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Broken English

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Posts posted by Broken English

  1. At Momofuku, we've been serving it by itself, braising ribs in the kimchi base paste, using it with roasted cauliflower or brussels sprouts (usually white kimchi), making shrimp cracker style puffs with it using tapioca starch, and pureeing it for various accompaniments. The recipe in the Momofuku cookbook is a good start.

  2. I am also wondering if, since you can't get brine shrimp in Australia, you can substitute shrimp paste in equal quantity, or what a viable alternative would be.

    Kimchi has quickly become one of my favourite foods since I started my last job, and I'd like to try my hand as well.

    The key to the kimchi where I work is leaving it at room temp for a few days before refrigerating it. Well, at least that's what I'm told.

  3. I've worked with Wahoo and Cod over the years that have worms running through the flesh. They are harmless, but they often damage the flesh around where they are, so I just cut them out and try and neaten it up. Different species are more susceptible than others.

  4. Do you heat befor mixing in the xanthan?

    Anyone know a good online supplier of liquid lecithin, with international shipping? (Modernistpanty only has powder.)

    K

    No heat. Xanthan is cold soluble, plus heating would alter the freshness of the vinaigrette.
  5. I've done a fair few canape-only events, and I think you'd be well advised to plan on making 80 of everything.

    Choux can be baked then frozen and reheated on the day, so to minimise stress, that's what I'd be doing.

    Basically the less you have to do on the day, the better off you'll be, and the more able you'll be to ensure quality, rather than scrambling to push food out.

  6. I use Xanthan gum and make the vinaigrette in the blender. The result is glossy and well emulsified (stable in my experience for at least a week) and actually sits up a little on the plate without running and ruining the look.

    I just add the vinaigrette ingredients excluding the oil into the blender on low speed, add a little xanthan and stream the oil in like making mayo. Add a little more Xanthan if it looks a little thin, and blend on high speed for a minute or so. Of course, this works better for making large quantities as the blender picks it up better, but I think it gives a better result than lecithin, and is more stable.

    As for Xanthan percentages, I have no clue, I just add little by little until it looks right.

  7. It may be healthier than white, but I like rice as a neutral flavour to absorb whatever it's served with. Brown rice adds an unpleasant flavour and aroma to food, and I would sooner go without.

    If I want a nutty flavour that doesn't taste muddy and odd and won't make me run away screaming, I'll take wild rice any day of the week.

  8. I think Bill Maher makes a great point. One of the panelists on Real Time said that people in the public eye should be blacklisted for using the word, and Maher replied by asking if we should ban rap records because of the frequent use of the term.

    Making it more complicated is that there remains a deep undercurrent of racism in most societies, so is it fair to crucify someone should the term slip out? I'm not defending the use of the word per se, but the end result seems harsh considering that Trey Parker and Matt Stone were able to build an entire episode of South Park around the term, which was used dozens of times in the episode. I know that they were using it within satire, but that doesn't stop the word from being said.

    In short, it's not a word I like to hear in any context because of the negative stereotypes and connotations it conjures, but to drag down a career seems like overkill.

  9. Fresh, and I mean ocean fresh, fish. I grew up on, and my Dad owns a restaurant on a small World Heritage Island,where the fish are delivered to the restaurant within 6 hours of being bled and iced down. Even as a small kid, I refused to eat fish that were frozen, I'd simply spit it out and throw a tantrum if you believe my mother's stories. I will so rarely order fish anywhere simply because it will never match the taste memory embedded in me.

    I don't know whether it's psychological or I have some super taste buds (okay, it's clearly the former), but for me eating fish is so much more about context than how I feel on the day.

    • Like 1
  10. Don't know if this is the right topic or not, but I hope I'll get some form of logical answer anyway ...

    I was helping a good friend with the food prep for his wedding a while back. A day before the wedding, I made a blueberry jam using 3% pectin and canned it to give out as gifts at the wedding. On the day we went to check it, and found it had not set, so we explained on the night that it was a blueberry sauce.

    Fsst forward one week later and people are calling my friend saying the jam is amazing, and has the perfect set for spreading, and begging for the recipe.

    SO my question is, why did the jam set after a week in jars? Why did it not set in the days prior? I haven't used pectin before, but surely this isn't normal.

    It might also be a blueberry thing. My hands-down favourite jam is made with Mortiños, which are Ecuadorian-native highland blueberries. They make a lovely sauce in the pot, regardless of how much pectin I add (I use Citric Pectin, since it's what's available, and boost it with shredded apples in the jam base itself). However, by two or three weeks from jarring, it's a perfect thick consistency, just exactly as you're describing with your preserves. So maybe the answer isn't more pectin or any other change, but just a bit more anticipation time?

    Blieberries are high in pectin content themselves, which fuels my confusion. I think this one may remain a mystery. Next time I'll just allow a bit more time before testing the set.
  11. In general, I've found you have to stand up to FOH, because they will make your life a living hell with special requests if you let them. Since the gist of that paragraph was "respect everyone and do things the way they want them done," I think that the chef is acknowledging that the cooks don't necessarily have to kow-tow to the servers. In a good operation, all server requests go through expo, anyway.

    This is true. The part that irritates me about special requests is that the server is looking for a large tip from the table, and the kitchen is putting in all the hard yards and will never see any part of that tip. That is a major part of my disdain for the American tipping culture, among a few other reasons.

    Still, an ad for a job is not the place to bring any of that up, and it just seems tacky and unprofessional to me. I just don't get the mentality of someone who would write that ad and deem it fit to be published.

  12. Personally if I was looking for a job that ad would send me running. Anyone trying to entice people to apply for a position with such bluntness is likely to be an arrogant turd.

    While I agree with most of the issues raised in the ad, it is not the time and place to be raising the issues in my opinion.

    For the record, I have called in sick only once in my six years cooking, and I was in cold sweats vomiting with raging headaches all day, and I went back the next day only feeling slightly better.

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