slkinsey
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Posts posted by slkinsey
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Spoken like someone who doesn't quite understand this segment of the Metropolitan Opera audience. If most diners at the Grand Tier Restaurant were the type to be dining at places like Café Boulud -- which is to say, people who were genuinely interested in having a great dining experience before their evening at the opera -- they would know that there are plenty of much better choices conveniently close to the Met. Josephina and Rosa Mexicana, to name a few right off the top of my head that are steps away from Lincoln Center, are significantly better in quality. The Metropolitan Opera audience, especially in any sections priced higher than the Family Circle or Balcony, trends fairly old already. And a casual glance at the Grand Tier restaurant reveals that its clientele tends to be older still. Regardless, people who have been to the Grand Tier restaurant many times (although none this season yet) universally say that they serve boring, overcooked/underseasoned, catering-quality "old people food."
There is a mindset among a certain (primary retired) segment of the Metropolitan Opera audience that isn't easy for me to understand. For example: I can remember getting a comp ticket in the Grand Tier for a performance of Tosca. This was around 1993. The Cavaradossi was Placido Domingo, the Scarpia Sherrill Milnes -- both legendary in these roles. The Tosca was Maria Guleghina. I noticed that there were two aisle seats in the second row that remained empty for the entire first act. For the second act, they were occupied by two elderly women who stayed until the famous soprano aria Vissi d'arte and then promptly got up and left. If you've ever eaten in the grand tier restaurant, this is an example of the kind of people you will find there.
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Paul makes a good point regarding thickness and responsivity.
That said, if what you really would like to do is saute, which is a high heat cooking task that doesn't require particularly fast responsiveness ...
but making the pan sauce often does!
How so? I don't see how making a pan sauce would require a level of responsiveness beyond what is achievable in a saute pan with a 7 mm thick aluminum base. Again, we're not talking about something like cast iron with low thermal conductivity. Aluminium has excellent thermal conductivity, and my experience is that aluminum pans with a 7 mm base are responsive enough for the kinds of things one does in a saute pan. After all, we're not tempering chocolate or making Hollandaise sauce in an eleven-inch saute pan.
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Paul makes a good point regarding thickness and responsivity.
That said, if what you really would like to do is saute, which is a high heat cooking task that doesn't require particularly fast responsiveness, I think it makes sense to go with an extra-thick aluminum pad. A 7 mm aluminum base has a very large thermal capacity which means that you won't lose peak heat when you're shaking a lot of ingredients around in the pan, and also means that you'll get a good result searing steaks and other large cuts of meat. Because the base is aluminum and not something like iron, it will still be plenty responsive for the tasks one is likely to want to do in a saute pan.
On the other hand, most home cooks don't really saute.
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Interesting link, bainesy. Are you aware of anyone else selling PID kits for the Silvia?
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Re the green walnut liqueur: there is an extensive thread on the subject of nocino.
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A pineapple.
Ah yes. And how is Fairway rating on the SPI (Shaw Pineapple Index ) these days?
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I personally find the sour flavors obtained with a fully-fermented naturally leavened dough to be disharmonious with the flavors of pizza. Since pizza dough benefits greatly from long fermentation, I don't see how there's any way of getting around this.
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What is the difference between an infusion and a tincture ?
There is no difference between an infusion and a tincture. Tincture simply means that the volatile parts of a substance have been taken into solution by a solvent (or solvents). In this case, the solvents are ethyl alcohol and water.
In the Christian Schultz Manual for the manufacture of cordials, liquors, fancy syrups, &c. &c. included together with certain editions of Jerry Thomas's How to Mix Drinks the author describes what he calls the "process of displacement" whereby the ingredients to be infused are ground into a coarse powder, moistened with alcohol into a paste, then left to infuse. After a period of time, the paste is placed into a funnel-filter and the infused spirit extracted by adding more alcohol to the top, which "displaces" the infused spirit. The extracted spirit might be reintroduced to the top of the filter until a non-turbid result is obtained. (in effect, this was a way of using the ground-up ingredients as a natural filter for fine particles). Schultz writes, "this extract is called tincture." I should point out, however, that this is only Schultz's definition. Tequila infused with chunks of pineapple is just as much a tincture as grain alcohol infused with ground cloves and extracted according to the above-described method.
Can anyone also tell me if there is a difference if I use vodka or rectified spirits from a chemical reaction side?When you say "rectified spirits" I assume you mean high-proof (90% abv) neutral spirits. Vodka is, of course, a rectified spirit -- usually much more rectified than high proof neutral sprits in fact. Indeed, vodka starts out as a high proof, highly rectified, highly filtered neutral spirit which is then diluted down to between 40% and 50% abv.
