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

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.

 

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

 

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.

 

Could have been great Christmas shopping

 

That mixer would have my wife squirming .

 

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

 

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.

 

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.

 

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

 

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.

 

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?

 

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.

 

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.