btbyrd

When in doubt, throw it out. A new package of Cabot Vermont Seriously Sharp White Cheddar is $2.77 at Walmart. If you'd rather risk foodborne illness than spend three dollars, knock yourself out. But please don't serve it to anyone else. I love an old cheese as much as the next person (I have a 3-year gouda in my fridge presently, and I'm trying to track down the special release 5-year Cabot) but aged cheeses are held whole and their exterior has been treated in ways that keeps spoilage bacteria from being able to penetrate into the part you actually consume. Once you cut into the cheese, however, all bets are off. Pre-packaged, cut cheddar isn't the sort of thing you can just age in your fridge. And if it's puffing up inside vacuum-sealed packaging... who the hell knows what's in there.

iSi has some nice silicone tools that are cheap and excellent. Their "scraper" dealie is awesome for getting bits out of bowls and passing things through a tamis. They also make some fine spatulas.They're much firmer than most spatulas (which makes them less useful for some tasks) but the firmness makes them much better than typical spatulas for many tasks. And they're all one piece, so they're more hygienic and easier to clean (plus, they're dishwasher safe). Get the slim and the wide (or the slim and the spat).

International price differences for books can be tremendous, especially for used books. I have no idea why it happens, but when it does, I'm flabbergasted. I'd been looking for an out of print academic book (non-cooking) for several months, but all the used copies available on US Amazon / Abebooks / eBay were $500+. The other day I decided to check Canadian Amazon and, lo and behold, there was a copy available for $15. The staggering thing was that the exact same copy of the exact same book from the exact same seller was $505 on US Amazon and eBay! I bought it without hesitation, using Canadian Amazon to buy from the US seller. Pricing algorithms run amok?

Those tongs seem well built, but I use (cheaper) culinary/surgical tweezers instead. There are smaller offset tweezers that are useful for plating (and other, stouter, non-offset kinds that are useful for pulling pinbones from fish), but the longer (11.5-12.5") straight tweezers get a fair bit of use in my household. It's the best way to flip bacon.

Jesus.

Salt pork doesn't refer to one particular product, but rather a range of products cut from different parts of the animal including the belly, the side, and the back. Where I come from (Western NC), salt pork refers primarily to fatback, which is dry cured fat from the back of the hog. It sounds like the same product that chromedome describes -- all, or mostly all, fat that is very salty. It is typically used in the same way that he describes as well... cut it down into small pieces, render out the salty fat, and remove the "cracklins" to use as a garnish for the finished dish. Unlike bacon, fatback (and other forms of salt pork) are not typically smoked, so bacon isn't a 1:1 substitution. However, if you like smoke flavor, using bacon in place of fatback or salt pork is a viable option. Being unsmoked, pancetta or guanciale would be good substitutes as well (though the latter tends to be coated with spices that would influence the flavor of the final dish). In the recipe you referred to, they're basically just using the salt pork as a source of fat. If you have rendered lard on hand, I'd just use that. (I have both lard and bacon on hand, and would use the lard. Smoke flavor doesn't seem right for that dish. But who knows, it might be delicious.)

Whether marinades penetrate depends on what's in the marinade. Molecular size is key. Salt is relatively small compared to most flavor molecules, and this feature (along with its ionic activity) help it penetrate where other molecules cannot tread. The best online (non-academic) resource I've found on testing brines and marinades is Greg Blonder's blog 'Genuine Ideas.' Here are some of the most relevant posts: This post uses chemical dyes with different molecular sizes to investigate how far into meat flavor molecules can travel. This post investigates the rates of diffusion for various salts (table salt, curing salt, MSG) into animal proteins. This post investigates the extent to which sugar in a brine adds flavor to the interior of meat. Lots of quality reading on that site.

That crap drives me crazy too. I'm not really that OCD, but it drives me up the wall when famous chefs (who know better) end up doing those things on cooking demos or on television. The pepper grinder and the salt well seem to get the brunt of it. I also hate it when chefs/personalities make a point of washing their hands after handling raw meat, but turn the water on by grabbing the handle/lever with their filthy hands. AND THEN THEY GRAB IT AGAIN AFTER THEY WASH IT! You know they never wash that handle...

