The right tools make tedious jobs so much quicker with better results, I have juggled pastas with hand cranked machines for years. It certainly can be done but a wise investment in the Imperia 220 streamlines the operation. I now have 8 inch wide sheets of pasta and the electric motor makes rolling the most delicate pasta doughs really thin a breeze. It has enough hp to handle the toughest durum and semolina based doughs with finesse. A huge improvement, now for some fazzoletti with boar ragu and toasted pinenuts.
I have found that these non stick baking mats are superior to silpats.
The are thinner, seem to have better anti-adhesive properties, smoother and most importantly do not have the silpat aftertaste which develops over time.
I purchased these in London but they may be available domestically now.
Check JB Prince.
An entirely useful tool, the non-contact infra-red thermometer.
Especially important for sugar related work, checking surface temperatures and hydrating gums/gelatins.
Another useful tool with a multiplicity of uses.
I just finished a consulting job for a friend who was tweaking a brunch operation, the hollandaise was a mess due to space challenges and a kitchen that in my opinion was 1 man short.
We tried using a regular thermos to hold hollandaise which worked fairly well but the thermowhip delivered a superior product, light, fluffy and well emusified. At the end of the day, while I have zero interest in cooking anyone including myself brunch, I discovered a great new tool.
Absolutely fantastic tool. I have used induction cookers over the last few years.
Holding liquids, broths, soups and sauces.
Sensitive consommes like the the "Pekin duck broth" for the new school Albufera, spiced Jasmine tea for the Halibut with lobster stuffed squash blossoms, seafood spaetzle with Activa.
While most of us are under the delusion that the restaurant business is about food, it's actually about money. In order to retain some creativity and interest in what we do, chefs continously strive to lower food costs while keeping quality and creativity high. Transglutaminase is one of the great equalizers, it basically allows you to sell half a cornish hen for $24 with some "sides dishes". This particular bird from my friend Stephen George costs $5 resulting in a $2.75 per portion main protein cost. Even when multiplied by 4 it still tops out at $11.
Before you scream at being gouged, food to me should have a value added index. Simply saying we only use the freshest local produce and we love to let the natural flavors shine through is BS. Not only should food taste good, it should reflect the education and commitment of the kitchen. The freshest produce is the commitment of the farmer.
Activa binds the protiens as you know and after a wrap of cling film and foil, you get a nice torchon/galantine type shape.
Poach CSV and eventually sear.
This by the way works exceptionally well for squab which nobody seems to be able to cook properly these days. A truly special rendition is the milk fed poulardes from Four Story Hill farm.
Smoke used in moderation adds a delicous character to certain foods and can be sublime if controlled properly.
Few things are more insanely good than a properly cured lightly smoked Scotch style salmon with requisite fattiness or as I like to call it "Jabugo of the sea". Maybe our friends at Starkist will adopt that slogan unfortnately they arent in the fish smoking business and 99% of Americans have never tasted Jabugo ham.
Jabugo makes the best proscuitto taste like a disposable bathroom mop at LAX. Back to smoke, I recently took delivery of the smoking gun from those tricky folks at polyscience . First impressions are excellent, on the pure wood smoke front, it delivers good enough volume and flavor and allows you to do silly but fun stuff like put smoke under a cloche and take the dish to the table. Voila ! You have to mix wood chips with damp herbs to get herbal flavor. I have smoked in the past with traditional wood chips from multiple sources, perhaps one of the best and least invasive methods is the use of the pressure compressed wood ingots from Korin in Tribeca, while you are there get some Cedar sheets too which are great wrapped around proteins. The smoked salt-almond condiment for my chinese celery soup will be made with the hickory salt from Le Sanctuaire . I am thinking toasted crumbled marconas, high quality almond oil with N-zorbit , fennel pollen, salt, sugar and sansho.
Sometimes incongruous flavors can be so shockingly divergent that your brain may actually be convinced they work together. Contrast and balance provide a landscape of flavor, here cauliflower is paired with orange using ginger as a bridging element. Temperature ties the elements together.
The cauliflower is in the form of a whipped infused milk while the orange is a glace of mandarin juice, zest and essential oil. Tiny bits of candied ginger salt add a slight sweet-sour salinity.
The whipped cauliflower is "cooked" on the Antigriddle
,drops of orange glace and ginger salt are added midway through freezing to "encapsulate" them.
The slightly chewy melting texture with burst of orange and the cruch of pineapple salt create a fantastic flavor and textural delight.
Expanding on Alex's ideas of compression as a means of cooking vegetables, vacuum packaging does offer significant improvements in color retention, flavor absorption and to some extent, modifying the floral or vegetal quality of certain vegetables.
Baby fennel is abundant in the spring, it's crisp anise flavor is delicious but lacks the sugar balance and complexity of the larger bulbs. Changing the nature of the vegetable yields interesting results.
The baby fennel was vacuum packed at full pressure in a liquid that included olive oil, pastis, salt water and a pinch of sugar. After about 12 hours of refrigeration, it yields a sweeter more "fennelly" fennel.
I suppose part of this can be explained by Osmosis. In a similar fashion, peeled tender inner celery stalks vacuum sealed with elderflower syrup end up with a "candied" texture but without the copious sweetness associated with candied vegetables. what it does exhibit is modified texture with a slightly sweet floral-vegetal quality. It should provide interesting textural modifications for rhubarb. Pairing the "cooked" celery with sake cured steelhead roe rounds out a dish of lightly cured ocean trout, herb sabayon and young sorrel. Incidentally the Gastrovac seems to have been concieved for a very similar purpose. It is however currently cost prohibitive but time will tell.
Sous-Vide cooking has opened a whole new world of possibilities for cooks everywhere. The largest hurdle besides a thorough education in the finer points of the process is the cost of equipment. A few years ago I debated whether it was worth it to look on e-bay or other internet sites for a used circulator. After rather exhaustive research, I decided new was the way to go. My first model was the Techne TU-20D.
Techne can be found if you click Here .
It turns out to be a great machine, completely reliable and the metal
lid simply condenses any vapors back into the bath. This means one
never has to refill or check the water level for at least 4 days for
long cooked items such as pork bellies, Snails and such.
The superbag is essentially a very fine non metallic Chinoise which
allows fine straining by gravity over a long period. Acid components of the product being strained may react with the metal
of a standard chinoise adversely affecting the flavor of the
preparation. A typical application of fruit or vegetable consommes
yeilds a clearer product with focused flavor. They do come in two sizes and the larger one is a great way to harvest tomato water.
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