Hassouni

Did the steel wool help smooth out the surface, or was it just to get the gunk off?

the found pan arrived. no trace of the second. It has no markings on it so I don't even know which of the two it is. And the handle was bent (I was able to bend it back), and on top of that, the finish is pretty rough, nothing like the de Buyer pan I have....is that par for the course?

That's not good. I'd hate to file something against them

Well either Darto or DHL messed up - my pans left Miami on October 25 then silence - I contacted DHL for more info, and today they found a single pan (I ordered 2), loose, out of its packaging in their "lost and found warehouse database" and the other has disappeared. I hope none of you have to go through this!

That looks very similar to a traditional Iranian kafgir/Iraqi chafchir, specifically used for cooking and serving rice

My DHL info says it cleared customs in Miami on October 25, but nothing further. To those who've received theirs already, how long did it take once it cleared customs?

I've seen whole chickens at H Mart labelled either soup, stew, or old chicken, as distinct from the rest of the poultry for sale there. I was wondering if anyone had tried these, and if they are in fact better for long cooking, and also any speculation about the provenance of said chickens? Industrially raised chickens are slaughtered very young, so what about these?

Got my email, if only I had time to cook anymore

Bourbon closing is actual fake news, according to most of my industry connections

Let me be diplomatic and say that A'dam's has changed from when you were regularly in DC, Mitch

Thanks for stopping by, @Steve R.! Always a treat to host eGers

Whisky Exchange, Milroy's, and Gerry's as mentioned, also Vintage House in Soho (they're all pretty close, the last 3 are all in Soho and WE is in Covent Garden). Get independently bottled scotch whisky and rum - the Whisky Exchange and Vintage House especially are great for rum, all have superb whisky selections.

Just as well, given how utterly vile it is

We make a few days' worth at a time, so most of them do get at least 24 hours in the fridge - I'll try higher hydration though, thanks!

OK, I'm back. The bar is up and running and we are cranking out the mana'ish. For lack of anything better, we settled on the recipe from the Man'oushe book, which off the top of my head, is something like: 360g bread flour 150g cake flour 300g water 1 tsp sugar 1 tsp yeast 2 tsp salt (ratios may be slightly off but it's more or less that). Usually, this produces a finished product that looks like this But once it made this, which is really what I want, or is at least much closer to my ideal: ...much more evenly brown, crispy, delightful. We've tried all kinds of variables - thinness of the dough, heat of the saj, rolling the dough cold versus letting it come to room temp and proof again, and I can't seem to find the set of variables to make it consistently like the second picture. Experts, I would greatly appreciate your feedback!

Yes, located as we are at 18th & Kalorama!

Thanks!!! Can’t wait to see all you DC area eGers!

I don't need perfectly accurate flickering...the ones I received were really mechanical, to the point of them all flickering in sync, and flickering all the way off and back on, like an ultra-slow strobe. @weinoo how do yours fare against that description?

I've been looking for flameless candles to put in the bathrooms and behind bottles on the bar - on the bar itself and on tables we'll be using real candles, but we want the flameless ones for ease of use, reduced fire risk, and to not be constantly spending money on real candles where we can avoid it. I got some from Amazon that were well-rated, but they were a) orange b) dim and c) the flicker was extremely mechanical and fake-looking. Does anyone have any recommendations for something a bit more realistic?

Well, man'oushe training has started, and we're working with a couple different recipes. See this thread for more info. One of the recipes said to use all bread flour, and added oil to the dough. Another says to split it 350g/160g bread/cake flour, without oil, but I didn't get any cake flour until today. What I really want is a dough that can get very thin and very crispy, while remaining pliable and not hardening/drying out over high heat. The issues I've had is that when we get the dough thin enough, and browned enough, it's usually too dry/hard/stiff to fold. Would more oil help? What would cake flour do?

When you say running it through up to 4 times, do you mean narrowing the rollers each time?

I just saw a video from Doyon that said it's designed for doughs between 50-60% - I think that might have something to do with it! I'm just wondering if such a device can get dough as thin as I need it and how many passes it'll take - I'm looking for 1/8" or so

Hi all, working on dough recipes for mana'ish for my bar . In the meantime, I got a Doyon dough sheeter to help get the dough very thin. Yesterday we had a training with a mana'ish baker, and they gave us a recipe for a high hydration, high yeast dough - it was definitely well over 60% hydration, and came out super soft. When we tried to run the dough through the sheeter, it didn't really manage to get very thin - would a stiffer dough work better?

So are the high-heat stir fries we all obsess over mostly restaurant fare, in that case?

What does one use domestically in China? Just any old stove or hob?