slkinsey
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Posts posted by slkinsey
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At the end of the evening, after a few drinks, Burke suggested I try the "Bronx style" veal filet chop (for lack of a better description) and I thought it was terrific though undersalted: it had the tenderness of a filet but the flavor of meat cooked on the bone.
Interesting... I really enjoyed all the little bites (loved the oysters), but the veal "fillet mignon" dish didn't do so much for me. It does make a spectacular visual presentation because it is truly gigantic, but in the end it is mostly bone. I wasn't quite sure what it was about it that made it worth ten dollars more than a typical osso buco. I guess I have to admit that it would have appealed to me a lot more had it been priced at 26 dollars instead of 36.
I'll be interested to try it again sometime. There are definitely a lot of interesting ideas coming out of the kitchen.
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The Samhattan
- 1-1/2 oz Maker's Mark bourbon
- 1-1/2 oz vanilla-infused bourbon*
- 1/2 oz Vya sweet red vermouth
- 1/2 oz Vya extra dry white vermouth
- 1 dash Fee Brothers aromatic bitters
Shake with cracked ice; strain into chilled cocktail glass and serve. Garnish with small piece of vanilla bean split 3/4 of the way down the middle.
A variation is the Orange Dreamsicle Manhattan: replace .5 oz of vanilla-infused bourbon with orange peel-infused bourbon. Garnish with orange peel.
*Make several small slits with a knife in 15 vanilla beans, place in a fifth of Maker's Mark and age ~3 months. Can add small amount of simple syrup.
Keywords: Cocktail
( RG842 )
- 1-1/2 oz Maker's Mark bourbon
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The Samhattan
- 1-1/2 oz Maker's Mark bourbon
- 1-1/2 oz vanilla-infused bourbon*
- 1/2 oz Vya sweet red vermouth
- 1/2 oz Vya extra dry white vermouth
- 1 dash Fee Brothers aromatic bitters
Shake with cracked ice; strain into chilled cocktail glass and serve. Garnish with small piece of vanilla bean split 3/4 of the way down the middle.
A variation is the Orange Dreamsicle Manhattan: replace .5 oz of vanilla-infused bourbon with orange peel-infused bourbon. Garnish with orange peel.
*Make several small slits with a knife in 15 vanilla beans, place in a fifth of Maker's Mark and age ~3 months. Can add small amount of simple syrup.
Keywords: Cocktail
( RG842 )
- 1-1/2 oz Maker's Mark bourbon
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Ronnybrook is the place from the Green Market. Their milk is so superior to regular mass-produced milk that it is hardly the same product.
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I'm interested too! Making mozzarella does not take long. Other cheeses, needless to say, take a lot longer.
Might be fun to make some cheese and then make some pizza with the cheese right away. Mozzarella starts to decline in quality almost from the very moment it is made.
Might also be interesting to try it with different milks. Goat mozzarella, anyone?
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Furthermore, a sauteuse evasee is a straight gauge pan.
will it be no good if it isnt straight gauge? or have i misunderstood what this is about?
Part of what makes a sauteuse evasee so good at reducing liquids has to do with the heat that is conducted into the liquid at the sides. Take a look at this comparison:
I wouldn't say that a sauteuse evasee is useless unless it is straight gauge... but I personally wouldn't want one that wasn't.
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It's a little bit difficult for me to separate best pasta from best pasta sauce.
The best artisinal dry pastas are, of course, available to all of us, and cooking them well is simply a matter of experience and good taste. By and large, I think the best dry pasta dishes are simple and to the point (Esca's spaghetti with clams, for example). I can't say that I have ever had a dry pasta dish in any restaurant anywhere that I couldn't (and haven't) execute just as well, if not better in my own home. I still have yet to eat bucatini all'amatriciana that compares with the one I make.
More complex fresh pasta dishes, and especially stuffed pasta dishes are another story. Of all the NYC places I've eaten, Babbo consistently succeeds in coming up with combinations I would not have imagined and a quality of fresh pasta that surpasses my own abilities. Lupa also makes some great fresh pasta dishes (tagliatelli with cultured butter from Tuscana and nothing else is amazing).
