Heavy Metal: Darto Carbon Steel Pans

After Cook's Illustrated wrote a positive article on carbon steel pans, I wanted to give them a try. Old school like cast iron, induction compatible, virtually nonstick -- what's not to like? These Darto pans from Argentina are beefy, and after seasoning, nearly as slick as nonstick.

The Cook's article caused a run on the highest-rated Matfer Bourgeat skillet, and opportunistic vendors jacked up the price exorbitantly. Some reviews complained about quality control in the fabrication. I started looking for other brands.

We've got a well-stocked kitchen with plenty of skillets, but wanted to try carbon steel. Most of ours are aluminum: Calphalon I bought when I first started kitting out my kitchen, and big nonstick ones from restaurant supply stores. But we'll be moving to Barcelona some time in the future, and our kitchen will have an induction cooktop which won't work with aluminum; we'll need something ferrous, something with steel. Cast iron's super heavy, and our favorite All Clad pans -- a sandwich of steel and aluminum -- will work, but they're really pricey. Carbon steel should do the trick.

The Cook's article claimed carbon steel heated evenly, had enough mass to be able to sear beautifully, weighed substantially less than cast iron, and -- once seasoned -- would be as nonstick as grandma's old Lodge or Griswald cast iron. Like cast iron, the steel isn't intimidated by metal spatulae and other tools -- we wouldn't have to pamper the pans like Teflon and its clones. Cook's has a video review which is informative (especially since the original article is hidden behind a paywall).

We went out to a local restaurant supply store, and after prodding, they found a carbon steel skillet. It was dirt cheap, maybe $10 or so. But it was also super cheap feeling, thin and light, and felt like it would warp with serious heat. We gave it a try and were surprised that it performed quite well, and was fairly slick without any seasoning at all.  This certainly wasn't a pan I'd want to depend upon, but it made me more committed to looking for a good carbon steel manufacturer.

While watching one of the food-nerd videos on Chef Steps, I saw they were using an induction cooktop and they mentioned the pan was from Darto. I notice the handle wasn't attached with rivets, but was one continuous piece of steel -- I loved the aesthetics, but more importantly, it meant it would be a lot easier to keep clean. The community forum in Chef Steps seemed quite positive as well. So was the forum in another food-nerd site, Serious Eats.

Good, I'd found my manufacturer. All Darto pans are made of 3mm thick carbon steel: really substantial. Prices on the US portion of their website were quite reasonable. Problem is, Darto is in Argentina: these pans are heavy, and shipping is big addition to the price.  

Some of the comments in fora indicated that Darto had been able to reduce shipping costs, but they were still high. I ran some numbers for a couple larger skillets to get some advantage on shipping. When I checked back a few weeks later, I noticed they had a set of 5 pans for a combined price of $199. This was less than 2 or 3 pans with the required shipping.  "Such a deal!" as my parents say.

Coincidentally, it was nearly my birthday and my folks were looking for something to get me. What do you get for the cooking-obsessed couple that has everything? A nice set of Darto pans with free shipping would be fantastic. Thanks so much, M&P!!!  (I noticed while writing this that they've dropped the price of the set to $169; even better for you, gentle reader.)

After the PayPal payment went through, the pans arrived in just a couple of days, via DHL. Great service. 

Each pan came wrapped in a burlap bag, very attractive

Three larger skillets and two smaller ones; the 2-handled "paella" is really cute and seems perfect for making the provoleta we'd enjoyed in Buenos Aires

They came with no care and feeding instructions. I knew they might be coated with manufacturing oil or some other lubricant to keep them from rusting during storage and transit, so I washed them thoroughly.  But more importantly, I knew they'd have to be "seasoned" like cast iron, but there were so many conflicting guides on how to do this on the interwebs.  I finally stumbled upon a Spanish-language video from Darto that I followed; it was a bit unusual compared to anything else I'd seen. Heat the pan just until hot, turn off heat. Add a tiny amount of oil to a paper or cloth towel and apply the thinnest possible coat to the warm pan, wiping out any residual oil. Then heat until smoking and hold on highest heat for a full 10 minutes. Let cool. Repeat this process 10 more times. Seemed like overkill, but I wasn't going to argue with the manufacturer.

Seasoning 5 Darto skillets, an older cast iron pan is on the back left for comparison

The process did take a while but I spread it out over a couple days. I just left the pans on the cooktop so I could do them next time it was convenient. It's good we have a vent hood that really does suck: this process makes a lot of smoke. The burners and pans generate a lot of heat, and keep generating heat since their thermal mass holds on to the heat and radiates it out slowly.  Don't even think about touching them, even the handles, while this is going on.  During this process the carbon steel took on an attractive blue-black, almost iridescent color in the base.

Irene was the first to use them and messaged me at work that they were in fact quite nonstick -- great news (I was so jealous). This morning, I gave the biggest skillet a try, making a French omelette. My technique is not as good as Julia Child's or Jacques Pepin's, but I was delighted the omelette didn't stick, even though it included cheese: success!

Check out this other video from Darto where they're cooking fish and getting gorgeous sear, looks yummy.

