Michael S.

@Heidih Here's some information on common japanese found on knives, hopefully you should be able to find out a little about your knife from this http://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/showthread.php/7963-The-kanji-on-our-knives I'd try and figure out what kind of steel it's made from, then you can google and find the appropriate care instructions for whichever type it is.

I haven't lived in Japan or cooked lots of Japanese food, but people rave about Gyutos as a generally-good-for-everything knife.

RE the jus - if you just need the thickening, use some cornstarch slurry.

It's a two month delay because they had an "influx of orders" 5 months after the kickstarter. Why should they delay backer units because of that? Delays for technical reasons I'm fine with. Delays because they want to save some money on scaling I'm not.

I'm furious. Clearly they've just made a decision to save money on production for their bottom line, instead of being loyal to their backers.

When all you're ever offered is broccoli, cabbage and carrots that're boiled to the point that they're falling apart, and gooey mashed potato with big chunks in then you tend to grow up thinking that's what vegetables are and they're nasty.

I saw it mentioned somewhere about having to use a better/beefier power supply to deal with 240 in Europe as opposed to 120 in America. Couldn't quote the source though. Also I think USA has some weird per-state sales tax system so they might not have that included in the price. If you were to buy one, it'd probably cost more than it was listed for on the internet. Looking forward to getting my precision soon... Fingers crossed for it to ship on the 12th.

Never heard of that being a thing anywhere. Can't really imagine anywhere where it would be necessary either, unless the bar only had space for a few people and needed to make x amount per head to stay open... But then I guess if that were the case the owners would need to take a serious look at their business. They might get away with it if they've got the best selection in town. Doesn't make it any less shitty though.

Going offtopic now a little bit but yes you are correct about the sound intensity (acoustic power) doubling with an increase of 3dB - but not sure why you would ever want to refer to sound intensity when discussing effects related to hearing. Sound pressure level is the appropriate unit for this (technically Phon/Sone should be used for loudness but SPL is more convenient). 2-3dB is the threshold that most people can perceive a change in loudness, but a doubling of loudness is a 10dB increase, not 3. Acoustic absorption materials are cheap and readily available and can usually be integrated into a space unintrusively and effectively. Since you're dealing with reflected sound energy adding some absorption in the right places in a room can be very effective as it's not only attenuating the first incident wave but also all subsequent ones. They also tend to be very effective around 1kHz and above - spanning the entire speech band. Lower frequencies are more difficult to treat effectively but this isn't something that should even need to be addressed in a restaurant anyway. Absorption should work very well for taming typical restaurant noise and shouldn't require too much of it to do a decent job. When the background noise decreases, people don't have to shout as much, and as such has a cascading effect. There's many other things to consider but it'd probably derail the thread too much. Keeping ontopic now - loud restaurants were probably all designed to be that way/simply don't care/don't care enough to budget for it as it's not difficult to account for noise in a design/remodel scenario.

I realise this post is old, but those numbers are unreasonably high, in England and the EU we have a limit of 80dBA and after that measures have to be taken to reduce the noise level. 90dBA is quite loud - I doubt many restaurants would be exceeding that. *Edit* forgot to ask - what's this standard for? Workplace noise I'd guess. Hope it's been updated recently to a lower level. Also RE dcarch's comment about there not being many ways to keep noise down in a room - there are quite a lot, it's just that people don't usually bother to think of it, unfortunately. Noise transmission on the other hand, that's another beast entirely. That I would agree there aren't many ways to deal with it after construction. Considered in the design phase, it's doable.

I reset the edge on my Shun last week using 220, 800 and finishing on a 3000. Edge seems nice, especially for a first try. I'd recommend looking at http://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/ if you want to find a lot more info on sharpening and steel types - not sure that the volume of knowledge on egullet can really stand up (in the case of knives and knife sharpening at least) to that site.

IIRC, some of the liquid will change phase to a gas in a vacuum bag since the boiling point is lower, so that is likely where the gas came from. The above about surface bacteria ending up in the middle at a nice cosy temperature for a long time would account for the smell and gunge.

Maltodextrin will also suck up fats, allowing you to make bacon flavoured powder using the rendered fat.

Not a fix for the anova but I suggest writing the time it went into the bath on the bag, or keeping a logbook handy.

