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Food We need to talk about cooking and food prep tools and utensils.

Discussion in 'Tilted Food' started by Borla, Mar 10, 2012.

  1. Borla

    Borla Moderator Staff Member

    Yes. I have a stone coming with that knife. :)
     
  2. Borla

    Borla Moderator Staff Member

    Wow, I am shocked. It shipped Monday from Japan and already was delivered today.


    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
    • Like Like x 3
  3. Charlatan

    Charlatan sous les pavés, la plage

    Location:
    Temasek
    Very nice!

    Here is my fanciest knife. I don't normally spend money on them and typically buy ones that I can easily replace (I would buy them in bulk from restaurant supply stores if I could) but my wife bought this for me as a present.

    It feels nice in my hand but it stains easily. Acidic things like lemons and onions are not nice to carbon steel.

    It was hand made in Cambodia.

    [​IMG]
     
    • Like Like x 2
  4. Borla

    Borla Moderator Staff Member



    Nice. It's hard to tell scale from that pic, is it a paring sized knife? I already want a new paring knife. :p
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2016
  5. Borla

    Borla Moderator Staff Member

  6. Chris Noyb

    Chris Noyb Get in, buckle up, hang on, & be quiet.

    Location:
    Large City, TX
    Since we're talking knives...our main knife for food prep is an incomplete set of vintage:

    GREAT BLADES
    Carvel Hall
    SINCE 1895
    MOLYBDENUM STEEL
    with an image of a metalsmith hammering something on an anvil to the side of the above writing
    JAPAN (on the other side of the blade)

    Six inch meat clever, eight inch slicing, 10 inch carving, & six inch boning. That included a sharpening steel and a knife block (both so-so, neither original to the set). Purchased at Goodwill for a whopping...............$6.00.

    The knives are very sturdy, the molybdenum steel is extremely hard. It took some effort to get a good edge on them because the previous owner let them get really dull. Ours have the hard nylon(?) handles instead of wood; the handles & rivets are as tight as the day they left the factory.

    I wasn't able to find out much about them except Carvel Hall steak knife sets are relatively common (even famous?).

    "...The Carvel Hall manufacturing site was originally known as the Chas. D. Briddell manufacturing plant and was constructed in 1920. The plant received many U.S. Government contracts during World War II, including at least one for the manufacture of bazooka shells. The plant also made seafood and ice tools and cutlery items. In 1946, an employee designed a fine-bladed letter opener that would soon become the design of the world famous Carvel Hall steak knife. The Main Street plant was destroyed by fire on March 3, 1951. A new state-of-the-art facility was constructed at the new 4251 Crisfield Highway location. Production of the Carvel Hall steak knife continued there, as did the manufacture of many other cutlery types and even a series of U.S. Mail scooters. Manufacturing operations ceased in 2000 and retail operations ceased in 2003...."

    Taken from

    http://www.mde.state.md.us/programs/Land/MarylandBrownfieldVCP/mapping/Documents/Carvel%20Hall.pdf
     
    • Like Like x 1
  7. Charlatan

    Charlatan sous les pavés, la plage

    Location:
    Temasek
    It's a bigger sized chef knife.

    I have a couple paring knives, but I almost never use them. I prefer my santoku style knife for most tasks. It's a cheap blade but it fits my hand and is sharp. When it dies, I'll just buy another from the chef supply shop.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  8. Borla

    Borla Moderator Staff Member

    Today one of my customers had a huge sale of KitchenAid products set up right in the factory, available for all of their employees. One of my contacts let me know that I could also purchase items as a supplier to them. The only catch was that, since I wasn't an employee, any purchase I made had to be cash only (employees could payroll deduct). Fortunately I had enough cash on me to buy one of these (exact model I got):

    https://www.amazon.com/Kitchenaid-Ksm150pscz-Artisan-Golden-Shimmer/dp/B017723JF6

    $430, marked down to $311 on Amazon. I got it for $100.

    My wife already had a KitchenAid stand mixer that is about 10yrs old, but it was a much lower end one (275 watt motor). So she is going to hand that one down to a friend and take the new one.

