There’s a great in-depth post on how to cook perfect prime rib over at Serious Eats.
For a cut of meat that can cost upwards of $100, it’s worth knowing how to cook it right, so if you have plans to roast prime rib, this post is required reading. It’s also chock full of fascinating food science, so fans of Harold McGee take note.
Tags: How To
I came across rouxbe.com recently, an new online culinary school that’s definitely worth a look. The site houses a library of videos on cooking techniques and recipes that mirrors the kind of curriculum you’d find at a real world cooking school. Some videos are free to view, but access to the full catalog requires a payed membership – of which there are several options: $15/month, $99/year, or $199/lifetime. The voice-over narration is almost comically flat, but the quality of the videos are top-notch: they’re clear and concise and focus very tightly on the food prep (rather than a yapping instructor). The close-up shots of the actual cooking are well-composed and extremely easy to follow, and I learned a few new things just from watching one of the free sample videos (on legumes). Considering the astronomical price of cooking schools, seems like you could learn a lot here for $15 a month! The paid membership also gives you access to personal chef support – not sure how attentive that service is, but the fact that they even offer it is a big incentive to try the paid membership. I have a feeling I’ll be using this site quite a bit. Curious to hear what people think – especially anyone who’s used the premium service. Drop us some comments if you’re a rouxbe.com user…
Got a great home-made edible that’s ready for the big time? The Rooster Design Group has announced a contest to find the next top craft food – and it could be yours. Rooster is the branding firm behind ricotta maker Salvatore BKLYN and granola company Early Bird Foods, and they’re out to find a follow-up product with their Next Big Small Food Brand competition. They’ve assembled a top-shelf panel of judges to help them, including Eric Demby of Brooklyn Flea, Carla Lalli-Music of Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food Magazine, and Karen Karp of food consultants Karp Resources. This is a fantastic opportunity for craft food makers toiling away in obscurity: the Grand Prize gets you the full design, branding, and marketing treatment from Rooster to help you launch your product. Entries are due by November 30, 2009, and the judging will take place on January 12th at iCi restaurant in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. With over a month to go before the deadline, there’s plenty of time to fine tune your product – so get cracking, people! Go here for all the contest details.
Tags: contest
Jim Lahey is rightly famous for two things: his incredible bread and pizzas at The Sullivan Street Bakery; and his no-knead bread recipe. Lahey’s new book, My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method combines the two into a serious contender for the ultimate bread bible. He’s updated the no-knead technique for even better results, and reveals how to make Sullivan Street classics like the pizza bianca in your home oven. The key to his technique is letting the bread proof for an extraordinary 12-18 hours, which results in a complex crumb and sophisticated flavor that ordinary proofing times can’t deliver. The second element is a very wet dough which bakes inside a dutch oven, steaming the bread so it can fully rise before the crust forms. Professional bakers achieve this same effect with expensive steam-injection ovens – Lahey’s method uses time, extra water and a pot. Pretty clever – and it really does produce an incredible bakery-quality loaf. A lot of people are turned off by baking – the complexity, the kneading, and the uncertain results are deal-breakers for a lot of people. This book should change a lot of minds.
Brooklyn Kitchen have massively expanded their operation with the huge new Brooklyn Kitchen Labs space. Scheduled to open in November, it will feature two giant kitchen classrooms to house their new cooking school program. They’ve just published their new fall class schedule today, and it’s first come, first served, so get on it quick if you’re interested. They’ve got classes on pig butchering, charcuterie, artisanal bread making, knife skills, and a lot more – check here for the full program.
There’s a new purveyor of naturally-raised meats in town: Dickson’s Farmstand Meats has opened in the Chelsea Market. Here’s how they describe their goods:
Heritage breed, grass-fed or organic? These are our farms. We select them based on quality, commitment to sustainable land use, and humane handling practices. All our farms must meet the following baseline criteria :
Sounds good to me. They’ll be butchering these quality beasts on-site at the Chelsea Market, behind a big glass window – a sort of peep show for carnivores. So if you consider breaking down a pig into ribs and chops a spectator event, you’ll want to head down asap. In addition to pork, they also carry beef, lamb and poultry. Butchery classes are available, and there’s a lunch counter that will serve a variety of meaty sandwich specials. Check their website for details.
Artisanal pizza was the year’s biggest food phenomenon. Almost overnight, thin crust pies draped with local veggies and house-cured meats were popping out of brick ovens across the city. Despite all the hype, one thing was clear: brick ovens really do make the best pizzas. Searing heat is the key: it bakes the crust so fast that the outside gets crisp before the inside can dry out, giving it the chewy interior and crispy exterior that’s so distinct. If you’ve ever tried to make your own pizza, you know how hard that is to achieve, even with a baking stone. Short of installing a brick oven in your kitchen, getting that kind of crust in a homemade pizza has been impossible. But thanks to the work of a few obsessed food-hackers, we’ve got some ingenious ways to create brick-oven crust in a standard issue kitchen. Click to read more…
Tags: How To
I got pretty excited when I saw this: a CSA program from The Piggery. These guys pasture raise heritage pigs and make their own charcuterie in upstate New York. A sign-up fee of $300 gets you 12 weeks of chops, ribs, and more – plus porky goodness like sausages, bacon and pate. That’s $25 a week for the marbled beauty you see above – a pretty sweet deal for quality heirloom pork. From December through February, you’ll collect your goods at Brooklyn Kitchen’s new space (100 Frost Street) every Thursday between 5 and 7 pm. For details, click here:
Farm-fresh food at supermarket prices? That’s what Bion Bartning promises to deliver at his new retail store Basis Good Food Market. The founder of Basis Farm To Chef, a food distributor that connects local producers to city restaurants, Bartning wants to bring his locally-sourced goods straight to the public. Driven by the motto “Good Food For All,” the Basis market will offer products like farm-fresh eggs and milk at less-than-supermarket prices. You can catch a preview next Saturday (October 10th – 12pm to 5pm) at the Back To Basis Farmers Market. They’ll be set up at the corner of 14th Street & 9th Avenue as part of the NYC Wine & Food Festival. I’ll be curious to see what’s available – the prices and products will shed some light on what to expect when the full store opens later this year at 324 W 14th Street.
When it’s time to buy a knife, you want a store where you can test a wide range of blades with someone who knows what they’re talking about. Here’s a round-up of the best knife-sellers in New York.
Tags: Gear, Knife Suppliers