slkinsey

I think we're confusing a few separate concepts here. To start, I will say that I'm right there with Russ in considering the talent and facility portion first and foremost. It strikes me as a simple fact that some people are more talented at coming up with fabulous dishes than others. The old saw that 'genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration" is correct in this case because talent depends on education, practice, experience and hard work for its full expression. However, the more one is around any creative field (or perhaps any field of any kind) it becomes apparent that even though 100 people may accumulate the same experience and education, and even though they may all work just as hard, one or two of those guys will turn out product that is far superior to the other nintey-nine. This is talent. In the professional kitchen, talent is most easily demonstrated in the creative arena: coming up with the dishes. This is like Verdi writing an opera, which we all agree is a more significant aspect of the art form than the interpretation of his compositions by performers. There is also a talent aspect to executing the composition (singing/playing the opera, cooking the dishes, etc.). Again, it is a simple fact that some people are better able to do these things than most other people, despite equal education, training, commitment and hard work. If this weren't true, then anyone could play in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra if he worked long and hard enough. This is where it makes sense to narrow the comparison a bit. It really doesn't make sense to compare restaurant cooks to singers, because so much of what goes into a singer's talent is genetically/physiologically mediated -- this is not true for a restaurant cook. Similarly, it doesn't make sense to compare a restaurant cook to a soloist, because a big part of being a soloist is interpreting the composition in a highly personal and individual way -- this is also not true for a restaurant cook. It does make sense, perhaps, to compare a restaurant cook to a musician in an orchestra. A violinist in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra does not "interpret the composition" himself. His job is to assist the conductor in executing the conductor's interpretation of the composition, and the more skilled the orchestral violinist, the better he is able to perform this function. If the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra plays 1,000 performances of La bohème with 100 different conductors, there will be 100 different interpretations. Still, however, out of many hundreds of equally hard working violinists, only very few can play in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. The difference? Talent. In many senses, the head chef of a restaurant is like a composer and conductor all combined (this was fairly standard in classical music as well, back in the day). The cooks are the orchestra. I am not sure why we assume that playing in an orchestra demands talent and cooking in a restaurant kitchen doesn't. I find it interesting that most of us in the "creative arts" readily assume that four-star-caliber cooking requires talent in addition to expertise and experience. Most likely this is because it is readily apparent to us in our daily work that expertise and experience only aren't good enough to reach the highest level. I would never suppose I could execute a Charlie Trotter dish as well as a cook on his staff. In fact, I would never suppose I could execute my own Thanksgiving dinner as well as a cook on Charlie Trotter's staff. A lot of this is experience, of course -- that Charlie Trotter's guy has cooked thousands more high-level dishes than I. But I also have to consider the fact that, even if I had cooked the same number of high-level dishes, there's a good chance that the Charlie Trotter's guy is simply a more talented cook than I. This, also, is a barrier to cooking "four star" food in my home kitchen. Unless we suppose that "most anyone" can execute music on a level with a Metropolitan Opera Orchestra violinist with enough training and experience, why should we suppose the same thing is true with respect to a four star restaurant cook? For someont to say that they "don't believe that the line cooks at The French Laundry have much of anything that a talented and experienced home cook does not" is just like saying "I don't believe the violinists in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra have much of anything that a talented and experienced amateur violin player does not." Even that ignores the fact that the cooks at the French Laundry and the violinists at in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra have infinitely more experience than their amateur counterparts.

Yup. Plus it seems that quite a few people (or the ones I know anyway) are squeamish about sausage in general and take a don't ask don't tell approach. Serving them a stuffed pig's leg, hoof and all would put them over the edge. For the record, the "stuffed pig's leg, hoof and all" is a zampone, not a cotechino. Cotechino is just a large, highly spiced pork sausage. The filling is, I think, pork shoulder/neck/cheek and pork rind from the snout and cheek. It's got a lot of rind in it -- around the same amount of rind as meat. In fact, the name "cotechino" comes from "cotica" (pork rind).

