Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

@Kenji -- Have you had a Rosenfeld's bagel? Certainly best in Boston, and I'd put it up against any "New York" variety.

For the way a split-top bun is meant to be eaten, get a hot dog at Simco's on Blue Hill Ave in Mattapan. They sear both sides of the bun on a griddle, so it's golden and crisp.

The one time I ate at Ad Hoc it happened to be fried chicken night, and at first I was a little annoyed that I would be paying well over $100 for my wife and I to eat fried chicken with some fancy sides. However, it was definitely the best fried chicken I'd ever had in my life. I ate several pieces, and it didn't give me that heavy, full feeling that normally comes with any large amount of deep fried food. On the way out, I spotted Thomas Keller himself sitting at the bar eating some chicken.

The mix is expensive, but if it tastes anything like it does at the restaurant, then it might be worth it. I suppose the same money could be used to buy the cookbook, but buying the mix at SW would be kind of a fun treat.

this is obviously not about saving time, it's about replicating something by thomas keller.

Cultural heritage days are tricky, since kids aren't the most adventurous eaters. When I had to do that in high school I brought German potato pancakes. I was smart enough to choose the least intimidating dish I could find in the German cookbook. They went over quite well, once people figured out they were "a lot like hash browns" and were good with ketchup.

One guy brought something that he wouldn't admit what it was until some people had eaten it. I don't remember exactly, but it turned out to contain donkey meat or horse meat or something like that. I do remember that I ate some and didn't think it was that good.

Don't understand why cold fried chicken didn't go over well. I LOVE leftover fried chicken! This mix doesn't seem to actually save any time though, or at least not very much. It amounts to a package of seasoned salt and a package of seasoned flour, with instructions, right?

Arbeck, I seriously doubt that bag contains fresh lemons, fresh flat leaf parsley, a head of garlic, etc. That mix contains dried seasoning powder. Compare it in price to a can of old bay or cajun seasoning instead.

It sounds like just as much work as making it from scratch, and that's a bit too much work for me most of the time. I've made fried chicken from scratch about twice in my life, but Popeye's is just down the street. (And now I'm on a diet anyway, so oh well.)

This mix sounds like mainly a fun novelty, like those cookie kit jars people sometimes give people for Xmas if they can't think of something you might have actually wanted.

@KB, i was invited to my friend's church social where we were invited to bring something from our cultural heritage. i'm jewish, so i brought my grandmother's chopped chicken livers. i was not a popular guest that evening. i will NEVER forget the look on the face of the host when i told him what was in the bowl.

@LucyBaker- You had me laughing. We had an international day at elementary school once and were supposed to bring a dish from our heritage. Being Irish, I badly wanted to bring a green frosted cake! My mother insisted on making this grayish potato dish that no one ate. I remember being mortified. Thanks for making me recall that.

Sorry, @gastronomeg.

You gotta love that packaging.

As with most things from Williams Sonoma, it makes a great gift. It doesn't matter how cheap it is to buy from scratch. Being presented with the pieces parts from a grocery store wrapped may work for some people, but to others, it doesn't look quite as presentable even though it's more efficient.

Kenji, if you're still reading the comments on this...

"This is very similar to the gunk that seeps out of the surface of overcooked salmon."

When you did the poached/steamed salmon on ATK, you had white gunk, but made a point to say that it didn't mean the salmon was overcooked. Why the discrepancy? Was that a special case because of the cooking method?

Also, thanks for this and all of your articles on here. They've been great.

My bolognese takes most of one afternoon, but it is worth it. 3 days? Gimme a break.

I've got to agree with Kenji -- although this recipe sounds good, it does sound more like a version of Italian-American gravy than Bolognese sauce. From the introduction to the recipe in Italian Classics, by the editors of Cook's Illustrated (Boston Common Press, 2002): "Unlike meat sauces in which tomatoes dominate... Bolognese sauce is about the meat, with the tomatoes in a supporting role. Bolognese also differs from many tomato-based meat sauces in that it contains dairy -- butter, milk, and/or cream. The dairy gives the meat an especially sweet, appealing flavor."

I make Bolognese sauce often. My everyday version is based on Marcella Hazan's in the revised edition of Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, and my fancy recipe is from The Complete Book of Pasta by Jack Denton Scott (Galahad Books, 1968). Hazan and Clark both use nutmeg as a key flavor (in small amounts), and they do not brown the meat, either. They also use white wine, not red. And there is NO garlic. Clark adds some mushrooms and chopped chicken liver. Either of these recipes takes about 3 or 4 hours from start to finish. When it's done to my liking, the sauce is salmon-colored. If it's red, I've used too much tomato or too little cream.

Interestingly, the recipe in The Sliver Spoon (touted on its cover as "the bible of authentic Italian cooking") uses butter but no milk or cream. In The Food of Italy, Waverly Root describes Bolognese ragu as "an unctuous blend of onions, carrots, finely chopped pork and veal, butter, and tomato." He adds that ragu is often richer than his description of the basic recipe, and I suspect the richness comes from liberal use of milk and/or cream. I usually use both -- adding milk toward the beginning, after I've taken the redness out of the meat but without browning it, and a bit of cream just before serving.

@mr guy - LOL this was my first thought too!
I bet each and every difficult and time consuming step is recognized in each bite! mmmmmmmmm
cant wait to make a batch this weekend!

I don't know if I am reading this recipe wrong but... when cutting the meat to marinade it states to cut the brisket along the grain in 2" pieces,(I'm thinking in strips) it does not say to cube the meat(which the author did) which would be much smaller pieces and much harder to fish out each time. Anyone?