slkinsey

I'm with Russ on this one. As detailed here, I just spent around ten days of preparation and hard work to produce what I suppose I'd call a solid two-star multicourse Thanksgiving dinner for 11 people. I wouldn't want to do any more work than that, and it pushed the envelope of what my kitchen can do to the absolute limit. Four star Keller/Ducasse/Trotter food from my kitchen? Maybe theoretically possible, but why? Actually, I think it's almost impossible. Think of all the pieces that have to fall in place: 1. Are you a four star caliber cook? Do you think you can tell when a sauce is absolutely perfect the way Delouvrier can? 2. Are you going to be doing all the cooking and plating? If so, that's a limitation. If not, are your various assistants up to the four star level? It's quite common that several people will work on one plate at the four star level. 3. Related to the above, do you have the experience and the personnel to get everything plated and out to the diners in peak condition? 2. What about sourcing the ingredients? 3. How's your stove? Only four burners? That's a limitation. 4. No salamander? That's a limitation. 5. Only one oven (or only two)? That's a limitation. 6. How about things like keeping the plates warm, etc. How are you going to manage that? 7. etc. The further one gets into this list, the more one understands that four star cuisine is designed to be made by people with extensive, expensive and often specialized equipment being used by plentiful and highly trained personnel. Is it theoretically possible to do this in a home kitchen? Sure, I guess... if you have an eight burner Garland stove, three ovens, a salamander, a battery of top level cookware, and a zillion kinds of dishes... and, oh yea, provided you are a really accomplished cook and have several other accomplished cooks helping you. But I doubt very much that Alain Ducasse himself would be able to produce "four star cuisine" in my NYC apartment kitchen (despite the fact that everything but my stove is very high end) without an absolutely Herculean and ultimately Pyrrhic effort.

If we would like to have a more extensive discussion of restaurant pricing beyong the context of Masa, someone should probably start a new thread. Certainly there is much to be said on that subject. For the time being, I will offer this one thought: $500 for a restaurant dinner means different things to different people. To me, and for many of us here I gather, this would represent a significant expenditure. I would go into the restaurant expecting a once-in-a-lifetime peak-experience kind of meal in exchange for my once-in-a-lifetime restaurant meal expenditure. For other people, five hundred dollars for a restaurant meal just doesn't mean that much to them. And make no mistake, there are a lot more of these people around than you might think, and they're all a short Learjet ride away from places like Masa and ADNY. For these people, the gustatory return they expect on their $500 investment isn't the same. Indeed, they may not expect a substantial difference between a $500 meal and a $200 meal. They don't need to have a life-changing culinary experience for their five hundred bucks. This is the reason why people like me are well advised to choose carefully when going to places like ADNY, because some of the dishes are life-changing and some are just really, really good -- and I'm only going to feel like I got my money's worth if I order the former. At a restaurant like Masa, fundamentally all they serve is great quality fish and rice. It's going to be hard for someone like me to justify paying five hundred bucks for a meal at Masa when I could get one at a marginally lower level for half the price. No one seems to be saying that Masa is twice as good as the competition, and with this kind of elemental food it's harder to tell the difference between, e.g., Sushi Yasuda and Masa as it is between, e.g., Landmarc and ADNY. But for someone who drops that kind of money without feeling pain, or for someone who has other motivations (professional, personal) to unflinchingly drop that kind of money on a meal on a semi-regular basis... it's probably worth it.

There is no booze in this?

I have small cocktail glasses, so I normally shoot for 2.5 ounces. Very interesting. Ma come mai puoi leggere Italiano? Hai bisogno di un traduttore?

D'oh! You're right, alphaiii. I was thinking of Van Gogh Triple Sec "Superieur." Marie Brizzard is fine, I think, for many cocktails that call for Cointreau. But I don't think it's right for cocktails like the Sidecar where the quality of the triple sec is really apparent, and the Sidecar is one such drink IMO. Similar things might be said of certain brands of gin, which work great for most cocktails but are not preferred for martinis.

Russ, I agree. There is definitely something to be said for the soft carbon steel knives that dull quickly but sharpen back up to razor sharpness equally quickly. It all depends on the user's preferences. If your Wusthoff seems soft to you, try an old Sabatier carbon steel knife. My dendritic steel knives are super hard, which is great... but I still wish they weren't so hard when it comes to sharpening time, and as a result have occasionally let them get a little dull on me.

Right here, to make one example. You can get a super-badass 9.5 inch K6 for $161 US, which is substantially less expensive than the $210 9.4 inch Misono UX10 gyutou. In fact, I am in communication with the maker right now, so stay tuned for a "limited edition eGullet Society knife" in the next month or two.

Me wonders if Triple Sec would be an acceptable in-between. I know not how it would compare in price and taste in a Sidecar. IMO, if you're talking about an elemental and uncomplicated drink like the Sidecar, the quality of the ingredients makes a huge difference. Cointreau is the original triple sec, of course. In fact, the name "triple sec" comes from the fact that the Cointreau bottle used to say "triple sec" on the front and copycat companies put the name on their bottles too (see an old bottle of Cointreau here). So, we're really talking about the difference between using a really good triple sec and not-so-good triple sec. In my opinion, there are some recipes where one can get away with using a good quality "regular" triple sec like Marie Brizzard. But for the simple classics like the Sidecar, only a top-level triple sec will do. This means Cointreau or, almost as good but a lot less expensive, GranGala. Anything less will be a noticable drop off, IMO.

And in the "answer your own question" department, I found this page. Is this the way most people make it at home (albeit in a round skillet)?

