slkinsey

What do you mean, you "took the cover off?" You cooked it in a closed "roaster?" If this is the case, just eliminate the cover part and you'll get plenty crispness. Another way of saying "covered roaster" is "steam chamber." A few slits in the skin to help the fat escape help too.

The roasted corn thing is simply a flan made with dried roasted corn: 4 cups roughly pureed roasted corn, 2 cups milk, 2 eggs, 1 egg yolk, salt + pinch smoked paprika... simmer corn and milk for 10 minutes, cool, mix in all other ingredients, put in individual ramekins and cook in hot water bath until set in 300F oven... makes four 6 oz ramekins... can reheat in warming oven before service. I turn one of these out onto the center of each plate. The Brussels sprouts and guanciale is simple too: blanch sprouts in plenty of salted water until not quite tender (~5 minutes) and immediately shock in salted ice water bath... drain when cool, cut each in half the long way and reserve... render out thickish slices of guanciale in a saute pan over low heat, remove guanciale when beginning to get crisp and reserve, reserve the fat in a separate container and wipe out the pan... just prior to service, crank the pan up to high heat for several minutes 'till it gets screaming hot, throw in the sprouts and guanciale fat, sauté until the sprouts begin to brown on the flat surfaces, then toss in the guanciale to warm them through. I put several Brussels sprout halves and a few pieces of guanciale on the plate around each flan. Then drizzle on a touch of herb vinaigrette to cut the fat and give it some brightness (thinking about trying this with lovage and/or marjoram as the herb).

So, I'm reading through the NY Times Food section this evening and what should I see but the following paragraph in an article on "sustainable beef" called Balancing Cattle, Land and Ledgers:

I'm heading to Sam's for Thanksgiving. I'll be waiting for a PM with directions. Seriously, though, it's a great way to cook turkey -- easier and better than the traditional methods, IMO. I can give you a write-up if you want.

No need for any heat. Tea will infuse into room temperature vodka just as it will into room temperature water. Use the same amount of tea you would to make very strong hot tea with a similar volume of water. Taste the infusion every so often, and when it attains the strength of flavor you are after strain out the tea leaves.

And not only that, but my ferrets are pissed off that those sanctimonious bastards banned ferret bites in the workplace too. So now they get no fondling, they don't get to bite anyone... it's getting so they can hardly bring themselves to come in to the office and put in an honest day's work.

I've given up on trying to roast a whole turkey all in one piece. These days, I debone the turkey entirely (keeping the breasts whole); braise the leg meat in red wine, port, aromatics and super-reduced turkey stock from the bones; and then roast the brined breasts by themselves. The braising liquid reduces down to an amazing sauce with the addition of some butter, the breasts roast to the perfect temperature in about 45 minutes, and the braised leg meat is everything one could possibly want in turkey dark meat. One does miss out on the "drama" of a whole turkey carved at table, but I plate everything so it makes no difference to me,

This is a bogus argument. People aren't taking away smokers' right to smoke. They are just taking away their right to smoke in certain environments where that smoking necessarily impacts nonsmokers -- in particular, where that smoking necessarily impacts employees in the workplace. Here is a fairly similar construct: the government has not outlawed breast fondling, but it has outlawed unwanted breast fondling in the workplace. In so doing, the government has acted to protect employees from sexual harassment. Is this a case of the "sanctimonious" taking away the "right to the pursuit of happiness" from breast fondlers?

Tryska, you should probably go back and read through this thread, as we have already been over this ground in some detail... The smoking bans in NYC and NYC are not intended to protect customers from inhaling secondhand tobacco smoke in bars and restaurants. Customers can always decide to patronize nonsmoking establishments. Rather, they are intended to protect employees from inhaling secondhand tobacco smoke at their place of employment. One can make the argument that employees can choose to work for a different employer or in a different industry, but it is quite clear that the government has the right to enact legislation to protect employees in the workplace.

