In the old days we used to rub it on with a wine cork or a potato.  Now, a Scotch-Brite cloth seems like the best way to go.

Here’s a “before” picture of my go-to gyuto taken a couple of days ago:

When this picture as taken it had been about three months since the knife was scrubbed down with soda.  I let it go an extra month so a polished edge would contrast against the dark of the patinated blade.

You can see that the staining is about three-quarters of the way there to a really nice patina.  (More on that later.)

Here’s the “after” picture, taken tonight:

“After” means  less than five minutes with a new Scotch-Brite and some baking soda.  Note that the Scotch Brite must be new, or the treatment won’t work as well.

The knife doesn’t look exactly new.  It has the glow of a well maintained and well beloved tool.  Very attractive and appropriate, no?

Some people prefer a more antique looking patinas.  If you’re starting with a new knife and want the sort in the “before” picture, stabilize the knife by treating it with baking soda every day or every other day for a few weeks.  The baking soda will help prevent rust while your knife passivates.

After a while, switch to normal cleaning with soap, water, and a worn-down Scotch Brite – but no more baking soda.  In a few months, you’re knife will develop the same dark patina as my knife has in the “before picture.”

The kind of guy who is starting out in carbon knives, is frequently the kind of guy who has discovered Bar Keeper’s Friend and it’s myriad uses.  Word to the wise:  Baking soda is not Bar Keeper’s Friend.  Bar Keeper’s Friend is a good polisher, better than baking soda in many ways.  But it will leave an oxalic acid residue on the knife – which can accelerate a patina, but might also allow the knife to rust.  Better to keep the BKF away from your carbons.

As a rule, it’s better to either force a patina quickly, as with a soak in acidulated water, or diluted vinegar; or to use the slower, baking soda method, than choose a technique that’s neither here nor there.

BDL

Stropping on “pasted” strops is not the same as stones.

•    Strops are more forgiving in a lot of ways than benchstones, requring less skill than stones of nominally similar grits.  Strops, in general, don’t require the amount of PITA maintenance waterstones do.
•    HA’s hard felt pad, part of the HA kit, is demon deburring tool;
•    HA’s pastes and stropping equipment are very convenient;
•    Stropping on HA’s pasted strops is very efficient and quick;
•    HA’s pastes don’t make a mess; and,
•    HA’s balsa strops are not only easily cleaned (with a sponge) and re-pasted, they’re inexpensive enough to be disposable if and when they become terminally worn or dirty.

There are limits imposed by susceptibility to corrosion and “scratch hardness” to how well an ultrafine polish will last.  As to carbon Sabatiers it’s my experience that an 8K waterstone represents something of a practical limit.  In terms of grit screen size, 8K is just a skosh bigger than 1u.

The preliminary results of stropping my Sab chef’s with HA’s green, liquid, 1/2u level CrO2, pasted on a balsa strop were interesting.

CrO2

The edge was dull, tired and ready for its usual 1.2K Bester, 3K Chosera, 8K Naniwa SS progression.  Instead, I refreshed it on 2u Si2O (silicon oxide), followed that with 1u B4O (boron oxide), and finished with 1/2u CrO2 (chromium dioxide), each pasted on to its respective balsa strop.  I also used the hard felt pad to deburr, after the first two pastes; it was unnecessary after the third.

It’s been a while since the last time I stropped, and it took me a couple of minutes to recover my strokes.  I recommend straight “sectioning” for nearly all the work, laying the knife on the strop to start every stroke, and lifting it off before running off the end, so as to avoid “dubbing.”

In correspondence, Keith came up with some name for this, and I just didn’t have the heart.  Shhh.  Don’t you tell him.  Keith also recommends a method for sort of “clicking in” the angle, but if you’re a good sharpener — good enough to impose your own preferred angles using benchstones — you have the angles locked into your wrist, and don’t need to fart around finding them.