This is very interesting! Could someone explain (and maybe even illustrate) the technique for making atsuyaki tamago? How is this different from making a French omelette? It looks like it is a bunch of very thin layers of egg all folded together and somehow made into a kind of "log" shape? What's the process. Are they usually consumed cold?

Kevin, have you ever considered doing a zampone? They make those at Salumeria Biellese, too. I am thinking of doing a big bollito misto party when it gets cold, and will definitely be getting one of those bad boys from Biellese.

Very interesting Dave! Kudos on the concept and design. You do have a technical problem to overcome there with the gravy if you want it to be thinner so it runs out of the cake. My advice would be forego the starch-thickened gravy and use instead a sauce that is thickened by reduction. In my T2W recipe, I braise the dark meat in wine, port and rich turkey stock, then I strain out the solids and reduce the braising liquid by around 3/4 to make the sauce (which is then mounted with plenty of butter). There is some starch in the sauce, but really very little. This sauce is solid at refrigerator temperature due to the gelatin, but liquid at room temperature once it has been melted. If you used a sauce like this rather than a starchy gravy you would get the rich taste and mouthfeel, and it would definitely run out when the potato cake was opened. Another thought is that the uniquitous "molten chocolate cake" is usually made in a shallow mold that looks something like this. These molds can usually be had fairly inexpensively, don't take up much room, are designed to look great turned out, and are perfect any time you want to make individual desserts for a dinner party. The advantage of having the slopiong sides and an overall shorter cake is that you don't have to worry about the structural integrity as much. This means a higher gravy-to-potato ratio is possible.

Their online catalogue didn't list it as something they had. They have it. Give them a call.

I like to do sauteed chicken livers glazed in balsamic vinegar. Just take some balsamic vinegar and boil it down until reduced by half to two-thirds. Trim up the livers. You can marinade them in a touch of brandy for a while if you like (I do). Then get a frypan screaming hot on the stove, toss in plenty of butter and the livers and stard shaking. Don't crowd the pan. It's better to use two pans than crowd one. Anyway, stand over the pan and poke the livers with a finger from time to time. After a minute or two, they will suddenly go from gloopy-soft to just-firm. Pay close attention, because this change can happen very quickly. This is the magic "just cooked through and pink in the middle" chicken liver stage. Act fast, because it doesn't last long! Chicken livers cooked beyond this point aren't "bad" per se, but they aren't as magically good either. Toss in enough of the reduced balsamic vinegar to coat the livers well and get it onto a plate pronto. Serve with slices of white peasant bread to soak up the sauce.

Call Salumeria Biellese in Manhattan.

Hmm... Interesting. So, what people seem to be saying is that there are three attractions to a gyutou: 1) no bolster; 2) specialty steel; and 3) thinner/lighter. The shape of the knife seems to be a Western shape, so there's not difference there. Does that about sum it up? Given the above, these seem pretty similar to custom Western knives, which often have a similar or lower price. For example, you will note that my chef's knives don't have a bolster, which is often the case with Western custom knives. My knives are also made of super-hard cast dendritic steel, and Western custom knives are often made of special metals. The main difference I can see is that my knives are extra-thick (definitely thicker than a Wusthhof) and the Japanese knives are most often thin. People will differ in whether they prefer a heavy knife or a light one (I like heavy) and one can always, of course, prefer one specialty metal over another. When I go to Japanese-Knife.com and search for "gyutou," the knives don't look all that exotic. Not sure about needing the bolster to balance the knife. I though a full tang and a properly weighted handle took care of that.

Interesting. Looking at this UX10 here, it doesn't look fundamentally different in design from my custom cast dendritic steel knives: These always struck me as fundamentally Western shapes. What makes a gyutou different?

Just a few more pictures by popular demand, then I'm handing over the reins. These address the question of my culinary roots and the the depth of my entertaining experience... I am a foodie from way back I was often to be seen about the kitchen As you can see, I am quite the dinner party veteran Yea, I've been hitting the sauce for a few years, too Although it did take me a few years before I could hold my liquor But at least I've always been able to appreciate a good bottle of Haut Brion (that's my father in the back) Thanks, everyone!

Ooh, interesting! Dimmi di questo gin.

I like to make mine with the same ratios as Janet and Dave, but a smaller drink: 1 oz gin, .75 oz campari and .75 Carpano Punt e Mes instead of regular sweet vermouth. In general, I'd rather have two small drinks instead of one big one. From a purely historical standpoint, isn't the formula favored by Janet, Dave and myself a Camparinete, or was that just its original name?

Guys, it's been fun. My thanks to everyone for their kind comments and enthusiasm. I hope I've provided some inspiration, and if nothing else I hope I've shown that you don't have to be a Ducasse-trained chef to pull off a complex, multicourse dinner party. All it takes is planning. If there are any questions or requests, please post today and I'll see what I can do. Thanks again!

"Nurse Cocktail"! I love that. And why not "Anesthesiologist Cocktail"?

Good points, Robert. I should have mentioned the difference between "potable bitters" and "nonpotable bitters." My comments were, of course, directed towards the latter -- which is to say, the kind of bitters one uses in drops and dashes as a flavoring. Interesting to hear that "potability" was keeping Gary's bitters off the market, and very glad to hear that it will be on the market soon. I predict a rash of cocktails designed around orange bitters upon its release.

I don't think any place is in the same league as Peter Luger with respect to the quality of the steak. So the other places are competing on the basis of, "sides, wine list, atmosphere and service much better; steak not quite as good." I'm not sure it qualifies as "obscure," but Fat Guy and I had a very good meal at Ben Benson's not too long ago that fit that bill.

Now, I hope no one out there with the Doc's book is cheating!