slkinsey

"Seasoning" is nothing more than built up layers of polymerized fat. It is necessary to season cast iron because it is highly reactive (and also quite "sticky"), but you can season any cooking material if you want to take the trouble of building up the polymerized fat. Why you would want to is another question altogether. My experience is that reports as to seasoned cast iron's purported nonstick properties are vastly exaggerated. Cast iron is nonstick only so far as sufficient fat is used -- much the same as it is for clean (unseasoned) stainless steel. And, in my experience, clean stainless steel (very few people actually keep their stainless steel cooking surfaces as clean as they should) is actually less sticky than seasoned cast iron. There are plenty of reasons I don't recommend seasoning stainless steel. The main reason is that I don't think it offers any benefits above and beyond what are possible with truly clean stainless steel. Beyond that: If we're talking about a stock pot or saucepan, there are no potential benefits of seasoning. If we're talking about a regular thin stainless steel frypan, well they suck and there's no reason you'd want to use one. If we're talking about a stainless-lined copper or aluminum pan, leaving polymerized fat residues on the pan limits the temperatures at which the pan can be used (seasoning will burn above a certain temperature).

AFAIK, carmine is made from chochineal.

Really? Please tell me where I said that 0.5C was necessary. If you read back, I think you will see that I said in mentioning prospective benchmarks for a PIDed crock pot with no circulator: "temperature accuracy within 0.25C and stability within 0.5C." To be even more clear: "accuracy within 0.25C" = really precise thermometer that actually reflects the temperature of the water bath, and "stability within 0.5C" = 1 degree C of variability. My position of 1 degree C was first stated here (before the statement as to stability of 0.5C you have latched on to) and further clarified here. I do not mean to contend that all applications are sensitive to 1 degree C, just that many of the most interesting ones are. In my experience I have been able to tell the difference in all the things I have listed to within 1 degree C when exploring the lower end of the "doneness scale." Which is to say that, while the difference between 53.5C beef and 54.5C beef can seem quite noticeable, the difference between 75C beef and 76C beef is not so noticeable. Discounting the fact that you are mischaracterizing my previous claims, as I explain above, it is of course possible to make something delicious with nothing more accurate than your finger as a temperature-measuring device. So what? I wasn't saying that you couldn't make something tasty with a less-accurate setup. In fact, one might be able to make salmon mi cuit with nothing more than a saucepan and luck. But that's not to say that it will turn out the same way the next time. I don't know what to tell you there. Back in 2005 Really Nice! seemed to be able to get his setup to maintain pretty good accuracy to within a little over 2 degrees C using a digital thermometer and an electric stove. I have to believe that a larger thermal mass (e.g., a large stockpot instead of a hotel pan) or an insulated container would hold temperature a lot better with more accuracy than that. I suppose it all depends on whether 1-2 degrees C of accuracy is worth 100 bucks to you -- especially considering that I think you should be able to achieve around 2.5 degrees C of accuracy using more "conventional" (and more or less free) means. So really it's a question of whether 1-2 degrees C of accuracy is worth it for the "set it and forget it" aspect. To me, there was enough to be gained in having 0.1C accuracy/stability that it was worth 400 bucks to me, but perhaps not enough to be gained in having 2 degrees C of accuracy that it would be worth 100 bucks to me largely for the convenience of set-and-forget. But, to each his or her own. I understand and appreciate that some people may have different priorities. I might think differently if I had only 100 bucks to spend and was more interested in long-term cooking applications than I was in temperature-sensitive applications both short- and long-term cooking.

A few things: 1. As I said before, if you are doing a small number of items (a similar number of things as you would be able to do in a non-circulating PIDed crock pot) you should not have to exercise "constant vigilance to maintain things within a few degrees" in a large stock pot. You should be able to get to just above your target temperature, throw in the fish or similarly thin cut of tender meat, adjust with cold water if need be, and the stock pot shouldn't lose too much temperature over the 20 minutes or so it would require for the protein to achieve the correct temperature. This is especially true if you follow nathanm's charts and use a water bath that is actually at a higher temperature than the target temperature of the protein (which technique I belive Juan Rocca endorses anyway). This should be true with any protein that needs to be cooked for, say, less than 30 minutes. 2. Tender things that are sensitive to within 1 degree C: - Fish (especially mi cuit) - Beef at the "lower ends of doneness" - Pork at the "lower ends of doneness" - "Just done" turkey and chicken white meat 3. Tough things that are sensitive to 1 degree C: - Similar to #2 above, if what you are going for is a result at the "lower ends of doneness" 4. Things that are not sensitive to 1 degree C: - Anything cooked above "medium," or if you don't care so much whether your 48 hour short ribs turn out "rare" or "medium rare." My experience is that when one is looking to explore the line between "still kind of raw" and "just cooked" temperature accuracy is extremely important. In some cases less than 1 degree C can make a discernable difference. Edited for clarity

