Only 1 Left In Stock! ( ... but more on the way)

Le Creuset 16-piece dinnerware set (only four of 16 pieces shown)

These awesome Le Creuset dinnerware sets have been flying off our shelves since we added them to ChefTools.com a couple of weeks ago. To wit: we only have one dinnerware set in stock at the moment – so hurry to the site if you want a 16-piece dinnerware set in elegant white. 

The good news is that you can still order the sets. We can get more of these in our warehouse within 2 weeks. It’s not ideal, but these sets are extremely popular. I have a feeling there will be an even bigger rush on them before Christmas. (Oh, and the other good news is that these dinnerware sets ship for free!)

These sets include four dinner plates, four salad plates, four soup bowls and four mugs. I own a couple of the mugs myself, and they are top notch – it’s like drinking out of mighty boulder hollowed out to accommodate coffee. I think that’s a good indication of the quality of these pieces. 

So place an order, get the free shipping and make yourself or someone else very happy!

Big Vegetarian Tuna

I’m not one to go nuts over vegetarian meat substitutes because nothing can approximate the taste and texture of animal protein. But since I was a meat eater for a majority of my life, I do appreciate a good meat-like meal.  And I recently found a recipe for one that is a 98 percent approximation of tuna fish. 

Its tastiness can only be described with an expletive. 

Hot chickpeas

This is a good meal to make if you’re A) vegetarian or vegan, B) looking for a healthy meal – or at least something healthier than tuna, which tends to contain mercury, or C) in need of a quick meal. Here goes:

Grab two cans of chickpeas (garbanzo beans), a jar of pickles, some black pepper, soy sauce and hot sauce, if you like. The final ingredient is very important: Annie’s Goddess dressing (some people use vegan mayo, but Annie’s has a nice lemon flavor in it). 

• Mash the garbanzos in a mixing bowl with a potato masher, or shred them in a food processor (not to a paste, just a few pulses until they’re chunky)

• Dice your pickles (I used bread and butter, but any type will do)

• Mix everything to your liking – and I like a little extra dressing.   

Only 5 minutes should have passed, and you’ll have enough vegetarian tuna for at least five sandwiches, or a week’s worth of lunch. Serve open faced, on toast, with avocados, melted cheese or however you like. You will be astounded at how closely mashed chickpeas and salad dressing tastes like delicious, delicious tuna fish.

Pacific Northwest Gold

I can never get enough smoked salmon, a Pacific Northwest treat. So when my neighbor, Sean, surprised me with a beautiful salmon he caught in West Seattle, I decided to cure and smoke it. Sean has been smoking his bounty for years and he offered this treasure as a way of trying out some other cure recipes.  After discussing the different cures and wood smoke combinations Sean has used in the past, I set out to try my own version. By the way, Sean could easily sell his smoked salmon alongside the packaged brands.

After looking through some of my favorite cookbooks and studying up on flavor combinations, I came up with the following cure recipe. Two books I refer to continuously are The Flavor Bible and Culinary Artistry, both by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. These books are fantastic for those times when you return from your local farmers market with fresh vegetables but aren’t sure what you want to make. I have also found these books invaluable when cooking without recipes.                                                           

Smoked Salmon Cure

Simply mix the following ingredients together in a mixing bowl:

            - 1 ¼ cups dark brown sugar

            - 1 cup kosher salt

            - 2 tbsp coarse ground black pepper

            - 2 tbsp dry dill

            - 1 teaspoon dry thyme

            - 4 bay leaves (ground fine in spice grinder)

