btbyrd

Only $49 a pop.

There's no need to pasteurize tender proteins that are going to be served immediately. Those temps/doneness-levels seem off to me. 127F for medium? No no no...

Thanks! That time the cheese was Kerrygold red leicester. I've also used their cheddar in the past and it also holds up to the frying process. Pork belly was cold smoked and cooked 48 hours @ 60C before being chilled, pressed flat, and cut into portions. To stuff, I used a paring knife to slice a sort of pocket into the portioned rectangles of pork belly and inserted pocket-sized chunks of cheese.

You can cook with freezer Zippies below 70C without problems. I've also cooked multiple yolks in a single bag on several occasions. Use a quart freezer bag (or a gallon if you're doing a bunch). Just be sure to add neutral oil, which helps keep them lubricated and separated. I learned this trick preparing yolks for an event where I prepared my "signature dish" for a crowd. It's "Bacon, Egg, and Cheese," cured and smoked SV pork belly stuffed with cheese and deep fried in lard, topped with a 64C yolk and some Maldon salt. Photos cuz it happened (and the photographer got a shot of my yolk sack): Tastes so good, it'll make you wanna slap your mamma!

Weird. Strange forces are definitely afoot.

Looks like accumulated burnt on gunk. Scour the pan with kosher salt and a paper towel, rinse, and reseason.

The weather has been beautiful, so I've been in hardcore grill mode. Last night was souvlaki (and tomorrow night will be round 2). I had a learning experience with some rice (not pictured). Did you know that if you add citrus zest to rice before cooking it, it will release a boatload of pectin and make the rice all weird and gelatinous? It wasn't exactly bad, per se. But it was certainly far from the fluffy separate grained texture I was going for. Maybe useful for rice pudding? But I digress... Anyway, it was this plus lemon rice, plus pita, plus tzatziki Tonight I followed a recipe. I can't remember the last time I followed a recipe. But it looked so quick and easy I had to try it. Grilled swordfish over east Mediterranean caponata. The swordfish skewers didn't really need a recipe but the grilled caponata was a different and delicious take on the classic formula. It doesn't look especially pretty, but I'll definitely be making it again. Here's the recipe.

In related news, hot dogs, burritos, and gyros are all sandwiches -- at least in the state of New York. Tomatoes (botanically a fruit) are actually vegetables, and the men and women of Marvel's X-men aren't humans, but rather "nonhuman creatures."

Subways do have a stench about them. It's like walking by a Bath & Body Works, except even more yeasty and even less pleasant. I found the rationale for this decision somewhat interesting: "The clincher was the act’s strict provision that the amount of sugar in bread 'shall not exceed 2% of the weight of flour included in the dough'. Subway’s bread, however, contains five times as much sugar. Or, as the supreme court put it: “In this case, there is no dispute that the bread supplied by Subway in its heated sandwiches has a sugar content of 10% of the weight of the flour included in the dough.” Not being a fan of sugar in bread, I must concur. It's not bread... it's bread-like cake: America's favorite bread substitute!

Grilled wings with tater tots.

Talenti gelato jars. A delicious product (the gelato, not the jars).

DIY beer keg vertical rotisserie. Or you could just go to Arby's. Their gyros aren't the best thing, but they're also not the worst thing...

Yakitori with shishitos, okra, baby zucchini, and ginger donate rice.

I know that pork chops were ruled out as requiring too much attention, but I thought I'd plug for pork shoulder "chops" a la this ChefSteps recipe. I doubt if I'll ever buy a standard chop again. Better -- and cheaper -- than normal chops, and you'll (usually) have plenty left to stock the freezer. TLDW version: SV a boneless pork shoulder @140 for 24 hours. Chill. Slice and seal portions. Retherm and sear whenever you want porksteak. And don't throw away that bag jus from the pork shoulder. Boil and strain it and you've got the base for a delicious sauce or glaze.

The idea of vacuum marination makes intuitive sense, but it most likely doesn't offer a real benefit. Greg Blonder has a good blog post about this issue. Researchers at the University of Georgia and the USDA have repeatedly found (2 studies) that vacuum levels have no effect on the uptake of marinade by chicken. They conclude that "vacuum pressure during tumbling, as is widely practiced commercially, may not be necessary. The underlying principles for using vacuum pressure may be erroneous and should be examined further." Another study on the effect of vacuum marination on fish found that vacuum levels had no effect on marinade uptake. If you want to accelerate brine/marinade penetration using a vacuum machine, I've suggested the technique of combining vacuum sealing with Jaccarding, as needling meat creates channels into which fluids can flow.