For our purposes there are two salient differences between vodka and high proof neutral spirits: First, vodka is much more rectified and filtered than the high proof neutral spirits commonly available for purchase in the States (you may have access to better in Poland). As a result, there is a certain "harshness" to these spirits, even if diluted down to 40% abv. Second, certain substances have better solubility into water and certain substances have better solubility into alcohol. If we infuse into a 50% alcohol/50% water solution, we are infusing all the substances which are soluble into both water and alcohol. If we infuse into 90% alcohol, we are mostly infusing the alcohol-soluble substances.
high proof spirits can denature delicate fruits and some delicate herbs... medical disinfecting alcohol is cut to a degree so that it does not denature skin cells.It's not clear to me how you are using the word "denature." Denaturation is the process by which a protein or amino acid's structure is altered by an outside stressor such as heat, acid, alkali, alcohol, salts, reducing agents, etc. I'm not sure how you think this works in the context of proof and spirit infusions. If a negative result is obtained as a result of infusing into high proof spirits, it's not clear to me that this is due to denaturation so much as it may be due to selective infusion of alcohol-soluble volatiles, over-extraction of certain substances due to the fast-acting nature of a high-proof solvent, or infusion of undesirable substances. In general, I think one will find that higher-proof infusions have better preservative properties compared to lower-proof infusions.
The reason disinfecting alcohol is diluted to 70% strength is not because 95% alcohol "denatures skin cells," but rather because 95% alcohol is less effective at killing bacteria in that context. This is because 70% alcohol is able to penetrate bacterial cell walls where it denatures the bacteria's proteins (DNA) and amino acids. 95% alcohol, on the other hand, quickly denatures the bacteria's cell walls thereby preventing the alcohol from passing into the cell. Both 95% and 70% alcohol are capable of denaturing skin cell proteins, and one would assume that the lower abv solution has a similarly greater denaturing power with respect to skin cells as it does with respect to bacterial cells.
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I can barely lift the ones I have, so I wouldn't want that. Why thicker?
No hot spots. Much higher thermal capacity for searing steaks, etc.
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They control a heat source. It could be a crock pot or a hot plate or other small appliance.What would these controllers be controlling, exactly? Presumably you're not going to wire them into an electric stove.Instead of plugging the appliance into the wall you plug it into the controller and then plug the controller into the wall. A temperature probe is put into the water that you want to heat to the controlled temperature. The controller then switches on power to the appliance when the temperature is lower and cuts it off when it hits the set point.
The sophistication of the feedback loop and the control logic is why different methods have different results. Lab equipment costs a lot more because it's more precise and that precision costs money. Note the word precision, not accuracy.
The question is how precise one needs to be and it's not all on the controller. How quickly the appliance heats up or cools down has an effect as does the amount of water being controlled and the vessel it's in.
For most the things that I would cook by this method, the precision of a commercial controller should be adequate. It may take some practice and calibration but so does my oven and range.
WRT precision and accuracy... presumably the temperature sensors on these controllers are sufficiently accurate, if that's what you're getting at. I still have a hard time believing that a bottom-heated system or a crock pot system controlled by one of these things wouldn't exhibit temperature variability to the tune of 5-6 degrees C. This would definitely have some effect on certain cooking techniques, and for short-term cooking techniques (e.g., fish) it's not clear that it would have an advantage over using a large stockpot and an accurate thermometer.
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What would these controllers be controlling, exactly? Presumably you're not going to wire them into an electric stove.
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The Grand Tier restaurant is about what you would expect: mediocre catered food.
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Teitel rawks, for sure.
I use Frantoia from oleifici Barbera. It's an unfiltered extra virgin olive oil from Sicily. Strong "olivey" flavor, medium fruitiness and inexpensive enough at around $19/liter to use for everyday cooking yet refined enough to use raw on salads, fish, etc. All the Barbera oils are very good (I quite like their Stupor Mundi and Andria Classico) and reasonably priced.
That said, if I were going to deep fry in extra virgin olive oil, I'd be using something priced more like Edda.
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I've been thinking of making a quinine tincture I could keep in an eyedropper bottle and use to bump Lillet back up to pre-reformulation levels.
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It's all stupid expensive right now, unfortunately.
