fifi

*dons microbe hunter hat* I would feel a lot better about the 40 degrees if you had a chunk of ice to put in the pot like a soda water bottle full of frozen water. At 40 it is going to take an awfully long time to chill down. Actually, if you start now, maybe you can freeze 2 bottles and after it is chilled down swap for the new bottle. I all you have is cubes, use a really big bag and swap out for a fresh bag once it is chilled.

HA! You have just confirmed my observations over in the eGCI! I got 8 quarts as well. I have the same problem with using the cubes for soup. What I do is put it up in different sized jars for the freezer. I have 4, 8 and 16 ounce sizes. Then I label it with what the reduction is. I really like the roasted chicken stock. It is a bit of a different flavor and does seem to go faster but I have never measured it since I usually shove the pot into a 225 degrees F oven and go to bed.

Hmmm. CI usually has a good reason for whatever they do. Maybe I have been missing something. But, my pot roast is a fave of friends and family. You are absolutely correct to do what the recipe says . . . the first time around. I always forge ahead and do it by the book the first time even if I think something is silly. Nothing bugs me more than for someone to say "This recipe sucks." and then you find out that they didn't have parsnips so they used carrots, they didn't add the garlic because it was a dinner date, and they drank the wine so they used canned chicken broth. That LC collection looks like Valentines to me. You are a lucky gal.

I am curious about the turning business. I never do that. I really only lift the lid to check on my temperature setting. I usually find any temperature above 250 to be too high. You want a gentle burble.

Nothing really. I cleaned out the veggie drawer the other day and most of that was already soup. I don't necessarily need any meat in there. The only thing that is sticking in my head is peas. Other than that, I am drawing a blank. I have to go to the store anyway so . . . I just got around to tasting my chicken fat. I will never throw that stuff away again. Some flavor from the mirepoix is in there. In fact, next time I make stock, I am going for the fattest chickens I can find.

Sladeums is correct. You can buy jars of mole paste and that is used to make the sauce. Dona Maria is a fairly common brand, click here. There is a link to the Dona Maria page but apparently the English version isn't available. It does appear that there are some recipes available in the Spanish version. Sounds like the book needs an editor. I can't even imagine using just a tablespoon of the paste for anything. The jarred pastes usually call for 1 part paste to 3 or 4 parts broth. Which book and recipe is it?

Last night, I finally got around to reducing the stock. Probably for the first time, I started really noticing what I was doing and some of that might be useful here. And, as usual, I have some questions. First, the pots. I made the stock in my 16 quart Chefmate pot using the eGCI "recipe." Then I strained it off and it fits nicely into my 12 quart pot. So now I know what quantity I can expect (more on that later) and where to put it. It has been in my really cold fridge with the fat sealing it off. (Still good.) Time to reduce it. I removed the fat and transferred the stock to my Calphalon Saucier. (Wowser price BTW.) I like this pot for reducing because of the larger surface area. I was getting nervous but now I know that it will hold the stock that comes out of the 16 quart pot. I am notoriously bad about judging measurements and such and I really want to know what strength my final reduction is. That is when I got my "good idea." The pot is a straight sided cylinder so all I have to do is measure the depth of the stock as I go. I got a wooden chopstick, stood it up straight in the stock and put a pencil mark to record the depth. Then I got out my ruler and added a mark at one half and another at one quarter. My thought is that I can use my new gadget to indicate when I have a 2:1 then decide if I want to go to a 4:1 reduction. I did a happy dance at my ingenuity. But then . . . I am easily amused. I went for the 4:1 and that is just about exactly 2 quarts so now I know that my 16 quart pot will yield around 8 quarts of stock. Why do I care? I dunno. Maybe I have been hanging around engineers too long but it is somehow comforting that I now have some data. I was about to pour it off into my saucier when I noticed something odd. There were all of these "particles" floating around in there. There were too many of them to have been bone gunk from where the chickens were sawed in half. They were of pretty uniform size. Could it be fat that somehow "coalesced" into these things? Protein that somehow balled itself up? Does anyone know what they were? Anyway, I didn't want them in there so I strained it through cheesecloth. I have another question that I think belongs here, about the fat. My question has to do with what you do with the fat before storing it. I think I read somewhere here that you need to "clean it up." I put the fat in a small sauce pan and added some water and let that bubble for a few minutes. I put it into a measuring cup and into the fridge. Sure enough, the water layer has those "particles" in there (guess they aren't fat). Now I am wondering if I shouldn't heat just the fat a little to drive off any water so it will keep longer. I am thinking like you would treat butter to make ghee. Is this clean up process worth the trouble? BTW, I tasted it and I will never, and I mean never, throw that chicken fat away again. (More data . . . I got a half a cup of fat, 4 ounces. I love how all of those quantites are nice and neat numbers divisible by 4. I know, given the variables it may never happen again but it was kind of interesting.)