What?! Next thing you know, they're going to replace the Citgo sign. Do they at least still have the good falafel truck over by MIT?

Well, I tried it. Reaction? <shrug> I wonder if the published formula is not entirely correct. 2.5 ounces of gin to a whopping 1.5 ounces of fresh lime juice (with only a half-ounce of simple syrup to balance) makes for what I would call a "new school gimlet." It's very sour, although just balanced enough to be drinkable. It also tastes so strongly of lime that even the gin barely comes through. The orange blossom water makes its presence felt every so often, but as a very mild aftertaste that tends to be lost in the overwhelming flavor of lime. I'd like to try this drink with half the lime juice.

A lot of fish is imported into the US fresh. Whether the restaurant chooses to cook it or serve it raw is another matter. I don't think it's that simple. Whether something looks fresh, tastes fresh and can be called fresh depends on a great many things... and never having being frozen is not necessarily among them. In any event, we are straying too far from discussion that is relevant to Masa. If we would like to continue to discuss the use of frozen fish for sushi, etc. there is a thread referenced above that would be more appropriate.

In re to bourbons: For mixing my "house pour" is Maker's Mark. I think you'll be hard pressed to find a better combination of price and quality in a bourbon -- just good enough for sipping, excellent for mixing. Jim Beam Black is also a very good and reasonably priced bourbon if you want to go in the rye direction instead of the wheat direction. In re to blended American or Canadian: In my opinion, there is no such thing as a "sipping blended American or Canadian whiskey." To me, these are mixing spirits only. With that in mind, you could taste Seagram's 7 for American, and Seagram's VO or Canadian Club Classic for Canadian. Personally, I'd rather use Makers than any of these, though.

From today's Shaken & Stirred column by William L. Hamilton: When I first saw the name of this drink, I was expecting to see a cocktail that used capers. Pantelleria is famous for capers, and most dishes "alla Pantelleria" feature capers as a primary ingredient. The cocktail was developed by Pace beverage director Peter Botti. 2.5 oz : gin (Plymouth is recommended) 1.5 oz : fresh lime juice 0.5 oz : simple syrup 4 drops : orange blossom water Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with orange twist. I think I have all these ingredients at home, so I'm going to give this a shake later tonight.

From Marsha (zilla369) Lynch's excellent eGCI course on basic knife skills are these two pictures of a "pinch grip" on a chef's knife: Is this pretty much a universally accepted way to hold a chef's knife? Or are there variations? Just curious... As far as I know, the pinch grip is the "classic" way to hold a chef's knife, and is what is taught in culinary schools, etc. This is the grip you will see most professional cooks using, as well as the pro-trained cooks on television programs, etc. In my experience, the pinch grip offers a lot more control and confidence with a chef's knife than holding the handle. This is especially true if the "handle holder" puts his or her index finger on the spine of the knife, which makes the grip even more unstable. I firmly believe that most people who are uncomfortable with a large (e.g., 10-inch) chef's knife are made uncomfortable due to an inherently unstable and unwieldy handle grip.

Sorry maybe this is a newbie question, but if you don't hold a chef's knife by the handle, how do you hold it? From Marsha (zilla369) Lynch's excellent eGCI course on basic knife skills are these two pictures of a "pinch grip" on a chef's knife: Front view View from the other side of the knife

See, this is where the whole question of "what is four star" food comes into play. In the context of this discussion, "four star" means "the kind of food as executed in the top-rated, fanciest and most expensive restaurants in the world." There is simply no way a four star restaurant would serve an insalata caprese. Or, if they did, it would be tweaked in some unique and fancy and complicated way. And it would involve specially grown and absolutely perfect heirloom tomatoes and microbasil. And the mozzarella would be life-changingly fresh, made in house from organic milk just out of the rare breed cow. That kind of thing. A tomato fresh from the garden with a drizzle of oil and a sprinkle of salt is delicious. But it's one star cuisine at best.

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.