The exception to sectioning is a special deburring stroke which involves rotating the blade as you pull it back, while worth learning, it’s not essential.  Knowing KC he probably thinks it’s some sort of kendo magic to which only a select group of hierarchs was privy.  A lad should have his dreams, mum is still the word.

Weird ninja strokes aside, it’s easier to develop good strop technique than to be consistent with an ultra-fine stone.

The sharpening session went extremely quickly — much quicker than it would on stones.  The pastes were far more efficient and neater than the red rouge and CrO2 powder I used to use.  The felt pad deburred as advertised.  The magnetic base is ridiculously comfortable and convenient.

Sharpness levels were very good.  You have to remember that just like polish, there are limits to how far you can push a given alloy.  My feeling that the 8K Naniwa SS takes the Sab to its limit remains unchanged.  The B4O edge didn’t quite get there.

But the CrO4 edge is easily as good as the Naniwa — and quite a bit brighter.  I just wish I had a “Pure White” to compare with as well.  The CrO4 polish seems to be holding up so far against corrosion at least, but it hasn’t got much of a workout either.

As it happened, the knife not only needed sharpening but was overdue for a baking soda scrub.  Against the background of the stained blade, the B4O edge was sufficently bright that a minor low spot clearly revealed itself as I was rinsing and wiping the knife before moving on to the CrO4.  It was a highly functional reverse, Magic Marker trick.

Can you spot the low spot? (Click to enlarge). Hint 1: You won't see it on the edge, only on the bevel shouder. Hint 2: The light and background are a little deceptive, the profile is as K-Sab intended, without any notching, loss or addition of arc.

A B4O or CrO4 edge is bright enough for you to see any sharpening flaws on a polished knife as well as the Magic Marker trick.  Since a great many of us have outgrown the trick, it’s a valuable tool.  For instance, the next time I pull out the 500#, instead of just doing ordinary, maintenance thinning, I’ll re-profile the flawed side.

More sharpness:  There could be a difference between a knife which is very sharp, and one which is both very sharp and slippery.  At any rate, that’s the reason I’m hypothecating for the superiority of the SS 8K edge over the nominally finer grit B4O.  However, the CrO2 edge absolutely maxxed the Sab, and max is max.

Having tried jumping to CrO2 without using the B4O — use the B4O.  Swapping grits is just so convenient within the HA system, that you can enjoy its efficiency magic (and Jesus is it fast!) without any drawback other than black fingers.

My initial impression is that for someone who wants a lot of sharpness from extremely flat bevels, stropping is not a perfect replacement for a full progression to an ultra-fine polishing stone.  Nor, for that matter, is an 8K or finer stone a perfect replacement for stropping to ultra-fine grits.

Bottom Line:
Works great.  Not cheap.  Amazingly clean.  The convenience with the HA kit, is crack.  Pretty much.

BDL

Waring BB180. One Fugly, Very Good Blender

To make a good frozen drink, milkshake or smoothie, a blender has to get to speed quickly, stay at speed as the blade hits ice and as the mixture thickens, and must stay cool enough and work fast enough so as not to transfer a lot of heat to the mix.

Most home blenders can’t do that.  Many, so called, “commercial” bar blenders can’t either.  Just for the record, the “can’t do” category most definitely includes the beehive bottom Osters and Warings.  The problem isn’t “watts,” it’s torque.  Even though a lot of manufacturers are posting high wattage figures, the little guys’ motors don’t generate enough torque of either the start-up or general persuasions.

If you want a frozen daiquiri that isn’t lime slush, but with the ice whirred into a mound of snow; if you want a milkshake that’s still thick, if you want crushed ice, if you want what you want how you want it you need torque. This machine is 3/4 horse, which translated to a mere 560 watts, but don’t you believe it.  The motor is wound in a way which puts plenty of muscle behind the twist.

In short, this one can.

