Search the Community

Washington Post Food Section Digest, September 22, 2004 Ins and Outs of Sandwich City: Apparently sandwich places are one of the fastest-growing sectors of the restaurant industry - and if you're going to succeed as a sandwich place, you have to have at least one turkey sandwich on the menu. Six local variations on the turkey sandwich are reviewed here: from Subway, Quiznos, Potbelly, Cosi, Corner Bakery, and Panera. An accompanying article discusses things you can do to jazz up sandwiches at home. The New Focus On Native American Cooking: The varied menu at the Mitsitam Cafe in the new National Museum of the American Indian are just one example of the attempts to preserve and pass on Native American cuisine - including cookbooks and academic symposia. Fit and Frugal: One of the most common arguments against getting people to try a more nutritious diet is that it's more expensive - but it's actually not. The ongoing series has suggestions for minimizing expense while getting good, healthy foods into your diet. For the Native Palate: A review of Foods of the Americas: Native Recipes and Traditions, by Fernando and Marlene Divina. This book's release coincides with the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian on the Mall - as well as recipes, it includes essays and memoirs from Native American writers, commentaries on the origins and history of the various dishes, and a thorough reference section including glossaries and bibliographies. A sample recipe for quinoa salad is included. On the Label: Light Tuna: Canned light tuna, which is generally yellowfin, bluefin, or skipjack tuna, tends to contain significantly less mercury than the canned white or albacore. Book Report: Cooksmart Chicken, Pasta, Wok, Chocolate, Low-Fat or Vegetarian. Half shopping-list, half recipe flashcards, they're portable enough to take along to the store. To Do: Book signing and wine tasting with John Shields at Best Cellars; Johnny Appleseed Festival at the Mount Pleasant farmers' market; Middle Eastern bazaar at Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Church on Alaska Ave.; wine dinners at Taberna del Alabardero and the Four Seasons. Dinner in 20 Minutes: Chicken and Avocado Salad. The minutes continue on their roll - 16 weeks with, 10 without. Today's Tip: To keep overstuffed subs from overspilling, excavate some of the bread before filling. Ingredient - Quinoa: This staple food of the Incas isn't actually a grain - it's the seeds of a leafy plant. The Strata's Winning Ways: Another staff favorite - the sausage, Gruyere, and onion strata (egg casserole). Market Watch - Lemon Verbena: Put this tasty herb in vegetables, teas, or desserts before it gets too cold. Pork With a Distinguished Past: Hemp's Meats in Jefferson, Maryland has been providing bacony goodness, beef, and yummy bits like sweetbreads to locals and Civil War reenactors alike since 1849. The Case for Ribera: Michael Franz visited the Ribera del Duero region of Spain, and liked what he saw (and drank). Tom's chat transcript: Someone thinks it's bad to say negative things about restaurants; Tom's take on the James Beard Foundation controversy; many recommendations for spiffy sandwiches; why servers don't always check the back of credit cards; recommendations in Burgundy and British Columbia; Per Se was "grand." Grapevine chat transcript: More Spanish wine recommendations; what to drink if you like Asti Spumante but want something "classier"; Canadian ice wines.

Nostalgia served up piping hot can and will invoke sleep, so no pics. Sweet corn, carrot, pork, dried fig (a few other chinese "herbal" things) broth. Steamed tilapia in ginger, scallion, oil + soy sauce. Scrambled eggs in quick-stewed tomatoes (simply "tomato egg" in Chinese). Steaming hot medium grain white rice. I can still feel the "wok hay", mmm.... Yummy for my tummy.

I've reviewed and renamed the pictures I took -- that definitely jogged my memories of some of the specific details of the event. It was still raining when I originally planned at 9:00 in the morning, when I had orginally planned on departing. If you missed the drama from before the event, a typhoon struck Japan on Saturday, and the weather all weekend was pretty much terrible. Monday, when I went to the fair, was but a brief reprieve from the rains -- it began raining again sometime this (Tuesday) morning, and has been raining on and off (but mostly on) all day long. But. on Monday, the rains were letting up, and the forecast had predicted partly cloudy weather, so I remained hopeful. Around 10:00 the rains had all but stopped, and I grabbed my things and began the journey to Kappabashi. Took a bus and the Tokyo subway. The route was uneventful, and I arrived at Tawaramachi Station at 10:50 or so. It had stopped raining. Tawaramachi Station is very small train station, serving only one line; it has two or three exits. I did not notice any particularly large number of people travelling from the station to Kappabashi at the same time that I was. The Kappabashi street was, of course, off limits to traffic during the festival. The word festival was appropriate, I suppose, though the event didn't seem particularly festive. Perhaps it was the weather; everyone there had been subjected to rain and wind for the previous couple of days. Mostly, though, festival was as advertised: most of the shops had their various wares for sale on wagons out on the sidewalks right next to their stores. I windoer if preparations would have been more elaborate had we not been struck by Typhoon #22. Here's something representative of the event. A small store has set up some bins and a wagon selling fake food: After walking a block or so down the road (Tawaramachi Station is at one of the ends of the road) I came upon a group performing taiko, traditional Japanese drumming. The acoustics of taiko in the middle of a long street lined completely with fairly tall buildings was quite astounding, and produced a thunderous echo. Honestly, the taiko was one of the few set events to the festival, and it was probably the highlight of my visit. Next I happened past the first food vendor. Many of the food vendors at the fair were simply employees of a particular store, who had been set up with a small and simple workplace to cook up some simple fare. Such as this one, selling frankfurters (on a stick, of course) and jyagabattaa (potatoes and butter): Some enterprising shop set up a coffee shop out near an intersection: A couple other food vendors were next. These seemed to be unconnected with any particular area store, and were probably from some restaurant from elsewhere in Tokyo. The first of these was selling steamed Chinese food, such as dumplings and siu gyoza. I bought a packet of glutinous rice with various savories, wrapped up in a big green leaf and steamed. I can never remember what they are called. The second was a African curry joint. I think. I tried to get fried plantains and beans, but they were out. I settled for bean curry and naan, which was less than impressive. There were some vendors selling Japanese foods as well. Besides for one industrious group selling lots of takoyaki and yakisoba, there were a few lesser seen items for sale. The first of these is daigaku imo (literally, university potato), sweet potato that was been cooked in oil and then covered with hot sugar syrup. The second is a fishball soup. http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/10975811..._1097581176.jpg http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/10975811..._1097581271.jpg A couple shots of stores, just to give a general idea of the area to people who haven't seen it. It took me a few seconds to figure out what that last store was selling. They specialize, of course, in glass display cases. Besides the taiko drumming (which was repeated a few other times during the festival), the other major planned event for the day was a series of performances by some brass bands from some of the local elementary schools. They played the typical Japanese elementary school songs: Saints go Marching, and the theme from My Neighbor Totoro (an animated movie) and the like. They also played a version of SMAP's Sekai ni hitosu dake no hana, which I try to avoid when I can. (Though the one I truly can't figure out is when a local elementary school band was playing the tune from John Brown's Body / The Battle Hymn of the Republic. That was definitely not something that I expected to hear in Japan) I ended up leaving the event around 2:00, I think. Besides browsing and shopping, there wasn't much to do, and as I've been there a few times in the last few months, I was mostly interested in the stalls and the street-based sales. I didn't see any samples of pizza. I saw, in fact, no pizza at all. I bought a wok, and a package of kitchen towels. And a wooden spoon. I tried to buy some spices, as they were being sold very cheaply, but a horde of Japanese women who also wanted cheap spices managed to keep me at bay long enough for me to decide to find easier pickings elsewhere. On the way to my next destination in Tokyo, I happened to make a transfer at Mitsukoshimae station. As I was walking inside the station to the connecting line, I saw some advertisements and realized that the station was connected to the Mituskoshi Nihonbashihonten (Mitsukoshi's main store, in Nihonbashi). I had heard good things about it, and had some extra time, so I wandered into the depachika (the basement level used or food items). It was huge, and filled with fancy treats. It was also filled with people, due to the day being a public holliday. It was truly big. The area for sweets alone rivalled my local supermarket in size. My memories of it are a clutter, owing the the throning masses of people, and the wide variety of things to see, smell, and tase. Two things manage to cut through the mess in my mind. The first was a wine seminar, conducted by a Frenchman. It was translated into Japanese, of course, and I managed to understand very, very little of either the French or the Japanese. The other item that sticks out in my memory was a small truffle that I received as a sample from one of the stalls in the sweets area. Cool, semisweet chocolate ganache dusted with cocoa. I wish I had one (or more) right now. Getting back to the Kappabashi festival. I think it's a good time to visit Kappabashi if you don't go there semi-regularly. I don't think it's really worth more than three hours, unless you're really into shopping, which is made is frustrated by the unceasing crowds. For shopping inside the stores themselves, you're probably better off just going on a regularly day (but not Sunday, as most of the stores are closed). For more pictures, or for larger versions of the ones here, go to my webpage ------- Alex Parker

I have never been satisfied with any of the "Thai" specific salad dressings. What I use is a recipe for the Indonesian salad dressing for Gado gado vegetable salad, my all time favorite. This recipe was given to me by the owner of J.B's Little Bali, a little Indonesian restaurant once located in Inglewood, California. The restaurant is long gone, but the memory lingers on. Peanut Sauce or Dressing for Gado Gado vegetable salad 2 tablespoons light oil, canola, etc. 1/2 cup chunky peanut butter, fresh home made is better and doesn't take long to make. 3/4 cup coconut milk (thicker or thinner depending on your own preference) 1 teaspoon chili paste (I usually use sweet chile sauce, 3 tablespoons instead) 1 1/2 tablespoons palm sugar (substitute light brown sugar) 1 1/2 teaspoons fresh ginger, finely minced 1 large clove garlic, finely minced 1/3 cup onion, fine dice 1 tablespoon fish sauce (or substitute light soy sauce if desired) Heat oil in a large skillet (use a wok if you wish), add ginger, garlic and onion and cook till garlic is just beginning to show color. Add the rest of the ingredients. Reduce heat to low and stir constantly for about two or three minutes until sauce is well blended. If it is too thick, add a little more coconut milk and stir to blend. Pour over the warm vegetables and toss well. Serve immediately. The sauce can be made ahead and kept warm over a tealight. Or if serving large parties keep warm in a small crockpot.

Thank you very much for the explanation. I think one thing that has thrown me off on choosing the best pan for a particular technique is that different people use different terms for the same thing, probably incorrectly. I think I'm now clear on what a skillet is, as opposed to a "sauté" pan. However, I've also seen references to "straight-sided sauté" and "slope-sided sauté" pans. I know I'm opening up a whole can of worms, or escargot, here, ha. I'm thinkng that the slope-sided pans would be best for making the food jump due to the angle the pieces would bounce off the sides while a straight-sided pan would work best with tongs or a spatula because the food would otherwise slam into ä "wall" when it hits the sides. Yet, I can also see how a slope-sided pan would be less likely to trap steam while a straight-sided pan trades that advantage off for more flat surface area for the same diameter pan. I get more usable area for the same diameter in a straight-sided sauté pan, so it seems best to use this type of pan, often referred to just as a "sauté" pan, when I don't want to sauté (jump) my food. I hope I'm not being overly neurotic about this! Tying this all back to the main subject of this thread, I've noticed that the Lodge skillets, with the exception of the 10-Inch Chef Skillet, have nearly vertical sides. That makes sense now that I can see that their handle configuration and short sides don't make for a good sauté pan, as you have explained. By the way, note that Lodge says the Chef Skillet is "great for sautéing". That seems unlikely. By the way, I saw that Hackman cast-iron pan with a long-handle at a local shop this afternoon. I don't think anyone other than Chewbacca could sauté anything in that. It's quite heavy! The heck with this. Maybe I should just get a wok. Let's see, flat-bottomed or curved, carbon steel, cast-iron, or....

