[HN Gopher] J. Kenji Lopez-Alt says you're cooking just fine
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J. Kenji Lopez-Alt says you're cooking just fine
Author : nkurz
Score : 143 points
Date : 2022-02-27 13:26 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| francislata wrote:
| I love Kenji's cooking videos! You definitely learn a lot. I love
| how he brings his experiences and knowledge learned into his
| recipes. I remember watching a Japanese Chicken Katsu video of
| his, and the fact that he compares how salting affects the
| juicyness of the final product gives a simple homecook the
| knowledge they need to know that can possibly be applied to some
| other recipe later on.
| gullywhumper wrote:
| Kenji's channel and writing are great windows into how cooking
| does not need to follow rigid rules and precise measurements to
| make great food. He substitutes ingredients and uses what he has
| on hand all the time. Unless it's something like bread or pizza
| dough, where he needs the correct ratio between flour and water,
| he never measures or weighs anything. He frequently leaves
| something baking in the oven or simmering on the stovetop,
| promising to come back in X minutes, but it's usually Y minutes
| later because he's been off doing something with his
| wife/kid/dogs. It seems like he says things like "oops" and "but
| that's ok" a lot. Cooking shouldn't be intimidating. He shows how
| approachable and forgiving it can be.
| gyc wrote:
| Yeah I got a kick out of watching his videos and seeing him
| every so often pull out some slightly wilted vegetables to make
| his dish. Quite the contrast to seeing all the pristine
| ingredients on TV cooking shows.
| mabbo wrote:
| He has an episode in which he absolutely mangles his pizza and
| it looks horrendous.
|
| He literally says while recording "Doesn't matter, still pizza.
| Actually, that's what I'm going to name this episode."
|
| It doesn't matter that it was very not Instagram-worthy. What
| matters is that it's still pizza and he's still going to feed
| his family with it.
| dylanz wrote:
| I've been watching Kenji's YouTube channel for quite a while and
| it's one of my favorite channels. One of his favorite chefs is
| Jacque Pepin (and mine!) and it shows. He's not pretentious,
| mellow, substitutes ingredients the recipe calls for with
| ingredients he actually has in his house, and geeks out on
| history and science. Lastly his dogs are pretty darn cute and get
| to taste some great dishes.
| dvtrn wrote:
| I get way too excited about the end of the videos for the
| summoning of his four-legged food tasters :)
| aniforprez wrote:
| I've found Ethan Chlebowski and Kenji's videos really put in a
| lot of great, simple tips that make for some good cooking. For
| the most part, their videos aren't necessarily about the dish
| itself but the processes whilst cooking them. Kenji's boiling
| eggs video and Ethan's risotto-like pasta video have helped me
| immensely and just watching them cook has added some great
| techniques to my own repertoire. It really does help that
| they're quite honest about making mistakes and tend to include
| how and why they failed sometimes
| kenneth wrote:
| I watch an absurd amount of cooking YouTube, and I follow a
| bunch of creators for different reasons. They each have their
| appeal:
|
| - Kenji - got into him because of Food Lab optimization
| articles, but discovered I enjoyed the unique perspective of
| his food videos done in real-time first-person
|
| - Alex (french guy cooking) - basically a YouTube native
| version of Kenji's food lab where he does series where he
| goes really deep into topics beyond just the recipe level,
| but really figuring out every aspect that affects a dish or
| style of cooking. He also does a ton of custom builds to test
| his ideas.
|
| - Adam Ragusea - incredibly practical home cooking,
| optimizing for what the average person might care about vs.
| doing things "right" -- combined with deep dives into various
| scientific topics, aided by interviews with experts (usually
| college professors). The recipe videos are good for getting a
| sense of how he throws things together on the fly
|
| - Pro Home Cooks - he focuses on making everything from
| scratch, which is interesting in dishes where people would
| use pre-made components (bread, pickles, noodles, etc.)
|
| - Joshua Weissman - very entertaining, highly ridiculous,
| with various series focused on affordable foods, recreating
| fast foods concepts, etc. makes a lot of things from scratch
|
| - Ethan - comes up with some interesting novel techniques,
| and is highly specifics in his recipes an outcomes, focused
| on healthy food. He certainly has his quirks which can get a
| bit grating, but he's very consistent in what he produces.
