btbyrd

The Vic Fibrox is a top recommendation of many knife nerds, and it'd be my top choice if I was trying to buy an inexpensive chef's knife. Though I might try to get a rosewood handled one just because. I wish they made a 9" version.

I do.

Neither of us really compromised. She prefers her salmon well done, and I prefer my salmon to be ribeye. In the end, we both got exactly what we wanted!

His and hers anniversary dinner. Grilled salmon for her, ribeye for me. With summer veg and mashed potatoes.

I like to Jaccard SV pork chops. This also facilitates rapid uptake of marinade or brine if you're using a chamber vacuum machine (which will shoot liquid into the pores created by the needling process). But I usually just salt them liberally well before cooking instead of using a wet brine. In any event, Jaccarding definitely makes a positive textural difference... more tender, more juicy.

It will work fine. The VP215 is listed as compatible in the item description.

Once upon a time, this was the first tin of sardines I ever purchased. I got them at an improbable retailer... a TJ Maxx or a Home Goods or something totally non-grocery. They were inexpensive and intriguing, but I was afraid. I'd never had a deen before, and their reputation didn't make me especially enthused. This tin sat in my cabinet for a couple years, jealously watching my piles of spiced mackerel filets and Ortiz tuna go in and out. But one day I decided to open the tin and I was greeted by three beautiful, burly shiny bois. They shimmered so beautifully. The oil smelled clean and lemony. My reluctance vanished and I took a bite. Whatever trepidation I'd once had was gone in an instant and I realized that I'd been missing out. These aren't my favorite deens by any means, but they're damned good for the $3/tin price that I can semi-regularly get at my local Fresh Market. They tend to be scalier than other producers, but I've come to kind of like that (in context). The lemon flavor comes from the oil in the peel rather than any acid, so the fish have a toothsome and firm texture. Fresh lemon juice helps complete the package. The Matiz spicy deens are my go-to Matiz product though. And now that I'm a deen fiend, I don't buy them as regularly as I buy more some of the more premium brands (lord help me). But this tin has a special place in my heart. I'll never forget how they shimmered. Beauties.

Looks great! I want to throw some arugula and lemon juice on there... maybe some pickled red onions or shallots or something. Nice looking deens too!

I forgot to include an obligatory shout out to Shin Black noodle blocks (not the cups). Tasty and spicy, but also kind of low quality (fried noodles and freeze dried veg bits that never fully hydrate). These are more likely to give you the "oh no, what did I just do?!" feeling when you crush a bowl real fast. Kind of like a McDonald's quarter pounder with cheese. It's not bad while you're eating it and the flavor is alright, but once you stop eating it, it kind of hangs out with your body/memory longer than it should. Also a fan of Iron Chef Morimoto branded Sapporo Ichiban "Momosan" noodles. I had a six pack of the chicken flavor during the height of the pandemic and really liked them. Good air dried noodles... a bit more dainty in size and texture compared to the Nissin Raohs. And the broth is quite good for instant chicken ramen. Worth a try.

My favorite instant ramen is the Nissin Raoh miso flavored ramen. The noodles are air dried and the broth is delicious. A little doctoring can make something incredibly satisfying, like this king trumpet mushroom bowl I made a while back: They also make a shoyu version, which I like (but almost always prefer the flavor of the miso broth) and a porky version which I haven't tried. But the noodles themselves are so good that I use them when I make my own ramen broth, as in this delicious bowl. There's an onsen egg under dem scallions: Another favorite "instant" noodle are the Prima Taste Curry noodles. The noodles take 7 minutes, but the texture is amazing... much more robust than ramen. The broth itself though... that's what sets the Prima Taste apart from others. Each pouch contains a dry powdery mix of some sort of fatty somethingorother and another pouch of awesome curry paste. It tastes phenomenal. Restaurant quality for sure. Spicy hot, but not too spicy hot. PT also makes a delicious laksa noodle that's quite similar, but there's a bunch of dried seafood in the curry paste and it will make your house/office/whatever smell like HOT SPICY SEAFOOD, so I tend to stick to the curry to avoid offending anyone within nose-shot. It's also a bit hotter in spice than the curry. Both products look basically the same in the bowl, so I can't remember if this bowl was curry or laksa. So easy, so delicious. Those are some IQF frozen shrimp I thawed out in water real quick, tossed in curry powder and oil, and did a quick sauté on. You can easily do all that and slice your scallions by the time the noodles are done cooking. I often throw a boiled egg on there. And I'll be the first to admit that I usually eat this over the sink while wearing a napkin bib because that curry is no joke, and the slurping spatter is a serious stain hazard.

