teonzo

I'm not the usual Italian when the discussion goes about food traditions. Tomato is the usual example I make when discussing with the extremists: when someone says something like "ethnic restaurants should be banned in every city" (which is way too frequent, it sounds obscene to me) I reply with "and we should enforce pizza to be made only with the tomato varieties described by Pliny the Elder". Unfortunately most of them don't catch the joke. I think that traditional food is what you find in most home cooking in a region / area in that time, nothing more and nothing less. It can be something recent, something really old, something made only with local products or with imported stuff. The caloric intake of my grandfathers consisted mainly (I'd say over 50%) of polenta (corn was imported from America), potatoes (same) and clinton (a wine made from American vines, Vitis riparia x Vitis labrusca, most farmers drank way more than 1 liter per day). Those 3 were the main staples from 1900 (I suppose even before, I'm referring what my grandmothers told me) to 1950. When people here start claiming we should protect our traditions, I always point out that if our ancestors made so then they would have starved to death, not much sense in choosing to die for preserving your food traditions. Besides that, we are full of traditional dishes that are made with imported ingredients. Most spices are imported, can't imagine our food without black pepper. You can't talk about Venetian food and keep out baccalà (dried cod, imported from Norway). The list is really really long. If we try to find something that remained the same from the Apicius times, then we come empty handed. So being protective of our traditions is something I find really silly, since we (as Italians) are the first ones that did not respect them. There are various things that are marketed as traditional and can't possibly be. Recently a dish called "cinghiale in dolceforte" came to the mouth of many people, it's wild boar cooked in a sauce made with spices and cocoa, this dish is said to be "traditional in the Tuscany of the Middle Ages". Cocoa in the Middle Ages? Yeah, sure, imported by Columbus' grandpa. Another thing I point out to the "tradition talebans" is the history of Venice. This city based its existence on open commerce, they welcomed people from abroad that carried their products. Most of the traditional dishes here are rooted in those trades, what's the sense in closing the possibilities to foreign influences when our history is based on that openness? Shakespeare wrote 2 works based in Venice, in one there is a main character that is Moor (not exactly Venetian), in the other there is a Jew (same). Marco Polo went to China, he was an alien to them and was treated like a superstar. When he came back to what is now considered Italy he got imprisoned immediately for being from a different region (big crime!). Trying to avoid foreign contamination is some of the most closed minded things ever in my not so humble opinion. Having said that, I still think that to claim that some dish is traditional then that dish should be prepared in many homes of that place in that peculiar moment in time. I've never seen a radicchio and orange salad here, so I'll never say it's traditional, but I'm not opposed to it since I tried those 2 ingredients together by my own will years ago; at this moment in time that salad is not traditional here, in the future maybe (I'd be happy). Tiramisu is the perfect example for my perspective. The version considered "classic" is documented to be created around the end of the 60's. It's made with savoiardi (called this way because they come from the Savoy region of France, not Italian), coffee (not Italian), mascarpone (only thing that can be said to be Italian) and cocoa powder (not Italian). At the beginning of the 80's it was in every home here and considered super traditional (I suppose this was due to the fact that it's both delicious and really easy to make and redo even in those years when recipes were passed by word of mouth). From non existent to super traditional in a matter of a dozen years, quite absurd for the ideas of every tradition taleban here, but none of them would claim tiramisu is not traditional. Personally I would really love if people here would return to the openness of centuries ago. I would love to find a real Chinese restaurant, a real Ethiopian restaurant, a real Vietnamese restaurant and so on. I really envy you in the USA for this. I can't even find a good pastry shop with traditional Sicilian pastries (my favourite) because people are so narrow minded, and it's stuff from Sicily, not from Saturn. Teo

I should scream "anathemaaaaaa", but I won't since you are buying Rana products. Some curiosities. Giovanni Rana is the one who invented the automated machines to form tortellini. He started making handmade tortellini and selling them with his wife. He understood that there were huge potential sales if he got able to form tortellini with a machine instead of using his hands (price would lower, requests would rise). Many industries tried to create such a machine before him, with no results. He had the correct idea for the mechanics, told it to some engineers, they designed the machine, he got it built, then started increasing his production. Step by step he built an empire thanks to his intuition (having no competition at the beginning helped a lot, of course). If you can find industrial tortellini it's thanks to him. In the 90's he became a celebrity in Italy. He was the first owner to appear in the promotional videos for his own products. Usually commercial videos for food products starred the "dream family", composed by actors/models. He insisted on his idea and risked a lot of money, making a big campaign with promotional videos where he was the star. Success was huge and he got invited to a lot of talk shows, becoming a celebrity known by every single person here. I'm not a fan of industrial products, but I must give kudos to him for his integrity: he always kept high quality standards for his products, always refused to sell his business (he got many big offers). One of the few industrialists it's impossible to say a bad word about. Another food curiosity: he was born in Cologna Veneta, a small village near Verona, famous for the mandorlato, a kind of hard (really hard, beware your teeth!) nougat / torrone, made with honey, sugar, egg whites and almonds. The peculiarities of mandorlato are its hardness, the use of only almonds as inclusion (no other nuts or dried fruits or whatever, only peeled almonds), the high ratio of almonds in the batter. Mandorlato is a mandatory gift during Christmas season here in Veneto. Teo