|
| - Babish - almost purely entertainment and less educational,
| but well produced videos
|
| - About To Eat - also has some interesting series, like the
| ones focusing on specific ingredients, tools, or techniques
|
| - Epicurious - has interesting series pitting amateur cooks
| vs. chefs that end up showing various levels of complexity of
| the same dishes
|
| - Muchnie "why we eat" - experienced chefs explain the
| cultural roots and history of dishes while showing how
| they're made
|
| etc. etc.... I watch too much food YouTube.
| kenneth wrote:
| Oh and another I forgot to mention that's a favorite is
| "Not another cooking show" by a NYC creator who perfectly
| makes videos of primarily Italian-American fare. Love the
| way he edits.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| I'd like to add one of my smaller favourites: Internet
| Shaquille[0], his videos are short and to the point and
| highly un-pretentious.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/c/internetshaquille
| skyyler wrote:
| Since other people are linking their favorites to this
| comment, I thought I'd add mine:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/c/middleeats
|
| Middle Eastern / Levantine cuisines don't get enough love
| on YouTube (or in English speaking spaces in general) so I
| love learning about new dishes through Obi's well made
| videos.
| awild wrote:
| This list is pretty good, though I've found Alex to be
| quite grating and very low on the information side of
| things for a long time(that noodle tier list was an absurd
| waste of time). Still sometimes entertaining to watch and I
| just yesterday cooked the carbonara he outlined in his last
| video.
|
| There is also "My name is andong" who is really good imho.
| Informative and fun, more trying to showcase new things or
| in different lights.
|
| There's also Chef John who is one of the OG food tubers.
| His narration style is a 1:1 template for how Joshua
| weissman talks in a lot of his recipes. He's mostly on the
| recipe side less on information but still enjoyable.
| dharmon wrote:
| Probably my favorite, that you're missing on this list
| (mostly likely cause his channel only recently "blew up"),
| is Brian Lagerstrom, formerly called Weeds & Sardines.
| Another recent fave is Middle Eats. I probably make his
| lentil fatteh recipe every couple of weeks.
|
| I tend to avoid cooking "entertainment" a la Babish and
| Weissman. Weissman is frustrating cause it used to be a
| legit cooking channel, but at some point a few years ago he
| stopped trying to make recipes that you would actually want
| to eat and focused on food porn. Then he got super lazy
| where you can tell he doesn't even test his recipes before
| filming.
| kenneth wrote:
| Actually I recently discovered Brian Lagerstrom and have
| enjoyed his videos so far, but I haven't been watching
| him for long hence my forgetfulness. Good call.
| jgable wrote:
| It's funny, I actually find Babish quite educational
| because his videos are so tightly edited. Explains the
| techniques and recipe in seven minutes flat. My wife and I
| have made many of his recipes (that he usually borrows from
| others) because he makes them so appealing, shows common
| mistakes, and does it so _quickly_.
| dylanz wrote:
| This list is awesome. Thanks for posting it!
| clove wrote:
| You should check out Jack Scalfani (Cooking with Jack). He
| cooks stuff you'll never see from the guys you've listed.
| tmoertel wrote:
| If you follow those creators, you may want to try Glen And
| Friends Cooking
| (https://www.youtube.com/c/GlenAndFriendsCooking) for
| interesting takes on cooking and recipes, with new episodes
| every few days. The subjects are fascinating and vary
| widely, but they do have some regular segments.
|
| On Sundays, for example, they do "The Old Cookbook Show,"
| in which they pick quirky recipes from old cookbooks,
| typically 50 to 100 years old, but sometimes going back
| centuries. They cook the recipes and then describe how the
| resulting dishes taste--sometimes with disastrous results
| but other times with the rediscovery of a forgotten dish.
| For example, one recent epsiode is on a "100 Year Old
| Mississippi Cheese Pie Recipe," believed to be the
| precursor of the "chess pie" of southern United States
| fame.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| > How do I, as someone who's not Chinese--I'm half Japanese, I
| grew up in the U.S.--write all this stuff about Chinese recipes
| with any authority? Why should people trust me? And why is it
| O.K. for me to be doing this?
|
| Why do the Chinese get to wield supreme executive authority over
| throwing some random ingredients into a thin pan on high heat?
| What kind of Food Holocaust do people think is going to happen if
| some random food blogger who isn't Chinese writes about woks?
| Chinese food (as if you could say exactly what is and isn't Real
| Chinese Food without starting a Food Holy War) isn't going to be
| obliterated by it.
