btbyrd

Had some super colossal thicc boi U8-12 tiger shrimp show up for dinner. Marsh Hen Mill yellow grits, then a layer of Boar’s Head chorizo sautéed with red onion, garlic, and tomato concasse. Topped with roasted poblanos and roasted red pepper. Super colossal shrimp tossed with Rick Bayless’s green chili adobo. Finished with Neuske’s bacon and chive. And some shrimp gravy.

They're not called ramen because they're not alkaline noodles.

As noodles go, these are pretty good. I've long been an advocate for air-dried instant noodles over their deep fried counterparts. But the Momofuku noodles don't really offer anything over and above the A-SHA ones mentioned above, and those are cheaper. Sure, the Momofuku ones come with a seasoning packet, but I just don't enjoy eating these noodles that way. I wish they came with soup packets rather than sauce packets. These noodles are good in soup, but they're kind of expensive for just the noodle alone when you can get other air dried products for less money. That's not to say they're not high quality, but just that it's a lot per serving if all you're going to be using is the noodles. I know it's a different style, but I've been digging on the Cantonese egg noodles from Blue Dragon, which are widely available and relatively inexpensive. They stir fry well and they're good in a soup.

I just throw mine on a foil-lined sheet pan and let it ride. I used to do the "two sheet pan method" in the oven until I realized that bacon doesn't really curl and that I was just creating unnecessary dishes for myself. And you can't see the bacon as it cooks. And there's a greater risk of bacon fat seeping out and falling on the floor of the oven. I only cook bacon on the stovetop when it's cut into lardon. Lardons? Strips. I do appreciate the allure of curly pan-cooked slices that have varying degrees of doneness and a range of textures to them, but my wife is a strictly crispy person, and the oven gives consistently crispy results. And it's easier and cleanup is a breeze. I can't help but feel like bacon presses are for people cooking much thinner bacon than I am or for line cooks working on a flat top.

Deviled ham is redneck rillettes.

I just make my bacon in the oven. But I still want a set of Chef’s Presses in various weights. They’re not exactly bacon presses, but they’re not exactly not bacon presses.

Hahaha... yes, of course! I edited the original post to fix the error. Thanks for pointing it out.

Made surf and turf for my dad’s birthday. Cut the fat cap off the rib roast and rendered it down. Used that beef fat to throw an epic sear on the roast in my trusty Darto No. 27. Then into the bag with more beef fat for five hours at 135F. Then a final oven sear at 500F with convection. When I pulled the roast from the bath, I upped the temp to 140F and dropped the lobster in. I butterflied the tails and tucked the meat back into the shell. Then I put all my mother's teaspoons into a Ziplock bag and sealed it up using the displacement method. I put those spoons in a chamber vacuum bag with a pound of Kerrygold butter and some lemon zest. The spoons keep the bag from floating, since butter is lighter than water. The lobster tails went in for like 45 minutes while I finished up. The mashed potatoes hung out in the bath too, keeping warm for "service." When everyone was ready, I pulled the lobster tails, untucked the meat from its shell, covered the flesh with a generous amount of cubed butter, and broiled them briefly. The texture was exquisite. I wish I'd made more. Another bonus of cooking the lobster this way is that you end up with a bag filled with lobster-infused butter, and you can just pour the clarified butter off the top of the bag. The lemon peel does impart a nice flavor to the butter as well.

Made surf and turf for my dad’s birthday. It was perfect.

Looks like the Riedel Ultra decanter or something very similar.

I have the smallest Blackstone and like it a lot. I use it for smash burgers, mostly, but also for hash browns and pancakes. They aren’t the most even heating things in the world, but they get the job done and are relatively inexpensive.

I've had a dry pump machine for almost ten years and it has not given me any problems. If you're doing high volumes or sealing a lot of hot liquid for some reason, maybe an oil pump would be worth paying extra for. But for casual use at home, dry pumps are fine.

40oz porterhouse. Video: https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cr4Z8PAsdCW/

Spaghetti? Really?

Dewars are self venting so there’s not a separate venting process from which you could glean some surplus nitrogen gas. It’s hard to dish out just the gas phase of nitrogen if all you have is a dewar, and since the gas is invisible, it would be difficult to know that you’ve done it correctly. I know that Dave Arnold’s bar crew at the now defunct Existing Conditions used liquid nitrogen to exclude the air in the headspace of bottled cocktails before capping them. It only takes a dash, and a dash of LN is many more times the amount than you actually need of gaseous nitrogen (which is like 900 times less dense than than its liquid phase). I guess you could add a splash to an airtight container with food before sealing it and wait for the nitrogen to fully sublimate, but you run the risk of freezing some of your product. Honestly, I’d rather use one of those valves containers designed to use with vacuum machines than try to recreate gas flush with LN.

Grilled halibut with green chilli adobo and grilled vegetables. Fish on charcoal, most everything else on gas.

For some reason, I missed the part about dad being allergic to fish and only saw the shellfish allergy.

If they can eat fish but not shellfish, you could look into surimi shaped like shellfish. Surimi puts the "K" in "krabstick." Mushrooms are a good call too. In addition to oyster and lobster mushrooms, I think lions mane has some good seafood-y flavor. Enoki might be worth playing around with if you're going to cook them first and them make them into a "crab cake." There's a tinned faux snow crab product made from enoki from Seed to Surf that's supposed to be pretty tasty, but at around $10 a tin, it may seem like kind of a lot to spend on canned mushrooms.

The Pinhais mackerel is really good, but I've never had the spicy in tomato sauce (just the spicy). Jealous that you'll be cramming your suitcase full of the stuff!

I had some leftover fajita veg (peppers, onions, mushrooms) that got used as a filling for an omelette. The eggs were beaten with some green chili adobo, giving a verdant tinge.

But there's always blue painter's tape, the official label maker of the Guild of Culinary Professionals.

I use a label maker.

I have those OXOs in various sizes, quite handy. I also have a half dozen generic plastic ones with red caps in 2, 4, and 8oz capacities. I keep 8oz bottles of neutral oil and water by the stovetop. Having a squeezie of water makes it easy to add a splash if a pan starts to overheat or a sauce starts to overreduce. I keep another 8oz bottle full of ketchup in the fridge that I fill up from the "normal" Heinz squeeze bottle, which always seems to poop out too much ketchup for my needs. The tiny 2oz bottles are nice to hold finishing oils or vinegar so that you can dose out drops to finish a dish or use as condiments. The OXOs are very well built; I tend to use them for things like flavored mayonnaise or sour cream.

Ah, I thought you were addressing me specifically. Western debas are plenty heavy. There is no doubt about that for anyone who has held one. But weight is only part of the story. Weight per se doesn't matter much; how that mass is distributed matters more. That determines the balance point of the knife and how much the weight of the knife does the cutting for you. My CCK stainless #2 cai dao weighs 280g and is 205mm long. My small western deba from Kajiwara weighs just 15 grams more than the CCK and is 170mm in length. Here they are side by side. First, the spine of the knives: Now the choils: I'm certain that the knife on the left weighs less than your cai dao, but I'm also certain that it's way better at cutting through bones. It's obviously better than my CCK, even though they weigh basically the same. The Tojiro 240mm works in many ways better, even though it's thinner, because the balance point is so far forward. It lives to hack through things. Is it as robust or heavy as a bone chopping cleaver? No. But like I said, I don't have much need for cleavers of that kind. It's my anti-cleaver meat "cleaver."

Because the OP specifically said they weren’t looking for a cleaver to chop through bones. And I know what a cai dao is.