Edward, I can think of lots of reasons people who don't want to spend money on a circulator might still be interested in exploring sous vide. What I have a hard time figuring out is why someone would want to go the time, trouble and expense of PIDing a crock pot when it seems like there are solutions involving less time, trouble and expense that should be within the tolerance of several degrees C. Again... if you're going to cook two portions of fish or something like that for 20-30 minutes, a nice large stockpot (useful for many other things!) and a thermometer should suffice. The thermal mass is large enough that the temperature shouldn't decrease very much if you simply turn the burner off after chucking in a few salmon steaks. At worst, you might have to check back once and boost the temperature. As nathanm pointed out, if your tolerances are within only a few degrees, it's unlikely you can do things like salmon mi cuit with any reliability anyway. If you have any long-term cooking you want to do and you're happy with tolerances within three or four degrees C, then there are ways this can be done without using a PID. Heck, you can even use ziplock bags if you want to (although this compromise also removes certain advantages available to users of vacuum sealers). I, personally, would argue that the most striking and unique things that can be done using this technology are dependent on temperature accuracy and stability within at least 0.5C. So, while I agree with the basic premise that some of the aspects of sous vide cooking can be achieved without a precision circulator, I write to point out that there are a lot of very interesting things that will very likely be unavailable any other way (unless you have a precision steam oven, etc.). And the implication I get from a lot of these "sous vide on the cheap" discussions is that people think they'll be able to do all or almost all of what you can do with a lab circulator and a large vessel using a crock pot and a PID. That doesn't seem like it will be the case. You can do some of the same things. When I became interested in exploring sous vide cooking, and did not have a precision circulator, I simply explored the other options I outlined above. Especially for the short-term cooking of fish and tender meats, it is not particularly burdensome to do it on the stove. When I determined that it was something that interested me enough to explore the full range of possiblilities, I stepped up to the plate and poached a reconditioned Lauda off of an auction site. To me, it doesn't make sense to spend 1/3 the money on a crock pot and PID controller for something that only gets me half of the cool stuff I want to do. On the other hand, I'm not the kind of guy who solders things for fun. If someone can come up with a cheap, accurate and stable PIDed hotplate with some kind of insertable circulating pump (I'm not sure an aquarium bubbler would suffice, but surely there is something out there), I'd be all for it.

But that's the rub! Assuming the circulation issue is dealt with. There are plenty of less-expensive applications that might work asuming the circulation issue is dealt with. I'm talking about when the circulation issue isn't dealt with and one is relying upon convection. I thought that was pretty clear from what I wrote above, but my apologies if it was not. I didn't say stability within 0.25C. I said accuracy within 0.25C and stability within 0.5C. Since there are many applications -- and many of the most interesting applications -- that have tolerances within 1 degree C, this seems like a reasonable requirement and not arbitrary at all. As for 0.25 variability within the bath, perhaps this is being a little too precise. But, if our tolerances are accuracy within 0.25C, stability within 0.5 and no more than 0.25 variability in the bath, it's still possible that one part of the bath could be a full degree warmer than another part of the bath. 1 degree C certainly has a notable effect on many sous vide applications.

