Types of Salt and Their Uses (Video)

Table salt, kosher salt, sea salt -- there are more salts these days than flavors of ice-cream. Which one should you use for cooking? Which one should you use as a finishing salt? Which one should you use for baking? This video answers all these questions.

 
YouTube Link: Types of Salt and Their Uses

Is cooking a creative art or performing art?

A meal at Jiro's sushi bar in Tokyo costs more than the best opera in the world. Imagine that Rembrandt's paintings stolen from Isabella Stewart Gardner's Museum were finally found.  How much time would you devote to standing in line to see them?  2 hours?  5 hours?  I have spent more time trying to get a reservation at Per Se in New York.  But does this put Thomas Keller on par with Rembrandt?  Given how much we worship at the shrine of gastronomy these days, it's no wonder we started to refer to chefs as artists.  When a patron calls a chef an artist, I have a suspicion that they are attempting to elevate their hedonistic obsession with eating out to a cultural activity similar to visiting the Louvre.  Michael Ruhlman wrote about this topic numerous times concluding that chef's job was that of a craftsman, not an artist.  I think that's a pointless discussion about the definition of the terms "art" and "craft" and has little to do with cooking.  The question I find more interesting is how many people in the culinary profession should devote themselves to the creative art of dish design and how many to the performing art of cooking.  I am using the word "art" loosely here.  If you want to call it "creative craft" and "performing craft," be my guest.  

Many creative disciplines have two complimentary components: a composer and a performer, a playwright and an actor.  The role of the first is to create, and the role of the second is to deliver the creation to the audience.  A restaurant is not fundamentally different than a symphony hall or a theater in that regard.  What bothers me terribly about eating out is that we seem to have an overabundance of creative artists and a deficit of performing artists.  It's kind of like showing up to the Boston symphony and finding out that today's program was composed by the first violin.  That first violin might be one of the best violinists in the world, but it doesn't make him a great composer.

My ideal restaurant landscape would look like a combination of Japanese discipline with American ingenuity.  There'd be a few composer types, like Grant Achatz, and there would be many performers of his food who'd be as dedicated to perfection as the sushi chef Jiro.  Their job would be to work their ass off to bring Grant's ideas to life.  I can't tell you how many meals I've had where the restaurant clearly was trying to do the Alinea thing, but failing miserably.  To me that's a waste of effort and talent.  Why not just cook Alinea food directly from Achatz' book and focus on execution instead of trying to create in Achatz' style.  

Carol Blymire's effort in Alinea at Home and French Laundry at Home is admirable.  But I wish professionals were doing that, not home cooks.  They have the equipment and the experience to pull that off successfully.  Just because I could stumble through all of Chopin's waltzes and blog about my experience, doesn't mean that I should.  In contrast to that, Arthur Rubinstein's collection of Chopin's waltzes is a gift to humanity.  Does it diminish him as an artist that he didn't write this music.  Not at all.  He brought it to life.

Of course, this would never work.  At least not in the US.  The disciplines that stuck to impressing their audience with performing skills are dying out and chefs do need to attract customers.  How many people can tell the difference between a top notch symphony orchestra and a mediocre one?   I enjoy music and studied piano when I was young.  But I don't think I can.  I was surprised why my friend Jerome, a professional musician, was cringing during a symphony concert we attended at a local university.  "The second violin was off key," he said.  If I had to guess what percent of the audience could tell, I'd have to estimate it at 5-10%.  But suppose Madonna came out with a new song.  How many people could tell that it was new, exciting, fun, and provocative?  Everyone.  

Creative arts evoke emotions in almost everyone.  You don't need to be a specialist in the field to love or hate a creative work of art.  It's easy to be surprised by it, awed by it, or appalled by it.  It's easy to write a compelling story about it.  When the scallops are cured in beet juice, topped with raspberry jello and pumpernickel foam, it's either awesome or ridiculous.  When they are just perfectly seasoned and cooked to correct temperature, it's whatever.  Performing art is subtle.  It rarely whacks us over the head with innovation.  It's riddled with technical challenges and details.  The only people who can fully admire the successes and judge the failures are other artists in that field.  I cringe when a dish is under-salted, the way Jerome cringes when the second violin is off key.  I am also beside myself with joy when the execution is flawless regardless of whether I am eating a burger or squab with porcini foam.  Performing art requires patience, sensitivity, and brutally hard work.  There is no muse that strikes a pianist with inspiration.  It's thousands of hours of practice to make his work look effortless.  

I wonder how IP laws fit into all this.  If you cook a French Laundry dish in a restaurant, do you have to pay royalties?  Apparently, commercial use of "Happy Birthday" song costs $5,000-$30,000.  What about cooking "oysters and pearls" or a "truffle explosion"?  Might be a fun follow up discussion.

