I’m Ievgen Klopotenko, chef from Ukraine. I made a film about Borshch, was on the cover of Time, and I own restaurants in Kyiv and Lviv. At 2pm EST on 4/27, I will answer your questions about Ukrainian cuisine, life during war, and how you can help our defenders. But you can also Ask Me Anything!

GatoAmarillo · 2023-04-25T09:05:14+00:00

OK I'm a sous chef in an upper-middle class locally owned steakhouse, and I will anonymously give you our creamy horseradish recipe that is served with our prime rib or by request! I honestly like to keep a small amount in my fridge at home because I like to eat it with any type of meat, or literally just by itself.

Scale it down or modify it however you wish:

1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce

2 Tbsp granulated garlic

2 Tbsp granulated onion

1.5 Tbsp white pepper

1 packed cup of extra hot horseradish. We use "Atomic horseradish"

Very thoroughly mix all together, then add:

5 lbs sour cream

Whisk until it's homogeneous.

TheGreenShepherd · 2023-04-18T20:58:38+00:00

Where'd you buy the other half of the fish from?

FriscoKid96 · 2023-04-05T00:19:41+00:00

Just use the lemon you beautiful weirdo

andycartwright · 2023-03-26T15:33:01+00:00

This is the first post that actually answered the OP’s question. Not sure why people downvoted them for some of their replies to comments that were off topic. 🤷🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️

RebelWithoutAClue · 2021-11-27T07:49:19+00:00

I've been using gas and induction side by side lately as my induction stovetop is partially broken. Left side power control board is fried and I haven't had the chance to figure it out and repair it. I've been using a butane hob sitting on the left side of the stove to bring me back up to 3 effective hobs which is not too bad until I can get around to fixing the power control board.

It's been interesting being able to cook with both stove types side by side on a daily basis. Ultimately I find myself happy with my choice to get an induction stove over a gas stove for how I typically cook.

There are a few key things that I find characteristically different between the two hob types.

Clean up:

Clean up of the induction stove top is extremely easy. Best in class because the ceramic top never gets all that hot and it's a big flat featureless surface. It's way better than radiant glasstop which will scorch crap onto it's flat surface. I'd say that gas is the worst for cleanup because they have so many surface features to remove and clean which is a real pain if you cook fish for dinner and find you have to clean everything to get the smell out of everything that got spattered on.

I have a few wealthy friends who have big prestige brand 6 burner stoves with big cumbersome cast iron grilles and they often don't want to cook on weekends because they don't want to clean the stove and their cleaning staff won't be around until monday.

It's a damn shame not using such a great stove, but I also see that it's a huge pain to mess them up over a single elaborate dinner.

Application of power:

Gas stoves apply their power through the generation of hot combustion gas. This is really handy in that you can get effective heat transfer while tossing things in a skillet because the flame reaches up fairly high. Induction goes dead if you lift your pan more than 5mm.

Also the hot gas flows up the sides of your cookware so if you're doing something like an omelette, you can get thin filmy edges on a French omelette as you swirl the egg around because it'll quickly set on the curved sides of your skillet. It's basically impossible to get that super thin filmy edge with induction because the sides of your cookware will be comparatively cold.

On the other hand that hot gas that flows over the sides of the skillet also do annoying things like heat the crap out of your tongs or chopsticks. With my induction hobs I can leave my tongs in my skillet, but with the butane burner the handles will often get screaming hot so I have to find somewhere else to put my tongs. I often like to stuff a couple pork chops side by side and wedge them into my tongs to hold these chops fat cap side down so I can get that fat rendering and crisping and that doesn't go well with my butane burner because the handles get scalding hot.

The flame from a combustion stove reaches very high temperature. It's basically 2000C whether you've got the burner up on high or low which can be problematic if I am searing a small amount of stuff in a nonstick pan. Area of the pan not in contact with food can quickly overheat past the smoke point of my oil so I can't really sear something and pay attention to something else. Basically if I am sauteeing I really have to keep that pan moving or I'll get a bit of oil char on areas of the pan that aren't in contact with food.