E: Think about the way a crock pot heats. Now think about the volume of water we're talking about in a crock pot. As it so happens, I have a couple of them myself. The largest crock pot available on crock-pot.com is 6.5 quarts. That's only 1.625 gallons, 375 cubic inches. Now, this is probably plenty of room if you're cooking 4 lamb chops or a few fish fillets. But what about cooking, say, six double-cut pork chops? I trust you don't think this is an exorbitant amount of food to cook at one time. Those pork chops will take up around 130 cubic inches. So now you have only 245 cubic inches of volume in your slow cooker available for water -- less than one gallon. That strikes me as too little so reasonably and accurately maintain an even temperature throughout the crock pot to, say, +/- 1C (and, yes, in many applications a single degree C can make a difference) and I think it's likely that the food would come quite close to the ceramic lining that is heating the water. Do you think that the ceramic at the bottom of the pot won't be warmer than the water at the top of the pot? Especially if there are several bags of food in between? As for temperature swings, keep in mind that, even after the PID establishes and maintains the temperature evenly when there is nothing in the pot but water, there will be an immediate disequilibrium once the food is introduced to the water bath. If there is a relatively small volume of water relative to the food (which there often would be in a crock pot) how well is the PID controller going to respond to that? As for doing "testing" on this method. . . unfortunately there's nothing I have seen here yet that suggests that the people seeking to do such evaluations are interested in taking the time, trouble and (especially) expense of doing any meaningful testing. What are they going to do -- drop 20 lamb chops into a PIDed crock pot with a temperature probe sticking into each one? Most of what I have seen are things along the lines of "I measured the water and, after 2 hours it stayed between 130 and 134." That doesn't mean much to me. So.. absent of any such testing, I am likely to trust the evaluations of the scientists who use this equipment. And, as nathanm brought up, water baths that do not have a circulator are not considered accurate for work requiring temperature precision. For short-time sous vide cooking of small amounts of food, such as a couple of fish fillets or relatively thin pieces of meat, it strikes me that anyone who is interested in saving a lot of money is well served with a large stock pot, a stove and a fast-acting thermometer. Why go to all the time and expense to PID a crock pot for this, right? For long-term cooking when temperature precision is important (e.g., 48 hour medium-rare beef short ribs) it's not clear that a PIDed crock pot can offer enough precision and stability throughout the water bath, except perhaps in the case where one would like to cook two short ribs in the very middle of the crock pot. Again, I would question whether it's worth going to this kind of trouble and expense to be able to cook 2 short ribs at a time. If you pack the largest crock pot with short ribs and there's maybe 1/2 or 1/3 gallon of water for temperature regulation with no circulation, I can't believe there wouldn't be problems. For long-term cooking where temperature precision is less important (e.g., sous vide "confit"), it would probably work just fine. Now... you throw in a circulator, and that's a different story. But, you know... why fantasize about all the great things you can do by PIDing a crock pot and chuckle about how you won't have to pay 400 bucks for a circulator on eBay? Make one. Test it thoroughly. Come back and post the results. Personally, if I were going to do such a thing, I'd be looking at minimum requirements of temperature accuracy within 0.25C and stability within 0.5C with less than 0.25C variability within the bath, all when there is enough food in the bath to make dinner for 8. Those strike me as reasonable specifications for anyone who wants to do sous vide cooking enough to invest in such a thing.

Sweet. It certainly does look like it roasts dark enough just fine for my style of espresso. Perhaps when they say "dark roasting" they're talking about people who like that Starbuck's style, almost-black, oily roast? This style has always tasted over-roasted to me, but to each his own I suppose. Anyway, from what you're showing I don't have too many misgivings about its espresso-roasting worthiness.

Here is a good reference guide to various roasting levels: http://www.sweetmarias.com/roasting-VisualGuideV2.html

Huh. That certainly seems dark enough for a Northern Italy style espresso roast.

There has already been quite a bit of discussion about the possible use of PID and other kinds of temperature-controlled Crock-Pots in the main sous vide thread. The general consensus was that an actual Crock Pot is probably too small for any meaningful temperature equalization throughout the water bath. This is especially true due to the way slow cookers work: by heating a large, thick ceramic insert that lines the entire inside of the slow cooker. It's hard to believe that there won't be significant overshooting of temperature due to this design, and it also seems likely that there will be dead spots, etc. unless the PIDed crock pot is loaded very lightly. Since a big part of what makes sous vide cooking so interesting is the effects one can create with very precise temperature control, especially at lower temperatures, it seems to me that a PIDed crock pot would be a lot of trouble and expense for not so much payoff. You could do some things, but certainly couldn't explore anywhere near the full range of this technique. If one is interested in doing non-circulating PID-controlled water bath, I would suggest that a very large stock pot on top of a PIDed heating plate would provide the best performance and the most bang for the buck, since both the heating plate and the stock pot could be used in the more traditional way as well. Here's a post from the main sous vide thread that touches on some of these issues: I agree with the above quotes quite strongly. Baths without circulation pumps do work, but they are prone to temperature stratification, and even worse, dead space between food items. One way to get a non-circulating pump is take a crock pot, rice cooker or hot-plate with a pot and add thermostatic control (PID or On-Off) such as Ranco, or the new sous vide conversion unit that was briefly posted to this thread, then disappeared. However, there are also laboratory water baths that lack a circulating pump - the most common brand is Precision (but other brands make them). They are a bit cheaper than a circulating pump water bath. They are sometimes called "utility water baths". In a lab they are NOT used for precise temperture control. If you have one bag of product is the middle of a large crock-pot or non-pumped lab water bath it is probably going to be OK. This is particularly true if you are cooking at 170F or above because at those tempertatures there is substantial convection in the water (i.e. what we normally call simmering). But if you are cooking at lower temp (rare beef, barely cooked salmon) or if you put a bunch of bags in at the same time the circulation can be a BIG help. If you are working in a restaurant, or you cook in quantity, then a circulating water bath is cheaper than a non-circulating one when you consider how much more you can load it. It may look big but you can't really pack it as full as you could with a circulator. If on the other hand you are experimenting at home, are on a budget, or are doing just one or two bags at at a time, then a modified crock pot / rice cooker or non-circulating water bath may work out just fine.

