|
It's been too long since I posted meat. Not an effort post but we had another of those prime t-bones for dinner. This one's got the best marbling I've seen in a steak that isn't Wagyu. 
|
#
¿
Feb 3, 2016 05:39
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 16, 2024 00:03 |
|
|
joke_explainer posted:Beautiful. How much were they? Dry aged before slicing? I got an absolutely absurd deal...our purveyor had purchased a lot, and they were originally $13/lb, a case was 6 24oz steaks- that's $19.50 per steak, wholesale. That's too much, that makes for a $75 steak for the guest. They couldn't move them. After 3 months their coporate office started fining them...pretty much charging rent for the freezer space that was being taken up by product that wasn't moving. So they started dropping the price, eventually to a loss. A few of the chefs in my restaurant, myself included, decided we would buy cases for ourselves once the price was right. Got my salesman down to $8.25, which works out to $74.25 for the case. I honestly don't know what the aging process before slicing was, I didn't ask too many questions when that day's haggling started at $9/lb. These are prime grade T-bones, and I knew they were down to 50 cases. At that point I knew I would get them it was just a question of how low it would go. They are very dry when thawed, I've had cryovaced steaks turn into a soupy mess when they thaw- these are very dry when they come out of the pack, virtually no drippage whatsoever. So that backs that theory up, but unfortunately I don't know for sure. |
|
#
¿
Feb 4, 2016 06:05
|
|
|
Do you have a starter that you've been caring for, like something between a pet and house plant? |
|
#
¿
Mar 23, 2016 07:11
|
|
|
Glad to see this thread back in action. I am really really busy irl, my restaurants getting a huge kitchen remodel and is staying open during (aside from the 5 or so days that the dish area is redone) but I love you all |
|
#
¿
Mar 26, 2016 05:29
|
|
|
So I am trying to think of a word, and am hoping for some help! How would one describe a singularly flavored dish/food? Not in a positive or negative way(like bland), just in a factual manner. Like the culinary equivalent of monochromatic. "The chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and fudge sauce was (a word I can't think of and may not exist)" |
|
#
¿
Apr 1, 2016 14:56
|
|
|
The X-man cometh posted:One-dimensional? Probably closest to what I'm trying to describe. I agree that unadventurous is more judgemental than what I am going for. Bone marrow on toast points is one-dimensional but not unadventurous |
|
#
¿
Apr 2, 2016 02:17
|
|
|
joke_explainer posted:Can you post pics of your new kitchen? An explanations of what got upgraded/changed? The construction is supposed to be done April 28, and we are closed from the 24th-28th while they do the dish area. I will try to remember to take pics then when the kitchen is done and empty. This is a massive kitchen remodel we are undertaking. The total cost is more than it cost to open the restaurant 15 years ago. When we opened it was a pool hall/bar that served some basic food. After 5 years of running like that, the current executive chef came in as our first chef-before that, from what I hear, it was a ragtag crew of cooks. He got food cost in order, and took the food to the next level. People started coming for the food. Over the next few years, it went from seven pool tables, to five, to three, and finally this summer, one. Upgrades and additions were made to convert the front of the house from a pool hall/bar to that of a nice restaurant where families could come. There was one minor kitchen addition in the past, but for the most part despite the interest in our restaurant and our growth in the front of the house (we can seat 350 inside plus another 50 on the patio in the summer), we've been pushing a massive amount of quality food out of the same kitchen that was meant for a bar with basic food. This remodel has had many years of planning behind it. We had a small room off to the side, 45 seats or so, where people could make reservations and expect a quieter, more intimate dinner. That room is gone and is being converted into kitchen. We didn't lose any seats, though, due to losing the two pool tables. We are currently working entirely out of that small area while the original kitchen is being torn apart, new stainless steel walls and tile floors being installed, and another walk in cooler and freezer are being put in. It's not just for more space, we are getting all sort of new equipment: two combi ovens, a tilt skillet, two steam jacket kettles for stocks, a blast chiller, another 6 burner, and I think a few more things. It is all very exciting, but also very stressful and a lot of work right now while it is going on. We haven't gotten any slower, and are working out of half of the space we were before, and are working around construction crews. But it will be so badass when it is done. I guess I had better remember to take pics for you guys after that. |
|
#
¿
Apr 2, 2016 23:08
|
