nonkeyman

I finally found a place better than Molly Moons. In Seattle Washington for Ice Cream. I was actually not very found of Molly Moons. It is to cloy for me. Has anyone here been to Sweet Alchemy?(They don't have a website yet...so here is a blurb about them) It is on 43rd and University Way. I thought it was Haagan Daz still because they haven't changed the banner. It is really good! They just are slightly expensive...3.80$ for their cheapest cone. I forgot to check if they have a children's scoop. They do a lot of fun and solid flavors. A tale of two teas, butter beer, Blueberry Lavender, Chai Tea, etc. They even have a very good vegan option called Monkey Berry Bash! It is made with coconut milk and really is quite good. Besides the price. I think it is worth to go once!

Oh Dear..got to love those request. Not Seafood, but once we had someone come in and hand us a business card of everything they couldn't eat that had like 20 items on it (maybe that had an auto immune diseases or something that is common to be heavily restricted.). Nevertheless, when we go through reading the list, we all thought..."Would she just like water?"

When I worked at one restaurant we used this technique to "fossilize" pumpkin. It basically, as stated above, creates a coating on the outside of the product that appears as a shell. With the pumpkin, we almost had a pumpkin custard internally, and hard shell outside. We had also added sugar into the bath in order to add a caramel layer as well. Then we roasted it in a wood oven an served it with bourbon whip cream and smoked cotton candy.

It looks really good! Do you have your recipe?

To add to all the cooks with experience working in Hotels. When I worked at The W. I had never had to make so many peanut butter jelly sandwiches in my life. I had just come from arguably the number 3-4 restaurant in our state...the CDC got an executive chef position at the W Now we had an ok menu besides that. However, as stated above. The prices were crazy so everyone ordered the cheapest items. Nothing made me feel more worthless as a cook. However, as it was brought up. They are a necessary evil. There are plenty of business men and women who just need a quick bite before they go to bed or when they wake up. It can be a real drag in those kitchens. The food is always safe, and restricted by corporate. I remember we once couldn't serve Foie gras because California couldn't. There are just so many layers of tape. it drove me crazy...

Hmmm, I guess you do have to make that distinction! That is pretty funny!

I don't recall sensitivity training being part of my Culinary Classes. Maybe I skipped it haha. I mean, I am sure they could have put him a million other places on a buffet line. I mean, the prime rib was probably right next to it. It is a funny story. Thank you for sharing!

That is beautiful guanciale! I love it. How else did you prepare it? I love it with peas, tomatoes and goat cheese gnocchi in a quick marjoram and butter sauce.

Where do Chefs get most of their ideas from(besides Sunday night projects!)? Honestly, a combination of books and leftover products. Duck fat is either in over supply or high demand in most kitchens. It depends on how many ducks you have broken down, how much time you spend rendering fat and if you are currently doing duck fat potatoes on your menu. When I worked at the Herbfarm, we would often have large vats of duck fat and pork fat. This brought about the question. What do we do with all this duck fat/pork fat? Well, you can confit everything in duck and pork fat. It tastes great. However, we were the Herbfarm. We had to try to add a twist. Now this dish may have come from Heston Blumenthal originally, I can't recall. To me, in a kitchen, what's new is old and what is old is new. Or as King Solomon said "There is nothing new under the sun" (ironically, I am sure he stole that from someone). So this dish is simple and really requires very little prep, minus the cracklins. What you will need: 8 oz of Duck/Pork Fat 2 Bunchs of Chives, slice extra thin(make sure you have a sharp knife!) Salt to taste Any leftover duck skin from rendering If you don't have that 1-2 oz of crisped and crumbed bacon will work Equipment: Cube shaped molds Butchers Twine Piping bag Whipped Version - BETTER Tasting: Now there are two ways to approach this "dish", not really a dish, product. I prefer the whipped version. It just tastes so airy. It is like whipped cream vs. cream. Let you duck or pork fat soften at room temperature. You don't want to break your kitchen aid. Once it has tempered, place all 8 oz in a mixer and beat on high for a few minutes with a few good pinches of salt. You should see the color start to brighten up. After that, let it beat for another 2-3 minutes. Then when it looks very airy, use a spatula to fold in the chives and crispy skin or back. Now make sure you have the butchers twine cut into several inch pieces. It is ok if they are too long, you can cut them later. Place the whipped fat in a piping bag. Now here is the only reason I don't like the whipped method. It produces a better product by far! However, it can be a little messier. I usually put the twine in and pull one end to a corner. Pipe the fat into the cube mold till it fills it slightly above the top. Pull the string towards the middle, and flatten the top using an offset spatula. Once all your molds are filled and wicked, place into the fridge until you need it. Then pop it out! Melted Version: Alright, this is not my preference, but it is way faster and easier but the chives and cracklins tend to settle at the bottom. Lightly warm your duck or pork fat. No need to bring it to anything above 150 degrees. Let it cool if it gets too hot Then while it is still fluid, mix in the chives and cracklins. Now using the cube molds and the wicks, put the wick in first. It will be easier, trust me! Same idea, pull the wick to the side and then pour in the fat. Obviously, way easier and cleaner than piping, but again, think whipped cream vs cream. Now once they are all wicked, place in fridge till firm. Serve with a nice slice of Rye Sour dough bread! Or maybe another bread from Tartine's Bread Book!