There was, unfortunately, a fairly narrow window during which time one could buy stainless lined heavy copper cookware for relatively low prices. Ten years ago, there was only Bourgeat and Mauviel available in the US. The former was priced egergiously high and the former only somewhat less so. Then in 1999 Falk Culinair began selling in the States for far less, and this rationalized the market. That was a great time for buying copper cookware. Back then, however, copper cost only around $0.70 per pound and a dollar was worth around 1.2 Euros. Now copper is more than $3.00 per pound, and a dollar is worth only around 0.73 Euros. The large change in copper prices as well as the dramatic drop in the dollar's value with respect to the Euro have resulted in a fairly steep increase in the price of stainless lined heavy copper cookware.
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In what way is the cast iron pan bad for making the reduction sauce? If you're worried about getting off-flavors from the iron, you can always deglaze and then pour the liquid out of the cast iron pan into a small saucepan for further reduction/manipulation. Personally, I don't find that these sauces take long enough or contain enough acid that it's an issue.
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Takadi, most of this is explained in my egci class, which others have already referenced in this thread. So, rather than rehashing that material here, I'll direct you to tha thread.
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Darcie B: As chance would have it, all of the stainless/copper bimetal is manufactured by Falk Culinair, which developed the process and owns the patent. Even more interesting is the fact that Bourgeat copper cookware is manufactured by Mauviel using Falk Culinair's bimetal.
takadi: As others have mentioned, copper pans have a higher thermal capacity than aluminum pans of the same size/shape/configuration. That said, if what you really want is a saute pan, and you intend to use it for sauteing and other high-heat applications, you can do even better with a disk-bottom pan that has a heavy stainless bottom and an extra-thick aluminum base. Several manufacturers offer aluminum bases between 5 mm and 7 mm thick.
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It's never been clear to me that there is a good definition of "ratafia."
Some sources seem to indicate that ratafia is a liqueur made by infusing alcohol with fruit kernels/pits and/or bitter almongs, and possibly also including fruit and/or herbs -- in which case it is defined by the kernel/pit/bitter almond infusion.
Other sources suggest that ratafia is a fruit based infused liqueur produced either at home or in small farms -- in which case it is defined by the place/way it is produced.
Both are apparently wine-based and quite low in alcohol, which would not give them much similarity with crèmes de noyaux such as Noyau de Poissy or the Duplais recipe.
On the other hand, the 1913 Webster's says it is "A spirituous liquor flavored with the kernels of cherries, apricots, peaches, or other fruit, spiced, and sweetened with sugar; -- a term applied to the liqueurs called noyau, curaçao, etc." So that is needless to say inconsistent as well.
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This fork of the discussion came about because LPShanet said that "the defining characteristic of NY pizza is its crust" and, by implication, that NYC pizza is distinguished by having a great crust. I pointed out that most NYC steel deck pizza oven crusts suck.
LPShanet agreed that the "best crusts come from a really hot coal (or wood, or similar) oven" but suggested that "you can achieve a pretty good result in a standard Bari deck oven" by baking the pizza twice. I replied that I thought a good and even great slice can come from a stainless deck oven, but not a truly great crust -- primarily because steel deck ovens can't achieve a high enough temperature to create a "crisp and charred yet light and pliable" crust that is the pinnacle of pizza crustery.
This led to the current digression on oven temperatures.
I would say that it is not possible to make a truly great pizza crust using a standard stainless deck pizza oven, even with considerable tweaking. The primary limitation is temperature, but there may be other limitations. It's impossible to make any absolute pronouncements as to temperature, because styles differ. I would suggest that somewhere around 800F (could be as low as 750 for a certain style, and could go as high as 900 for others). Regardless, I think it's pretty clear that stainless deck ovens are at least a hundred degrees F away from being able to compete with what retained heat ovens are capable of producing in terms of crust quality. If someone invents a stainless deck oven capable of putting a crisp char on the bottom, fully cooking the crust and melting the top of a pizza in 120 seconds, that may change. But for sure that's not what most NYC pizzerie are using right now, and I have some doubts as to how many of these ovens are even capable of 650 (never mind the fact that practically none of them are set that high).
Hey, if someone has an example of a steel deck pizza oven crust that competes with Patsy's, Grimaldi's, Franny's, etc. on those criteria I'd like to try it. But generally one has to choose between soft, spongey and insipid on one hand or crisp, dry and tough on the other .