Zingerman's sells good product, but it's pricey and what you get through the mail isn't as good as what you can buy in person in Ann Arbor (at least from my one-time mail order from five years ago). When I lived in NW Ohio, I'd make regular pilgrimages to Zingerman's deli for bacon, jamon, cheese, and olive oil... pick up a fresh loaf of bread and a giant corned beef sandwich (the best you can get outside of NYC). I love that place. The only place I've been where they slice country ham off the bone by hand. They don't do that if you mail order... even for things like jamon iberico. (I've bought that both in the store and via mail order.) I guess the regulations are different for packaged/shipped product. I also liked the thickness on their bacon better at the storefront than the same bacon via mail order. This was several years ago, so things may have changed. They now advertise that the Neuske's applewood bacon is thick cut, which it wasn't back when I was ordering. Anyway... I love Zingerman's. They are an oasis of deliciousness, and all of their products are top quality. I should really give their bacon another try. If my wife or parents got me a subscription to their bacon club, I'd jump up and down like a child on Christmas morning.

Apart from Benton's (and even including Benton's), my favorite country bacon is from Father's Country Hams. It's supremely smokey. You can buy slabs and slice them yourself if you want to. But it should be noted that because of the different curing process, it's very easy to cut country bacon too thick and end up with a salt bomb. Both Benton's and Father's bacon is thicker than your standard crap Oscar Mayer bacon, but isn't super thick. And as much as I like thick cut city bacon, I wouldn't want their bacon cut much thicker than it comes.

Portable induction hobs are mostly crap. They're nice if you don't need any real control over temperature, as most of them only have ten power settings. A lot of them (like the NuWave "Precision" Induction Cooktop) like to market themselves as super-accurate models with a lot of control. They aren't. That may not be an issue for you, depending on how you want to use it. I liked my cheap model for boiling big pots much faster than my crappy rental-house gas ranges. But when I used it with a pressure cooker, it would either vent out too much or, if I turned it down a power level, eventually depressurize. The problem is that the burner couldn't maintain a simmer; it was either at a full-on boil or just about to break into a simmer. There was no in-between. For my purposes, that was fine. It was also nice for going outside and searing meat at very high temperatures. Higher-end induction hobs like the Vollrath Mirage Pro or the Cooktek units are much, much better. But they also cost a lot more. I have a Mirage Pro now and am very happy with it. I don't know that I'd buy another cheap model again (they're all basically the same) unless I had some specific tasks in mind (like operating a catering business or cooking at locations outside my actual kitchen). Higher-end induction cooktops are a joy to use though. And you don't need the makeup air required by big gas burners. Flat bottomed woks are sad, as Chromedome points out. In light of that observation, might I suggest that you go with an induction cooktop but also invest in a 50K-100K propane wok burner to use outdoors? They are relatively inexpensive, pump out massive heat, and you can keep using your round-bottomed wok. That's the strategy I've adopted; haven't pulled the trigger on the wok burner yet, but it's definitely on my list.

I've used potato starch instead of corn starch for gravy thickening purposes. It works well, but if you want a traditional gravy that has the roux-based, floury consistency and taste, you'll need to use wheat flour as well. The concentration of potato starch extracted into cooking water doesn't seem high enough to appreciably thicken a gravy. Maybe if you took all of that water and used it to make a turkey/chicken stock, and then reduced that stock down considerably it would change things. What's the technique exactly? Is the potato water used to thicken the gravy or is it mostly for flavor?

Very happy to learn about the My Weigh scales from this thread. My current scale turns off too frequently, takes strange batteries, and doesn't quite handle its maximum advertised weight. The KD8000 is going on my Wishlist for sure.

Ooooh... you mean he had a sitcom-type show. Yeah, I'd forgotten about that one. Most of the episodes are up on YouTube. Watch at your own risk.