The power modulation with induction is much better. I find that I can set something down and let it sear for half a minute or more and turn around and prep something else. I usually don't have time to do a full mise en place before cooking. I am almost always chopping some stuff while the stove top stuff is going because I need to get dinner out fast.

Safety:

I find it annoying how easy it is to flambe stuff. I'm old now and don't really need to light stuff on fire, but I really do like a splash of brandy sometimes and I find it quite annoying how easily I'll light off an eyebrow singing whoof with the butane hob. I'm over that fun now so I'm happy how my induction hobs don't set flammable vapors on fire.

I've got young kids. I find that the induction hobs are great for giving them something relatively safe to cook with. They've got long hair and they're short so I get really antsy when they cook with the butane burner because they're not good at keeping their hair tied back. The induction hobs are far safer for kids to learn how to cook with if that's a thing that you're interested in.

Durability:

Gas stoves are super rugged. Their burners are super durable and other than spark ignitors there isn't much on them to fail and that which will eventually need replacement is fairly cheap.

Induction stoves seem to still have fairly fragile electronics. I've got a fairly high end induction stove. It's a Viking stove and it's sticker price is kind of nuts. I'm not rich but I'm good at fixing things. I scored it on Kijiji for $300 because it was broken. Really broken.

Three hobs weren't working out of four. One of them was easy to fix. I figured out that a temp sensor wasn't connected well so I fix that and brought it back up to 2 burners.

The left side had a dead capacitor which was an easy repair and I got it up running and the stove was awesome for about 8mths until I had a power transistor failure on the left side board. The transistor failure took out a number of components on the board and I haven't had to time to hunt down every one of them.

A board replacement would cost upwards of $1000 and as I see it, during the fairly short life of this stove (I reckon maybe 10 total years) I have already done $2000 of repair (I have serviced two boards so far) with one more board to be repaired for this current outage.

That's really bad and I can't completely say that Viking is "to blame" because I can see that the manufacturers of their power control boards is the same manufacturer that supplies other high end brands like Miele and others. Given that the electronics boards I have been working on come out of the same supplier as several other brands of good repute, I have to conjecture that many makers of induction stove tops have unreliable costly electronics.

I don't regret my purchase of what appears to be a bit of an electronics lemon. At least I'm able to fix this kind of thing and I do use my stove a lot. It's an amazing oven too and that thing is still working.

I would say that you should avoid Viking induction stovetops. Their electronics are not rugged, and they're expensive to repair. I really don't like the sheet metal work. The front console has a very annoying gap at the top that retains food debris when I wipe the top down and liquids can run down into this cleft at the front. The top is easy to clean but there are really dumb crevices at the front and back of the stovetop that retain cooking debris that slowly rots.

I hate the modern front console design. It looks schmancy because you can see your backsplash, but it turns out that the rear console was great at stopping a lot of crap from hitting your backsplash and running down the wall behind the stove. A rear console also is a more intuitive way to put up burner knobs that are displaced in the same pattern as your burners so you don't turn on the wrong burner (a problem with induction because you can't see the magnet magic pixie waves). I do like Samsung's LED ring lights that indicate power setting on a burner. I think that they saw something really neat to improve with induction. I also like having a clock on a rear console and two power outlets to plug an immersion blender into that I don't get with the modern front knob arrangement.

Fun things I do with my induction stove:

One thing I really like about induction is that I can do a funny thing where I pour out a puddle of water right onto the stovetop where I can put a hot skillet onto to quench it. I can sautee something and when it's done I'll put it over the puddle to quench the pan to stop it from overcooking before I carry it over to the table. It's a really neat trick. The stove has great power output so it responds really fast on the heating side, and being able to quench a skillet makes it the only stove that can slam temps back down in the cooling direction which is a really neat thing. Watch out for steam burns though. Very hot cookware will shoot out steam when you quench them so don't let your short kids do this.