I think we're really going to enjoy these Darto pans, here on our gas cooktop, and in Barcelona on induction. They're a good investment.

Ginger Beer #1

I really like a spicy ginger beer, not the alcoholic one, the soda. Most are insipid or sickly sweet or both; some fake the spice with chili! The best I've come across is DG from Jamaica but Goslings (of the Rum fame) makes one now that's good. We made one years ago but it was difficult and messy. Bartender Jeffrey Morganthaler has a good write up on how he does it, including an instant one using an iSi soda siphon, which we just happen to have. It turned out well but we'll tweak it for the next batch. Here's our first take on his recipe, using the iSi.

1 ounce Ginger juice (see below)
2 ounces Lemon Juice, finely strained
3 ounces Mint Simple Syrup
10 ounces Ice Water

I took a "hand" of fresh ginger, scraped most of the skin off with the edge of a spoon, cut it up, and juiced it with a juice extractor we got from FreeCycle -- much easier than using a MicroPlane!  Juice a lemon and strain with a fine strainer to remove pulp. At this point, the liquid changed from a slightly green-brown from the ginger to a light salmony pink from the acid. Irene pointed out it was the color of sushi ginger -- exactly.

We had made mint simple syrup for cocktails so added that rather than plain simple syrup. For force carbonation, the liquid needs to be cold so we used ice water.

Add all the ingredients to the iSi, straining once more since lemon juice can foam up and bits of skin can clog the siphon's dispenser. For our 1.0L siphon (0.5L liquid volume) we used one CO2 charger, shook well, and let chill in the fridge for a half hour.

To serve, invert and dispense into iced glasses, and enjoy. After our initial taste test, we added some rum -- white for Irene, white with a touch of molasses-y black for me -- and had a variation on a Dark and Stormy.

What Worked, What Didn't

This wasn't as fiery-gingery as we'd like. Next time, bump up the ginger to 1.5 ounces. 

We might try freezing the ginger hand before extracting: some vegetables and fruits break down when their cells freeze and exude their juices when they thaw -- this might make the extraction more efficient.

For 2-4 drinks, this was a fair amount of work. Just setting up and cleaning the juice extractor was a lot of overhead. Next time, we'd use Morganthaler's preferred method of force carbonating a large batch with a CO2 cylinder and a clever Liquid Bread soda bottle adapter -- which we also happen to have. 

Monkfish sous vide with mint and basil

Our garden's overflowing with mint and a friend gave us a bunch of farmers' market basil, so we went with a Thai flavor to cook some monkfish. Since this fish takes a long time to cook, we used sous vide to keep it tender, poaching it in flavored oil in the water bath.

We stemmed the basil and mint, washed and dried, sliced fine, then poached it in some (fairly neutral) coconut oil to push the Thai flavor. We chilled that, with the herbs and the portioned monkfish so it would be solid when we vacuum bagged it: this worked well since the coconut oil sets just below room temperature.

A blog post tried a number of different temperatures and found 48C/118F to be the best so we heated the water bath and dropped the bagged fish and oil into it. Once the oil melted, we timed the cooking for 30 minutes. We use a Igloo Playmate cooler to minimize heat loss.

Meanwhile, Irene made a salad out of Malabar Spinach we'd gotten at the farmers' market. It's a more toothsome green so she dressed it early to allow the leaves to soften a bit. The dressing included lime juice, fish sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, salt, hot chili and sesame oil.

Once the fish was cooked, I strained the oil and seared the fish in cast iron with a bit of the oil.

We'd also gotten the season's first corn on the cob. We've made the grilled corn in the Pok Pok cookbook so we did a riff on that -- first cooking it in its husk in the microwave (our standard approach), then heating a bit more of the oil in a pan with some salt and chile flakes, giving it a little browning, then a lashing of fresh lemon juice.

What Worked, What Didn't

The sous vide was great for the monkfish. Cooking conventionally can dry out and toughen the outer area of the fish during the long cooking it needs, or leave the interior undercooked. This cooked it all the way through without overcooking. The time and temperature seemed fine.   The searing didn't add much texture, and that may be because my oil had a bit of the liquid from the herbs or fish so didn't produce a hard sear.

The oil did provide an attractive perfume to the fish, but not nearly so pronounced as we'd expected.  Afterwards, we chilled the oil so we could separate any herb/fish liquid from it, and plan to use the oil to poach squid -- mint and squid is a surprisingly good combination. The oil was fairly neutral with almost no coconut flavor; this is a good thing in most preps, but here we could have used more Thai stylings.

The corn finished in fat with spices and citrus is something we've taken to recently, and it worked here as well. An assertive coconut-flavored oil would take it in a more Thai-flavored direction.

We've never had this spinach before, but it turned out well. The plants are also said to like hot weather so would grow well in our garden when the rest of our salad greens have bolted or withered.

Next Time...

I'd like a good sear so maybe we could use a little fresh oil to avoid any chance of water-based liquid and also since the heat might be driving off the herbal aromatics. Or finish under the broiler or with our Searzall.

