The Something Offal kitchen equipment thread

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Goons with Spoons > The Something Offal kitchen equipment thread

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Horse Clocks posted:

RE woks: https://youtu.be/VfxkrrndtMQ

I'm not sure if making this is smart.

But jfc my gas hob sucks balls (large burner is single rings), and I am *really* tempted to.

That's cute, but 22k BTU is just barely more than the max output of the biggest hob on a typical residential range. Starting at around US$50 you can get a standalone propane burner that's actually designed for what you want to do and will output 50k+ BTU. For like US$200 you can get a 65k BTU standalone outdoor propane wok burner that comes with a bigass carbon steel wok. And so on.

I mean if you like loving around with poo poo by all means gently caress around with poo poo. But this isn't one of those things where your only option is to MacGyver some poo poo or pay like a grand.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2017 10:09

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 02:46

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Anyone have a `cool, wish I thought of that' storage strategy for delitainers/reditainers? I got the idea to try to use plastic cup/lid dispensers (as in the things that sit next to a soda fountain) but delitainers and their lids are 4.6", which is bigger than standard cup sizes.

Right now I just have 'em stacked out of the way in the pantry which works fine as far as that goes but about once every other week I'll be grabbing one in a hurry and trigger an avalanche of lids.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2017 00:21

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Slimy Hog posted:

As far as the "delitainers" that I get from thai restaurants and reuse, I usually stack the containers to the left and the lids to the right since they are pretty much one-size fits all. OR at least that's what a google search tells me you mean by "delitanier".

Yeah, that's more or less what I'm currently doing, and it's okay if you just have a couple but it's not that great if you've got dozens of the things.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2017 03:42

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

swickles posted:

Why exactly do you need such high temperatures when cooking with a wok?

You don't. But a subset of wok cooking techniques (specifically a couple stir-frying techniques) are built on the presumption that you'll be cooking over a lava-hot flame, so if you want to use them you need a lava-hot flame.

In practice when you hear most people talking about it they're talking about one specific approach to stir-frying (chao or 炒), which is basically saut�ing at a temperature high enough to burn the oil. There are actually even higher-temperature methods, but virtually nobody, even those stridently arguing about purity, is ever talking about them.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2017 04:09

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

TheQuietWilds posted:

This is a crosspost with the 'GoonCave & Gardens' thread, but I figure people here might have thoughts on this too.

Despite having a pretty well equipped kitchen and enjoying cooking, I have for years just accumulated random pieces of dinnerware and glassware, and in my last move the box I had packed them all into (haphazardly) got dropped down a flight of stairs, and basically all my plates and glasses are broken/gone. Writing is on the wall that it's time to go adult and buy a set of matching stuff that was meant to go together. Does anybody have a recommendation for good brands? My initial thoughts were:

Correlle Livingware: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001IWMOTE/ref=psdc_13218751_t1_B01EWI7TKY
Libbey Glassware: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BFC6KLE/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

but I'm not sold to those choices, they're just based on Amazon's search results. I can't comfortably seat more than six people in my new dining area, so I think a set of six is enough. I also don't feel like I need the matching coffee mugs that most dinnerware sets include. I'd just like to have something that looks and feels nice to eat/serve food off.

Not sure what price range you're looking for, but I like Schott Zwiesel's Tritan stuff as glassware that looks and feels good while also being really rugged (in the sense of not getting scuffed by repeated trips through the dishwasher and putting up with getting bumped/knocked over/dropped without exploding). I've got a combination of a couple of the Tritan lines---mostly Classico and the Paris Barware lines---and they mix and match fine.

For plates and dinnerware I replaced my ancient Corning stuff mostly with Wedgewood's White line, and I've been very happy. The fact that it's basically plain white means it works with pretty much any other plain white dinnerware, like random noodle bowls and so on.

If you're also interested in flatware I can also recommend everything about Liberty Tabletop's flatware with the exception of the name and maybe the heft of the butter knives.

I can go into more detail about the stuff I ended up with and all the tedious thousand-browser-tab and hundred-houseware-departments comparison shopping horseshit if you want.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2017 23:45

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Pen Express posted:

Any recommendations for round dinner plates with a slight slope/curve/lip and pasta/risotto bowls?

