slkinsey

I'm not quite sure what you're asking here. A cooking vessel's overall heat capacity is determined by the specific heat and the amount of the materials of which the cooking vessel is composed. Since iron has a higher specific heat than aluminum by volume, a 1x10x10 cm piece of iron at a given temperature holds more thermal energy than a 1x10x10 cm piece of aluminum. In order for the aluminum piece to hold the same amount of thermal energy, it would have to be 1.45 cm thick. FWIW, technically a "Dutch oven" is not really what we're talking about. Those are designed (usually with feet and a special lid) to be used in cooking with live coals. Here's something that I had posted earlier: It's actually a little more complicated than that. Theoretically, a hot baking surface (thin sheet or thick stone) conducts (not radiates) heat into the cookies. How much heat it conducts into the cookies depends on how much heat it can hold. Since the thin cookie sheet has a minimal heat capacity and the baking stone has a high heat capacity, the stone conducts way more heat into the cookies. As a result, the cookies on the preheated stone should cook much faster (and much more on the bottom). This is for a hot baking stone, though. What about a cold stone put into a hot oven? Well, the flip side of thermal capacity is that the higher the capacity, the longer it takes to fill up with heat. If a cold thin cookie sheet and a cold baking stone go into the oven, there is a good chance that the cookies on the thin sheet will bake faster. This is because the stone has to suck up a lot of heat before it can effectively conduct heat back into the cookies (for a while it may actually absorb heat from the cookies). I have experienced this phenonenon many times while baking pies because I have a metal pie pan (low thermal capacity) and a ceramic pie pan (higher thermal capacity). The pie in the metal pan always cooks faster. How does this translate into oven braising? It could work in several ways. First, the pans with a higher thermal capacity work to keep the heat more even as the oven cycles on and off. Some people noted that the liquid in the foil container stopped simmering when the oven door was opened. This is because, when the oven stopped pouring heat into the cooking vessel, the foil container didn't have stored heat to fall back on and maintain the heat. Second, unlike when baking cookies, the braising vessels are in the oven long enough to come up to temperature completely long before the food is finished cooking. This means that they are all "filled up" with heat and conducting heat into the food inside, which is more efficient. It is likely that the heavier pans gave plenty of heat to the food items by direct conduction from the pan to the meat (as opposed to from the liquid to the meat), whereas the thin pans didn't have any extra heat to give this way. Third is the question of thermal conductivity. Boria_A noted that his copper vessel came up to temperature the fastest and stayed the hottest. This is not a surprise, because copper has excellent thermal conductivity at around 4.01 W/cm K. The aluminum and iron vessels also appear to have heated very well (it's harder to say much about the ceramic and pyrex vessels because they are much smaller than their metal counterparts). For the foil vessels, the metal part is so small and inconsequential in terms of thermal capacity relative to the contents that the thermal conductivity is effectively the thermal conductivity of the contents: mostly water. Well, water has terrible thermal conductivity, coming in at around 0.0058 W/cm K. The transfer of heat from the oven to the cooking vessel by conduction through the air and by radiation is incredibly inefficient. So it appears that there may be a real advantage to having a cooking vessel that is able to store a lot of heat and thus "free itself" from the constraints of this method of heat transfer, and instead rely upon its own inherrent heat properties to cook the contents inside of it. When the pan is all of one (or reasonably similar) construction, the thermal capacity of the lid effectively adds to the thermal capacity of the cooking vessel. It's all available heat that can be conducted from the lid down to the sides, etc. The lid does radiate some heat back into the environment, but I am not sure that this is nearly as significant as the contribution to the overall thermal capacity. The problems with the "iron lid with aluminum tray" model are 1. that it isn't all of one construction; and 2. that the most important part is the weakest part in terms of thermal properties. If, on the other hand, you added a 5 pound iron lid to a cooking vessel with reasonably good and reasonably similar properties (e.g., thick cast aluminum) it would make a difference, I think. The other advantage of a heavy lid is that it is more effective at keeping the steam inside. By mass, water has an excellent heat capacity. In fact, as explained above, it is the reference standard: water has a specific heat of 1. By volume, however, water's specific heat is nov very good. It's still 1, whereas aluminum 3003 alloy has 2.44 J/cm^3 K and iron us up at 3.53. This is because aluminum and iron are much more dense than water. The Law of Dulong and Petit relates thermal capacity to density in telling us that most materials have the same heat capacity per mole. You are correct, however, in suggesting that it is possible to use enough water to largely mitigate the differences between otherwise similar cooking vessels made from different materials with respect to oven braising. I think it would end up being a lot of liquid, though. Your experiment used far less than the real-world amounts in the various cooking vessels you tested, not really using them the way they were designed to be used. This may be one reason behind some of the observed differences. It's possible that the aluminum and iron casseroles, and perhaps even the foil tray, would produce much more similar results if each one had held 20 short ribs in 5 cm of liquid instead of 2 short ribs in 1.5 cm of liquid. FWIW, I am not entirely convinced we would find wide differences had the various cooking vessels been fully loaded. Yes, there is obviously a reasonable limit (although having an infinite heat source would theoretically be ideal). But we have to be careful not to do the old reductio ad absurdum thing. It's possible that a 30 pound braising pot would perform better than a 15 pound one with the same volume capacity. There does come a practical limit, of course. In the real world there is a tradeoff with thermal conductivity and heat capacity. A 500 pound iron pot would be prohibitively difficult to heat and would therefore probably be a less effective braising pot. Well, clearly it is important on the stovetop. How important it is in the oven is more difficult to say. The principle behind using a high thermal capacity/low conductivity cooking vessel is that once it hits the target temperature, it likes to stay there. Also, if two cooking vessels have the same heat capacity and different thermal conductivity, the vessel with lower thermal conductivity should come up to temperature more slowly all other things being equal. How significant this is in the context of an oven's extremely inefficient heat transfer is more difficult to say.