I'd also pre-cut the monkfish into medallions before bagging them in the oil. This should allow better flavor penetration and more surface area to sear.

Tichi's Gazpacho

Jose Andres' book "Tapas: a Taste of Spain in America"
is fun, imaginative, and tasty -- authentic while
using ingredients available in America.  This gazpacho is excellent
and easy.  We halved the quantities to fit in our conventional home
blender, and reduced the oil because the original seemed a bit heavy.
Fresh garden or farmers market tomatoes are essential.

Serves 4, about 3 Cups



1 pound Tomatoes, cored, cut coarse (red, yellow, heirloom, cherry)
4 ounces Cucumber, peeled, cut coarse
1 1/2 ounces Green Bell Pepper, seeded, cut coarse (red, or spicy work too)
1/2 clove Garlic, peeled, cut coarse
1 Tbs Sherry Vinegar
1/4 cup Water (or 4 Ice Cubes to help it chill faster)
1/4 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 tsp Kosher Salt

Turn on the blender and add ingredients individually so they liquify
instead of sitting in a mass above the blade.
Add Tomatoes chunks, one at a time.
Add Cucumber chunks.
Add Pepper chunks.
Add Garlic, Vinegar, and Water (or Ice Cubes).
Add Olive Oil and Salt, blend thoroughly
Taste and adjust Vinegar and Salt for balance.
Run though strainer (not Chinois), chill for an hour.
Jose Andres then garnishes with more oil, "fillets" of tomato seeds,
cherry tomato halves, cucumber cubes, croutons, chives, and sea salt;
we rarely do.

Pastrami #5: for 12 at the beach

Some samples of Pastrami #4 were pretty good but slightly under-seasoned, so we increased the brine to 5% salt for this one, decreased the sugar again and increased the liquid smoke.  This one came out beautifully, fine aroma and flavor, good texture -- I think we've nailed it finally.

We removed most of the fat cap because it doesn't melt away and is a bit too gummy for service; we removed it before brining to allow better brine penetration. No salt or sugar in the rub since we believe this desiccates the surface and turns it ropy.

Brisket

3.9 Kg / 8.6 pound Brisket

Trim excess fat from the Brisket: we lost 350 g (12 ounce).
We cut ours in half so they would fit in our brining bucket and in the vacuum bags we'd later use for sous vide.

Brine

Make a 5% brine: for 4.5L water, we need 225g. We'll heat half the water then dilute with ice to cool.

The Pink Salt is a mixture of Sodium Nitrite and regular Sodium Chloride and preserves the attractive pink color you see in cured meats like bacon; it's not strictly necessary but helps the appearance. Given how many spices you'll be using, it's worth seeking out an ethnic grocer that sells spices in bulk: coriander seeds from the Pakistani store across the street were 1/10th the cost of our chain grocery store's.

2.25 L Water

225 g Salt, kosher

200 g Brown Sugar

30 g Pink Salt (Prague Powder #1, InstaCure)

50 g Black Peppercorns

50 g Coriander Seed

10 g Yellow Mustard Seed

10 g White Peppercorns

5 g Fennel Seed

2 g Cinnamon

0.5 g Chili Flakes (very spicy Korean)

0.5 g Clove

1.25 g Bay Leaf, fresh

10 g Garlic Powder

5 g Juniper Berries

40 ml Liquid Smoke

Add the Salts, Sugar, Liquid Smoke and Powdered Garlic to the pot with water, heat until dissolved.

Grind the spices and add to water, cover, turn off heat, and let steep 30 minutes.

Pour into an 8 L Cambro bucket and add ice to bring it to 4.5 L.

Add Brisket pieces.

Refrigerate for 4 days, rotating once a day to ensure all surfaces are submerged.

Rub

80 g Black Peppercorns

80 g Coriander Seeds

20 g Garlic Powder

15 g Juniper Berries

1 g Chili Flake (very spicy Korean chilis)

Grind all spices in coffee/spice grinder fairly fine so it coats easily: sawdust texture is about right.

Pat dry the brisket and rub all around.

Seal each in vacuum bag.

For sanity, mark brine percent (5%) and date with Sharpie marker.

Refrigerate overnight to let the dry rub penetrate.

If you're not going to cook it now, you can freeze it hard in the bags; you can cook directly from frozen. We took our brined, rubbed and frozen bags o' beef to the beach in a cooler and they stayed frozen during the long trip.

Cooking

Cook the sous vide bags in a water bath at 57C/135F for 72 hours (yup, 3 days): the low temperature keeps it from getting gray or developing a crumbly texture like some corned beef; the long time is necessary to develop tenderness at this low temperature, a trade-off of time vs. temperature. We use a Sans Aire immersion circulator in a beer cooler with a lid made of Styrofoam to reduce evaporation. Check the water level once a day and top up with hot water if necessary.

Remove and let cool 30-60 minutes on the counter -- this helps the flesh reabsorb the exuded juices -- then place the sealed bags in the fridge overnight. This is contradictory to conventional wisdom and practice that demands immediate chilling in an ice bath to reduce chance of bacterial contamination, but if Bruno Goussault (the father of sous vide) recommends this, it's the thing to do. 

