slkinsey
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Posts posted by slkinsey
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The main source of my argument is what I have been told by people living in Italy , both Italian and non-Italian, during the pre- and post-WW2 years.
Not that I think it's particularly relevant to this discussion, but I also don't necessarily subscribe to the idea that cooks looking for work due to the beheading of their former employers lead to French restaurant culture around the time of the Revolution (i.e., the last decade of the 18th Century). This is why I said "and other factors" -- those other factors being things like the rise of a large bourgeoise class (which was not present to this extent in countried such as Italy, which remained more or less feudal for a much longer period). Regardless, it seems incontrovertible that France had a well-developed restaurant culture, and especially a high-end restaurant culture, more than 100 years before Italy did.
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I think that you are underestimating the cost of putting together, manufacturing, storing and supporting a product like that -- given that the PID kits at Auber are $60 to $90 by themselves.
Those are retail prices for plug-and-play units. Surely the parts and packaging cost considerably less than that. That's why I'm making estimates based on retail prices. For example, an immersion blender (representing the stick around which the unit would be built, the circulator and the motor for the circulator) can be had for 20 dollars retail. How much can a heating coil to wind around the stick possibly cost at retail? Another 20 bucks? So now we have, at retail prices, a $60 Auber PID with thermistor, a $20 immersion blender and a $20 heating coil -- or let us rather assume that we're getting the parts that more or less comprise these three elements, and that they would extend out to similar retail prices. That's 100 bucks. I can't believe that putting all these parts together in some kind of housing, slapping on a clamp and doing the appropriate soldering and programming of the PID could possibly add more than 50 dollars per unit to the retail price. Now... this unit may not last as long as a Lauda. But it should certainly last as long as a $150 microwave.
Now... whether or not companies have liability, volume and other concerns that are keeping them from pursuing this kind of project is another story (although, of course, it's just as easy to poison or burn yourself with a crock pot if you don't follow the instructions). But I don't see price as a reasonable excuse.
You also have to remember that if someone like PolyScience did a "home" version, a number of resturants and labs might choose to use it for non ultra critical applications, thus potentially cannibalizing sales of higher end models.I have to believe that restaurant purchases of brand-new Brinkmann/Lauda or PolyScience circulating water bath heaters are not significant to the bottom line of these companies. It should also be possible to create a culinary version of these products that has decent enough accuracy for culinary applications, but not for lab work. Again, it's likely that labs aren't using brand new top-of-the-line super-accurate circulating heaters for noncritical applications anyway.
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My "specs" would include a circulator (have you ever looked at the hardware that does the circulating in one of these things? it's nothing special). I also don't see any reason why a home kit would need to include the container for the water bath -- just make something that can clamp on to the side of a stockpot.
To my mind, it should be relatively simple and inexpensive to put something like this together. PID kits retail for something like 60 bucks with a decent enough thermistor. Throw in a heating coil, something cheap to squirt water through a directional port (more or less the guts of an immersion stick blender), a clamp and a plastic enclosure for the whole thing. On an industrial level, that shouldn't bring the price up by more than, say, another 90 bucks retail. Seems like this would be good enough.
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According to PolyScience, they are not going to be producing a home consumer priced immersion circulator -- they couldn't get the price down to the target point and meet their quality standards.
((I called them to ask last week))
This is interesting. I wonder what the target price point was. Seems like it shouldn't be too terribly difficult on an industrial basis to wrap some heating coils around a stick with a little boat motor on the end to stir the water around, then slap a PID on top, snake a thermistor down the stick, add a clamp on the back and wrap the whole works in plastic. This would offer good accuracy for home use, and circulating the water would keep the water bath uniform. Shouldn't it be possible to do something like this for $100 - $150? Of course, if their target price point is 50 bucks, no wonder they can't do it.
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Yea, that's an interesting point, Max. Personally, I am excited to see that true absinthe is available for legal purchase mostly because (1) it allows me to better recreate preban cocktails; (2) because they are, in general, better in quality and more interesting than the substitutes we have been using; and (3) because we now have several products to choose from where previously we had none.
Most likely (and hopefully) there will be enough frat boy drinking of absinthe for it's supposed "extra" properties (much like they drink Jagermeister and God knows what else) to make it economically viable forquality absinthe makers to continue selling in the US.
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What the?!
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Italy has a very well developed ristorante culture....as well as trattoria, osteria, pizzaria, etc.
Judith, my point is that Italy doesn't have a well-developed restaurant culture -- or perhaps I should say restaurant tradition of long standing -- compared to France. Due to the Revolution and other factors, France's restaurant culture was underway by the beginning of the 19th Century. In Italy, on the other hand, even by the Second World War there wasn't much more than the occasional roadside osteria -- and certainly there was no expectation among Italians that the food would be particularly good. Osterie were for people who didn't know anyone they could stay with in town. When restaurant culture began happening in Italy for real, post WW2, it catered largely to tourists and most hotel ristoranti served food that might be better described as "continental" than Italian. It's also worthy of note that many ristoranti at this time were owned and operated by Italians who had moved to America for a number of years, prospered, experienced America's well-developed Italian-American (and French) restaurant culture, and had now moved back home. Meanwhile, by 1950 French haute cuisine was already well past its first golden ages (Carême's work having come some 150 years before). So, at the very least, French haute cuisine has had a 150 year head start on the possibility of an equivalent Italian restaurant concept.