On the cheap I like the Crate&Barrel Aspen stuff. All their plates are the slightly slope-sided shallow bowls you're talking about. They also have what they call a low bowl, which is more or less a soup plate. There isn't any pasta bowl in the line, but the Aspen line is pure white so it'll go with pretty much any other pure white dishes. The entire like is porcelain, which is why it's so cheap.

That said, I've recently made the leap to bone china and I'm really happy with it. If you don't want to spend the money I wouldn't fret over it, but I definitely prefer the lighter weight and the general feel/intangibles of it. As I said earlier in the thread I recently bought a set of Wedgewood White dinnerware, and I've been very happy with it. The plates are flat and not sloped like you're looking for, but I really prefer plates to be flat and to use something like a pasta bowl or soup plate when I want something that'll hold liquid or whatever. There's a soup plate in the White line, but I didn't get them, and instead got pasta bowls from the Wedgewood Jasper Conran White line, which I use very infrequently for pasta (most pasta should really be served on a flat plate anyway) but rather for stews, braises, and so on. I like them a lot, in terms of ratio of surface area to volume, weight, and general aesthetics.

Basically my general recommendations on dinnerware having recently been through this are (abbreviated because it turns out holy poo poo am I sick of thinking about this poo poo):

Unless you're hosting a lot of fancy dinner parties just get one set of dishes instead of a nice one and an everyday one. When picking one out, unless you have little kids or rear end in a top hat roommates that are likely to bust your poo poo, don't stress too much about getting something a little nicer than you might currently be used to. Or at least this was true of my experience---I was kinda torn between getting another porcelain set because that's what I'm used to and `upgrading' to bone china, because I kinda had this thing in my head that was saying bone loving china, who thinks he's a posh toff now. Or whatever. But plain white bone china is dishwasher safe, not particularly fragile (certainly no more so than e.g. my drinking glasses), and don't look too fancy for everyday use.
Going with white makes coordination with other sets easy. It also really helps colours in the food pop.
If you're interested in getting a complete set of dishes and you cook a lot being able to pick dishes from multiple product lines is a big win because pretty much every single goddamn line of dinnerware has a couple of ugly/stupid/missing/whatever dishes that you'll probably want to get from somewhere else. Doubly so if you do a lot of cooking and it's not all standard Western contemporary poo poo. Like pretty much no major dinnerware manufacturer includes a bigass noodle bowl (like you'd use for phở) in their product lines.
For me at least I wanted something that was reasonably popular and common, because I don't want to bust a plate a couple years from now only to discover the line's been discontinued and so I have to go dinnerware shopping again because I can't just buy a single replacement dish
Again, for me at least this is one of those things where there are about a billion options and I don't have a lot of strong preferences one way or the other. But it's also one of those things where you choose once and then live with your purchase for years. So I was doing the weeks-long regression into infinite browser tab web searches. But although I like the dishes I ended up getting, after a couple weeks they sorta fade into the background and it isn't clear that I wouldn't have been equivalently happy with something similar but different in some way I spent hours fruitlessly researching earlier.

A lot of this applies to buying glasses and flatware (which you, Pen Express didn't ask about but I commented on up the thread). I couldn't find any single line of glasses that included everyday drinking glasses, barware, and so on that I all liked. So what I did was identify a manufacturer (Schott Zwiesel) that had multiple product lines of similar construction and identical materials so I could mix and match and still have everything look like it's from a set. Other people who don't have as many opinions about specific features of dishes, glasses, and so on might not have the same problem.

When you're searching for this kind of poo poo online, there are always a bunch of one star reviews saying that whatever you're looking at is the most toxic horseshit ever manufactured and nobody should ever buy it. So by itself that shouldn't put you off something. Depending on what you're looking for, if it's used in industry anywhere (and most barware is like this) then discussion you find in industry forums seems to generally be more informative/practical than e.g. amazon reviews.

Not counting identifying major product defects and that kind of poo poo, actually handling what you're considering is worth a lot more than reading online reviews.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2017 09:34

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Schpyder posted:

Zojirushi water boiler

Yeah, I've had a Zojirushi for around a decade and it's aces. I think the one I have is around US$150. No idea if cheaper options would work just as well, but at this point if I had to replace it I'd just get the same thing again.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2017 22:34

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Elizabethan Error posted:

what kind of pan is it, and what heat level are you using? cause 2 pans warping on the same stove indicates it's probably not the pan at fault

Presumably carbon steel. Matfer Bourgeat make all kinds of cookware but when people use the name by itself they're usually talking about the carbon steel fry pans.

