slkinsey

If you're thinking of purchasing a FoodSaver, you really should consider one of these. I eventually bought one to replace my FoodSaver. Much stronger vacuum & easier to use.

Off the top of my head, I'd try one of the Western Beef outlets; perhaps Big Apple Meats; any one of a dozen Chinese meat shops in Chinatown (these often sell bags of chicken bones for making stock); or any one of the dozen or so full-service butchers (my local is Oppenheimer Prime Meats). Might not hurt to check with Whole Foods either.

All depends on how much booze you put in the glass, how much ice you add to the glass and the size of the ice. But here's the thing: You can always stir a little longer to get the proper dilution, but if you start out with too much thermal energy there is only so cold the drink can ever be. (Similarly, if the drink is too cold for your liking, you can always let it warm up, but it doesn't work in the other direction.)

Maybe, yea. Although Erlenmeyers are usually too narrow at the top. I see you linked to "wide mouth" flasks -- I wonder how wide they are at the opening? If the opening fit a Hawthorne (and especially if it had a pouring channel) it might do in a pinch. Ideally, I'd prefer something curved in such a way that the widest part of the mixing vessel was in the center rather than down at the bottom.

I use a 5 gallon stainless stock pot. But I live in a small NYC apartment and have to multitask with equipment. If you have the ability to store your sous vide vessel somewhere out of the way when it's not being used, I'd recommend modifying a large insulated cooler. This will be much more energy efficient, and will have a lid.

A silver stirring spoon isn't too hard to keep clean by hand, so I wouldn't worry about it. I have an ancestral silver stirring spoon, and use it every time I make a stirred cocktail. As for shakers... Good luck finding an affordable solid silver shaker (which is what is generally meant when one says "sterling silver" instead of "silver plated") with a decent design for shaking. Anyway... a few things about silver shakers, which as chance would have it is an area in which I have some experience: 1. Silver has extremely good thermal conductivity -- better even than copper. A solid silver shaker is going to have some weight to it, which means that the thermal capacity of the shaker will be at least as high as the thermal capacity of a glass-and-metal Boston shaker, and most likely a good bit higher. This means that it is the worst possible material to use if your shaker is at room temperature. The shaker will have a high thermal capacity to conduct into the liquid, and due to having excellent conductivity, will be very efficient in conducting that thermal energy into the liquid. This also means that a heavy solid silver shaker is an excellent choice if the shaker will be pre-chilled by being frozen in the freezer. In this case, the good thermal conductivity and large thermal capacity are working in your favor by efficiently conducting plenty of thermal energy out of the liquid instead of into the liquid as it would with a room temperature shaker. 2. My experience is that running silver through the dishwasher (especially using standard dishwasher detergent and especially if there are other metals in the dishwasher) will at best dull the silver after a few washes and at worst will severely tarnish the silver. The effect will depend on the composition of the silver ("sterling silver" is an alloy). Better to simply wipe down the silver with a bar towel and give it a light swipe with a silver polishing cloth at the end of the evening.

That's the general idea. Of course, that particular mixing vessel is too small (and the bartender uses only a single large piece of ice) to be particularly efficient. But something with a similarly curved shape and a volume closer to 30 ounces, capable of accommodating at least ten cubes worth of cracked ice, would work nicely. In my mind's eye, it would be taller and narrower than a snifter, which would make it easier to pour out of.

I wouldn't necessarily say that caroway is "an anise" -- which carries the implication that it is a type of anise, which it isn't. Caroway and aniseed are in the same family (Apiaceae -- hollow stemmed plants including parsley, fennel, carrot, etc.) but not in the same genus. Caraway is in the genus Carum (species: C. carvi) and aniseed is in the genus Pimpinella (species: P. anisum). Personally, I can't say that I think caraway has a particularly liquorice-like flavor and aroma. I think it's pretty uniquely "caraway-like" in flavor (think of the seeds in traditional caraway rye bread). Anyway... if you want to expose yourself to caraway, pick up a bottle of akvavit. If you can still find any Aalborg brand in the US (they have apparently stopped importing it), it has a particularly notable caraway flavor.

