Gravy's Cooking Thread

Njals

Njals

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BrutulTM said:
Superbowl food anyone? I'm making wings for sure. I think I'm going to take a shot at falafel as well. Maybe homemade corn dogs too. If you've never breaded and fried your own corn dogs you don't know what a corn dog is.

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Picked up about 20 pounds of naked frozen chicken wings. Going to do half on the pellet smoker and half in the sous vide/air fryer tossed in a simple vinegar hot sauce combo. Will also be doing that Chef John falafel recipe linked a few pages back in the air fryer as well as his recipe for Shakshouka for breakfast with some home made bread. If I pick up a meat grinder this week will make some meatballs or sliders as well but not sure out of what yet. If I hold off on the purchase will probably do some nachos with left over tri tip. Beer will be a few growlers from the local brewery/bar that opened up recently on virtue of supporting the home town and they have more than just IPAs (their IPA is good but getting burnt out on them in general).

Speaking of meat grinders any one have a recommendation? The kitchaid attachment looks to be the cheapest but I passed on their pasta attachment and went with a manual one that clamps onto a table and love how easy it is to roll out. I get the feeling I'd probably enjoy that with a grinder as well, especially if I start making long sausage links to toss on the smoker. Will mostly be doing store bought meat or wild game but might occasionally do something like a tuna or salmon burger.
 
Alex

Alex

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I've made falafel a couple times and I'm actually not the biggest fan of Chef John's recipe. I like a recipe with breadcrumbs or something for more crunch.
 
Lanx

Lanx

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Njals said:
Speaking of meat grinders any one have a recommendation? The kitchaid attachment looks to be the cheapest but I passed on their pasta attachment and went with a manual one that clamps onto a table and love how easy it is to roll out. I get the feeling I'd probably enjoy that with a grinder as well, especially if I start making long sausage links to toss on the smoker. Will mostly be doing store bought meat or wild game but might occasionally do something like a tuna or salmon burger.
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i use my food processor to grind meat, i like the texture more, maybe try that out if you have one already.
 
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Deathwing

Deathwing

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Chef, pairing, and long serrated are definitely required. But I would add santoku(kinda like a mini chef) and boning knife as nice to haves.
 
Ninen

Ninen

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Alex said:
Goddamn TX is cheap.
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Of course it's cheap. that's the upside. The downside is that you have to live in Texas.

I kid, I kid. Texas does have some good points. Pretty decent Mexican food sometimes, for instance.

"Jokes" aside; I only ever really need a big 10 inch Santoku knife, a nice 12 inch serrated bread knife, and a 6 inch Santoku. Before I got the large Santoku, my goto was a 12 inch chef's knife, and before that it was an 8-10 inch cheap chinese cleaver.

I don't see the point in paring knives, But some of that is probably because I don't peel anything. Skin = texture, flavor, and vitamins.
 
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Adebisi

Adebisi

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Alex said:
I've made falafel a couple times and I'm actually not the biggest fan of Chef John's recipe. I like a recipe with breadcrumbs or something for more crunch.
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I put about triple the flour in my version
 
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Lanx

Lanx

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yea like this pic, shows exactly why you should NOT buy a knife set/wood block
0a52dd2709683369963aee99de119fc0d846a16f


wtf is a tomato knife???
 
Adebisi

Adebisi

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Aside from steak knives you should only need a chef knife and a serrated knife (for bread).

Done
 
Soygen

Soygen

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I have an old Cuisinart knife block/set that the family uses for steak knives, etc. 99% of the knife work I do, I use my 8" Wusthof chef's knife. Even on fresh baked bread, I prefer a super sharp normal blade to serrated.
 
Denaut

Denaut

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Lanx said:
yea like this pic, shows exactly why you should NOT buy a knife set/wood block
0a52dd2709683369963aee99de119fc0d846a16f


wtf is a tomato knife???
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I read somewhere a reputable knife supplier talking about knife sets and how stores only sell based on "piece count" and they are a complete waste of money. It is essentially a scam to trip you into thinking there is more value than there is.

I admit I have more knives than I need, but I do use them all. Like other people have said, you really can get away with just one good large chef's knife, which is mostly what I use (G-2). But I also use the bread knife, a smaller chef's knife I had before the G-2 that is now exclusively my "raw meat" knife, a wide bladed cleaver style veggie knife which I like to use for chopping because it doubles as a bench scraper (chop then scrape into the pan), and finally a paring knife for everything else.

The one thing that I get a surprisingly large amount of use out of is a large deep bowled granite mortar. I knew I would use one, but I didn't quite appreciate how useful it is for a wide variety of tasks.
 
mkopec

mkopec

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I remember like a year back Costco was selling some nice Granite Mortar sets and I didnt pick one up. Feels bad...
 