Absolutely brilliant! And timely, too. I am currently looking at about two quarts of a 4:1 reduction of the chicken stock I made a few days ago. I, too, decided to save the fat. I was thinking of making a small pot of soup since I probably don't have enough room in the freezer for all of the stock. I don't particularly like brothy soups and you have just solved my problem. Now I just have to figure out what else I want in it.

Looks good to me. That is about the level of liquid I shoot for. I am not so sure that your meat "explosion" is a bad thing. It gives you a bit more surface area to let more flavor in . . . maybe.

I am also a fervent user of cooking bags. They come in handy for big pieces like Aggie Brisket. But wait! There's more! I have found the perfect braiser for Marlene . . . You won't believe this one. (I just had to share that. I stumbled onto it while looking for little clay pots.)

Interesting topic. As I think about it, I have never had a "formal" dining room. That is what we call it in the south. The first house I built, in 1969, was an open plan, one dining area. I was considered barking mad at the time. This was in New Orleans where you had to have not only a formal dining room but a formal living room to boot. The in-laws were wringing their hands that we would never be able to sell the thing. About three years later, due to a move to Houston, we put it on the market. The first day it was on the market the realtor held an open house. By six o'clock that evening, we had an earnest money contract for the full price and two back-ups. Maybe I was ahead of a trend.

New question about pots . . . Let's say that I have done a pot of braised Pogo possum. I am planning ahead and I am going to go with what I am calling Paula Wolfert's "three times is a charm" method. Following Paula's recommendation, I separate the liquid and store the two components separately. (Though for purposes of this question that may be optional.) Day 2: I put Pogo back in the pot and slowly warm it. (Maybe I have a portion for lunch.) Back in the fridge. Day 3: I am now ready to serve Pogo for a real meal. But . . . oops, there is just me. I could take out a single portion for one and that is where the question comes up. Where can I get a little pot with a lid to reheat that one portion, storing the rest of it in the freezer maybe for another day? The 2 cup casserole that I found here might work. I checked the Emile Henry site and they don't have anything like that. Any ideas? Going with the individual serving idea, it might even be a good idea to go with individual servings when you first store it at the end of Day 2. Even if you are serving more than one, individual pots would look cool. But, would you have to drastically alter the rewarming time for the smaller pots? I would think the temperature might stay the same, but maybe not. What do you think?

See where this is heading, Marlene? *Marlene adds saute pan to shopping list* Back to pot roast . . . Dave brought up the eye of round cut. I will add to that the bottom round and other hunks of pure lean protein. Is there anything that can be done to make those edible? They are often on sale at attractive prices if you are just looking at the pennies per pound for protein. But I am stumped. I have thought of stuffing it with bacon somehow but have never tried it. Not pot roast, but I did try doing a high heat roast using a Barbara Kafka technique to medium rare. After we shut down the smoke alarms, opened up the house in 32 degree F weather to clear the smoke, still no good. Slice it and move it over to the braising thread? Years ago when my sister had a couple of bottomless pit young guys to feed, she would pressure cook it with plenty of garlic and crab boil, chill it and thinly slice it for sandwich meat. That was pretty good. But, has any one figured out how to make a pot roast?

