slkinsey
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And more fat.
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My 12" pan is copper ... but I don't try to toss that thing around. I like the stainless finish for sauté/fry pans (more than a spun steel pan, for instance) because I really like the stainless cooking surface for deglazing and making pan sauces. For the way I cook it's a kind of best compromise.
Yea, a lot of people find copper frypans too heavy for the "flipping" technique. I don't find this too much of an issue, but then again I have Popeye forearms and, as I posted above, I don't often use the "flipping" technique anyway since I like to sauté in a sauté pan.
Now that I think about it, I wonder what the real weight difference is between identical pieces of All-Clad Stainless and MasterChef. Some quick math indicates that the difference is likely to be less than 100 grams (3.5 ounces) for an 20 cm frypan. Of course, this difference would go up for larger sizes. Not that this is definitive, but Amazon.com's listed weights are the same for the same sizes of All-Clad Stainless and MasterChef fry pans.
I don't believe the extra layer of stainless steel makes much difference. It might be measureable, but it has so little thickness and so little mass that we can still think of the all clad pan as being aluminum. The stainless series is just a thinner piece of aluminum than the MC.I'm not sure I agree with this. It might be reasonable to assume that the pan is "all thermal material" when it is a stainless lined heavy copper pan, but definitely not for the All-Clad Stainless pan. Consider that 48% of the thermal capacity is attributed to stainless steel. That's a lot! Especially compared to 18% for MasterChef. Or, to think about it another way, if you were to take a sideways slice of an All-Clad stainless pan, 36% the thickness would be stainless steel compared to only 12% for MasterChef and 8% for stainless lined heavy copper. Again, that's not nothing. It's not just that the Stainless pan has a thinner piece of aluminum, it has a thinner piece of aluminum plus twice as much stainless steel.
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Phil, from a technical performance standpoint, it's all a wash. Bourgeat and Mauviel purchase their copper/stainless bimetal from Falk Culinair. In addition, Bourgeat's copper/stainless pans are actually manufactured by Mauviel. (All the stainless lined heavy copper brands -- Falk, Bourgeat, Mauviel -- are better than All-Clad Copper Core and Cop-R-Chef, of course.)
This is not to say that one can't prefer a certain stainless lined heavy copper design better than another. Differences include flared lip versus straight lip, different handle anchor points, different handle shapes, different finishes and different pan geometries (although they are all very similar in terms of geometry). The question you have to ask yourself is whether these differences in design are worth the differences in price. Sometimes it may me, sometimes it may not be -- keeping in mind that cooking performance will be more or less identical.
If you've got your heart set on Bourgeat and are already familiar with these pans, my experience is that you are likely to get the best deals over the internet. Just make sure you don't shell out for super-expensive copper/stainless bimetal lids (they're a pain in the butt, and don't contribute to performance at all), and make sure you're getting 2.5 mm thickness (I think Bourgeat is only available in 2.5 mm, but I've seen some internet sellers offering low prices on "2.5 mm" Mauviel designs that are only produced in 2.0 mm).
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I agree with Paul's main premise, which is that the pans will perform differently depending on what you are looking for. The main difference, however, I believe is one of maintenance: All-Clad Stainless is dishwasher-safe, and you trade off some performance in order to have this feature.
The MC pan will behave more like commercial aluminum, calphalon, etc.; it will heat very evenly, retain a fair amount of heat, and have medium responsiveness (somewhere between copper and iron)."Somewhere between copper and iron" is an awfully large range. In use most people will find aluminum cookware to be "responsive" and cast iron cookware to be "not responsive." (More on this below.)
The stainless will heat less evenly (probably only noticeable on a large pan), will retain less heat, and respond quickly. The responsiveness is more like copper.It's debatable in my mind as to whether an All-Clad Stainless pan will come up to temperature and respond more rapidly compared to MasterChef. This is primarily due to the fact that the Stainless line contains twice as much stainless steel, which material has very poor thermal conductivity. I did some calculations assuming a 20 cm (8 inch) frypan, and found that the thermal capacity of the two pans was fairly close, with the MasterChef pan at 4,888 and the Stainless pan at 4,109. This would tend to favor the Stainless pan in responsiveness. However, 48% of the Stainless pan's thermal capacity is contributed by stainless steel compared to only 18% for the MasterChef pan. Stainless steel has extremely poor thermal conductivity compared to aluminum (0.16 W/cm/K versus 2.27 for aluminum) and I have to believe this will have a significant effect on performance.