You wouldn’t believe it from reading Williams-Sonoma catalogs, but it really doesn’t take much to make gazpacho. Just about any regular residential blender can handle just about any cooking task.  As you’d expect, besides its bar tricks, the BB180 will perform all the normal cooking stuff without a hiccup.

BUT if you’re going to grind grain, have a weekly margarita party with 50 guests, run a smoothie bar, or make puree of gravel soup — get a big Waring, Blendtec, or a VitaMix.  So, that’s what it ain’t.  Try to remember what you actually need 3hp for, that 3/4hp is not 3hp, and you’ll be fine.

Speaking of motors, you can smell the ozone come off this one when it starts running.  Sulfur and pitchforks can’t be far behind.  I like it.

It’s no beauty, either.  I like it all the more for its fugly black, graceless base.   The polycarbonite pitcher is incredibly practical fuglifying it all the more.  Love that.

The way pitcher shape affects the fluid dynamics of vortex is actually important.  Like all Waring pitchers, this is a good one.

Two states of being, two speeds, two switches.  Excellent.  Maybe one more speed and one more switch than you need, but Waring’s generous that way.  On-and-off and fast-and-slow are selected by individual and honest-to-God toggle switches.  No membrane here.  You can get membrane if you want it on the BB185.  Same price, but the toggles are so much hipper.

You can dress this up to a stainless 190 series, get a glass pitcher, and end up with industrial chic.  But it’s twice the price, and you don’t mess with the fugly.

Easy to clean.  Most of the time all you need to do is just put a couple of drops of dish soap in the pitcher with some water, and give it a whirl.  The shrouded pitcher base can be disassembled for the dishwasher when necessary — otherwise it’s more or less the same deal as a standard home pitcher.

This beast occupies the Neverland between blenders that can’t quite make proper smoothies, shakes and frozen cocktails, but look good on your counter; and the behemoths that say “nothing but the most expensive will do.”  When it comes to performance, the BB180 is a lot closer to the top than the bottom.  When it comes to good looks… oh well.  Call it a reverse-chic slice of prosumer heaven.

Bottom Line:
Capable and fugly.  Less is substantially less and no good for many of the things you actually want a blender to do.  If you buy a bigger machine and don’t grind seeds into flour or won’t  actually use it to run a business, you probably overspent.

If you want a blender that doesn’t cost a mint, will do what you want how you want, and looks great in a cabinet with the doors closed…  This One Can.

Highest recommendation.

BDL

PS.  It’s a little embarrassing to come out so strongly for something I actually chose and use.  But it’s all true.  Waring should pay me to write this stuff.

Espagnole is a classic mother sauce. Since Escoffier revolutionized “French Cuisine” at the beginning of the twentieth century, Espagnole has been an intermediate step in making other sauces (called compound sauces). With the exception of a few individuals, most people don’t like it on its own; and it is (almost) never served as is. Since nouvelle and California cuisine, demi-glace is the most common compound destination.

Even though this Espagnole recipe has a lot of steps, it’s a quick and dirty version of the classic.

SAUCE ESPAGNOLE
(Yield: About 4 cups)

Ingredients:
•    1 carrot
•    1 onion
•    1 stick, celery
•    1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
•    2 tbs butter
•    1 tbs tomato paste
•    2 tbs butter
•    6 cups veal or beef stock (or 3 cups each), divided
•    1 bay leaf
•    1 handful parsley
•    1/2 tsp dried, or 1 sprig fresh thyme

Technique:
Cut the carrot, onion and celery into medium dice. Put them in a bowl and mix with your hand so they’re evenly distributed. This mixture is called mirepoix.

Preheat a a medium sized sauce pan over medium high heat and add the olive oil and butter. The butter will foam. When the foam has subsided add 1 cup of mirepoix (reserve the rest for another time). Sauté the mirepoix until it begins to show some color.