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Okay... Owen? Who the hell carries around yogurt in his pocket?
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What about using it in cocktails?
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Unfortunately, I've never overnighted in Ascoli Piceno. The commune web site seems to offer a few interesting sounding choices, though.
The drive from Norcia should be a good one... it's the SS4 Salaria just about all the way, and shouldn't take more than an hour at most.
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SLKinsey said
But, if I found myself in a temporary assignment thrown into reviewing a restaurant whose chef featured "extra-slimy okra" and "squash-stuffed eggplant" I, too, would skip these items.I know someone who would gladly help you in this trying circumstance.
Dude... I am so inviting you over for dinner the next time I visit my parents in Houston.
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I always thought that the prohibition against salting beans had to do with toughening the skin of the beans rather than the actual flesh. Anyone else heard this, or am I making it up?
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For example, as mentioned elsewhere in these forums, I have a serious and longstanging dislike for squash, eggplant and okra. I find them intensely disgusting, and according to my parents have found them so practically since the day I first took solid food. Understanding this, there is no way I could hope to comment on the preparation of, for example, ratatouille.
But, Sam, it seems she has no such aversion.
You don't think so? That's what I make of this:
I don't eat brains and haven't for many years. ... As for the other items, I've eaten all of them at one time or another, decided I don't really care for them and saw no reason to eat something I don't like to begin with.She has strong personal motivations to not eat certain foods, some for reasons of taste and some for health concerns. In my book, that's in the same category as my dislike for squash.
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I do think Ms. Burros handled this review well, though not flawlessly. And I'm she'd admit that she wasn't the best person to review Casa Mono. However:But what were her choices? ... Eat a bunch of food she already knows she doesn't like?
Yes. And attempt to assess the preparation, even if her opinions of these dishes aren't explicit in her review. If she had some extreme aversion to the offal, that's one thing. But her response in this thread suggested that she didn't.
I'm not so sure I agree, actually. For example, as mentioned elsewhere in these forums, I have a serious and longstanging dislike for squash, eggplant and okra. I find them intensely disgusting, and according to my parents have found them so practically since the day I first took solid food. Understanding this, there is no way I could hope to comment on the preparation of, for example, ratatouille. How could I, when I would have to steel my nerves and force myself to choke down that (to me) revolting slop? Now, if I were the main NYT reviewer, I would find a way to reeducate my palate and learn to like (ugh) squash, eggplant and okra. But, if I found myself in a temporary assignment thrown into reviewing a restaurant whose chef featured "extra-slimy okra" and "squash-stuffed eggplant" I, too, would skip these items. I can only hope I would have Ms. Burros' ethical fortitude to disclose this in my review.
The only other option is to refuse the assignment, which may not always be a viable one.
I find it interesting that most everyone agrees she gave the restaurant a fair assessment and the proper number of stars, etc.She gave it the "proper" number of stars without experiencing an important part of the menu. If Casa Mono's chefs were messing up the offal dishes, she wouldn't even know about it, and the "proper" number of stars might be inaccurate. Now that I think about it, should Casa Mono be a two-star restaurant? Or a great one-star?
Well... there's a very fine line between a two star and a "great one star" anyway. One can argue that question until the cows come home.
Perhaps if I found myself in her shoes -- reviewing "Skip's Squash and Eggplant Shack" -- I would take along a few trusted squashophile friends with good palates and ask for their impressions about the execution.
Suppose a reviewer doesn't like beef. Should he review Peter Lugar?I don't know. Are we talking about the ideal world or the real world? In the ideal world, the reviewer who doesn't like beef would never be assigned to review Peter Luger, or at the very least would have a boss who would be happy to let him out of such an assignment. In the real world, however, something like this might happen. So, put yourself in the reviewer's shoes... what do you do? Do you march down to your editor's office and refuse the assignment? If your answer is yes -- I guess you don't like working there very much anyway, so losing your job won't be such a big deal. Then again, when word gets around that you rocked the boat it might impact your ability to get hired elsewhere... But of course, this is a matter of principle! You, the reviewer, should gladly sacrifice your job and career in the service of Food (note the capital "F"). In fact, it is incumbent upon you to do so! Or maybe not... Generally, in the real world, the reviewer takes the assignment and does the best he can. That's the way it works.
