btbyrd

September 30

Porterhouse with donabe short grain rice.

September 23

Italian ham on ciabatta with buffalo mozzarella, pesto, arugula, and basil.

September 1

11 hours ago, paulraphael said:

How do you like the Gesshins? I'm interested in those. The shop is mysterious about the steel used for the stainless versions, but I'm inclined to trust them.

So pointy. Much stab. Hands down the thinnest tips of any knife except maybe the Kom Kom vegetable carving shiv. But the steel is tough enough that I haven't worried about tipping them in the drawer, and they've been there for years getting banged around. The steel is, I think, AUS-8 or 10 but don't quote me on that. They have a super asymmetrical edge bevel with an aggressive grind. I don't know that these are leftie-friendly but I don't know. You can see how rough the grind is, both in terms of evenness and the abrasives they used. I haven't done more than give them a quick strop, but they sharpen up well. Everything about them is kind of "rustic." The handles are a great shape but they're cheap plastic with an obvious seam and the pins look cheap. I want to snap my fingers and have them replaced with handles the exact same shape but made of bog oak with nice mosaic pins. But that's just me wanting to turn a $30 knife into a $130 knife because that is my way.

If I could only get one, I'd probably get the shorter one.

Seriously, check out how asymmetrical this grind is.

August 30

Town Cutler scalpel, Messermeister NSF Vic-like paring knife, Paraplui A Le’Epreuve Perfect Parer carbon, Kom Kom Thai fruit carving knives, 2 Gesshin pointy bois, 95mm Saji R2 Ironwood, Misono UX10 120mm petty, Yamashin 105mm tall petty in White no 1. I don’t know where my Wusthof has gotten off to, but I think I’ll be okay for now.

August 29

The best upgrade from a Victorinox is probably an Opinel or a Robert Herder. These have thin bladestock that makes the Vic parer so desirable, but with better handles and ergonomics. I also like the Wusthof grand prix paring knife that I was gifted for similar reasons but I'd probably buy a Herder if I was starting from scratch and wanted something nice.

I have a lot of small knives and those are the main ones I'd recommend for a Western cook looking for a normal paring knife to do in-hand and some on-board work. The paring knife isn't really a thing in Japanese kitchens, but the Mac Pro is perhaps the most recommended Japanese paring knife. Tojiro makes a good one too, but the Mac Pro gets the most love. The Gesshin/Japanese Knife Imports ones are nice for some things - they're the pointiest knives around - but they're quite different from Western knives in that they have a highly asymmetrical edge bevel. They also have cheap plastic handles that I've been meaning to replace for several years. Anyway, they're relatively inexpensive, sharpen well, and are an interesting change of pace. Nice to have if you've already got the traditional version covered.

July 27

Idiots.

July 25

Enzymes make it mushy. YMMV.

July 24

On 7/21/2025 at 1:11 PM, rotuts said:

@TdeV

I used to grill , after marinating 24 hrs , on a very hot grill .

just to get a quick but decent char on each side , then rest .

then slice thinly . the meat was rare , but sliced thinly , was tender and extraordinarily delicious .

This is what I do too. Not much help to someone without an outdoor cooking setup. I always grill it. A hot sear followed by a Searzall touch up would be my advise for indoor. It’ll be hard to get even contact with the pan after SV, so use a lot of fat and a grill press if you have one.

I think I usually did 133 for 4 to 6 hours. Modernist Cuisine says you can treat flank as either tender or tough, so holding it for 24 hours isn’t out of the question.

July 16

Re: Chimichurri, I just meant that I'd probably finish it naked and then drown it in spicy vinegar herb sauce once it hit the plate. But that egg white herb crust is real nice!

July 16

There are many paths to deliciousness, and I have no doubt that @TdeV's roast is going to be delicious. Those photos look *TASTY.*

I realize I'm late to the party and the roast is already in the oven, but my informed a priori thought would be to do a pre-sear (if you can) and then wrap the whole shabangalang in foil, then put the foil on the grate in the cooking vessel and cook it in the APO. Using foil is sort of like doing the "Texas crutch" in BBQ-land; seal the meat up so there's no evaporation and cook it slow and low until tender. The "wrap it in foil" APO suggestion comes from Dave Arnold's comments about doing extended cooks in the APO.... you'll want to have a barrier between the food and the steamy environment because if there's any sort of water soluble flavor on the outside of the meat, it will drip out when the steam condenses on it and drips down. I might use a cooling rack set over a brownie dish or something. If you do it that way, there should be enough convection around the foil package that you shouldn't need to worry about flipping it. Once the roast comes out, I'd let it rest, pat it dry, oil it up with some salt and pepper, and then throw it in the APO cranked up all the way in air fry mode. At least if I was going for a conventional roasty exterior.