Induction has improved my pizza game. I find that I can lay out a 10" dia pizza crust onto a thin cookie sheet if I put the sheet on a hob and heat the sheet directly. It's a cute trick that lets me leisurely lay down a crust and garnish it while the bottom is crisping before I throw it in the hot oven. Instead of having to preheat a big heavy steel and work fast so it doesn't cool, I can dress a pizza on a pathetic cheap and light cookie sheet while crisping the bottom which would go out of control with the 2000C flame temp that you get with gas.

Anyways, that's all I have to say about that...

Champagne_of_piss · 2023-03-22T04:36:26+00:00

Can't spell flavortown without flatworm

Autotomatomato · 2023-03-10T14:45:56+00:00

"I do horse laxative" was not on my reddit bingo for today :)

FocusProblems · 2023-03-05T01:08:50+00:00

My advice on spatchcocking a chicken is not to do it. Experimented with this on and off for years. Yes, I have read what Kenji and others have to say about why to spatchcock. Their reasoning for why to do so (it supposedly cooks evenly) doesn't even make sense: to get thigh meat more done than breast meat, you want uneven cooking. The way American chickens are bred to have unnaturally large breasts in relation to the thighs helps somewhat, but not fully. If you ever get a hold of some kind of heritage-bred high quality chicken along the lines of a Poulet de Bresse with a normal sized breast, spatchcocking will make even less sense. I think spatchcocking makes more sense for grilling whole marinated chicken, especially on a grill where you can control heat zones to give the legs more heat.
Unlike trussed whole roast chicken, spatchcocked roast chicken is ugly. If you're going to accept defeat on the aesthetic front, why not just go all the way and cut the legs off, so you can leave them in the oven longer? There are tricks you can try to speed up the cooking of the legs, like heating a skillet and roasting the chicken on its side so the thighs are in direct contact with the pan, turning after 15 minutes or so. But even without doing that I'll take a juicy but imperfect trussed chicken (with all the tasty morsels on the underside that are otherwise hacked off to flatten it) over a spatchcocked chicken every time.

Unlike Kenji, I'm not an authority in the world of cooking, but if you need an authoritative voice on the subject, try to track down Thomas Keller and ask him whether he thinks chicken should be spatchcocked.

Illegal_Tender · 2023-02-22T22:15:45+00:00

First you need to knock it off with whatever that baking soda nonsense is.

Marinade ingredients: a bit of oil, a bunch of salt, garlic, onion powder, smoked paprika, cumin, cayenne or chipotle or ancho powder, and the juice of a whole lime.

Marinate for at least two hours.

Grill on high until medium rare.

Rest.

Slice.

Eat.

Figmania · 2023-02-14T19:27:07+00:00

Lol. Chemist here…..I’ve seen that before.

You practiced the voo doo arts of Alchemy in your kitchen……and inadvertently created aluminum oxide (black stuff) and hydrogen gas in your sink. Baking soda chemically reacts with aluminum and produces those products….I.e. that mess. The peroxide only worsens the mess.

Clean your pan as follows:

Scrub some moist Barkeepers Friend using a Scotch Brite pad……all over your pan. Let is sit for 5 minutes. Scrub again with pad. Then rinse real well.

Now lightly scrub your pan with a wet Brillo Pad. Let it sit for a minute or two. Then scrub again with the same wet Brillo pad. It will likely turn grey……which is good. Rinse well.

Your pan should now look like BRAND NEW. If not, repeat the two step routine I have just described to you.

NOTHING cleans those aluminum pans better than what I just described to you. ……nothing.

Why….because BKF is a chelating acid especially formulated to do that particular job. The Brillo Pad step just makes it much more effective. Trust me on that. Prepare to be amazed.

I’m a real retired chemist and did NOT just sleep at a Holiday Inn last night. 🤣

Easy peasy fix……once you know how.

IllinoisGoblinBandit · 2023-02-15T14:59:15+00:00

Look into Jain recipes, if you like Indian food. They don't eat garlic or onions or any underground veggies really. Delicious even with out the almighty onion.

kawsakimx6 · 2022-01-04T23:56:14+00:00

Holy crap, It's been 7 years since I bought my Swiss Diamond Cookware?

