Measuring with Mass

First major improvement in your cooking: Using mass measures instead of volume. Using mass will VASTLY improve your consistency in recipes. It’s also much easier in that you can build your dish in one bowl. Just put the bowl on the scale, tare it, then measure directly into the bowl, tare it again, and add your next ingredient. Finally, scaling recipes up or down is far easier and consistent using mass.

Buy (that’s right, I said “buy”) a digital scale. In fact buy two (possibly even 3!) 1st: 5kg, then 500g, then maybe a 10kg. But they don’t have to be expensive. My first scale came from Harbor Freight (Harbor Fright for many of its tools) and it was okay. Ikea has some nice ones, but this little gem from Amazon is my go to and its a whopping $10.

 That 5 kg scale will do for most things, but it’s pretty useless for measures less than a gram. Which leads to your second scale: <1kg . The smaller range is accurate for small measures (<3g) and reliable down to +/- 1/10th of a gram. I scored this Vitafit 500g Digital Pocket Gram Scale. Its says it good to 0.001g but I only expect 0.01g precision.

It’s a must-have for weighing seasonings.

Induction Cooktop and hobs

Forget gas, Induction is the lick! Well, maybe not quite forget it. But if your stuck with an electric range, induction wins hands down! It gets as hot as gas as quickly (maybe quicker!) and it turns down just as fast.  And no addition plumbing is necessary (like gas). If flips a magnetic field back and forth under the pot and that causes the pot to get hot (the cooking surface gets warm only because the hot pot it in contact with it. It does require somewhat special “induction ready” cookware though. Your pots need to have some iron in them. A good test is a magnet should stick to it or it has this symbol stamped on the bottom.

Ikea 365+ series pots and pans are fabulous and cheap AND they work on induction cooktops.

Ikea discontinued their cast iron wok 😦

Wok refurbishment

Burton 1800 watt Induction hob

Greatest Microwave Popcorn Maker EVER!

This thing just plain makes good popcorn! ~$15 It’s silicon and does not need any kind of oil. Fill it to the ring on the bottom, put on the top and my microwave takes a little less than 3 minutes (STOP after the the first 2 second intervals between pops or it will burn) Also it gets stupid hot so use some kind of insulator when you pick it up (you have been warned!)

I’ve also used to to make browned butter. The top keeps the popping butter inside. For a stick of butter let is go about 2 minutes then ride it 15 to seconds till its almost brown enuf or it’ll burn. Take it out of the oven (the silicon it HOT) and it’ll brown a bit more on the counter. Should be good for making roux as well.

Remote Blower Hood

I got this cool remote blower hood for myself a couple of Christmases ago and need to just install it. Looking forward to better air in the kitchen and maybe less noise.

Hot rod hacking my Electric range

Goals:

• convert to induction cooktop with perhaps one conventional hob
• add thermal mass to the oven
• convection steam injection
• hack cleaning cycle to make pizza
• PID control for oven and hobs
• paint it (powder coat?)

Its a big (full sized sheet pan) old electric range that fits in my kitchen and is BEGGING to be hacked back to life. (currently relegated to the garage)

Feel free to comment and make suggestions (PLEASE!)

Knife Storage

Drawers are a CRAP place for your knives. Blocks are almost as bad. Magnetic knife holders keep your edges free from getting banged around.

There are TONS of magnetic knife holders around, but THE best bang for the buck is a Harbor Freight 18 in. Magnetic Tool Holder. Very strong magnet and at $5 its less than half the price of any other I could find. AND it goes on sale regularly for $2! Not particularly esthetically pleasing. But if you must, you could cover it with a strip of wood veneer. Note: I use screws to mount the bar to the wall (cabinet?). Mounting tape could work, but I’m pretty sure you’d rip it off removing a knife. (Strong magnet!)

Insanely simple yogurt*

*assuming you have a sous vide stick laying around.

