Aki was doing some reading and came across a piece quoting Shirley Corriher, which discussed the use of using salt to reduce bitterness and explaining that small amounts of salt in coffee can be used combat the bitter flavor of over-roasted beans. Curious, that evening Aki proceeded to set the coffee pot up as usual, except she added a pinch of salt to the whole beans in the grinder without mentioning anything to me. The ...

What is better than kimchee? Deep fried kimchee, of course. We made ramp kimchee cracklings years ago and until recently we had left well enough alone. When asked to resurect the crispy bites we happily revisited the technique. Since we did not have any ramp kimchee on hand, we reached for the next best thing, true kimchee. We pureed the kimchee into a paste and then added an equal amount of tapioca flour by weight. ...

It took many years to go from learning to make gnocchi, to looking for a more efficient way to make them, to adapting a few new techniques and then weaving them into traditional methods. We wanted to make light and delicate gnocchi with an intense celery flavor. After traveling down several different paths, we ended up using twice cooked potatoes as the base. We added roughly 12 percent pureed celery leaves with 5 percent whole ...

I discovered the Beater Blade several weeks ago and purchased one immediately. Anyone who has ever worked with a standing mixer knows that their one fatal flaw is the fact that the paddle does not scrape the bowl. This forces the cook to repeatedly stop the mixer and scrape down the bowl, which seriously impacts the efficiency of the process. The usual fix is to hold the bowl slightly up and out it's proper spot ...

Why don't we steam more doughs? Seriously. Not everything needs a crust. Aki was working on a brioche recipe whose size allowed for many modifications. One of the batches humored my question. Can we steam brioche? The answer is yes and the results have changed my world. It is that good. Tender, buttery, soft, with a bit of chew. What about the crust that is usually cut off when the brioche is toasted and served ...

Why don't we steam more doughs? Seriously. Not everything needs a crust. Aki was working on a brioche recipe whose size allowed for many modifications. One of the batches humored my question. Can we steam brioche? The answer is yes and the results have changed my world. It is that good. Tender, buttery, soft, with a bit of chew. What about the crust that is usually cut off when the brioche is toasted and served ...

What is possible is only limited by your imagination. Taking the time to figure things out and putting in the effort make them happen are what often separates good from great. How do you decide what is finished and what is a work in progress?Pictured here is a slice of rib eye cap glazed with an aji dulce sauce, with ranch gnocchi and pickled cubanelle peppers. Tucked behind the steak is a bit more sauce ...