It's definitely true that one could construct an aluminum braising vessel that would have the same heat capacity as a similar iron braising vessel with the same internal dimensions without getting too whacky with the thickness. I did a few calculations and came up with the following: To have the same heat capacity, the body of an aluminum pan has to be 45% thicker than the body an iron pan However, since iron braising pans have heavy lids that increase the overall thermal mass considerably while aluminum braising pans do not, an aluminum braising pan has to be twice as thick as an iron braising pan to have the same thermal capacity. At the same heat capacity, the iron pan will weigh almost twice as much. With the lid removed, the iron pan weighs about 50% more than the aluminum pan. With a representative amount of braising material inside (e.g, 5 cm of liquid in an 28 cm diameter x 14 cm height casserole) the iron pan is around 55% heavier than the aluminum pan with the lid on, and around 27% heavier with the lid off. In the real world, of course, even a seemingly small difference like 27% can be significant because it is the absolute differences that matter. If one loaded pan weighs 4.5 pounds more than the other, that is likely to be what matters most when someone is trying to lift the pan. This is overall an advantage for aluminum. That's just the heat capacity, however. To my mind, there is an advantage to be gained in low/slow cooking by having a cooking vessel with lower thermal conductivity. For most any cooking task there are one or two optimal combinations of heat capacity and thermal conductivity. If we make the iron and aluminum vessels have the same heat capacity, then the main variable is thermal conductivity (3003 aluminum alloy is around 1.63 W/cm K compared to 0.8 for iron). On the other hand, some people love clay and ceramic for braising. These materials don't have anywhere near the heat capacity per cc of iron and aluminum, but may make up for that in the context of oven braising by having extremely low thermal conductivity. My other nitpick with anodized aluminum is that it's extremely difficult to keep clean. This is something that will become a factor in the context of low/slow dishes where food items may cook on to the surfaces of the pan for a long time. One of the nice things about enameled cast iron is that you can soak it overnight in the sink and most everything will come off. With anodized aluminum, I find that I have to scrub and scrub and scrub and scrub to get it clean.