    They had countertop convection ovens for $45, cast iron 6qt casserole dishes for $35, huge pot/pan sets for $40-60, it was crazy. I wish I'd have known ahead of time to make a list of what would've made sense to buy and to bring enough cash.
     
    • Like Like x 2
  9. POPEYE

    POPEYE Very Tilted

    Location:
    Tulsa
    Could have been great Christmas shopping
     
  10. genuinemommy

    genuinemommy Moderator Staff Member

    Drooling.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  11. Chris Noyb

    Chris Noyb Get in, buckle up, hang on, & be quiet.

    Location:
    Large City, TX

    That mixer would have my wife squirming ;) ;).
     
    • Like Like x 1
  12. Shadowex3

    Shadowex3 Very Tilted

    Didn't kitchenaid switch to plastic gearboxes though or do their top end models still use (non-pot) metal?
     
  13. Borla

    Borla Moderator Staff Member


    The plastic gearboxes that so many people used to use as a "they don't make them like they used to!" were actually made as a failsafe to save the motor. They basically worked like a fuse does, they were designed to go once the motor started overheating, to save the motor, so you only had a cheap gearbox to replace instead of trashing the unit. However, public perception was "they are cheap, and not like they used to be!", so that went away several years ago. Now they have an electronic cutoff of some sort if the motor starts overheating, and no plastic gearbox. At least that is what I have been told by those that should know.
     
    • Like Like x 2
  14. Chris Noyb

    Chris Noyb Get in, buckle up, hang on, & be quiet.

    Location:
    Large City, TX
    We've yet to use the Pampered Chef mandolin that my wife was so thrilled to find a thrift store many months ago; we just don't cut up enough 'stuff' to make setting it up and then having to clean it worthwhile. Damned edit function!!!! Our Bakers & Chefs brand 14" non-stick skillet is starting to lose its non-stick. Oh well, it's was only around $29.00, and we've use it a lot. It replaced our Member's Mark 14" non-stick skillet that started warping and losing its coating.
     
  15. Shadowex3

    Shadowex3 Very Tilted

    Designated failure points are a thing but a defective-by-design gearbox instead of just having the motor turn itself off is poor design in something this expensive.



    Why I never use the stuff personally. My carbon steel wok's seasoning is so non-stick I have to be careful not to launch eggs out of it trying to get a silicone spatula beneath one.
     
  16. Chris Noyb

    Chris Noyb Get in, buckle up, hang on, & be quiet.

    Location:
    Large City, TX
    I'll need to check into carbon-steel when we replace the pan. I did find an unusual (to me) seasoning technique during my quick research.

    https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_tos/9588-how-to-season-a-carbon-steel-pan
     
  17. Shadowex3

    Shadowex3 Very Tilted

    It's basically the same as seasoning cast iron, the seasoning doesn't come out quite as burly but you can still easily use metal utensils on it. The main difference between the two is that cast iron has a ridiculously high thermal mass and radiates more heat while carbon steel has a very low thermal mass works by transmitting heat extremely quickly. I can get my wok from cold to well past peanut oil's smokepoint in just a few minutes and as soon as I dump a fistful of cold meat in there the whole thing is cooled down again.

    Takes a little finesse to use, you've got to learn to cook in smaller batches and get a feel for how the temperature will dip or spike, but it gives great results. I can drop an egg in mine, slap a tiny lid over it, walk away for 1:50s and come back to a perfect over easy every single time.
     
  18. Stan

    Stan Resident Dumbass

    Location:
    Colorado
    I've got one of those, my criticism is that it is too stinkin' safe. They went so far toward safety that the thing is virtually unusable. If it won't take off a finger, how is it going to slice things?
     
  19. Shadowex3

    Shadowex3 Very Tilted

    Had a mandolin. Used it once. Such a pain in the ass to clean I never used it again and just learned to cut thinner slices by hand.
     
  20. Stan

    Stan Resident Dumbass

    Location:
    Colorado
    The pampered chef mandolin has a automatic retracting guard that requires the use of their sliding food holder to trigger it. It's really a pain in both use and cleaning. My mom's old one was a stationary blade with no holder. It could take off a finger, easily; but it was very easy to use and clean.

    My knife skills are pretty good; but when I'm are making cole slaw for 20, I'll use the mandolin.
     
    • Like Like x 1