  

How to Grill a Steak and Other Meat (Video)

This video is dedicated to my husband Jason.  Thank you for buying me my first All-Clad pan, my first Japanese knife, and my first serious video camera.  "To a bad dancer, the floor is always crooked," says a Russian proverb.  I live by this principle, always choosing to work on my skills over upgrading my equipment.  Thanks for making me realize when I reach the point of diminishing returns and simply need a better tool.  This video was shot with my new Canon Rebel T3i.  Just like the L'Oreal commercial.  "It's expensive, but you're worth it!"

YouTube Link: How to Grill a Steak and Other Meat

Frequently Asked Question about grilling meat

What cuts of meat work for grilling?

• Beef: tenderloin, rib-eye, T-bone, porterhouse, skirt steak, hanger steak, sirloin, flank steak, flat iron steak
• Pork: tenderloin, rib chops, loin chops, sirloin chops
• Lamb: whole rack of lamb (or cut into rib chops), loin chops (aka lamb porterhouse), top round (top part of the leg)
• Veal: rib chops, loin chops, sirloin chops

What about marinades?

I am anti-marinades with most cooking methods, but on the grill they do serve a purpose (as long as they are made wisely). They can help the meat brown, and they fuse with the meat during cooking giving it a more complex flavor. A successful marinade has 3 basic components:

• Oil -- it helps the meat brown and prevents it from sticking. It also helps other flavors penetrate the meat since most herb and spice flavors are oil soluble.  Oils I like to use in marinades are olive, safflower, and grape seed. 
• Sweet ingredient -- sugar speeds up browning, which is invaluable for thin pieces of meat. Sweet ingredients I like to use are soy sauce (I like Tamari), and pomegranate molasses (it's very reduced pomegranate juice; you can buy it at Whole Foods).  Use these ingredients in very small quantities since they tend to burn.
• Emulsifiers -- they help the wet ingredients stay suspended in oil. I like to use Dijon mustard and garlic mashed to a paste. Both are also huge flavor boosters. Minced garlic doesn't work as emulsifier and tends to burn on the grill, so make sure you turn it into a paste before adding. Once you got the basics, you can add pretty much any herbs and spices, but remember that less is more. 

Keep in mind that the only ingredient that penetrates the meat deeply is salt.  I am a strong believer of salting a day ahead, but the marinade itself can go on your meat right before cooking.

Why do I need a thermometer?  Some guy on YouTube showed me how to test for doneness by touching the meat and comparing it to my thumb or nose.
That would be a wonderful way for testing doneness when grilling your thumb or nose.  Touch a raw tenderloin and a raw NY strip.  They feel different, don't they?  So why would they feel the same at medium-rare, and why on earth would they feel like your thumb or nose?  It's true that many restaurant line cooks test meat by touching it.  That's because they grill about a hundred perfectly portioned steaks of the same type every night.  It's true that the more done the meat, the tougher it gets, but unless you grill hundreds of steaks you won't be able to get your touch calibrated.  Even for line cooks, it takes months of practice before they are good at it.  The method is so unreliable that most good restaurants don't use it.  They either sous-vide, or use C-vap ovens, or use a metal cake tester needle to determine internal temperature of their meat.

What thermometer do you use?
I use a Thermapen, but you can buy a basic digital thermometer at Target for about $15.

How do you modify this technique for a charcoal grill?

Set up a charcoal grill for direct and indirect cooking by putting all your charcoal under half of the grill grate.  There is no need for the foil trick I show you in the video.  Charcoal can get hot enough without it.  Start your steak over the charcoal side following the flipping procedure in the video and then move it to the other side away from charcoal.  You might also want to close the vents once your steak is brown.  No oxygen means no flames means cooler grill.  

Pretty Good Number One: An American Family Eats Tokyo

Matthew Amster-Burton and I have a few things in common.  We share a passion for scary sharp knives, debunking culinary myths, and eating in Tokyo.  We also have kids who'll arm-wrestle us for the last piece of sushi or the last slurp of ramen.  What Matthew has that I don't is guts.  While I went to Tokyo alone, Matthew had the guts to bring his wife Laurie, and an 8 year old daughter Iris.  When Iris was 6, she and Matthew went to Tokyo alone.  They fell so madly in love with the city that they convinced Laurie (a Japanese food skeptic) to come along the second time.  Laurie challenged them to go for a whole month in the summer and so they did.  Pretty Good Number One: An American Family Eats Tokyo is the memoir of their trip.

Tokyo in the summer feels like a C-VAP oven.*   The apartment Amster-Burtons rented was barely larger than a walk-in closet in a suburban home.  Sounds like a vacation from hell, doesn't it?  But it wasn't.  It was delicious, relaxing, and fun.  Before I went to Tokyo myself, I'd find this hard to believe, but Tokyo is a sweet and gentle giant.  As Laurie observed, it's not a beautiful city, but it's filled with beautiful things.