Umm... he's had a bunch of TV shows.

And your liver...

I love my Nespresso machine. Push a button, get a decent shot of espresso. Now. It's small, fast, and of higher quality than a $110 espresso machine has any right to be. The espresso itself is better than Starbucks but not as good as you'll find in many specialty coffee houses. Which is just fine by me. I love it, love it, love it!

Thanks! Wire racks are super-useful. They make them in both half-sheet and quarter-sheet pan sizes. I have several in each size. It's the best place to rest seared meat before plating because the crust won't get soggy. It's also good for resting fried foods because excess oil will drain off and your food won't be swimming in grease. The MC recipe is great; that glaze is especially fantastic. It takes a lot of work though... the demiglace is made from pressure cooked oxtail stock that's reduced 90% to a thick syrup and then infused with tamarind paste, fresh herbs, and some spices. The crispy beef threads and shallot "salad" are also tossed in the glaze. It's worth the effort. The worst part of the recipe is making the crispy beef threads. You basically cut flank steak into strips and marinate it in soy/fish sauce. Then you dehydrate the beef in the microwave. Because of the fish sauce, this step makes your house smell like rotting fish for a day or so. After it's dehydrated, you have to pull the fibers of the muscle into individual strands. This takes for-ev-er. Seriously. Forever. The final steps of the dish come together very nicely though. You deep fry your short ribs, deep fry thinly sliced shallots, and deep fry the dehydrated beef threads. Toss the shallots and beef threads together with some herbs and the demi glace, and plate, plate, plate. It is freaking delicious. Tastes so good, makes you wanna slap your mama.

Seems like people in this thread have had bad luck with short ribs. I've never, and I mean NEVER, had bad luck with short ribs. I either go 48hrs @ 60C or 72hrs @ 54C. Either way, the results are great. Frites with Triple Cooked Chips. (This was my wife's portion, which explains the ketchup instead of mayonnaise). MC 72HR short rib with Sweet/Sour/Savory Glaze and the beef-thread/fried shallot "salad": 72hr short ribs, deboned, trimmed, and portioned into cubes... waiting for the deep fryer: Deep fried short ribs with Asian-infused shortrib demiglace, cilantro/chive macadamia nut oil, lime-infused cucumber planks: I'm making me hungry.

I have two racks in my home kitchen: one for appliance storage and one for dry goods storage. Neither have casters because I never need to move them (except for cleaning purposes). If these will be in a fixed location, casters aren't really necessary... although wheels do facilitate pulling them out from the walls and cleaning behind/underneath them.

My responses mirror @DiggingDogFarm's: I love them, but mostly try to avoid eating starches, so bean-eating is a special occasion. For that reason, on the rare occasions that I cook pulses, they tend to be the main event rather than a side dish. As for dish recommendations, it's hard to beat Martin's suggestion of cassoulet... but since I'm a Southerner, I'll plug for Hoppin' John. Sean Brock's recipe is great (and includes a tasty, blended-bean gravy sauce). Field peas and Carolina Gold rice from Anson Mills are a must. And, as if it needs to be said, I'm a huge fan of Rancho Gordo products. They sell some beautiful, beautiful varieties.

Modernist Cuisine reports that steaming is actually slower than boiling for many foods (Vol 2, p. 70-73). They constructed an experiment where a thermocouple was placed at the center of two identical aluminum cylinders, which were then "cooked" in either boiling water or steam. Boiling was consistently faster than steaming. The blog Genuine Ideas performed a similar test using carrots and found that boiled and steamed carrots cooked at the exact same rate. Whatever the case, steaming isn't faster. Steaming can be "faster" than boiling in contexts where you're cooking a lot of product. From start to finish, it's probably faster to steam 10lbs of potatoes than to boil them, given how much water boiling would require (and that you may have to cook them in batches). In any case, I pressure cook large amounts of potatoes.