|
| The whole cultural appropriation thing is dead to me at this
| point. Yes, your book's sales might tank if some lunatic with
| millions of fans decides to excoriate you for being ignorant or
| disrespectful to some cultural trope like "the right way to stir-
| fry" or something. But they might also ignore you. I don't think
| it's worth giving yourself anxiety just to make sure you "have
| the right" to write about some subject. Just try to be a good
| person, do your work, and stay off of Twitter.
| luxurytent wrote:
| Kenji shines on his YouTube channel. He has a fantastic
| capability to teach in a fun, nurturing manner that almost feels
| dad-like (this is reflected in many of the comments on his
| videos). I view myself as a pretty seasoned home-cook but I
| always learn a thing or two from his videos. Recommend!
| ethbr0 wrote:
| The biggest thing I love about his videos is both showing and
| highlighting the interstitial moments.
|
| A huge amount of cooking isn't actually cooking, but counter
| space management, dishwashing, measuring, etc. Doing that well
| makes cooking easy and enjoyable, as time becomes less limited.
| Screwing it up multiplies stress by orders of magnitude. Zen,
| indeed.
| yissp wrote:
| The head-mounted-camera format he uses is a big part of that,
| I think. Seeing the process from the perspective of the cook
| really gives you a good sense of everything involved.
| jt2190 wrote:
| > _But, even before that, I remember when I first started
| thinking about the way I behaved. I was still living in Boston. I
| had been out of kitchens for a couple years. I think I was
| working at Cook's Illustrated. I had two roommates in Cambridge--
| one of them was my best friend. She and I had lived together
| since college. We had a friend visiting, and my roommate had
| woken up, gone to the corner store, and bought a box of pancake
| mix and was making pancakes. I came out of my room that morning
| and basically just berated her about using pancake mix when we
| had all the ingredients already. Our mutual friend was, like,
| "Kenji, you're being an asshole. Why are you judging a person for
| making pancakes?" And I realized at that point, Oh, crap, why am
| I belittling one of my best friends in the world for wanting to
| make pancakes at home? I had to make a conscious decision not to
| be that way._
|
| > _You can train yourself, I think, to be a better person just by
| thinking about it a lot, and acting on those thoughts._
| tayo42 wrote:
| I liked his stuff, he really can be an asshole on reddit (and
| Twitter which he deleted). Kind of turned me off to him.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| His last tweet seems pretty fitting to your comment:
|
| > Be good to each other. Stop arguing in short bursts and
| getting mad at strangers because they had to trim complex
| thoughts down to a single sentence. Make your words
| meaningful, rather than clever. Call someone you love or
| someone you don't and have a conversation. Quit this.
| sdb0 wrote:
| Why take advice from someone who doesn't even follow it
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| If it's good advice, does it truly matter if the giver
| follows it?
| sdb0 wrote:
| So far it has worked for 0 out of the 1 people we know
| who've tried it. Maybe it's not good advice
| plandis wrote:
| I've only recently gotten into Kenji but he doesn't come off
| as an asshole to me. Perhaps he's grown up a bit since you
| last read/watch him?
| tayo42 wrote:
| According to the article maybe(especially if he's drinking
| less), I don't really seek out his stuff. I formed my
| opinion after he showed up and started something responding
| to a comment on reddit about recipes that had nothing to do
| with him.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Yes, I've actually had a (what I intended to be friendly)
| conversation with him on twitter where he was definitely an
| asshole. Glad he is becoming more introspective (or it was
| just an off morning for him).
| Aunche wrote:
| This is consistent with the above quote. Someone who's
| naturally somewhat of an asshole has to always actively keep
| that in check to be nice. Other people are naturally
| pleasant.
| [deleted]
| zinclozenge wrote:
| I used to be anti mix. Now I'm 100% on the train. The simple
| fact is that the extra stabilizers and emulsifiers that are
| added to the mix don't detract from the flavor and texture at
| all, if anything enhancing the texture. Mixes are engineered to
| consistently reach a desired result. Krusteez pancake mix is a
| permanent staple in my house. If I feel like baking something
| like brownies, or a cake I'll go out to buy a mix on my next
| shopping trip. Cookies are probably the only thing I won't
| bother due to their simplicity.