For whatever it's worth, I've got a mb fry pan that I use on a lovely glasstop electric and it has never warped on me.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2017 21:15

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Submarine Sandpaper posted:

What was the big gently caress off deba like korean knife?

Are you thinking of rail steel/rail iron knives? They're not necessarily fuckoff huge but they're characteristically roughly deba-shaped.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2017 17:17

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Anne Whateley posted:

Cookie-cooling racks are a real pain in the rear end to clean after being used that way. Look for a rack that only has lines in one direction, and a lot fewer of them. It'll be more than enough to support the meat, and actually possible to get clean.

Speaking of which, does anyone have recommendations on a stainless roasting pan with a flat rack? I've got an ancient anodized steel one which I've never used for roasting, but use regularly as a broiling pan. Because broiling pans always suck---they tend to be flat and perforated, like this:

...which means they are also a real pain in the rear end to clean and they suck for broiling, because they don't drain as well as a grill-type rack.

The one I've got is something like this:

...only with a flat rack that sits just slightly below the top of the pan. And most of the coating worn away so it's started to rust. All of the stainless ones that seem to show up on a search of e.g. amazon seem to have really low racks, which might work well for what they're designed for (roasting) but not what I want to do with them (broiling).

Sextro posted:

Just cut some carrots and onions into planks and rings and use those? Or any veggie to roast really.

Yeah, when I'm roasting something I use a roasting pan (a Le Creuset) with no rack and just put what I'm roasting on a bed of mirepoix or whatever veg I'm going to use to build the pan sauce.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2017 01:39

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

wormil posted:

Maybe there isn't. I honestly don't know. Maybe the ones that come with ovens are as good as it gets. It's all I've ever used. The one I have is doing the job, it's just 4X larger than needed 90% of the time. It'd be like cooking a hamburger in a 12" skillet, seems excessive. So I thought, hey, maybe I can get a smaller one and while I'm at it ... maybe they make better ones. But after looking on Amazon, I'm thinking that I will stick with what I have.

Yeah, as I say in the post just above yours all broiler pans seem to suck. Mostly because they're just not particularly well-designed for broiling. What I want is basically a weber grill with a drip pan that I can fit in an oven/broiler. But nobody seems to make anything like that.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2017 04:10

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

AVeryLargeRadish posted:

Couldn't you just use a flat wire roasting rack like this and a baking sheet or roasting pan? They come in a lot of shapes and sizes too so you could get a small one and a small pan for just doing a hamburger or two.

Maybe? Still seems like something that ought to just be a thing by itself.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2017 05:18

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

revwinnebago posted:

Probably don't reuse disposable plastic bottles for food?

Pretty much any plastic squeeze bottle you'll find today in the US is going to be made out of food safe LDPE, and it isn't as if they cast a magic spell on the bottle to make one LDPE bottle `reusable' and another one `single use' or whatever it is you're imagining.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2017 11:16

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

obi_ant posted:

What's a good receptacle to hold some kosher salt? I have a twist off lid and it's basically a pain in the rear end to have to unscrew poo poo all the time. Maybe something easy to open with a seal? I see people on Youtube and TV with something like this... But gently caress, $23?

I use a delitainer.

If you want more traditional, the search term you want is `salt pig'.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2017 21:16

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Steve Yun posted:

Does the perfect salt cellar exist? My wish list:
- clear so you can see if it needs refilling
- cover to keep oil droplets and errant food splashes out
- cover that can be opened single-handedly, without needing to pop a lid
- cover that is on a hinge that closes on its own with gravity after you pull your hand out

That's more or less exactly what obi_ant posted, isn't it?

What I do is use a delitainer, pop the lid when I take it out and just let the lid sit on top as a splash guard when it's on the counter, when I'm done seal it and put it in the cupboard. In addition to salt, I do this for other frequent grab-a-pinch seasonings (also sugar, five spice, and so on).