What I am suggesting is that, in the real world, the walls of a Calphalon pot will never be thick enough that it has the same heat capacity as a Staub pot of the same internal diameter and height. Of some significance is the fact that the traditional enameled cast iron casserole has a very heavy iron lid, which adds to the overall thermal capacity of the pan. Yes, that might be true in certain circumstances. The deal with Corningware and Pyrex is that they have a low thermal capacity per unit volume because they have low density compared to metal. As a result they would need to be gigantically thick in order to match a cooking vessel with the same internal diameter and height in either iron or aluminum. What I'm reading from the lab results in terms of cooking vessels is that the traditional vessels seem to be the best choices. That means heavy enameled cast iron (and perhaps also clay/ceramic, for different reasons).

Steven, If I may, I will suggest my eGCI class on cookware for a more comprehensible and accurate description of what heat capacity is and how it applies to cookware. Here is a quotation from the relevant section: Where this pokes a hole in your "aluminum is best for braising due to heat capacity" argument is that, while aluminum does have a higher heat capacity then iron by weight, iron is so much more dense than aluminum that an iron vessel with approximately the same dimensions as an aluminum vessel will have a far greater heat capacity. In order for an aluminum braising pot to have the same (not better, just the same) heat capacity as an iron braising pot of the same size, it would have to be quite a bit thicker. Iron also has the significant advantage for low/slow cooking of having relatively poor thermal conductivity (aluminum has fairly high thermal conductivity). This means that, if the heat is removed from two "equal" braising pots, the aluminum pot will cool down more rapidly. Iron's low conductivity is especially beneficial for those who have an electric stove and wish to braise on the stovetop: although the burner may cycle on and off, the actual temperature of a heavy iron pot won't change that much.

As I said upthread, I think a gin martini is just about the worst way for the ginphobic person to approach of re-approach gin. Much better to try drinks in which gin is only one element among many, and then work your way up to a gin martini. Even then, some people who like gin never develop a taste for modern-style ultradry 8:1 gin martinis. Some recommendations: Audrey's Gin Gin Mule: gin, mint, lime, simple syrup, ginger beer. Probably the best introduction to gin I know. I have never known anyone who didn't love this drink. A Pegu Club Cocktail: gin, orange curaçao, lime juice, Angostura and orange bitters. I think you had one of these at my house recently. A Corpse Reviver #2: gin, Lillet Blanc, Cointreau, lemon juice, absinthe/pastis. A Monkey Gland: gin, orange, absinthe/pastis and grenadine (or the so-called "American Version" with Benedictine instead of absinthe/pastis).

Pan's comments, I think, come in the context of comparing Lombardi's to other NYC coal oven places like Patsy's East Harlem, not the local Ray's. Compared to typical American pizza, Lombardi's does an admirable job and is fairly sparing with the toppings. Compared to Patsy's, exactly the opposite. FWIW, I probably went to Lombardi's around 15 years ago, and I don't get the sense that they're doing things all that differently now.

La Valle makes both DOP and not-DOP.

So it's important that you taste the vodka? Vodka has virtually no taste. Certainly not one that is capable of being detected in the presence of other ingredients with a strong taste. Flavor (not the same thing as taste) is comprised of several different sensory perceptions such as taste, smell, temperature, texture (aka "mouthfeel") and something called "common chemical sense." For a fuller explanation of flavor and a discussion of how it relates to vodka, see my post here. Suffice it to say that vodka has very little taste, and indeed very little flavor -- relying on texture and "finish" (common chemical sense) for most of its distinctiveness. This is one reason that vodka is so commonly used in modern drinks: it adds alcoholic kick to just about any combination of flavors without bringing anything else to the table. This is the exact reason vodka is not highly favored by mixologists of the "new old school" with a more classical approach. This is one reason that using an expensive vodka in a Cosmopolitan is a "crime against alcohol." When you add vodka to a mixture of lime, cranberry and triple sec, all you're really doing is adding alcoholic kick. You can do this with just about anything, Take your favorite mix of fruit juices, maybe add a liqueur to sweeten it up, add plenty of vodka for alcoholic kick -- congratulations! you have created a popular new cocktail for the twentysomething set. If you use gin or rum instead, then you're adding flavor. Tess's remarks speak more to wanting to sense the presence of alcohol rather than tasting the vodka.