| wheels wrote:
| For folks with no actual interest in cooking, and who live in
| a place with obnoxiously large kitchens (i.e. USA), they're
| fine. Also, it helps to be well off, as they're basically a
| scheme to mark up simple ingredients by a significant
| multiplier.
|
| People that are interested in cooking are going to have that
| stuff around, aren't going to be put off by 60 seconds of
| measuring things out, and like the ability to tweek the
| composition -- plus making things from basic ingredients
| increases the understanding of how ingredients work.
|
| Also, for those of us without ginormous kitchens (mine is
| huge by urban European standards, tiny by suburban American),
| there's just a limit on how much stuff you can store that you
| can reliably recreate in under a minute.
| sasawpg wrote:
| > plus making things from basic ingredients increases the
| understanding of how ingredients work.
|
| That's a bit of a stretch. Following a recipe doesn't
| necessarily imply you understand how ingredients work.
|
| I would say I'm an "above average" cook (define as you
| will), and yet I still use Krusteez pancake mix. They're
| very good from the mix and I'd prefer to waste my time
| scrolling endlessly or other crap instead (I'm not fooling
| anyone, time saved making pancakes from scratch is entirely
| time wasted elsewhere).
| wheels wrote:
| The "wasting time" is literally adding three spoons of
| stuff to flour. (Two for me since I use a full package of
| baking powder.) It's literally in the 30 seconds range.
| If you were doing it a lot, you could even pre-mix them
| in those 30 seconds, and have enough for as many batches
| as you cared. It's a pretty weird micro-optimization.
|
| You don't learn about how the ingredients work by making
| one thing from a recipe, but you do if you make a bunch
| of related things from similar ingredients. On the bread
| / cake spectrum, one learns to pretty reliably
| distinguish between things based on leavening agent and
| if they contain eggs.
|
| Also, I wouldn't say that most above average home cook
| actually has much interest in cooking. But the average J.
| Kenji Lopez-Alt fan does. Most people cook because they
| need to eat. What I'm calling "interest" I'm imagining
| people where it's at least a hobby -- there's active
| effort in improving one's understanding of it and
| technique.
| [deleted]
| globular-toast wrote:
| I was confused when you mentioned that cookies are simpler
| than pancakes, then I remembered: _American_ pancakes. I was
| thinking _crepes_ which is literally just flour, eggs, milk,
| butter and salt. The "mix" is literally just flour.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| American pancakes are the same with the addition of baking
| powder.
|
| Though if you're making buttermilk pancakes I would imagine
| most people do not have buttermilk on hand if they're not
| baking.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| I would bet the average American that says they 'cook' are
| actually just taking frozen meals like pizzas, chicken
| tenders, biscuits in a can, etc. and heating them in the
| oven. Households don't typically have even have flour,
| fresh milk, butter or other staples on hand here.
| ericmcer wrote:
| I swear bisquick is my favorite pancake, it has some
| intangible quality that I can't replicate with household
| ingredients. That said I make sourdough pancakes for health,
| but I totally agree that flavor wise, mixes taste fine.
| sasawpg wrote:
| I used to be anti pancake mix as well. Then I got a cabin
| where pancakes are almost a mandatory weekend breakfast and I
| realized I often forget to bring fresh ingredients (mainly
| milk). Krusteez was a hit and I became a convert.
| tootie wrote:
| Pancake mix is my one and only bugaboo. The fact that you
| need your own eggs and milk mean the box is basically saving
| you from adding a bit of salt, sugar and baking soda to
| flour. Ingredients I always have on hand. And while I've
| never done a taste test for pancakes, I'm very loyal to King
| Arthur flour.
| jfengel wrote:
| It was a famous result that cooks rejected early mixes that
| required just water. Snopes marks it as "false" but there's
| enough of a grain of truth to it to make it relevant:
|
| https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/something-eggstra/
|
| I too find it weird that people buy that when it's so easy
| at home, with ingredients most people have. I suppose if
| you never bake you don't have flour or baking powder on
| hand. Eggs and milk are something everyone has.
| Xylakant wrote:
| > Mixes are engineered to consistently reach a desired
| result.
|
| That's pretty much exactly what I dislike about mixes and
| ready-made food. It's not that they're bad, but they are the
| same every time. Your pancakes taste like my pancakes. That's
| boring. I like tasting other peoples pancakes. I usually
| stock some ready to eat food for times when cooking is just
| not and option, but I rarely end up reaching for it.