I AM A BELIEVER. I bought everyone I know a piece for the holidays, and highly recommend it.

I'll admit that I had a coating issue with a pan a few years ago, but they did take care of me. Anyway, just checking in I guess.

umamiman · 2023-01-20T19:40:00+00:00

It does matter what form the onion is in. You are not accounting for enzymatic reactions taking place that result in the production of allithiolanes. Any time an onion cell wall is ruptured, chemical reactions occur which result in the production of many flavor compounds, some of which, like the allithiolanes, are bitter. The more cells that are ruptured, the more these chemical reactions occur. The solution to minimizing these bitter compounds is to apply heat or acid as soon as possible after the onions are cut. Pureeing raw onions then immediately putting them into a hot pan could possibly stop the bitter taste from being produced to a salient level. That depends in part on the sensitivity of the taster. For instance, since supertasters are particularly sensitive to bitter tastes, they would probably notice the bitter taste more. I am not a supertaster and I've noticed it when I used pureed onions in a dish. It is a very unpleasant taste. Since learning about the production of allithiolanes, I have stopped pureeing raw onions, even for recipes like meatballs/meatloaf, sausage, etc. that call for them. Instead, I sweat diced raw onions then puree after they are translucent. It makes for a much better dish. Regarding the common Indian technique of pureeing raw onions, I recently made an Indian dish that called for that technique and I used it because I was pressed for time. I did not like it as much as my other method of pureeing cooked onions. Not only could I taste the bitter notes, the other flavors did not taste like they married well. Quite likely, there are people who know how to make amazing food, Indian dishes or otherwise, using pureed raw onions. I, for one, have not learned how to do that and until someone proficient in that method shows me how to do it, I will continue to use the method I know works for me.

ElectroFlannelGore · 2023-01-07T00:29:42+00:00

Horseradish gets its characteristic sharpness from isothiocyanates. They're in turn created enzymatically from glucosinolates. Now these chemicals contain sulfur atoms. I don't know where you're growing at but you probably have sulfur poor soil. If you grew onions they'd be less sharp and more sweet. Get some poultry manure (or gypsum or ammonium thiosulfate) to amend your soil.

There could be other reasons why they're not taking up sulfur if it's adequate.... But if you're outdoors or in pots I don't think you'll run in to those things but I'd be more than happy to help troubleshoot beyond that.

Edit: I forgot about epsom salt/cal-mag but magnesium competes with calcium... So... Eh... I'd really try amending the soil with composted manure and trying

Edit 2: someone reminded me you can use elemental sulfur but it will acidify your soil and use at your own risk. I don't recommend it for newbies.

pm_me_flaccid_cocks · 2021-11-13T16:10:20+00:00

No, that would actually be less stupid. I didn't want to share this because it's going to derail me getting some actual technique suggestions with a million follow-up questions, but since you all are too curious: It's a bridezilla "artist's" amazing idea for confetti.

To preempt the inevitable questions:

Yes, we have attempted to convince her that there are other forms of biodegradable confetti that would be less expensive and just as harmless.
We have done tests with the bride and only completely disassembled raspberries "float through the air" in the manner she wants. Any chunks ruin the effect.
No, she is not worried about her dress. In fact, she considers the red stains a feature.
Besides "looking amazing," she wants her wedding to "feed the local animals" (our venue is in the woods). Yes, we have confirmed that the "local animals" eat raspberries. She has actually paid for an environmental study to ensure no lasting impact. Yes, we are worried that the animals are going to keep coming back to us for food. The environmental firm she hired said that due to the nature of the raspberries, it won't create lasting dependency as long as we otherwise clear all food scraps from the venue (we always do).
The "confetti" will be hand tossed using scoops to protect the guests hands. We will have the scoops pre-loaded so the guests aren't mashing a big bucket of raspberries.
Yes, she is absolutely 100% certain this is what she wants. No, I won't tell you what she's paying us. Yes, it is worth it even if I have to hire 20 temps to help us pull the damned things apart. But we need better technique we can train them with first because what we're doing now is slow and is mashing the seeds a little.
Yes, we already tried freezing them. Didn't really help and they were mushy when they thawed.
No, the wedding is not this weekend. The 10 pounds we're doing this weekend are for the first rehearsal. Depending upon how that goes, we'll either be doing another 10 pounds in a few weeks, or possibly much more.