If you never used essential oils, then beware that a single drop goes a long way: add a single drop to the chocolate, mix and check taste. Don't try to put drops of pure essential oils in your mouth, you risk serious health damages (even your life). Teo

They should make Micro Clubs, Micro Diamonds, Micro Hearts and Micro Spades. Vegas confectioners would be happy! Big sales for sure! I'm pretty sure starch affects gel nucleation, that should be the cause of the bubble formation. Teo

I hope I did not sound disrepectful to the chef, if that's the case then I apologize. Simply I always wonder where is the sense in trying to show the traditional dishes of a country (or even single regions, like in this case) and then straying from them. If someone wants to stray and be creative then he is totally free and welcome to do so (I must be honest and say I tried radicchio and orange years ago and loved it). But if someone wants to show the real traditions of a region, then he had better to check if what he is going to do is really traditional. But this is a really delicate subject that always arises lots of contradictions. Here in Italy we are really affectionate and proud of our traditions (read "stubborn and closed minded"), if someone from Veneto watched a show that says radicchio and orange salad is traditional, then the lighter comment would be "this crazy foreigner". Not to say that we never make such errors, if you stop the average Italian and ask him/her to describe French cuisine then most probably you will hear such abominities that will give you goosebumps, and France is a neighbouring country, not on the other side of the world (if you ask about Chinese or Japanese cuisine then prepare for a heart attack). There are a lot of distortions about our own traditions too. If you pick up another random Italian and ask him/her "how old must a dish be to be considered traditional?" then the answer will be "centuries", then you ask "is tiramisu the perfect example of traditional Italian dessert?" and the answer will be "ABSOLUTELY YES!". Too bad tiramisu was created around 50 years ago and it took about 10 years to reach the status of super traditional dessert (no internet meant that informations spread in different ways, you had no way to check if what you were being told was really true). Teo

I gave a quick look only to the description of the episode on Veneto, the region where I lived my whole life. Never seen a single time a salad containing orange, the use of orange in salads is a Sicilian tradition, totally unused here. If I tried serving a radicchio and orange salad to any people here then I would have to censor their comments. Not because it would not be good, simply because it would be alien to our habits and people here don't react that well to non traditional stuff. Teo

Never heard such a thing during my whole life. It would be considered a crime here, because: That's the most coveted part in every lasagna worth of its name! Bottura even made a dish called "La parte croccante della lasagna" ("the crunchy part of lasagna"). More infos here: http://www.nytimes.com/video/t-magazine/100000004708074/massimo-bottura.html Teo

Marshmallow, possibly flavoured with something bitter or acidic. Teo

One important detail: when you add something to a ganache then it's better if it's pasteurized. If you add an un-pasteurized juice to a ganache then you reduce its shelf life. Not a problem if that ganache is part of a plated dessert that's going to be consumed soon, big problem if that ganache will be part of a bonbon for sale. Teo

It goes great. You need to follow some guidelines though: - nuts have different fat content, nuts with high fat content (like macadamias) give a liquid puree, while nuts with low fat content (like pistachios) give a thick paste, in this case it's better to add a small percentage (around 5%) of neutral vegetable oil, otherwise it's difficult for the machine to work properly; - when the nuts become a paste then don't think it's done, it's just the beginning, to get a smooth nut butter (that's smooth at your palate and you don't feel any minimal grain) you need to continue for at least 10 minutes, if you are in doubt then much better 5 minutes more than less; - work in cycles, like 5 minutes on and 5 minutes off, this way you prevent the nut butter to overheat (same with the machine engine). Teo

You asked for a 4" x 4" x 0.75" box, the last link I gave points to various boxes which sizes are 4" x 4" x 1". You just need to open the link and see that those boxes are made with the measures you requested. Teo

The biggest blast freezer producer in Italy sells a home version too: http://irinoxfresco.com/ It works also as a low temperature oven, you can use it for proofing bread or cooking sous vide stuff (of course it's much less effective than a water bath with an Anova). I know some people who bought it, price was around 2000 euro some years ago. They say they are happy, I suppose their electric company is happier. With that money I would install a professional size electric circuit and buy a professional blast freezer (which costs half, is much bigger and performs better). Teo