            - 2 tbsp ground brown mustard seeds

            - 1 tbsp ground coriander

            - 1 tbsp ground cumin

            - Zest of 2 oranges

            - Zest of 1 lemon

I placed a large sheet of plastic wrap on top of a sheet of foil to wrap the fish in after applying the cure.  After placing 1/3 of the cure mixture on the plastic, I laid the first salmon fillet skin side down. I spread another 1/3 of the cure over the flesh side of the fillet. Next, I put the second fillet on top of the first (flesh side down). Then I covered the skin side of the second fillet with the remainder of the cure.  I wrapped the fish up tight in the plastic and foil and placed it on a half sheet pan covered with foil. (You need to cover the sheet pan with foil because a good amount of liquid works its way out of the wrapped fish as it cures.)  Finally, I placed a 9 x 13 baking dish with 2 soup cans to weigh the curing fish down. I turned the fish over every 12 hours to allow for even distribution of the curing process.  I cured this particular fish for 72 hours before taking it out and rinsing off the fillets with cold water and allowing them to dry for a few hours to form the pellicle - the layer formed on the surface of the cured fish that is tacky to the touch. This tacky surface allows the smoke to bond to the fish. 

Cured salmon with pellicle formed

I smoked the fish for about 7 hours using alder chips for the first 6 hours and cherry chips for the last hour in a 4-rack smoker, which I placed in my backyard. This particular smoker has an electric element at the bottom that you place a pan full of the wood chips on top of. The photo shows the smoker with the face plate removed. I smoked a couple of Sean’s fillets, too, since he seems to be catching more fish than he knows what to do with. 

4 rack electric smoker

The photo at the top shows the finished product with some items that create some nice flavor pairings for the smoked salmon. I served it with a simple seedless cucumber salad made with rice vinegar, dill, salt and pepper. I also included capers, crostini, Dijon mustard, and crème fraiche with dill.

I spent all day Saturday in anticipation of eating the smoked salmon, drinking cold beer, and watching the Red Sox versus Mariners game. Overall, the smoking required an extreme amount of patience. But it turned out to be a great day … even though the Red Sox lost.

How did these guys find Sean's secret fishing spot?

I want to thank Sean for giving me this beautiful fish and allowing me to use his smoker. I have a feeling I will have an updated fishing license and smoker of my own in the not too distant future. I also want to thank Sean's wife Ruth, for being just as excited as myself when it comes to trying out new recipes. We use each other as recipe guinea pigs when we are feeling creative. Ruth makes a French Onion Soup that simply makes you exhale that comfortably satisfied sigh. Last I want to thank my neighbor Carol, for sharing her love of food and hosting several barbecues over the years. Carol's pretty cool even though she's a Husker fan. I say this in jest, knowing full well that Husker fans are probably the most respectful college football fans in the country. Cheers!

Spice shop discovery: Ras El Hanout

Ras El Delicious

There’s an entire section of Chef Tools’ warehouse devoted to spices, sugars and dried peppers – it’s like our own little spice shop. I was combing through this section recently and, among exotic sea salts and sugar decorations, I found a stash of Ras El Hanout. 

I didn’t know what it was when I saw it, which is probably why it was attractive to me. The jar advertises it as a “classic blend” of spices from Morocco.  Local Seattle spice company India Tree distributes it and it contains: all spice, black pepper, mace, nutmeg, cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, turmeric, rosebuds and cloves. 

I did a little research and found that this stuff is good on almost anything. There are recipes that describe adding it to coffee or tea, using it as a rub for meat or infusing it in rice or couscous. What’s more, the ingredients seem to expand and contract at the whims of the chef. 

Apparently, Ras El Hanout means “top of the shop” (or “head of the shop”) in Arabic, which means that it’s a blend of all the best spices from the spice shop.  Some recipes contain anise, saffron or simple salt. Whatever the blend, it smells delicious and there are literally hundreds of different recipes out there – at least on the Internet – for this stuff. 

Does anyone out there have any experience cooking with Ras El Hanout? I immediately pictured chickpeas stewing in a Ras El Hanout sauce in a tagine; then served over a bed of steaming rice pilaf. Anyway, from the top of Chef Tools’ little spice shop comes this wonderful little jar of culinary possibilities!

I would totally eat deep fried butter

The deep fried butter stick, courtesy of KCCI in  Des Moines.