|
|
Construction is still under way, our new 3-bay sink went in and I've got a huge boner for it. That's a full sheet pan |
|
#
¿
Apr 22, 2016 14:08
|
|
|
There actually will be, they sent the wrong one-each bay is supposed to have a faucet with one sprayer in the middle, and they just sent the single faucet unit. We've got it rigged with old faucets at the moment so it's usable, since they have already torn out the old sink om nom nom fucked around with this message at 15:19 on Apr 22, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Apr 22, 2016 15:15
|
|
|
Man I wish I had a sink that could fit a sheet pan at home. And a badass sprayer like Bo posted. And a professional grade dishwasher. One bay in the sink would be sufficient though. |
|
#
¿
Apr 22, 2016 21:25
|
|
|
Three Bae Kink would be a good username |
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2016 02:33
|
|
|
This threads really coming back to life! I just got a promotion (executive sous chef) and life is really really busy, but I've got pics and will try to make an effort post about my fancy schmancy new kitchen soon. |
|
#
¿
May 28, 2016 05:38
|
|
|
My girlfriend made some English muffins with her sourdough starter earlier this week. I'll see if I can find her recipe, but I think it was pretty easy. We griddled some in butter and some in bacon fat. Had them with some eggs from the farmers market and bacon. Then I think I ate 4 more with butter and jam. |
|
#
¿
Jun 11, 2016 14:51
|
|
|
Having made cassoulet in a restaurant, it's easy enough to make the beans on a separate day, like on a Sunday when you'll be home for 5 hours doing chores anyways, and cool them on a cookie sheet, and have your chicken confited/ roasted or whatever and cooled as well, then on the day you actually want to eat it it's 20 minutes to season and get hot and all. I didn't read this specific recipe cause I've got pretty solid duck confit cassoulet in my head, but I'm sure it's easy enough to turn it into a two day process, prep day and quick pick up day. |
|
#
¿
Jun 29, 2016 05:06
|
|
|
God drat goat, you make some sexy bread. I'm all hard over here thinking about how crunchy that crust must be. |
|
#
¿
Aug 3, 2016 18:24
|
|
|
I just wanted to post to say I still love you all, and owe you an effort post regarding my life as a professional cook. That post, unfortunately, will not come today. I'd like to make a reccomendetion for a high end, but reasonalbly priced chef knife, with all of the knives chat : this one MAC used an incredibly high end steel, a co-worker has one and after sharpening it the other day I was able to get a razor edge with ease, and sharpened in a a similar manner to my misono ux10, which I paid $250 for. Lifetime warranty as well, it is really a great knife. I have the 8.5" gyoto linked which is the type of knife I use. My misono is my backed at the moment, I use a takeda for my workhorse, which is well above the price point for anyone using a casual knife. The MAC has a sturdy chef knife for pro use, buy one for home and take care of it, and you will have a knife for life. Henkels can suck a dick compared to high end knives like these. I secondly, want to mention that i love you all, and I am glad to see this thread alive and well. I don't know if I've mentioned it, but I've received a promotion at work, I am the executive sous chef now, with a crew of 50 some line cooks and 30 or so expediters and food runners working for me. 12 hour days are the average, but working 10am to midnight isn't unheard of. I am very, very busy and would love to participate, in this thread more, but putting the time in for,true effort posts get put to the wayside at this time in my life. Tldr; I love you all, keep doing what your doing, this is a great thread, keep it alive |
|
#
¿
Nov 26, 2016 07:26
|
|
|
Christmas Brunch We've got some egg strata, made with egg, bread, spicy sausage, Muenster, and Colby Jack cheese. I forgot to take a picture of the strata when it first came out of the oven, hence the fuzzy picture that was taken quickly before I grabbed some for myself after a bunch of people had already dug in. Next, some breakfast potatoes, I par baked the potatoes yesterday and diced them once they were cooled. Caramelized some onions, seasoned with salt, pepper, a touch of cayenne, and paprika. Then a fruit salad with pineapple, cantaloupe, and honeydew. Pretty straightforward, but I did toss in a pinch of salt and a tablespoon of pure vanilla extract. Next up we've got biscuits and gravy. The gravy was made with spicy Italian sausage, caramelized onions, milk, salt, pepper, a little soy sauce, Worcestershire, and lemon juice, and thickened with roux. I cheated and bought frozen biscuit dough (I'm not much of a baker.) I probably could have found a recipe and made decent scratch biscuits, but I figured I had enough going on. I am really proud of the glazed bone-in ham. I took the scrap from the pineapple, all of the skin that had fruit on it, plus the core, and simmered that with cinnamon sticks, lemon juice, cloves, star anise, a tiny chunk