Push the mirepoix to one side of the pan, and add your tbs of tomato paste to the center. Spread it around with your spoon and let it cook for a minute or so, so the paste forms a fond. Move the mirepoix back to the center of the pan and mix it into the paste. Keep the contents moving until the paste begins to darken – another couple of minutes at most. This combination of cooked mirepoix and tomato paste is called a pincage and is extremely useful in saucing. Remember it. It will be on the test. .

Stir the 2 tbs of flour into the pincage . Continue stirring until “the raw” is off the flour. You’ll smell the difference; it takes about two minutes.

Reduce the heat to medium-low and continue cooking another five minutes to toast the flour and further brown the tomato. Now you’ve got a roux-pincage.

Add about 1/2 cup of the stock, raise the heat to medium-high and deglaze the pan. Add the remaining stock, bring to a boil, and reduce to a simmer. Make a sachet of the bay leaf, parsley and thyme, or you may add them loose. Reduce by about one third (to 1 qt liquid) at the simmer – never the boil.

When the sauce is fully reduced, strain it through a very fine sieve, a sieve lined with cheesecloth or a fine tami. Don’t forget to press the essence out of the mirepoix with the back of a spoon.

Note: It’s impossible to overemphasize the importance of sieving in sauce making. When in doubt – sieve.

Moving on to Demi-Glace:

Back in the day, demi-glace was used as an intermediate step for more sophisticated compound sauces. Escoffier would roll over in his grave if he thought you were using it as a stand-alone sauce, but modernly it is considered a compound sauce, and is mostly commonly used “as is” to sauce for meat, poultry and/or vegetables.

Anticipating that it will be used alone, I add a butter “finish” to this version.

DEMI GLACE
(Yield: 2 cups)

Ingredients:
•    2 cups Espagnole (recipe above)
•    2 cups stock
•    1-1/2 oz Madeira (or dry Marsala, or a medium-dry Sherry such as an Amontillado)
•    1-1/2 tbs butter, chilled

Technique:
Mix two cups of Espagnole with two cups of veal, beef, brown or chicken stock in a sauce pan. Bring to a simmer and reduce, by one half.

Add the Madeira (if you can’t find an inexpensive Madeira go with the Marsala or Sherry – don’t waste your money), and simmer an additional five minutes.

When the raw wine taste has cooked off, sieve the sauce and the classic demi is complete.

Nothing succeeds like excess, so we might as well keep going. Mount the butter as follows. Cut the butter into four pieces. Add two pieces to the sauce, and whisk until they’re halfway melted. Then remove the sauce from the heat and whisk in the remaining two pieces until they’re fully melted. The sieving and the butter both add a glossy visual appeal, while the butter enhances the already considerable “lick your lips,” protein sheen.

Note:  These recipes, like a lot of my old fashioned French cooking, owe a lot to Pellaprat.  H/t Henri-Paul!

The daughter to a mother is usually called a “compound” sauce.  Compound sauces are usually meant for service, while mothers and some daughters usually are not.

Careme:
Allemande
Bechamel
Espagnole
Veloute

Escoffier:
Bechamel
Espagnole
Hollandaise
Tomate
Veloute

Modern, Synthesized:

Allemande:
It’s pretty much an egg stiffened veloute.  No one uses it.  It started petering out of French cuisine by the mid 19th C around the beginning of the culinary revolution and trend towards simplicity which carried Escoffier to sainthood.  It enjoyed a brief resurgence right after WWI, with a bunch of dishes (especially fish) which everyone called “Parisienne.”

Bechamel:
Everyone uses it.  The issue is, uses it for what.  Bechamel, Espagnole, and veloute, as roux based sauces have pretty much disappeared from the high end haute French, some other high-end European, and New International Cuisines, but they’re still going very strong in a lot of regional and bourgeois cuisines.

Espagnole:
Been rendered (pretty much) redundant, especially as a path to demi.  During the nouvelle and California revolutions we discovered that if you left stock on the stove it thickened up by itself, and that was pretty much it.  I like Espagnole as a mother, but haven’t been a professional cook for multiple decades; so I don’t count.