Given the area of contact for thermal transfer, and presuming a very hot pan with a decent heat capacity and a reasonably powerful burner, this is not a concern. I've had no troubles browning off completely frozen lamb shanks that I was later going to braise overnight. Considering that udon noodles are quite soft, this isn't a surprise. I'd think that chewy strong pasta made with high gluten flour would be necessary for this technique. Nicely done, Doc. It's still not clear, howwever, whether he's talking about reducing cooking time or actually gaining some kind of culinary benefit. I suspect the former and have my doubts as to the latter.

The only reasons to use glass are (a) it's easier to see the dilution, and (b) if the glass is pre-chilled, there are some thermal benefits. Needless to say, if the mixing vessel is not pre-chilled, it is disadvantageous from a thermal perspective to use glass. Most home users can spare a little extra room in the freezer for a mixing glass or two. Most bars use room-temperature equipment, which means it would be more advantageous to use a metal mixing vessel. Bars like Pegu Club that are able to freeze their glass mixing vessels are generally able to produce the coldest stirred drinks. All of which leads to the general rule of thumb: room temperature equipment = use metal frozen equipment = use glass It's up to the individual home or professional mixologist as to whether it's worth the trouble to freeze the equipment. There is no reason to freeze the typical thin metal mixing cup, because the thermal capacity is too low to make a difference.

I like the Marchegiano dish pollo in friccò This more or less consists of one cut-up chicken which is browned in olive oil, then braised in white wine with fresh rosemary, garlic and juniper berries. The way I was taught to make it, you keep only a shallow layer of white wine boiling furiously over high heat, and replenish as necessary. When a bottle of wine is boiled away, the chicken is ready. Here is a dish made using a similar technique, with black olives and thyme instead of rosemary and juniper:

Timing is all dependent on the variables I posted upthread. If you have very cold ice in big pieces, it can sit for quite some time without diluting. On the other hand, if you have 100% finely cracked ice, you want to get the spirits on and off the ice rather quickly. In general, you're looking for something between 20% and 25% dilution, depending on the spirits (proof, intensity, etc.) and the desired effect. It's up to each person to work with the materials they have and arrive at an optimal strategy. I personally find that hand-cracked ice straight out of the freezer works best (I've experimented with machine-cracked ice, but this is a bit too small and results in more dilution than I want). I fill a frozen glass mixing vessel as full of ice as it can possibly be packed. Given this arrangement, I find that it can sit for a minute or two with no ill effect. The more coldness you bring to the game, the slower the ice will melt. You'll always get a more watered drink if you stir with 3 ice cubes instead of 23 ice cubes. Of course, the longer the booze sits on the ice, the more dilution you're going to get. And the more chilling you're going to get (up to a point). The trick is matching up optimal chilling with the proper amount of dilution. One way to play with this on a more scientific basis would be to pick up a jug of cheap vodka, a Thermopen and some finely calibrated measuring flasks. But the results you get at home with your ice and your equipment won't necessarily hold true at someone else's home, never mind a bar like PDT (in general, the Kold Draft ice at top cocktail bars starts out better in terms of purity/density, but ends up warmer than home ice by the time it's used -- this is one reason they can't use as much cracked ice as I can use at home and generally go with a mixture of cracked and whole ice for stirring).

Makes sense. Stirring accelerates the thermal transfer between the ice and the spirits. There is some thermal transfer going on while the booze is just sitting on the ice, but not nearly as much. This is why the spirits can sit on the ice while you build the shaken drinks without overly diluting the cocktail (and, as you observe, you usually end up having to stir at the end for even a little more dilution). This is somewhat dependent on the size of the ice, of course.

I'd like to have a "swirling pitcher" with a curved/rounded interior capable of making from 1 to 3 drinks at a time. It would have a pouring spout but the top would be sized so that the opening is approximately the same as a bar-standard mixing tin. This would facilitate easy addition of ice to the mixing vessel and would also fit a standard Hawthorne strainer.