Whoops, I thought this was a restaurant question...my bad

Being a Chef, I can't say I found any book as useful as this one! If you want to understand the science behind cheese, sweetness, and food in general. This book is amazing. When I first started at the Herbfarm, the current Sous Chef the time handed me this book and I couldn't get enough of it. Don't expect any pretty pictures, only basic diagrams of microbes and fauna here! I am a firm believer in understanding something at its lowest point first and then building from there. That way you can really make it your own. Has anyone used this book to help them come up with dishes, or maybe just to help them understand a process?? It really goes into depth, there are like 10 pages on milk alone. It goes through it from the lowest level, to the highest and lets you see the whole picture of a culinary product.

I am going with btbyrd on this. Salt pork itself is a range. From there, each product has it's own unique qualities, it depends on the cut of meat, and location. You pointed out the range of Bacon. From there, there are products like lardo that are just cured in salt until they are cured all the way through. Lard itself is just pig fat that has been rendered and can't go back to its original state. When I worked in restaurants I used to have to make Guanciale, pancetta, bacon, lardo, prosciutto, you name it. Some of these, we made one big cure for. For instance, the guanciale and pancetta. However, the bacon and lardo required separate salt mixtures and the prosciutto was all salt. Mostly, we had different flavors we wanted out of the lardo and bacon.

You could, but I am sure the health department would have a hay day... Can't you make one batch of brine, and have two containers?

So I just wanted to create a forum for people who have interned and stage to share their horror/success stories. Also, a great place for young cooks to ask about what to expect? I will start, actually it starts the day after my very first hired day. I had interned for 3 months at this fine dining Italian place. I chopped shallots, picked thyme, the works. So the first night I am getting paid we have a thirty top downstairs. I was in charge of quenelling and plating dessert. Of course, as the youngest and least experience guy in the kitchen I was also running around helping everyone else. Suddenly, it is time for dessert, it was a peach Crostata and Olive Oil gelato. Well guess what I forgot to do! Temper the darn ice cream, I pulled it out and it was rock hard and we needed 30 quennelles! Well, as you can imagine, my Chef was more than displeased. She was a 5'4" ball of terror. She never yelled, or screamed. Nope, she knew exactly what words to say to make you feel worthless. At that moment, she looked at me and asked "Why am I even paying you". Me, I had been working for free for the last 3 months, 50 hours a week. I was 16 and scared of losing my job. Man, that was awful...but I survived.... So, tell me your fun stage or internship stories !

I think miladyinsanity has it right! I went the chef route for 7+ years. Worked in some great places, learned a lot. However, I realized I couldn't make it financially. Even working at the top 5 restaurants in the area. So I finished my degree and got a job as a data engineer and I am still only in my early 20s. So I could still make another switch.

Book Running, the new kind of Drug running??? Good thing I live close to the border, going to have to jump on over and grab my copy there!

