burgers or a steak if I’m in the mood.

Some yakitori, asparabacon and yakionigiri (amongst other things)on the new grill for Memorial Day.

First time making poke - will definitely make it again!

I gave up on FN a long time ago; at one point you could learn something but these days it is all about the personality. There are alternatives, however. I recently discovered this great series of 24 35-min lectures by Bill Briwa of Culinary Institute of America (The Everyday Gourmet: Rediscovering the Lost Art of Cooking). His "personality" would never make it to a pilot on today's FN, but he is engaging/sincere/competent enough to make the series really worthwhile. I was more than happy to shell out $69. I've saved all the videos on my computer, and then watch them on my TV through Apple TV. I suppose if you demand free ad-sponsored cooking TV, you end up with the entertainment-focused drivel on FN. Perhaps the path forward is paid content like this, or from other sources like Rouxbe, ChefSteps, etc.

Recipe was loosely based on the Tartine basic country loaf formula Made "starter" night before with flour/water/yeast in bowl left on counter Used 1/3 each AP flour, home ground hard white wheat, home ground hard red wheat in Vitamix with dry blade. Note: Vitamix gets flour pretty warm - 122F after 45sec on high. This may deactivate some of the enzymes needed to convert starch to sugar for the yeast during autolyse ; need to research... About 75% hydration. Autolyse 1 hour 3 hours bulk rise @ 80F 5 hour proof @ 80F Paid more attention to stretching dough, creating tension on outer surface. Tough with sticky dough; will take practice 20 min in steam at 450 Switched to convection; 30 min at 425 Pan: http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/store/product/wilton-advance-reg-perfect-results-9-inch-pie-pan/1041707654?categoryId=12048 Baking stone: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000QJBNHY/

I've had pretty good luck with my unit; it's great to not have to heat up the big oven. And it does a good job on bread; here are some pictures from a recent whole wheat batch:

My Devin Thomas 240mm Gyuto AEB-L knife....or maybe my Devin Thomas 150mm Petty AEB-L knife...the only knives I use anymore. These would be the only things I'd grab from the kitchen if the house was burning down...

Best wings I ever made were from this recipe: http://blog.sousvidesupreme.com/2011/02/deconstructed-buffalo-wings/ I made them for Superbowl Sunday, and can't wait to make them again! Boneless chicken wings stuffed with a blue cheese / chicken breast mousse, rolled into a cylinder and sous-vided, sliced into serving-sized pieces and then deep-fried for color and crunch. Yum! I wish I had pictures, but they were consumed before I got the camera out.

I was disappointed to find that instead of metric weight/mass based measurements, the version I ordered from Amazon.com had US/volume based measurements. I then ordered the version from Amazon.ca (Canada), which had the metric measurements on the pages shown at the site, but, alas, it shipped with the US measurements. Now I have two copies of the version I don't want. Perhaps the UK version has metric/mass based measurements, but I'm not sure if I'm willing to purchase a third version at this point...

Definitely looks like a Kramer Chevron Damascus Gyuto: http://kramerknives.com/d7_chevron.htm Nice knife if you can get one... #5 looks like a Devin Thomas ITK -- the only really nice knife I have -- the AEB-L steel never rusts but keeps a wicked edge forever... http://www.devinthomas.com/midtech.cfm

Tried the Momofuku short ribs again tonight: 48-hour SV short ribs with Maldon salt; dashi-braised daikon with pickled mustard seeds; pickled carrot; blanched scallion. This time I SV'd at 56C instead of the book's 60C -- definitely more pink than last time, but I might go down to 55C next time. This is actually one of the first times I've taken advantage of the cook/chill/hold/retherm benefit of SV. I made all of the components for the dish over the weekend, as I meant to have this on Sunday. Plans went awry before I started final assembly so I was able to keep chilled and retherm/assemble tonight in just 30 minutes -- all I had to do was deep-fry the short ribs for 2 min, blanch the scallion and reduce down the sauce a bit. Not bad for a Monday night, get-home-from-work-at-7pm meal! I gotta plan ahead like this more often!