Oh good... this thread again. Rotut's point is that there is no difference between food cooked in stainless (or otherwise "sticky") and non-stick pans when cooking protein and then making a pan sauce. "F + M = constant" so "there is no difference on your plate." I have been unable to follow the logic of this; if there is less fond in a pan because more Maillard products are sticking to the meat, the pan sauce is clearly going to be inferior in flavor to one produced in a pan that has more fond. Even if the total amount of "fond + maillard" is the same between stick and nonstick, this doesn't mean that the results will be indistinguishable. Nonstick pans produce weaker sauces but can create more Maillard-y meat; stainless produces stronger sauce from Millard bits that are no longer attached to the surface of the meat. These are real differences "sur la plate" even if F + M = constant. Nonstick pans also present technical challenges to making a pan sauce, as Paul Raphael has pointed out. It is not easy to remove cooking oil from a nonstick pan without discarding the "fond," and the "fond" can become bound up with the oil since it's not stuck to the bottom of the pan. Even with all that being granted, I have found that cooking certain proteins in nonstick pans can produce tastier meat, as it gets covered with its own "fond" and browns more deeply. I wouldn't want to make a pan sauce in there afterwards though.

Yakitori is the type of cuisine best suited toward konro cooking, and Matt Abergel's "Chicken and Charcoal" is the best English language reference on the topic. It's professional in that it doesn't dumb down its contents for a home cook audience, but the ingredients and techniques are all very accessible. It does focus quite a bit on yakitori butchery, but breaking down birds for skewers is a big part of what konro cooking is about -- at least in my opinion. There are other books that target home cooks (such as Tadashi Ono's "The Japanese Grill" and Silla Bjerrum's "Robata") but they are quite elementary if you're already kinda-sorta familiar with Japanese cooking. If you did want to pick one of those up though, Robata is the superior book and is probably the most accessible reference on Japanese charcoal grilling. But at its heart, konro / robata cooking is somewhat basic : high quality ingredients prepared simply and cooked over quality charcoal. It can also be a nice finishing step for sous vide protein or blanched vegetables. None of this is to suggest that there's no technique or finesse involved in cooking this way -- far from it. But it's mostly the sort of thing you learn from experience rather than reading about. ChefSteps also did a turkey yakitori class recently for Thanksgiving. Again, a lot of it focused on how to break down the bird for skewers... but that's a big draw of cooking with konros.

Aramaru Vietnamese binchotan from Korin. It's not "as good" as the Japanese white binchotan, but it's sooo much cheaper. I can't see myself paying $300+ for a box of charcoal.

Isn’t that what nitrites are for? I thought we were just trying to mellow it.

I'd just blanch the garlic a time or two.

I have one of the medium konros from Korin. I never use it inside for two reasons. The first is ventilation, which may not be an issue for some. In addition to the carbon monoxide risk, certain foods (like fatty steak or chicken with skin) produce a significant amount of smoke when cooking. The other reason is that binchotan can pop and spark, especially when you're lighting it or it's burning really hot. I worry about little bits popping off and scarring the floor (or worse). This isn't much of an issue in a commercial kitchen, but in a home setting it presents a problem. One thing to note about konros is that they function differently from most other grills, in large part because the heat source is so close to the surface of the food being grilled. This makes it ideal for relatively thin pieces of food and less good for, say, a thick steak (that hasn't been cooked sous vide first). Fatty/drippy foods pose grease-fire flare-up problems; I'd never attempt to grill a hamburger on one, for example. Because of the thick ceramic construction, most of the heat goes straight up instead of radiating out the sides, so it is efficient. Getting used to grilling this way takes some time and experimentation, but it's a fun way to cook. It does lend itself toward particular foods, so I wouldn't say that a konro is a great general purpose grill. If you do decide to get one, pick up a few extra grilling "nets" along with a fan to blow air at the charcoal. I thought the fan was just a superfluous and somewhat precious accessory until I used it; it's extremely useful when you need to crank up the heat. I also take mine camping to work as a campfire bellows. Aramaru charcoal from Korin strikes the right balance between price and performance. It's made in Vietnam from hard wood, and is not extruded like sumi charcoal or Thaan. It burns hotter, longer, and cleaner than those. As mentioned, it can spark during lighting, so don't hover your face over the chimney.

Grilled chicken for the week. Cobb salad:

We use a very similar looking pattern from a different brand.

Shipping September 28.

I have the 7" version, which is pretty beastly at around 14 pounds (with the pestle). If my bathroom scale is to be trusted, that is... my kitchen one couldn't handle the mass. The 9" one they sell must be insane. For a while, these seemed to be the mortar and pestles that got all the press. After Grant Achatz gave a positive review, I was sold. I don't use it as much as I should, but it does look great on the counter. I mostly use it to bash up anchovies and garlic for caesar dressing or to bash up some peanuts, but I will make a pesto every once in a blue moon (though I mostly use the food processor for that). If I lived somewhere with better access to ingredients, I'd make my own curry pastes with some frequency. I actually got the M&P just after the Next: Thailand and Pok Pok cookbooks came out and I was hoping to put some Thai dishes in my recipe rotation, but that never happened. Maybe someday I'll live somewhere you don't have to mail order galangal, cilantro root, or kaffir lime leaves.