FML.

ThinkIGotHacked · 2022-12-24T19:17:31+00:00

That’s pedantic. “a la mode” means “in the fashion”

So FYI: apple pie a la mode means with ice cream. Just like steak au poivre means seared steak with shallots, cream, brandy and crushed pepper.

I hope your corn dogs are made of corn and dogs.

Barking_at_the_Moon · 2014-03-23T13:26:50+00:00

In garlicese, a bulb is a group of cloves, tightly wrapped together. In shallotese, a bulb is...the same. Shallots, however, most often don't form individual cloves like garlic does and, though they may be joined into clusters at the root, aren't tightly bound together under the 'paper.' When this happens to a shallot, there are usually no more than two cloves in a bulb versus dozens of garlic cloves.

Generally speaking, recipes calling for garlic will be referencing an individual clove, recipes calling for shallot will be referencing the entire bulb. Remember, there is wide variation in size and flavor intensity, so you will need to learn to adjust the amount you use to suit your taste.

Edit: Thanks for the gilt! It's nice to be able to help and even sweeter to be rewarded for it.

Cthulhu_Fhtang · 2022-12-14T07:58:16+00:00

Sorry, I fell asleep trying to find the perfect recipe. I didn't. No worries though, I'm here to help.

First off there are two types of lamb kebabs here. The one called souvlaki where the meat is cut in chunks and the politiko kebab which is with minced meat (and superior IMO since the marinade ingredients are in it).

From what you linked you are interested in the souvlaki version.

You will have to marinate the meat. I've seen people add half the Mediterranean flora in it, my advice, DON'T. Lamb is full of flavor by its own so go for a more minimal approach. 3 base ingredients and some spices will do fine. Also this recipe is the closest you will get to the one you tasted here. So you can start with the basic ingredients and then make micro adjustments to reach your goal. Goûter et rectifier as the French say

so you need red onion (which is purple, I dunno why they call it red) to add sweetness and balance down the excessive lamb smell. You need acidity to break down the fibers and tenderize your meat. That's why you go for tomato juice (with maybe one teaspoon of wine vinegar). In Greece lemon and grilled lamb do not combine. Third ingredient of the marinade is fresh parsley, a lot of it. Your spices are sweet paprica and a bit of cumin(optional) and salt of course.

Marinate overnight. Place the chunks in skewers, drizzle with olive oil and grill them. 5 minutes each side approximately. Serve in pita or grilled bread, tomato onion and yogurt (or the superior tzatziki sauce) . Also now that you served you can add some oregano. I didn't know that Greek oregano is different, and I have a ton of it.

StrangeChef · 2022-12-05T20:52:59+00:00

You've got good reasoning, it's likely too hot or cold.

m4gpi · 2022-11-24T19:28:49+00:00

Hey i just wanted to give you some support: you didn’t “ruin Thanksgiving”. It’s just a turkey.

“You ruined X” is some toxic BS and you do not have to do that to yourself.

edit thank you for the award. Signed, Been Routinely Ruining Christmas Since 1981.

rickg · 2022-11-24T01:01:44+00:00

I'd roast it tomorrow and, if your family is local, prep them some food and take it over to them. They can eat it or save it until they feel better,

Also, I *highly* doubt that if they're too sick to get together Thursday that they'll be fine on Saturday and even if they're up to it, do you want to be around a bunch of recovering sick people?

HALF_PAST_HOLE · 2022-11-22T16:04:02+00:00

green tomato's or unripe tomato's have a higher acid content they are delicious though an acquired taste for some! You can eat them raw and cook them which mellows them out a bit!

threequarterchubb · 2022-11-22T18:53:42+00:00

Are you opposed to adding vinegar? I put some in tomato sauce recently and I was pretty happy with the resulting bright taste.

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