slkinsey

Question about confit: I recently did some duck leg confit sous-vide. Individual duck legs with salt, etc. and a tablespoon or so in each bag. 80C for around 7 hours. So... how long is this safe to keep in the refrigerator? When prepared the traditional way, one hears of confit kept cold for months and months.

If you have the capability, confit is one area where sous vide can really be a cost saver. I recently made some duck leg confit, sealing each leg in an individual pouch with some fat. The beauty of this is that you don't need to use much fat. I only used around a tablespoon of fat per duck leg. When you vacuum the bag, the leg is surrounded by a thin layer of duck fat. It's also nice to have the legs in individual packages.

Exactly. The "00" -- if I'm remembering correctly -- has to do more with the level of refinement than it does the protein/gluten content of the flour. That's probably why the head of Rochelle's school said pasta should be made with bleached rather than unbleached flour. My experience is that there is "00 for pasta" flour, which is low in protein/gluten, and that's the one you want (there is also "00 for bread" and so on...).

A related and, in my opinion more important question is: accountable to whom, and how? If you are a self-appointed "reviewer" online (or otherwise) you are accountable to your readership. If enough people decide that your writing is rubbish and your opinions are not well-founded, your readership will decline and people will stop reading your reviews. Who decides that you have well-informed opinions and something worthwhile to say? The whole internet does. On the other hand, all too often one finds situations in which the informed readership has determined that a reviewer's 's opinion is hopelessly biased, misinformed or otherwise worthless, and yet that writer continues to be gainfully employed by an important newspaper, and to wield the influence that comes along with such employment because... well I'm not quite sure. Because some editor at the newspaper likes them? I am more familiar with music reviewing than I am with restaurant reviewing, but I have on any number of occasions read reviews in major newspapers that diverged so widely from my own experiences that it is barely possible to believe we were at the same performance. And I'm talking about details of fact, not opinion (e.g., "cracked wide open" and "ringing" cannot describe the same climactic high note). Yet, somehow these reviewers do not get the "warm handshake as they make their way out of the door" that Daniel promises. Rather, they remain employed for year after year after year. All of which is to say that the imprimatur of a professional writing gig and the supposed ethical/competent oversight that supposefly comes along with it is hardly a guarantee of accountability and professionalism.

The only "shaken with mint" drinks I have tended to shake hard are either those with other things in the shaker (e.g., muddled lime quarters) that "protect" the mint from over bruising, or drinks with a lot of other strong flavors and plenty of sweetness (e.g., the Juniperotivo) where bitterness is not particularly apparent and I want maximum expression of mint flavors. This does, I suppose, account for most of the "shaken with mint" drinks I make regularly. Maybe that's why I don't think it's as big a deal. I can certainly tell the difference in a julep. To my thinking, though, there's some room between "shaking the bejeezus out of it" and a "rolling shake." I would understand a "rolling shake" to be more less like rolling (pouring from one tumbler to another with ice), only in a closed shaker, which would be very gentle indeed -- although perhaps not what Erik is describing. There are certainly drinks both with mint and without that I think benefit from a gentler shake.

Stronger in what, exactly? I think you'll find if you read through the thread above, that real absinthe never contained much thujone to speak of, and that most of the reported affects of absinthe which have been attributed to thujone were in fact the result of alcohol poisoning and poisoning from the various adulterants and contaminants found in low quality pre-ban absinthe.

Did you use the stems of just the mint leaves? I think that shaking hard does impart perhaps a little bitterness, but not too much.

Why not just double-strain?

Put 1 oz of regular maple syrup into a clean 40 oz bottle, fill with water, shake and taste. That's exactly what the sap tastes like. Hmm. Not exactly, in my experience. I think the caramelization that happens when the sap is boiled down contributes quite a bit to the flavor. Great idea! Take an ingredient that is expensive, distinctive and limited in supply, and then refine all of its character away! [/sarcasm]

As mkayahara points out, getting the sap out of maple trees is a fairly costly and labor-intensive business. It's not the same thing as mowing down a field of sugar cane and pressing the juice out of it, and it's sure not the same thing as making booze out of the industrial waste from sugar refining. Given the costs associated with obtaining maple sap and the fact that a distillate produced from fermented maple sap would most likely not have a particularly "mapley" taste, I think it's unlikely we'll ever see such a product.

I'm actually wondering why anyone should care what Churchill thought about how to make a Martini. He may have been a boozer of some repute (indeed, Robert Hess has suggested that most of the people who famously eschewed vermouth were alcoholics more interested in boosting the alcohol content of their drink than crafting a properly balanced cocktail) but that doesn't make him an cocktail expert. It's actually interesting if you do some of the math about Martini-making. Let's say you're making a 3 ounce Martini with Tanqueray gin and Noilly Prat vermouth. Proper stirring with ice will give you around 20% dilution, so you're ending up with a 3.6 ounce pour. Let's look at two different Martini formulations. The first one is a 2:1 Martini: Two ounces of Tanqueray ay 47.3% abv and one ounce of Noilly Pratt at 18% abv plus 20% dilution from the ice results in a drink that is 31.3% abv. The second one is an 11:1 Martini: 2 3/4 ounces ot Tanqueray and 1/4 ounce of Noilly Prat plus 20% dilution from the ice results in a drink that is 37.5% abv. The 11:1 Martini is only 6.2 percentage points higher in alcohol by volume.