My wife and I were ending our NW odyssey and on the way to SEA-Tac when we spied Viet Wah Superfoods at 6040 Martin Luther King Way South. What a find, they have incredible BBQ duck and chicken (we preferred the duck, but we always do), many dishes that are prepared as you watch in big woks at the back of the kitchen. We tried 4 things and our bill for two was under $15. Very good and worth a look. I took a brief walk through the store after our meal and it appeared to be a good, cheap source for Asian grocery items.

Understanding Stovetop Cookware By Samuel Lloyd Kinsey (slkinsey) In various discussions about cookware over the years, I have found that many people care passionately about their cookware -- be it All-Clad, heirloom cast iron, heavy copper, or Calphalon -- but don’t really understand their cookware. This article, I hope, can be a first step towards transforming you into the equipment geek I know is lurking inside. Or at least helping you make some informed choices the next time you decide to buy a new pan. As you may imagine, this course requires no ingredients and no equipment - only some patience and a few minutes of reading time Whenever considering a new piece of cookware there are 5 basic questions you should ask yourself. 1. What kind of cooking task do you want to do? As it so happens, there are different pan designs for just about every cooking task one is likely to encounter. For example, if you want to make sauces, you would be well-advised to acquire a saucepan. An understanding of what you want to do can inform your decisions on many different levels. For example, if what you really need is a 3 quart pan for boiling water, there is no reason to spend big money on a fancy pan. 2. What is the basic pan shape? Are you buying a sauté pan? a saucepan? a stock pot? Different pan designs lend themselves to different cooking tasks, and also to different uses and deployments of materials. 3. What materials are used? Cookware materials can be differentiated by two considerations: reactivity and thermal properties. Reactivity is fairly simple. Some materials are more reactive than others, which means that they tend to react chemically with foods and produce undesirable results. Thermal properties, into which we will delve in greater detail below, include things like: How fast does it heat up? How even is the heat? How much heat does it hold? And things like that. 4. How are the materials deployed? This comes down to basic design philosophy: Is it a disk-bottom design or is it straight gauge? Is it fully clad, interior lined or all one metal? 5. How much of the various materials are used? This seems like an easy thing to understand, but it is frequently overlooked. For example, a pan with a 2 mm thick aluminum base will perform differently from one with a 7 mm thick aluminum base, just as a 2 mm thick copper pan will perform differently from a 2.5 mm thick copper pan. The real trick, though, is understanding the difference between 2 mm of copper and 4 mm of aluminum. What Kind Of Cooking Task Do You Want To Do This seems like a relatively simple question, but it is an important one. When you are thinking of getting a new piece of cookware, don’t think “I want a new skillet.” Rather ask yourself, “what do I want to do that I cannot do with the cookware I already own? Why? What is it about my cookware that does not allow me to do what I want?” Sometimes it may be something as simple as wanting a skillet that doesn’t have hot spots. Other times it may be more complex... Maybe you want a small pan for making delicate sauces like Hollandaise and mounting reductions with butter. Then, you have to ask yourself what it is, exactly, that might make a pan good at performing these tasks. In this instance, you would want a pan that had absolutely even heat, that responded immediately when you adjusted the flame up or down, that was able to maintain its temperature when cold ingredients were added, that conducted heat into the sauce from all sides so everything was exactly the same temperature, that had a relatively large surface-area-to volume ratio for efficient reduction and that was nice and wide at the top so it was easy to get in there with a whisk. In short, you might want a stainless-lined heavy copper sauce pan, or for a little less money, a stainless lined heavy aluminum pan, or for a little less money, a stainless pan with a copper bottom. A big part of this article will be working to build a basis for understanding why, exactly you would want a sauce pan and what, exactly, would be gained and/or lost moving from a stainless lined copper pan to a stainless lined aluminum pan to a stainless pan with a disk bottom. What Is The Basic Pan Shape? This section will provide concise descriptions of the various pans used in the kitchen. Sauté Pan (Sauteuse; also Curved Sauté Pan and Slant-Sided Sauté Pan): This pan has a large cooking surface and short straight sides that are approximately one quarter the diameter of the pan. The large cooking surface provides ample contact with the heat and the straight sides help contain ingredients as they are flipped around inside the pan to brown them evenly on all sides. A long, high handle helps the cook agitate the pan for even more movement. This is what it is to sauté. The French verb “sauter” means “to jump” -- so foods that are “sauté” are “jumped around in the pan.” A lid allows the addition of liquids to sautéed items for a quick braising. The Curved Sauté Pan and Slant-Sided Sauté Pan are similar, with the refinements implied by their names. Cast Iron Skillet: This traditional pan is similar in configuration to the Sauté Pan, having a large cooking surface and short straight sides. But this is where any similarity ends. Cast Iron Skillets have short handles perpendicular to the base of the pan, and the sides are even lower -- from 20% of the pan’s diameter all the way down to 14%. As a result, they are not particularly well suited to sautéing as the ingredients would tend to jump right out of the pan. Where Cast Iron Skillets excel is in providing constant high heat for things like browning large cuts of meat, shallow-frying chicken and, of course, making cornbread. Seasoning can make these pans relatively stick-resistant for cooking eggs and other such notoriously sticky foods, but the straight sides make it difficult to get a spatula in there (a better alternative is probably a nonstick pan or a purpose-designed “French steel” pan). One word about seasoning and high heat cooking: if the pan gets too hot, it will burn the seasoning and damage it. For this reason, it is useful to keep an unseasoned cast iron skillet around for extra-high-heat cooking. A common variant of the Cast Iron Skillet, and a good candidate for an unseasoned cast iron pan, is the Cast Iron Grill Pan. This is a Cast Iron Skillet with ribs extending upwards from the bottom to mimic a grill. Another common variant is the Cast Iron Chicken Fryer, which has taller sides -- around one third the diameter of the pan. Whether this is actually a good design for frying chicken is a matter of some debate. Fry Pan: This pan is similar to the Sauté Pan with its large cooking surface and short sides. However, the fry pan has even shorter sides and they are sloped outwards to allow maximum dispersal of steam so food items fry “dry” for an optimally crisp surface. These pans are designed to quickly fry ingredients in a small amount of fat -- specifically, ingredients that are “flat” and therefore (or for other reasons) do not need to be, or should not be, sautéed. Rondeau (Braiser, Casserole, Low Casserole): This is a low, wide, double-handled pan. The sides are right around one-third as tall as the diameter of the pan. This can be a very versatile pan for tasks as diverse as browning bones to poaching delicate meats and fishes. The lack of a long handle means it won’t take up much stovetop real estate, and it goes easily from stovetop to oven. The two major variants (not that all manufacturers stick to the same nomenclature) are the Casserole and the Low Casserole, which have sides that tend to be higher or lower than those of a Rondeau. A Casserole is essentially a large saucepan with two loop handles instead of one long handle, while a Low Casserole is essentially a sauté pan with two loop handles instead of one long handle. Another variant on this theme is the high end Paella Pan, such as those manufactured by Sitram and Paderno, which has deep curved sides and a thick conductive base. Enameled Cast Iron Casserole (Cocotte, French Oven, Dutch Oven): This is a specific kind of Casserole that deserves special mention due to its design. The enamel lining makes the pan nonreactive, while the extra heavy, thick layer of cast iron provides even heat for long, low braising and simmering. These come in both round and oval shapes, the latter being especially useful for braising large pieces of meat on the bone. An interesting traditional variant is the Doufeu, which has ribs or nodules on the interior surface of its lid. The lid is deeply indented so that it may be filled with ice water, which encourages internal vapors to condense on the ribs or nodules and drip back into the braise. A truly traditional Dutch Oven is raw cast iron, rather than enameled, and occasionally footed for use over coals. Stock Pot: This is a pot designed for making stocks. The shape is tall and narrow to limit evaporation, with sides approximately equal to the diameter of the base. This design allows stocks to be simmered a long time for maximum flavor extraction and minimal loss of liquid. Stock pots at around 12 - 18 quarts make excellent vessels for boiling pasta with the addition of a Pasta Strainer Insert. Saucepan (Low Saucepan): This is a pan for making sauces and reductions. The sides are traditionally half as tall as the diameter of the pan, which provides a large surface area for fast evaporation. The low sides provide easy access to a whisk for making roux and mounting sauces. Also useful in the larger sizes as a general purpose pan for blanching/steaming vegetables, reheating liquids, etc. Tall Saucepan (High-Sided Saucepan, Saucepot, Saucepan): Otherwise similar to the Low Saucepan, but the sides are taller in proportion to the diameter of the pan -- around 75%. As a result, the Tall Saucepan does not encourage fast evaporation like its shorter brother. Rather, this pan is best suited for warming/reheating sauces, soups, stews and other liquids in situations where additional reduction is not desired. Due to its proportionally greater volume, the Tall Saucepan is more useful than its shorter brother as a general-purpose pan for blanching/steaming vegetables, reheating liquids, etc. Sauteuse Evasée (Slant-Sided Saucepan, Windsor Saucepan, Sauteuse Conique, Conical Sauteuse, Fait Tout, Chef’s Pan, Reduction Pan): This is a saucepan that has been optimized for reductions. The sides are angled out from the base to provide 25% more surface area for evaporation. In addition, the sides are even lower than those on a Low Saucepan -- usually one-third as tall as the diameter of the pan. Due to its geometry, which is neither particularly high nor particularly low, the Sauteuse Evasée may be used for sautéing in the larger sizes, and the smaller sizes can be very useful in place of a Low Saucepan. Such versatility has conferred upon this pan the name “Fait Tout,” which means “does everything.” (Note: Le Creuset makes a non-traditional “Windsor” that has slanted sides, but is relatively tall and narrow. This pan does not have the same performance characteristics as the traditional designs.) Curved Sauteuse Evasée (Curved Sauteuse, Saucière, Sauteuse Bombée, Saucier, Chef’s Pan): As the name suggests, this pan is otherwise similar to the Sauteuse Evasée, only with curved rather than straight sides. In smaller sizes, the curved sides provide easy access to every corner of the pan with a whisk or spoon for sauce making. In larger sizes, the curved sides facilitate one-handed tossing of the food when sautéing. What Materials Are Used? As previously discussed, cookware materials differ in two important qualities: reactivity and thermal properties. Reactivity Materials that are highly reactive tend to have chemical reactions with other substances around them. A good example would be iron, which tends to react with oxygen to form iron oxide or, as we commonly know it, rust. This is significant to cooking because there are certain ingredients and certain ways of cooking in which it is disadvantageous to have a reactive cooking surface because the ingredients will react with the cooking vessel and produce undesirable colors and/or flavors. Highly reactive cookware materials include iron, copper, aluminum and carbon steel. Nonreactive cookware materials include stainless steel and enamel. A special case is anodized aluminum, which is aluminum that has been treated with an electrolytic process to create a harder surface that is still somewhat reactive, but significantly less so than untreated aluminum. Similarly, a process called annealing is used to turn reactive carbon steel into harder, less reactive black steel and blue steel. As it so happens, materials that are highly reactive also tend to have highly desirable thermal properties (and vice-versa), as we will see below. Thermal Properties Thermal properties refers to those aspects of a material that have to do with heat. So, before we begin, perhaps we should have an understanding of what heat and temperature are. In all substances above absolute zero there exists a certain amount of movement in the atoms or molecules that make up that substance. This is a kind of kinetic energy, which is a fancy physics term used to refer to the mechanical energy a body has by virtue of its motion. Temperature is a measure of that kinetic energy. The greater the kinetic energy -- i.e., the faster the particles are moving -- the higher the temperature reading will be on the thermometer. Heat is a little more difficult to nail down. In the scientific sense, it is a measure of the amount of energy transferred from one object to another because of the temperature difference between those two objects. In other words, if you put a cold object down on top of a hot object, the energy that is transferred from the hot object to the cold object would be measured as heat. Heat is not, strictly speaking, a word that describes the energy contained inside an object -- it is only a word that describes the energy exchanged between the two objects. The energy an object possesses due to its temperature -- let's say the sum total of all the atomic vibrations in an object -- is properly called Internal Thermal Energy. All that said, laypeople commonly understand “heat” to include both “heat as transferred energy” and “heat as internal thermal energy,” and that is the usage I will employ in this article. So, how does heat make it from the burner at the bottom of your pan through to the other side and into the food? The answer is: Conduction. As Harold McGee says: Ideally we would like to have a pan that provides even heat, that is able to hold a lot of heat and that responds promptly to changes in the heat source. These three things all depend on two properties of the materials used in the pan: thermal conductivity and heat capacity. Thermal Conductivity is a physical property that describes how fast a given material can move heat around. Materials with good thermal conductivity are able to transfer heat from one part of the pan to another very quickly and efficiently, which provides even heat. The graphics below illustrate how thermal conductivity affects evenness of heat. This illustration shows how heat, applied to a single point, is conducted through an infinitely thick piece of metal in an arbitrary unit of time (say, one second or one minute). As we can see, when we look at the highly conductive material, the material within the area we are considering is all about the same temperature. On the other hand, the less conductive material is nice and warm close to the heat source but is rather cool out towards the edge of the radius. This is because the highly conductive material was able to take the heat from the single heat source and distribute it throughout the area very quickly. The less conductive material just can’t move the heat as fast, and so was not able to move much heat to the outer areas during the space of our arbitrary unit of time. Let’s take a look at how this would work in a pan: This illustration shows how the same single source of heat is conducted through a piece of cookware. Note that the highly conductive cooking surface is more or less all the same temperature, whereas the less conductive cooking surface is warmer in the middle and cooler towards the outside. That warm part in the middle is the dreaded hot spot -- the same thing that creates a burnt ring on the bottom of the pan when you cook a long-simmered tomato sauce. But, you may well ask, what if we just leave the less conductive pan on the heat for a longer period of time? Wouldn’t the edges eventually warm up? Good question. Let’s take a look: This illustration shows how much heat the less conductive material can distribute through an infinitely thick piece of metal when you leave it on the heat longer than the arbitrary unit of time we specified above (say, 3 seconds or 3 minutes). As we can see, heat is conducted a much greater distance from the heat source, which we would expect given the greater interval of time. If we look at the original radius of the area we examined at first, we can see that the temperature at the edge of that area is just about the same as it was in our original unit of time for the highly conductive material. Great, you say, all we have to do is heat the less conductive material a little longer and it’s the same thing. Not so fast. Let’s have a look at how it would work in a pan: This illustration shows how the same single source of heat is conducted through two pieces of cookware made of the less conductive material when it is left on the heat longer than our original arbitrary unit of time. As we can see, the cooking surface with the same thickness we used in the earlier example is hotter overall, but the center of the pan is still significantly hotter than the edges of the pan -- a hot spot. The thicker cooking surface, on the other hand, has a fairly uniform distribution of heat at the top where the food would be making contact. In fact, the distribution of heat and temperature at the top appears to be