I'm also not sure I'd say the responsiveness would be at all "like copper." A 20 cm copper frypan would have a thermal capacity similar to that of the MasterChef pan (4,814) but only 9% of this capacity is attributable to stainless steel. Considering copper's much higher thermal conductivity (4.01 W/cm/K), it's going to have much better responsiveness than either the Stainless or MasterChef pan, while also benefitting from the higher thermal capacity of the MasterChef pan.
In comparison, the same 20 cm frypan in cast iron would have a thermal capacity of 4,977, and with low thermal conductivity to move all that thermal energy around (0.8 W/cm/K) it would respond quite slowly. (I assumed a 3 mm thickness for the cast iron pan. For a thicker cast iron pan, the responsiveness would be even slower.)
I don't have any experience with all clad sauce pans or big sauté pans, but I have their stainless 10" frying pan. For fast sautéeing, I prefer its responsiveness and tossability to that of my commercial weight aluminum pansFor true sautéing, where the ingredients are frequently tossed around in the pan, a lighter weight can be handy and you're not as concerned about hot spots. If I used the "pan flipping" technique frequently, I'd probably be inclined towards a large heavy gauge carbon steel frypan rather than an All-Clad frypan. However, I like to use an actual sauté pan with low straight sides, which allows me to move the ingredients around simply by shaking the pan back and forth on the burner grate (this is why sauté pans have straight sides). The advantage of using a sauté pan that you're not going to be "flipping" for this technique is that you can get something with a gigantic thermal pad on the bottom (e.g., 7 mm of aluminum) to really blast heat into the sautéed ingredients.
My only (minor) misgiving [with the All-Clad Stainless frypan] is that compared with the heavier pans, it seems to conduct more heat up the sides, so I spend more time scraping browned bits off the sides when I reduce pan sauces. This seems counterintuitive, but it's prettty consistent.This is likely hot spots due to the high percentage of stainless steel.
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I do think it's worth noting that the gelato at Otto is probably better than anything you can get in an NYC gelateria (though I haven't tried the Grom product), but that's sort of like saying the bread at Daniel or Per Se is better than the bread at any bakery. It's an interesting piece of information but sort of a mix-and-match when it comes to ranking like kinds of establishments. I was more hoping to establish a gelateria pecking order, not one that includes all the restaurants and packaged supermarket products (whether they come from the same vendors or not). If we are going to discuss restaurant gelato, though, let's make a real list, not one with just one restaurant on it.
The thing about Otto is that you can walk in the the front room and have only gelato (which accounts for something like 90% of the times I've been to Otto). This doesn't seem meaningfully different from going into a gelateria. In fact, it's not too much of a stretch to describe the front room of Otto as a gelateria. If you're going to exclude restaurants -- and I can understand your logic for doing so -- then I would argue that it makes sense only to exclude ones where gelato is only or primarily available at a table after dinner. If you can walk up to a counter and order a gelato, I'd say they should be able to compete. Similarly, if Per Se had a separate window (like Balthazar does) where you could buy their bread, I't say they could compete against Sullivan Street and Amy's, et al. for "best bread bakery."
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I don't know of any official definitions of gelato. Maybe they're out there, but I haven't seen them. I know ice cream is rigorously defined by the USDA and that the 10% milk fat minimum is the cornerstone of the guidelines. But that doesn't mean something isn't gelato if it has 10% or more milk fat -- it just means it's ice cream too.
Gelato is simply the Italian word for "ice cream." Well, actually it's a little more complicated than that. It's the past participle of the verb gelare, which means "to freeze over" or "to freeze." So technically gelato simply means "frozen." From this we get latte gelato, meaning "frozen milk." In the sense that it is used to mean "ice cream," the milk part became "understood" and the adjective became the noun standing in for the whole phrase.