I'm with Paul on this one. I have to say that all the reports I've heard as to the "nonstick-ness" of various non-PTFE surfaces are greatly exaggerated. Now, in certain circumstances, most any properly clean and cared-for surface can have nonstick-like properties. My French steel crêpe pan, for example, can have batter sliding all over the place when it's at the right temperature. But, "the right temperature" is pretty hot, and there is definitely browning (luckily, this is desired for crêpes). My French steel omelet pan, while sufficiently nonstick-like, is nowhere near as nonstick as my PTFE-coated thick aluminum pan of approximately the same size. For one, you have to be much more careful as to temperature with the French steel pan, and it's extremely tricky to make an omelet with no browning. It is possible to "slide an omelet" around in a French steel pan, but it's nowhere near as easy or as slippery as a PTFE-coated pan. As to the OP's original question: Why not get a dedicated French steel omelet pan? The beauty of carbon steel is that it's cheap, so it's no big deal to get specialty and "dedicated" pans in carbon steel.

30 minutes to boil 4 litres or so of water? Really? Um, I'm cooking a pound of dry pasta in something more like ten liters of water. Four liters for a pound I would consider entirely too little -- more the volume of a saucepan than a stock/pasta pot. Actually, I'm pretty sure I have a four-liter "tall saucepan," and I wouldn't consider cooking pasta in it.

A fair amount of the article had to do with ways that one can conserve energy (both thermal energy and the ConEd bill) -- not necessarily the better way to do things. For example, McGee correctly points out that electric burners are much more energy-efficient than gas burners. But gas burners have a whole range of advantages over electric burners (not to mention that natural gas is cheap) that makes them preferable over electric. I don't think I know too many people who would prefer electric burners over gas. Anyway, as to how this has bearing on pre-oaking dry pasta... why would anyone want to do this? Let's say it reduces cooking time by 75%. So what? So, it takes me 3 minutes to boil penne instead of 12? But the real time savings isn't anywhere neat 75%. Considering that it takes me 30 minutes to heat up enough water to properly cook a pound of pasta, the 9 minute time savings is only around 20%. I can't believe the energy savings is all that much either. More to the point, I think it would considerably complicate timing, etc. I've experimented with par-cooking pasta a time or two when I needed to have as short a time as possible between firing up the burners and having food in front of 30+ people. It's never been as good as starting with fully "raw" pasta. I have to assume he mentioned it only to make a point.

It's interesting to me that no one has designed a better stirring vessel. I'd think that something with a convex curved shape, perhaps also with a gently rounded inner surface at the bottom of the glass, would better facilitate graceful and easy stirring than the straight-sided or gently sloped, narrow-at-the bottom mixing glasses we use today. In fact, a properly curved "stirring glass" could easily be employed as a "swirling glass" where the contents are mixed around without even needing the intervention of a spoon (the bartender would gently move the glass around in a circular motion, thereby using our old friend centripetal force to create a minor vortex inside the glass without the use of a spoon).

Stirring and resting time will depend on a number of unique factors, most prominently among them: temperature of mixing vessel, composition of mixing vessel, temperature of ice, size and shape of ice, amount of ice relative to volume of spirits. By and large, what you want to look for when stirring a drink is dilution. As a general rule of thumb, I find that bartenders who are violent with the ice when stirring a drink are not particularly invested in high-calibre mixology. This would include those who like to "stir" by twisting the spoon between thumb and forefinger while plunging it up and down in the ice. This is likely to result in a drink that is perhaps not as cloudy and aerated as a shaken drink, but not as clear and silky as a slowly stirred drink either. "Half-cloudy" I'd call these drinks. If one is going to take the trouble to stir a drink, why not do it with the proper affect? As Dave Wondrich points out in Imbibe!, the vogue for stirring developed as the result a desire on the part of bartenders to showcase their sprezzatura (from Castiglione's Il Cortegiano: the art of doing something difficult and/or complex with apparent ease and nonchalance) -- hence the masterful intermingling of spirits with nothing more than a languid turn of the wrist.

I think the level of the blueness depends on which violette is used.

As far as I know, this was written by Irma S. Rombauer, author of the original The Joy of Cooking.

I have had very good feedback on these lemon ricotta pancakes. I forget where I got the recipe: 1 cup high quality ricotta (or drained overnight if Polly-O is the best you can do) 1 cup sour cream 3 eggs, separated 0.5 teaspoon baking soda 1 cup AP flour 1 tablespoon sugar 2 tablespoons lemon juice 2 teaspoons grated lemon zest Pinch salt Butter Beat together ricotta, sour cream and egg yolks. Beat egg whites medium-stiff. Stir dry ingredients into cheese mixture well (do not beat). Stir in lemon juice and zest, then fold in beaten egg whites very gently. 3-5 minutes per side in butter. Makes a very light, moist and tender pancake. I serve with a warm fruit compote.