Serving

Cut open the bags and strain and save the liquid; toss the spent rub from the bags.

Wipe or quickly rinse off the rub that's stuck to the meat, it distracts from the texture.

Slice the meat very thinly, a millimeter is about right: a meat slicer is great for this, or use a long sharp slicing or chef's knife.

Divide the meat into two serving trays, lasagna pans are great for this.

Add the strained jus to the pans to keep the meat moist and flavorful.

You can hold this covered in the fridge if you like.

A half hour before service, add a stick of butter to each pan; we were thinking of making a sauce from the jus mounted with butter but this is a lot easier and provides a hit of richness without announcing itself.

Heat the pans covered in a low oven at serving temperature, about 57C/135F or just a bit warmer -- you do not want to dry it out after all this work -- until the butter is melted; toss gently to combine meat, juice and butter.

Serve on heated plates.

Results

This was our best yet: it smelled great, had an assertive enough flavor that was definitely pastrami, a good texture -- tender but not mushy. The salt level was fine, and the sugar this time was not at all intrusive. 

Oddly, there wasn't as much jus as last time, and it didn't gel to a good meat-stock consistency like our previous batch. The indulgent use of butter helped bump-up the mouth-feel but never tasted "buttery".

There was more than enough for the 12 of us, not twice what we needed but -- thankfully -- there was plenty to take home. 

It made for great sandwiches the next day, cool from the fridge or heated briefly in the microwave.

Next Time

Bring the goddamn meat slicer so we don't have to spend 2 hours shaving with knives and getting hands so cramped we had to wrap them around cocktail glasses.

Either bring up the the liquid smoke to a level we can smell/taste, or omit. We couldn't detect it.

If we get plenty of jus next time, we could use less butter, but we'd still use a bit for richness; just don't overdo it so it becomes detectable.

Irene's Salmon Bacon Burgers

Irene whipped these up with some provisions we had in an otherwise bare pantry from frozen salmon filet, bacon, and some burger buns I'd made. The smokey bacon worked really well with the salmon which is frequently smoke-cured too. A rustic salad of arugula from the garden rounded out the al fresco dinner.

Ingredients

6 ounces Salmon filet, frozen
6 ounces Bacon, smokey
1 whole Shallot, cut into a few pieces

Procedure

If you don't chill the Bacon first it will schmear so cut into cubes and freeze for about 30 minutes to firm up.
Process the Bacon until it looks like ground beef.
Cut the thawed Salmon into chunks and process it and the Shallot with the ground Bacon as little as possible, so it too looks like coarse burger meat.
Gently form into 2 patties pressing just enough that they come together.

Grill on ripping hot cast iron sizzle pans (fajita pans): these release a lot of fat from the bacon and you don't want that dripping onto the flames and incinerating your burgers. Flip when browned on the first side to brown the second. Repeat until it's cooked through. Lightly toast the split buns.

Results 

The texture was great, the smokey aroma immediately enticing, and texture quite good -- toothsome, burger-like with a slight crust. The proportions of salmon to bacon were good, nothing dominated. We were concerned that the fish would feel dried out, but the combined meat was moist. As it cooled, it felt a bit more dry and we thought it could use a garlic-tartar sauce or something.

Next time

I'd whip up an aioli tartar sauce to slather on the buns as soon as they came off the heat.

The buns I made were designed for big beef burgers and they may have been a bit substantial for the more delicate fish/bacon; somewhat more delicate buns would work, but certainly not something as insubstantial and nugatory as commercial burger buns.

Pastrami #4: four more curing variations

Our previous four variations of 4 and 8% brine for 3.5 and 7 days turned out too chewy and dry; we had also used a dry rub containing more salt and sugar. It was also a bit too ropey on the exterior from smoking or from desiccation by the rub's salt and sugar. This time we're going to dial down the brine and remove the salt and sugar from the rub to see if we can still get the pink cure but preserve moisture; we'll cheat and use liquid smoke to avoid drying the exterior. We'll use 2 and 4% brine for 2 and 4 days.

Brisket

2.1 Kg Brisket (4.64 pound), cut into quarters evenly

Brine

Make a full batch of 2% brine that will be divided between two buckets; we'll add more salt to the second bucket to bring it to 4%. For speed, we'll actually heat only half the water then top up with ice.

2.25 L Water
90 g Salt, kosher
250 g Brown Sugar
30 g Pink Salt
40 g Black Peppercorns
35 g Coriander Seed
5 g Yellow Mustard Seed
5 g Pink Peppercorns (didn't have, used White)
2.5 g Fennel Seed
2 g Cinnamon
4 g Chili Flakes (not too spicy, or omit: used 1g very spicy Korean)
0.35 g Clove
0.25 g Bay Leaf, fresh
5 g Garlic Powder
5 g Juniper Berries
20 ml Liquid Smoke

Heat everything but the Brisket until the Sugar and Salt have dissolved.
Divide into two 4-Liter Cambro buckets or other heat-proof containers.
Label one "2%".

