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KozmoNaut posted:I have done this as well, it's surprisingly easy even with cheap bendy supermarket knives. My fiance did this with her Wusthof knife, trying to cut a pumpkin with a remarkably tough hide. 1/8" of knife popped off and stuck out of the top of the pumpkin... (Thank god for professional sharpening services.)
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Mar 28, 2012 07:19
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Burger press? I just clap my hands and say yeah! (Sorry...)
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Jul 6, 2012 16:45
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Josh Lyman posted:Why are so many lids just stainless steel instead of glass? Wouldn't you want to have glass to that you can see how the food is cooking? I go back and forth. Glass is nice so you can see things, but I'd worry that it's a bit more fragile, particularly if it's dealing with high temperature changes (if I've been steaming something for a while, then accidentally toss the lid into soapy water in my sink, the glass could crack). Plus glass can get a lot of unsightly water spots that I won't ever see on an opaque lid.
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Jul 31, 2012 17:31
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If you're just doing squares, think about just using a cheese cutter.
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Aug 9, 2012 20:59
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Are there decent Cuisinarts that are bowl-lift rather than head-tilt? I'm not a big fan of the head tilt designs; I have an old kitchenaid I picked up for $40 at a thrift store, and the pin in the neck constantly tries to rattle out when I make bread dough, and the mixing bowl's little tabs that you twist into to secure it have gotten so dented that it can rotate through and pop out pretty often under heavy loads (again, bread dough). My parents haven't had any similar problems with their bowl-lift Kitchenaid, and so the Cuisinart's head tilt design makes me suspicious.
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Aug 24, 2012 16:04
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So, I just picked up one of the Kitchenaid 600 Professional bowl-lift mixers, because I've coveted them for years, and my parents have a kitchenaid, and I love the way they look, etc etc. Unfortunately, I'm really disappointed with it. It's way louder than my parents one (which is like 15 years old, and I think a 4.5 or 5 or 5.5 qt mixer, not the 6.5 of the 600). I've heard that Kitchenaid's customer support is pretty good. Do you think they'd let me swap the big one for one of their smaller bowl-lift models, instead? If so, are those ones quieter? Alternatively, what's the other mixer everybody loves to death? (That's available in the US)
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Sep 30, 2012 22:57
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Shooting Blanks posted:I'm pretty sure the general consensus is that lift bowl is superior, assuming you have enough room for it since it is substantially taller. Tilt heads tends to walk around the counter a bit more, since the joint where it tilts isn't 100% secure. Though, recently having returned one of the 600 W kitchenaid 6 qt stand mixers, you really should try it out in the store once first. It's an amazing mixer, and will destroy anything you point it at. But it is incredibly loud. It's like a cross between a plane taking off and a whiny baby. Seriously. Swing by a Macy's or Williams Sonoma or something and have them plug it in for you, and give it a whirl, even empty. If you're not bothered by the noise, go for it. Otherwise, the thread consensus seems to be that the Cuisinart 5.5 qt mixer is awesome (though it may also be loud). My wife and I decided on the Breville mixer instead, because it's light, incredibly quiet, has a few nifty options, and we rarely do large batches of bread, so don't need the super large amounts of power we might be sacrificing. Besides, we've heard that it handles bread just fine.
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Oct 11, 2012 21:37
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If you're looking into mixers, seriously consider the Brevilles. They still work decently for bread and other heavy-duty mixing needs, but are way quieter than the Kitchenaids. If you're getting a smaller Kitchenaid that might not be a big deal, but for the big 6 qt bowl-lift one, it sounds like a small airplane taking off.
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Dec 26, 2012 03:40
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Do you guys have any preferred kevlon/anti-slicing gloves that you use with a mandoline? We got a lovely mandoline a few months ago, but it doesn't get that much use because I'm terrified of chopping off my fingertips and the stupid attached handle/slider thing can only do like half a carrot before it bottoms out.