Now that is just a silly thing to say. Where's the data supporting these assertions? Sugar is not even remotely comparable to tobacco smoke when it comes to health effects. Even though smoking has decreased markedly over the last ten years, "tobacco is by far the leading cause of death" in New York City. Sugar... if you were to make a list of all the bad things that contribute to preventable mortality, is would be pretty low on the list.

I think it's already against the law to run around a restaurant or bar with a funnel and force feed sugar to everyone in the room.

That's great, Ling. Thank you-- I didn't find it because it isn't a pie, it's a "Derby Style" Bourbon Pecan Tart! That is the one you meant, right? Yes...I swear, everytime I look at that picture, I drool.... Glad you like it. A big part of the trick is to roast the pecan halves for the topping beforehand. As for Thanksgiving sides... I don't do any. Rather than the traditional family-style free-for-all Thanksgiving dinner with turkey and 1,000 sides, I started serving multiple courses plated. One course I plan to do this year -- and which could easily be made into two separate side dishes -- is a roasted corn flan with sauteed Brussels sprouts and guanciale. The sprouts, in paticular, have been a real hit in the past. I blanch and shock them, then cut them in half and saute them just before plating in the rendered guancale fat just to the point where I get some nice browning on the edges.

What points are those, exactly? What I have seen MatthewB saying for the last few days is that calling Bayless a hypocrite for lending his image in promotional support of a company with business practices and a product which run counter to the principles he and the organization he helped found have espoused is "fundamentalism." I'm not sure exactly how MatthewB thinks this definition and argument supports his postion, which seems to be one of vaguely defending Bayless' BK endorsement. He suggests that, "if one takes, for example, the Chef's Collaborative Mission & Principles and then extrapolates those norms into specific applications in order to judge Rick Bayless, well . . . that's a form of food fundamentalism." I think that's a fatuous argument that doesn't really support any point. First, whether or not it is "food fundamentalism" to judge Bayless by his own stated principles is not relevant to whether or not Bayless' contravention of those principles is hypocritical. Second, it is the normal way of "fundamentalism" that the people belonging to a "movement or attitude stressing strict and literal adherence to a set of basic principles" apply those principles to other people. I am not sure that applying someone's own stated principles to their behavior is "fundamentalism." Really, it is the philosophy of the fundamentalists (in this case, the Chef's Collective) that embody fundamentalism -- if one espouses certain principles, then it is appropriate to judge them by those principles. Third, all we can judge Bayless by are his stated beliefs and philosophies. These are quite clearly stated by the Chef's Collective. Now, if Bayless wants to come out and say, "those principles are not my principles -- I don't agree with points 4 through 7" or if he can demonstrate that his BK endorsement is somehow in line with the other things he has been saying since he came to wide public attention... then that is a different story. Until such time, we have things like this to go on: There is not a lot of wiggle room here. If you can come up with reasoning why this endorsement is in accordance with points 4 through 7, I'd be interested in hearing them. You make a good point about the CC's dogmatic and absolute approach. However, we didn't choose that approack -- Chef's Collective and Rick Bayless chose it. And, like it or not, if you talk the talk, you have to walk the walk. Or, as in this case, you end up being a hypocrite and a sell out (sell out, in this case meaning "commiting an instance of gross hypocricy for financial gain").

One of the big differences between Bayless and people like Mizrahi and Halston, is that I don't think Mizrahi went around spouting off philosophies about clothing and the clothing business that are completely inimical to the kinds of clothing one finds at Target and Target's business practices. A better example might be someone who strongly promotes American-made automobiles and efficient, safe automobile design signing up to endorse a Japanese SUV that is slightly less prone to rollovers and gets marginally better mileage because it is a "step in the right direction."

Not to mention that we may get special attention if it becomes known that we are an "informal critics collective" from the famous internet food site, eGullet.