Whole untrimmed tenderloin will have a certain amount of waste, whereas beef sold as "fillet mignon" will already be trimmed. That contributes to the higher price for fillet mignon. there is also the issue of the grade of the beef. I might expect to pay $20 for prime fillet mignon, and $5.99 a pound doesn't seem out of line for untrimmed choice tenderloin.

That would be why I said "not uncommon misspelling." My use of I instead of E at the end was a typo. But, here's the thing: Okay, so the restaurant used a misspelled name. So what? Spellings do not make something more or less "Italian." They were using a commonly-understood-to-Americans word to describe an ingredient from the Italian kitchen. If a restaurant decides calls a pressed sandwich a "panini" instead of a "panino," that makes it an inappropriate use of the language, but the spelling doesn't make the sandwich Italian or not-Italian. Lo Zingarelli says: "cippolina [1830] s. f. 1 Dim. di cipolla. 2 Varietà di cipolla con bulbo piccolo, che si mangia fresca, sott'aceto o gener. cotto." Again, I don't quite get your making such a big point out of incorrect namings or spellings on the menu. Are you taking the position that the olive cultivar known (but not exclusively called) the taggiasca olive is only grown and properly consumed in Taggia, and that the people of Taggia are the only ones whose practices and opinions as to the culinary use of these olives carries any weight? That is quite a restrictive view of Italian cooking! Considering that one can find cured olives around Italy for sale at retail and employed in restaurants that come from a wide variety of cultivars and regions, I'm wondering why we should care whether the people of Taggia would be horrified to see these olives used for guinea fowl (or faraona, if you prefer) with smoky fennel and lemon? That's not the point. The point is whether Italians eating such a dish in Italy would say "this is Italian" or "this is not Italian." My experience is that they might say "this is not a traditional dish of this particular region" but would still feel that it's within the range of what they considered "Italian food." But, hey... don't take my word for it. A short google search revealed that the restaurant Ròmilo in Rome had on its menu at one time a remarkably similar dish described as terrina di faraona, finocchio e olive taggiasche, su vellutata di peperoni gialli e sedano glacè. I guess that, in your view, this is "not Italian" and the Taggiesi would be horrified? Look... I'm not here to defend the cooking or the menu of Insieme. That's not the question posed in this thread -- which is not about how Italian food is implemented in New York City. Let's examine that. There is on the traditional side of the dinner menu: - A salad with lettuce, vegetables, shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano and balsamic. This is a salad I've had in Italy. - Spiedini di gamberi. Very Italian. I've had dozens of iterations of this in Italy. - Vitellone crudo alla Piemontese. Not sure what makes this Piemontese. And it's a tartare-type dish, which I've never had in Italy. However, a short google search for "vitellone crudo" turns up quite a few Italian-language pages with a recipe for this dish. - Fritto misto alla Lucchese (consisting of deep-fried offal of various kinds). Again, I'm not sure what the connection is to Lucca. However, a short google search reveals that this is quite similar to the traditional fritto misto alla Piemontese. Perfectly Italian, notwithstanding the naming convention I don't understand. - Chestnut fettucine with venison ragù. Again, chestnut pasta sauced with game ragù (and named after Castagne, as Insieme does) is quite traditional in Italy. The pomegranate garnish isn't particularly traditional, but not enough to make this dish entirely "not Italian." - A traditional lasagne al forno with béchamel and ragu is perfectly Italian. The use of "green" spinach lasagne is not unprecedented for this dish in Italy. - Linguine con vongole. Totally traditional. - Cacciucco alla Viareggina. Totally traditional. - Arista di maiale arrosto. Totally traditional. - Lesso misto. Totally traditional. - Bistecca fiorentina. Other than the use of Piemontese beef, totally traditional (although, as I mention above, I don't believe that Toscana-sourced beef is necessary for this naming, even in Firenze). - Fagioli all'uccelletto. Totally traditional. - Roasted potatoes with herbs. Is there a single European culinary tradition where this is not traditional? - Cavolfiore in umido (cauliflower stewed with sofrito and tomato) is not something with which I am familiar, although nothing in the preparation strikes me as not-Italian. A google search turns up several Italian-language references. - Polenta. Totally traditional. So, in what way, exactly, are these dishes "very little to do with what is cooked in Italy today" and merely the "latest version in a long line of Italo-Amercan food"? I've traveled and worked around in Italy quite a bit, from the big cities like Milano, Roma and Napoli to the medium cities like Firenze, smaller ones like Pesaro and Orvieto, and small towns like Montespertoli and Urbania. Some cities and areas are more hidebound by culinary tradition than others, but have been plenty of restaurants in locales of all sizes and in all regions that made forward-looking food more or less within the general range of that Insieme is doing, and that were well-received by the locals. More to the point, I don't have any doubts that, were I to bring an Italian visitor to Insieme, the food would be recognized as sufficiently within the Italian culinary aesthetic to qualify as "Italian" (whereas, say, Carmine's would not). I have, in fact, done exactly that with Babbo as the restaurant. Few of the Italians I know would be shocked at guinea fowl with smoky fennel, olives and lemon. It almost seems as though, as a part-time American transplant to Italy, you're taking an even more conservative view than most Italians on this question (which I suppose isn't too unusual or surprising -- Catholic converts are often observed to be "more Catholic than the Pope"). So, getting back to the point of this thread, you have to go further from tradition than Insieme does before the contemporary food starts to become only nebulously and notionally "Italian." There is a point where this happens, in my opinion, but as I and others have stated, this is really true of any national cuisine. As for Italian microregionalism, I have to believe that it's slowly but inexorably (and sadly) on the way out. 40 years ago, the vast majority of Italians spoke dialect in the home as their primary language, now the vast majority of Italians speak Italian in the home as their primary language and the local and regional dialects are disappearing. Similarly, mass media and the much more extensive distribution of ingredients that were formerly only in certain local areas means that Italians are consuming a much wider variety of foods than ever before. Why, I hear that the Milanesi sometimes eat spaghetti with olive oil, and pizza with mozzarella di bufala is sometimes consumed outside of Napoli. Shocking, I know. Anyway... if you want to talk about traditional versus contemporary Italian cooking in a way that does more than challenge the spelling and naming conventions of a New York City restaurant menu, I'd be happy to do so. But I don't think there's much more useful to say in the current fork of the discussion, so I'll opt out of continuing that any further.