of whole nutmeg, some pink peppercorns, and a couple of bay leaves. Strained that off after about 2 hours, and combined it with some apple juice, orange juice, maple syrup, honey, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar and a splash of lemon juice. Reduced that to a glaze. Baked at 325 for about 2 hours, brushing the glaze on every 15 minutes or so, and drained off the liquid that was coming out of ham whenever I pulled it out to glaze. Pulled it out to rest about an hour before everything else was done. Before it was time to eat, I gave it one last nice thick coating of glaze and put it back in the oven at 400 to get it nice and caramelized. The sticky pull apart bread was my girlfriend's contribution. Not exactly sure what she did, but it involves frozen soft dinner roll dough, which you leave in a silicone mold in the oven (off obviously) overnight to thaw and rise. There's jello butterscotch puddind powder, brown sugar, and pecans as well. And brunch without mimosas is just a sad, late breakfast. Merry Christmas BYOB! om nom nom fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Dec 26, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Dec 26, 2016 00:15
|
|
|
That is some beautiful meat you've got there Bo. But all I can focus on is that global knife. Personally, globals are far from my favorite knives. If you ever feel like a very reasonably priced upgrade, Tojiro knives are practically a steal. This series is made with VG-10 stainless, the same steel as Misono's UX10 series, which are some of my favorite knives. They take a serious edge with minimal effort, and keeps it well as long as you take care of it and hone it regularly (i use ceramic but I'm sure a good quality regular steel is fine) Nakiri Santoku I'm just guessing from the picture that these would be the style and size you would like. These are my favorite knives to recommend to serious home cooks, and I've seen plenty stand up to daily use in the professional kitchen. I've got a Tojiro pairing knife, a misono gyoto, bread knife and hankotsu, a JCK honesuki, a Kikuichi deba, and my absolute favorite and workhorse that gets used all day every day, a Takeda sasanoha. The Tojiro is by far the cheapest brand I own but still holds up as far as quality goes, and along with my Misonos is the easiest to put an edge on. |
|
#
¿
Dec 26, 2016 07:57
|
|
|
Subjunctive posted:this is relevant to my interests. I have some globals I've been thinking about passing on to my stepmother (she's using some store-brand disasters right now), and had been looking at Tojiros. (specifically Tojiro-PRO DP cobalt alloy steel interrupt Santoku 170mmF-895 (japan import) https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B001TPFUXC/ ) You can theoretically mess up an edge doing it wrong, but like anything, after some practice, it will become very natural. I'd recommend starting by practicing on a cheap knife you don't care about, Kiwi brand are decent knives that are available at a lot of Asian markets, and run in the $3-$7 range. And even if you do wind up dulling the edge by sharpening at the wrong angle, you can't really damage it in a way that you can't unfuck by slowing down and sharpening it properly. There are lots of sharpening how-tos on YouTube, watch a few of those. There are several methods people use, spend some time watching different people sharpen different ways, and try a few methods out and go with whatever feels natural to you. Go nice and slow and deliberate in the beginning, you will develop muscle memory, and it becomes very easy and natural after some practice. The best piece of advice I got from the chef that taught me how to sharpen is to picture the height of 2 pennies, and use that as your sharpening angle. So many instructions tell you something super specific, like holding the knife at a 17.5 degree angle, which I find super impractical as something to picture/estimate while in the middle of sharpening. Picturing 2 pennies works great for most 50/50 beveled knives. But I would highly recommend buying a stone, or a few of varying grits, and learning how to use it. After some practice, you will be able to put an edge on your knife way better than the factory edge. You will be able to adjust the bevel to your liking. Once you get really good, and if you invest into some higher grit stones, you can get your edge polished to a mirror finish, which I find to be really asthectically pleasing The stones I have, which I feel are the best on the market, are Shapton ceramic stones. That's a starter kit that comes with 2 stones (1k and 4k grit), the holder, a felt block for deburring, and a jeweler's loupe for inspecting the blade. They are kind of pricy, but that starter kit is a great deal, and they are much denser and will last longer than your standard stone. Most water stones need to be soaked for 10+ minutes so that they are saturated before you can sharpen with them, these ceramic stones just need to be splashed with water, so there is less time involved setting up to do your sharpening. This is a good starter combination stone that's quite a bit cheaper, but will definitely get the job done. They probably sell a stand for it, but unlike the shapton stones which are really thin, it's not necessary. The stone is tall enough that you really just need to set it up on a wet towel, like you would a cutting board. This one, or something similar, is probably the better option while you are learning. Depending upon how dull your knives are, you may want to look into a 500 grit stone as well to start with for either option, but if you are looking into Tojiros, they come with a solid factory edge, and 1000 grit will be a fine stone to start with, as long as you maintain the edge. |