Yea, I can understand why a certain bottle might cost more or less in, e.g., Lenexa, Kansas compared to New York City. What is so odd to me is how a certain bottle can be sold at such radically different prices in the same town. I'm also a little surprised the Marie Brizard bottles are so expensive. I would have figured them at around $15 for 750 ml rather than $20+

With those ingredients, it sounds like a sure winner!

I made a great dish a few years ago that uses avocado in an unusual way. It's scallopine of veal, napped with a truffle cream sauce and then topped with thin cold slices of avocado. I think I got the idea from an issue of Saveur. Very tasty.

To be honest, I'm not sure the cold pan method (putting everything into a cold pan all at once and slowly taking it up to a simmer) works all that great for anything other than the simplest sauce. A key part of the technique for the cold pan sauce I usually make is that the extra vegetables (the onion and sometimes a few stalks of celery) are tossed out when the sauce is ready. They're just in there for flavoring. Puttanesca -- one of my favorites, and one I like with tons of evoo -- sort of depends on dissolving the anchovies in hot oil, doesn't it? The nice thing about the tomato/onion/butter cold pan sauce is that it also takes very little time/effort to make -- especially compared to some of the long-simmered Southern Italian sauces. You can chuck a can of San Marzano's into a pan with several tablespoons of butter, a hefty pinch of salt and a halved onion, set the burner on medium-low and come back 30-40 minutes later to a finished sauce. This preparation, more than any other I know, brings out the sweetness of high quality canned tomatoes. Afaik, Pesto alla Genovese contains some butter.

What is your basis for this?

Well, the location may have a lot to do with it. I suspected you might have a Southern perspective when you used the word "gravy," which seems to be used almost exclusively by Italian-Americans of Southern Italian extraction. Naples, of course, is smack in the middle of olive oil country. I have to assume that butter is only rarely used in the traditional cooking of that region. Since Naples is justly proud of its tomatoes and pasta asciutta -- and knowing the usual Italian orgoglio della zona -- it's not surprising that Napoletani/Baresi would insist on the local traditional methods of preparation and eschew butter. FWIW, I have tried making the simple "cold pan sauce" (tomatoes, fat and a halved onion) using both butter and evoo. In fact, I once did parallel batches so I could taste them side by side. They were both good, but entirely different. Most everyone agreed that the butter sauce was better. The butter areas, which also tend to be the fresh pasta areas. Bologna has Burro e Oro, for example. I wouldn't want a tomato and evoo sauce on tagliatelle.

Could be either one. Joe turned me on to the cold pan method, but I've talked about it quite a bit.

Interesting piece. I've had an amazing burger there. I should point out, not that it excuses their sloppiness on the occasion of Bruni's visit, that hamburgers are significantly more difficult to consistently cook to a given level of doneness (other than well done, of course), and especially when they are cooked in a broiler (which IMO is not the best way to cook a burger).

LindyCat, I'll have to run that by my doctor friend (who also happens to be diabetic) -- but it doesn't ring true to me.

It make such an amazing sauce! The recipe is from a Marcella Hazan cookbook. I'm sure it tastes fine and I should have guessed it was a Hazan recipe. However, she doesn't cook real Italian, at least in my opinion. She's more of an American-Italian icon. Marcella Hazan?! Have you read her books? She is anything but an icon of America-Italian food. Her Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking is considered the definitive English language cookbook on Italian cooking. I'm also not sure where you get the idea that butter and tomato in a pasta condiment isn't Italian. There is a very large area of Italy for which butter is the traditional lipid of choice. In fact, I would assert that there are many pasta sauces that cannot be properly made without using butter. I'm asking this with all due respect and out of curiosity: what is your basis for thinking that Hazan's recipes aren't "real Italian?" You've spent a lot of time in Italy cooking? Again, I mean no disrespect in asking this. It's just that I have spent a lot of time in Italy cooking, and her recipes seem plenty Italian to me. In re to the butter/olive oil thing, my perspective on this may have to do with the fact that I have spent a large percentage of my time in there in areas "on the border between butter country and olive oil country."

