It’s a crazy week — May and June are insane months for caterers, so much so that I am considering starting a petition drive to have both months combined into one ugly 60-day month called “Helldorado”. Blogging may be fits and starts this week. <elegant segue to next topic would have gone here> So, the [...]
Tools and Techniques
Cooks tend to be geeks about their equipment (viz: eGullet, Serious Eats, or Chocolate & Zucchini). I always love it when I’m allowed to check out other people’s knife kits, seeing what gets them through their workday. A guy with whom I went to cooking school carried a decently-sized toolbox with seemingly dozens of knives. [...]
It is amazing how much a coffee drinker can spend on coffee beans. So much money for such an ephemeral product. The very roasting of coffee beans not only develops the flavors we are looking for, but also starts the irreversible oxidation process that will slowly destroy those flavors. Match its short-lived nature with the [...]
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Two great discoveries here: 1) Chadzilla. I don’t remember how I was linked over there; perhaps an Ideas in Food piece. Some great stuff there, such as 2) his experimentation in finding the perfect sous vide salmon brine.
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Sunday saw my third attempt at sous vide, the first two being somewhat flawed (see note below). I wanted some tender and deeply flavored shrimp. And I have a FoodSaver. So, into the vacuum we go: Ingredients: 1# shrimp, peeled and deveined 4 oz butter 1-2T fresh rosemary leaves, slightly bruised and rough chopped (dry [...]
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Well, I became so involved in the flatiron steaks that I forgot to take pictures. No matter; I am going to repeat the process and this time it will be easy to be more deliberate and get the documentary work done. Some plusses and deltas for the first transglutaminase experiment: Plusses: 1) Wearing latex gloves [...]
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