**The top portion is a little more story, but if you don't want to read that, skip on down to the recipe!** Black Sesame Seed Gelato Black Sesame, Douglas fir Granita and toasted chocolate One of the recipes I loved from Cafe Juanita was the Gelato recipe. One, it was easy to memorize and two every time I have used it and in every kitchen I have been asked for the recipe. Oh, and I forgot the best part. So this recipe is called "Black Sesame" but really I will give you the base and from there you can make any flavor you want! I have made Smoked Caramel, Douglas fir, Cardamon, Pistachio, Olive oil and 31 other flavors (actually more!). So you can make a huge batch of this and take it from there! The key to the recipe is understand how Gelato and Ice Cream works. Frozen custards relay on various variables to reduce the amount of ice crystal that from in the custard. Higher fat, higher hydrocolliods, faster sheering of a blade, etc. Each of these decrease the ability for ice crystals to form. So when considering making a flavor fat, protein, sugar and churning levels all have to be taken into account. These all play a role. Not only that, sugar, fat, and protein play a huge role in not only texture, but stability at room temperature. For instance, have you ever had chewy ice cream and I am not referring to Turkish Ice cream. I am referring to overly stabilized ice creams. Whether this is with carrageenan or guar gum. All stabilizers are double edged swords. If you have 500 hundred quenelles that you have to do. Stabilizers are a life saver. Yet, your texture suffers. **Warning***If you want to to go straight to the recipe, skip the next three sections! Fat Let me tell you a horror story about high fat gelato. One such night, the first night I went from being an Intern to a paid employee at Cafe Juanita we had to serve a 30 top down stairs. I was in charge of the dessert. A nectarine tart with Olive oil gelato. One key with high fat ice creams and gelatos is proper tempering. If you haven't tempered an ice cream with high fat, and have to scoop 30 quenelles. You are screwed. I still remember that night. Holly came down, and she didn't yell, she didn't scream. Her words still cut like a hot dagger through my young self-esteem. I told you I just started getting paid, after 3 months of interning. Her first question was "Why am I even paying you". Instant shut down, me a 17-year old kid who had plenty of imposter syndrome to deal with, was broken. I couldn't even respond.#cheflife..but that doesn't have too much to do with Gelato. It is more just to make the point that high fat means a harder freeze. Also, sometimes it makes it more like frozen butter. This is not a pleasant texture and you should think about the final fat content. If I am making a pure nut gelato, I often just use a nut butter and simple syrup. There is no need for cream, whole milk or egg. You actually want to reduce fat. Sugar Now where high fat makes ice creams more stable. Increasing sugar does quite the opposite. The sugar molecule decreases the temperature required for a hard freeze. I learned to hate the Burnt sugar gelato at Cafe Juanita. If it was even close to 80 degrees outside, the little freezer we had upstairs couldn't handle being open and closed all service. I would be able to server maybe 3 servings before I just had to say we were out. If you happen to make this recipe and have any questions about flavor adjustments, feel free to send me an email! Hydrocolliods If you don't like nerd talk, you should skip to the recipe now! If you like knowing random facts about things to "impress" people at parties. Then keep reading. The word has two parts. The hydro referring to water and the collid referring one product that is microscopically dispersed insoluble products in another substance. What this translates to, is small particles floating around in water. In particular, these products often create a matrix that suspends fluid. This would be xanthan gum, guar gum, carrageenan, egg yolks, and many others. If you have ever looked at the ingredients in store bought ice cream, some of these may be familiar. These help maintain the structure of the ice cream. Some of them can even withstand a decent amount of sitting at room temperature. Too much does make your ice cream rather chewy... But enough of that, let's get to the recipe! Recipe 1 Gallon of Whole Milk 900 g egg yolk 1000 g sugar 500 g black Sesame(toasted) 1 tbsp of salt Equipment needed Vitamix or other blender! Ice Cream Machine 2 Gallon Pot- or double the size of your final proportion 2 Gallon Bowl Whisk Alright, this recipe is pretty simple. Have you ever made custard or creme anglaise? Well, that is all you are going to do here. Start by taking the whole milk and heating it on the on a medium high heat. Make sure you watch it so it doesn't over boil (trust me, I have had to clean plenty of stove tops because of my one track mind). In a bowl that can hold two gallons! mix the egg yolks, sugar and salt, and beat until thick. Once your milk has come up to a boil, take it off the heat. Make sure you have a ladle and a whisk ready and clean(more important for cooks...). Then slowly ladle in the hot milk and whisk. This is called tempering, it protects the egg yolks from scrambling. You want to make sure you bring the egg yolks up slowly and whisk constantly. Otherwise you will end up with egg chunks! Once mixed, you will more than likely have to put this mixture on the stove top again at low heat(10% of the time it might cook to the right temperature and you won't have to do this step). Bring the mixture up to 160-165 degrees. This should be at what is called the "Nape" stage. This refers to being able to stick a spoon in the custard base, pull it out a scrape a line down the center. As in the picture below. ****Warning***** be mindful of the bottom of your pan. You have to keep mixing constantly, maybe even with a heat proof spatula. Otherwise, you will get scrambled eggs at the bottom. A little is ok, and can and should be strained out! Set up a bowl that will fit your final custard over a bowl with ice water. This will just help cool down your product faster, and if by chance you were getting too hot, save you from having scrambled eggs. Once your custard has reached the proper stage of Nape. Strain your product through a fine sieve or other strainer into your two bowl combination. That was your base. From there, you can take your base and make any flavor you want! Again, let me know if you have any questions! Black Sesame Starting with the base, take half your toasted black sesame and enough liquid to fill 1/2 of your blender. Don't over fill your blender...that is my job...I have seen blenders explode more than once... Place the sesame seeds and base you have from the previous step into your Vita-mix. Blend for a few minutes, its ok if it is not super smooth. We will be straining later on. Repeat this step until all your sesame seed is pureed and mix both of the batches with the rest of your custard. Allow this to sit over night. The next day, strain the product through a fine sieve. Season to taste with more salt if necessary. Honestly, salt in this makes it! From here, it depends on what kind of ice cream maker you have. When I did this dish, we actually used dry ice to make the ice cream. If you are curious on the steps, feel free to ask! No ice cream maker required!