Little-known Munchos trivia: Because they are perfect foods, the Apollo Lunar Module was stocked with nothing other than Muchos and Tang.

Yep.

Just make the bag extra-long, put the watermelon in the bottom of the bag and put a pleated paper towel around 2/3 of the way up.

Durum/semolina flour does not have to be course-textured. But it usually is, in which case I find it to be totally unusable. If you find it finely ground, like any other flour, it makes superb pasta, firm with a distinctive flavor. But even finely ground, the high gluten level would probably make it very difficult to work by hand. I second the votes for 00 pasta flour if you are doing it by hand. That's the point I was making: Durum flour and semolina are both made from durum wheat. "Semolina" is simply a name for coarsely-ground durum wheat. In Italy, any coarse-ground grain i s"semolina" -- what we think of as "semolina" is properly called semolina di grano duro (as opposed to, say, semolina di mais). It is not possible to get "floury" semolina, because you would then have flour and not semolina. Notwithstanding the foregoing, it is true that some companies and in certain non-Italian-speaking countries "semolina" has come to be synonymous with "durum wheat" regardless of the fineness of the grind.

Paul, as I said above (and especially if it's more convenient) you should try Arturo's on Houston. The crust there seems most like what you are describing. Patsy's crust is paper thin, charred/crisp on the bottom but light with soft and pliable inner layer. Thinner than the places that are trying for true Neapolitan style, but not with the structure and chewyness you seem to be after. You might also try Di Fara in Brooklyn. In terms of the crust, I'd say it's the pinacle of the style family that has Domino's at the opposite end of the scale.

It depends on what you mean by "NYC-Style pizza." There are probably 3 or 4 distinct sub-genres of NYC pizza. Can you give any examples of places that are serving the style you are looking for?

I don't think it has an "official" name. I'd say that Reinhart's "neo-Neapolitan" (which is a designation of his own coinage as far as I know) comes as close as anything else in defining what you describe.

Not many people know that Munchos (aka: Мунчос) were originally developed by Peter Carl Fabergé as the perfect caviar delivery vehicle for exclusive use by the Tsars of Russia. In 1897, it took 237 serfs to make one Muncho.

I'm not sure it's possible to achieve what you are looking for with a home oven. It sounds like you might like Arturo's down on Houston. They are a coal oven place, but I think they use a lower hydration dough (including salt, which most don't) and a higher gluten flour. The result is a crust that has some lightness, but is also more crisp, strong and chewy than others. It sounds like what you are describing is that Reinhart describes as "neo-Neapolitan" (meaning places like Patsy's East Harlem, Pizzeria Bianco, Grimaldi's, Sally's, etc.). But those places have the advantage of 900 degree retained heat ovens.

There are traditions of fresh pasta made with semolina or durum flour (which is more or less the same thing -- semolina is simply coarse durum flour). A good example would be orecchiette. However, the classic model that most of us think of when we think of "fresh pasta" is the Emilia-Romagna style of fresh pasta as exemplified by tagliatelle, etc. This is classically made with Italian "00" flour for pasta, which is a highly refined flour that is relatively low in gluten, producing a characteristically soft and tender noodle. Durum flour/semolina, on the other hand, has the most and strongest gluten of any other wheat flour. This makes it perfect for extruded factory-made dry pastas such as spaghetti, but not so great for a soft, tender Emilia-Romagna style fresh pasta. This is especially true of semolina which, in addition to being an extremely strong flour, also imparts a somewhat granular texture. American cooks who use semolina in making fresh pasta often must resort to cutting the dough with fat in order to make it tender. I think the best approximation of Italian "00" flour for pasta is a mixture of 3/4 AP flour and 1/4 cake flour (cake flour is both highly refined and low in gluten).

A bottomless portafilter also makes it possible to use the La Marzocco triple basket. I'm also told that a bottomless portafilter is a lot easier to keep clean, since you really only need to worry about the filter basket. A disadvantage of the bottomless portafilter, of course, is that you can't run coffee into two cups at once.

I always thought (although I may be wrong) that the reason the Fairway lettuces look ragged is that they don't trim away the outer leaves for display. Once I pull away the (often slightly browned from bruising) outer leaves, I think I usually get right around the usual amount of good-looking lettuce on the inside.

Have you thought of a bottomless portafilter?

Anything like the picture accompanying this article?