btbyrd

Anson Mills offers a variety of heirloom grains and their website has a number of useful recipes. The recipe instructions tend toward the insanely detailed side of things -- even for familiar and "easy" grains like rice or corn grits. But I've found that to be more instructive in the long run, as it helps you get a sense for what's happening with the grains as they cook. I've also started cooking rice in a ceramic donabe recently, and have been meaning to try some other grains in there as well. I asked Glenn Roberts from Anson Mills about that, and he informed me that pretty much any grain can be cooked in a donabe, provided that one gets the hydration right.

Ribeye and rice.

Like I said. The announcement was on their Instagram. The official drop is May 1st. It's not on the site yet, but many of their "old" pans are out of stock. As far as a redesign, the handle is probably the most likely thing to have changed. The cooking part of the pans themselves are the perfect thickness as they are (in my opinion) but they're somewhat awkward to handle on account of the... handle. But I've found that these problems mostly vanish when you grab the handle with a side towel or pot holder. I also think the way that they mold and imprint their logo on the pans will have changed. My suspicion is that the old production process was a 2-step process, where the pans are first stamped and formed out of the stock steel, and then later stamped with the logo on the handle (or the bottom of the pan, in the case of the paella pans). The new process (that I'm totally making up and have no actual knowledge of) may combine those steps, so that the pans are imprinted with the logo as they are stamped out from the steel. This way, the pan's shape is formed as the logo is imprinted and there won't be any room for pans to get bent out of shape when the logo gets stamped on (or for other errors). I'm interested to see what the new products will be. Like I said on the previous page, I asked Darto if they had plans to make a "No. 31" and they replied that it was 'on the list,' so maybe I'll be replacing my 31cm Matfer soon.

Speaking of danger, Darto just announced on Instagram that they've redesigned all their products and have four new ones coming. May 1st is the official launch date, so keep your eyes out. There should be a pre-sale with a discount coming up quite shortly.

Seriously. If you want to blow a ton of money on a fancy knife, there are better options than these things. Güde makes some awesome knives, notably their serrated bread knives. I'm not sure "The Knife" is one of them. And for the money, there are hundreds of Japanese knives I'd rather buy.

These knives look stupid. At least the first one's cheap. The second one reminds me of a saying about a fool and her money.

Import Food sells a charcoal-fueled "tao" wok burner made from clay and concrete set into a metal bucket. It's the upgrade pick to the budget chimney starter method. But for sheer convenience and maximum therms (without resorting to forced-air for the charcoal) nothing can beat a high pressure gas powered wok burner. I can't ever imagine choosing charcoal over gas if I had the option.

I prefer kicking it up notches. ANOTHER NOTCH! BAM! Country bacon fat is one of the best notch-kicker-uppers...

How would I cook it? Drunk carbonara at 2:30am seems likely. Also good as a ramen garnish. Otherwise, use it as a seasoning meat for vegetables, legumes, and sauces. If you're looking for recipe ideas, search for guanciale. They're not exact substitutes -- bacon is smoked and doesn't typically have spices added to it -- but they're close enough to find inspiration. I prefer smoke anyway.

I had been using Pepin methods until I recently stumbled across Julia Child's omelette technique. It's gotten me better results faster and more consistently. And it's fun to shake the bajabbers out of the pan. The slightest little bit of browning on an omelette doesn't ruin it for me, but I prefer for it to be uniformally bright yellow -- to come off just before the color starts to go toasty. As for bacon grease, I always make a sheet pan at a time. Overwrap the pan with heavy duty foil for easy cleanup. Pour the fat off through a mesh strainer. It heaps up quickly that way. I also pressure cook a pound of Benton's in water when I do my variation on the Momofuku ramen broth. This yields wet-rendered bacon fat and bacon stock. The decanted fat is very nice, though you obviously lose some smoke and pork flavor to the stock.

I mean... they use a lot of veal bones in their veal stock. Skip to 3:55 for a shot of dem veal bone trees.

Add a dollop every time you braise something. You'll manage to use it up before forever.

For commercial stock/glace, there is no beating More Than Gourmet's products. They're basically made from Escoffier's recipes, contain a boatload of gelatin, no added salt, and are highly concentrated. I keep their roasted chicken stock and their roasted beef stock (glace de viande) on hand at all times. I get it in 16oz containers from Amazon. It keeps essentially forever in the fridge. For. Ever. Their website has a bunch of recipes for quick sauces. It's also useful to fortify other stocks or soups. One of the best things in my pantry.

That's a philosopher doing some yardwork. A rare sight to see them in their native habitat....

Visited with some friends in the Shenandoah valley over Easter and brought my konro and donabe with me. We did a six mile hike and then proceeded to feast. The meal opened with miso soup made with Father's country ham dashi. Second course were some pork shoulder saam lettuce wraps served with Carolina gold rice. Third course was white meat yakitori with an assortment of grilled vegetables, more rice, and a gallon of Yum Yum sauce. We never made it to the final course, which was to be pork shoulder and pineapple skewers. When I butchered the shoulder, everything got Jaccarded and the thin cuts went straight on the grill with salt and pepper; the larger, thicker cuts went for a 24 hour swim at 63C. I've yet to break into my supply of those. No pictures of anything on the plate, but I did shoot some video while cooking: I grill all the veg first and move it to a low oven so it's ready to go right when the protein comes off.