Add additional 45 g Salt to the other and label it "4%"; stir to dissolve the Salt.

Add Ice to both buckets to bring the level to 2.25L in each.

When cool, add two brisket quarters to each bucket.
Brine for two days.
Remove a brisket quarter from each bucket, and label them "2 days" and with their brine percent; store in a ziplock bag in the fridge.
After another two days, remove the other two briskets, and label them "4 days" with their brine percent.

Dry rub

40 g Black Peppercorns

30 g Coriander Seeds

5 g Garlic Powder

5 g Juniper Berries

3 g Chili Flake (mild, or omit)

Grind all the herbs in a spice/coffee grinder.
Pat the dry rub around the 4 Brisket quarters.

Seal each in a vacuum bag labelled with the brine percent and time; a Sharpie marker that will withstand the bath.

Freeze if you're not ready to cook.

Cook

Cook sous vide at 53C/135F for 72 hours.

You can do this directly from frozen.
When done, let cool on counter for an hour, then overnight in the fridge to reabsorb juices.

Taste Test

Texture of all batches is fine.

Not smelling any smoke :-(

Not enough pastrami pickle-y taste.

When cooled, the combined jus was a gelatinous texture like good meat stock -- that's a great sign; curious why we didn't get it from the previous batch.

2d @ 2%

Not overly salty.

I don't like the sweetness.

Not enough seasoning!

Needs salt.

Sufficiently cooked, a little dry.

Too mild, no flavor.

4d @ 2%

More flavorful than 2d@2%

Not enough flavor

A strange bitterness.

Rancidity in fat

Afterburn from chili.

Needs salt.

2d @ 4%

Better, decent amount of flavor.

I think this is good.

4d @ 4%

Not as flavorful as 2d@4% and a bit more chewy? 

A little grainer and tougher than 2d@4%

Eat

We took 4d@4% and made a dinner from it.

First we trimmed off the fat cap, it wasn't appealing and added nothing to the dish.

Reheat the gelatinous jus and mount with a bit of butter for richness.

Slice the meat thinly on a meat slicer; thinner was more elegant and attractive, perhaps because it held more just.

This was pretty good, good enough to serve to guests.

Next time: for guests

Cut most of the fat cap off the brisket before brining, it's not pleasant at service.

Bump up the salt to make a 5% brine to boost the flavor.

Back out the sugar some more

Either add more liquid smoke, or don't add any since we couldn't taste it.

Brine 4 days.

After cooking sous vide 3 days, let cool at room temp then overnight in the fridge to reabsorb juices.

Brush off rub before slicing before slicing.

Slice very thinly on a meat slicer for the nicest texture.

Strain and heat the gelatinized jus, add some butter for richness.

Reheat the sliced meat in the enriched jus.

Cacio e Pepe with Ramps

Cacio e Pepe is a very simple Roman dish, but it's a bitch to get right. It's just pasta, water, pecorino romano cheese, and black pepper: no oil, no cream, no egg, nothing else. But the cheese wants to glop up or stick to the pot/skillet. This is our second take and we're adding ramps  which we get at the farmers market during their short season.

Not the best lighting for the finished dish :-(

One of the better discussions I've seen on cacio e pepe is on Serious Eats; he blooms the pepper in oil to bring out flavor and uses a bit of butter. Since I have to sauté the ramps anyway, I'll do both in butter; we'll try and stay pure by not adding oil. We also use Serious Eats technique of low-water boiling to increase starch; you really don't need a giant pot of water!

I've tried this before with homemade pasta and it was too soft to withstand the physical beating necessary to emulsify the cheese, so use commercial dry pasta.

225 g Spaghetti pasta (1/2 pound, 1/2 box)
80 g Pecorino Romano cheese (3 ounces)
lots of Black Pepper, freshly ground
Ramps
Butter, unsalted

Ramps are in season at the farmers market

Boil the pasta in as little water as needed to cover, with a bit of salt, stirring to ensure the strands don't stick. Cook until a couple minutes away from done, very al dente.

Grate the Pecorino very fine on a microplane or rotary grater.
Grind the pepper coarsely.
Slice the ramp stems into smallish pieces that'll fit on a fork, and the leaves into larger slices that will wilt down a bit; keep them separate.

Mise en place is essential, this comes together quickly

Heat the butter in a nonstick skillet.
Add Ramp stems and pepper, cook until fragrant.
Add Ramp leaves and cook to wilt a bit.
Remove from pan and reserve in a bowl to add later.

Turn off the heat on the skillet so the surface can cool down, to prevent cheese sticking.
When pasta is about 2 minutes from done,
ladle some of the now starch-rich water into the skillet.
Add most of the grated Pecorino and stir into the water.
Use tongs to transfer the Spaghetti to the skillet and stir into the water/cheese;
it's fine if you have water dripping from the pasta.
Stir vigorously to turn the water, starch and cheese into an emulsion coating the pasta;
add more pasta water if it's too thick, and test the pasta for doneness.
Add the Ramps and a bunch more ground Pepper, combine.