I will say that one of my favorite capabilities of the Mirage Pro is in making slow-cooked scrambled eggs. Heston Blumenthal has a great method for making rich, custardy scrambled eggs using a double boiler. They take forever, but they're delicious. Because it's sort of fussy to break out a double boiler for breakfast, I've approximated them in the past, not using a double boiler, by taking a pan on and off the heat to manually regulate the temperature, ensuring that the eggs don't overcook and that I avoid the formation of large "curds." With the Mirage, I'm able to set the temperature of the pan in 5 degree (C) increments, so I'm able to make this style of egg without either using a double boiler or babysitting the pan to maintain temperature control. I simply set the temperature for 65C - an ideal egg-cooking temperature - and let the pan warm up with butter while I crack the eggs and get to work on the rest of breakfast. When the pan is up to temp, I can just add the eggs and not have to worry about them overcooking if I forget to stir for a few minutes. In the event that I have to walk away, I turn the temp down to 60 or 55, and they stay hot without continuing to appreciably thicken and cook. If I'm getting closer to breakfast and want to rush things along, I can turn up the temperature to 70C and finish up relatively quickly. To overstate things, this has revolutionized the way I make scrambled eggs on lazy weekend mornings. I will say that this technique, and (apparently) the temperature control generally, doesn't work well at all if you're using light weight pans. I cook mostly with relatively heavy carbon steel, cast iron, or All Clad stainless pans, and none of them have given me issues with the Mirage. However, the one time I tried to make this recipe with a much thinner non-stick pan from T-Fal that was a top choice from Cook's Illustrated and ATK. Since induction heats the pan and not the burner, and since thermostatic temperature control on induction units registers the heat of the ceramic material on top of the "burner" rather than the actual temperature of the pan, that particular nonstick pan overheated before the relatively low temperature of 65C was registered by the cooktop. When I added butter to the pan, it rapidly foamed and started to burn because the pan was much hotter than the thermostat realized. I have since decided that non-stick pans are basically worthless compared to the alternatives, so this isn't an issue for me anymore. I think this would have been an issue on every other induction burner, so that's something to think about when using thinner, less massive, non-stick pans with induction -- even if they're "induction ready." In you want to use a pan like that, just go by power settings rather than trying to use temperature control. But with pans of moderate weight, the temp control is very nice on the Mirage. It's nowhere as extreme as the Breville Control Freak, but it's insanely better than the cheaper units.

Looking through a few more reviews, it appears that someone had theirs malfunction during what would have been a warrantied period (13 months after purchase, with a 2-year warranty). Vollrath didn't cover it. The consumer was understandably angry about the whole thing. I don't understand Vollrath's policy here. It seems to be the exact opposite of what it should be. Vitamix, for example, offers a SHORTER warranty on commercial units, precisely because they'll be used and abused far more than they will in your average home cook's kitchen. The idea that you would sell a piece of equipment that functions perfectly well in a home kitchen, but only give a warranty for professional use is bonkers. Given that I don't have unlimited financial resources, if I were buying again, I would stick to my original strategy of watching eBay for heavily discounted used or open-box units and just accept that it doesn't have a consumer warranty. They are much, much better than the inexpensive burners in every possible way (noise, temperature control, build quality, ease of use). The risk is tolerable, given my preferences.

I'm still loving it, but I can't really comment on the warranty issue since I got mine used. Try calling or e-mailing Vollrath directly to see what they say. Their website emphatically (bold allcaps) says that they do not offer a written warranty on items purchased for personal or household use. What that means in practice, I cannot say. I do know that there are a lot of people (like myself) who use the Mirage in a non-commercial setting and have no worries about doing so. It's a very well made unit, and I wouldn't expect it to malfunction or break (pretty much ever). However, given that it's an expensive unit I can understand wanting to be sure that you'd be covered in the event that something goes wrong. Someone asked a question about this on Amazon, and GlennR replied: That sounds about right to me. Call or e-mail Vollrath and see what the deal is. And report back with your findings!