quite similar to what we were getting from the highly conductive material in our original arbitrary unit of time. So, what does this all tell us? It tells us that the thickness of cookware materials is important, and that less conductive materials can potentially provide even heat just as well as more conductive materials but the less conductive materials must be thicker and it will take more time for the pan to come up to temperature. The issue of time is an important one, and brings us to the second effect of thermal conductivity: responsiveness. Responsiveness refers to a material’s ability to respond to changes in the heat source. I think we have all experienced the phenomenon of turning the heat off under a cast iron skillet only to have the meat continue to sizzle and cook as though nothing had happened. This is because cast iron does not have good thermal conductivity and a cast iron pan is not able to respond to the decrease in the heat source by cooling off quickly. When considering responsiveness, it is useful to imagine the cookware as a bucket of heat with faucets dumping heat into and draining heat out of the bucket. In this illustration, thermal conductivity is illustrated by the size of the faucets. The highly conductive material is able to move heat from the heat source into the cookware rapidly because it has a large faucet dumping a lot of heat into the heat bucket. The less conductive material doesn’t move heat from the heat source into the cookware nearly as efficiently, so the size of the faucet is smaller. Looking at the illustration, it becomes apparent that the highly conductive bucket will fill up with heat faster than the less conductive bucket. Another way of stating this is that the highly conductive material is able to respond more quickly to an increase in the heat source by filling up with heat and getting hotter -- it is more responsive. The faucets on the bottom of the heat buckets demonstrate that the same principle works in the opposite direction. The highly conductive material can also quickly drain heat out of the bottom of the heat bucket -- by conducting the heat into the food, into the air, into water, etc. -- and respond to changes in the heat source by cooling off quickly. The less conductive material, with its smaller faucet, is once again not able to respond as rapidly. The graphic below gives the thermal conductivity for several common metals used in cookware (as well as a couple of others you will recognize, just for the sake of comparison). From a purely technical standpoint, the thermal conductivity of a material changes depending on the temperature of the material, so these numbers are not strictly true for all temperatures. That said, the relationship between the various materials remains roughly the same no matter what the temperature, so these numbers are a good indication of the relative conductivity of these materials. As we can see, copper has by far the best thermal conductivity, with stainless steel having very poor thermal conductivity. This is why copper provides such even heat, while stainless steel is notorious for hot spots. You may refer to this chart for data on the thermal conductivity of other elements. Of note is the fact that all the materials used for cookware have pretty good thermal conductivity overall. Copper has the second best thermal conductivity of all elements, and even iron -- which we normally think of as being fairly sluggish in this regard -- has better thermal conductivity than 80 other elements! The foregoing information leads us to an interesting conclusion: that more conductive materials are able to conduct heat more efficiently into food compared to less conductive materials. This supposition is borne out in the following experiment: Start with two pans of approximately the same size/thickness, one of cast iron and the other of copper. Place both in a high oven and preheat for an hour (this will ensure that both pans have accumulated approximately the same amount of heat). Now, open the oven door, take two approximately equal steaks (or chops or similarly massive cuts of meat) and drop one into each of the two pans. Wait five minutes, remove the steaks and examine the browned side. You should notice that the steak in the copper pan is more browned than the steak in the cast iron pan. Cut into each steak and you should find that the steak in the copper pan is more cooked through than the steak in the cast iron pan. This is because the copper pan, due to having better thermal conductivity, was able to conduct more of its accumulated heat into the steak than the cast iron pan. This all assumes, however, that the cast iron pan and the heavy copper pan were holding the same amount of heat in the first place, which is the reason it was important to choose pans of approximately the same size and thickness… which leads us to the second important thermal property: Heat Capacity Thus far we have mostly been talking about heat in its pure scientific sense: as it relates to the transfer of thermal energy. Now, we will turn out attention to the second meaning of heat, as it relates to internal thermal energy. Every object -- for our purposes, every chunk of metal -- can not only be described as being at a certain temperature, but also as holding a certain amount of heat. For example, if we have a one pound piece of iron and a five pound piece of iron, both at 200 degrees C, it doesn’t take too much thinking to wrap our minds around the idea that the 5 pound piece of iron is holding more heat than the smaller piece. This is easily understood by nothing more than the fact that it had to sit on the stove a lot longer before it came up to temperature. A more scientific experiment would be to drop each piece of iron into equal sized containers of water and measure how much the temperature of the water goes up in each container. If you do this experiment, you will find that the water in the container with the large piece of iron is significantly warmer than the water in the container with the smaller piece. This is because the large piece of iron stores more heat than the small piece, even at the same temperature. As it turns out, various materials differ in their ability to store heat. In other words, some materials can hold more heat at a given temperature than others. For example, a one pound chunk of aluminum holds a lot more heat than a one pound chunk of copper at the same temperature. The scientific term that quantifies a material’s heat storage capabilities is called Specific Heat. Specific heat is the amount of heat it takes to raise one unit of a substance by one degree. The most common way specific heat is expressed is the amount of heat, measured in Joules it takes to raise one gram of a substance by one degree Kelvin, or: Joules per gram per degree Kelvin (J/g K). That said, you may also see specific heat expressed as British thermal units per pound per degree Fahrenheit (Btu/lb F) or calories per gram per degree Celsius (cal/g C) and so forth depending on the measurement system used. We’ll stick with good old J/g K for this article. Confused yet? It gets even more complicated. We also need to settle on a reference standard. Specific heat is not an absolute measurement like a meter or a kilogram. A meter is an absolute quantity -- something that is a meter long is a meter long and something that is two meters long is twice the length of a meter. Temperature systems, on the other hand, work differently. Take the Celsius scale, for example... the values of 1 and 100 are arbitrarily set at the freezing and boiling points of water. Why? Why are there 100 units between the freezing and boiling points of water? Is 20C twice as hot as 10C? How? Well, as it so happens, water has an unusual ability to hold a lot of heat, so scientists have arbitrarily designated the specific heat of water as 1. Thus, all specific heat measurements are given relative to the specific heat of good old H2O. The illustration below lists the specific heat values for the most commonly used cookware materials. As we can see, aluminum has a very high specific heat indeed – over double that of iron. This would lead us to conclude that a one pound chunk of aluminum holds more heat than a one pound chunk of iron at the same temperature. But wait... cast iron is supposed to hold the most heat, right? Yes and no. It is true that the chunk of aluminum holds more than the chunk of iron, but we haven’t accounted for the density of the materials. The illustration below shows the density of the same materials. OK... now we can see that iron is a lot more dense than aluminum. A one pound piece of aluminum would be almost three times the size of a one pound piece of iron. Since cookware is described in terms of its thickness (i.e., the volume of the materials rather than the weight) it is more useful for us to understand the heat carrying capabilities of a given volume of metal rather than a given mass of metal. To obtain these figures, we can simply multiply the specific heat by the density to arrive at specific heat per cubic centimeter. Now the picture looks completely different, doesn’t it? Aluminum is way down there on the bottom, iron and copper are in the middle, and steel is up at the top. These are much more useful numbers that more accurately reflect the way materials are deployed in cookware. A understanding of these numbers can take us a long way towards understanding the difference between a 3 mm thick aluminum bottom and a 7 mm thick aluminum bottom -- also between a 3 mm thick aluminum bottom and a 2 mm thick copper bottom. This is because we can use these numbers to understand the Heat Capacity of various cookware. Heat Capacity is the term we will use to describe the total heat holding capabilities of an entire piece of cookware. For example, if we have an 11 inch sauté pan with a 7 mm thick aluminum bottom, we can calculate the heat capacity of that base. If I plug in a radius of 14 centimeters (half of the 11 inch diameter) and a height of .7 centimeters into this handy online calculator we get a volume of 431 cubic centimeters. Multiplying that by the specific heat per cc number from above, we get an overall heat capacity of 1043. Now let us compare this aluminum bottom to a copper bottom at 2.5 mm. The volume of the copper bottom is much smaller -- only 154 cubic centimeters. Using the number for copper from above, we arrive at an overall heat capacity of 531, or around half that of the aluminum bottom. This may seem fairly esoteric, but in fact we have just used materials data to compare a 67 dollar Sitram Profisserie sauté pan with a 7 mm aluminum base to a 140 dollar Sitram Catering sauté pan with a 2.5 mm copper base. What does this tell you? It tells you that you’re better off buying the cheaper pan if you want a sauté pan with a high heat capacity so you can dump a whole bunch of stuff into it all at the same time. A good way to conceptualize heat capacity is to return to our “heat bucket” illustration from above. The illustration above shows the difference between two otherwise similar cooking vessels made with different amounts of the same material. Because they are made from the same material, the thermal conductivity (as illustrated by the size of the faucets) is the same. As we can see, the pan made with more material has a larger heat bucket and is able to hold more heat at a given temperature -- it has a larger heat capacity. All that said, we come to the final piece of the puzzle: integrating heat capacity and thermal conductivity. As we look at the illustration above we can’t help but notice that the heat faucets are the same size, meaning that the thermal conductivity was the same for the two cooking vessels being compared. This means that the vessel with the smaller heat capacity will come up to temperature -- "fill up with heat” -- more rapidly than the vessel with the larger heat capacity. But, as we can recall from the illustration up in the thermal conductivity discussion, the size of the faucet is not always the same. Some materials have better thermal conductivity than others. The illustration above demonstrates the interaction of thermal conductivity and heat capacity. Here we have three cooking vessels with different thermal conductivities and heat capacities: low/high, high/high and low/low. With a little thinking, we can understand that the low/high pan will take longer to heat up and will be less responsive than the high/high pan. However, if we take the low/high pan and use a smaller amount of the low conductivity material, we reduce the thermal capacity and make it into a low/low pan. Now, if we compare the high/high pan and the low/low pan, we can understand that they will fill up with heat right around the same time. The faucet is smaller for the low/low pan, but it also has a much smaller bucket to fill up. The high/high pan and the low/low pan are equally responsive. But, there may be a price to pay... The only way to reduce the thermal capacity of the low conductivity pan is to use less of the low conductivity material. How is this done? It is done by making the pan thinner. This is important because, as demonstrated way back in the section on thermal conductivity, when the low conductivity materials become thinner there is a cost to be paid in evenness of heat. The low/low pan may be as responsive as the high/high pan, but it may also have hot spots. These are the tradeoffs that one must deal with when designing cookware. It is always a constant compromise to design a pan that has a large enough thermal capacity so it won’t lose all its heat when food is added to the pan, is thick enough to provide even heat and yet is also responsive to changes in the heat source. One last bit of science... There is a quality that nicely quantifies the relationship between a material’s thermal conductivity and its specific heat. This is called Thermal Diffusivity and it reflects what actually happens when heat is applied to a material. To arrive at this number we divide thermal conductivity by density multiplied by specific heat. Looking at this illustration, it would seem that copper is the best material among those commonly used for cookware. And, indeed it is the case that copper is theoretically the best performer in most cooking applications. However, copper is expensive and heavy, and there are many cases where other materials may be just as good or even better. We’ll come back to this later. How are the Materials Deployed There are several overall design philosophies that can be implemented in cookware. Take a saucepan, for example. A saucepan may be made of thin stainless steel, it may be stainless steel with a conductive base of either aluminum or copper, it may be raw aluminum, it may be aluminum with an interior lining of stainless steel, it may be fully clad aluminum with stainless steel on the inside and the outside, it may be heavy copper with an interior lining of stainless steel, or it may have another design. Below we will take a look at the various designs that are commonly used for stovetop cookware. Aluminum - As we know, aluminum has good thermal conductivity, and aluminum pans provide even heat when the cookware is sufficiently thick. Thickness of materials is also important for heat retention because aluminum has relatively low specific heat per cubic centimeter. - Highly reactive with both acidic and alkaline foods, which can cause off flavors and colors. - Often warps as a result of high heat cooking. - Soft and prone to scratching. - Light. - Inexpensive. - Common uses: Almost every pan in the kitchen is manufactured in raw aluminum. Due to its reactivity, it is best used in cooking tasks where the food is neither too acidic nor alkaline and will spend a relatively brief time in the pan. - Representative manufacturers: Wear-Ever Anodized Aluminum - This is aluminum that has been treated by an electrolytic process which makes the outer surface both harder and less reactive. Otherwise similar to raw aluminum. - Can be incredibly difficult to keep clean. - Moderately expensive. - Things to consider: certain cookware manufacturers claim that an anodized aluminum cooking surface is “stick resistant.” However, owners commonly report that this does not reflect their experience, and anodized aluminum pans that are not kept scrupulously clean are often quite sticky. - Common uses: Almost every pan in the kitchen is manufactured in raw aluminum. Since anodized aluminum is less reactive than raw aluminum, one need not be so concerned about minimizing opportunities for chemical interaction between the food and the pan. Nevertheless, prolonged contact with acidic or alkaline foods can still result in off flavors and colors. This design does not have any particular advantages for heating large volumes of thin liquids in stock pots, rondeaux, casseroles, etc. - Representative manufacturers: Calphalon (Commercial and Professional lines), Circulon Aluminum with an Interior Lining of Stainless Steel - All the thermal benefits of aluminum, but with a nonreactive cooking surface provided by a thin layer of stainless steel. - The aluminum layer may be raw aluminum or anodized aluminum. - Unlike aluminum alone, lined aluminum is not likely to warp. - Data: All-Clad’s interior lined cookware has an aluminum layer of 3.94 mm - Very expensive. - Common uses: Almost every pan in the kitchen is manufactured in this design. This design does not have any particular advantages for heating large volumes of thin liquids in stock pots, rondeaux, casseroles, etc. - Representative manufacturers: All-Clad (MasterChef and LTD lines) Aluminum with an Interior and Exterior Lining of Stainless Steel - This design, with an interior thermal layer completely surrounded by other metals on the inside and the outside is often called “fully clad.” - Otherwise similar to Aluminum with an Interior Lining of Stainless Steel, with the addition of an exterior layer of stainless steel. - Due to manufacturing considerations, the aluminum layer in fully clad cookware is often significantly thinner than the aluminum layer on comparable interior-lined cookware. This can negatively impact both evenness of heat and heat capacity. - May be cleaned in the dishwasher. - Things to consider: Some manufacturers claim to employ special “multi-layer” interiors that are better than pure aluminum layers. Don’t be fooled by this marketing ploy. The interiors of these pans are 99% the same as those employed in the other fully clad designs. - Data: All-Clad’s interior/exterior lined