Didn't I say the the flat surface was 5.5"'s? ← Yep. What I can't find is the flat surface area in my original choice.

In comparing this pan to the current object of my desire, I can see that it is a bit deeper by 0.4" but what I can't tell is if there is less flat surface in the new pan. For my purposes, that would be a good thing. Please clarify. Your proposed price range, assuming that includes the lid and insert, makes me sit up and take notice. I am going to have to go back to Sam's course and see if we have discussed the performance difference between 2.0 and 2.5 mm.

Well, that All-Clad certainly fill the bill for pots of stuff. On the depth of the braising pan, as long as you have enough depth to get the liquid 1/2 to 1/3 the way up you are good to go. The trick is to have the whole thing surrounded by all that cast iron. The domed lid takes care of that. Yes, you could braise in the AC. You can braise in a foil disposable pan with an aluminum foil seal. It is just that the more massive pans give better results by keeping the heat gentle and even all around. The only other problem I can think of is if you want to do the parchment paper insert like Paula Wolfert swears by, it might be harder to do because you won't have the taller sides to contain the rumpled parchment. (I am guessing here since I don't do that, yet.) Heck, if you think it is cute, I say keep it. Sometimes I pick a pot for a particular recipe based on the fact that I like how it looks and that just adds to my enjoyment of the process.

Thanks for the link. I googled and somehow missed it. I love it when a restaurant site has the menu, including prices. Opa!

Well, a friend of mine kept rye grass and catnip sprouting in heavy pots to lure her cats away from her stuff. Occasionally it even worked. One year I had a lovely line of pots on my balconey with miniature rose bushes. Madame Sophie the basset had access to the balconey during the day. I kept wondering why they weren't blooming. Then I started looking and thought I had some kind of bud drop disease. Then one Saturday morning I happened to look out and catch her deftly nipping off buds and munching away. The look on her face was priceless. "uh oh . . . busted again"

Now that I think about it, the regular oval oven is a lot more versatile in that it is more practical and doubles for a big pot of stew, chili, beans etc. as well as a good sized roast. I opted for the 6 3/4 quart as FG says. The 5 quart size is a little tight for a good sized bird or pork butt. Even though it is just lil ole me, I still do a good sized hunk-o-meat to put some in the freezer. When I am doing a recipe just for me, I will often half the recipe and use the 2 1/2 quart oval. I am beginning to think that this one borders on a one trick pony.

If all of the above doesn't get you there, maybe you are just particularly sensitive to bitter flavors. Have you compared notes with dining companions?

Back in the olden days when I was a latchkey kid and started dinner, pot roast was my first real kitchen triumph. Dad demanded it about twice a month. Beef chuck was his favorite but pork would occasionally creep in. That electric skillet (yep, I think it was a sunbeam) was my weapon of choice. I had forgotten all about that.

You just said the magic words. (I love Mykonos.) Did you happen to notice the appetizers? This is the kind of food that with a certain group of friends, we like to order a bunch of appetizers and pass them around.

Now that is a good idea . . . having that display, I mean. I find that CMs and the big HEBs have just so much stuff that it makes me dizzy. I may be making an excursion into town over the weekend and may make a stop there just to check it out. Then I can go looking in my HEB for stuff that I am interested in. There were a lot of odd blank spaces on the shelves at the HEB. It was like they were reshuffling the stock, to make space for the new stuff maybe? But if they don't restock that blood orange soda I'm gonna GET A ROPE!

Hmmm . . . That is an interesting question. I am not sure that I have ever seen one but I think it would work. I am thinking that when I make a cobbler, my favorite bit is the crusty, gooey stuff in the corners. I am also thinking that you could top it with the crumbly mix. Think an apple crisp but flatter. Add some sharp cheddar maybe? I wonder if it will stick hopelessly to the pan?

I have linked to this before but my Smurf blue chicken and dumplings are still at the top of my list. (Go to last paragraph.) I am not normally affected too much by color but those guacamole Doritos® have got to go. They look diseased and moldy.