Rouxbe

The "How to Slice Ingredients" part of the Knives lesson just doesn't load on my computer for some reason. I just see the starting image and that the program is loading, but the loading never completes. I had no trouble with the other two parts of the lesson using the same computer. Maybe there's something wrong with the program runnign the lesson?

Firefox on a MacBook. But it worked just now. Maybe it was just my internet connection. Sorry about that.

Just wanted to know if there was a consensus on what stuff one must absolutely have in a kitchen in terms of gadgets and cookware and what can be left out. I plan to invest in decent pots and pans and some gadgets but I don't want to go into non-essentials because I expect to be moving into a shoebox-sized studio in Boston soon. I know a chef's knife, a paring knife and the knife steel are a must. And then there is a cutting board. What sort of spatulas should I go into. . . all wood, or just stainless steel? Should I buy kitchen shears? And can I live without a food mill? What are the essentials that people generally agree on? What pots and pans should I invest in?

I use the grill side of a stove-top reversible grill griddle for grilling chicken or meat. I oil the grill before putting the chicken on but the marinade and chicken keep sticking to the grill even though my grill is supposed to be non-stick. This happens especially when I do my tandoori chicken which has a thicker, yoghurt based marinade. I just can't get the chicken to come off clean.

Does anyone have any ideas as to what I'm doing wrong or tips as to how I could fix this problem? The chicken tastes priceless but looks terrible and more often than not, I lose the skin.

I just made the basic white chicken stock tonight. It was just as easy as it looked. I just have one question though... should I de-fat the white stocks as is shown in the dark stock-making video? Or would de-fatting it make it too bland since the white stock flavour is quite mild?

Thanks Joe. I think I did a decent job of skimming fat off during the simmering because this morning (I made the stock last night) there was very little to get rid of. As far as what I am going to make with it, I don't know yet. I was just trying to learn the basics so I made the stock. But I think I will try the couscous recipes. Is there a difference in the actual grains of couscous making one Morroccan and one Mediterranean? I have some couscous in my pantry, but it doesn't say where from. Would it matter too much in a recipe?

I made my first ever roux today. I wanted to start with the white and then continue on to make the blonde and the brown roux. But I think I was too impatient and scared of scorching my roux, so I stopped at blonde. Then I added hot water to see the thickening properties. At first the roux got very thick, like mashed potatoes. It took about three cups of water to bring it to a sauce-like consistency.

Now my question is, how do I turn a roux into a sauce if I am not roasting a bird (I don't have pan drippings)?

And does roux keep in the fridge?

Thanks Dawn! I will try the couscous recipes. I was very excited to discover how much enjoyment I got out of everyday cooking. And now with Rouxbe, I can learn how to do things right an get the restaurant taste right in my own home!

I tried making this tonight. The steaks tasted great but the sauce didn't look as good as it tasted. Was I supposed to turn the heat to low before adding the cream? When I added cream it curdled instead of blending in with the stock and looked brown with a million tiny specks of white. My bofriend liked it nonetheless, but I was very disappointed.

Also, I was using a cast iron skillet. Do cast iron skillets take longer to cook down when the heat is lowered?

Thank you for the info. I admit my cream was a little old. That must be why.

Maybe after doing your pan sauces lesson I will stop bothering you with so many questions on sauces!

I went to buy myself my first Chef's Knife. I tried everything Shun, Global and Wusthof had, and was just about to buy one of the Wusthofs, when just out of curiosity I decided to try the J. A. Henkel's. The J. A. Henkel's Twin Cuisine 8-inch Chef's knife fit into my hand as if it had been made just for me. And I have tiny hands. It is my favourite thing that I own in the world now!

I could not watch this recipe as the file did not play at all. I could watch neither preview nor the full recipe although the text recipe was there.

I can never get my roux to brown the same way as the brown roux in the video. In what I think is 6-7 minutes (I don't have a clock in my kitchen), it is definitely blonde but not quite brown. And I am somewhat confused about the nutty smell that I am supposed to look out for: I get a distinct smell as the flour blends in with the butter. Is that the smell, or does it get nuttier than that? Maybe I should use a timer one time and time myself to stir upto 7 minutes to make sure I am going as long as I am supposed to.
Otherwise, I finally managed to get my roux to the right consistency. I used to make it too thick.

I tried making a dark beef stock today. I bought bones from the supermarket. Although the bones had a lot of marrow, they had almost no meat on them so the caramelisation was not as great (I felt) as it could have been. Does there have to be some amount of meat on the bones for a good stock?

Also, I added three tablespoons of tomato paste to the mirepoix when putting into the stockpot as the lesson showed. But as the stock simmered, I thought the smell of tomato was just a bit too strong for my liking. I must confess, at this point, that I did brush a little tomato paste on all the bones as I had seen in one video.

Also, can I make a reduction the next day after refrigerating overnight, or will that not work?

My complaints about the tomato smell in the stock was at around 3 hours into simmering. After eight hours of simmering the smell was all gone and it looked and smelled perfect. I can't wait to try a reduction.

I made a bechamel this morning using the one pot method. I had one concern. The first time I added the milk, I added very little of it and waited for it to come to a simmer before whisking it. But doesn't this let the roux change from a white to a blonde, since there isn't enough milk to cover all the roux? I thought I saw the roux change colour slightly, that's why I ask. And does it normally take a couple minutes for the milk to steam each time or is my stove just terrible?

My bechamel was going great until I made the mistake of covering the saucepan in the end while trying to get rid of the starch flavour. And I forgot that I had to be stirring it. The heat was on the lowest setting possible so it didn't scorch, but my bechamel did get a a bit thicker than "nicely coating the back of a spoon" (I had that until I ruined it) and very slightly lumpy.