cookware has an aluminum layer of 2.03 mm. Demeyere employs an aluminum layer of 2.3 mm on woks, 3.0 mm to 3.3 mm on “conical sauteuses and simmering pots” and approximately 3.9 mm on fry pans. - Very expensive. - Common uses: Almost every pan in the kitchen is manufactured in this design. This design does not have any particular advantages for heating large volumes of thin liquids in stock pots, rondeaux, casseroles, etc. - Representative manufacturers: All-Clad (Stainless line), Calphalon (Tri-Ply Stainless), Demeyere (“conical sauteuses,” simmering pots,” fry pans and woks). Aluminum with an Interior Lining of Stainless Steel and an Exterior Lining of Copper - Otherwise similar to Aluminum with an Interior Lining and an Exterior Lining of Stainless Steel, with a copper exterior instead of a stainless steel exterior. - Very expensive. - Things to Consider: Regardless of what manufacturers may claim, the copper exterior does not confer any of the thermal advantages associated with copper, because it is too thin to make any impact on the thermal properties of the pan. It does, however, confer many of the maintenance issues associated with copper (see below). - Representative Manufacturers: All-Clad (Cop-R-Chef line), Calphalon (Tri-Ply Copper line). Copper with an Interior Lining of Stainless Steel - Copper has the best overall thermal properties for most cooking tasks. It has excellent thermal conductivity and a high specific heat per cubic centimeter. This means that it provides extremely even heat, is very responsive and holds a lot of heat without needing to be all that thick. However, the thermal conductivity is so fast that copper pans not retain heat well once off the heat -- this is the converse of responsiveness. - Very heavy, especially in the larger sizes. - Copper tarnishes. This does not effect performance, but can be aesthetically unpleasing to some. Brushed exterior copper can be easily and effectively cleaned with Barkeeper’s Friend and a Scotch Brite pad. Mirror-finished exteriors must be cleaned with polish or (less effectively) with vinegar and salt. - Extremely expensive. - Things to consider: Although manufacturers of stainless lined copper sometimes claim that their product is better than the competition, in fact Falk Culinair developed the process by which stainless steel and copper are bonded together to make this cookware. All cookware employing this design is made from the exact same materials, regardless of price. - Data: Most of the stainless-lined copper cookware sold in America is 2.3 mm of copper bonded to .2 mm of stainless steel -- 2.5 mm of copper/stainless steel “bimetal.” Mauviel makes three lines: two “Cuprinox” lines at 2.5 mm and 2.0 mm and the “Table Service” line at 1.6 mm. This last line is meant for table presentation and not for real cooking. Make sure you know what thickness you are buying! - Common uses: Almost every pan in the kitchen is manufactured in this design. Especially useful for cooking tasks that require the ultimate in heat control (e.g., making delicate temperature-sensitive sauces) or those where it is particularly beneficial to take advantage of copper’s ability to conduct a lot of heat all the way up the sides of the cooking vessel (e.g., reductions). This design does not have any particular advantages for heating large volumes of thin liquids in stock pots, rondeaux, casseroles, etc. - Representative manufacturers: Bourgeat, Falk Culinair, Mauviel. Copper with an Interior Lining of Tin - Otherwise similar to Copper With an Interior Lining of Stainless Steel, but employing tin instead of stainless steel on the interior. - Tin is less durable than stainless steel. After a while, the tin lining will wear out and the interior will have to be re-tinned. May not be used at high heat, as this will cause the tin lining to blister and melt. - Tin has significantly better thermal conductivity ( 0.666 W/cm K) than stainless steel. As a result, some people feel that tin-lined copper offers the ultimate in temperature control for sauce making. - Very expensive (less expensive than stainless-lined copper). - Common uses: Almost every pan in the kitchen is manufactured in this design. From a practical standpoint, probably useful to most home cooks as a dedicated pan for sauces only. I do not recommend it for home cooks. - Representative manufacturers: Mauviel Copper with an Interior and Exterior Lining of Stainless Steel - Otherwise similar to Copper with an Interior Lining of Stainless Steel, but the copper is fully clad in stainless steel. - Due to manufacturing considerations, the copper layer in fully clad cookware is often significantly thinner than the copper layer on comparable interior-lined cookware. This can negatively impact both evenness of heat and heat capacity. However, this design should confer more thermal benefits than Aluminum with an Interior and Exterior Lining of Stainless Steel. - May be cleaned in the dishwasher. - Extremely expensive. - Things to consider: Although these pans would seem to confer many of the benefits of heavy copper with none of the maintenance concerns, the cost of this cookware is so high that one is often paying substantially more for cookware with less copper than the already expensive big boys in Copper with an Interior Lining of Stainless Steel. That is a high price to pay for the privilege of throwing a pan in the dishwasher. - Data: Best estimates put the copper interior at somewhat less than 2.0 mm thickness. - Common uses: Many of the common kitchen pans are manufactured in this design. This design does not have any particular advantages for heating large volumes of thin liquids in stock pots, rondeaux, casseroles, etc. - Representative manufacturers: All-Clad (Copper Core line). Cast Iron - Cast iron has fairly low thermal conductivity and a high specific heat per cubic centimeter. This means that cast iron pans are slow to heat up/cool down, have excellent heat retaining properties and need to be quite thick to avoid hot spots. In practice, cast iron is never thick enough to provide absolutely even heat. As a result, most good cast iron pans are quite massive and the general practice is to preheat for a long time on one heat setting until the heat equalizes and the entire cooking vessel is approximately the same temperature. At this point, the pan will hold its heat and remain at more or less the same temperature throughout for long/low cooking or short/high cooking. - Cast iron is highly reactive and prolonged contact with acidic foods can create off flavors. This can be somewhat mitigated by seasoning the cast iron, which is a process whereby successive layers of cooked-on fat are built up over the porous iron surface. This limits the reactivity somewhat and provides a fairly non-stick “natural” surface. Regardless, cast iron is not recommended for cooking tasks involving acidic foods and long cooking. - Very inexpensive. - Common uses: Skillets, chicken fryers, grill pans, Dutch ovens. - Representative manufacturers: Lodge is the only company still producing cast iron cookware, but “antique” examples by Griswold and Wagner (among others) may be found for sale. Enameled Cast Iron - Similar to cast iron in thermal properties, but with a coating of nonreactive enamel inside and out. Because it is nonreactive, enameled cast iron is perfect for cooking tasks that take advantage of cast iron’s heat retaining ability for long, low cooking. - Enamel is an insulator and has very poor thermal conductivity. As a result, these pans are not good for quick browning. Because enamel and iron have such different thermal properties, enameled cast iron must not be heated too high nor cooled down too quickly or the enamel may chip and crack. - Very heavy. - Moderately priced to moderately expensive. - Common uses: Enameled cast iron casseroles, sauce pans, fry pans. - Representative manufacturers: Chasseur, Descoware, Le Creuset, Staub. Carbon Steel - Carbon steel has a slightly higher specific heat per cubic centimeter than Iron and the thermal conductivity is even lower. At this point, there is little to be gained by going for maximum thickness, because it would take forever to heat up. As a result, carbon steel cookware is usually manufactured in a medium gauge of approximately 2.0 mm. - Similar to cast iron, the heat does even out somewhat once the carbon steel pan has been sufficiently preheated. Nevertheless, the heat will never really be even all that even, and carbon steel pans are best used for quick cooking tasks where evenness of heat is not a primary concern. - Like cast iron, carbon steel is highly reactive and needs to be seasoned. Unlike cast iron, however, carbon steel is soft and significantly less porous. As a result, carbon steel may be seasoned sufficiently in 15 minutes and old seasoning is easily removed with a scouring pad if the cook wishes to re-season the pan. - Carbon steel cookware is not cast, it is formed from sheets of carbon steel and pressed into shape. This allows manufacturers to produce a wide variety of specially designed pans for specific cooking tasks (omelet pans, crepe pans, chestnut pans, etc.). Since carbon steel is cheap, a cook can easily and affordably accumulate a number of purpose-designed pans. - Light. - Very inexpensive. - Common uses: Fry pans, sauté pans, crepe pans, omelet pans, woks. - Representative manufacturers: These pans are not particularly associated with any manufacturers, and they are all more or less the same. Black Steel/Blue Steel - This is carbon steel that has been treated by a process of annealing, which makes the surface harder and less reactive. It also imparts a distinctive black or gunmetal blue color to the carbon steel. - Because the surface is harder, black/blue steel seasons more like cast iron in terms of its durability and persistence. Because the surface is less reactive, one need not be so concerned about minimizing opportunities for chemical interaction between the food and the pan. - Very inexpensive. - Common uses: Fry pans, sauté pans, crepe pans, omelet pans, woks. - Representative manufacturers: These pans are not particularly associated with any manufacturers, and they are all more or less the same. Enameled Carbon Steel - Thin carbon steel with a coating of enamel inside and out to render the pan nonreactive. - Extremely prone to buckle and warp, which often causes the enamel to chip. Relatively poor thermal conductivity and heat retention result in hot spots and inferior browning capabilities. - Light. - Extremely inexpensive. - Common uses: Sauce pans, steamers, coffee pots. Cookware of this design is only useful for boiling water. - Representative manufacturers: These pans are not particularly associated with any manufacturers, and they are all more or less the same. Stainless Steel - Stainless steel holds the honor of having the worst overall thermal characteristics of all the metals used for cookware. It has the highest specific heat per cubic centimeter and the lowest thermal conductivity -- not a good combination. - Needless to say, evenness of heat is out of the question and stainless steel cookware must be thin or it will never become hot. Hot spots are inevitable. - Extremely durable and strong. Warping is only a problem at the very lightest gauges. - Fairly inexpensive. - Things to consider: Don’t be fooled by “copper bottoms” that aren’t clearly a disk of some kind. This thin metal layer on the bottom quarter of the pan confers none of the thermal advantages of copper. - Common uses: Almost every pan in the kitchen is manufactured in this design. However, it is only truly useful for boiling water. - Representative manufacturers: These pans are not particularly associated with any manufacturers, and they are all more or less the same. Thus far, all the cookware designs we have discussed have been “straight gauge,” which means that they have the same thermal properties in all parts. Now we will profile two popular “hybrid” cookware designs that have different thermal properties on the bottom and the sides. Specifically, these cookware designs have materials with good thermal properties on the bottom, and materials with not-so-good thermal properties on the sides. Stainless Steel Body with an Aluminum Base - This design begins with durable, nonreactive stainless steel and adds the thermal benefits -- evenness of heat, high specific heat per cubic centimeter, responsiveness -- of aluminum to the bottom of the pan. - Because the aluminum base only covers the bottom, virtually no heat is conducted from the base up into the heavy stainless steel sides of the pan. - Moderately expensive to expensive. - Things to consider: 1) Due to the way this cookware is manufactured, the aluminum disk can never quite cover the entire base of the pan. The percentage of the base covered by the aluminum disk varies from manufacturer to manufacturer and is one indication of quality. 2) Cooks are sometimes apprehensive that foods will scorch and burn on the parts of the pan that are not covered with aluminum -- namely the sides and the portions of the base not covered by the aluminum disk -- because these are essentially plain stainless steel. This is only possibly a concern in conditions where the flame heating the pan is larger than the pan itself, and significant heat from the heat source is in direct contact with those portions of the pan. Such conditions are rare in the home kitchen, and can largely be mitigated by adjusting the flame appropriately and not using pans of this design that are too small in diameter for the stove on which they will be used. 3) Some manufacturers claim to employ special “multi-layer” bases that are better than pure aluminum bases. Don’t be fooled by this marketing ploy. The bases on these pans are 99% the same as those employed in the other aluminum disk bottom designs. - Data: Both Paderno Grant Gourmet and Sitram Profisserie employ an aluminum base that is 7 mm thick. Demeyere Apollo employs a 5 mm thick aluminum base in its disk bottom pans. - Common uses: Many of the common kitchen pans are manufactured in this design. Particularly well suited to tasks where the important area for the transfer of heat from the pan to the food is the bottom of the pan: sauté pans, tall sauce pans, rondeaux, stock pots. - Representative manufacturers: Demeyere (Apollo line for casseroles, sauté pans, saucepans and stock pots), Paderno (Grand Gourmet line), Sitram (Profisserie line). Stainless Steel Body with a Copper Base - This design begins with durable, nonreactive stainless steel and adds the thermal benefits -- evenness of heat, high specific heat per cubic centimeter, responsiveness -- of copper to the bottom of the pan. - Otherwise similar to Stainless Steel Body with an Aluminum Base. - Moderately expensive to expensive. - Things to consider: Demeyere Sirocco has two interesting innovations in its implementation of the copper base design. 1) The copper base is completely enclosed in stainless steel, allowing these pans to be cleaned in the dishwasher. 2) The copper base extends the full diameter of the pan, so that the maximum possible cooking surface area is in contact with copper. However, it is not the case that Demeyere’s implementation covers 30% more of the base than the traditional implementation, as they claim. Rather, the copper disk continues to extend beyond the point where the stainless steel on the bottom of the pan begins to curve upwards to form the sides. Since the copper base does not actually contact the stainless steel beyond the point where it curves up, no heat is conducted into these parts of the pan – exactly the same as it is with the traditional implementation. This is well illustrated by this graphic from Demeyere’s web site. Again, be wary of marketing hype and take any claims of “special multi-layer conductive materials” with a big grain of salt. - Data: Demeyere Sirocco employs a 2.0 copper base for casseroles, sauté pans, saucepans and stock pots, while Sitram Catering has a 2.5 mm copper base for most pans and a 2.0 mm copper base for pans with the smallest diameters. - Representative manufacturers: Demeyere (Sirocco line for casseroles, sauté pans, saucepans and stock pots), Sitram (Catering line). How Much Of The Various Materials Are Used Based on the foregoing, we now have basis for understanding the effects of various materials used in various amounts. We can understand that, for instance, a 4 mm thick aluminum sauté pan with an interior lining of stainless steel will provide better evenness of heat than a 2 mm thick aluminum sauté pan that is fully clad in stainless steel. Likewise, we can understand that a stainless sauté pan with a 7 mm aluminum base will hold more heat than an otherwise similar pan with a 5 mm aluminum base or a 2.5 mm copper base. We can also understand that the pan with the copper bottom will be much more responsive to changes in the heat setting on the stove while still having even heat. So, now it is up to you to ask yourself some questions. You want a sauté pan. Fine. Do you really care whether the heat goes all the way up the sides? Probably not. OK, then. It probably doesn’t make sense to spend all the money on straight gauge cookware. Alright, we’re going with a disk-bottom design. So... do we care whether the heat goes all the way to the very edge of the base? Not really. After all, we are going to be tossing the food around quite a bit as we sauté. Doesn’t make sense to spend big bucks on Demeyere Sirocco, then. The next choice is whether we want a copper base or an aluminum base. Since the kind of sautéing we do tends to be all on high heat, having lightning-quick thermal conductivity doesn’t matter all that much to us. We’ll go with aluminum then. Now that we have decided to go with an aluminum disk bottom sauté pan, all that remains is to determine the thickness of the aluminum base. This will largely be determined by economics. Since we understand that more aluminum means more heat capacity and more evenness of heat, we’ll get the sauté pan with the thickest aluminum base we can afford. Other considerations may be price, weight, aesthetics, brand loyalty, versatility/suitability for other cooking tasks -- any number of things. And, of course, these answers may not be your answers. What is important is that we will be making an informed choice. Please join me in the Q&A with your questions and comments. Post your questions here -->>Q&A Copyright 2003 Samuel Lloyd Kinsey. All Rights Reserved. Any unauthorized duplication or use is strictly prohibited.