That was exactly my point. I guess it's not clear to me what this "point" adds to the discussion. I believe I wrote some time ago in this thread that most culinary traditions when "elevated" to a certain level of haute abstraction don't seem particularly rooted to an actual national cooking. The only reason we call today's haute cuisine "French" is because the French were the first and strongest to go in this direction. This seems pretty simple to understand, and I can't believe you actually don't understand it, but I will humor you nevertheless: - "cippolini onion" is simply an unfortunate and not uncommon spelling of cipollini, which, as I imagine you know, is the diminutive of cipolla (onion), therefore meaning "small onion." In the United States, this designation is generally applied to the small, flat onions which are popular in Italy. - What's not "Italian" about branzino saltimbocca? I've had plenty of "saltimbocca" dishes in Italy that were not made with veal (usually with turkey or chicken). What's "not Italian" about branzino (presumably) folded around prosciutto with onion, cabbage and sage? This seems clearly evocative of the "saltimbocca" meme. - Again, what's "not Italian" about smoked fennel? You mean to tell me that fennel-loving Italians never thought to put fennel on the grill and cook them off with a smoky flavor? I think you must be kidding me. - The taggiasca olive is an Italian cultivar from Liguria, I believe. So, what exactly is "not Italian" about these olives? Or are you saying that they would never be combined with guinea fowl and smoky fennel in Italy? Really?! The provenance of the steak is not of crucial importance in "allowing" them to call the steak "bistecca fiorentina." Do you suppose that 100% of the places selling bistecca alla fiorentina in Firenze itself are using Chianina beef from Toscana? Perhaps there is some kind of Italian government regulation to this effect? Regardless, their preparation seems faithful enough to the original that it's certainly not un-Italian. Would it please you more if their menu said "bistecca 'alla fiorentina' style"? Would that make it any more or less "Italian food"?