I guess if you wanted to get fancy you could hog out the lid with a flathead screwdriver so it doesn't snap shut and then make a hinge out of gaffer tape. But I've never really thought that popping the lid on a delitainer when I start prep to be a big barrier to the efficiency of my mise or whatever.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2017 22:22

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Steve Yun posted:

Here's a recommendation from SubG a while back on the subject. I have the weird habit of only buying one each of everything so I have two dozen unique wine glasses. There are a couple Schott Zwiesels mixed in there and they're very nice.

Random update on the Schott glassware: I've got a set of what I think they call their tall drinks glass. It's a tumbler that holds roughly a pint. They're the most fragile-feeling of the SZ glasses I own. One survived being dropped from the height of the top rack of the dishwasher, bouncing off the open front of the dishwasher, and hitting the kitchen floor. Another survived being slammed on the rim with another one (putting it down by the side of the sink, only in the dark and so not noticing that there was already a glass there).

The only failure in the SZ glassware I've had I think was a DOA/shipping problem---had an old fashioned glass with a chipped bottom discovered after being washed for the first time. It's possible that the thermal cycling caused it to crack, but I think it was probably an existing defect that I just hadn't noticed, but you could convince me either way.

Fake edit: just looked it up, and the product name of the tall drinks glass what they call a `long drink/iced beverage cocktail glass'. It's from the Iceberg line. The old fashioned glasses are from the Paris Barware line. The product photos of the different Tritan lines sometimes makes it look like the colour of the glass varies, but I've got glassware from three different lines and the glass is visually indistinguishable.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2017 01:27

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Test Pattern posted:

Unicorn Magnum. http://www.unicornmills.com/Magnum-0/ No question.

Yeah. I have one for black pepper, and when I bought another pepper mill to dedicate to Sichuan peppercorns I got a different model just so they didn't look the same and now I wish I'd just gotten another unicorn.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2017 01:30

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Steve Yun posted:

Dear equipment manufacturers: please make a loving half width pie cutter. 90% of the time my guests want a thinner slice. They end up eating more slices but they want to pretend they're watching their weight first. Thanks in advance.

Not quite what you're asking for, but try using an offset spatula. Not an offset turner, but an actual spatula, the kind used for spreading batter, frosting cakes, and so on. You can find offset spatulas in a shitload of sizes and stiffnesses. Never used one for pie, but they're good for handling small/delicate baked goods in general.

# ¿ Nov 30, 2017 21:16

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Counterpoint: tiger skin chicken feet loving own.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2017 22:46

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

FROOOOOOOOG posted:

Yo, is there anything I need to look for specifically in a cutting board? I see the cheap ones being bamboo and the expensive ones being acacia, is there a meaningful difference?

NSF-rated poly boards from your local restaurant supply store are cheaper than bamboo and have the advantage of being dishwasher safe.

# ¿ Dec 28, 2017 02:05

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Scientastic posted:

Wood boards are definitely superior to plastic, wood is naturally inhospitable to bacteria in a way that plastic isn�t[...].

...which doesn't matter at all, as you should literally never rely on the magical antimicrobial properties of wood to prevent contamination. Every time cutting board chat comes up this gets mentioned, but it's irrelevant. Avoid cross-contamination by avoiding cross-contamination, and that means properly cleaning cutting boards after use regardless of what the cutting board is made out of.

With synthetic boards you have the convenience of being able to throw them in the dishwasher, which will pasteurize them (and the ease of sanitising is, incidentally, why the article you link recommends using plastic cutting boards for meat). Tell the truth: how often have you cleaned your wooden cutting boards with quaternary ammonium, as that article recommends?

I mean use whatever cutting boards you want, no skin off my rear end. But jesus people need to stop trotting out that antimicrobial poo poo like it's relevant. Silver is mildly antimicrobial, too. But if you accidentally drop your fork into the garbage bin you wash it off instead of just figuring gently caress it it's antimicrobial or whatever.

# ¿ Dec 28, 2017 22:16

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

wormil posted:

What do people think cutting boards were made of for a thousand years before plastic?

I assume people are wise enough to know that cutting boards came some time after modern milling (their first recorded use is in the mid 17th Century), and their ancestor, the butcher's or chopping block, is only attested to from the late middle ages (e.g. England in the 1400s, although there's evidence to support the idea that China was using chopping blocks somewhat earlier), and so they weren't in use for a thousand years before plastic at all. But I make it a practice to think the best of people.