I'll step in on this one briefly, until FG returns. In making fish stock, you want to stay away from fishes that are generally very oily in nature (cod, salmon, mackeral etc). A good fish to use would be sole or flounder. The stocks themselves can be reduced just like any other stock, yes. It is recommended that if using fish bones, gut them well to get rid of any traces of blood as that will make your stock cloudy. Think of light vegetables to get a light stock (James Peterson recommends fennel branches which I think is a brilliant idea). CIA recommends a 'white' mirepoix (turnips, parnips, fennel, or onion -- no carrots, celery is iffy). There are some who haunt the fish-monger for heads as that tends to be an economical way to make a stock without buying a lot of fish. That is an okay idea IF the heads are very fresh. I made a fish stock from not-so-fresh heads and ended up throwing away a huge Tupperware bin as the smell would never leave. Regarding shellfish, I would not bother with roasting them at all, but saute or wok them a bit until bright red. "Roasting" in a oven would (I believe) burn them to much. You really just want to bring out a 'little' of their flavor versus having an overly-darkened, burnt flavor. Bear in mind, most recipes calling for fish stock needs a stock that is rather light, not necessarily roasted (not that you can't create something entirely new to experiment with!). By sauteing them, the heat draws out the flavors in the shellfish that would then be extracted in the simmering process. Hope this helps!