|
#
¿
Dec 27, 2016 02:53
|
|
|
poverty goat posted:I got 2 nice sets of japanese knives for xmas and I've been sweating over what to do with them. Maybe you guys can help me decide what to do. I like Misonos a lot, as I mentioned earlier, the UX10 series is probably my favorite series. They are super light weight though, which some people don't like-definitely more so than the VG-10 Tojitoros. I like the fact that they are really light weight, less wrist fatigue of I'm spending the day cutting cases of onions or whatever. But at that level of knife it's all personal preference. Subjunctive posted:while storing Christmas stuff I rediscovered this Edge Pro Apex that I was given years ago, and gave it a whirl. they recommended 20 degrees for kitchen knives, but I'll probably cheat it lower next time. it has 320 and 800 stones, which is a bit awkward, though it also comes with polishing tapes. holding the angle is definitely straightforward, which is nice. Doing a chopping motion on a cutting board (like the Swedish chef style bringing the whole knife up and down rapidly) without actually chopping anything is a pretty quick way to dull a knife, especially a cheap one. Another option is to rub it back and forth on the side of the stone, where the two halves meet if you use a combination stone. The sheetpan thing would work, but a sharp edge on metal is like nails on a chalkboard to me, I hate the sound and how it feels on my knife hand. |
|
#
¿
Dec 28, 2016 05:35
|
|
|
joke_explainer posted:this physically hurts to see Same. I have never understood why glass cutting boards are even a thing. I can't think of many things that would be worse for your knife, aside from cutting on a granite countertop or using your whetstone as a cutting board. |
|
#
¿
Dec 28, 2016 06:18
|
|
|
If anyonwn can name the breeds of hog in my avatar, no google allowed, I will Buy you plat or no archives or whatever you don't have 
|
|
#
¿
Jan 2, 2017 09:30
|
|
|
It's not saddleback and it's not British |
|
#
¿
Jan 3, 2017 06:22
|
|
|
ladybeard mcflurry posted:Hampshire? Not that one either |
|
#
¿
Jan 4, 2017 02:33
|
|
|
It's non American, although there are a small number in the USA. That's the last hint, this is my hard earned  we're talking about here.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 4, 2017 02:51
|
|
|
ladybeard mcflurry posted:the only other banded that i can think of that is not a british or north american breed is the cinta senese and they're super rare in the US. You got it. I was actually present when (to my knowledge) the first and second cinta senese pig were killed in the USA. There was a whole crazy ordeal with it, they lived at customs for weeks before being allowed to actually enter the country. Unfortunately at the time my phone was the cheap and dumb and I didn't have a camera, so I went with a Google image search to find one. I believe you said earlier you want a donation to the lowtax thing versus an upgrade? |
|
#
¿
Jan 5, 2017 06:13
|
|
|
ladybeard mcflurry posted:yep, give lowtax ten bucks or something. or buy yourself a cup of nice coffee.  Thanks for participating, that was fun. Takes me back to when I mailed farro all across the USA and would up with some sweet different takes on it. It sounds like you know way more about pig breeds than I do, which is very cool. I know a lot of the standards, like berkshire, kurobuta. I think wattle pigs are super neat. Cintas have a special place in my heart, however, having been part of a very cool experience with them. This was in the spring of 2014, I would imagine the Cinta proscuitto is done, I don't know if he was doing any of the crazy iberico style hams that take multiple years to cure, but proscuittos for sure. Thanks for playing everyone! I had fun, gave me a good reason to get back into this thread (after my christmas brunch prompted me to at first. I love you all, hope you have a great new year |
|
#
¿
Jan 5, 2017 10:22
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 16, 2024 00:03 |
|
|
POOL IS CLOSED posted:Well, I'm gonna double post about Want your preserved lemons tomorrow? Take your salt, lemons, and herbs/spices (personally I use bay leaves and peppercorns), combine them in a plastic bag and sous vide at 177F for 12 hours. I also usually quarter/sixth my sous vide preserved lemons rather than doing the "just cut the rind" thing. |
|
#
¿
Jan 17, 2017 23:19
|
|