Daniel Gritzer's Profile

Why a Y-Peeler is the Best Vegetable Peeler

@woodNfish @unixrab Totally disagree. The motion of a Y-peeler is totally natural, far more natural than a stick peeler. I'm guessing you're holding it in a wonky way.

The Best Paring Knives

@BGEPizza No, I don't typically peel carrots with a paring knife, but I do sometimes use paring knives to peel other vegetables; because I had carrots lying around, I just used them to the purposes of testing various blades with a variety of cutting methods, nothing more.

Classic, Savory Shepherd's Pie (With Beef and/or Lamb)

@Yogic You can assemble and then refrigerate until ready to cook. See final step for make-ahead instructions. And yes, you can divide ingredients into smaller vessels if you want.

Classic, Savory Shepherd's Pie (With Beef and/or Lamb)

@Globaldoc You can def use Guinness in place of the wine here. In my experience, Guinness adds less flavor than you might expect to food, but there's enough other stuff going on flavor-wise that I don't see it doing any harm here.

Classic, Savory Shepherd's Pie (With Beef and/or Lamb)

@FEAST Yes, that's right. If you read the attached article, I state that lamb is technically the correct meat for shepherd's pie.

A Few Not-So-Classic Ingredients Make a More Savory Shepherd's Pie

@all Yes, you are all correct, cottage pie is beef, but in the US (our primary audience), shepherd's pie is often made with beef. I gave beef as an option here just because that's what some people want (and honestly, if their ground lamb is as funky and fatty as mine was, mixing in some beef is a good idea anyway—and again, I say this as an absolute love of lamb).

Classic, Savory Shepherd's Pie (With Beef and/or Lamb)

@jz78817 Ocean salt water is, on average about 3.5% by weight.

Seafood Ramen With Squid Ink, Mussels, and Salmon Roe

@Siiw A lot of fishmongers sell it, as well as stores like Whole Foods (at least in NYC, they do).

How to Make Breaded Pork Chops

@Adonis For this kind of dish, I find shallow frying easier and quicker... less oil to heat up, less oil to clean up afterwards, etc. But if you like deep frying at home, you definitely can deep fry these. Deep frying gives a more even golden color all around, which is nice in its own way, although I kind of like the more varied browning that shallow frying can give (as long as there's no burning or under-cooked areas).

@SamPark I think that works great with batter-type coatings, but for bread crumbs not so much. Gobs of wet breadcrumbs on will be tough once fried, and would also likely break off during shallow frying, messing up the even coverage.

How to Make Great Refried Beans

@Viceroy Slow cookers have a way of killing good flavor, especially with aromatics like onion. Ideally, you need to fry the aromatics in the fat to fully release and develop their flavor, and a slow-cooker just isn't up to that task. (Or maybe I'm misunderstanding, and you used a slow cooker for the beans, then fried more onion in a pan with the fat for the re-frying step?) Any extra aromatics you can add to the bean-cooking pot will help. Herbs for sure, epazote especially if you can find it, but oregano, thyme, rosemary, bay, or sage will all add nice flavor. Garlic in the bean pot is good too, and a carrot and celery won't hurt if you have them. Vegetable oil is also the most neutral so if the bean flavor isn't great, it won't do any favors. Lard is excellent, and I think your bacon fat idea will definitely help boost the taste. Just make sure you fry some aromatics like onion and garlic in the fat before you add the beans and their water. That will help a lot too.

For the Best Beef Barley Soup, Treat It Like a Stew

@39km39 Like other commenters said, the key is to wash and then dry the parsley very well, and then to use a sharp knife. It shouldn't glob together as long as it's dry and doesn't get overly crushed by the knife.

Chinese Velveting 101: An Introduction to Water-Velveting

There are 3 recipes all linked at the top and bottom of this article with measurements.

A Fully Loaded Guide to the Ultimate Baked Potato

@Jaybles That photo was from a round of potato testing a did a while ago for a different story, in which boiling was also an option.

How Bad Wine Led Me to Great Shrimp Scampi

@Josh An emulsified butter-based sauce like this doesn't need gelatin for viscosity, it all comes from the butter itself. If it were a sauce made with, say, store-bought stock (and only a small amount of butter whisked in), that would be a different story.