Anyway... in America, gelato has come to mean "Italian-style ice cream." There are several things that distinguish gelato from ice cream. In Italy, gelato is made from rich whole milk instead of cream. It is also frozen and held at a higher temperature, and is considerably more dense. This results in a different experience from American ice cream. Both American ice cream and Italian gelato have a light component and a rich component, but they are reversed. American ice cream, traditionally made with a high fat content and frozen at lower temperatures, derives its lightness from the air that is beaten into the cream as it freezes. The richness, of course, comes from the high fat content. Italian gelato, on the other hand, made from milk and frozen at low temperature, derives its lightness from a relatively low fat content. The richness comes from the low air content/density, which is created both by the fact that you can't whip air into milk and by the higher freezing temperature.
Personally, and I haven't tried Grom yet, I don't think that any gelato in NYC holds up next to quotidian Italian gelato, except for Laboratorio and Otto. Even the "just good" places in Italy seem to make their product daily and use fresh, seasonal ingredients.
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Yea, IMO mint syrup has a kind of off-flavor -- especially if hot-extracted, which makes it taste "cooked" -- and the flavor also deteriorates rather quickly.
I'm also not sure that the Julep is meant to have "maximum mint." Rather, it should have just a hint of mint, along with the other flavors. And, as others have observed, if the mint is handled to aggressively, it releases bitter flavors that have to be balanced with additional sweetness. This treatment has most likely led to the "bourbon-flavored sweet mint snow cone" school of overly sweet Juleps.
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cookman, for what purpose do you want to make this Baily's knockoff? To give as a gift or to drink on your own at home?
If the latter, the future Mrs. slkinsey turned me on to the best alternative, which is simply to gather together the Irish whiskey of your choice, fresh cream and sugar. Get some ice as well, if you're inclined (we're not). Then mix together as you like it in a rocks glass and enjoy. This is 1,000% better than any bottled Irish Cream you'll ever have, purchased or homemade.
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Here's another thought: I once saw Alton Brown advocating pre-heating a cast iron skillet to "NASA hot" temperatures in the oven before using it to sear duck.
Unfortunately, in saying this Alton is showing some limits in understanding for the way these things work. A cast iron skillet in a 550 degree oven will never get over 550 degrees. I can almost guarantee you that you can get a cast iron skillet over 550 on a stove burner turned to full blast if you leave it on there a good long time.
Keep in mind that super-high temperatures are hot enough to burn the seasoning right off your pans. This is a good reason to keep cast iron destined for this kind of use unseasoned.
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What I find interesting in the Grimes review to which Nathan linked is how much of that writing is focused on the food. It's striking, compared to what we're getting now. At a casual glance, I'd say that the writing is a little over half directly focused on the food and wine, and maybe 15% each on the service, decor/atmosphere and history of the restaurant/chef. This is in comparison to the Bruni reviews, which seem to give more space to scene/decor than anything else, with "Frank being clever" coming in at a close second and food somewhere at the bottom.
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Put a few chunks of dry ice in the bottom of the freezer. Unless you're there mixing drinks for 5 hours, you'll be fine.
As for the glassware, considering that it's warm weather, you could save yourself a lot of trouble by doing exclusively long drinks. Somehow, tooling around someone's backyard with something like a Gin Gin Mule seems more appropriate than holding a cocktail glass with a shaken "up drink" in it.
How many people are you talking about here?
I'd also suggest that it makes sense to settle on one or two classic cocktails you can batch, rather than trying to show up there prepared to play bartender and make a zillion different drinks a la minute to order.
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Meat mallet. Baseball bat. Small cast iron pan. Hefty muddler. Hammer. Cat. Rolling pin. Whatever. The important thing is that you want to end up with minimal bejeezus when you're done.
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Enamaled carbon steel is usually a much thinner gauge than uncoated carbon steel. I do not recommend it at all.
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Dave! That's no solution. Clearly you need a dedicated freezer in which to make gigantic blocks of ice.
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Translation: "We're having a hard time converting over the data from our Pascal-formatted reel-to-reel tape drives."