Unless I'm looking at the image wrong, the wagyu isn't 1.5"-2" thick. I don't think I've ever seen a thick, untrimmed wagyu rib steak offered for sale; the ones I've seen are always sliced quite thin (for a steak), an inch or less. You really don't want to be eating a 2" thick A5 rib steak, unless it's serving 12 people or something. I saw Grant Achatz do a SV wagyu demo on a thicker steak, which he cooked to very rare but then did a super sear on just one side. This gave it a spectrum of doneness from very rare to well done by the crispy edge. But the steak was subsequently carved into tasting portions enough to serve a small crowd. It was definitely a restaurant preparation. But I digress. In the event that it's a slimmer cut, I'd trim it into individual muscle groups and just sear everything hard until it's done. (Be sure to save the larger pieces of fat to make fried rice with. Or render up some crispy fat bits and saute green beans in it. Or whatever... save the fat, it's good.) IMO, there's no big benefit to SV on thinner wagyu rib steaks; you don't need to tenderize them, and you're not going to render much fat (though more will render than conventional beef, as the fat contains more monounsaturated fat). And if they're not super thick, they're relatively easy to cook. Salt, sear, done. The last time I ate some (lower end) wagyu, that's what I did anyway. If you sear A5 in a dry pan, by the time you're done, it'll be shallow-frying in its own fat. And that's okay. You want to render that fat. You need to render that fat. It's still going to be the fattiest beef you've ever had in your life. And that's okay too.

It's a Takamura VG10 santoku. They're in stock right now at Mutual Trading Company, Carbon Knife Company, and District Cutlery. I think the cheapest is at Carbon, which also has free shipping.

Oops!… I did it again.

Even if you make stock with them, they still end up in the garbage, no?

I don't think anyone has anything against small knives. It's just small chef's knives that are kind of weird. A santoku or bunka or nakiri or petty or whatever, sure. But a 6" chef's knife is nonideal, if what we're referring to as a chef's knife is something with a classic big-bellied, rock-chopping German profile. In a former life, I had a 6" Wusthof in a set I was gifted, and that thing *never* saw action.

They don't become unsafe, but the quality does change -- sometimes for the better. Some producers sell "vintage" tins that they've "cellared," but I've never seen anything very old offered for sale. I imagine that after a long enough period of time, the effects of time will be detrimental; I've seen it said that 10 years a good rough upper limit when it comes to vintage tins. This goes for sardines in oil. Ones in water and tomato will definitely go down in quality much faster.

More time to sit around and eat sardines.

I had a tin of their grilled sardine loins not long ago. An incredible tin. If I was Bezos rich, I’d stock my yachts and mansions with case after case of their tasty grilled seafood.

There are lots of great vendors. Rainbow Tomatoes Garden has been mentioned already, and they have the biggest selection in the US (if not the world). Dan, who runs it, is a super nice guy and is very active on reddit's r/sardines subforum. I also buy from Caputo's Market, TinCanFish.com, Portugalia Marketplace, Yummy Bazaar, La Tienda, and Zingerman's Mail Order. Zingerman's is currently in the middle of their summer sale, which is when a lot of their fish goes on sale. They don't have a large selection, but what they do have is very good.

I've been falling thoroughly down the tinned fish rabbit hole for the past couple years. So I'll try to answer questions to the best of my ability. Small sardines are sold as small sardines, and there can be as many as 25 or 30 in a standard sized tin. They command a price premium over the normal 3/5 count per tin, as they're more labor intensive to prepare and pack. My go-to small sardine brands are Ramon Pena gold line and Conservas de Cambados. Here's some shots of a RP 20/25 count tin: There are two layers. Spain and Portugal both produce extremely high quality products, but you have to focus on the cannery rather than the country of origin. That recent NYT piece was okay, but they're rehashing the content of this Business Insider video from a couple years ago (that has 12 million views): The spicy Nuris from that cannery are one of my "daily driver" tins. They're $5 at World Market, but they sometimes run promotions. I order them online and pick up in-store, which saves you 10%.

Spoiler alert. Thanks.

At least a 7 inch santoku. Even longer would be better. Not a fan of Shuns. They're okay, but if you're going to spend that kind of money you might as well get a smaller production run knife from a respected Japanese smith or brand. Like a Takamura R2 santoku or Tanaka ginsan. These are harder to find, but are better knives for the same (or less) money.

I don't think the standard pinch grip is especially useful when using smaller knives. Typically, you pinch at the balance point of the blade to give you better control of the tip of the knife, but since the blade of short chef's knives are so much shorter and lighter, the balance point is usually much farther back -- typically at the bolster or even in the handle. So I often end up holding the bolster on my shorter knives. It's still a pinch grip, but it's non-standard because I'm pinching the handle/bolster/ferrule and not the blade itself. You can also modify your pinch grip to get your fingers up and out of the way to provide board clearance for your knuckles. I use a similar grip to the one featured in this video when using my shorter petties (even my paring knives) and have plenty of clearance. You can also adjust your cutting technique to use with shorter blades. Up and down chopping isn't really the strong suit of petties -- at least on taller product. They're better suited toward draw/pull cuts where you leave the tip of the knife on the board and slice backward through the product. But if choppy choppy is your thing, they also make tall petties.

You don’t need to refrigerate commercial mayo unless you're going through it so slowly that it goes rancid. I never seem to have that problem. But I still store my mayo in the fridge for tradition’s sake.

I can attest that it's good for anything you'd use commercial mayo for. There's less of a difference between, say, Duke's and Hellman's (or Best Foods) than there is between something like Kewpie and normal North American commercial mayo brands. I like Duke's and it's my brand, but if I couldn't get it, I'd just use something else and feel just fine about it. This is coming from someone who used to shlep jars of it from North Carolina to Ohio and Illinois when I'd come home to visit family. I don't know that it was really worth the trouble, apart from connecting me to my "roots." (My mom used Kraft mayo, and I never really ate it as a kid). But I do own a Duke's t-shirt and tote bag. So...