weinoo

This is my point with duck exactly...to those who say you can't have a roast duck and properly cooked breast and leg meat, it all depends on how you both cook your duck and like your duck. When I (too often) see chefs and home cooks alike serving blood rare duck breast, I want to tell them that fire was invented for a reason. I don't know if you did, but next time start the skin and excess fat in a pot of water and let it cook really slow. You should be able to get there before it burns.

All I can see with this method is that it leaves one more chance for the soaker and then the cook to fuck up the pasta. Every pasta is different - who knows how long it should soak for, since you're not tasting the soaked pasta? Once it has soaked too long (and once again, how long is too long?), it's mushy - per the linked discussion... However, if you're a good cook, you're tasting your pasta as it cooks, to find it's perfect doneness.

These look practically like my grandmother's - though she probably didn't have any nonstick.

Whose? Wu's? Peking Duck House?

Oh yeah. But Jeremiah didn't with his fantastic oyster shooters at Stars! We need more Ronnies - the suckers are everywhere.

Dude...(funny you ask, I asked Andrew and they didn't have brats, which I would've taken. I stopped there). Yes - this is one of the great dishes at Cafe Katja - only for 2 or more. And here's a little known secret - you can actually "curate" your own platter, as opposed to taking what the kitchen sends out as the standard platter. Not that they don't send out practically everything. This is for you, @KennethT - Merry Christmas!

If it was the best, why is there a need to try new and ridiculous things?

Two of our favorite local restaurants offered meals to take home for the holiday. Both Cervo's and Cafe Katja had full meals if you so chose, as well as much of their standard (well, standard pandemic) take home fare. At Cervo's, I bought another chicken to be roasted, shrimp cocktail made from those gorgeous, fresh, wild North Carolina shrimp, and: When I went to pick up, the chef told me that they had sent him these really large rib eye steaks in addition to the smaller ones he had ordered, and asked me if I wanted them instead. I said: "Sure!" They're big. And then I just asked them to pick me 3 fun wines, which they happily did. Here's the Cafe Katja stuff: 4 pretzels with liptauer and butter, 2 fried chicken thighs, spaetzle with its sauce, Austrian meatballs, Jaeger schnitzel, roasted root vegetables, pickled vegetables, aufschnitt teller, red cabbage and apple salad, kale caesar (feh), strudel, and schlag. Oy. 4 bottles of Austrian wine accompanied. The aufschnitt teller, only using some of product. Their house-made liverwurst happens to be great. And my poor fridge... Merry Christmas, everyone.

I wish, for 2021, we all just cook pasta like good old fashioned Italian nonnas.

The La Tur is a favorite of ours.

Maybe had I known prior to purchase, I would've gotten aluminum. But... The steels I have both do double duty, with the smooth side functioning as a plancha/griddle. I think when Kenji wrote about the reversible steel/griddle product, that's what he was really excited about...https://www.seriouseats.com/2014/04/the-food-lab-the-new-reversible-baking-steelg.html

I think it’s all about the sound of the name. Just imagine a Modernist Baking Aluminum. Doesn’t sound half as cool as a Modernist Baking Steel, does it?

Don't sell yourself short!

There is a third - the didacts. I might belong to all 3.

Yep, aS @liuzhouhas pictured. Close up!

@scott123 - I think I'm using Lahey's no-knead pizza dough recipe, which calls for 70% hydration and an 18-hour room temp ferment (unfortunately nowhere in my apartment is it what most humans would call room temp - it's warm!). I will drop it down into the range you mention, knead slightly, and see what that does for me. What easily purchased flours do you like most?

You mean I'm supposed to remember or write this stuff down? That's harder than driving up to Patsy's or Louie & Ernie's! I think I used 1/2 King Arthur Sir Galahad and half King Arthur Italian. I have a number of different flours I am trying to use up, so I can then restock properly as I learn more!

Only if you were to preface it with...I don't mean to be pedantic, but..

Yeah, the 3-tiered system - AKA - screw the consumer!

You're not telling us enough! Who'd it come from? A jilted lover perhaps? A disgruntled employee? This would add so much to the story, and perhaps help us with what might be cooked in it!

I actually did a little more research, and it sure appears as if one of, if not the main reason that salt appears in that Ohsawa Mirin, as well as in the Eden Foods brands mirin imported from Japan (which is also highly touted and which I also bought) has to do with changing it from an alcoholic beverage (i.e. wine) into a cooking product (i.e. cooking wine). And that, in turn, has to do with taxes and other bs. Here in the US, obviously. For instance, on this website Cooking With Yoshiko: And on this one, Dreams of Dashi: I guess, in a way, this is all similar to the Chinese cooking wines sold in the grocery stores here. Even though it's called Shaoxing wine (and comes in bottles which look exactly the same as the real stuff), the Shaoxing sold in grocery stores includes the addition of salt; however, because of where I live, I'm able to go to liquor stores all over Chinatown and buy the real stuff. Also much more expensive than the grocery store product. If I ever get there again, sure. Love the place. And of course, the rules about ordering alcohol on line are cray cray too!

Yeah, I checked online both here and Katagiri. Nada so far.

Here are Japanese hon mirin brands from Just One Cookbook she says are popular and good: Popular Hon Mirin in Japan Fuki Hon Mirin (Godo Shusei) Fukuraijun Hon Mirin (Hakusen Shuzo) – picture on the right Gyokusen Hakuryu Junmai Hon Mirin (Gyokusendo Shuzo) Hinode Hon Mirin (King Brewing Co) Isshisoden Hon Mirin (Ogasawara Mirin Jozo) Kankyo Mirin (Kankyo Shuzo) Kokonoe Sakura (Kokonoe Mirin) Mikawa Mirin (Sanshu Mikawa Mirin) – picture on the left Takaraboshi Hon Mirin (Honbo Shuzo)

Seriously, if anyone can show me where to get this hon-Mirin in the US, I would buy it. There is a shop in Brooklyn that specializes in Japanese sake, I will give them a call.

Where the info about Ohsawa came from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Kimball