It's only recently that professional kitchens have had political correctness foisted upon them. He's obviously no jerk. One can argue that he's brilliant in fact, but he's also a chef just being a chef in his own way, a way that many of us share, much to the distaste of some onlookers and recipients. Typical kitchen humor- probably closer to teasing than taunting.

Jazzfood wrote:It's only recently that professional kitchens have had political correctness foisted upon them. He's obviously no jerk. One can argue that he's brilliant in fact, but he's also a chef just being a chef in his own way, a way that many of us share, much to the distaste of some onlookers and recipients. Typical kitchen humor- probably closer to teasing than taunting.

Amen!

Keller is such a jerk that he personally took me and my family on a "backstage" tour of Per Se the first time we ate there. He took the time to talk, answer every question we had, and really could not have been nicer.

P. Channon wrote:

Jazzfood wrote:It's only recently that professional kitchens have had political correctness foisted upon them. He's obviously no jerk. One can argue that he's brilliant in fact, but he's also a chef just being a chef in his own way, a way that many of us share, much to the distaste of some onlookers and recipients. Typical kitchen humor- probably closer to teasing than taunting.

Amen!

I didn't even see it as non-PC. The way it came across, when considering the rest of the article, was a joke with perhaps a bit of advice thrown in: "you can use your fingers and it will be ok."

Ad Hoc at Home: Beef Stroganoff

This past weekend our trip to the Twin Cities was cut short after we decided to skip town early before blizzard hit the area on Sunday. We got home on Saturday night and with no plans at all for Sunday I popped open Ad Hoc at Home to look for ideas for the next night's dinner when I came across a recipe for Beef Stroganoff, which my wife and I have made many times prior in the "classic" Cambell's Cream of Mushroom soup style. I started reading the full recipe and taking notes on things I would need at the store. As I was reading I said a couple of times "this seems too easy" and sure enough....sub-recipe!!

Keller's recipe calls for the braised short rib recipe from the previous two pages. I have never braised anything, but Keller notes that "it's a very rewarding process for the chef." I've learned quickly that when TK says rewarding he means "this is going to take a long time...I hope you have comfortable shoes."

After getting back from an early dawn trip to Whole Foods in Lincoln Park where I've never bought more produce in one trip to the store in my entire life, I started on the recipe. The first part of creating the braise is making a red wine reduction, which when done resembles a glaze. This required a whole lot of chopping of carrots, leeks, shallots, thyme, button mushrooms, and onions. You then let it simmer and shake for about 45-50 min before adding the beef and starting the braise.



After the reduction becomes a glaze, Keller tells you to add even more carrots, leeks, onions, and shallots, and to start on the meat. The recipe calls for short ribs, with the bone cut out. The "butcher" at Whole Foods who clearly didn't feel like deboning short ribs at 8am on a Sunday sold me on buying short rib chuck cut in the shape of short ribs. I was tired as well and agreed and took a shortcut which in the end was probably stupid. He claimed for that cut he would charge $3 more a pound, but when I thought about it later that probably isn't too mad of a deal considering otherwise you're paying for the bone weight that you don't eat. If the Butcher & Larder opened before 10:00am or I had more than a day's notice I would of gone there.

Anyway...I digress.

You then dredge the salt and pepper seasoned meat through flour before browing it in a frying pan:



Browning the meat in some very hot canola oil:


After you brown the meat, you wrap it in cheesecloth, add in the newly chopped veggies, and cover with beef broth and let it cook in the oven low and slow for about 2 hours. After it's done, you remove the meat, strain the contents of the pot to separate the braising liquid, and place the meat back in the liquid to cool and soak up the liquid for flavor and tenderness. Before serving the dish, you cut the meat into small bite sized pieces and reheat it by carmalizing it in a pan and placing it in the oven for a short period of time.

TK makes an interesting comment in the beginning of the recipe and states that this beef stroganoff is just as much about the mushrooms as it is the beef, and he's right there are a ton (actually 2 pounds) of Crimini mushrooms in this! In order to make the sauce, you place 1 pound of the mushrooms in a food processor and something that looks like this:



After adding about 3 cups of heavy cream and mixing in the above mixture you get this:



As for the remaining pound of mushrooms, the recipe calls for them to be sauteed and placed on top of the dish. Pre-saute:



Post Saute:



Like much of the other recipes in Ad Hoc, this beef stroganoff is really a sum of parts. When plating, you assemble the beef, pappardelle egg noodles (Keller tell you to make from scratch in a sub recipe, but I had no time for that), mushrooms, and parsley for some color.



Verdict

This is one good Stroganoff and Keller was right, it's all about the mushrooms here. While the beef had a good amount of flavor, the egg noodles covered in the cream and mushrooms were my favorite part. Our friends, Joanie and Ryan, who (unknown to me) hate mushrooms came over for dinner and both of them cleaned their plates and loved it. While very time consuming to make, this was a winner in my book.

P. Channon wrote:Ad Hoc at Home: Beef Stroganoff
This is one good Stroganoff and Keller was right, it's all about the mushrooms here. While the beef had a good amount of flavor, the egg noodles covered in the cream and mushrooms were my favorite part. Our friends, Joanie and Ryan, who (unknown to me) hate mushrooms came over for dinner and both of them cleaned their plates and loved it. While very time consuming to make, this was a winner in my book.

I've made something similar to this with left over pot roast for a long time. I wouldn't call it stroganoff, it's more of beef bourguignon with cream and mushrooms but who cares if it tastes good and I'm sure it does.

