I lust after the 48-Hour Short Ribs in the Momofuku cookbook, a technique that requires a long soak in the sous vide hot tub. Before committing to Chang’s recipe and possibly ruining good short ribs, I thought a test run was in order. I had a pint of braising liquid in the freezer left over from the Ad Hoc Braised Beef Short Ribs, all I needed was some inexpensive meat to work with.
A quick run to Casa De Carnes Solucao, my local Brazilian butcher, turned up a nice slab of beef ribs. The cut was different, more of a thick flanken (or Korean) style cut, bu they were more than adequate for the test. I trimmed the excess fat and silverskin, and split the cuts into two-bone segments.
Because I don’t have a professional chamber vacuum, I had to figure out a way to incorporate the braising liquid into the sous vide bags without having it sucked out by my vacuum sealer. My solution was to cut the still-frozen liquid into three slabs.
I sandwiched a slab of liquid between two ribs in each bag, then applied the vacuum.
I placed each bag inside a larger vacuum bag (in case the inner bag broke, I wouldn’t wind up with sous vide soup) then dropped the bags into the water bath, where they would cook at 60 °C for the next two days.
48 Hours Later
Like the steaks I had tried previously, the ribs were still pink in the center.
I removed the bones and cut away the cartilage which would have dissolved over the course of a traditional higher-heat braise. I poured the braising liquid into a pan, set it to simmer, and added the ribs to bring them up to a warmer serving temperature. I plated the ribs over buttered noodles with a side of butter-braised baby carrots.
Unlike short ribs prepared by the standard these weren’t the fork-tender shred-apart ribs I am used to. These were meltingly tender but maintained their shape, requiring a knife to cut. The beefy flavor was much more to the forefront, a welcome contrast to the fatty exterior and rich sauce. Now that I know the method works, I’ll be moving on to Chang’s recipe soon.
Once He Who Will Not Be Ignored gets an idea in his head, it’s difficult to dissuade him. We talk him out of his most extreme notions (“I’m smart enough already, so I don’t need to go to school anymore!” “We should have a dog and a cat and a guinea pig and a parakeet.”), so it’s a relief to agree with one of his lesser whims.
One such whim was for a sandwich he saw on Man vs. Food: the Triple Threat Pork sandwich served at Slow’s Bar B Q in Detroit. “Dad! You have to make this awesome sandwich! It has ham and pulled pork and bacon!” As luck would have it, I had pulled pork left over from the Great Ramen Project, a huge slab of ham from Easter dinner, and bacon in the fridge. Time to make a sandwich.
I tossed the ham slices and bacon on the griddle.
Once they were crisp, I heated up the pulled pork, cooking it until it got crispy at the edges. I toasted some poppy-seed kaiser rolls on the fat-saturated griddle (why bother with butter?), and commenced with the assemblage. The bacon went down first:
Then the pulled pork:
And, finally, the ham:
Top with a slathering of barbecue sauce, and eat.
How did it taste? Crispy bacon, soft pulled pork, chewy smoky ham, and sweet barbecue sauce — it hit all the right notes, not unlike a sandwich made from a Bacon Explosion.
He Who Will Not Be Ignored inhaled the sandwich, then declared “Almost perfect. Next time, use more bacon.” Everyone’s a critic.
Satisfied that I wouldn’t be returning the Best Client Bribe Ever, I consigned its lovely box to the trash. I retained the info sheet, which has information about the composition of the blade (VG-10 stainless steel clad with 16 layers of SUS410 high-carbon stainless steel), the warranty (lifetime, with free annual sharpening), and the liability disclaimer.
Wait. A liability disclaimer? What on earth for? Here’s the complete text:
The purchase, use, and ownership of knives are subject to a wide variety of local laws and regulations. Certain knife styles, blade designs, and blade lengths are not allowed in specific areas. In light of recent events involving national security, knives may not be permitted in government buildings or on government property (such as court houses, federal offices, national monuments, and airports), and government officials may take the position that knives are “weapons” under applicable laws. Due to the complexity and constantly changing nature of these laws and regulations, it is impossible for Kai USA ltd., and Shun Cutlery to be aware of every restriction in every location in which our knives may be sold or carried. It is the responsibility of the buyer to investigate and comply with the laws and regulations that apply in his or her specific area. You, and not Kai USA ltd., are solely responsible for any claims resulting from violation of these laws and/or regulations.
In short, “We no longer understand the laws about knife ownership. You may already be a criminal, but it’s not our fault.”
And it isn’t the company’s fault. We already live in an over-regulated society that has probably turned all of us into criminals when it comes to compliance with the tax code and the purchase and distribution of copyrighted materials. Now, it seems, we may be running afoul of hastily enacted ill-defined laws about owning cutlery.