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Interesting observation, Steven. But I wonder if Alain Ducasse is quite the appropriate frame of reference. The kind of cuisine presented at restaurants such as these has never struck me as "French food" so much as it strikes me as "haute restaurant food." It is, of course, noteworthy that the French more or less invented the restaurant in general and high-end restaurant cuisine in specific. But there's nothing about your meal that says "French" to me in the same way that, for example, Boeuf Bourguignon does.
This is perhaps what leads to a lot of the conflict of opinions in this thread. France has a well-developed tradition and culture of restaurants, including the high-end. Indeed, most people would consider Alain Ducasse's food "French" despite the fact that it has not so much connection to the things everyday French people are eating. Italian restaurant culture, relative to French restaurant culture, is in its infancy. As recently as the 1950s, when my mother lived in Rome, restaurants in Italy were for foreigners for the most part, and didn't even particularly serve "Italian food." Even today, Italy is mostly a country of home cooking. There is only the beginning of an Italian restaurant tradition going in the same direction as French haute cuisine went long before -- which is to say, a direction that takes it away from its traditional everyday roots and further towards the infinite refinement and flights of fancy that are only available to highly skilled technicians with specialized equipment and near-bottomless resources. This new Italian "alta cucina," like French haute cuisine compared to traditional French cooking, only have a partial connection to actual Italian cooking. It's unclear to me how "high" Italian cuisine can go successfully before it losts a strong connection to Italian cooking and begins to simply evoke certain elements of Italian sensibility and ingredients. Perhaps this will trend in a direction so that it becomes more and more like French cooking, and perhaps the argument can be made that there is simply a "Western high cooking aesthetic" that ultimately doesn't do much more than evoke various national and local cooking traditions. If we want to call if "French" because they're the first ones who went in that direction... well, you get to the beach first, you get to plant your flag and name the place.
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One issue I'm wrangling with is the best thermocouple to use-- any recs would be appreciated. I'm currently using a K-type with a bead head and a nut around it that I can't get off.
I noticed that Auber Instruments claims that a thermistor is a better choice than a thermocouple. I don't know enough to know if they are right, but their turnkey system uses a thermistor rather than a thermocouple.
According to what I have read, it is extremely difficult to get a thermocouple with reliability/accuracy to less than 1 degree C. I'm guessing that's why Auber recommends a thermistor instead.
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To be clear: I should say that there are certain instances where seasoned cast iron can be less sticky than a stainless cooking surface. But it's a far cry from "nonstick" anywhere near the same category as a PTFE-lined pan. On the scale of stickyness where dry improperly heated stainless is the most sticky and brand new PTFE is least sticky, seasoned cast iron is a lot closer to the sticky side of the scale.
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WRT the use of onion skins in stock... all an onion skin is, is a desiccated layer of onion flesh. No reason not to use it in a stock, unless it's dirty.
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Kerry, how large were these tenderloins? Assuming they're right around an inch thick, it takes just about an hour to get to 60C in a 61C water bath. If you're setting your bath to 60C, you might consider going longer -- say 2 hours. I say this simply because I haven't had anyone find 60C pork too pink, and I could go even more pink. Given the time/temp you're posting, I wonder if you even made it up to 60.
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Not to put too fine a point to it, but we are talking about a country and a culture that still continues to hunt and kill endangered whales under the guise of "research"
Cite that Japan is hunting endangered whales? As far as I know, the only whale they hunt is the minke which is currently not listed as endangered.
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Subject to revision by real data to the contrary, I assume that most of the sushi is eaten in Japan or by Japanese expatriates. Not to put too fine a point to it, but we are talking about a country and a culture that still continues to hunt and kill endangered whales under the guise of "research" (and continually applies diplomatic pressure to ease bans on commercial whaling and to expand the number and kind of whales they can kill for "scientific purposes") in order to satisfy demand for whale meat.
Here is an interesting and thread-relevant quote from a piece by BBC News:
There are other reasons for Japan's determined campaign [to promote whale eating in Japan and increase Japan's whale harvest]."If the current ban on hunting whales is allowed to become permanent," says Hideki Moronuki, at the Fisheries Agency, the government department leading the campaign, "activists may direct their efforts to restricting other types of fishing."
As Japan consumes more fish than any other nation, it worries about possible curbs on its fishing activities in open seas for species like tuna.