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Dec 27, 2012 18:21
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Steve Yun posted:Hey Arcturas, want to post a longer review of your Breville? It's good and not too loud? I dunno, I guess it'd help to have a more specific set of questions, but that's mostly because I'm bad at doing product reviews. Fair warning: I haven't done many batches of dough recently because my wife and I recently switched to a low-carb/keto diet, but I used to bake a fair bit of bread. It's wonderful, and most of what we wanted in a mixer. The most important thing about the Breville is that it's fairly quiet for a mixer. It's quieter than my parent's old 4.5 qt bowl-lift kitchenaid. I'd say it's about as loud as doing something noisy in a food processor? (We have a relatively recent quisinart, for reference) I can watch football while mixing basically anything, and my TV is in the other room, plus we can still carry on a conversation while doing so. The noise was our biggest concern because we had just purchased a 6qt kitchenaid and were very disappointed. As far as actual mixing goes, I've been pretty pleased. My wife finds it a touch cumbersome because the head is wide and low, as discussed below, but will still use it to make cheesecake once or twice a week. She'd rather just use our hand mixer to make whipped cream, and I'm more likely to use our immersion blender. It does cookies rather well, and back when I did bread did a good job at that. It doesn't seem to overheat or strain too much, even when we have an awful lot in the bowl. I did single loaves of bread at a time (20 oz. flour, 12 oz. water), and it didn't complain at all. I haven't tried a double-batch yet. Her biggest issue is that it's a bit harder to scrape the sides than a kitchenaid. I find the beaters/bowl are pretty well designed and I don't have to do that much scraping, but I do agree with her. The attachments are solid. I don't recall what they're made of exactly, but they all look metal except the scraper-paddle. It comes with a whisk, paddle, dough hook, scraper beater and flour/pouring shield. They work well? I'm not really sure what to say about them. They're probably machine-washable, though I wash most things by hand because I have a tiny dishwasher. The scraper-beater is my least favorite. It's a great idea but just isn't quite as well executed as I'd like and it never seems to scrape as cleanly as a spatula. It's got a digital display, which is used for various fancy things I haven't figured out yet. Mostly it's a timer that counts up as you mix, which is nifty but not really necessary since most tasks are results-based. It probably has some kind of feedback readouts, but I haven't messed with those. The manual claims that you can set it to mix for a set amount of time and let it go, which sounds interesting if you want to set it and work on something else while monitoring things, but I haven't bothered using it. It's also got a digital/spinning knob for selecting the speed. I'm used to the kitchenaid slider, and would have loved that, but this works adequately. Turn clockwise to go fast, turn counter-clockwise to go less fast. Fairly simple. The one annoyance is that the machine will force you to wait about a second after lowering the head before starting the motor, and if you've already started spinning the selector before it's ready it'll ignore your choice and make you do it again. I imagine it's a safety thing, but it's silly. My wife is a little annoyed with the head-tiltiness. She finds it a little cumbersome, and that the neck is a bit thick, while the head is a bit wide and low, making it harder to scrape the sides in any position. Also, I don't think the head gets enough clearance out of the bowl for her, both up and down. This makes it a little harder to add ingredients both when it's up and down. I don't have any problems when the head's up, and if it's down I'll often just pull out the attached cover/funnel/flour ramp thing, which fits very well. Unlike the kitchenaid shield, it's not two semicircles. It's one almost circle which the funnel bit slots into. That means it does a better job at staying on and preventing spillage/leakage, but it's a little harder to slide on. It's a super minor difference, and is basically as good as kitchenaid's. I really like the head-tilt mechanism itself. While I still prefer bowl-lift mixers for ease of adding, awesomeness, etc, this has been pleasant. It's got a locking button that has to be pressed both to raise and lower the head, which is good if you're nervous about the head dropping at inopportune times. It's also nice because the head has a little handle on the front, so I can haul it out of our cabinets and onto the counter one-handed, whether the head is up or down. The bowl locks nicely. Our 20 year old found at a thrift store for $30 kitchenaid head-tilt was either not quite precise or just over-tightened, so grooves wore in the bowl and heavy-duty work (bread dough) would spin the bowl past the lock points and start flopping it around. I am not concerned about that at all here. Overall, it's done everything I wanted it to do. It's a quiet mixer that will handle every task I use it for. It's light enough that my wife and I can get it out with ease. The local Sur Le Table replaced all their ktichenaids with brevilles for their kitchen classes, and say it works for them there, too. (That's actually how we found out about it, since they let us plug in and try out all the mixers they had in stock. I strongly recommend trying that if you can) We've got a few minor gripes, but that's to be expected with any mixer. :EDIT: One other thing. I love that it doesn't have an exposed neck hinge. My last head tilt mixer had an exposed neck pin, and when doing a loaf of bread would often shake the pin partway out and I'd have to push it back in with one finger while stabilizing the mixer with my hand. This one has been rather stable, even though it's very light, and doesn't have that problem. Arcturas fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Dec 28, 2012 |
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Dec 28, 2012 16:05
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I should add to my Breville review that I have absolutely no idea what the attachment situation is, and whether you'd be able to get an ice cream maker (maybe/likely, but I haven't heard of one), pasta roller (doubtful, not sure where it'd attach), or meat grinder (again, doubtful) attachment.