It's the same as seasoning cast iron. The oils are heated to a high temperature at which they polymerise and create a protective layer which provides a barrier to oxygen which prevents it from rusting. IIRC, you have to use one of a few types of oils that go through this polymerisation at high temperatures, otherwise they just burn away. If done properly, the oil should be completely burned away after seasoning and won't produce any off flavours. Question - can you use an IR thermometer with this, or is the surface of the steel too shiny to give an accurate reading?

De Cecco is what's usually available in the shops here in the UK, so I go with that. Or Garofalo if I'm in Costco. But really, I buy anything that's been made using bronze die extrusion. The smooth nylon die stuff that you normally get in supermarkets is just unpleasant as the sauce doesn't seem to adhere to it very well.

This. I got sick of eating charcoal for dinner (mine would constantly burn everything) so started cooking for myself about 15 & really started getting into it a few years later. I'm in Uni at the moment, but if my career gets too boring then I'm definitely going to dive into a kitchen head first.

I've been looking at buying a couple of these size cambros, one for brining and one for the Anova (or similar unit). Would you fit a whole chicken in this size tub? I would guess that this is big enough for brining, but do you think there would be sufficient liquid-to-chicken ratio (ha) to SV a whole bagged one? Or two separate halfs? Would one want to SV a whole bird? Breast is best at one temp and dark meat at another. Good point. Mostly serves as a reference for the size of a piece of meat that you can cook in it. Chickens are relatively uniform, other cuts such as pork/beef shoulder could be all kinds of sizes.

There has to be at least a million. dcarch Likely more. Heston Blumenthal mentioned on TV once that he had some software which listed all identified compounds that allowed you to search by association or something. No idea what it's called, if it's easy to acquire or even exists, but you might be able to find it if you hammer google for a while.

Certain flavour compounds are only soluble in water, some only in fat, and some only in alcohol. Which is why people suggest adding a splash of vodka to a dish to bring out x amount of flavour (as most dishes already contain water and fat). That's pretty much it.

Personally, I'd take the opportunity to try as many different techniques & recipes as I possibly could that takes advantage of fresh chanterelles and figure out the preparations I liked best, rather than trying to preserve them. Preservation wise, maybe flash freezing (if you have the capability) would be the best method. Just chucking them in the freezer would likely ruin them though.

I've been looking at buying a couple of these size cambros, one for brining and one for the Anova (or similar unit). Would you fit a whole chicken in this size tub? I would guess that this is big enough for brining, but do you think there would be sufficient liquid-to-chicken ratio (ha) to SV a whole bagged one? Or two separate halfs?

Just realised I never dropped in a thanks - those are great ideas and I'll be chasing them up soon. Cheers.

Morrisons also stock some of the Natoora range of fruits/vegetables depending on if you're in a fancy enough store. I think also their deli counter stocks some Natoora stuff. Similar sort of range as what's on offer at Ocado. I noticed the weird misting devices. I'm not sure they do much to benefit most/any of the vegetables and when I buy stuff my bags-for-life always end up with puddles in them after I grab some. I'm thinking they're mostly there for the "wow" factor as surely a chiller unit would function better at keeping things cool and fresh than the mist.

I think the roast dinner (roasted-to-death meat, vegetables boiled until they just about dissolve into the cooking water, Yorkshire puddings and some thin prepared gravy) is still actually quite popular. Our family sat down to eat it once a week on a Sunday and I know many others around my area and I think all over the country also eat that meal regularly. There was a period of time where shops were popping up that would sell a roast dinner wrap - all the contents of a roast dinner wrapped up in a giant Yorkshire pud. That was quite bizarre. Then again the OP is fighting a losing battle as mentioned further up the thread trying to define one meal as the "national dish". I think either a well executed roast dinner, or fish and chips are probably the strongest contenders for a national dish of England though, not cheese on toast *cough* oh sorry, I mean "rarebit". Just to throw a further spanner into the works, Spaghetti Bolognese is a very popular one over here. Seems like everybody's got their own recipe for it and claims it's the best... ETA: Mad cow certainly hasn't slowed down our beef consumption. There may have been a period of time after the incident where everyone is a bit paranoid, but that attitude (thankfully) hasn't persisted. Beef's one of the more popular meats here and is usually afforded about twice (sometimes even 3-4 times or more depending on the shop) as much shelf space as lamb or pork.