The beautiful things that interest Matthew the most are edible, and that's what his book is about.  But instead of focusing on high art of Japanese cuisines -- ceremonious kaiseki or glamorous sushi --Matthew focuses on the pop art -- fast food, chain restaurants, and convenience stores.  If you've never been to Japan, you might turn your nose up at Matthew's "plebeian" attitude to food.  But I wish I was armed with Matthew's book when I went to Tokyo instead of the Michelin Guide.  The 2 Michelin starred places were a disappointment and cost more than all my other meals combined.  Pretty Good Number One made me re-live the 7/11 culture shock (I'd challenge Thomas Keller to cook a better hard boiled egg than Tokyo 7/11); my favorite meal at an izakaya (it was a chain); melt in your mouth beef; a heart warming bowl of ramen; better French pastries than France herself could produce; and yes, the best toilets in the world.

When people set sails for far away places, they make a checklist of things they must see there. Eiffel tower: check. Trevi Fountain: check. The travel writers encourage that by giving you "Top 10 sites" and telling you what you must squeeze in if you are only in that city for 3 days. Matthew does just the opposite, and oh, what a breath of fresh air it is in travel writing. He invites you to experience Tokyo, not put another check mark in your travel itinerary. The only chapter missing was "How to entertain your kids on the plane and deal with jet lag."

* C-VAP ovens offer convection functionality with steam and are used in many upscale restaurants instead of the sous-vide method.  

Cooking for a Cause

Michael Krupp and Michael Leviton from Area Four

When you have a food blog, you occasionally get free passes to food events.  Normally, I ignore these invitations, but recently one caught my eye.  East End House is a non-profit organization that helps Cambridge families in need, and they were holding a Cooking for a Cause event at MIT Media Lab.

The first (and only) food charity event I attended was 10 years ago during my internship at Casablanca restaurant.  I was helping the chef hand out samples. My job was to repeat "Would you like a fig and blue cheese tart with arugula walnut salad?" roughly 500 times.  This time I was on the other side.  Surprisingly, I found it even harder.  It required 2 skills I do exceptionally poorly: take pictures in bad lighting and network with people I don't know.  Luckily, there was no shortage of liquid courage.  After a few mixed drinks, I finally got myself to start talking to people.

In some ways, the Boston food scene has changed a lot in the last 10 years.  Some trends were obvious and predictable.  The geeky city that we are, we embraced scientific cooking (better known as molecular gastronomy) with open arms.  Immersion circulators, mushroom foam, beet paper, and sherry caviar all made appearances.   Was the food any better than 10 years ago?  Not really.  Some of my favorite dishes at Cooking for a Cause were simple and traditional.

Green Street was handing out samples of addictive beef tartar.  It was a bit homey because they ground it instead of mincing.  But that was one of its charms.  It was almost reminiscent of rillettes, but raw.  When I asked Greg Reeves, Green Street's chef, what cut he used, I was in shock and awe.  Top round.  Top round?!  I could never find a use for that cut.  It's too tough to cook medium-rare, yet it's too lean to grind for a burger, or to braise.  It never occurred to me to make a tartar out of it.  What made his version particularly good was that he ground it twice to remove all chewiness and mixed it with truffle mayo to give it much needed richness.  The pickled mushroom was a perfect addition.  Now I'll have the answer for my students who subscribe to meat CSAs and are forced to deal with this frustrating cut.

The dark brown pasta from Craigie on Main tasted surprisingly smooth for something that looked like the latest health trend.  Turned out the color was due not to whole wheat, but to pig's blood.  And the rich brown sauce was made with pig's hearts.  It was a delicious dish and captured the essence of Craigie in one bite: meticulously manipulated food that feels deceptively simple and rustic.

The spread from New England Charcuterie (that's promising to open soon) attracted a lot of attention for a reason.  The cured sausages and meats were excellent.  The most memorable of their samples for me was a pork liver mousse.  We see plenty of chicken and duck liver on the menus, but pork liver is often overlooked.  It was a pleasure to see it cooked so well.

Foie gras torchon with apples and sherry "caviar" from Puritan and Co. was one of the few "modern" dishes that was as delicious as it was visually appealing.  The light and creamy texture of foie gras made me stop and talk with Chef Will Gilson.  Turned out it was passed through a tamis to remove the veins, and then whipped with a mixer.  The results were absolutely stunning.  Next time I make foie gras, I'll have to try this method.

Hmm, it looks like I ate nothing but liver and meat at this event.  Unfortunately, vegetables were non-existent and the seafood had a much smaller representation.

Catalyst's hamachi tartar provided a much needed break from a meat overload.  Pickled watermelon radishes were a perfect crunchy counterpoint to the creamy fish.

My favorite seafood dish was the squid salad from Area Four.  Chickpeas, olives, preserved lemons, and parsley solidly rooted this punchy salad in the Mediterranean traditions.

I wish more of Boston places came down to earth and put deliciousness before innovation, presentation, and virtuosity.  I feel like many of them are cooking way above their heads.  It's as if you took a fabulous salsa dancer and asked him to do Bill T. Jones choreography.