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Dec 29, 2012 04:08
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For whatever reason, my wife has the same concern about leaving the oven on vs. leaving a crock pot on. I think she's crazy, but it's a common concern.
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Apr 6, 2013 23:17
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Any recommendations on where to get decent almond paste? My wife and I hada lovely almond mousse for dinner the other day and want to try and make it, but she is convinced my"blender some almonds" plan won't work.
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May 6, 2013 21:40
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My wife and I got a Breville when we got married and we just love it.
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May 15, 2013 05:10
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One thing I've started to do is worry less about getting perfectly even cuts. Sure, it means things don't cook as evenly, but for home cooking it's not really a big deal. I just judge size loosely based on whether I'll need to stab things with a fork, spoon them, or want to blend them later, or some other random metric. I figure even a 20% variation in size between chunks isn't a big deal.
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Jun 18, 2013 01:19
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What does the "fuzzy logic" part of the rice cooker do? Is it just a way for the cooker to figure out how the rice has cooked?
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Sep 3, 2013 18:41
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If you don't already have the mixer, and attachments aren't too important for you, look at the Breville stand mixer. It's really nice.
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Oct 6, 2013 20:34
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What kind of cut resistant gloves did you get? My wife picked some ones up off amazon that I think claimed to have some kevlar in them, and they've already been cut once or twice by the mandoline we have (it's the Oxo one I think...white plastic with black knobs and a food-holder that's a piece of poo poo).
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Oct 15, 2013 21:43
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uncle spero posted:That is what I have been doing, and it works well enough to produce the coin size chips which then get seasoned and dried. I would still like to be able to do the larger full bagel rounds, but if there really isn't anything safe or simple that can do it I can carry on as I am doing. If you want to rationalize it, think of all the gratins you can make.
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Oct 15, 2013 23:36
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My wife uses her immersion blender all the time, mostly to puree soups and salsas, but it can also prep smaller amounts of pesto or other stuff you'd use a food processor to handle. Some have whisk attachments, but she usually uses her hand mixer for that.
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Oct 21, 2013 16:19
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Dane posted:I've got a little extra money and I'm seriously considering buying a stand mixer. I know I've been extolling the virtues of the Assistent, but it's been pissing me off lately for a number of reasons. I know it's not a Kitchenaid, but my wife and I love our Breville. I haven't met anything it can't handle, but I don't do double-batches of wheat bread very often. It's much quieter than the kitchenaids, and has some nifty digital options (like setting the thing to mix for X minutes and just walking away) though it's got a couple of things I wish I could tweak.
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Nov 12, 2013 16:42
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deimos posted:
Fair enough; I hadn't seen that. The local Sur Le Table uses them for their cooking classes, which I think also include some breads or pizzas, but like I say I don't do many breads in my mixer, so I can't speak to it.
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Nov 12, 2013 18:33
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deimos posted:I am convinced that Breville has a giant marketing budget to get their products out there, so they might have partnered with Sur for that reason. I could definitely see that happening. Plus it's really shiny and markets well. We like lots of the little marketing features, but they sometimes get in the way (the digital speed control makes you wait a second after you swing the head down before you can run the mixer, which is dumb). But it's light enough to store in a cabinet and swing around the kitchen before using, quiet enough that it doesn't interfere with TV-watching, and does a good job on cake batters, cookies, whipping cream/meringues, so we're pleased with it. We just don't do enough breads for it's issues there to be a problem
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Nov 12, 2013 19:44
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Flash Gordon Ramsay posted:Yeah I think because the oil is clear or close enough, it gives a better reading than just a surface temp. I thought it was because oil's thermal conductivity was so high the temp variation throughout the oil is pretty low. I could be wrong, though.
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Dec 6, 2013 21:36
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mod sassinator posted:I've never understood the point of a salt grinder--there aren't any oils or anything to be released in grinding salt right? For me it's a combination of two things. First, aesthetics. If I have my small pepper grinder (Peugots are really pretty) on the dinner table, it's nice to have something matching for salt. Second, texture. I like having kosher salt around for cooking with, but I don't really want to sprinkle it on everything and add that crunch all the time, when I'm seasoning at the table. So using the salt mill I can get the amount I want on the dish but only have to buy kosher salt.