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I'm still not sure I buy the "stretching the sensation" thing. You're saying that you think the addition of sugar lengthens the duration of time the flavor is sensed? The duration of the finish? Both?
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In America, "proof" is simply %abv * 2
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Note that Plymouth Navy Strength "100 Proof" is actually 57% abv.
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if its too cold is your tongue too numb to taste any of it....like an over chilled white wine??
I think the evidence is that it's still possible to taste a Julep just fine even after it has reached a low thermal equilibrium. Certainly there is an effect in which flavor sensations are changed by low temperatures, and overall "more" things will be tastable at warmer temperatures. But that's not always a bad thing.
isn't the theory of adding sugar to a fine spirit to stretch the flavor on your tongue so you can have more time to experience the nuance?I don't think so... Do people really think that adding sugar to room temperature cognac would give tasters "more time to experience the nuance"? I've never heard that theory.
One reason to add sugar to cocktails is that perceptions of sweetness are inhibited by low temperatures. Therefore, a spirit that tastes balanced at room temperature may not hafe sufficient sweetness to be balanced when it is chilled. This is easily observable at home. Take a couple ounces of rye whiskey and tip in a short dash of bitters. Taste it at room temperature. It tastes just right. Now, dump the rest of the whiskey and bitters mixture into a shaker of ice and shake the crap out of it. Strain and taste it again. Suddenly it doesn't have enough sweetness to be balanced. This is why a Whiskey Cocktail includes teaspoon or so of thick simple syrup -- to bring the chilled drink back into balance. When the cocktail warms up, voilà!: it is now too sweet.
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Doesn't the UK do alvohol by weight and not by volume? 35% ABW works out to 43.75 ABV, or 87.5 proof.
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ChefCrash, when employing your "fast way" it seems that you would never completely cut through the onion, especially at the root end. Or am I missing something? Is the idea that you don't really need to cut through that part of the onion owing to the natural divisions it will have as it approaches the "half way point"?
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Too strong? No such thing.
Heh. I agree.
Seems like, from what you describe, that extra-fine ice would be important if you're going to make it in a 12 ounce glass.
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So, this raises an interesting question: are we making our Juleps too strong? Dave, your recipe calls for 3.5 ounces of booze in an 8 ounce glass. Jerry calls for 3 ounces in a 12 ounce glass. How would that work? Would it have been the case that there was a lot more melting (and thus a weaker overall drink) back in the 18C? Or would the strength have been about the same, and there would have been several inches of "dry" crushed ice on the top of the drink?
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Put me down for no sugar.
And I second Erik, Ted's article was a good one. Interesting tidbit: the original Rickey was a Rye Rickey.
Finding Matfer Bourgeat Copper in Manhattan
in New York: Cooking & Baking
Posted
A few things:
In my opinion, you do not want tin-lined copper. It looks like a bargain, but re-tinning is very expensive and tin linings are not durable. For one, tin melts at around 550F, which means that high heat cooking is more or less out of the question.
The main producers of stainless lined heavy copper available in the US are Bourgeat, Falk Culinair and Mauviel. They are all available in 2.5 mm thickness. Mauviel has several different thicknesses available with a stainless lining: 2.5 mm "Cuprinox"; 2.0 mm "Cuprinox Gourmet" and "Style" (the latter with stainless steel handles; and "Pour la Table" aka "Table Service." The latter is for table serice only, and is not intended for stovetop cooking. So it is possible that you have handled some of the "Gourmet" or "Table Service" Mauviel, which is indeed lighter gauge. That said, the heavy gauge "Cuprinox" is just as thick as Falk Culinair and Bourgeat.
I own pieces of stainless lined heavy copper from all the manufacturers, and lean towards Falk Culinair. I like the fact that they have a brushed finish on the exterior, which makes it easy to keep them bright with Bar Keeper's Friend and a Scotch Brite pad (although, of course, tarnished copper cooks just as well). I like the smaller rivets. I like the flared lips. Most of all, I like the fact that Falk was responsible for rationalizing the US prices for stainless lined heavy copper cookware (Bourgeat's list price on an 11 inch "flared saute pan" was something like $580 back in 1999) and I like doing business their North American distributor.