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First of all, what are your stainless saute pan and skillet made of? If they're nothing more than thin stainless, there are going to be all kinds of hot spots and other things that I think contribute to sticking. I also suspect that not all stainless cooking surfaces are created equal, although I don't have any scientific evidence or reasoning to back that up -- just my experience that cheap stainless pans tend to be stickier than high quality pans consisting of a thermal layer of aluminum or copper with an internal lining of stainless steel. Now that I think about it, this may simply be due to the fact that the clad-design pans are able to hold more thermal energy and therefore are better at creating a "micro-layer" of steam between the food and the cooking surface. Technique-wise, properly preheating the pan is important, as is using a reasonable amount of fat for lubrication ("hot pan, cold oil" is a good rule of thumb any time). Other things such as respecting the power of the stove and the capacity of the pan and not over-crowding the pan also help to reduce sticking. All of these things are likely to be challenging when you have a pan made of stainless steel and nothing else, and may be impossible to fully overcome. This may be the primary thing that has produced stainless steel's reputation as a "sticky" cooking material -- it's not so much that a stainless cooking surface is sticky, but rather than stainless pans are sticky due to thermal properties. It may actually be cast iron's thermal advantages over stainless steel that lead to its (undeserved in my opinion) reputation of being non-stick. I have not noticed that any of the seasoned cast iron in my collection, most of which is inherited with 100+ years worth of seasoning, is any less sticky than my stainless lined heavy copper pans, for example.
Anyway... assuming you have a stainless cooking surface bonded to decent thermal materials and are using good technique, a clean pan can make a big difference. As the recent owner of a dishwasher after some 20 years of exclusively hand washing, I can say that a dishwasher simply cannot clean a stainless steel pan as well as hand-scrubbing with Bar Keeper's Friend. Properly cleaned stainless steel is shiny and free of all visibly stains, residues and discolorations.
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Rob, as to the rest time, I think you may be misreading the charts. On the chart for 54.4C, for example, a piece of meat that is 25 mm thick cooking in a 55C water bath will take 41 minutes and 29 seconds to come to the target temperature. The rest time is 56 seconds. The overshoot is minimal (but not zero) in a 55C water bath, but presumably what the chart is showing is that it would take 29 seconds for the piece of 25 mm meat to start losing temperature.
If you're cooking with the water bath at your target temperature, this column isn't particularly meaningful to you. If you are cooking at a higher temperature water bath than your target temperature, this chart tells you how long you should let the meat rest so that the meat equilibrates at your target temperature.
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Did some digging. Seems the "new label" Campari does not contain natural carmine. But one assumes it will take quite some time for the old stock to become scarce in this country.
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"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).
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AFAIK, carmine is made from chochineal.
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I think I hear the sounds of goal posts moving. First you said that 0.5C was necessary and that 1 degree C was not sufficient. Now, you have moved the target and seem to be conceding that 1 degree C is sufficient.
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.
Fish mi cuit may actually require 1 degree C. But the other items you mention are all doable with 1 to 2 degrees C of accuracy (and some of them with even more variability).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.
Rare steak and just done chicken and turkey are all things that I have done on my setup that only maintains a few degrees of accuracy. While 1 degree or better of accuracy might ,make a discernible difference, for none of the items above is 0.5C of accuracy (your original claim) necessarry for succulent results. It is not as if a rare roast done with 1 degree C (or even 2) of accuracy is going to be a failure. I would say that for most people chicken cooked 'just done' or beef cooked rare with 1 or 2 degrees C of accuracy is going to be an awesome experience.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.
And, while you may find maintaining things within a few degrees with a stockpot and thermometer to not require vigilance, I don't think most people will have that experience. (In fact, I ended up with a really disappointing turkey breast that needed to cook for a few hours because the temperature ran about 5 degrees too hot for a while because I wasn't being vigilant.) If I had cooked in a system that had one or two degrees of accuracy, I wouldn't have had that problem.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 have cooked a number of the items above in a system with no better than 3 or 4 degrees of accuracy and my wife raves about how great it tastes. With 1 (even 2) degrees of accuracy I am sure it will be even better. So, I am curious to hear if the Auberin device delivers that one or two degree of accuracy.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.
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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
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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.
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I don't understand the nature of the conjecture that there being less than a gallon of water should prevent a PID from maintaining a stable temperature (assuming that the circulation issue is dealt with).
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.
The requirement of 0.25C stability sounds quite arbitrary. For the vast majority of applications. Again, for cooking the perfect egg that might be required. I have not seen a posting by a scientist that indicates that 0.25C stability is a requirement for most sous vide applications.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.
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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.
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I'm not Toby, but I think I can answer that one. For a while now* if a cocktail is going to be served above a certain size for whatever reason, many better cocktail bars have been decanting part of the drink into a separate "miniature carafe" or beaker on the side, which is then nestled into a small bowl of crushed ice. This way the customer can have a larger pour, but the drink remains cold and is not diluted by staying on the ice.
* I first became aware of Audrey Saunders doing it at Bemelman's, but don't believe they were first.