So... yesterday I had some time on my hands and decided to do a little booze shopping. I've been experimenting with a lot of drinks with triple sec and orange curaçao recently, which can get a little pricey when you use the top shelf brands. As a result I've been on the prowl for some Marie Brizard orange curaçao and triple sec. Most orange curaçao and triple sec from producers like Bols, Hiram Walker, De Kuyper, Leroux, et al. is sugary artificial crap. Marie Brizard products, on the other hand, are very high quality. Marie Brizard's orange curaçao and triple sec are often recommended as lower priced alternatives to Cointreau, etc. -- especially for drinks with enough other things going on that you are unlikely to taste the difference. The first odd part of this story is that I have had a very hard time even finding a place that sells Marie Brizard orange curaçao and triple sec. In fact, I still haven't seen any Marie Brizard orange curaçao for sale. Finally I saw some Marie Brizard triple sec at Warehouse Wines & Spirits. Here's the thing: they were charging 22 dollars for a 750 ml bottle. I noted that they were selling a liter bottle of Cointreau for 30 dollars. Using my amazing mathematical powers, I figured out that a liter of Cointreau would only cost me about 65 cents more than a liter of Marie Brizard triple sec. Now, Marie Brizard triple sec is good... but it ain't that good. When I pointed this out to the salesperson, he offered "well, it's imported..." as an excuse (I didn't bother mentioning that Cointreau is imported too). Needless to say, I bought the Cointreau. Was this an unusually high price for Marie Brizard triple sec? An incredible deal on Cointreau? I was expecting the price difference to be more like it is between Grand Marnier and GranGala (GranGala is less than half the price). Oh... and here's another head scratcher: I have been looking for Charbay Blood Orange vodka. Finally found some at Park Avenue Liquor Shop. They were charging $41 for a 750 ml bottle. No way am I spending $41 on a bottle of vodka. Last night I saw the same bottle at Astor Wines & Spirits for $27, and I didn't get the impression they were selling it as a loss leader. Any other stories of seemingly inexplicable price oddities?

Hey Jim! Glad you like the Falk and Sitram. I slide my heavy copper as well. In fact, it's a necessary part of sauteing. I don't think the scratches on the bottom will make a big difference over the life of the pan with normal home use. Maybe in a restaurant it would wear out the pan in 15 years. Maybe.

http://www.lcbo.ca/lcbo-ear/ProductResults...rs&ITEM_NUMBER= cool products, but really the wrong kind of bitters. The kind of bitters one typically dashes into a cocktail are nonpotable bitters, such as Angostura Bitters, Peychaud's Bitters and the various varieties of Fee Brothers Bitters (not to mention Gary Regan's upcoming Orange Bitters).

These look awesome. The "soup pots" look a lot more like what I would think of as bean pots, and they also seem to hold a lot more volume for the money.

FWIW: good description of "temperature surfing" technique here.

Broadway Panhandler, according to their ad is selling a 7.5 quart round oven for $140.

Re hominy and grits: They are different forms of the same thing. Hominy is simply dried corn that has been processed by soaking in lye or slaked lime. "Grits" originally meant any coarsely ground grain (wheat, oats, corn, rice, whatever). Technically, regular coarse cornmeal and semolina are both kinds of "grits." Way back folks said "hominy grits" when they were talking about coarsely ground hominy. But there is no escaping the fact that hominy grits is the most common kind, and "grits" has come to largely mean the same as "hominy grits." A similar thing has happened with "polenta" which has some to be understood by most people as a cornmeal-based dish when it can in fact be made with any kind of coarse grain. "Shrimp and hominy" is probably a more accurate description than "shrimp and grits" because one could serve a dish of shrimp and grits made with regular corn (aka polenta) and it would still be "shrimp and grits." "Shrimp and hominy" on the other hand, specifies corn that has been treated with lye or slaked lime.