Hollandaise:
Mmmm.  Hollandaise.

Mayonnaise:
Where would the Japanese be without it?

Tomate:
The mother tomato sauce, “tomate,” wasn’t something you tossed on spaghetti, or used right out of the pot.  Rather it was used to supply structure without starch as well as some color and sweetness — the sweetness coming after it married the other ingredients and cooked down.  Everyone still uses a tomato “sauce” for the same purpose, but no one uses Escoffier’s version or anything like it because canned tomato products are so good there’s just no need.  Modernly, we use tomato paste and go from there.

Veloute:
It’s pretty much gone from modern high end French cuisine, New International Cuisine, and so on; but is very much alive in ordinary cooking worldwide.  Think of it as gravy and you get the idea.

Vinaigrette*:
NOT a mother sauce, for two reasons.  Vinaigrettes should be made a minute, because,  unless refrigerated, they eventually separate, and the eventuality doesn’t take very long, unless refrigerated.  More, compound vinaigrettes are still vinaigrettes, and there isn’t enough distinction or progression from plain vinaigrette to, say “honey-mustard tarragon vinaigrette, to make the mother a mother.    Mostly though the fact that the compound vinaigrette is created without first creating a mother drives a stake into the heart of the whole mother/compound relationship as I understand it.

Distinguish all that from, say, taking jarred mayonnaise, thinning it with diluted vinegar, and sweetening it with sugar in order to make “Alabama White Barbecue Sauce.” There, “In the beginning was the bottle.”

As a matter of scholarship please understand, I’m not researching as I write, just pulling it out of my butt.  Also, one thing on which we may all agree:   I certainly don’t know everything.

Hope someone is illuminated.

BDL

H/t to “Titomike” who reminded me that vinaigrettes can hold for a very long time indeed if refrigearated.  Nothing quite like cold, turgid oil, is there?

Long time no post.  I apologize to those readers who expected more freqeunt posting.  What can I say?  Crap happened.

I look forward to posting again on a regular basis.  In the near future, there’s going to be more knife and sharpening stuff, including some reviews, and with luck I’ll be able to bring some structure to my thoughts about equipment and its use.  Since my primary focus is on cooking, I’ll keep adding recipes which focus on technique as well.

Over the hiatus, one thing become sadly clear.  Most cooks, amateur and pro, don’t know what a sharp knife is.  At some point in the very near future, I’ll do a sharpening tutorial / FAQ which should help new freehanders develop their skills to the point where they can reliably sharpen and maintain thier knives.

Keith DeGrau of HandAmerican helped me choose a stropping and deburring kit (from Chef Knives to Go).  It’s been a long time since I last stropped, and a lot has changed on the equipment front.  HandAmerican’s stuff is always among the best of the best, and it will be interesting to see how far the old Sabatiers can be pushed.

Nicko at Chef Talk has asked me to do knife reviews for the Chef Talk site, and I agreed.  We’ll see how that goes if and when it happens.

It became clear during the last few months that a lot of people were logging in to read the knife stuff and are interested in what I have so say.  I’ll talk to a few dealers, and see about reviewing some knives here.

If this seems awfully knife oriented, I’ve decided on buying a new go-to gyuto myself as retail therapy for a chronic case of the bluses, and as a 60th birthday present to myself.  No decision as yet, but the short list is entirely wa handles.  I’m torn between one of the “lasers” like a Konosuke or Tadatsuna, and the practically perfect in every way Masamoto KS.

More soon,
BDL

7th Week, 9th Entry (but who’s counting?),  03/18/10

St Patrick’s Day been and gone.  Time for the left overs.

Corned Beef Hash:  Wow!  I thought the subject would be nicely covered in about 350 words.

If you’ve been following along, you know I try to cover a lot of technique in most of my recipes.  There’s a lot of knife technique in this one.  If you’re hazy about dicing, t’s worth reading for that alone.  There’s some other good technical stuff too.  And, it’s a great recipe.  Really great.