Here is a nice definition of hypocrisy: Has not the Chef's Collective been sharply critical of the business practices and culinary philosphies of fast food chains such as Burger King? Bayless' act of putting his name, image and imprimatur behind the marketing efforts of a company whose business practices run entirely counter to the principles and philosophies that are espoused and promoted by an organization of which he is a founding member, and which principles and philosophies he himself has taken a leading position in publicising, would seem to fit the highlighted section above fairly closely. Nothing that we have read or seen thus far on this subject would seem to support any other conclusion.

Oh, I'm sure you're right. It would be interesting to get some data from the restaurants we visit as to whether or not they grind their own meat, and see what impact that practice has on the quality of the burger. I'd be willing to bet that most of the steak houses, for example, grind their own. Especially as many of them supposedly supplement their base meat (usually chuck, I imagine) with ground up trimmings from their steaks.

JosephB and I were just talking last night about what a huge difference grinding your own meat can make. Really, I think this is one element that can't be over estimated -- especially if the meat is ground a relatively short time before it is cooked. I imagine it has something to do with the fact that freshly ground meat is significantly less oxidized than ground meat that has sat around for a while.

Was this store by any chance Bridge Kitchenware in NYC? If you were in the US and it wasn't Bridge, then you weren't seeing Paderno Grand Gourmet. Bridge Kitchenware the exclusive US distributor of Paderno, and the only line they carry is Grand Gourmet. Paderno Grand Gourmet has the same thickness of aluminum as Sitram Profisserie. That said... and to complicate matters somewhat, there are two manufacturers making "Paderno" cookware. There is a Canadian company that makes cookware called "Paderno" in Canada. Here is an excerpt from an email discussion I had with their marketing and development director a few years ago: The Canadian company, Padinox, Inc., makes several lines of cookware. Their lower level line, called "Paderno" in Canada and "Chaudier 1000" elsewhere, has 0.8 mm thick stainless steel and a 3/16" (~4.5 mm) aluminum base. Their high level line, called "Chaudier" in Canada and "Chaudier 5000" elsewhere, has 2 mm thick stainless steel and a 1/4" (~6.25 mm) aluminum base. Chaudier 5000 is awesome stuff. Used on Air Force One. If you have seen cookware named "Paderno" with an aluminum base of less than 7 mm thickness, you were either looking at Canadian-branded cookware or one of the lower lines from the Italian manufacturer (Paderno Serie 1000, Gourmet Serie 1100, Gourmet Serie 2000). The primary benefits of having a disk bottom are 1) heat capacity, 2) evenness of heat, and 3) responsiveness. When you are boiling a big pot of water, all these things go out the window. There is no need to have good heat capacity because the heat capacity of the water is so great it negates any effect provided by the disk bottom. The heat doesn't need to be even because you can't burn water. There is no need for a responsive pan because the thermal load carried by the water is so great that it is impossible to raise of lower the temperature of the water quickly. So... since none of the advantages of a disk bottom do you any good for boiling water, why pay for them? However, as I said before, having a disk bottom greatly enhances the pan's flexibility. A cheapo stainless pot is really only good for boiling water. A pot with a nice thick disk bottom allows you to make stock and stew and chili and whatever else without worrying about burning a ring of food on the bottom of the pot. I don't see how it could make any difference, as long as you have plenty of water. As mentioned in my cookware class, the smaller curved sauteuses evasée are great reduction pans and are great for sauce making. They are also functional as simple small pans for blanching vegetables, etc. The larger sauteuses evasée function more or less like curved saute pans with slightly higher sides. I use my 11" curved sauteuse evasée more often than any other pan in my kitchen. It works for sautéing, for browning off meats, for quick braises... and I almost always use this pan when making pasta sauces because the high sides make it very easy to throw in the pasta for a few minutes of cooking together with the sauce. It's nice to have stainless lined heavy copper for a large diameter sauteuse evasée, because it is so versatile that it will be used frequently -- which means you're really getting your money's worth out of it.