No knives in government buildings? Really? Does that law apply to Cristeta Comerford, the White House Executive Chef? How about the cooks who work in every commissary in every federal building in DC? What about cooks who prepare meals for airlines? How about the cafeteria staff at the Smithsonian, Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone park, or any other national monument or park? Are they all criminals as well? I suppose it’s possible that these workers are all exempt — after all, the law shouldn’t get in the way of a good feed in the Senate Dining Room.
What about the rest of us, home cooks who own some well-honed tools of the trade? Are we caching weapons? I would like to believe that inspection of my kitchen — which would turn up at least a dozen “weapons” safely ensconced in a bamboo knife bock — would result in the common-sense conclusion “He uses them to cook.”
Common sense, however, is in very short supply (an observation from the person who was almost arrested for operating a barbecue grill). My solution is for more of us to become more skilled cooks. If we all owned a few good knives (and you be surprised at how few home kitchens are properly equipped), there would be too many to track.
Perhaps, since knives are used to prepare the food that is necessary for survival, they could be classified as medical implements. We’d all need doctor’s referrals to own knives, which would drive up health care costs. The solution: Decriminalize the knives!
Many of my friends have their knickers in a twist about the “New Doctor,” i.e., the actor playing the newest incarnation of Doctor Who, the perennial British science fiction TV series. Having seen a few episodes over the years, and being completely underwhelmed by the show’s low-budget cheesiness (blame the BBC), I have steadfastly refused to watch it. (I am an equal-opportunity hater: my contempt for Doctor Who is surpassed by my loathing of the original Star Trek.)
The one thing that Who has over every science fiction series is it’s theme music, that chilling combination of wooshes and theremin-like melody that has never been improved upon since its appearance in 1963:
Ask Who fans who wrote that theme, and they’ll tell you it was Ron Grainer, the television and film composer who would later go on to write the theme for The Prisoner. Ask fans who realized the theme, who committed it to tape, and they’ll draw a blank. Again, blame the BBC: Grainer wanted to split his royalties with his collaborator, but was against Beeb policy. And so, a pioneering electronic composer was denied credit and almost doomed to obscurity.
That composer was Delia Derbyshire (pronounced “darby-sheer”), and she was a genius. She joined the legendary BBC Radiophonic Workshop in 1962, and, working out of Room 13 with decommissioned equipment, created almost 200 pieces of incidental music for radio and television. She worked primarily with microphones and found objects, splicing notes together on tape. Synthesizers and multi-track recording had yet to be invented, so she made do with what was available, as seen here (using loops from her composition “Pot Au Feu”):
Look at that again: she’s beat-matching and mixing four separate tape recorders, a feat that only the most skilled of turntablists could manage today. (And call me out on my often-professed geekiness, but I think she’s hot.)
In 1969 she joined the group White Noise, whose first recording, An Electric Storm, was an experiment in merging psychedelia with electronic sounds.
The record became a cult classic, years later influencing the sound of Orbital, Broadcast, and Stereolab.
Delia left the BBC in 1973, the same year that synthesizers were introduced at the Workshop. She thought that they stifled creativity, and refused to use the instruments to speed up her deliberate output. She stopped composing and remained in retirement until her death in 2001. In a 1997 interview on Radio Scotland (part 1, part 2) she talks about her career and influence, well worth the listen.
She’s finally getting her due. The BBC aired a documentary on the Radiophonic workshop called The Alchemists of Sound. The section about Delia starts at the 2:50 mark:
The bit about playing the lampshade is a technique that Brian Eno nicked ten years later. The gongs at the end of “Some of Them Are Old” and that play in the background through out “Here Come the Warm Jets” are recordings of a struck lampshade played at different speeds.
This year saw the release of The Delian Mode, a short film about Derbyshire’s career by Kara Blake.
It has recently become available on DVD, you can purchase it from the web site.
Last year it was announced that 267 tapes had been recovered from Delia’s attic after she died. This article from the BBC contains several samples of material from the tapes, including a mind-blowing “experimental dance track” that sound like it was recorded yesterday.
Perhaps the most fitting tribute to her influence was this encore, the last live performance by Orbital, recorded at the BBC Maida Vale studio — the home of the Radiophonic Workshop. The song still kills four decades later.
This week’s episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations — the “Techniques Special” —may very well be the best stand-and-stir cooking show ever made. As he explains at the beginning of the show:
This is an hour of instruction. It’s about how to cook, how to do a number of very basic things. To do that, I’ve called in a few friends. I happen to believe that you should learn to feed yourself, and maybe a few others.
… What techniques should every American know, or at least have some proficiency in?
Basic knifework, meaning they can cut stuff, generally into the desired shape or size they would like.
Everyone should know how to cook a lobster.
Everyone should know how to cook eggs. Perhaps most importantly, everyone should know how to cook an omelet.
Everyone should know how to grill a steak. Shockingly enough, few people seem to, and it is ridiculously easy.