Fish and Chips: How polticially correct is it to put English and Irish recipes side to side?  If you want to argue that there’s nothing particularly Irish about Corned Beef Hash, and nothing particularly not-Irish about Fish and Chips you win as far as I’m concerned.

But enough with the Troubles, and up the food.

This particular Fish and Chips recipe uses a double dip technique to give a very light and crunchy fish, and a double fry for a nicely textured chip.  Good technique makes things better.

Philosophies of Knife Sharpening: This piece is directed more at people who are either already freehanding or thinking about it, than those who are using or interested in trying some other system .

Don’t worry, the knife and sharpening magnum opae are in the works.

So, what’s new by you? Don’t be coy.  There are a lot of other things to ask and comment about.  For God’s sake, ask and comment.  Your feedback not only validates my inflated ego it helps provide sorely needed direction.

Love you madly,
BDL

PS.  Keen eyed observers may note that this post has been edited to reflect that it was posted during the 7th rather than the 6th week since its birth.

We had corned beef for dinner the 15th of March.  For dinner on St. Patrick’s day, the 17th, we had this hash.  Hash is a very good thing, but because the techniques are so simple, almost to the level of boiling water, and because there are any number of good recipes available on the interwebs and elsewhere, I hadn’t really thought of writing it up and posting it. 

However, Linda spent dinner raving about it and insisted that I write and post this. 

Only after deciding to cooperate with the inevitable did I remember that sharing, explaining and using simple techniques is what Cook Food Good is all about. 

Here we use moderate heat to slowly develop a crust; cream for its balance of fat and moisture; a balance of fat moisture and to retard the crust and promote a marriage of flavors; dicing and staggering so all the components finish cooking together.  Even though assemblage (pretentious, no?) takes place in the pan and long before plating, we also use mise en place just because it makes life easier.

In addition, I’m going to talk a lot about two of the most important basic knife techniques – general dicing and dicing an onion.  Lucky you.  The instructions presume that you have a sharp chef’s knife or santoku and that you already know how to “claw” and “cut and retreat” with your offhand.  If you don’t have a good knife do the best you can.  If you don’t know what a claw grip or cut and retreat are – just be darn careful with those fingers. They belong on your hand, not in your hash.

CORNED BEEF HASH

Quantity:    Serves 2, 3, or 4, depending
Difficulty:    Not at all.  Requires some patience

Ingredients:

    •    1/2 to 1 pound russet or Yukon Gold potato
    •    1 medium or large yellow (sometimes called brown or Spanish) onion
    •    3/4 – 1-1/2 pounds left over corned beef
    •    2 – 4 tbs butter, preferably unsalted
    •    1/4 cup heavy cream
    •    Fresh ground black pepper
Optional
    •    1/4 bunch parsley (curly or flat)
    •    1 or 2 gently fried or poached eggs per person

Technique:                   

I. Prep

Peel the potatoes and put them in water.   

Remove a potato from the water, put it on your board, and (ideally) using a sharp chef’s knife or santoku, cut off a slice about 3/8" thick. If you’re right handed, push the slice to the right side of the board, and if you’re a lefty like me, push it to the left. 

Roll the potato onto the flat side left by the cut, and cut it into more slices (aka “planks”) about 3/8" thick.

Stack the planks as high as you feel comfortable holding in your off hand.  Orient the stack so the long end is perpendicular to your knife blade.  Cut the planks into 3/8" thick sticks (batonnet). 

Organize the sticks into bundles with the sticks running in the same direction.  Make sure the bundles aren’t too large for you to hold comfortably.  Use the face of your knife to even the right end (if you’re right handed).  Cut the sticks into 3/8" thick cubes (medium dice), using the “cut and retreat” method.  Return the dice to the water.

Continue until all the potatoes are diced and in water.  