Perhaps with a companion sign saying "learn it, know it, live it"?

What makes you think this isn't the case with veal? Is it the case that butchers in most of America receive their veal completely pre-broken down and there are no bones to remove? If so, that's really sad.

I don't think it's reasonable to expect that a restaurant or bar have rules posted outside. Gramercy Tavern doesn't have sign reading: "no shirt, no shoes, no dice dude" on the front door.

That doesn't make any sense. It doesn't matter which states produce the veal. It matters who is selling veal. I mean, we can get beef bones up the wazoo in NYC, and New York isn't a beef-producing state. If butchers in St. Louis are selling veal, then there are surely veal bones to be had. Unless every butcher in the area is getting its veal pre-cut and pre-packaged with no bones, there will be bones that have to be dealt with when they break the veal down for sale. Since these bones are generally considered a waste product (unless they're selling the bones to restaurants or companies that use them for stock) they shouldn't be too terribly expensive. I suppose it's possible that there are no real butchers actually cutting meat in the St. Louis area, and that veal is therefore extremely hard to come by. But I have a hard time believing there aren't at least a couple of butchers or meat packagers in the metro-St. Louis area who aren't breaking down whole veal for the trade.

This looks pretty tasty, Steven. This is what they would call pizza casalinga ("homemade" or "housewife style" pizza) in Italy. This style has become popular in East coast pizzerie recently as "grandma pizza." The key to your process, in my opinion, is your careful selection of ingredients (you clearly went through some experimentation to determine which tomato product what kind of cheese worked the best for your process) and also your judicious and austere use of toppings. If I were doing this myself (and I'll probably give it a try) I'd probably throw on the cheese some time around minute 8 or so, since I'm not fond of browned mozzarella. Another style that works really well in a home oven is Chicago-style deep dish, which you can do nicely in a large cast iron skillet.

Well, not really. First off, other than the somewhat incongruous inclusion of Jim Beam Black, the other recommendations leaned heavily towards "sipping whiskey" with higher proofs and more age. Represented were Pappy 20 years at 90.4 proof, Vintage 17 years at 94 proof, Knob Creek 9 years at 100 proof, W.L. Weller 10 years at 100 proof , A.H. Hirsh 16 years at 91.6 proof, Evan Williams Single Barrel years at 86.6 proof, Blanton's Single Barrel 10 years at 93 proof, Basil Haydon's 8 years at 80 proof and Woodford Reserve at 90 proof. Wild Turkey is a little wild and funky for some tastes, although I love it. Maker's Mark, on the other hand, is perhaps a little bland to really stand out. (ETA quote, since Eric beat me to the punch with the list.)

Nice, Steven. Your experience and technique is much the same as mine. I also find, strangely enough, that shaking the pan or flipping the mushrooms too often can sometimes cause them to suddenly shed a lot of liquid.

I think there are a few things to consider here: First, unless I misunderstand, it sounds like we're talking about a plating, not a whole dish. Unless the plating is slavishly copied to the smallest detail and was distinctively unique to begin with, it sounds reasonable that Tri2Cook's plating is "inspired by" and need not give any explicit credit. I would perhaps consider giving "credit" for a notably unique and attention-gathering plating with a high "wow factor." Second, it depends on whether the venue and circumstances are such that there is an expectation of originality. There are different expectations with respect to a restaurant chef and a catering chef, and I don't think there is an expectation that a caterer's food (or, for that matter, most of the food at any middlebrow restaurant) is wholely original.