Since I linked to the ChefSteps chuck roast video, I just wanted to add that I've never had much luck making pan sauces with bag juices the way that they show in the video. That might just be a skill issue on my part, but cooking the junk in the bag has never yielded good eats for me. For jus, I just take beef stock and season it with Minor's beef base and it tastes "restaurant-y". Chefsteps's egg white herb crust finishing technique is a nice way to put some herbs on the meat and have them stay in place. But in the summer time, I'd probably be blasting this with chimichurri and wasabi rather than using woody herbs like rosemary and thyme.

July 5

Red, white, and blue tacos with barbacoa and grilled chicken. With roasted poblanos, picked jalapeños, and cotija.

July 2

Wings, a wedge, and some quick pickles made in my chamber vacuum machine.

June 29

On 6/26/2025 at 10:48 AM, weinoo said:

I feel like I'm at a Benihana!

Haha... teppanyaki was our standard Valentine's day thing bur during COVID that wasn't an option, so I used my little Blackstone inside to somewhat replicate the experience. I got the onion volcano down.

June 29

On 6/21/2025 at 12:16 PM, weinoo said:

Interesting "coupes" if they can be called coupes. What's the capacity? Are they Steelite?

They're 6oz vintage-y coupes made of thicc glass. They're not really my style, but guests seem to like them and they're relatively inexpensive. Of course, they're apparently unavailable now.

June 22

On 6/17/2025 at 10:20 AM, YvetteMT said:

@btbyrd what size do you have and how many do you usually feed?

The small one at Costco is 20 inches (and comes with legs, carrying bag that will hold the legs, etc) and I think it would be large enough to cook for 2, occasionally more. I'm willing to go a little bigger but not willing to sacrifice portability as I do intend to take it camping (boondock/remote).

Mine is a 17" and the 20" isn't much bigger storage-wise and has a usefully bigger cooking surface. I only cook for 2-4 most of the time, so it's not really a big deal. But since I'm already having to store a 17", storing a bit more wouldn't be that much of a change and would provide a benefit. They're both good at a campsite, provided that your car is nearby.

June 20

12 hours ago, Smithy said:

Mega-kudos to you! I like the photos, but I'm just a piker. This "like" and comment, given its source? Major!

Thank you! I'm also a piker of the "fake it till you make it" variety, but I think I've been doing alright so far. That like and comment from Wylie are really an artifact of his being homies with my chef owner, but it's pretty cool nevertheless (especially given my love of technical/modernist cooking and ingredients). A few years ago, Grant Achatz liked and responded to one of my Insta posts, so now I've gotten likes from chef heroes in NYC and Chicago. It makes me long for the time before Instagram was populated by spambots. But I digress.

June 20

Also:

Beverage photography is hard, y’all. All the food I’ve ever photographed has been real and reasonably easy to shoot, but ask me to get 5 drinks together at the same time and get a couple different angles? That’s maybe the hardest thing I’ve done from a food photography perspective. The ice is constantly dying… the drinks are constantly dying. In unison. As an extrapolation of something Marco once said, five minutes is an eternity. Not quite as bad as cooking fish, but close.

June 20

I created and run a cocktail program for a small Italian restaurant in my hometown. Mission Pizza Napoletana serves some of the best pizza in the world (and the other food is great too). Here are some photos of drinks from the initial menu. We have an ice program, a carbonation program, and a gigantic-freaking-twist program.

Negroni on a big cube. Campari, Tanqueray, Punt e Mes. Our Boulivardier recipe is Elijah Craig, Campari, and Cocchi.

MPN Spritz. Organic prosecco (from one of two producers), Aperol, and San Benedetto sparkling water. I force carbonate everything so that the bubble level is off the charts.

Negroni, Italian Greyhound, Spritz, Black Manhatta, Paper Plane.

A photo from my home bar that helped me get/create the job.

And my favorite Paper Plane photo.

June 16

I have the smallest Blackstone they make and wish I'd gone slightly bigger, but I got mine for portability and storability so I guess I got what I wanted. Mine is small enough to run on a small green 1lb propane tank (its intended fuel source) but it functions much better when you use an adapter to connect it to a 20lb tank. Anyway, my primary use is for smash burgers. I can do four at a time and it's fine. These are made from cast iron and they're relatively thin so the heat isn't very even. But they're inexpensive and fun, so go bananas. One of my friends got one and did his weekly bulk meal prep on it. Cooked a bunch of peppers, onions, and chicken and whatever... minimal cleanup, a smart idea. It can also be a good breakfast thing, but the unevenness of the heat is something to consider with delicate items like eggs or heavy items with a lot of moisture like hash browns (which will brown unevenly if you just let them sit there).

TLDR: Smash some burgers, make some breakfast, do some brick wrapped chicken, and sear anything outside that you wouldn't want to sear inside.

June 3

Made some lobster tails with béarnaise for my dad’s birthday. Classic.

May 21

I seldom have time to cook these days, but when I do I keep coming back to steak tacos.

Walmart wagyu strip loin with salsa verde, charred spring onions and jalapeño, boujie Truf green hot sauce (don’t judge me).