If you are asking about pistachio oils sold in Italy, I can't answer, sorry. Pistachio oil is far from being a common ingredient here. I remember seeing it only once in a restaurant many years ago, it's impossible for me to remember if it was roasted or unroasted. When I made the MC pistachio sorbet I just subbed pistachio oil with peanut oil (peanut oil sold here is deodorized and neutral tasting), I didn't bother to look for pistachio oil since it's expensive, hard to find and I didn't know what to do with all the leftover. I tried the MC pistachio sorbet just to see how it came out and gain more experience. For personal consumption at home I much prefer fresh fruit sorbets (strawberry, blackberry, peach, pear, pineapple, banana, so on). Teo

I'm still pretty confused: are you looking for a mold that gives you a chocolate tray (a molded tray made of chocolate where to lay the puzzles), or are you simply looking for a box of the right dimensions? If it's the second, then you find a boatload of sites selling every kind of boxes of your required dimensions, just click on the google search I wrote in my first answer. This is just one: https://www.rmboxes.com/pastries/cookiegiftbox.html there are hundreds more. Teo

You can find at least one Thermomix in almost all michelin starred restaurants. It's a great tool for combining mixing + cooking + blending, of all the professional blenders I used it's by far the best, you get purees that are so smooth that you almost don't need to pass them through a chinois. It pays for itself for all the time you save. For home cooking... well, I'd say it's definetely overpriced. Personally, I think about twice per year "I'd like a Thermomix for this" while cooking at home. This depends mostly about how passionate/obsessive someone is for what he eats at home. If someone wants high end food (comparable to fine dining restaurants) every and each day, then it has sense to buy one. If someone just wants tasty comfort food, then it really has no sense. I don't care if my purees are not perfectly smooth, on the contrary, I'm happier since straining them through a chinois eliminate fibers, which I'm happier to include in my diet. The ability to cook at certain temperatures without attending the pot would save me like 15 minutes per month, too few. Teo

Like @kayb I really enjoy reading your reviews and looking at your photos, so please keep them coming! Teo

This is a skill you can't learn from a book: trying to explain this kind of stuff with written words is almost impossible. A lot of cooking skills are based on sensibility, the only way to learn them is having someone showing you what to do, then practice and practice and practice. You develop these skills through your senses: how food changes its color; how smell changes; how noises change; how texture changes (stir frying calls for stirring, so you feel how food texture changes through the utensil you use for stirring). It's impossible to teach this stuff via written words. This is the main reason why graduates from cooking school are considered beginners in every professional kitchen: they have the theory, but totally lack sensibility and experience (which are way more important than the theory). Teo

As @chromedomesaid, making 15% profit would be a dream for the majority of restaurants out there. Seems like a case where the restaurants did not read the small prints in the contract. Teo

Too bad I live a bit far, I'd love to see all of this! Teo

If you search "caramel variegate ice cream" on Google Books https://www.google.com/search?biw=1409&bih=877&tbm=bks&ei=_02GXJi2GvmKjLsPjeuI-Aw&q=Caramel+Variegate+ice+cream&oq=Caramel+Variegate+ice+cream then you get many entries, maybe you can find useful infos there (sorry, don't have a recipe myself). Teo

Wops, my bad, I misunderstood. So you want to make a tray made of chocolate, so you can lay the puzzle on this chocolate tray? The problem here is that if you use a simple mold with a rectangular cavity then you get the shiny surface on the bottom of the chocolate tray and not on top, not what you want I suppose. So you need an unpside down mold, never seen anything similar for sale by any chocolate mold producer. Only two solutions I can think of are: - make a custom mold, which is pretty expensive since if you make it by yourself then you need many molds (it's not cost effective to use only one mold), if you order them from a producer then price skyrockets; - confide in your luck and go on the hunt for something that you can use as a mold but its native use was something completely different. Ashtrays come to mind for this. Maybe you can find a rectangular ashtray with the correct dimensions and that is hollow on the base (you would pour the chocolate on the bottom side, not the one you use for ash). Try looking at 1 dollar stores, supermarkets and so on, hoping luck is on your side! Teo

If you google <<acetate box 4" x 4">>: https://www.google.com/search?q=acetate+box+4"+x+4" you get plenty of results. Many boxes are too high, many producers will be based in another country, but you should be able to find something suitable for you. Those puzzles look great! Teo

Uhm, big doubt: are we talking about vacuum chamber machines, or machines like Foodsaver? I thought about the first, not the second. If it's the second, then things change since it's a different process. BTW, the method described by @Pastrypastmidnight works perfectly, I would say it's the most effective both about cost and time. Teo

Thanks! There's so much to explore with fermentation. Makes me think we are like in the Middle Food Ages. Teo

Good to know, thanks, never used them. It drove me nuts to open a 300 kg order and put all the 3 kg bags on the shelves. Lindt is much more effective about this. Teo