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I find it interesting that most everyone agrees she gave the restaurant a fair assessment and the proper number ot stars, etc.
does everyone really think she gave it the proper number of stars?
Haven't been yet, but from what I understand, I thought 0 would have been more appropriate.
Most people I know who have been there seem to agree that the number of stars was appropriate. As for eGullet, we have:
she seems to arrive at a logical conclusion and a sensible star rating based on a reasonable sampling of the dishes.Not that it's important , but I did think your review was fair. I agree with the conclusion (number of stars).The emphasis is mine. You may draw your own conclusions and are, of course, entitled to your own opinion... although I am not quite sure what reports form the basis of "what you understand."
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...why buy a sauce pan in any size when you can get a similar sized sautuese evasee which would allow for maximum cooking utility? Am I being too simplistic with this reasoning?
It's all about picking the right pan for the righe job.
The thing about a sauteuse evasee is that it is fundamentally a reduction pan. The idea is to have a wide surface area for evaporation so sauces, etc. reduce quickly and efficiently. Curved sides make it easy to get a whisk or spoon around to all the corners.
As mentioned in my previous post, this design happens to work well for sauteing in the large sizes (11 inches -- or 10.5 inches in the case of the All-Clad pan you're thinking of buying). The smaller sizes aren't so useful in this respect.
So... this is the deal: you probably don't want every pan in your battery to be optimized for reductions and sauce making. Sometimes you would like to have a pan for reheating liquids, boiling water, blanching vegetables, holding sauces at temperature, etc. without having the liquid reduce, evaporate, form a skin, etc. In this case, you wouldn't want a sauteuse evasee, because a sauteuse evasee is designed to give you exactly what you don't want... you would rather have a tall saucepan, which is designed to give you the things you want. The only situation in which you would want a 4 quart sauteuse evasee would be if you were regularly making a lot of sauce or reducing a lot of liquid. Probably not the case in the usual home kitchen. Furthermore, a sauteuse evasee is a straight gauge pan. Straight gauge cookware is more expensive, and not necessarily useful in the kinds of tasks I describe above. In situations where you would like a tall saucepan, why not spend your money putting extra thermal material (aluminum, copper, whatever) on the bottom of the pan where it's needed instead of on the sides where it's not doing you much good?
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Recently, I stopped into a Sur La Table store, here in Chicago. Sur La Table is a yuppie store with high prices, and they carry Mauviel. They now have in stock a couple of Mauviel curved sauteuse evasee pans, the larger being 9.5 inches in diameter.
I can see how versatile this pan is, but the 9.5 inch diameter seemed small. I would think that the 11 inch diameter pan, made only by Bourgeat and Falk, as Sam Kinsey mentioned in a post some weeks ago, would be the only sensible choice, given that most of us would have a much smaller pan, perhaps 1 quart or 1.4 or 1.8 liter, something like that, for reducing sauces.
A few things here:
I definitely find that an 11" saute pan is the smallest useful size, unless one is cooking very small amounts of food. A 9.5" saute might be more useful in a restaurant where portions are typically prepared for only one person at a time. But in the home, I think it's a mistake to get anything smaller than 11 inches (in fact, for those with a regular domestic stove I think it's 11 inches or nothing, as these stoves are really too weak to heat a larger saute pan properly unless you get a thick bottom pad and massively preheat).
The thing to consider when looking at a curved or straight sauteuse evasee is that the diameter measurement is for the top of the pan, not the bottom. An 11 inch curved sauteuse evasee actually has a 9.5 inch cooking surface. Interestingly, my experience is that an 11 inch sauteuse evasee "cooks bigger" than a 9.5 inch saute pan due to the special configuration of the pan, even though the bottoms of the two pans are the same size. However, what this means is that sauteuses evasee are only useful for sauteing at the 11 inch size and larger.
