Cookware

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Marissa - First I would say, "don't mess with perfection!" :-) If you are loving the way your bars and breads are turning out, I would keep doing what you're doing and continue baking them in your glass pans. Glass is an insulator. This means that it's slower to heat up but will hold heat longer. This is why it's taking longer to bake your brownies and banana bread than recipes suggest. The downside is that it takes longer for the center to cook so the edges may overcook before the center is baked through which can cause the sides to rise higher than the center. I find that, especially with baked goods, personal preferences are wildly varied. So, while most experts and professionals would say that a metal pan is the preferred choice, you may prefer results in a glass baking dish. If you do decide to make the switch to metal, choose a light-colored aluminum pan which will offer more consistent heating and browning. Hope this helps! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Madeliene - I checked in with the recipe developers who worked on our Durotherm recipes and they said they can be modified to traditional cookware. In some cases, our Durotherm recipes are the same as the corresponding traditional recipe whereas in others we had to make some key changes. Was there a particular recipe you were hoping to make? It might help me pinpoint what changes to make in that particular recipe. Let me know! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Maureen - First, let's talk about steeling (also called honing) vs. sharpening. Although the Chantry Knife Sharpener is marketed as a sharpener, it is really a honing device made up of two butcher's steels. Unlike sharpening, which removes metal from the edge, steeling is really aligning the edge in a less aggressive manner. A properly steeled edge has the knife edge in alignment so the edge cuts in a nice fine line. Because its purpose isn't to remove metal from the edge, it cannot take a dull edge and refine it to a new sharpened edge. Steels will re-align an already sharp blade but won't actually sharpen a dull blade.The purpose of the Chantry Steel is to keep your knives sharp so you don't have to sharpen them as frequently. Ideally you would periodically send your knife to a professional to sharpen or use a whetstone and then maintain the blade using your Chantry or a honing steel. Either way, you can't use the Chantry (or any other single-slot knife sharpener) on Asian knives. Asian knives require a different honing angle than European chef's knives. European knives are honed to 18 to 20 degrees whereas Asian knives are honed to 15 to 17 degrees. At Milk Street we recommend the Kitchen IQ Angle Adjust or the Chef's Choice Pronto Pro for easy at-home sharpening of different styles of knives because they offer different slots for different honing angles. Thanks for writing in! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Joshua - The best part of the Danish Dream Cake is the broiled topping - it's got a gooey layer hidden beneath a crunchy, caramelized topping - but the only way to achieve that perfect topping is using a broiler. The only pan option for this cake is an aluminum (not nonstick) 9 x 13 baking pan. I see these a lot in discount stores for under $10 or you can purchase one online for about $15 (they even come with a lid to keep the cake fresh). Trust me, it's well worth it for this cake! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

Hi Richard - I apologize for missing your question! A ceramic tart pan is great for taking a tart or quiche right to the table since it doubles as a stunning serving dish. Just know it will be a bit more difficult to serve that first slice since it doesn't have a removable bottom. However, pans without a removable bottom are particularly good for crustless quiches since the filling won't leak out through the removable bottom. Our recipes are developed in a standard 9" tart pan, which has a capacity of about 4 cups. The Emile Henry Slim Tart Pan capacity is 1.7 quarts, or 6.8 cups. Therefore, the recipe ingredients would have to be multiplied by 1.7 to accommodate the larger capacity of your pan. However, it's always tricky when converting recipes for baking so you may find that some tweaks to this conversion might be necessary. Another thing to consider - stoneware conducts heat more slowly than glass or metal so the baking time may be longer and you may not get as much browning on the bottom of your crust. Hope this helps! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Lynn Clark