Serve and top with the rest of the grated Pecorino.

Confession: my cheese glopped together as I stirred, and I stirred quite vigorously, shaking the pan with one hand and stirring with tongs in the other. The crappy quality of the photo and the garnish of pecorino hides the glops. I had turned the heat back on low, figuring I needed enough heat to melt, but that may have been a mistake.

The TalesOfAmbrosia blog has a very simple recipe that heats the serving bowl over the pasta pot, but then combines everything off heat in that bowl.  I really do think heat is the issue.

On Republica's Scienza in Cucina blog, the article Le ricette scientifiche: la cacio e pepe is very helpful; use Google Translate :-)

Lucky Peach has 3 recipes in the print edition, but this one online is quite explicit about excessive heat causing lumps; interestingly, he makes fresh pasta.

After some experimentation, keeping temperature low solves the glopping problem.
Before adding the cheese, keep the water between 55-65C (130-150F) so the cheese won't coagulate due to excessive heat; maintain this range as you add the other ingredients. You'll probably need to let the starchy pasta water cool a bit as it will be coming off the boil.

Pastrami #3: four curing variations

Our previous pastrami was too salty, it started with commercially-cured brisket; this time we'll cure it ourselves. To dial-in the salt, we'll do four brine variations: two salt densities (4, 8%) and two durations (3, 7 days). We'll then cook sous vide to a steak-like texture with a lower temperature than most: 72 hours at 135F.

Rhulman has a bunch of writing on pastrami brining but his cups and teaspoons measurements aren't the best for repeatability, especially for pink salt with its nitrates. He's added comments about weights, and indicates he uses a 10% brine because he's going to boil it to cook, drawing out the excess salt; he adds that he'd do 5% if he was going to cook by baking where the salt won't be reduced. His book is full of conversion errors going from volume to weight and he's never bothered to publish errata, so we're a bit suspicious of trusting his recipes.

ChefSteps talks about "equilibrium brining", which uses a brine concentration the same as you'd want in your finished product, rather than starting with a high concentration and hoping to pull it out of the brine before it gets too salty. (This is a similar approach to sous vide cooking where you cook it at the target temperature so you can never over-heat it). The also have a couple excellent posts on sous vide pastrami, including the "worlds largest pastrami".  More immediately useful is their very-clear is the "sous vide pastrami" which we're going to use as the basis for our variations.

ChefSteps uses a 4.1% salt brine (plus sugar and other pickling spices, and pink salt), and lets the meat brine for 7 days. We'll split our brisket into 4 chunks and use both a 4% and 8% concentration, and brine for 3 and 7 days.

We'll make one 4% brine then split into two buckets and add extra salt to one to bring it to 8%. To expedite, we'll heat everything to dissolve Sugar and Salt in half the total required water, then add ice to bring it up to our desired volume in each bucket.

5.14 Lb Brisket (2.33 Kg) split in 2, each 1135 g
For 4% Brine: 180 g Kosher Salt

Brine

For combined, concentrated Brine:

2.5 L Water (we'll dilute to 4.5 L with ice later)
328 g Sugar
180 g Salt (we'll increase this for the 8% bucket later)
30 g Pink Salt
41 g Black Pepper

34 g Coriander Seeds

5 g Yellow Mustard Seed
4 g Pink Pepper Corns
2.3 g Fennel Seed, whole
1.6 g Cinnamon, whole
4.3 g Chili flakes
0.35 g Clove
0.25 g Bay Leaf,
5 g Garlic Powder
5 g Juniper Berries

Add half the water, 2.25 L, to a pot with all the ingredients above, bring to simmer and dissolve Salt and Sugar.
Divide between two containers, at this point they'll both be 4% salt.
Add an additional 180 g Salt  (WRONG see below) to the second container to bring it up to 8%.
Add an additional 2.25 L ice water split between both buckets to chill them down.
Add 1135 g Brisket slab to each

THIS IS WRONG: the high-concentration should be 8% of 2.25 L for the one bucket, so 180 g total; we get 90 g from the combined big brine, so need another 90 for the second bucket, not 90 g + 180 g in 2.25L = 10.8% brine. TO FIX, we can dilute: need 3.375 L to bring this down to 8%; add 7.5 g Pink Salt and 82 g Brown Sugar to balance and don't worry about the spices. Next time: 180 g in combined plus 90 in 8% bucket.)

(In retrospect, I should have made a combined batch of the dry spices and sugar and pink salt, then divided those, dosed each with the correct amount of Kosher Salt, and simmered separately to avoid confusion.)

Store in fridge for 3.5 days, turning slabs once a day to ensure they're evenly brined.
Cut each one in half, and return one half of each to their buckets for 3.5 more days;
wrap and store the 3-day brined pieces until time to smoke and rub.