|
| Also, they're single use, they can not be disassembled to
| build something else. With eggs, milk, flour, butter, I can
| make pancakes - American and German style, Dutch Baby,
| Kaiserschmarrn, waffles, ... A pancake mix is a pancake mix,
| it's pancakes, nothing else.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| It's almost as if you can tweak mixes or something.
|
| Seriously, you want to change pancake mix? Use some
| buttermilk instead of milk. Mix in a bit of sourdough
| starter. Add some fruit. Cook down a can of fruit with some
| sugar and lemon juice and make your own syrup. There are
| tons of things you can do.
|
| If I go to a fancy restaurant that specializes in pancakes,
| THEN I expect them to do their own thing. But waking up at
| morning and getting pancakes that someone has prepared for
| me is better than waking up in the morning and eating a
| bowl of cereal or a pre-wrapped muffin. MOST people don't
| have a go-to pancake recipe... they'd just look up and use
| the first thing they found online that they had ingredients
| for.
| Xylakant wrote:
| Let's not get religious about it - it's food and you do
| what you do. I'll eat your pancakes, mix or not. But the
| parent I was responding to was extolling consistency as a
| virtue and I don't consider consistency (as in "tastes
| the same every time", as opposed to "tastes great every
| time") a great thing.
|
| And if you start adding sourdough to anything,
| consistency goes straight out the window. At least my
| sourdough is anything but consistent.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| You can straight up use the sour dough starter that you
| would normally throw away as scallion pancake mix.
| Seriously, just pour it onto a greased pan and throw
| scallions on the other side, then flip and cook til done.
| Xylakant wrote:
| Yes, I know. But my point was that sourdough, at least
| the one I keep, are living things and are not
| consistently the same. Mine depends on the time I kept it
| in the fridge, the temperature it's kept outside (which
| depends on the weather), on how active the last
| generation was and many other factors I have more or less
| under control. And that manifests in taste difference,
| raising power etc.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| If you have all that on hand why would you not have eggs,
| flour, and milk as well?
| sasawpg wrote:
| As nobody in my household drinks white milk, I only have
| it on hand if a recipe specifically calls for it. And I
| suspect they wouldn't quite be the same with chocolate
| milk, of which there is almost always a supply thanks to
| kids ..
| wheels wrote:
| I would assume mixing in buttermilk for milk would mess
| things up since it messes with the acid ratios, which is
| one of the things that really matters in baked goods with
| chemical leavening agents. Usually something with only
| milk would use baking powder, whereas something with
| buttermilk would use some portion of baking soda.
| vinceguidry wrote:
| 100%. I used to cook a lot from scratch. I had a few
| things that I made a lot and knew how to balance the
| flavors of. Then when I suddenly found myself with a lot
| less time to cook, but still with the same picky taste
| buds, I started buying premade, prepackaged TV dinners
| from Publix and Whole Foods and doctoring them up with
| added spices, or chopping an onion or pepper to add to
| it, after microwaving them for half the time to defrost
| them.
|
| Like, you can buy anything and make it good.
| vanusa wrote:
| _Your pancakes taste like my pancakes. That's boring. I
| like tasting other peoples pancakes._
|
| Then again, some people just want to make reasonably good
| pancakes for their kids or before heading off to work,
| without too much thought or effort. Or having to be
| "creative" or think about how they compare with other
| people's pancakes. Are you OK with that?
| Xylakant wrote:
| Look, I'm not advocating banning pancake mixes or canned
| or frozen food. I absolutely understand that people have
| constraints and not everyone has the time or energy to
| cook every day. I just say that I personally, don't
| consider "it consistently produces the same result." a
| good thing in all cases. Are you OK with that?
| vanusa wrote:
| That's great, of course. Bon appetit.
|
| I was just trying to get back to the point of the
| original article.
| js2 wrote:
| We make a batch of Alton Brown's mix maybe every other month:
|
| https://altonbrown.com/recipes/semi-instant-pancake-mix/
|
| I don't think we have any trouble with consistency.
|
| For baking, my go to recipe site is Smitten Kitchen.
|
| It's not that we're anti-mix, it's that it's easy to stock
| the staple baking ingredients and then we can make whatever
| we want.
| ngngngng wrote:
| I haven't read his book or followed him online extensively, but I
| credit Kenji with my first breakthrough in cooking food that was
| better than what I can get in a quality restaurant. His "Late
| Night Cheeseburger" video produced one of the best hamburgers
| I've ever eaten, and I made it myself!