Also, Sur La Table, the Chicago store, anyway, now has a few 30 cm frypans (12 inches). This size is, of course, wider, and just as important, deeper, than the next smaller 24 cm (10 inch?) Mauviel frypan. I'd be far more inclined to buy and experiment with the larger frypan.Frypans are one of those pans which can be useful in a lot of sizes. FWIW, I would also probably take the 30 cm pan over thge 24 cm pan myself. That said, I am not sure extra depth really helps much with a frypan -- the whole idea is to have low sloping sides to allow better evaporation.
The 9.5 inch Mauviel saute pan seems like it would accomodate two pieces of meat or fish, with not much room to spare, but I can't imagine that pan holding enough pasta, with sauce, for two hungry people.I have a 9.5 inch saute pan and don't use it much. It would never hold enough pasta and sauce for two people. Personally, I'd go with an 11 inch curved sauteuse evasee or, as a second choice, an 11 inch saute pan.
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I think Ms. Burros answer was right on and correct. She had all of them before, she didn't want to have them again. Case closed.
Come on, Mark. I'll say it again: this is the restaurant reviewer -- however temporary -- for the New York Times. It is her duty during the short time for which she holds this position, as I said a few posts above, to comment on the execution of a restaurant's menu.
I think there are several things worthy of note here:
- Ms. Burros is not the regular NYT reviewer, and does not appear to seek to be the regular restaurant reviewer. Were she to take this job on a full-time basis, then perhaps some "palate reeducation" a la Steingarten might be recommended to broaden the scope of her reviewing. There isn't much point in doing this for a temporary gig.
- Understanding the above, I would argue that she made the best out of a restaurant assignment for which she was not particularly well suited. I imagine that even Ms. Burros would admit she was not the ideal fit to review this restaurant. But what were her choices? Refuse to review that restaurant? Eat a bunch of food she already knows she doesn't like?
- Given that she does have a strong aversion to many of the things that seem central to Batali's aesthetic, I think it was admirable for her to come right out with it in the review. Plenty of food writers would simply have skipped over those things.
- I find it interesting that most everyone agrees she gave the restaurant a fair assessment and the proper number ot stars, etc.
- Ms. Burros is not the regular NYT reviewer, and does not appear to seek to be the regular restaurant reviewer. Were she to take this job on a full-time basis, then perhaps some "palate reeducation" a la Steingarten might be recommended to broaden the scope of her reviewing. There isn't much point in doing this for a temporary gig.
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Hell, they let me in wearing tennis shoes, a black fedora and a ladies' jacket.
The really funny thing about this is that it's true. I was there. -
squash
eggplant
okra
Ummm..
..ugghhhh.. 
..aarrggghhh.... 
...aaaack Aw Sam, I don't even know where to start. Those three things, in various varieties, are some of the very reasons I plant a too large garden every year.
I'm certain that we can find some common ground somewhere...............
Dude, considering that my parents are from the South... common ground with those three foods was aggressively, one could even say forcibly, and it certainly seemed frequently sought for around 17 years.
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squash
eggplant
okra
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Wait a while and get the new Hearthware iRoast. You can change the roast profile, timing, etc. I have never found the Hearthware Precision's small capacity problematic, because I find that I can roast all the beans I use in a typical week in three "sessions" and I prefer to drink coffee from beans <1 week old.
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Bummer! I was just at a dinner where a like amount of just-rendered duck fat went onto the floor.
I recommend spraying the area thoroughly with a grease cutter like Windex and wiping up, then if there is still a slippery place, mop (or sponge) with a strong Lestoil solution.
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Now that my grandmother, after 97 years of exemplary chicken fried steak cookery in Texas, has gone to her great reward... I just don't know when I'll ever find another example that measures up.
I am quite sure I've never had it in a restaurant, ever.
Fresh Sardines
in Cooking
Posted
One of the best things to do is to fillet them + put them in a dish all in one layer. Then squeeze the juice of several lemons over the top + let stand in the refrigerator for a few hours. After that, cover with good evoo and a hefty pinch of crushed red pepper + let stand a few more hours. Remove from the refrigerator, spinkle with chopped parsley (and/or oregano and/or marjoram, if you like), allow it to come up to room temp and eat. Delicious.