Dry Rub

Remove all from fridge, drain and dry -- and note which is which! :-)
Make a rub using Chef Steps' list:

37 g Brown Sugar
37 g Salt, kosher
36 g Black Pepper corns
27 g Coriander Seed, whole
5 g Juniper Berries, whole
4 g Chili Flake
5 g Garlic powder

Grind Pepper, Coriander, Juniper and Chili in a spice grinder until a bit more coarse than fine; you probably should do these separately so you can actually grind the Juniper that tends to bounce around more than grind like the dry Coriander; mix with the rest.
Pat into the four slabs coating all surface.

Smoke

Place on wire rack to allow airflow.

Cold smoke 12 hours; it was about 40F/2C out today and we used an  "A-Maze-N" cold smoker tube that keeps the smoke going without producing much heat.

Vacuum bag each piece individually and freeze until ready to cook sous vide.

Cook Sous Vide

Cook sous vide, directly from frozen for 72 hours at 57C/135F.

Results: Disappointing

We removed each hunk from its bag, sliced and put on plates with hidden labels indicating the brine and brine time for a blind test. I could tell when slicing that some were much tougher than I expected, than the previous trial with factory-cured brisket.  Below are our tasting notes, ordered from best to worst.

3.5d @ 4%: Best

Texture OK.

Good smoke.

Too sweet.

Outer smoked edge dried out, though.

Most tender texture.

7d @ 4%

Tough again in outer edge.

Chili heat is inappropriate.

Outer edge is ropey.

More chewy than 3.5d@4%.

3.5d @ 8%

More tender than the worst one, but still too chewy.

Less salt than the worst.

Meh, barely acceptable for serving to guests.

7d @ 8%: Worst

Way too chewy.

Burn from salt.

Terrible texture even in center.

Unpleasant chew. 

Ropy edge.

Don't serve to friends.

Overall defects

When the meat cooled, even the best one turned chewy, almost beef-jerky like.

Was the 12-our smoke drying it out?

Back out sugar.

The spice crust was intrusive.

Even the lowest time and concentration was pink throughout from the nitrates, so we've got enough time/intensity.

Cloyingly sweet.

Next Time

Eliminate the smoking and use liquid smoke in the brine to eliminate ropy edge.
Eliminate the salt and sugar from the dry rub to reduce saltiness and sweetness and prevent desiccation; use only the spices and herbs.
We used bitchin' hot Korean chili flakes, reduce or use a less intense chili, or eliminate.
Remove rub for service.

Since the cure penetrated completely, our max time/concentration should be 4% for 3.5 days. Let's do a similar set of 4 variations:

3.5d @ 4%, 3.5d @ 2%
1.5d @ 4%, 1.5d @ 2%

Tortas de Aciete #1

We had these slightly sweet, anise-imbued crackers in Barcelona and really liked them. Even there they were expensive; here we saw Inés Rosales brand for $6 for a package of six 1-ounce crackers! Yes, they're still made by hand but at that price, we had to try making them.

The Inés Rosales crackers were said to be 24% Spanish Olive Oil, and many of the recipes we found had about that ratio of oil to dough. We found an excellent video on You Tube that showed the kind of texture we were looking for, but opted to start with a recipe from Fine Cooking. After making these a couple times, we've bumped up the anise, orange and oil, and changed the sugaring process a little.

Other recipes included sugar and anise liquor (e.g., Absinthe, Ouzo) in the dough, but this one used Orange Blossom Water which we happened to have. I'm converting some of the measurements to metric so I can more easily adjust and repeat next time.

75 g Spanish Extra Virgin Olive Oil (5 Tbs, 2.5 fl oz)
10 g Anise Seed (2 tsp)

280 g Cake Flour (2 Cup)
8 g Yeast (2 tsp)
3 Tbs Sugar
1/2 tsp Kosher Salt
Zest from two Oranges, grated fine on a MicroPlane
7 Tbs Water
1 Tbs Orange Blossom Water

3 Tbs Sugar, powdered in spice grinder for topping

Heat the Anise Seed in the Olive Oil and brown a bit. Let cool.

Mix the Flour, Yeast, Salt, whole Sugar and Zest in a food processor.
Add the Water and Orange Blossom Water, whiz in processor.
Add the cooled (or just a bit warm) Oil and Anise Seed.
Process until well combined, it should start forming a crumbly dough.
Form into a ball, put in bowl, cover with cling film, and let rise until doubled -- about an hour.

Place non-stick sheets like Silpat or parchment on 3 half-sheet pans.
Preheat oven to 375F with convection, 400F without.
I put rubber O-Rings on my rolling pin so I could roll these evenly, and it worked perfectly, giving an even 1 mm thickness.
Don't flour your counter, the oil will keep them from sticking.

This dough weighed 17 ounces and I was shooting for the Rosales-sized crackers which are 1 ounce each. Divide the dough into 16 pieces, easiest is by cutting it in half repeatedly.

Roll each into a ball shape.
Roll them with a rolling pin, mine came out about 5-6 inches in diameter.
Transfer to a baking sheet with the nonstick sheet.
Dust with Sugar powder, I brushed it in with a pastry brush.
Bake at 400F convection until lightly browned. Mine needed 14 minutes.