|
| Since then I've been cooking a lot more for myself, mostly using
| Joshua Weissman's recipe's. His videos get annoying quickly (lots
| of overdone, repetitive, "meme" humor) but his recipes include
| exact seasoning amounts and the low end cooking time he lists is
| always perfect, never overcooked.
|
| My mother cooked almost every night for us as children, but when
| I eat her cooking now I'm almost always shocked at how
| underseasoned and overcooked everything is. I'm not sure most
| people know how to follow "season to taste", they just throw some
| salt in and set the table without tasting anything, and keep some
| good ol' iodized salt in a shaker handy.
| mabbo wrote:
| Joshua Weissman has brilliant information that adults want to
| know, packaged in a format designed to make adults want to
| murder Joshua Weissman.
|
| I believe it's some kind of social experiment. Like his entire
| online persona is an experiment.
| ngngngng wrote:
| > I believe it's some kind of social experiment. Like his
| entire online persona is an experiment.
|
| I like the theory, though as someone that's been exploring
| content creation I really think it's often just necessary to
| act different to stand out. Often that's just narcissism
| though if I had to pick between narcissism and weirdness I'll
| take weirdness.
| mhb wrote:
| 130 degrees inside? I don't think so. Seems like a New Yorker
| mistake.
| 88913527 wrote:
| I remove from the oven between 115 to 120 degrees, then let
| rest for 5 minutes under foil. Let carryover cooking do the
| remaining work. Then pan sear for about 2-3 minutes, flipping
| occasionally, spooning butter and the rendered fat over the
| meat.
| chabons wrote:
| From someone with no knowledge of reverse sear: Why does that
| seem like a mistake? 130F is how you get medium rare with a
| sous-vide setup. If you're talking long and slow using an oven,
| it seems reasonable to me that you'd aim for the same internal
| temp as sous-vide.
| mhb wrote:
| From his Cook's Illustrated recipe:
|
| _Cook until instant-read thermometer inserted in center of
| steak registers 90 to 95 degrees for rare to medium-rare, 20
| to 25 minutes, or 100 to 105 degrees for medium, 25 to 30
| minutes._
|
| https://www.cooksillustrated.com/recipes/3564-pan-seared-
| thi...
| karlshea wrote:
| The original reverse sear recipe is 115deg for med-rare,
| 125deg for med, assuming you're gonna pump a lot more heat
| into it getting the crust (plus carryover).
|
| Edit: to maybe answer your actual question, I think sous vide
| has a different goal. Different final textures, maybe more
| refined? Reverse sear is more fixing the common "the outside
| looked good but the inside is raw" problem if you don't have
| a lot of steak experience.
|
| I think if you were going to crust up a sous vide steak on a
| charcoal grill you'd probably want to cook it at 115-125 as
| well.
| mandeepj wrote:
| > the outside looked good but the inside is raw
|
| make sure you don't start cooking it right away after
| taking out from the refrigerator. I normally let it rest
| for 30-45 mins, sometimes even an hour.
| balfirevic wrote:
| Incidentally, that does almost nothing according to this
| article by... Kenji Lopez!
| https://www.seriouseats.com/old-wives-tales-about-
| cooking-st...
| karlshea wrote:
| Agree, that really helps!
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > 130F is how you get medium rare with a sous-vide setup
|
| This also depends on what cut the steak is. 138F is a better
| target for something with more fat, like ribeye, because 130F
| won't really break it down.
| [deleted]
| rootusrootus wrote:
| For what cut of steak, what method? E.g. sous vide ribeye works
| best at 138F, every time. But other cuts are better a little
| cooler. And reverse sear is not sous vide. Etc.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _3. Place steak(s) in the oven and cook until an instant-read
| thermometer registers 105degF (41degC) for rare, 115degF
| (46degC) for medium-rare, 125degF (52degC) for medium, or
| 135degF (57degC) for medium-well. This will take about 20
| minutes for rare steak and up to about 40 minutes for medium-
| well; cooking time can vary dramatically depending on many
| factors, so check often._
|
| * https://www.seriouseats.com/reverse-seared-steak-recipe
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO8TUuSv7HA&t=3m10s
|
| ~130F / 55C is not crazy.