But anyway if that's directed at me, I'm not saying people shouldn't use wood cutting boards. I'm saying that the antimicrobial argument for wood cutting boards is bunk. Which is what I said.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2017 01:02

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

wormil posted:

You are being disingenuous and that's boring.

Nah. The cutting board just ain't a thousand years old. The kitchen (in the sense we now think of a kitchen), and the whole practice of food prep in which something like a cutting board would be useful, is less than a thousand years old.

wormil posted:

The antimicrobial properties of wood are real and do matter, otherwise we would all be dead by now.

Nah. It turns out that even a really lovely HACCP system you're not going to kill off literally everybody. And for most of human history people got sick and died of poo poo that we now know how to prevent.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2017 04:03

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

wormil posted:

Bamboo is grass, not wood, so I'm not sure if a bamboo cutting board will have the same antimicrobial properties as wood.

It does. The antimicrobial action is purely mechanical; cuts in wood surfaces wick fluids away from the surface and into the interior of the board. If undisturbed, over time they dry out and any bacteria die. How long this takes to happen depends on the dimensions of the cut, the medium, and so on (for example, bacteria remain viable for much longer if the surface has been wiped with chicken fat, which will end up plugging the top of the cuts and slowing evaporation of trapped fluids, even after the surface has been washed). It also depends on the type of wood, its condition, and so on.

That all said, bamboo has the advantage of being comparatively less porous and more resistant to cuts than most woods. So it'll absorb less fluids and be easier to clean than most wood surfaces.

But once again avoid cross contamination anyway. And you do that the same way, regardless of what your cutting board is made of. Wood ain't magic and you can't rely on it to protect you from unsafe food handling.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2017 11:03

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Murgos posted:

You�re being awfully pedantic about what you are willing to accept as a cutting board.

Big wood table. Put stuff on table. Chop and cut to needed size. Wipe off table.

This is not how cooking worked, for the overwhelming majority of people, a thousand years ago. A thousand years ago all cooking in a typical household was done in a single cookpot in a common room. Use of meat was infrequent. Use of utensils was infrequent, both in prep and consumption. The fork was still a couple centuries in the future (and would arrive as an exotic innovation from the mysterious East, used only by the wealthy and looked askance at by most for centuries after that). Food prep was almost entirely by hand, and would look nothing like `put stuff on table, chop and cut', and more like `break veg into pieces by hand and add to pot'. If you had any meat it would almost certainly be roasted whole or---and this is sorta the signature move of medieval cuisine---mashed into paste in a mortar. But that was really something that only the very upper echelons of society would enjoy---manorial cooking, rather than household cooking.

The kind of cooking you're imagining is something that comes many hundreds of years later.

wormil posted:

Like I said, bamboo isn't wood. I don't know if it has the same antimicrobial properties. If you say it does, please include a source.

I guess you're trying to sling a pedantic zinger at me here, but if you want to go that route then a lot of wood cutting boards aren't wood either, like a nice end-grain heartwood block, because they're not exclusively made from secondary xylem or whatever you're leaning on here as your definition of `wood'.

But whatever. The FDA says that bamboo is more resistant to bacteria than other woods. They've got a page on cutting boards and food safety.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2017 22:08

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Murgos posted:

Ah, yes. The whole world consisted of portions of Weastern Europe 1000 years ago and there are obviously no records of meals eaten in any other culture or any other time.

You are arguing against the use of wood as a cooking prep surface. Get a grip.

No. I'm saying food prep a thousand years ago was different, and imagining modern food prep done on a tabletop instead of a cutting board isn't just a simplification, it is misleading.

And we're talking about Europe because we were talking about cutting boards and their antecedents. As I already pointed out, the precursor to the modern cutting board was the chopping block, and the first recorded use of anything like it is in the late 1400s in Europe. There is similar documentary evidence of its use in China, but we have indirect evidence (e.g. in cooking manuals) that they were in use there a couple centuries earlier. In neither case were they what we would now think of as a food prep surface, like a cutting board---like nobody was going to come in after the butcher was done and make a nice wedge salad on the chopping block. So it's not really relevant for our discussion.

Catfishenfuego posted:

As a s food history scholar and food systems designer you're wrong about almost all that historical information btw.