Denaut

Denaut

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Lanx said:
if you sharpen your chefs knife like a G, you don't need a bread knife. i've cut angel cake w/ chef knife, still looks like cake and not squished.
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It's more for the hard crusted sourdough, which would probably dull the chef's knife :D As far as sharpening goes, do you have a brand preference for stones and honing rods?
 
Denaut

Denaut

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mkopec said:
I remember like a year back Costco was selling some nice Granite Mortar sets and I didnt pick one up. Feels bad...
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I'm a kitchen minimalist, but I think this is one of the things worth having.

I use it for the standard stuff like crushing spices, salt, and garlic (better and faster than when I use the knife). But I swear it makes better guacamole than any other way I've tried, it has a creamier texture and better mouth feel, plus it is faster and easier than other ways. I use it for whole stoned olives, crushing them loosely instead of chopping or into a paste for other things.

Keep in mind though that I tend to do things the labor intensive "proper" way rather than the good enough way. I spend most evenings in the kitchen just screwing around and prepping stuff simply because I enjoy it and it is my hobby. I even crush my own salt (from a giant bag of cheap sea salt) and sift it into different sizes for different uses. There is something wrong with me.
 
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Lanx

Lanx

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Denaut said:
It's more for the hard crusted sourdough, which would probably dull the chef's knife :D As far as sharpening goes, do you have a brand preference for stones and honing rods?
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any of the jap whet stones really, the best priced ones are King. I've tried chinese ones, they're not as good you can "feel" it drag out worse, if that makes sense.

it's really difficult to have a bad honing rod, but you can get nice ones. Like if you hone everyday, you'd want a smooth surface, if you're a once a week, get one ribbed (some rods have dual sides).

also hardness is a consideration if you're using VG10 steel, you need a harder rod.

edit, found the king 6k i got
Japanese King Knife Sharpener Whetstone Grit 6000

i checked out a lot of whetstones and knives when i was in japan, nothing really caught my eye. (that i'd buy a knife and risk it being taken away even if i put it in checked luggage)
 
Denaut

Denaut

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Lanx said:
any of the jap whet stones really, the best priced ones are King. I've tried chinese ones, they're not as good you can "feel" it drag out worse, if that makes sense.

it's really difficult to have a bad honing rod, but you can get nice ones. Like if you hone everyday, you'd want a smooth surface, if you're a once a week, get one ribbed (some rods have dual sides).

also hardness is a consideration if you're using VG10 steel, you need a harder rod.

edit, found the king 6k i got
Japanese King Knife Sharpener Whetstone Grit 6000

i checked out a lot of whetstones and knives when i was in japan, nothing really caught my eye. (that i'd buy a knife and risk it being taken away even if i put it in checked luggage)
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Great, I was eyeing one of those already. I have Global knives (all of which I purchased at huge discounts), which if I understand correctly use a proprietary alloy that is somewhere between carbon steel and stainless steel in hardness. The Global honing rod is stupid overpriced, so there is no way I am buying that, but perhaps getting a cheaper ceramic one is the way to go?
 
Lanx

Lanx

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Denaut said:
Great, I was eyeing one of those already. I have Global knives (all of which I purchased at huge discounts), which if I understand correctly use a proprietary alloy that is somewhere between carbon steel and stainless steel in hardness. The Global honing rod is stupid overpriced, so there is no way I am buying that, but perhaps getting a cheaper ceramic one is the way to go?
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naw you don't have to worry about globals or german steel, they're not as hard as what a jap vg10 can do, you can get a regular old vanadium plated steel rod

and yes, if you did get a blade w/ really hard steel, then you'd get a ceramic rod to home (you could also just stick w/ a regular steel hone, but it'd actually wear out way faster).

of course if you just want to get a ceramic rod, it wouldn't hurt either way.
 
moonarchia

moonarchia

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Soygen said:
I have an old Cuisinart knife block/set that the family uses for steak knives, etc. 99% of the knife work I do, I use my 8" Wusthof chef's knife. Even on fresh baked bread, I prefer a super sharp normal blade to serrated.
Click to expand...

I have a Ginsu set, because it was a decent price and came with 6 steak knives as part of it. I very rarely use any of the other knives.
 
Lanx

Lanx

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moonarchia said:
I have a Ginsu set, because it was a decent price and came with 6 steak knives as part of it. I very rarely use any of the other knives.
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yea the only woodblock i even have around (cuz i hang my knives) is a steak knife only set, and i've put that in the basement kitchen too. they're really big heavy and thick knives, something a cowboy would use.
 
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