Tricks of the Trade -

by BS

Jacques Torres Shows How to Make a Chocolate Sculpture

Famed Brooklyn chocolatier Jacques Torres recently showed ES (and some other folks) how to make one of those fancy-pants chocolate sculptures you see at weddings and bar mitzvahs but would never think to make yourself. Seems like it would be really difficult, right? Turns out it’s child’s play. All you need is some high-quality chocolate and a few balloons.

Step 1: Jacques melts down a pot of dark chocolate over indirect heat, and then spreads a six-inch circle of it out on a papered baking sheet. Then he blows up a balloon and sticks it on the chocolate (really!)

Step 2: Jacques pours the rest of his chocolate into an icing-squirter thing (what are these things really called, anyone?) and starts drawing chocolate lines from one end of the balloon to the other.

by ML

What Would You Do for a Klondike Bar? (On an Airplane)

Ever since some asshole tried to blow up a plane with liquid explosives, the TSA has really limited the items that innocent, hungry travelers are allowed to take into the airport and thus, onto the plane. Most infrequent travelers don’t realize that these restrictions are mostly on liquids, and that you can take meals from home with you, even if it is a pain in the ass. Eating airport food is easier and acceptable if you travel from an airport with decent food choices, but if you’re doing this twice a month, it gets tiring. As a result of this bullshit necessary policy and the subpar quality of most airport food, I’ve come up with some creative ways to package my food for travel, and some ways which I’ve figured out will get you strip searched immediately.

DO:

-Wrap all food in cling wrap and put it in throw away plastic containers. It’s easiest if the security folks can tell what it is right away.

-Package in small portions for the easiest consumption (I break up my travel-safe banana bread into 6 smaller pieces).

-Leave the condiments on the side, if you can. Nobody likes a soggy sandwich (who knows how long you’ll wait at security?), Mayo or ketchup packets do fit into your pockets, or the 1-quart size bag you are allotted for liquids, and won’t set off a metal detector.

DON’T:

by Lyndsey

A Solution for the Crust-Fearing

I love baking pies, but I can’t tell you the amount of times that a pie crust has torn, fallen apart, or landed awkwardly into my pie plate, and I know it’s one of those uncomfortable predicaments for most home bakers. Am I right or what?

Fortunately, one of my favorite food writers, Mark Bittman, recently posted a recipe in the New York Times for his “Stone Fruit Patchwork Bake,” his cobbler-like solution to the finicky crust of many pies, and the difficulty of moving crust from the counter surface to the pie plate. Usually wrapping it in the rolling pin and transferring it that way works for me, but for those of us who are so crust-averse that they won’t even make a crust at all, Bittman suggests cutting the crust into small squares or rectangles and just overlapping them, instead of worrying about the whole transfer-in-one-piece process. And, by calling it a cobbler instead of a pie, you avoid the whole bottom crust altogether, increasing the fruity-goodness of each spoonful. Genius! Ahhh, Mark Bittman just makes it sound so easy. Check out Bittman’s inexplicably gangsta-tinged video instructions here.

So, what do you piemakers think? A brilliant solution to an age-old dilemma, or just semi-cheating? And to the crust-averse, will Bittman’s suggestion get those of you who don’t like handling pie crusts to give it another go?

(Photo: NYT)

in Desserts 2 comments

by BS

What the Food?

ES reader Tommy writes in with a request:

I found the following “Scoop” in an old farmhouse kitchen. Obviously some kind of kitchen gadget, I can’t find anyone who knows what it is. One person suggested it is a soft boiled egg scoop. Can you or your bloggers help identify it?

Does the fact that I have no idea what it does, but feel an urgent need to own one mean that I have a problem? So, what say you, ES experts? How should Tommy use this ancient gadget?

in Uncategorized 9 comments

by tvff

Friday Freezer Frugality

Maybe I’m on a kick after my cash-saving advice a few weeks back, or maybe I’m just smarting from having to lay out big bucks for a new water heater, but a trip to the freezer today reminded me of another thing I do around the kitchen that saves time and prevents waste.

Since I lack the patience or energy to sit down and make my own chicken or beef stock like a good home cook, I’m constantly cracking open a can of the low-sodium broth for dishes. Of course, the cans never give me exactly the amount that I need for a dish, so there is invariably some remaining. When this happens, I’m off to the silicone ice tray (yes, it does put a goofy dice design in them) and create perfect one-ounce packages that I can use to augment when I don’t have enough or for when I only need a quarter cup or so.

You’ll notice that they’re kept in the Reynolds Handi-Vac freezer bags. Gimmick? Maybe. But I got the vacuum for free from someone handing them out on the street corner after the product launched and I do find that my meat has less of that grey funkiness when I use the bags. I like to think that, in this case, it prevents sublimation. (And you thought you’d never use that stuff you learned in chemistry!)

Obviously, you can tell I love having these quick-cubes lying around in the freezer, but I need to make sure I don’t accidentally slip them into a drink! Speaking of which, what better way to be frugal than to save the ten bills it would cost you for a martini at the bar and make one at home like I do most Fridays? Find out how after the jump.

in Drinks 0 comments

by Bliz

I Just Need 20 Seconds of Your Time

…Ok, maybe a little bit more than that. I want to take a break from the Top Chef Masters interviews and random ingredients for a minute. First of all, let me say that it is, and will always be, the process of cooking; the smelling, touching, tasting, listening euphoria of being in a kitchen that manages to force me to sit on laptop after an entire day sitting behind my office computer and type endlessly about food adventures and exploits. All soap box aside, there are just some things that you can do in a kitchen that are too fucking cool not to tell the world about.

For anyone that is unfamiliar with the 20 second omelet, this is a cool technique that not only delivers a great final product, but shows you know a thing or two about one of the most difficult ingredients to cook well. That’s right gans, I’m going there, against my better judgment and in anticipation of your wrath, I wanna talk eggs.

in Breakfast / Cheese / Eggs / Recipe 6 comments

by Bliz

Friday Fuck Ups: How Not to Fillet a Fish

I’m not really sure why I prefer to cut my own fillets. Gutting and cutting up a fish is messy, smelly and if continually done wrong too many times, can take away from the final dish. But then again… it’s a chance to play with knives and gross out my friends.

To me, the positives outweigh the negatives. Money is also a factor, but then again, you pay less for a whole fish then you would buying pre-cut fillets at Whole Foods.

If you’ve ever watched a Julia Child show or bothered to look up the process on filleting a whole round fish on YouTube, it looks incredibly easy. It can be, though, if you can push past any queasiness of the fish looking up at you while you grotesquely hack up several whole fish figuring out the process.

And even after you think you’ve figured it out, there are days like last Friday where you have basically forgotten how to ride the bike and swerve uncontrollably into a trash can.

So what say you ESers? Am I just wasting my time and perfectly good fish by messing around with my own fillets? Should I leave it to the fish mongers? Produce another Friday Fuck Up? Keep trying it myself?

A decent salvage after the jump.

in Fish 8 comments

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