My friend Yu Sheon opened this restaurant quietly last week. Great dramatic space. 3 levels of dining. Very clean looking minimalist lines. This is a much needed addition to this part of downtown. The sushi was first rate. My favorite dishes are the wok dishes, so think about noodles. We had authentic lo-mein tossed at the table and an incredible Pad-Thai served with an omelette on top! The menu covers all the pan-Asian bases. Large sushi selection. The prices are very moderate. Cool music, too.

Le Creuset. It's the stuff that is on their not non-stick black colored finishes for some frying pans, "woks", "tawas" grill pans and griddles. While the idea of seasoning an enamel is kind of anti-intuitive I can't think of a better way to say it. The finish starts out black and matte and with a slightly rough surface and ends up black and shiny and smooth. You can get it that way by applying a thin film of oil and putting it in a low oven a few times. I'm calling that seasoning. It goes away with harsh detergents or some seriously high heat over a long period of time. I thought it was raw cast iron, but they insist it's an enamel finish. I was just eyeing the Staub at Sur la Table the other day. Very pretty. regards, trillium

Wow, your recipes sound really authentic -- the kind of stuff my Cantonese grandma used to make. I'm really intrigued with your description of stuffed hairy melon but I'm a little unclear as to the preparation. Do you first cut it in half lengthwise and then into thirds or fourths, making little "boats"? I'm also curious about your use of toong choy, which I guess would be tang cai in Mandarin. If we're talking about the same vegetable (dark green with waxy leaves; slightly rubbery texture reminiscent of a succulent), I've only used it in chicken broth-based soups. I love the way it tastes, but have never prepared it otherwise. Could you give some pointers as to the meat mixture? Here's how I envision it: 8 oz. ground pork 1 cp. toong choy, chopped 1/4 cp. dried shrimp, soaked in water and minced 2 slices ginger, minced 1 T light soy 1 T sherry or rice wine 1 T cornstarch 1 egg 1 generous pinch, white pepper (Dropping in some minced shitakes might be called for, but I'm afraid of overwhelming the toong choy, although the shrimp may do it as well). Steam the whole thing over a wok for 40 minutes. Oops think I didn't describe how it was cut well - should not have been described as lengthwise. The hairy gourd is cut into little blocks/ segments of a tube (like how you'd cut cucumber slices, but big fat slices). Hollow the middle bit out but not all the way through. The toong choy I mean is a preserved vegetable. It's commonly used to make a Cantonese homestyle steamed pork dish / meat patties of "jue yook jing toong choy". It was my sister's favourite dish when we were little and she had to have it just about every other day all mushed up with her rice. I tried looking for a picture of toong choy online - couldn't find a picture of the vegetable itself but the best I could find was a picture at the site of UK online grocer of the eartherware jar that it's usually sold in http://www.hoohing.com/acatalog/Products_P...etables_49.html . Smaller amounts would be sold in sealed plastic bag packages. It's usually pre-chopped in little squares, light brown in colour and quite salty. Think it's made with Napa cabbage but am not sure - will check with mum. The pork mixture recipe is somewhat like this (somewhat as I have never actually measured the amounts) 8 - 10 oz of minced pork 1 1/4 t toong choy (rinse it as it's quite salty) 1 t of light soya sauce 2 T of cornstarch salt - to taste white pepper - to taste 1/2 t sesame oil (optional) Mix the all the ingredients together. Coat the hollowed out bits of the hairy gourd with a little bit of cornflour (so that the meat mixture will stick to it) and fill the hollowed hairy gourd with the meat mixture. Place on a dish, add a 1/4 cup of water/stock to the dish and steam until the pork is cooked and gourd has changed to a translucent colour (about 30 minutes). You can also steam the meat mixture on its own as "jue yook jing toong choy". Add about a 1/4 cup of water to the meat mixture and steam the meat mixture until cooked. Another variation on the meat stuffing for the mo gua would be to substitute minced carrots, minced shitakes (dried ones that have been soaked), minced water chestnus and a dash of sesame oil instead of the toong choy in the pork mixture. This meat mixture is a bit more delicate and refined and not as earthy as the toong choy pork mixture. Yes, hairy gourd is also known as mo gua or jeet gua in Cantonese. We usually choose fat pale green bitter gourds), not the tiny little ones nor the darker green ones that are too old as these are more bitter. I don't soak the bitter gourd in a salt water or baking soda solution but have heard that sprinkling a teaspoon or so of salt on bitter gourd helps to remove the bitterness by. Leave the salt on the bitter gourd for about 10 minutes and then rinse before using. I remember the bitter melon that we used to get when we were little as being a lot more bitter than what we have nowadays. Not sure whether it's a change in my tastebuds or a different strain of bitter gourd. Quarter the bittler gourd lengthwise (and yes this time I do mean lengthwise) and remove the seeds. Cut each quarter at an angle into slices that are about half inch thick. Marinate some chicken pieces (cut Chinese style, into smaller pieces) with salt, pepper, light soya sauce, sesame oil and some sugar for about half hour. We usually use the boney bits of the chicken - ribs, wings, thighs. Heat oil in wok and fry minced garlic (2 -3 cloves), julienned ginger (2 inch segment) and minced black beans (1 T) till aromatic. Add chicken pieces and sliced bitter gourd. Stir-fry for a while and add 3/4 cup water to braise until chicken and bitter gourd are tender and gravy has thickened. Add water to continue braising if mixture gets dry. You can also use pork ribs as posted by tonkichi instead of chicken pieces. I also like bitter gourd fried with egg that tonckichi mentioned. This post is making me very hungry.

Titus, I've adopted the rather wasteful practice of my mom's and basically cut off the long stems as close as possible to where the leaves start growing more densely. Then I hand-pluck the remainder so I have about a two inch stalk, making sure each section contains at least one leaf. My aunt, who worked in the Chinese restaurant, then told me to blanch them (the way you do) in boiling water with a spoonful of baking soda and drain. I heat up the wok with a good amount of oil, then put either the shrimp paste or fermented tofu in, and then throw the ong choy in. I stir fry it just long enough to incorporate the paste or tofu because the blanching seems to almost completely cook it anway. Oh, and I use the Chinese shrimp paste that's the lavenderish pasty stuff, so it's semi-liquid already.

I'm new to this forum but have been following this thread with great interest. Largely inspired by some of the posts here and in particular, by one article appearing in the Seattle Times, I've tried to perfect my technique for cooking water spinach (aka ong choy, kong xin cai, kang kung, phak bung, rau moung). I'm not pleased with my efforts. The greens always seem to be somewhat tougher than I prefer, or at least what I can recall from my childhood or experiences abroad. Initially, I believe the fault lay in picking out greens past their prime from my local Vietnamese greengrocer. Water spinach in my locale, is typically saran-wrapped in bunches, averaging two feet in length, and seems to be virtually identical from bunch to bunch. I resolved to find bunches with smaller, thinner leaves thinking this would be a good indication of younger, tender greens. Can anyone suggest a better method for picking good water spinach? It's possible as well, that I may not be cooking them properly. Typically, I remove the bottom two inches, and portion the remainder into 4" lengths. Most of the recipes I have discovered on the internet, claim that water spinach need not be sauteed for longer than a few minutes. Although the leaves remain bright green, the stalks are still more fibrous than I prefer. I usually blanch them beforehand, or simply leave them in the wok until they turn a far darker shade of green. Is this normal? I'm using a 14" aluminum wok (Magnalite), high heat, and usually, very little oil (one to two tablespoons on average). Can anyone suggest a better method for cooking water spinach? Am I doing something wrong? Following a suggestion from the Seattle Times article referenced below, I attempted to purchase shrimp paste. I discovered that several countries export it (Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand) under different labels and names. There seems to be roughly two types: salted and sauteed. I rolled the dice and picked up a Filipino brand of the sauteed variety. Price ($1.55 for 12 oz.) was largely the deciding factor here. Can anyone suggest a particular brand, and perhaps, a brief explanation between the two types, expressing a preference for one over the other? Thanks in advance if anyone can proffer some help. Link to Seattle Times article: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/pacificnw...0602/taste.html

Thanks for reviving this thread. The things you learn on eGullet! I've used my carbon steel wok for 11 years now, practically every night, but I never thought about tracking down pans in carbon steel.

Wow, your recipes sound really authentic -- the kind of stuff my Cantonese grandma used to make. I'm really intrigued with your description of stuffed hairy melon but I'm a little unclear as to the preparation. Do you first cut it in half lengthwise and then into thirds or fourths, making little "boats"? I'm also curious about your use of toong choy, which I guess would be tang cai in Mandarin. If we're talking about the same vegetable (dark green with waxy leaves; slightly rubbery texture reminiscent of a succulent), I've only used it in chicken broth-based soups. I love the way it tastes, but have never prepared it otherwise. Could you give some pointers as to the meat mixture? Here's how I envision it: 8 oz. ground pork 1 cp. toong choy, chopped 1/4 cp. dried shrimp, soaked in water and minced 2 slices ginger, minced 1 T light soy 1 T sherry or rice wine 1 T cornstarch 1 egg 1 generous pinch, white pepper (Dropping in some minced shitakes might be called for, but I'm afraid of overwhelming the toong choy, although the shrimp may do it as well). Steam the whole thing over a wok for 40 minutes. Sounds like one of those wonderfully subtle southern Chinese dishes that I'll end up slathering chili sauce all over. Could you provide some more detail on the bitter melon/black bean chicken braising method? Thanks in advance. I know I'm asking a lot. As for the bitter melon discussion, I think someone told me to soak it in saltwater as well Or was it baking soda, the Chinese cooks' answer to everything? Melon too bitter? Soak it in baking soda and water. Cheap cut of beef too tough? Rub it with baking soda and leave overnight. Bamboo shoots and water chestnuts redolent with the taste of stainless steel from the tin? Blanch them in baking soda-infused boiling water. I did try boiling the bitter melon before stir-frying them with flank steak in a black bean sauce, but it still came out too bitter.