Rinse and dry your knife.  Wipe your board down.

Put your onion on the board and cut off the stem end (that’s the end without the hairy tendrils), with a square cut.  Lay the onion on the cut and cut it in half through the middle of the root (that’s the end with the hairy tendrils).  Leave the root on each onion half.  It’s going to hold the onion together during the dicing process. That’s important enough to repeat. You want each onion half in one piece until the final cut.

Pull the papery skin from each onion half.  Some people (me among them) use their fingernails to start prying the paper from the flesh, others like to use a table knife.  Discard the skin and the stem end.

Lay one onion half flat on your board, push the other to an area of the board where it won’t be in the way.

Turn the onion so that the stem end is to your right (facing your knife hand).  Make a horizontal cut, half way up the onion from the stem end ALMOST to the root. Stop short of the root by about 1/4" to 3/8".  DO NOT cut through the root.  Cutting without cutting all the way through is called “scoring”

Note 1: Lefties often find it easier to cut the vertical scoring before making the horizontal score.  I don’t know why, it just is.

Rotate the onion 90* so the stem end faces you.  Use the tip of your knife blade to make vertical scoring cuts, all the way down to the board, about 3/8" from one another – each cut stopping about 1/4" short of cutting through the onion.  Still scoring, because at this stage you want the onion hold together as one piece. 

Rotate the onion 90* so the stem end is to your right again.  Cut 3/8" thick slices starting with the stem end.  As soon as they’re cut the slices the combination of the scoring you did and the fact that an onion is build in layers, will make the slices fall apart into medium dice. 

Keep slicing until you reach the stem part of the onion – in other words, where the slices no longer break up into dice – and discard the stem end.   

Repeat with the second half of the onion.  Reserve the onion to a bowl on the counter and cover with cling wrap.      

Put the dice in a bowl and cover with cling wrap, and reserve on the counter.

Note 2 (Very Important): Consistent sizing IS important.  BUT 3/8" thick is an approximate measurement.  Don’t make yourself nuts.  If your dice end up between 1/4" and 1/2" thick you’re doing well.  A reference is helpful to developing consistent sizes.  For instance, a fine dice is about the same size as a rivet on my knife handle.  To cut medium dice, I cut the first plank about a rivet and a half wide, then use the first plank to gauge the rest of the planks and the first stick, and so on.

Rinse and dry your knife.  Wipe your board.

Remove the corned beef from the refrigerator (cold meat is easier to dice) and set it on the board so the grain of the meat is perpendicular to the axis of your knife blade and cut planks, 3/8" thick, against the grain of the meat. 

Note 3:  Since you’re taking the meat down to dice, cutting your planks (slices) against the grain isn’t really that important.  But slicing grained meat against the grain for any other purpose is so important, you should make it a no-exceptions habit.  

Once your planks are cut, continue as with the potatoes, all the way through to medium dice.  Reserve the corned beef to a bowl on the counter. 

If using, mince enough parsley to make about 1/4 cup (4 tbs)

Take a look at your mise so far.  There should be roughly equal volumes of potatoes and corned beef, and about 2/3 that volume of onion.  If there isn’t… who cares?  It’s hash.  Proportion is strictly As You Like It.   

II.  Assembly and Cooking:

Drain the potatoes, refill the pan with water to cover them by about an 1".  Set the pan over medium high heat and bring to a boil. Allow to boil for 2 minutes.  Remove from the heat.  Strain the potatoes, and set the strainer over the cooking pan.  Note that the water is unsalted because the corned beef already brings so much salt.

Heat a large skillet over a medium flame.  When the pan is hot lift it off the flame and add the butter (unsalted, if you have it).  Swirl it to prevent the butter from burning.  Return the pan to the flame and swirl until the butter is melted and the foam largely subsided.

Add the onions to the pan and cook until they show signs of becoming translucent, stirring occasionally – about 5 minutes.