Precisely what prompted my reply, my good man. Here's a commercial for Andres's products where they actually deep fry the egg. I'd only ever seen him do a shallow pan fry before.

The one exception is the Jose Andres style super-high-temp, essentially deep-fried egg that both browns and puffs as you cook it. But when done properly, the yolk still runs. I think browned yolk is what I find offensive. Overdeveloped sulphur notes.

Behold.

Never in my life have I wanted to eat or cook browned egg.

Wheat-free, rice-based "ramen" noodles are an abomination. They might be tasty in their own right, but they ain't ramen. That dish looks delicious, by the way.

To a certain extent, I want the meat to dry out. At least, the meat on the surface. One of the best things about many long-smoked products is the textural difference between the crunchy exterior and the tender interior. But you're right, humidity can be an issue -- especially if your final therm is going to be like an hour or more. In those cases, I'll put the meat on a rack over a sheet pan of ice, which I believe MC recommended. My smoker is a grill, and it doesn't really go lower than 225F, so having the extra ice in there works as both a heat sink and as a source of humidity. But honestly, I don't worry about it for most things. I brine all my pork and poultry, so it stays moist enough, and I've never found the interior of beef to really dry out during the final smoking process. (And some of that is brined anyway). The ChefSteps "smokerless smoked brisket" recipe finishes the brisket in a low oven for 3-4 hours to form the bark; I do the same for as lightly shorter period in a slightly hotter oven/grill with actual smoke. This is an excellent point. Smoke is a flavoring agent, and it's possible to use too much -- especially on delicate product. Double smoke could definitely be overkill for delicate items.

My thought is that there maybe some volatile flavor compound(s) that gets driven off or changed by the roasting process or by simmering in an open pot, but that this can't happen in the IP. If all you're doing is throwing raw turkey bits in a sealed cooking vessel, there's no where for those aroma/flavor compounds to go. Maybe they end up as "turkey fat flavor" in your stock. That's pure conjecture, of course, but a thought. I make virtually all of my stock in a pressure cooker these days, and I almost always roast the bones first. Roasting creates a flavor that I prefer for most applications (unless you need a delicate stock, which can happen) and it mostly removes the need for blanching the bones/meat, since the roasting process helps denature a lot of the nasty bits that'd float to the top of your stockpot. If you neither blanched nor roasted, that might be the cause of the issue. Or maybe you just got a funkier turkey, or its fat oxidized as you stored the carcass, or some such thing. I doubt it's the Instant Pot.

I wet cured both of these pork bellies. In the first image, the belly on the left has been cold smoked, while the one on the right has only been cured. The difference in color is much more dramatic after they came out of the bath. I don't have the "after" shot after they got rethermed on the smoker, but the final color and flavor on the double smoked belly was superior. I've found this to be true of pork and beef ribs as well. So now I just do the double smoke as a general practice whenever possible. Here's some double smoked SV meats on the smoker getting that final crust. First up, some glazed pork belly. On the plate: And some short ribs: On the sandwich: It was a mashup of BBQ styles. Texas meets Korea meets the bahn mi. Black garlic aioli, collard green kimchi, carrot and daikon shreds. If anyone cares, I use an Amazen tube smoker on my Weber grill. It burns pellets, but doesn't really generate heat of its own. In the winter, I'll cold smoke things on the grill without having the heat on. It's good to do large batches if possible, and then freeze for later. I'll also turn my grill on low and use it as a proper hot smoker. Dollar for dollar, the $25 or $30 I spent on the Amazen tube smoker are probably the best money I've spent for cooking equipment. And I've spent a lot of money on cooking equipment.

I combine smoke with SV frequently. The best strategy is to smoke twice. I'll generally do a cold smoke on the meat prior to putting it in the bag, then cook it SV, and chill it down. Final retherm on the smoker until you can't resist anymore. I've done side by side comparisons with pork belly smoked before, after, and before and after. Before and after was the winner. Smoke particles are small enough to permeate plastic. If you smoke before hand, your cooking liquid is going to smell like smoke. On the second day, you will smell it from across the kitchen. But the particles that remain in the bag continue to develop as they cook, or so Chris Young said once upon a time. You get a more muted smoke flavor, but it has an added complexity. I do the final retherm smoke to add back that "fresh campfire" element that gets lost to the SV water. It also helps dehydrate the exterior and develop a proper bark (which SV alone would never give you). I have a Smoking Gun, and while it's fun, it is no substitute for actual smoke in an actual hot box as far as the final smoke is concerned. You can do it on a small scale with some items -- quail and other small birds take to that treatment well, for obvious reasons. Also, the SVE guys are goons.

Conventionally braised meat browns better and tastes better than meat that's been cooked to death in a bag. And conventional braises evaporate, so the liquid part is slowly reducing and concentrating in flavor over the course of the cook. The braising liquid from a beef roast in the oven is heavenly. The bag liquid from SV braises is borderline disgusting. When you braise meat in the oven, it comes along with a delicious free sauce. When you braise meat in the bag, it never browns up and you have to really work to create a sauce from the cooking liquids.