As a matter of fact......I did. My therapy for dealing with the crippling disappointment of not getting a trip to the Iberian peninsula this summer was to reread some old Portugal threads, and I see this question went unanswered. So, the least I can do.... I definitely share your love for Sintra. I think the glowing phrases Lord Byron wrote about it are still true almost two centuries later. The obligatory food experience in Sintra is the pastry shop Casa da Piriquita (R. Padarias 1, right across the street from the Paço Real with its huge, conical chimneys). It's famous for its queijadas--small, sweet, cheese-and-egg tarts, but my favorite offering there is the travesseiros--a variation on the perpetual pastry-with-sweetened-egg theme, but this has a lighter, flakier pastry and lighter hand with the sweetened eggs than most. They're baked with a dusting of cinnamon and granulated sugar....warm from the oven, they are heavenly. If you want a real meal in Sintra, just a couple of doors up the from Piriquita is an excellent and reasonably priced restaurant, Alcobaça. As always with such places, I say peruse the pratos do dia--they usually ain't the daily specials for nothing! Now, if you've got a car, all sorts of wonderful possiblities are opened up to you. Drive to the coast--you'll probably end up at Guincho, the westernmost point in continental Europe (or is that Cabo da Roca? I can never remember). Enjoy the spectacular views from the bluffs, then drive south on the highway just a few kilometers and stop for a meal at Mestre Zé, an upscale (but worth it) restaurant specializing, naturally, in seafood. Order the cataplana de marisco, the most delicious version of this dish I have ever tasted. The dish is named after the vessel it is cooked in....a cataplana is a pan made from copper, shaped more or less like two woks hinged together. One of the wok sections folds over on top of the other, like a dome-shaped lid, so that it can then be fastened and put in the oven. To call Mestre Zé's cataplana de marisco a "seafood stew" would not in any way suggest its magnificence, but that's the general idea. Lobster, squid, shrimp all cooked perfectly in a sauce of tomato and onions (and one couldn't possibly leave chouriço out of such a mix!) and cream. It is one of the top 5 dishes I ever tasted in Portugal. Also toward the coast from Sintra is the village of Almoçageme. Here, one eats at the Restaurante Toca do Júlio. Everything is good.....on Saturdays, they have one of the better versions of cozido one is likely to find, and Sundays they have a killer feijoada. Driving the other direction from Sintra, inland, toward Mafra, is a town called Negrais. They have their own way of making leitão (roast suckling pig)--it's almost as famous as Mealhada's. I have never been to Negrais, but I have heard repeatedly from unimpeachable sources it is worth the drive. Apparently there is one restaurant there that everyone agrees is THE one to eat in.....just go, and ask around. On the way to Cascais from Sintra (in fact, most of the way to Cascais), past Malveira da Serra, is the village of Alcorvim, near Alcabideche, which everyone knows because of the monstrous mall CascaiShopping. The village itself is quiet and sleepy, and blessed with an excellent restaurant, Farta Pão. That's about all I remember from Sintra. I can't find find any information on the excellent German restaurant I tried there several years ago--it may be gone. I'm not sure this therapy had the desired effect.....I seem to want to go for a visit more than ever now.

An easy tamarind sauce to jazz up fried eggs sunny-side up. To go with say, 4 eggs. Being rather experimental in my cooking, I'm not very scientific in my recipes - sorry! 4-5 shallots - sliced 1 red fresh chillie - cut into 1/2 inch lengths tamarind juice from about 1 inch cube of tamarind from your block (ie. soak the tamarind pulp in 1/2 cup hot water for a couple of minutes, and squeeze the juice out of the tamarind pulp) sugar and salt to taste 1-2 tbs cooking oil Heat the oil in a wok or shallow pan, and fry the shallots till transparent. Toss in the chillie pieces and stir around for a couple of seconds. Pour in the tamarind juice (be careful of splatter!), and turn the flame to low. Let the tamarind juice simmer for a while (about 2 mins) till the chillies and shallots look wilted. Add sugar and salt to taste - aim for a nice combo of sour, salty, slightly sweet and slightly spicy. Pour sauce over eggs and serve with white rice. This is probably a Nyonya recipe (Nyonya = straits chinese in parts of Malaysia like Penang, Malacca, as well as in Singapore). You can also substitute the eggs for fried fish, or fried pork belly slices, or even salt fish if feeling adventurous!

Using a $2.50 5lb container of dark soy I bought from a local chinese supermarket, we made this fried rice this evening using chopped up leftover roast pork loin we made for the cubano sandwiches we had this week using the Toast N Serve: The rice was fried up in a chinese commercial wok oil blend. The rest of the stuff in it is scallion, julienned carrots and frozen peas and 2 eggs. A little bit of sesame oil was added at the end. This tasted a lot closer to the one you get in a old-style American chinese restaurant. The type of soy sauce used is clearly half the equation and the high intensity wok burners (and restaurant-made roast pork with tons of MSG) is the other.

you really like the mix as much as from scratch BB? Yes. The batter is ready in five minutes and the Dosa is done in another five. Most South Indian homes make the Dosa batter in larger quantities and keep it refigerated ( it dries up a bit but you reconstitute by adding a little water) refrigeration keeps it from fermenting excessively too, its ready whenever you are. In India and in some Indian stores in the US now, you can get ready to use dosai batter in polybags which is kept refrigerated. I spent some time in Kerela and Tamil Nadu. The first time I was invited to a locals house for dinner this Punjabi expected the crisp Dosas( just like Vinod made) but when we sat down for the meal what we were served for bread were soft 'rice & lentil crepes' the thickness of tortillas. When I quizzed the host on what this was, he told me that these were the real South Indian Dosas and the crisp 'paper' dosas popular in the north and elsewhere were not the real thing. Almost like the authentic Italian pizza being so different from the popular versions touted by the chains here. Perhaps Chef Vinod or monica can enlighten us on this. Now when I make my dosa stuffing I go the easy way there too Make some instant mashed potatoes ( 5-7 minutes) while the water is boiling make your tempering. heat oil, preferably in a wok, when hot add a pinch of fenugreek seeds and a little channa dal when they begin to brown add mustard seeds, when they begin to start popping add some shelled peanuts or cashews and sliced coconut if you have some handy add curry leaves and when they start turning color add salt and a little turmuric cook a minute to ensure turmuric does not stay raw but do not burn it add the mashed potatoes and mix well. Wow, I got carried away tryska, all I wanted to say was, Yes.

ah yes, didn't notice you mentioned dumplings in particular. as jo-mel said, do some fried things as well. the wok is very good for that. especially if you're not using it for its limited steaming capacity.

My smallest (practical) steamers are 9 inches in diameter. I usually use them in a 12 inch stainless wok that I reserve just for steaming. I use my 14 inch stainless wok for my larger steamers. The 8 inch pot, you spoke of, just won't serve you well. I usually stack just 2 at a time. When I have stacked 3, I usually invert the top with the bottom, half way through, and add an extra 5 minutes. Too high a stack, the steam just isn't that effective. At least I've found it to be so with my regular kitchen stove. May I ask what your menu is? You can have a good dimsum party without all steamed foods. Pot stickers, scallion pancakes are pan fried. You can deep/fry shrimp toast,or mini egg/spring rolls, taro, fritters, wontons, or turnovers. You can bake buns, braise ribs, braise beef balls --- there's so much to dimsum than dumplings, altho they can be a highlight. Or as herbacidal suggested, let your dumplings spotlight a larger meal. Have we helped or hindered?

you're saying that your pot is 8 inches in diameter, and you're planning on steaming everything in it, probably in steamer baskets stacked within it? first, 8 inches seems to be too small a diameter. haven't really measured, but you probably would want something at least twice that diameter. second, if you have a wok, you can steam in that as well. as far as removing the bottom one and adding the top one, you're assuming they all take the same amount of time to cook. assuming you've made them all the same size AND they have similar densities, you've got a chance at that. anytime you have a lot of hot items at a party, you're always serving them in a staggered fashion. although in your case, you may have created a bottleneck at the steampot, making it more difficult. bottom line, get something else to steam in. use that steampot and at least 1 other pot. it probably would be best if the dimsum party spotlighted dimsum, and not was restricted to it.

Just recently installed a 460CFM 10"H/30"W viking hood for $700. So far after 3 weeks it's held up quite well in a variety of cooking styles (wok frying, curries, steaks etc) . For the money, I've been happy and covers 70% of my needs. Cooking smells have been reduced to a minimum and tolerable level. Looking back, to allay ALL fears probably a 1000+cfm 36" unit over my 30" range would be ideal to vent all steam and smoke overflows my current unit does not handle. By the way I had a vent a hood 300cfm unit installed by mistake prior to the Viking which surprisingly was not as sturdy and did a fairly poor job for the money $630.