Can a chicken broth and chicken stock be used interchangeably? Or does a stock give a better flavour due to longer simmering?

I saved the bechamel I had made yesterday and today I added some more milk and simmered it a bit, it turned out perfect! I then added some shredded cheddar and made a mornay sauce and dished up a quick Macaroni and Cheese for my boyfriend.

Thank you Joe for your tips. Being a molecular biologist used to always measuring everything precisely to microlitres, I get caught up a little with mentioned times and ratios.

How does one determine "rare" or "well done" for a steak that is being cooked by the flip-once method. The vidoe showed determining a medium steak, but what would I do if I wanted to cook a steak to rare only?

Thanks Kimberly!

I have been using the flip-often method with tremendous success. I am going to my boyfriend's parents' house and they have an outdoor grill. I want to get those cross-hatch marks. That's why I asked.

Thanks! I had given up hope of getting an answer to this one! I love to grill but I get very disappointed and put off when things stick and my delicious marinade gets left behind with the ckicken skin, on the grill.

I want to add some vegetables like small red potatoes, onions and peppers so that I can make it a more balanced meal. When would I add the vegetables? And how long would I leave them in for?

The chicken looks delicious. At this point I must confess that I was running low on groceries and didn't have the cilantro at all. But I had a whole chicken and decided to do an Indian village favourite, a whole chicken basted with just mustard oil and red pepper flakes. I added lime and a garlic head cut through the middle in the cavity and a bay leaf and a few thyme sprigs under the skin. I remember it used to taste delicious. And I just pulled my chicken out and set it for resting while the peppers, potatoes and onions cook. The chicken smells divine.

And you are still invited to dinner, Dawn.

I just can't seem to master how to add heavy cream to pan sauce without getting white specks instead of a good uniform colour. I made two steaks today -- one with a wine and stock pan sauce, like the one shown in "Beef Tenderloin in Red Wine Sauce", and the other deglazed with wine and then adding some heavy cream to it. I got specs again (I've complained about this already on this forum, but that time I had used old cream and some half-and-half)! But this time I tried with fresh cream, but the specks still formed. Do I reduce the heat to very low when adding the cream?

The package said heavy whipping cream.

Does anyone have any good recipes for Japanese ginger salad-dressing. . . the type that is served with house salads in sushi and hibachi restaurants?

I have been pestering Joe with than cream-based pan sauce that I can't seem to get right. This time I looked at the fat content on the container. It says 17% fat, nowhere close to the 33% or up that Joe mentioned. And that was the highest fat content in any cream at my supermarket. Can I do anything to the cream to increase the fat content. I don't think the British "double cream" is available in US supermarkets. Is there no way I can make a good cream-based pan sauce without cream that 33% fat?

I had a question on butter-based sauces, although my question is not directly related to the cooking of this particular dish. I tried poaching tilapia today (I wanted to use salmon, but realised at the last minute that I had frozen it and my poaching liquid was ready to go) in wine with shallot rings, star anise, scallion-whites and thyme. As I let the fish rest after poaching, I wanted to make a butter sauce to go with it -- butter with thyme in it. I used whole butter, not clarified, and it gave off the impurities that come to the surface when clarifying butter, and made my sauce look specky. Is there any correct way of doing the butter-based sauces, or do I just have to use clarified butter?

I poached tilapia today in white wine with star anise, scallion whites, fresh thyme and shallots cut into fine rings. I had meant to use salmon, but didn't realise until my poaching liquid was on the stove that I had forgotten to thaw it. So I used tilapia instead. It turned out soft and flavourful, but I would love some sort of a sauce to go on top of it next time. What sort of sauces go well with poached fish? I tried doing a butter with fresh thyme. It was good but not great. I used whole butter, and as the butter melted over medium-low heat, the impurities came to the surface and ended up on my fish, which spoiled its look.

I know people start by poaching eggs, but I really didn't want poached eggs for dinner. I will try poaching eggs for breakfast over the weekend.

Thanks Divina! I will surely give them a bash!

I decided to apply some of the techniques that I learnt in the "Pan Sauces" lesson. I had tilapia in the fridge. I pan-fried it carefully so that the sucs didn't burn and then made a pan sauce by sauteeing garlic and ginger, de-glazing with sake, and then adding juice of one orange with a half a table-spoon of dark brown sugar whisked into it. As the orange juice simmered, I added a few pieces of serrano chili sliced on the bias to give the sauce a hint of spice but not to make it really spicy. I finished the sauce with cilantro and served the whole dish over white rice.

I was very surprised (pleasantly so) at how good the dish tasted. No flavour dominated. It was a fantastic balance. I took a few photos of the plated dish, with the idea of submitting it to the Rouxbe Test kitchen, but my plates are a flaming red and the photos don't do justice to the taste of the dish. Do I have to have winning photos of my dishes for them to ever make it beyond the Test Kitchen?

Thanks Tony! Specs give me nightmares. I find it very hard to get 33% or higher milk-fat cream in my grocery stores and my pan sauces have specs that traumatise me. So now whenever I see specs, I feel I must have done something wrong.

Thanks Joe! Now I get it. I kept looking for the Total Milk Fat and that was never higher than 10% (Saturated fat at 17%). I will look for the milk fat content at the top of the container. I just bought heavy whipping creams from two different companies to try out. Thanks for the help Joe, and I apologize for being such a pest.

I made this yesterday as a special dinner for my boyfriend. I had never cooked mussels before and was scared to handle them. But the drill down video and the recipe itself were so clear that I had no trouble at all. And Keith (my boyfriend) stopped between mouthfuls of it only to tell me how terrific it turned out. Thank you Dawn!