 The Iowa State Fair is an amazing combo of giant livestock, fried food and politics, but they’ve really increased the intensity this year … some intrepid midway fry cook has introduced deep fried butter. It's an entire stick of butter fried in a cinnamon honey batter. It’s like a reverse pancake. (Idea: deep fried blueberry pancakes.) Oh, and it’s also drizzled with sugar glaze.

What’s the craziest food you’ve ever fried at home or eaten at a state fair? Deep fried Doritos? Deep fried Pepsi? I’ve had deep fried chicken feet, and I swear I was one of the first Americans to try a deep fried snickers bar.

Here's a link to a video of a reporter from Des Moines' KCCI investigating the deliciousness of deep fried butter.

Inventorialization!

The 9s section of the warehouse (BBQ stuff)

It was a busy week here at Chef Tools. We inventoried our warehouse this week, which means the entire staff spent 3 days counting what felt like millions of products. Chef Tools has over 10,000 products and we have several of each. I would estimate that we counted somewhere in the range of 20,000 items, from tiny pastry tips to hulking Dutch ovens. 

We worked in teams of 2, with one person counting items, the other keeping tally. Then, we went back for a second wave of counting to correct miscounts. The count required agility and creativity. One moment you might find yourself suspended 12 feet in the air balancing atop a shelving unit, a few minutes later you were emptying a box of Meri Meri party supplies, counting, and then re-packing it correctly, which was like solving a Rubik’s cube. 

The Nana Saver

We inevitably found some items that we had forgotten about. Doing inventory is sort of like cleaning out your attic or basement. But instead of finding an old middle school yearbook or a love letter (or gross spider carcasses), we found things like bottle dust caps. Or, my personal favorite, the ‘Nana Saver. No, it’s not a cryogenic chamber for your beloved grandmother; it’s a plastic cap for bananas to keep them from browning. I also discovered that we have an enormous stock of silicone spatulas. I counted so many spatulas that the word “spatulas” lost all meaning to me. 

The coolest thing I found was a Reed’s Rocket Nutcracker. I’m not sure who Reed is, or if he’s still alive, but his invention looks like a rail gun for nuts. It is awesome. It’s made in Glenville, Ga., by a company called Peas and Corn Inc., and I could totally picture a guy sitting on a porch in a rocking chair with a julep, a Reed’s rocket and a pile of pecans just completely set for the night.

At any rate, inventory was a success. It will help us get products to you faster because we have triple checked what have and what we don’t have. Also, if you know anyone who needs a ‘Nana Saver, send them our way.

Do you have art hiding in your house?

The Le Creuset Ogive teakettle

I came across a really great looking art exhibit that I can’t go to. Atlanta’s High Museum of Art has a show called Modern By Design, which is full of beautiful and functional household and industrial items from the last century (the collection is on loan from MoMa). It includes some items that you might even have in your own home, even in your own kitchen.

The High’s website does not give a good preview of what’s in the exhibit, but one item they show is the Chemex coffee maker. I have one at home; not only does it make great coffee, but it’s nice to look at – it shimmers and has a voluptuous figure tied at the center by a wood collar and a leather strap.

The “modern” part of the exhibit references a couple of different periods from the 20^th century: World War II era industrial design – large springs, motor parts and all – then the Space Age, and finally the post-counter culture 1970s. The exhibit got me thinking what items in Chef Tools’ arsenal would fit in this exhibit; kitchen and household items that are beautiful, durable and very useful.

The Matfer black steel fry pan (9-1/2" inch model)

The top prize, I think, goes to that Le Creuset Ogive teakettle (in fact, most Le Creuset items, especially their iconic French ovens, could fit in this exhibit). Other coffee-and-tea-making items could fit, too (what is it about vessels that hold hot liquids that inspires fine industrial design?) like the Bialetti espresso maker, or the RSVP pyramid-shaped tea infuser.

But there are other items, like this set of measuring cups by Amco, or soft kitchen tools by OXO. I really like these intense black steel fry pans by Matfer and these RSVP stainless steel straws. And – to prove that I’m not solely into steel and glass – the Tovolo King Cube ice tray.

What from your home would you include if you had to put together an art exhibit about industrial design?