Post your questions here -->> Q&A A Sampling of South Indian Breads Authors: Monica Bhide and Chef K.N. Vinod Introduction Kerala, situated in the southern part of India, is one of the most blessed places in the world. It is a gorgeous state boasting luscious green landscapes, magnificent waterscapes, and a cuisine to match. It also boasts a unique and healthy cuisine that has benefited greatly from the influx of settlers and traders throughout the history of India. Kerala hosts Hindus, Christians and Muslims and reflects Portuguese, Chinese, Dutch, French, Arabic and of course the British influence in its cuisine and culture. Chef Vinod, his charming mother, Pushpavathy, and I would like to present to you some of the unique breads from Kerala. We have borrowed a few from the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu as well ( the Dosas and the Idlies) to give you a birds-eye-view of the breads of South India. Most Westerners are more familiar with the standard North Indian breads that are available here in most restaurants, the Naan, the Tandoori Roti etc. We would like to introduce you to an entirely different concept of bread. Perfectly steamed breads made with rice flour and coconut. Some sweetened with jaggery (cane sugar), some drunk with pickles, others alive with peppers. Come join us on this wonderful journey into a world that will entice you. This is a mere sampling to whet your palate. You will notice that some of the preparations require special utensils. We have tried to show you the authentic way in which these dishes are prepared (at the Chef’s home in DC). Where possible we have indicated alternate utensils for the home cook. Many of the utensils, ingredients etc. can be purchased from www.namaste.com (Unfortunately, they do not ship outside of the United States). Banana leaves are readily available at most Korean or other ethnic food stores. A tip: Be sure to read the recipe completely before you begin. Please note that these are the Chef’s rendition of these recipes. There are always regional quirks and variations. Chef Vinod and his mother Pushpavathy. Cracking the Coconut We wanted to start with the basics! This will show you how to crack a coconut. Step 1: You can see that the Chef is holding the coconut and breaking it with large sickle-like knife. I would suggest you take it outside and bang it once or twice on hard cement!! Step 2: Here you can see the cracked coconut. (If you like, drink the water, which is unbelievably sweet. It's even better if you have green, young, tender coconuts). The water of this mature coconut may not be that sweet. Step 3: Here are two very traditional methods of grating the coconut. In the first method, Pushpavathy is sitting on the floor with a floor-based grater and in the second one, we have the grater fixed to the side of a table. Step 4: Being ever practical (remember – “What would your mom say”) I suggest you can also buy a bag of grated coconut, now so easily available! Puttu: Rice flour moistened and mixed with grated coconut and steamed. Ingredients • 1 cup rice flour • ½ cup grated coconut • 1 teaspoon cumin • ½ cup water • Salt to taste Method Mix all the ingredients and set aside. This recipe uses a pressure cooker and a very special cylinder called a Puttu Kutti (some people use bamboo). We will show two different ways to prepare this dish – one using the cylinder (hollow at one end, small hole at the other), one using a coconut shell. You can also create your own contraption to prepare this dish (see method 3 below). Method 1 Add about 8 cups of water to your pressure cooker. Cover and allow the pressure to build. In the meantime, using a spoon, fill the cylinder with mixture. Be sure to pack it tight Place the cylinder on the steam nozzle of the pressure cooker. Cover. Steam for about 3 -4 minutes. Remove the cylinder from the heat. Use a spatula to push out the steamed rice flour cake onto a plate. Repeat process until all the dry mixture has been used up. Serve hot. Method 2 Here we used a coconut shell to prepare the Puttu. Drill a small hole in the bottom of one of the coconut shell halves. Fill the half shell (with the hole), with the mixture. Place the shell on the steam nozzle of the pressure cooker. Cover with the other coconut shell. Steam for about 3 -4 minutes. Remove from the heat. Use a spatula to push out the steamed rice flour cake onto a plate. Repeat process until all the dry mixture has been used up. Serve hot. Method 3 Heat water to a rolling boil in a deep dutch oven or a deep pan. Place a hollowed cylinder in the center (hollowed at both ends). Place the coconut shell (with mixture as described in method 2) on the cylinder and follow directions in method 2. This dish is best served hot. It is traditionally served with bananas, Indian wafer (papadams) and black chickpeas. (We ate it with North Indian style with chick peas). Pushpavathy indicated that in some places in South India, it is also eaten with plain sugar. Puttu Served with plantain and channas Ada: Steamed and stuffed rice flour bread Ingredients • 4 cardamom seeds • 2 small lumps of jaggery • 7 tablespoons grated coconut • ¾ cup hot water • 2 cups of rice flour • A pinch of salt Method Roughly pound the cardamom seeds. If you use a mortar and pestle to pound the seeds, remove the skins after pounding. Alternatively you can use a spice mill, in which case you would leave the skins on. Using a grater, grate the jaggery. Add the powdered cardamom to the jaggery and set aside. In a bowl, mix the water, rice flour and salt. Knead into a loose dough. Divide the dough into seven equal parts. Heat a skillet or griddle or a hot plate on high heat. While the skillet is heating, prepare the bread. Place a banana leaf on the counter top. With moistened hands, place one dough ball on the leaf. Gently begin to press the dough out. Keep pressing and stretching until the dough is about 8 inches in diameter. Now we will add the stuffing. Stuffing 1: Using a spoon, spread about 1 tablespoon of coconut on flattened dough. Stuffing 2: In a small bowl, mix a tablespoon of coconut with a tablespoon of the jaggery mixture. Spread on the flattened dough. Fold the banana leaf into half, press down gently. (If the leaf is too large, trim the edges.) Repeat for all the dough balls. Place the folded banana leaf on a skillet. Brown for 3 minutes on each side (it might be a bit longer depending on how high your heat is). Cover and steam for about 7 – 8 minutes. Serve hot. The perfectly melted and caramelized jaggery oozes sinfulness from the bread. Another version of this dish is called the Kozhi Katta – here the dough is tighter and is stuffed with jaggery and steamed. Pathiri A divine and delicate bread made by the Muslim community (also known as the Moplahs of Kerala). This is the Chef’s own rendition of this South Indian classic. Prepare the dough as you would for Ada. (Some people use coconut milk instead of water to prepare this dough.) A touch of cumin seeds may be added for taste. It is prepared in a similar method as the Ada. The difference is that the dough is flattened out much thinner to obtain the “flat bread” appearance. Serve hot. Dosa One of the most famous South Indian breads. A perfect crisp crepe-like bread prepared with rice and dal (lentil). These days, you can buy packaged mixes from your local Indian grocer. They save the soaking and fermenting time. (you can also purchase these online at www.namaste.com.) Ingredients • 4 cups long grain rice • 1 cup white urad dal ( also called Dhuli Urad) • ¾ cups water (approximately) • Salt to taste • 2 -3 tablespoons vegetable oil Method Soak the dal in water for at least 3 -4 hours. Drain and set aside. Soak the rice in water for at least 4 – 6 hours. Drain and set aside. Put the the dal and a few tablespoons of water into a blender. Blend to a smooth consistency. The trick here is to try to do with it as little water as possible. Remove from blender and place in a bowl. Now add the rice and salt to the blender, again with ½ cup of water. Blend to a paste – this will not be as smooth as the dal paste. Add more water if needed. Add the rice batter to the dal batter and mix well. Your batter should have the consistency of thick pancake batter. Leave the batter to ferment overnight. This needs a warm environment. I generally warm the oven. Turn it off and then place the batter in it to ferment. An oven with a pilot light works well as well. Now we are ready to make the dosas. Heat a non-stick skillet. Using a paper napkin, dipped in a bit of oil, wipe the skillet. Using a small glass bowl or a metal bowl (anything with a flat base), pour a ¼ cup of batter onto the skillet. Using the bowl, make concentric circles to spread out the dosa. Sprinkle a few drops of oil to prevent the dosa from sticking. You will begin to see small bubbles forming and the dosa will begin to crisp. Using your spatula, carefully roll the dosa off the skillet. Serve hot. There are many ways to stuff the dosas. You can also eat them plain with your choice of chutneys. See the Indian Forum for some lively discussions on Dosa and some noteworthy chutney recipes. Uttapam: A savory pancake topped with chopped bell peppers, onions and cilantro. Serve with your choice of chutney. Ingredients • Leftover Dosa batter • 1/4 cup, each, chopped bell peppers, onions and cilantro leaves Heat a non-stick skillet on medium heat. Pour a ¼ cup of batter onto the skillet. (If you have a large skillet you can make more than one at a time). Add a generous helping of the mixed peppers. Cook for about 2 minutes. Flip over and cook for another 4 -5 minutes. Serve hot. Appam Madhur Jaffrey once described Appam as a marriage between a French crepe and an English muffin. This classically Keralite dish consists of rice batter mixed with coconut and fried like a pancake in a wok called cheena chatti (This wok gets its name from the fact that it was historically a Chinese utensil. This shows the influence of the Chinese on this cuisine). Ingredients • 1 cup rice • ½ cup water • ½ cup coconut milk • Salt to taste • 2 tsp.sugar • Pinch of baking soda Soak the rice overnight. Drain. In a blender, blend the rice with 1/2 cup of water and half cup of coconut milk. Place the batter in a bowl. Take about 3 tablespoons of the batter and place it in a small non-stick pan. Bring it to a boil. Remove from heat and add it back to the main batter. Mix well. Leave to ferment overnight (see directions under Dosa for fermentation environments). Add salt, sugar and baking soda to the batter. Mix well. Adjust the consistency if necessary with water (Pancake batter consistency). Heat a small (about an 8 inch) skillet. Add about a ¼ cup of the batter. Swirl the pan so that batter sticks to the sides. It will remain a bit thick at the center (think – French crepe on the sides, English muffin at the center). Cover and steam for about 2 -3 minutes. Once the appam is cooked, the sides appear lacey and the center is spongy. Remove gently from the skillet. Serve hot. Appams are traditionally served with mutton or chicken stew. Idlies These are another famous South Indian treat. These steamed rice cakes have found a happy home in almost every South Indian restaurant abroad. They are served with chutneys and the tantalizing Indian lentil based Sambhar. Many people swear the best way to eat them is warm, drizzled with hot clarified butter (Ghee). Ingredients • 2 cups rice • ¾ cups white Urad Dal • Salt – to taste • For stuffing – Your favorite Indian Pickle *(optional) • cooking spray Method Please note that this dish needs the Idli steamers. You can purchase these at your local Indian grocer or at www.namaste.com. Alternatively you can steam these in small bowls placed in steam baths. These can also be microwaved (a few tablespoons in a glass bowl, and about 4 minutes in the microwave) – although this does alter the taste. They are best steamed. Soak the rice and dal together for 4 – 5 hours. Drain. In a blender, blend the dal and rice separately with a few tablespoons of water to a pancake-like consistency. The Dal should be ground very smooth to make the idli light and fluffy. Mix the ground dal and rice together and let it sit to ferment overnight. Add salt to taste and mix well. Using a cooking spray such as Pam, grease the Idli steamers. Now heat water in a deep pan (the pan needs to be deep enough to hold the steamers and it needs a lid). Place a few tablespoons of batter in each holder If you are going to prepare stuffed Idlies, pour in about a tablespoon of the batter and add half teaspoon of the pickle and then top it off with more Idli batter. (You can use any thick chutney like Mint, Coriander, Tomato or anything of your choice.) Place the steamer inside the deep pan. Cover and steam for about 7 – 8 minutes. Idlies are done (like cakes) when they pass the toothpick test. Uncover. Sprinkle a few drops of water on the idlies. Remove with a sharp knife. Serve hot. Post your questions here -->> Q&A

Titus, My pleasure. The M.T.T. brand is a red label, gold trim, black type - have some in the fridge right now... If you browse the Asian groceries, you'll likely find it. You are correct in that it is not at that web page. If anyone else has specific brand recommendations, please post. I specified because we got a brand which had a terrible taste and was a great disappointment and it looked like the Hwang Ryh Shiang jars (check the bean curd link). Bleh! If you can find the same brand your granny used, then by all means, go with what you know and like. All we do is add a tiny bit of oil to a hot (not smoking) wok or pan. At this point you can add garlic and stir fry half a minute. Add fresh water spinach and stir fry one minute our until leaves go limp. Add one cube preserved bean curd per half pound water spinach. (You can add a tiny pinch of salt and sugar at this point.) Break up the cube as you stir fry and mix it up into the spinach for about three to four minutes. Ummmmm... making myself hungry! Hest88, Isn't it fascinating? I became intrigued by it from discussion at the Asian Vegetable Forum and started growing it this season. So looking forward to trying something new, once I had a bit to harvest, we cooked it I describe above and my first exclaimation was, "I've had this before!" And then I went on to agree with everyone else that it really is good. I'll have to try the jalapeno idea. Although we like flavor of serranos even better so I look forward to trying each. skchai, LOL, sounds to me like you should have your kids pinch off the tender parts. There are many more common (English) names for Ipomoea aquatica syn Ipomoea reptans. The key word being common and not necessarily scientifically accurate and it would be very difficult to compile a complete listing from all countries and dialects. Swamp morning glory, Swamp Cabbage, Tropical spinach, (Chinese) Water Spinach, aquatic morning glory, bamboo leaf, Ung Choi, Ong Choy, Kang Kong, Kang Kung, Kankon, Weng Cai, Ngung Choi, Ung Tsoi, Kong Xin Cai, Tong Sin Tsai, Toongsintsai, Hung sam choi, Ong tung tso, Ungtsai, Tung Choy, Rau Muong, etc. Now keep in mind I am not a botanist! But I hope this helps for clarification purposes... Ipomoea and Convolvulus are each a different Genus within the same Family of 'Convolvulaceae' (the Morning-glory family). Kingdom: Plantae Ð Plants ÊÊÊÊÊÊ Subkingdom :Tracheobionta Ð Vascular plants ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ Superdivision: Spermatophyta Ð Seed plants ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ Division: Magnoliophyta Ð Flowering plants ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ Class: Magnoliopsida Ð Dicotyledons ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ Subclass: Asteridae Ð ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ Order: Solanales Ð ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ Family: Convolvulaceae Ð Morning-glory family ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ Genus: Ipomoea L. Ð morning-glory ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ Species: Ipomoea aquatica Forsk. Ð swamp morning-glory GenusÊÊConvolvulus L. -- bindweed GenusÊÊIpomoea L. -- morning-glory Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam. -- sweet potato batatas is the species From the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)