Roast a chicken. And yet, it is one of those simple good things that people manage to destroy.
I hate to even bring it up, but cook a hamburger.
And everyone should know how to make a stew.
Bourdain narrates the show from the kitchen at Brasserie Les Halles, the restaurant where he used to be executive chef. He demonstrates how to make a very basic boeuf bourguignon (more of a plain beef stew, since he doesn’t use the traditional mushroom and onion garnishes), interspersing the other technique segments between the steps in his recipe.
But you’d think that he had been reading this blog, because he starts off with a rant about basic knife skills:
Notice the bit about improving with practice? It’s not just me who thinks that.
With that out of the way, he introduces his friends, each a chef who will demonstrate one of the essential techniques:
Dave Pasternak of Esca restaurant shows you how to cook a lobster. Not just any lobster, but a massive hard-shelled Newfoundland bay lobster.
Scott Conant of Scarpetta restaurant makes spaghetti in tomato sauce. Imagine my surprise when I heard him say:
The only place in Italy where I’ve had a spaghetti similar to this was in my grandparents’ home town of Benevento. It’s the only place where I’ve had a spaghetti where I thought “That’s exactly what I want.”
My great-grandparents on my mother’s side are from the same town. My sauce recipe is different than his, but clearly I am the descendant of great sauce makers.
Laurent Tourondel — a Frenchman — demonstrates the preparation of a perfect cheeseburger.
Carlos Morales, Bourdain’s replacement at Les Halles, shows you how to make french fries and how to grill a steak.
And lastly — not in the show, but here for pride of place — Thomas Keller teaches you how to roast a chicken.
As he mentions in passing, add root vegetables and use a roasting pan, and you have this recipe. (I’ve been in his kitchen, I’ve roasted chickens with his method — does that make me more Keller-esque?)
I can’t argue with Tony’s selection of essential techniques. Cooking eggs properly is essential, as is roasting a chicken. If you live in New England and can’t cook a lobster, move to Iowa. Grilling a steak and cooking a hamburger teach you about temperatures, doneness, and resting meat before slicing. A good tomato sauce will take you far in Italian cooking, even if you use canned instead of fresh tomatoes. And who wouldn’t want to know how to make fries?
In his blog, Bourdain concludes:
And for those who already do cook them proficiently, I hope, given the quality of instructors in the line-up, that watching this show helps many to raise their game. Every technique on this show was designed to be simple, approachable — to use ingredients that you actually find yourself using — and to be useful in the real world.
In the early ’90s I attempted to start a computer game company with five other partners. Somehow the role of front man eventually fell to me. If you know anything about me, you know that I’m not a “people person,” yet I was told that my no-bullshit approach to pitching what out fledgling company had to offer was just what possible investors wanted to hear.
So I spent the next few years attending the annual CGDC and E3 events, scheduling meetings with possible backers, and generally making my life miserable. Our company had enough god ideas to fill a binder as thick as the Los Angeles phone book, but all anyone wanted to know was how much money we planed on making, so that they could calculate what their cut would be if they invested. Even AOL, who was desperate for activities that would keep its subscribers online for long stretches of time (at a premium), was interested only in an immediate profit.
We tried to interest a few angel investors, but since we weren’t selling hardware of software that you could put in a box in a shelf, they didn’t understand what we were trying to do. (“People will gather in communities online, just to play in a virtual world you created? You’re nuts.” This was 1996, before Everquest broke open the floodgates.) By 1998, having exhausted every funding possibility, we packed it in, with only a thick binder and a lot of frequent flier miles to show for our efforts. That, and utter contempt for the venture capital industry.
Nothing has happened in twelve years to change my opinion, especially after watching what She Who Must Be Obeyed had to go through as one of her startups was funded. Nothing, that is, until last week, when I was asked to help a friend build a web site for her new investment fund. Hearing the hesitation in my voice, she said “Go to my temporary site and read the story, then we’ll talk.” This is what I read:
And so, I did something desperate. I said, “Look, just take the $25k. Give me 5% of the company, give me 10% of the company — I don’t really care. All I want is the opportunity to continue doing this, which is to say, sitting down with people like you and helping them get started on their dreams. So here’s my offer:
You decide how much equity I get. Then, when there comes a day that that equity has value, here’s what we’ll do: the two of us will find new people to invest in. You can sit with me on this side of the table, and together we’ll use that money to facilitate other people’s dreams. How does that sound? Would you like to be angel investor yourself someday? Would you like to be my partner?”
There was another long pause, but this one felt different. Finally, he asked, “Under those terms, why wouldn’t I give you twenty percent?”
Then he added, “That’s pretty much the best deal I’ve ever heard.”
The more I thought about it, the more I realized he was right.