Just curious, how much did all the ingredients to this dish cost, and how many did it/could it feed?

Vitesse98 wrote:Just curious, how much did all the ingredients to this dish cost, and how many did it/could it feed?

Vitesse98:

Sorry, I don't think I still have the receipt from Whole Foods last week. But I'll take a guess on the major ingredients:

Beef: $15-20
Mushrooms: $10-15
Cream: $3-4
Noodles: $5
Parsley: $2

I'd say, all in about $40-55 (depending on what you already have in your kitchen). He hosted a dinner for 4 people and we all were stuffed. We then got three good portioned lunches out of it for the rest of the week.

Does that help?

Vanilla Ice Cream

As I've been using Ad Hoc at Home as a springboard into the world of ice cream making, instead of skipping ahead to slightly more complicated recipes I decided to make what Keller calls the "base" for many of his ice creams and other desserts. Here are the ingredients needed for the basic vanilla ice cream (note the real vanilla beans):


After heating up the cream, milk, sugar, and eggs the main step in the recipe is removing the beans from the vanilla stalks and placing it in the mixture (along with the stalks as well) and allowing to sit at room temperature for a while to allow the mixture to absorb the vanilla flavor. Here is the mixture pre-trip to the fridge:


After letting the mixture sit in the fridge overnight, I mixed it in my Kitchen Aid ice cream maker/attachment and placed in the freezer to let sit and firm up. Here is the finished product:


The Verdict:
This was a very good ice cream. Like Ad Hoc's other desserts, it is very rich and should be limited to 3 or 4 bites. The ice cream tasted the best for two days after I made it, after that it started to loose its texture and became a bit icy.

P. Channon wrote: The ice cream tasted the best for two days after I made it, after that it started to loose its texture and became a bit icy.

In general, homemade ice cream doesn't keep well at all. Plan to eat it in a day or two.

jblth wrote:

P. Channon wrote: The ice cream tasted the best for two days after I made it, after that it started to loose its texture and became a bit icy.

In general, homemade ice cream doesn't keep well at all. Plan to eat it in a day or two.

I haven't found this to be true at all. In summer, my fiancee & I make a different type of ice cream every few weeks, and it's just as good at the end of the batch as at the beginning. We kept a brown bread ice cream in the freezer for over a month recently and it still tasted fine. It'll freeze harder than store-bought ice cream, but that's nothing that a quick sit on the counter won't fix (and it will melt a lot faster). I wouldn't want people to be discouraged from making homemade ice cream, so I thought I'd throw my experiences out there.

geno55 wrote:

jblth wrote:

P. Channon wrote: The ice cream tasted the best for two days after I made it, after that it started to loose its texture and became a bit icy.

In general, homemade ice cream doesn't keep well at all. Plan to eat it in a day or two.

I haven't found this to be true at all. In summer, my fiancee & I make a different type of ice cream every few weeks, and it's just as good at the end of the batch as at the beginning. We kept a brown bread ice cream in the freezer for over a month recently and it still tasted fine. It'll freeze harder than store-bought ice cream, but that's nothing that a quick sit on the counter won't fix (and it will melt a lot faster). I wouldn't want people to be discouraged from making homemade ice cream, so I thought I'd throw my experiences out there.

Maybe it was just my previous freezer (not so awesome) or the recipes I've used. The ice cream is perfectly edible for weeks, but the texture and flavor starts to suffer much more quickly than store bought, in my experience.

Just tuned in to this thread after spending some serious thought time on which cookbooks to pass along to the Washburne Culinary Program. Looks like I will be purchasing this one to add to my newly-purged collection.

I continue to be amazed and charmed by the dedication of home cooks such as Wendy and Mike. BRAVO!!

jblth wrote:Maybe it was just my previous freezer (not so awesome) or the recipes I've used. The ice cream is perfectly edible for weeks, but the texture and flavor starts to suffer much more quickly than store bought, in my experience.

Frost-free freezers are much tougher on ice cream textures than non-frost free. The frost-frees cycle though a slightly higher temp to remove frost, which can cause ice crystals to aggregate in the ice cream, leading to a rougher, sandier texture. If the ice cream is covered with plastic wrap or something similar covering the surface, that'll minimize iciness, at least on top. If you make the ice cream with corn syrup instead of some of the cane sugar, or if you add a bit of alcohol for flavoring, that should reduce the hard freezing point, and make for a smoother, more scoopable ice cream. Or you could play around with using a neutral starch (e.g. cornstarch, arrowroot) to stabilize your ice cream.

Or maybe not. Just my 2¢.

nr706 wrote:Or you could play around with using a neutral starch (e.g. cornstarch, arrowroot) to stabilize your ice cream.

I refuse to use starch stabilizers in home made ice cream. Now gin/rum/vodka for sorbets? Totally game.

I am working on the potpie for dinner this week and wondering whether anyone here has dessert ideas to pair with it? Seems like something baked is not quite right, on account of the pastry crust, and that something creamy might also not be right, on account of the richly reduced béchamel. Inspirations? If it matters, I am also planning to serve the little gem salad. Thanks as always.

annak wrote:I am working on the potpie for dinner this week and wondering whether anyone here has dessert ideas to pair with it? Seems like something baked is not quite right, on account of the pastry crust, and that something creamy might also not be right, on account of the richly reduced béchamel. Inspirations? If it matters, I am also planning to serve the little gem salad. Thanks as always.

Sorbet? Poached fruit?

Made the fried chicken from here two weeks back and it was outstanding. The brine made for a wildly moist chicken.

Highly recommend!