Toolz:

• sous vide stick
• big pot
• stirring implement that will fit in the spout and reach the bottom of the jug.
• thermometer
• (5 or 4) .7L tubs with tops (rectangular tubs stack in the fridge better)

Partz:

• gallon jug of milk
• cup of plain yogurt

Procedure:

• Fill a stock pot (taller is better) big enuf to hold a plastic container of milk (you could use a smaller quantity of milk) and the SV stick with hot tap water. My stock pot isn’t quite big enuf for a gallon jug so I end up pouring out a couple of cups of milk so I can fill the pot with to the level of the milk.
• Clip the SV stick to the side of the pot and set it to 185 °F or 85 °C and for 45 minutes.
• Stir the milk with anything that will fit into the spout and reaches the bottom (chop stick, narrow spatula) and let it warm to between 184°F and 190°F)

• After its been up to temp for at least 45 minutes remove the jug, empty the hot water and replace it with cold tap water.
• Set the SV temp to 108°F or 42°C (which also happens to be to the answer to life the universe and everything)
• Stir the milk and let it come down to less than 110°F. The “hot” milk will warm the cold tap water.
• Stir and check the temp. Once the milk is a homogenous 42°C pour a bit of the warm milk into a cup and stir in a couple of tablespoons of plain yogurt. More may seem like better, but it isn’t. Too much and the finished yogurt isn’t as smooth
• Pour that back into the jug and stir for a good minute or two.
• Leave the jug in 108°F bath for at least 6 to 8 hours. At that point the yogurt is pretty much ready, but its much nicer after a night in the fridge.
• Pour the pretty much finished yogurt into tubs and put the tops on but don’t seal them. Leave those on the counter for a couple of hours to come to room temp, wipe the condensation off the insides of the tops, seal them, and put them in the fridge.

It’s best the next day and I’ve eaten it weeks later.

garbage and cooking in bags

Who’s the Daddy Sile’ Kitchen

My foods origins are varied to say the least. Who’s the daddy is slightly more acceptable in polite company than bastard and reflects the sentiment. Sile’ is a fancy sounding acronym for Stuff I Like to Eat. Together I think its kinda cute.

I hate cute.

Diy Sous vide is still doable, but now its just waaaay easier to buy a stick.

Oklahoma Joe’s Yakitori Grill / Crazy Hot Broiler / Pizza Engine that thinks its a just a Charcoal Chimney

I got one of these because my favorite $10 trap door chimney gave up the ghost after about 3 years (about par). It was also the only one Academy had at that moment. Grudgingly coughed up the $20 sting, but it looked like a quality stainless build and I liked the 10″ dia large format … and it was the only one they had.

Its BIG. Wider and shorter than most chimneys seems to work and rediliy starts as few as 10-12 briquettes or the ad says you can fill up the basket with as much as 100.
Starts easily enough with one sheet of bacon soaked newspaper, but is it faster? Seems like it did get going a bit quicker, but 10 minutes give or take doesn’t make a big difference to me. It does seem to be hotter though, probably because it holds a LOT of coals. All that might suggest I’m less than enamored with it.

I LOVE IT!

It’s not just a good Charcoal starter. It’s also a large, easily moveable stainless steel basket of screamingly hot coals that makes a great yakitori grill.

Or maybe more like a yakitorium. It is HOT.

1/4 pan drain rack makes a perfect grill!

Lit another half basket or so, shook the coals once it was going good, dusted off the grill and did the “good eats” steak broiling thing. Got a little ash on it, but a perfectly seared crust.

The next day I burned half a basket over a pizza stone, brushed off the ash and made a banging pizza in about 3 minutes. Again, it caught a little ash but very little. What it did have was an airy crust and perfect leoparding.

So is it gimmicky? I dunno. Its a bit spendy for a charcoal chimney. But $20 for a stainless steel crazy hot broiler/pizza engine/ yakitori grill that also starts a LOAD of briquettes fairly quickly, is a steal.

Wonder if I can put a metal plate in it to catch the ash?