Rickbern

This guys in Lisbon. I got the sense most of his customers were restaurants

Bruce aidells wrote a book called the great meat cookbook that is not exclusively about stews, but there’s a fair number of stews in there. He’s got a fairly comprehensive introduction James Peterson has two books, one is called “cooking “ and the better one is “essentials of cooking” that are general but they have information about stews that is kinda valuable. Ditto Jacques Pepin. my sentimental favorite is to recommend Paula wolferts clay pot cooking, but that’s a bit of complexity not everyone will relish. it’s funny, there must be 47 books written about soup for every one about stews. my simple advice? Focus way more on the initial browning step than you think you need to. When they say don’t crowd the meat, listen! I always brown in a carbon steel skillet or two and then transfer to a pot (often clay) to do the slow cooking part of the recipe. oh, and make your own stock. Don’t ever buy stock.

Around here (nyc) pork CHOP Milanese is a pork chop that is butterflied open like a book and pounded thin. That’s probably what you’re getting. It’s always just breaded and fried like this. https://recipesorreservations.com/2012/03/05/veal-milanese-old-school-italian-recipe-still-makes-the-grade/

Can’t decide which of those recipes sounds better, but I’m gonna try one this week. Maybe the vindaloo. Or perhaps the chicken. //sigh, maybe I’ll make both. Thanks for the inspiration!

Artichokes peas and potatoes. There’s a related recipe where you use red meat instead of the potatoes something like this https://www.mymoroccanfood.com/home/artichoke-tagine-with-peas-and-preserved-lemon-vegan

I think the only advantage of unglazed is that it makes the food taste better! but on a serious note, that Japanese tagine seems sort of shallow compared to the Moroccan style. There’s a fair bit of liquid to enclose in a lot of tagine recipes.

I’ve found this one pretty good. It’s 4 bucks on kindle and the recipe for kamama chicken is banging. It’s really written with a home cook in mind. She’s not quite the purist that Paula Wolfert was, but lots of the recipes are interesting. There’s also a Monkfish tagine with apricots, dates & fennel that I’ve made repeatedly Casablanca: my Moroccan food by Nargisse Benkabbou https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B078W64Q4J/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I have that Prune book too. Never cooked a ton out of it but the recipe for canned sardines, gherkins and hot mustard on triscuits was a real keeper, worth the price of the book. I’ve made a ton of variations on it but the mustard and the pickles never vary i was friendly with lots of NYC French restaurant people, used to celebrate Christmas with them every year. Nobody in that crowd would have ever served foie gras on anything other than Pepperidge farm white bread, and I thought they were right.

I made this once and thought it was delicious, but then again, I think that about lots of monkfish recipes. Iirc, I used yellow pepper instead of red, much prettier https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/spanish-braised-monkfish

Been meaning to post this. I went to the container store and bought an elfa drawer set that was meant to be a printer cart. Perfect for the oven and the ventilated drawers hold the sheet pans and grids perfectly

Try to take a walk over the bridge one day, there’s a middle eastern spice shop called Malko Brothers. Directly across Atlantic Avenue from Sahadis. Three brothers run it, they’re between 70-90 years old, probably thé three nicest men in all Brooklyn. They were born in Syria but the family traces its roots to turkey. They grew up speaking Aramaic. I have some real loyalty to these guys and stepping into the shop is to be instantly transported to another place and time. You just won’t get that mail order from Penzeys. ps- everything is bulk. They’ll sell you as much or as little as you want. If you’re looking for something they don’t carry you can probably just cross the street to Sahadis and pick it up there

I keep two squeeze bottles next to my stove. One with cooking oil, the other with water. As soon as I start heating a pan I squeeze some water in so I can see how hot the pan is. When I’m done cooking I squirt a little water in to cool the pan down so nothing gets baked on it. I also have an old school diner maple syrup dispenser there filled with olive oil.

I was using a hinged thingy and looking wistfully at all the juice it didn’t extract, so I switched to a wooden reamer. Far, far better. Time to put the hinge things out on a stoop for someone else

I remembered reading that one of volraths lines was the same as Paderno so I googled it. This line of Paderno is pretty high quality I think https://www.amazon.com/ask/questions/Tx2IEYIO9KPZTY8/ref=ask_ql_ql_al_hza volrath is all over the map. Some of their stuff is all show and no go,some super high quality. Their catalog used to have a comparison page that explained which line was suitable for which purpose. It was pretty thorough. Optio and centurion have little in common

Almost forgot. This was one special grandma, rather than a rotating cast of Hollywood extras. I’m pretty sure she’s no longer there, but I remembered this article from 2011 place was called gradisca on 13th street https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/dining/mama-in-the-restaurant-kitchen.html

Even if I don’t drink it, I do use it interchangeably with sherry for Spanish recipes if I just need a dash. Seriously hope this confession won’t get me banned from egullet.

Le Madri ran for maybe 5-8 years. It was in a one story building with very high ceilings, something like a decommissioned power station, some real estate developers couldn’t leave well enough alone, there’s some generic condo there now.

When I go into the liquor store in Chinatown in NYC the guy tells me the stuff that’s only for cooking (but no salt) is around 6.50, the cheapest stuff to drink is maybe 8.50 or so. I’m an 8.50 kind of guy, I don’t drink the stuff either 53 Mott street. They’re really friendly, they’ll steer you right Mark's Wine & Spirits Inc. (212) 962-1993 https://maps.app.goo.gl/tzMRjdNtoGhi7z9HA?g_st=ic

Im in Sevilla for a month, the butchers sell hand carved acorn fed iberico in vacuum packed sealed plastic. Same problem here, happily though, the ham is worth the effort

I wouldn’t necessarily lump white and blue paper steels together in this discussion Paul. White paper steels are the simple steels I was referring to, they’re both carbon, ie, non stainless steels. Blue paper steels are a bit harder to sharpen well but repay the effort by retaining sharpness for a longer time. There are different variations of each with the blue steel called aogomi ( blue in Japanese) super having the highest potential for long edge retention. Also the toughest to sharpen. Me, I use white steel 2, one of the easiest to sharpen

It’s also the durability of the freshly sharpened edge that leads to opinions about different steels. I’m a home cook, I use simple carbon steels, I sharpen often, it’s a very simple process. if I worked in a restaurant I might use more complex, harder steels that were more difficult to sharpen but held their edge much longer I think many home cooks make a mistake looking for a durable steel when they may be better served looking for the one that’s easiest to maintain

I steamed couscous in mine. Swelled the grains two time at room temperature and then put it in 185 oven with steam for 15 minutes. Worked well.

@jimb0 make sure you’re on a 2.4 ghz wifi. I find mine to be pretty stable https://support.anovaculinary.com/hc/en-us/articles/360050481412-Troubleshooting-WI-FI-connectivity-on-your-Anova-Precision-Oven

I had a similar impulse a few years ago and decided to photograph things. Since the pandemic I added a few smaller pots more suitable for small dinners and the clay pot collection in the last post has expanded. here’s a link to another forum https://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/threads/batterie-de-cuisine.40503/page-2