| xdfgh1112 wrote:
| Kenji's cooking methods are always 10x more effort for 10% better
| food. Great for supertasters, not necessary for most of us.
| resoluteteeth wrote:
| > Kenji's cooking methods are always 10x more effort for 10%
| better food. Great for supertasters, not necessary for most of
| us.
|
| I think he may have that tendency somewhat but it's not as
| nearly as bad as some other places like Cook's Illustrated
| (where I guess he used to work) which really tend to add
| unnecessary steps for very small improvements.
|
| At serious eats he sometimes made multiple versions of recipes,
| an easy version and a more complicated version, to make it
| possible for people to decide which they want to make. On his
| videos he often explains optional steps that can be omitted.
|
| Also, FYI that's not really what "supertasters" means (it
| doesn't mean people who have a discerning palate and can pick
| out subtle flavors, it means people who are hypersensitive to
| certain bitter flavors).
| roughly wrote:
| I think the divide is the craft & process vs the outcome. If
| you like cooking as a hobby, Kenji's methods are fun. If you're
| just cooking for an outcome, you're right, his methods aren't
| the fastest. Think of it like any other weekend project you do
| - odds are a generous application of money or existing
| expertise gets the job done faster than you poking around and
| trying stuff, but is that really the goal?
| mabbo wrote:
| Do you have an example of something he showed the takes 10X
| longer?
|
| I find most of his recommendations made me a faster cook.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Grinding your own bespoke mix of beef for a burger is a huge
| increase in time and complexity for a burger:
| https://www.seriouseats.com/the-burger-lab-the-worlds-
| best-b...
|
| Will it make an amazingly tasty burger? Yes.
|
| Is it worth it when you want a burger on a late weeknight? It
| depends.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| That's just the food lab/serious eats stuff IMHO. Those things
| are purpose built to be "what if we turned everything up to 11
| and made the best possible X/Y/Z?". If you read Modernist
| Cuisine it's exactly the same thing and you'll spend two days
| making a single cheeseburger (with from scratch bread, cheese,
| mayo, grinding your own beef, sous vide cooking the patty for
| hours, etc).
|
| Watch his youtube channel and more recent stuff, it's a lot
| more toned down and accessible to everyone.
| tshaddox wrote:
| To some extent, yeah, the whole point is to exert more effort
| to get better food, although I suspect your numbers are
| exaggerated (10x sounds extreme). But I don't think many well
| known chefs would recommend doing that if you _don't at least
| somewhat enjoy the effort required to cook_.
| jghn wrote:
| I've seen him state that he doesn't expect people to do all of
| the extra labor intensive steps. He's showing you all the
| things you can do and how they enhance, you choose how far you
| want to take it.
|
| I've been following his stuff since the aughts. At this point I
| almost never make his recipes as stated. I've learned which
| techniques I find worth it, which I don't, and in others I've
| folded in things he came up with later on his own journey
| kaycebasques wrote:
| I'll put in a plug for some friends of friends. Check out
| Backhaus if you're ever around San Mateo. Gourmet bread and
| pastries and whatnot. J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is one of their
| financial backers / advisers [1].
|
| [1]
| https://mobile.twitter.com/kenjilopezalt/status/104862447412...
| isatty wrote:
| Or Wursthall in San Mateo, which is his restaurant. The food is
| excellent.
| donarb wrote:
| Kenji is no longer an owner at Wursthall.
| karlding wrote:
| Yeah, see Kenji's comment on /r/seriouseats [0]:
|
| _> I am not an owner any longer! I gave my shares to my
| former Sous chef Erik who still lives in the area. My
| involvement at Wursthall is only a friendly one, not a
| business one at this point._
|
| However, in the same thread Kenji also says the following
| [1]:
|
| _> it's still my recipes (and one of Stella's!) there, as
| well as quite a few Serious Eats-inspired techniques._
|
| [0] https://reddit.com/r/seriouseats/comments/oszuh0/made_i
| t_to_...
|
| [1] https://reddit.com/r/seriouseats/comments/oszuh0/made_i
| t_to_...
| peferron wrote:
| I went to Wursthall twice and found it to be mediocre.
| Backhaus is indeed excellent, and in a completely different
| league.
| tshaddox wrote:
| I'm not particularly picky or discerning at all when it
| comes to restaurants, but I also found Wursthall to be
| mediocre. I didn't try the sausages, so maybe that was my
| mistake.