Comparing the Inés Rosales with the ones that just came out of the oven, the Rosales are very delicate and fragile:

Rosales cookies are more flaky, but ours are "crispier" and have a pleasant crunch.

Black Pepper Vodka #2

I'm finally writing this down because we got the proportions right this time. Last time, it was so peppery -- even with a full bottle of vodka -- I had to add a second bottle to make it drinkable. And it was still a potent, fiery brew.  Despite the challenge, our guests gulped down all 1.5L in one evening and have been asking for more. This is for them.

TL;DR: crack pepper corns, soak in vodka 2 days, strain, serve chilled: bracing.

20 grams Black Pepper corns, cracked
750 ml Vodka, clean tasting

The vodka should be clean tasting, not cheap and rough, but you don't need to spend much: Luksusova (Polish, potato), Fris (Danish, wheat), and Sobieski (Polish, rye) are all a little over $20 for 1.5L at our local state-run liquor store monopoly. I joke that they're "utlity vodkas" because I use them to extract flavors for tinctures, amaros, limoncello, etc,  but these are all quite drinkable on their own; not special, like Tito's vodka, but fine quality, and I wouldn't use Tito's for this as it has too much of its own flavor.

Crack the Black Pepper corns; no, you can't use a pepper shaker full of that gray dust you liberated from the diner. Pepper corns have a pungency and earthiness you need. I use a mortar and pestle; if you don't have that, put them in a zip-top baggie and crush with a rolling pin, a booze bottle, or similar. You don't want powder, just to expose the flavorful white interior.

Add the Pepper Corns to the Vodka. Wait a couple days, giving it a swirl when you see it getting lonely.

Strain into a bottle for serving or storing, if it lasts that long.

Serve chilled, straight.  Or use for a killer Bloody Mary:  our last batch was turned into Bloody Mary's with a heavy-handed 2:1 homemade mixer to vodka ratio, so nice all 2.25L disappeared in one brunch.

Moral of the story: make more than you think you will ever need. It probably won't be enough. It's inexpensive and doesn't "go off".

Pastrami Steak (Sous Vide Smoked Brisket #2)

We're going for a pastrami-flavored but steak-textured experience and this hit the mark: we could slice it while still hot into very thin strips without shredding.  We enjoyed the last time we did sous vide smoked brisket but thought it could use a bit more time than 40 hours to become tender, so we bumped it up to 69 hours -- again at 135F so we could keep the pink rare-beef look.

This one was a bit salty, however, and we think we know why.  Foolishly, we didn't keep adequate notes about our pre-cooking prep. We believe it was a factory-cured brisket we got around St. Patrick's day when they were on sale. If so, we would have then cold-smoked it, then "corned" by coating with spices, and finally vacuum-bagged it for the water bath. It'd been waiting patiently in our freezer for this event: we pulled it straight from there, still bagged with its seasoning, into the water bath and let it repose for almost 3 days.

When we took it out, it had released maybe a cup of flavorful liquid. Again, a bit salty, but worth mounting with butter and saving to brightening up mashed potatoes or something that needed a boost.

The procedure's a bit of an inversion on the classic pastrami which cures the meat in brine and pink salt (nitrites), then hydrates it to knock down some of the strong saltiness, then spices and hot-smokes, then steams for service. We didn't have a hydration step to leech out the excess salt that we expect is part of the factory cure. That said, while a bit salty when served hot, it was perfect when served cold on a sandwich. Curiously, there wan't much smoke flavor... but then again, I've not noticed strong smoke in commercial deli pastrami, nothing like Texas-style smoked brisket with smoke ring.

Next time:

Brine and cure at home where we can measure and control the salinity: a 5% by weight brine should give it flavor without becoming a salt-lick that requires a desalinization bath.  Same cold-smoke: we don't want to cook it here. Same flavorful spice rub (cracked pepper corns, bay, mustard seed -- classic pickling spice mix). Bag and freeze until the week you want to serve it, then almost 3 days in a 135F water bath.

Barrel-Aged Negroni, Manhattan Cocktails

Irene got me a couple oak barrels so we're barrel-aging some of our favorite cocktails: the Negroni and Manhattan. The hardest part is waiting! Newer wood and smaller barrels impart more flavor, older and larger take longer. We'll try them after 2 weeks. Both use our home made vermouth.

The Negroni's a bitter and bracing concoction, not sweet and sharp enough to have another and another. It's easy to make, even when drunk, since the proportions are 1:1:1.

We used the 1L cask, so:

• 325 ml Vermouth (use a tasty one, not an insipid one)
• 325 ml Campari
• 325 ml Gin (a tasty one, but not so refined you should drink it neat)

Mix and pour into the barrel.

The Manhattan is a classic, but I never cared for them until I used a really flavorful Vermouth. The Makers Mark bourbon is surprisingly inexpensive, more so than the rot gut you should never drink, but not so dear as the comparable Woodford, Basil Haden, etc.  We use some juice from Maraschino-style cherries we made, it rounds it out. For 2 Liters:

• 1350 ml Bourbon
• 450 ml Vermouth (tasty)
• 150 ml Cherry Juice