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Sam, my contention has been that it could be possible to bake terrific crust at 650 degrees in a stainless deck oven, but that pizzerias simply are not exploring that option. You responded by saying that 650 degrees is "a few hundred degrees F below what you can get in a wood- or coal-fired oven." It seemed to me that you were saying it's impossible to do good crust at 650 degrees because it's "several hundred degrees" below the needed temperatures.
That's not the full context of what I said. What I said was: "Even with a seriously tweaked oven maxed out at 650F, they're still a few hundred degrees F below what you can get in a wood- or coal-fired oven." It's quite clear that wood- and coal-fired ovens can, and regularly do achieve temperatures in the range of 850F to 900F. Maybe I need to check my basic mathematics, but I think I'm correct in saying that these temperatures are "a few hundred agrees" higher than 650F.
I would argue that the places making the best crusts, the outstanding crusts that are capable of attracting attention in and of themselves, are by and large baking at significantly higher temperatures than the 650F maximum obtainable with a maxed-out, top of the line, brand new stainless deck pizza oven. So, yea. I would argue that it's more or less impossible to get a superior crust at 650 degrees in a stainless deck oven. I've certainly never experienced one.
That sounded wrong to me based on everything I've heard about pizza oven temperatures, so I looked up some temperatures and what I found was that temperatures in the 700s are common.You should do more reading on pizza baking temperatures, then. I think you'll find a remarkable amount of agreement among those with knowledge that the best pizza crusts are produced at high temperatures. Indeed, most of the various societies and certifying bodies tend to suggest around 800F, and sometimes more.
Again, I haven't argued that all wood- and coal-fired retained heat ovens are fired at those temperatures. I believe I said in my last post that plenty of "brick oven" places fire to lower temperatures and produce correspondingly less-exciting crusts. That said, even something like 750 degrees is significantly different from 650 degrees when it comes to making pizza. You seem to be proceeding on the premise that "in the 700s" means 700 degrees, whereas I'd suggest that we're talking about at least a hundred degree average difference. But let's assume that plenty of places with wood-fired ovens are baking at 700 degrees. Considering that plenty of places with wood-fired ovens are producing less-than-exciting crusts, I'm not sure what this tells us.
...t's hard to imagine that a resourceful baker couldn't do some good work at 650 degrees, or even 680. Indeed, it's possible to bake better crust in a consumer-level oven at 500 degrees F than you can get at almost any stainless deck oven pizzeria in New York, which should make pretty clear that the issue is not so much lack of capacity but lack of trying.Certainly the quality of crusts baked in stainless deck pizza ovens could be better, and there are a lot of things that could be done to make them better. All I am suggesting is that, due to temperature limitations, there is a finite limit as to how good these crusts can be and there are certain effects that are not possible using a stainless deck pizza oven. These issues are further compounded by certain stylistic choices that go along with this kind of pizza (most prominently, the volume of toppings). Considering that 90% of American consumers of pizza are primarily focused on the toppings, it's not clear to me that there is a great deal to be gained for the operator of a stainless deck pizza oven in tweaking for a better crust. I think that Dom Demarco at Di Fara is achieving just about the peak of what is possible in terms of crust quality out of a stainless deck pizza oven while working within the topping-centric aesthetic, and it's clear that his method involves some significant tweaking.
Could most of the stainless deck oven pizza crusts be a lot better than they are, even within the topping-centric aesthetic? For sure. Turn up the temperature and bake the pizza on the oven floor. Stainless deck oven pizza crusts could be even better if the pizzaioli made the dough thinner and used half the amount of toppings -- not that I think this will ever happen. But, regardless, none of these crusts will be able to compete with the crust coming out of an 800F - 900F retained heat pizza oven by someone who knows what he's doing. I think that's simply impossible as a matter of physics.
So, my contention is that it's possible to make a terriffic pizza crust and a superior pizza crust at temperatures that are only available in retained heat ovens. Stainless deck ovens can aspire to very, very good.
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There are plenty of "brick oven" type pizzerie turning out mediocre pizza baked at lower temperatures. Just because it is a retained heat wood-fired oven doesn't mean it's going to be fired high enough or turn out great pizza.
The NYC wood- and coal-fired pizzerie are baking at least as high as 750, and optimally in the very high 800s or even low 900s. The lower temperatures would coincide with pizzerie that are lacking in overall oven management (e.g., Lombardi's) and times when otherwise extellent pizzerie may lenot keep the oven fully fired during the non-rush hours (e.g., Grimaldi's at around four o'clock in the afternooon). Both conditions result in a notable drop in quality.