Had such an arrangement existed when I was trying to get funded, I would have jumped at the opportunity, and would have been all too grateful to extend that opportunity to the next bunch of newcomers. I agreed to build the site, and today Presumed Abundance launched.
The fund isn’t for every company, just those in the “social enterprise” arena. Regardless, it’s a staggeringly good idea, one of those “Why didn’t I think of that?” moments. And it’s bound to piss off traditional venture capitalists because it completely disintermediates them. (Hey, I just used “disinermediates” on a blog that isn’t Boing Boing.)
Take a few minutes to go through the site. They’re accepting proposals, and maybe you know someone with a good social idea who could use a little startup cash. Or, if you have cash of your own to distribute, replicate the Presumed Abundance model.
And don’t forget the Belm Blog Community Networking Project.
I had a Sous Vide Supreme water bath, and two strip steaks I purchased from my meat CSA, so it was time to get all science-like and try a new cooking technique. Could I produce a steak that was cooked to the same doneness all the way to the edges that still had a brown exterior crust? Lets find out.
I began with two strip steak that were about an inch thick. I let them come to room temperature.
I seasoned them with salt and pepper, then sealed them in individual vacuum bags. The nozzle on the vacuum pump sits over the blue ring on the bag.
I pre-heated the water bath to 135 °F — the temperature for medium-rare beef — and added the bags.
I removed the steaks after 45 minutes, and let them rest for an additional ten minutes. Notice the dull, brown, unappetizing color.
I prepared some side dishes while the steaks rested, including Lyonaise potatoes sauteed in pork fat. When the potatoes were done, I removed them to a warm bowl, heated the remaining fat at medium-high, and quickly seared the steaks for a minute per side.
Have a look at the cross-section: perfectly pink meat all the way to the edges (that’s fat on either side).
I plated the steak with the potatoes and some wilted sopinach with caramelized shallots.
The steak was definitely cooked: it was soft and easy to slice, had a god chew, with the fat just softened enough. I can’t think of any reason why I shouldn’t cook steaks like this all the time. How water from my tap is already at 131 °F, so it takes no time at all for the water bath to come up to temperature. The 45 minutes of cooking time is enough to prepare accompaniments. Steak dinner in less than an hour — you can’t beat it.
I’m already thinking ahead: cook and hold the steaks, light a charcoal grill, and finish with a quick char before serving. No more variably-cooked meat for me!
Miles has made his first attempt at predicting the future. The Venn diagram seen here is from his math homework, in which he was asked to compare this year with what might be possible in the year 2157. Why that year? I think he liked the number.
According to Miles, in 2010:
We have to go to school.
We read books.
The teachers are humans.
And in 2157:
They read a TV screen.
The teachers are robots.
Work is written out in punch codes.
What’s the same?
There are teachers.
There are kids.
I think his “written out in punch codes” idea was the result of my explaining computer punch cards to him a few weeks ago. I also sense a certain resignation in his realization that as long as there are kids, there will be teachers. Miles considers every day of school a criminal injustice, so I can take some comfort in the knowledge that he will not live long enough to welcome his new robot teacher overlords.
A Good Client thanks you for quality work done on time or ahead of schedule. A Great Client thanks you for the work you’ve done with a gift, what my friends in the biz call “client bribes.” I’ve received some fine bribes in my freelancing career: chocolates, bottles of wine, port, or scotch (a 12-year-old Macallan).
My newest client was referred to me by a friend. She contacted me on Sunday, needing a complete web site by Tuesday morning. She had already wireframed the site layout, complete with content and basic navigation flow (which automatically elevated her to Great Client status) — all I had to do was come up with a clean design. It was such a change of pace to work with a Great Client again that I delivered a prototype design twelve hours later and finished the site by Monday evening.
It turns out that she reads this blog, so one of our phone conversations eventually turned to cooking. We have very similar tastes, all the way down to the knives we use. I thought nothing more of the conversation until today, when I received an unexpected package. There was a black box inside, with a very familiar logo:
And inside that box was this beauty:
That’s a Shun Ken Onion designed seven-inch santoku. It’s perfectly balanced, as sharp as Occam’s Razor, and feels like it was designed to fit my hand. I took it for a spin while prepping dinner, and now I have a new favorite knife.
What can I say? My loyalty can be bought. And if this client calls me at midnight asking for an emergency site update (she never would, but that’s another thing that makes her a Great Client), it will be done at 12:15 AM.
If you thought the vaccine denial movement was immune to the Downfall video meme, you’re in for a surprise. As you can see here, der Führer had a rough time of it after learning about a Danish study demonstrating no causal link between vaccines and autism.
It’s worth it to hear him scream:
It’s not about their evidence! It’s not about their science! It’s about scaring parents with our own studies!
I discovered this gem at Orac’s Respectful Insolence blog, be sure to check out the post for details about some of the in-jokes in the clip.
on classic cooking techniques, demonstrates 