We don't do equipment reviews here at Milk Street but we couldn't live without our food processors! A food processor is great for prepping vegetables, grating cheese, chopping nuts, and making doughs. The food processors we use at Milk Street are in the 10 to 14-cup capacity range. This size is great for large-quantity pestos, like our Peruvian Pesto, and for shredding vegetables like the carrots in our French Carrot Salad. A small food processor (under 6 cups) is technically considered a food chopper, rather than a food processor. This means it will be able to chop small amounts of vegetables, make sauces, dressings, marinades, and bread crumbs, but will not come with a slicing or grating blade (like we use for the French Carrot Salad) and the work bowl will be too small to make doughs and larger volumes of sauces. If a food chopper does meet your needs, you'll want to look for one in the 3 1/2 - 4 cup range that includes a feeding tube for best performance. There are only a few out there that have a feeding tube in this size range and you should be able to find one for $40-$50. In order to get all of the features of a true food processor you would need to go up to at least an 8-cup capacity food processor. Personally, I have an 8-cup food processor which is considered pretty small by most people's standards. Sometimes I have to work in batches, but it generally performs most tasks I need it to and includes a slicing and grating disk. I think this size would still be under $100 and doesn't take up too much space on the countertop. Good luck and thanks for writing us! Best, Lynn C.

Answered by Chris Kimball

The easier method is to place a tablespoon or two of oil in the pan before heating and when it starts to ripple AND JUST STARTS TO SMOKE, the pan is ready for sautéing. Use an oil with a relatively high smoke point - I prefer Grapeseed oil as my go-to cooking oil although a refined olive oil will also have a high smoke point (roughly 450 degrees). All that being said, I do not preheat my pan when cooking garlic or onions - I prefer gentle heat which I think draws out the flavor better and avoids burning. I avoid canola oil since I find that it has a slightly fishy flavor. And, you are correct, heat levels for stovetops are completely meaningless. Barbara Lynch, a local Boston chef, once told me to LISTEN to the food as it cooks - that is the best way to judge heat level. Onions need a gentle sizzle whereas searing a steak will be louder and more aggressive. Two other suggestions. Make sure that the bottom of your pan is perfectly flat otherwise the oil will pool around the perimeter. This makes the pan unusable. Second, use enough oil. Hot oil will coat the food much better than the metal of the skillet, creating more even cooking.

Answered by Chris Kimball

For TV, we do use new stuff (although I would love to use old stuff since that is what everyone else uses). That being said, Bar Keeper's Friend does work pretty well. I do find that adding water to a skillet with stuck-on bits and simmering the water works well. Enamel cast iron will never regain it's clean white interior but then it looks like you really cook! (Staub offers dark interiors which will not discolor readily.) Cutting boards will get stains but I have now converted to wood cutting boards. Like the feel of a knife on wood and any stains are part of the charm - I use a dark wood board. Otherwise, buy plastic boards and throw in dishwasher. However, thinner plastic boards always warp and become useless. Yes, we should do a video on cleaning - good idea! Try 1 TBSP of chlorine bleach per gallon of water for sanitizing plastic boards (although the dishwasher or hot soapy water is also fine).

Answered by Chris Kimball

Not really - food will stick to stainless steel. BUT, you should check whether the bottom of your pan is perfectly flat - over time, most skillets will start to warp, developing a high spot in the middle. This means that the oil or butter will end up around the perimeter and the center will be dry. Another trick is to be sure to use enough oil - if you watch a wok-chef, they use a lot of oil in cooking and very little of it actually ends up in the food but it keeps the food from sticking. If your skillet is warped, throw it out and buy a new one but do not put a hot pan into a cold sink or cold water - that's the cause of warping.

Answered by Chris Kimball

You are correct - when purchasing pots and pans it is better to buy a fully clad pan where the internal metal - aluminum or copper - is encased in the outer aluminum and it reaches up the sides of the pan as well. This is especially important for sautéing for example. With a pressure cooker, most of the cooking is being done under pressure where this is not an issue. In addition, the overall weight of the cooker and the thickness of the metal is important. This particular Kuhn Rikon model (they have been making pressure cookers for over a half century) is very heavy and solid. With thinner construction, you should worry about the inside perimeter but with a thick, heavy pan you are much less likely to get hot spots. We have tested this pan here at Milk Street, by the way, and have not experienced any hot spots or burning on the bottom of the pan, even around the perimeter. The big issue is whether you want an electric pressure cooker or stovetop. We feel that electric models do a poor job sautéing and the metal is not nearly as thick as with a stovetop model. You can also consider an instant pot which is a pressure/slow cooker combo, but you are not going to get the serious, heavy-duty functionality of a good stovetop pressure cooker (although you do get the benefit of a timer and other controls).