The main advantage of having a straight gauge fry pan is that the thermal layer covers every surface of the pan. Since frying food doesn't move around an awful lot (as opposed to sauteing where the food is in constant motion), the lack of a thermal layer near the edges of the pan could actually create situations where food items that overlap the margins of the disk will cook unevenly. This is not an issue for foods which sit squarely in the middle of the fry pan, but can be an issue for large items that use up most of the diameter of the pan (a whole fish, for example, or a fritatta). In such cases, it is also nice to have a pan where the thermal layer extends up the short sloped sides, because part of the large food item will actually be cooking on this surface. If all you're doing is boiling water, a disk bottom is overkill. The addition of a good aluminum disk, however, greatly increases the range of things you can do with the pan.

That's an interesting question. I usually make rice in a straight gauge Le Creuset "Windsor" because it's just the right size for two people and because I like the way the cast iron retains heat. That said, most people seem to agree that the best vessels for cooking rice are electric rice cookers. I have no idea whether these heat from the bottom only or from all sides. So, really I have no idea whether or not there is any value when making rice in conducting heat from all sides as opposed to mostly from the bottom. Perhaps we can get one of our resident experts on rice cookery to chime in on this. I'd say yes. I can certainly tell the difference between a 2.5 mm straight gauge copper saucepan and a 2.5 mm copper disk bottom saucepan. I have no reason to assume this would be any different for aluminum. One problem you would probably encounter doing the aluminum comparison you describe is the fact that a 2 mm straight gauge clad aluminum saucepan (e.g., All-Clad Stainless) will be a very high quality pan, whereas a disk bottom design with only 2 mm of aluminum would not be near the top of the heap for that design. Most aluminum disk bottom pans of quality use a lot more than 2 mm of aluminum. Yes, it is silly. And there is no reason you shouldn't use the highest temperature setting. Besides, so what if it discolors the base? You're not using the stuff for looks (I hope). And if looks are important to you, Bar Keeper's Friend is your new best friend. I have yet to encounter any dioscoloration on cookware that BKF couldn't handle.

That's just my point. It is the nature of cooking over an open flame that it is not particularly efficient. Of course a lot of heat doesn't go into the pan. All you have to do is put yor hand at the side of a pan on a hot burner to verify that this is true. Due to this fact, there are finite limits as to how efficient the transfer of heat from the flame to the pan can possibly be. Anyone will tell you that -- other things being equal -- water boils faster on an electric burner than on a gas burner. This is because the transfer of heat is more efficient. So what? Most of us would still rather cook over gas. kwillets, you're making your comparisons against a completely theoretical construct assuming 100% efficiency of heat transfer that you came up with by adding some numbers. I doubt very much that an 18000 btu heat source could boil one quart of water in 60 seconds even in laboratory conditions. In the real world, your comparisons are completely meaningless. I doubt very much any design elements that did not interfere with the usefulness of the cookware would significantly impact the efficiency of heat transfer and heat retention. The idea that a "a few blackened, raised ridges" would make a significant contribution just doesn't make sense. It's just not that simple. I think it has been mentioned. Certain materials -- i.e., those with better thermal conductivity -- are more efficient at conducting heat. Sometimes you want efficient conduction, sometimes you don't. For most cooking tasks, it is either impractical or ineffective to make radical design changes in order to pick up an additional 2% of thermal efficiency. Not really... all the things we've been saying about thermal conduction, etc. are still true in the real world environment of the kitchen. You can put all the blackened fins you want on a cast iron pan and it still won't heat up as fast as a copper pan.

well...i wasn't exactly giving credence to that idea. but you see, those were the guys at the place where i bought the rondeau! Just teasing, of course.

Perhaps the .001 is love. (barf)

i should add this to my list of things i don't get. "i'll have some starch in my starch please." Shades of "Big Night" when the lady customer demands a side of spaghetti to go with her risotto. Uno: "I suppose next she's gonna want a baked potato?" Risotto, you see, is a starch... it... doesn't really go with spaghetti. Sometimes spaghetti likes to be by itself.