I would love to hear the food history scholarship which paints a different picture prior to the economic changes of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. Like, actually. Go ahead an paint me a picture of typical household cooking circa 1000 CE.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2017 03:31

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Murgos posted:

No? The discussion was that pretty much everyone has always used wood as a food prep work surface and mostly managed to avoid death due to its natural properties.

Your response is that this is impossible because no one had tables and only a single pot. Which may have been partially true for some very poor French peasants of a certain period but is kinda irrelevant for the larger discussion. Also even poor French peasants probably had a wood board with or without legs to put things on.

Your argument also ignores entirely that not everyone was too poor to have a table so that regardless a significant portion of the population was still benefiting from the effects.

No. I understand that your intuition is that food prep a thousand years ago just must, for some reason, look more or less like food prep today only with less kitchen gadgets, or something like that. But, like I just said, it wasn't just like what is done today except on a tabletop.

A thousand years ago, throughout Europe, as well as India, the Levant, and China, a substantial majority of people's diets consisted mostly of cereals with a couple of local veg. In Europe in the time period we're talking about this was consumed overwhelmingly as porridge or gruel (bread wouldn't predominate until several centuries later).

A thousand years ago was before the Crusades, increases in trade, and the rise of the sort of town life that would become a major part of later Medieval life. Before these changes (which were occurring throughout the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries) most people got most of their food from land they cultivated themselves. It isn't until centuries later that shifts in trade and patterns of life created conditions where a meaningful portion of the population was obtaining their food via commerce instead of subsistence farming (and diets for those other than the nobility became more diverse as a result).

If you were an average person living near the coast you might be consuming some fish in addition. If you were not meat would be scarce unless you were very wealthy (or were poaching from somebody who was). If the meat was fresh you'd probably hang it and then roast with a spit and open flame, probably over your cook pot, where you cooked your porridge, to catch the drippings. A substantial portion of whatever meat you did get would be preserved---smoked or salted---itself reducing the risk of the spread of food pathogens from meat handling.

At no point do your habits of food preparation look anything like the modern use of a cutting board. Specifically, if you're appealing to the Cliver (et al) study and are trying to extrapolate it out to wood food prep surfaces serving some sort of public heath function a thousand years ago (you know, in the Middle Ages, a time celebrated for its lack of disease and death) you'd have to do so in some way that's connected to the results reported in the Cliver paper. They investigate but discard the idea that the wood itself (that is, some chemical or whatever property of the wood) provides antimicrobial action. And conclude that the effects they observe are due to cuts in the surface wicking moisture away from the surface, sequestering food pathogens where they subsequently dry and die.

So in order to attribute some public health miracle to the non-existent cutting boards of a thousand years ago, the food prep practices of a thousand years ago would have to involve routinely cutting raw meat on a wooden surface, wiping it down, and then doing other food prep tasks on the same surface. It didn't. For most people it couldn't. They didn't have the diet necessary to develop those habits or acquire those tools of food preparation. This is seen in illustrations and in food manuals which start appearing hundreds of years after the period we're talking about and still don't include the sort of food prep that you, and others in this thread, appear to be imagining.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2017 21:43

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

extravadanza posted:

I would still recommend a non-stick pan or an enameled cast iron pan for Shakshuka.

Why?

# ¿ Feb 15, 2018 22:46

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Steve Yun posted:

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...medium=facebook

That is one fancy rear end Easy-Bake Oven.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2018 10:25

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

The Creature posted:

I love my 12 (11.7 or whatever) Matfer pans. I have 2 of them and a 10 inch. The 12 two are used for multiple dishes/searing at once and the 10 is used for.. Well eggs and crepes. I had some poo poo non stick pan that wouldn't last, but I'm happier with the nonstick of this seasoning. A woman I brought home made some weird bananas foster French toast for me, and she loves it. Luckily she knew enough to scrub and oil it instead of put it in the dishwasher.

A 10" cast iron skillet is too small for searing off a bunch of steaks or whatever, but it's just about perfect for making cornbread or for use as a roasting pan for veg.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2018 04:02

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

AnonSpore posted:

Forgive me father for I have sinned and bought an oyakodon pan

You mean one of those l'il single-serving donburi pans with the vertical handle, or is there some kind of specialised oyakodon pan that I'm too much of a baka whatever to know about?