WRT "ratafia" since I'm home right now, I decided to give a look in the OED, which says the following: This leads me to believe that the name "ratafia" is perhaps not so useful as a catch-all word meaning "infusion that is not re-distilled" since there are clearly a number of traditions that call themselves by that name, and I would suggest that the word "infusion" is both more accurate and more useful, unless the infusion is made in one of these historical styles. This is to say that one might make a "ratafia" by infusing almonds and peaches into brandy, but chai and kumquat infused into tequila is better and more accurately described as an "infusion."

I would take the opposite position -- which I believe is the position that characterizes much of the current cocktail revival -- which is that many traditions are worth reviving. I would also argue that the practice of taking a name which has some historical meaning and perverting that meaning by using that same name to describe a product that has little connection with the originally-described product, is a disservice because it (1) removes a potentially valuable piece of information as to the ingredient being used, and removes meaning from the word; (2) further erodes the great tradition of spirits, infusions and cocktails which many of us are working to revive and expand; and (3) represents a dumbing-down of tradition and a laziness of nomenclature (much like the sad practice of the "-tini"). If we follow this path, where does it lead? Well, at the end of the road we have meaningless nonsense like "potato rum" and "cucumber curaçao" and drinks with names like "tangerine silver fizz" that contain no egg white and no fizz. Why not just call it a raspberry-tea infusion (or "ratafia," if you must)? Or try making a real shrub? Or take the viewpoint of elevating the craft and educating customers by introducing your customers to a drink made with a real shrub?

I suppose one could take that position, Eric, if (1) redistillation is a necessary qualification for "curaçao liqueur," (2) Clément Créole Shrubb is not redistilled, and (3) one uses "ratafia" as a catchall term meaning "infused but not redistilled spirit."

My experience is like divina's: You can make lasagne al forno with uncooked fresh pasta, and it won't turn out bad. But it's a lot better if you blanch the pasta sheets for a few seconds, shock them in cold water and then blot them on some dishtowels. Really, this isn't as much trouble as it sounds. Just don't make all the pasta at once. Make your dough, divide it up, and roll one piece through the rollers to a very thin setting. Gently lower this sheet into the simmering, salted water and stir it around to make sure it doesn't get stuck together. It barely needs to cook. Then transfer to a bowl of cool water with tongs. Then take the pasta out of the cool water and lay it down on some spread out dishtowels. At this point, you can cut the pasta to the size of pieces you want, lay it in the dish, spread on a little ragu, a touch of béchamel and a grating of Parmigiano Reggiano. Then repeat with the next hunk of dough until your baking dish is full. The blanching/shocking/blotting process maybe adds another 10% of time to preparing the pasta.

mbanu's examples both come down to, for lack of a better way of putting it, narrow-mindedness and a sense of entitlement. To look at the last example, I don't think the discussion we're having in this thread is so much like going in to a Chinese restaurant and expecting French fries, or going into a biker bar and asking for a Pousse Caffe -- those are perhaps inappropriate expectations as to availability of certain dishes or skills, but not exactly inappropriate behaviors. Rather, I would say it's like going into Otto and behaving as thought you were at Chuck E. Cheese -- or, for the "hooting and hollering" boys at Milk & Honey, it's like going into Jean-Georges and behaving as though you were at a roadside honky-tonk barbecue.

Perhaps I misconstrued the thrust of your post. I guess I don't understand why else you would make a point of saying that "variety [is] the spice of life" and "isn't a boilermaker in a dive just the thing now and then" in a thread about rules of etiquette and behavior in upscale cocktail bars unless you were implying that the counter-argument had been implied by this discussion. It seems self-evident that different genres of bar can be valued for different reasons, and that different behaviors are commonly understood to be acceptable and correct in different genres of bar. One reason upscale cocktail bars have had the need to resort to actual rules as opposed to the commonly understood "rules" at, e.g., your example of a biker bar, is because the behaviors which are acceptable and correct in the upscale cocktail genre of bar are not sufficiently commonly understood and appreciated. I would also assert that, in most genres of bar, the commonly understood modes of behavior are significantly more rowdy and "lower brow" than what is desired in upscale cocktail bars (the exceptions being things like upscale restaurant bars and upscale hotel bars, where the expectations as to behavior carry over from the superordinate entity).