Chicken Cacciatore With Red Peppers, Tomato, and Onion

@Tantris Yes, but you may need to jam the pieces in a little; they'll shrink slightly with cooking and be less tightly packed once it's done.

How to Make Chicken Cacciatore, Any Way You Like It

I am firmly in the I-love-soft-braised-chicken-skin camp. If you're not, I'd advise not flouring the chicken in order to crisp the skin more fully in the searing step (flour speeds browning but reduces crisping since cooking it long enough to truly crisp the skin risks burning the flour), then make sure the skin is mostly exposed in the oven so that it retains some crispness during cooking.

Southern-Style Unsweetened Cornbread

@GoldeeCakes I'm very curious what type of cornmeal and what type of salt you used.

Steak Sandwiches With Roasted Tomatoes, Parmesan, and Radicchio

@Bakerman62 and Matt Good catch! I just fixed the recipe.

The Best Honing Steel (Not Sharpening Steel!) for Your Knife

@Magycmyste Almost definitely you'd need to sharpen those old knives before a honing rod will be able to do anything for them. Here's the good news: you can buy a whetstone and practice sharpening on your old cheap knives. You don't have much to lose if you mess up at first, and if you succeed, even those cheap old knives will be lightyears better than most of the knives kicking around most kitchens in the world. Then you'll develop knife sharpening skills, which will pay off for real when you invest in better knives.

The Best Honing Steel (Not Sharpening Steel!) for Your Knife

@kcAA IF that's her only option, it's better than nothing I think.

The Best Honing Steel (Not Sharpening Steel!) for Your Knife

@Stoffels Interesting to hear actual reports of a hard steel knife chipping on a honing steel. I've never experienced it, but good to know it's a real phenomenon.

@Kamelion Of the 10 or so steels I tested, only a a couple actually listed their coarseness rating in the packaging, which makes it a difficult piece of info to come by. So in most cases, I didn't even know the actual rating (online sources didn't elucidate either). In the case of the metal steels I used, I could see the differences by eye, with some more coarsely ridged than others, but even then I wasn't able to detect any clear difference. It may well make some small difference, but if so, I couldn't tell.

As for the stroke direction question, it's funny you asked. I originally had a section on how to steel in this article, but because I use the (somewhat) unconventional backhand method that you're asking about (in which you pull the back of the blade forward with the cutting edge following), we decided to cut it until we can explore the question more fully. My intuition tells me that pulling the cutting edge backwards along the steel would be more effective at straightening out a curled lip than pushing it into the steel, but I have no way of knowing for sure. I know it works for me, but whether it's as good or better than the more common stroke direction I can't say for sure. But overall, yeah, logic tells me that what you're proposing is right. Now we need a way to use some science to find out if that's true or not.

Pure and Simple Slow-Cooked Boston Baked Beans

@Ettore Because there's no good way to sauté in a baking dish. The biggest thing sautéing does is speed things up in the oven a little, but even without, it still takes more or less 4 hours in the oven when using a baking dish (please, though, understand that the times are just estimates...dishes like these can be quite variable in terms of cooking time depending on a number of factors...don' be surprised if yours needs to cook longer). You can use different beans. Cannellini would be good, as would Great Northerns. If you can find them, yellow-eyed peas were perhaps the original bean used in this dish.

Oven Barbecue Pork Ribs

@jgepo and others — I'm confused about the salty comments given how many times I tested this recipe. I can go back and re-test just to make sure I didn't introduce an error somewhere, but before I do, I want to clarify whether you're using kosher salt or not (also also what kind, if you are). Substituting other kinds of salt while measuring by volume won't work, so if you're using table salt, for instance, you will get severely over-salted ribs using the very same volume measurements as in the recipe (measuring by weight removes this variance).

Stew Science: How to Choose the Best Cuts for Beef Stew

@Newcalgal Hey there! Yes, this should apply to just about any beef stew, including goulash.

Risotto alla Milanese

@metalauren Hm, confusing. Not sure why your rice would clump. I find that with stirring and enough liquid to loosen the rice, clumps can always be broken up (if they even form in the first place).