What Forno Bravo (which is trying to sell pizza ovens) says is:
Do you have to bake at 900ºF to make VPN-Certified pizza?No. The VPN Americas web site specifically says you should cook at 800ºF. Other Pizza Napoletana sources recommend different figures, with some recommending 750ºF, and others recommending a range between 750ºF-825ºF. While the VPN Naples web site does recommend 900ºF on the cooking floor and 825ºF in the cooking dome, it is important to note that here are many VPN-certified pizzerias baking in the 700ºs. There is a lot more to Pizza Napoletana that a single temperature, and what really matters is reaching the wood-fired heat necessary to bake pizza in the 90 seconds that everyone agrees is the right amount of time. Any longer than that, you you pizza will dry out and become tough and chewy.
I note that the Italians recommend "900ºF on the cooking floor and 825ºF in the cooking dome" and also that the text says there are "many VPN-certified pizzerias baking in the 700ºs." The rest of their text would indicate that they're talking about at least 750F when they say "in the 700ºs." That's a far cry from 650 degrees.
As for the News-Tribune article, I'm not entirely sure how much I believe all those temperatures and baking times. Did they measure the temperatures, or did they ask the owners? And if they did measure, how was the temperature in the ovens measured? Was it with an infrared thermometer or did the ovens have a temperature indicator? If it was an oven indicator, that's problematic because different ovens can show radically different temperatures depending on the way the oven is constructed, where the temperature is measured, and the nature of the temperature probe. Depending on construction/location/method, it 's certainly possible for a temperature readout to show 675F and for the floor of the oven to actually be 750F. I also have some questions as to those baking times, but will note that the pizzeria with the shortest baking time and the most rhapsodic description of its crust was the place with the highest reported oven temperature. It's also interesting to note that, in the article, good crust quality was highly associated with the higher oven temperatures (and secondarily with austere use of toppings).
The best thing in the Forno Bravo site is that they point out the importance of fully cooking the pizza in 90 seconds for an optimal crust that is both crisp and pliable as opposed to tough and chewy. It could be theoretically possible to do this at 650F, but the pizza would have to be paper thin with minimal toppings.
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The main deal is temperature. Even with a seriously tweaked oven maxed out at 650F, they're still a few hundred degrees F below what you can get in a wood- or coal-fired oven. It's possible to reach these temperatures with gas, but it takes a very specialized setup (I've seen one at Fornino in Williamsburg -- the gas jet is the size of my torso).
Even though it's a few hundred degrees below the retained heat ovens, when a gas deck oven is cranked up to 650F, it's not going to be a very comfortable working around it. Those big doors let out a lot of heat. Dom Demarco has the ovens at Di Fara cranked up to the maximum, and it can be quite uncomfortable standing near the oven. Retained heat ovens, on the other hand, are purpose-built and designed in such a way that the pizzaiolo's exposure to the intense heat is minimized. I also have to assume that it can be quite expensive to maintain a stainless deck oven at high temperature.
The result, as Steven points out, is that the vast majority of stainless pizza ovens are maintained more like around 500F (I also wonder how many NYC pizzerie have ovens that are capable of safely sustaining 650F). Consider this: How long does it take to bake a pizza in a typical stainless deck pizza oven? 10 minutes for the places that have the oven cranked up, and more like 20 minutes at most places. I've stood in front of the oven at Patsy's East Harlem and timed their pizza baking time, which averages between 90 and 120 seconds to bake a pizza. That gives some idea as to the difference in temperature.
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It's not clear to me that crème de noyaux is supposed to be almond liqueur. First, the French word for "almond" is amande not noyau, which means "pit" or "core" (interestingly, another meaning of amande is "kernel"). If you look at the history page for Noyau de Poissy, it says: "Quand et à qui vint l’idée d’utiliser l’amande si parfumée de l’abricot?" Taken together, it would seem that crème de noyaux is apricot kernel liqueur.
Hercules
in Spirits & Cocktails
Posted
The text in the poster appears to be Dutch.
Zuivere Druiven in the upper left hand corner means "pure grapes."
Versterkende Bloedwijn means "fortified bloodwine" -- indications are that Bloedwijn is an older name for a red herbal aperitif wine including cinchona.
Gewaarborgde Zuivere en Versterkende Kinawijn "Kloek" en "Sterk" means "guaranteed pure and fortified kina-wine 'brave' and 'strong'".
That's as much as I can figure out with my limited abilities. All signs point to something like red Dubonnet or Lillet being a good substitute, perhaps with an additional pinch of cinchona.