I'm pretty happy with my Weston Pro 2300 -- bought for $400 in 2010 (price has come down since) and still going strong, no problems. That itself could actually be a problem because at some point I would like to upgrade to a chamber model to make life easier with liquids and to try other techniques (compression/infusion). At this rate it will be a while before I get a chamber sealer if I wait for the Weston to break down...

I've been very happy with FoodFresh bags -- about $15 for 100 8x11.5, 3-mil bags. Not sure how that compares to rolls.

An interesting paper published last week in Nature, Flavor network and the principles of food pairing, shows that Western cuisine tends to favor ingredient combinations where flavor compounds are similar while Eastern cuisine tends to the opposite, with ingredient combinations where flavor compounds are not similar. Fascinating. Perhaps this insight open the door to new flavor profile options for Western or Eastern cooking. What do you think? Abstract:

I really like a spice-rubbed tenderloin. Create a rub with ancho chile powder, brown sugar, pasilla chile powder, chile de arbol powder, cinnamon, allspice, salt. Coat the tenderloin with the rub and sear off all sides and finish in oven. Serve with an bourbon-ancho sauce and red-pepper sauce. From Mesa Grill cookbook by Bobby Flay.

Check out Home-Barista to catch up on all the latest coffee/espresso buzz. This article is a good place to start for different options at various price points. Rocky/Silvia combination is pretty well regarded and has a long track record and many fans. If you've mastered that and want to move up, I think you are leaving the "entry level" category. What direction are you looking to move? Better shot quality/consistency? More steam power for milk drinks? Better ease-of-use (i.e. PID, double-boiler, plumbed-in)? I recently moved from an E-61 machine (single boiler, non-pid, heat-exchanger, non-plumbed, vibe-pump) to a plumbed-in, dual-boiler, rotary pump machine with volumetric dosing. What I can say so far is (a) I will never get a non-plumbed machine again -- I love not having to worry about filling the tank, (b) I will never get a vibe-pump machine again -- the rotary pump is so quiet. The dual-boiler and volumetric dosing also add to the ease-of-use factor.

You can only get it online, but if I were in the market for a hand grinder I would go for the Pharos by Orphan Espresso. Very highly regarded by the folks at Home-Barista and CoffeeGeek.

I made the Khymos version of Hot Vanilla Ice Cream (edit: from Ideas in Food, it would appear) last year, served with caramel powder, nutella powder and a cold espresso espuma. (get it -- hot ice cream with cold coffee). It definitely wasn't ice cream and coffee, but it tasted great and was a great way to finish off a modernist dinner.

While I don't have a huge amount of experience, what I've seen so far is that most of the smoke flavor is absorbed early in the smoking process. For fish, smoking 15-30 min is enough to get great flavor (no SV needed). For meat, a few hours at low temp is usually pretty good. For the MC pastrami, I smoked it for 4 hours and then SV for a couple of days and it turned out great. For pork shoulder, I tried smoke + 2 days SV vs. smoke + overnight low-and-slow BBQ. Both were very good, but different. The SV version was much juicier and didn't have as much of a bark. The traditional version was drier and had a thick bark. Perhaps the best approach is a bit of both for pulled pork -- SV version with a bit of bark mixed in would be perfect!

I looked around at these last summer and ended up getting a BBQ Guru. I used on some overnight cooks with my BGE and it worked very well: http://www.thebbqguru.com/products/DigiQ-DX2--%28Build-your-package%29-.html. Stoker is another option with remote monitoring over WiFi, but it seemed a bit complex for me: https://www.rocksbarbque.com/Systems.html I've found it difficult to keep the temperature consistently below 225F or so on a charcoal grill even with a controller; you need to have a very tight seal on your cooker so no extra air gets in beyond what the fan sends it. I've also found that the BGE/BBQ Guru can be a good compliment to sous vide. I've done several things smoked for a while on the BGE for flavor followed by a long soak in the circulator (e.g. MC pastrami).