# ¿ Mar 29, 2018 20:56

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Steve Yun posted:

Started working on updating the OP knowing that Victorinox hasn't been nearly as good of a bargain for years, but all of a sudden Tojiro knives doubled in price too? What're the good budget knives to get now?

US$20 Chinese cleavers. Forget the CCK from ck2g for US$80, just get a functionally-identical SBZ S210, or whatever, for less than US$25, shipped, from China.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2018 23:06

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

wormil posted:

There are oils that will cure to a solid film and provide more protection (like tung oil) but those aren't normally used on cutting boards and probably wouldn't survive a wash with soap and warm water.

Once cured, drying oils like tung aren't water soluble, and in fact will withstand many stronger solvents. In ye olden days you'd clean hardwood floors finished with tung oil by mopping with vinegar and water or even diluted paint thinner. A lot of tung oil finishes you see today aren't pure tung oil and may produce polymers with different properties, though. I don't know of any that are water soluble, but many of the tung-ish finishes are damaged by mineral spirits (which cured tung oil itself is not).

Subjunctive posted:

Kenji recommends oiling to that point, and that reoiling about monthly will maintain it (given his level of use).

He also touts the food safety benefits of wooden cutting boards, apparently unaware that beading fluids on the surface negates them.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2018 22:16

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

wormil posted:

I believe regular washing will remove the tung oil before it can build into a thick enough layer to resist warm soapy water. Tung oil takes forever to dry.

Tung oil takes somewhere between two and four weeks to fully cure (depending on environment), but once it is cured it's not going to wash out.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2018 23:26

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Yeah, if I was starting from scratch today and wanted to do it as cheap as possible I'd just get a SBZ S210-1 off aliexpress. You can get 'em for like US$20. I think I still use my CCK #1 small slicer (the Chinese cleaver that really started the Chinese cleaver craze on the English-language internet) more than it, but they're functionally identical.

That said I think I use the SBZ F208-1 (which is their `pro' model stainless sangdao) slightly more than my S210-1, for no particular reason. It's slightly more expensive at around US$30 from aliexpress.

I posted a bunch of details about various non-CCK brands/models of cleaver you can get off the internet, with pics and specs (weight, dimensions) on the kitchen knife thread. I and a couple of other people posted links to aliexpress merchants we've bought from with no problems, if that helps.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2018 20:13

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Thumposaurus posted:

I've used this one: Kitchen Scale - Bakers Math Kitchen Scale - KD8000 Scale by My Weight, Silver https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VEKX35Y/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_GzfOBb5DRGDB6 in a commercial bakery enviroment and it never had any problems vs the OXO one that the other part of the kitchen used that we went through about 3 or 4 of them in the time I was there.

Another vote for this. Got one years ago based on the GWS hivemind recommendation. No complaints.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2018 08:33

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

I. M. Gei posted:

I�m kinda thinking about picking one of these up to use on my pizza stone. Is there any reason I should consider getting this model instead of one of the cheaper guns on Amazon? Do I need something with a higher temperature range if I�m using it on a pizza stone on a charcoal grill?

If you're not in a hurry, the lower-end IR-GUN-S goes on sale regularly. I impulse bought one during a sale a couple years ago, think I paid like US$20 for it.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2019 06:42

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

I. M. Gei posted:

What�s the difference between the Cuisinart DFP-14BCNY and the Cuisinart DFP-14BCNYAMZ? Because according to Cuisinart�s website there�s a difference.

I almost asked this before I bought one of them but I decided someone itt would ridicule me if I did (because apparently that�s a thing I have to deal with now), so I stayed quiet.

Based on the product number I'd guess the first one is packaged for retail sale and the second for sale on amazon.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2019 22:37

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

I'm pretty sure that one's hand painted but there are plenty of decal sets made for the various KA stand mixers.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2019 04:53

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 02:46

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Spudalicious posted:

Does anyone have some good big bowls like ceramic/porcelain? We like pho way too much and often I end up picking up some to-go, but I lack big enough bowls to properly consume and we always end up using weird large format stuff like glass tupperware or mixing bowls to eat out of. I'm over it - I want some drat pho bowls.

Is there some reason you're not just buying generic phở bowls? Like is there something in particular you're looking for?

# ¿ May 3, 2019 22:48

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Goons with Spoons > The Something Offal kitchen equipment thread

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