| chrisdhoover wrote:
| Yes, mediocre and derivative.
| ripper1138 wrote:
| I was into his videos for a few months but I couldn't stand how
| much of a narcissist he is. He literally says he invented the
| reverse-searing technique.
| mabbo wrote:
| Did you read the article at all?
|
| > do remember some folks taking issue with the idea that the
| reverse sear was your creation.
|
| > There's a competition barbecue team, Iron Pig BBQ, who were
| doing a similar technique, but it wasn't published anywhere.
| After we published it at Cook's Illustrated, some people were,
| like, "Oh, yeah, this chef is doing it." There were people
| concurrently doing it. The more generous claim would be that I
| independently came up with the idea, and certainly Cook's
| Illustrated popularized it.
|
| How is this narcissistic?
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| For fellow MIT nerds you might enjoy this article about Kenji
| from Feb 2020 in The Tech https://thetech.com/2020/02/20/kenji-
| lopez-alt
|
| Enjoyed this article and how personal it was. Helen Rosner is a
| great writer.
| simonw wrote:
| I've been looking forward to his new book The Wok so much.
|
| I've been following his stuff on Serious Eats (and The Food Lab
| book) for years. I've never had a recipe of his let me down.
| tylerflick wrote:
| The Food Lab is a must have for any kitchen. Best cookbook I've
| ever owned.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| Never had a recipe of his let me down, but his chicken adobo
| recipe (where you simmer a sauce of sugar, soy sauce, and
| vinegar for like an hour) practically destroyed my wok's
| seasoning. The sauce was almost caramel like by the end of it,
| which let to a ton of caked on burnt bits I could only scrape
| off aggressively, and then the vinegar evaporation created what
| I can only call steam bubbles in the patina that caused them to
| flake off like paint chips. I had to pretty much scrape
| everything off and start from scratch on reseasoning the wok
| after that. It's still not quite back to what it was before
| "the Adobo event" (as my girlfriend calls it).
|
| Still a delicious recipe, but, I learned to use my deep saute
| pan for it in the future.
| mazelife wrote:
| Yes, a wok is a somewhat strange choice for that dish. I'm
| not really an "expert" on Pinoy food but my partner is
| Filipino and I've seen this made many times by him, his
| family, or even friends of his when we have visited the
| Philippines and never once did a wok come into it. Either a
| dutch oven our a large saucepan is what I've seen used, since
| you really want to cover it so it braises evenly. The sauce
| is always fairly thin as well, nothing approaching a
| caramel-y consistency.
| wonnage wrote:
| If it's the one I'm thinking of then the first line of the
| recipe is "Place the soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, black
| peppercorns, and bay leaves in a large, nonreactive saute
| pan", i.e not something that requires seasoning
| jeffwilcox wrote:
| So excited! We're seeing Kenji on Saturday in Seattle at a book
| launch event, so cool seeing him get so much press and
| excitement around all this.
| anthomtb wrote:
| Agreed. If anyone is looking to make a classic dish, browse
| right to Serious Eats and avoid the SEO recipe spam on Google.
| You'll save time, bypass the big-data overlord and end up with
| better-than-restaurant quality food.
| rustyfe wrote:
| Worth calling out that Serious Eats is a publication with
| many recipe developers. Not all of them are equal to Kenji
| (although Daniel Gritzer is unequal because he's even
| better!).
|
| Serious Eats is overall great, but definitely trust the
| byline not the publication.
| simonw wrote:
| +1 to Daniel Gritzer - but Serious Eats generally has
| earned my trust now, they must have a really good editorial
| process over there to keep the quality so high.
| eschneider wrote:
| Cooking is the Perl of life activities in that "There are many
| ways to do it." and we all tend to optimize for different things.
|
| I live with people with dietary restrictions, so I tend to make
| everything from scratch because I optimize for not killing my
| housemates. But I have found it's an added advantage in that if
| I'm mostly getting staples and assembling things myself, I both
| have a simpler time shopping and much less trouble meal planning
| because I can late-bind what I'm making since I've got
| ingredients for most common (for our household :) meals handy.
|
| But that doesn't mean mixes/pre-made stuff is bad. If it's
| optimal for you, go for it. :)
| chair6 wrote:
| Mmm, Kenji's really good scrambled eggs are really good (and
| really quick) .. https://youtube.com/watch?v=CXTnq7srJRs.
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