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Jan 21, 2014 21:01
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I use salted butter all the time, for almost everything. My wife uses unsalted butter when she bakes. I don't usually have problems with salt levels, but I usually just put slightly less salt in when I use salted butter.
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Jan 27, 2014 19:54
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Because "Teflon!?!?!?!" and "MUST GET BURNED BITS" and "tradition" and "everything's non-stick with enough butter" and  I like my Calphalon pseudo-non-sticks. They get a decent crust when I want one, and even if there's less fond stuck to the pan for my pan sauces I still get tasty results.
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Feb 4, 2014 01:51
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No Wave posted:I think I'm being dumb on temp. Thing is, even leaving fond behind on a "sticky" pan, I've never had a problem with insufficient fond/crust on the meat. Get a little oil in there, get a good sear, et voila, delicious. And then I can use the pan fond for whatever I want. But with a non-stick, I have occasionally had problems getting enough browning on the stuff I'm cooking without going straight to burning. Maybe it's just that I'm not used to browning certain things in the non-stick, but it is a problem.
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Feb 4, 2014 19:35
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Yeah, my wife has heard that nonsense about "flavor escaping" when your cooker lets steam out, so she tries to use our cooker by heating it, cooking stuff, then letting it sit to cool and lose pressure without opening it. I think whatever "flavor loss" there is in the steam is pretty minimal.
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Mar 3, 2014 18:35
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Doh004 posted:The risotto I made the other day with it was spot on from if I had made it normally in a pot. Mind posting or linking your risotto recipe? Or was it just a standard-ish rice, shallots/onion, chicken broth?
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Mar 3, 2014 20:57
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Huh. The pressure cooker risotto turned out really well. Not quite as creamy as regular risotto, but I don't know if I let the wine cook off properly, and I need to fiddle with the stock/rice ratio. It also might need 6:30 or 7:00 of pressure.
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Mar 4, 2014 03:41
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If she wants a blender, get her a blender. I learned a long time ago not to try and second-guess my wife's preferences. I might get her the other thing that I just know she'll like more in addition to the blender, but not as a substitute.
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May 26, 2014 17:35
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Anne Whateley posted:B-but light and heat If you're not using the spices quickly enough that he light/heat degredation don't matter, you won't notice the quality loss. Besides I bet you've got spices in there that are well over a year old and, frankly, something something snobbery. Just use the spice racks that make you happy and make you use spices more often. If you don't use spices because you don't know you have them, you're worse off than if they're preserved slightly worse.
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Aug 28, 2014 17:21
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Only the sides of my fridge are magnetic. 
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Aug 28, 2014 17:48
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You want cheesecloth.
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Sep 12, 2014 21:15
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Anyone have thoughts on these doohickeys? My wife and I don't want to invest in a proper espresso machine, but we tried a "Maple Milk" in Vermont and want to try and duplicate it. It's basically the most ridiculous thing ever - steamed milk with maple syrup. I'm sure it's terrible for us but on a cold winter afternoon it sounds glorious.
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Sep 18, 2014 21:49
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Steve Yun posted:Everyone here will tell you to get a Vitamix because they have the strongest motors, and they're right, they're awesomely effective at blending. It has a feature to turn off the motor if it detects that it's going to burn out, which helps it last a lot longer. The wife and I like our Breville Hemisphere a lot. We had problems with our first one when the controller went haywire (It stopped turning on for more than a quarter of a second), but even though it was out of warranty they let us mail it back and get a replacement for only the cost of shipping.
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Nov 4, 2014 01:30
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How do cook rice and lentils if you're doing both in a pressure cooker at the same time? Like, do you put in a few inches of water, then a bowl filled with rice & water to cook the rice, then on top of that bowl (or to the side, depending on the size of the bowls) you put another bowl with lentils & rice, then pressure cook for X time, then call it done?
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Dec 9, 2014 00:59
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Aww yeah, got a thermapen for Christmas. Time to measure all the temperatures. Speaking of which, what do you all cook by temp that normally isn't cooked that way? Obviously meats are easier when you just get them to the right number and call it good. I've also occasionally used a thermometer for a bread recipe I'm not familiar with, or for one when I didn't feel confident about the hollow sound.
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Jan 2, 2015 22:55
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 02:57 |
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Depends how fussy you are. I tend to just do it with a chef's knife. Potatoes are pretty uneven to begin with, so some of your fries are always going to be a little messed up. I just don't mind if the rest of them are messed up too.
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Feb 18, 2015 06:48
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