Add the corned beef and potatoes, stir together well.  Season with a few turns of black pepper from the mill, and stir all together will again.  Distribute the hash as evenly as possible.

Put your spoon in the sink and use a metal spatula to press the hash down into the skillet – again, distributing as evenly as possible, and with the top as flat as possible. 
Pour the cream over the top, again as evenly as possible.  I don’t know about you, but I’m sensing a theme here.

Allow to cook undisturbed for 10 minutes.  Use your spatula to turn the hash, redistribute in the pan, and flatten – wait for it – as evenly as possible.

After another 10 minutes (20 minutes total) the cream should have almost fully absorbed.  Turn, redistribute and flatten as before.  If the hash is very sticky or seems too dry, reduce the heat to medium-low.

Another 10 minutes (30 minutes total) and by this time the water from the cream will have evaporated,  the milk solids absorbed, and the fat from the corned beef rendered nearly completely.  The hash should be gently frying.  Turn the hash.  If the hash is very dark and if you haven’t already down so, reduce the heat.  If the meat is becoming agreeably crisp and it’s starting to smell very good – your heat is fine. 

Sprinkle half the parsley onto the hash, redistribute and flatten. 

Cook for a final ten minutes (40 minutes total). 

Plating: Are you kidding me?  Just dump it in the middle.  Garnish, if desired with fried or poached egg – cooked so that the yolks are still liquid enough to serve as a sauce, and with the remaining parsley.  Hot sauce is a nice touch, especially Bufalo Chipotle,  Tabasco Chipotle, or Pico Pica.   

Accompaniments: Salad and/or fruit.

Beverages: Corned beef benefits from drinks which cut the salt.  Beer, coffee or sparkling water are all very nice.  A dry sherry, or something spicy-sweet but not too-sweet like a dry Traminer or Riesling would do well, too.  Champagne, every very good champagne, or champagne based cocktails such as Mimosa or Kir Royale – Yes, indeed. 

As a result of their training, I prefer the coating on my fish to be very light and crisp, in the style of tempura, and some of the better chipper vans (can there be a “better” chipper van?) and pubs of the UK.  I also like my potatoes fried properly — something that’s impossible in a van, difficult in a restaurant, and rather easy at home.

There’s a certain amount of complication in this recipe, but the extra technique is very worthwhile.

Fish and chips has been driven off it’s pedestal as the iconic British carry out by curry.  Mmm, curry.  While it’s not exactly fair to say that fish and chips is endangered, eat it while you can.

FISH AND CHIPS

Quantity: For four
Difficulty: Easy, but extra steps and some “plan ahead” timing

Equipment:

Fryer or “deep enough” pan set up as fryer
Brown paper bags

Ingredients:

Chips:
•    2 pounds russet potatoes
•    Enough oil for deep frying – I.e., at least 2″ deep in a Dutch Oven.
Fish:
•    2 cups flour
•    1 tbs double acting baking powder
•    1 tsp salt
•    1 ex-large egg
•    1-1/2 cups, ice-cold club-soda or seltzer, or bottle of lager beer, divided in halves
•    1 or 2 ice cubes
•    1-1/2 pound firm white fish fillets, the standards are cod, haddock, halibut and plaice; catfish is surprisingly good but not very British
•    1/2 cup rice flour, or corn starch

Technique:

A proper chip is no small thing.  Peel your potatoes, and cut them into chips about the size of your index or driver’s finger.   Cover the potatoes with water, discard the water, and cover again with fresh water.  Potatoes should soak at least 45 minutes, and up to 8 hours.  The soak is important.  You won’t get the right textures on the skin and the interior without it.

While (or, “whilst” if you’re from the Empire) the potatoes are soaking, begin the batter. Sift the flour baking powder and salt together.  Beat the egg and add it and about 3/4 cup liquid and stir to combine a very smooth batter.  Cover with cling wrap, and hold in the refrigerator.   The partially completed batter should be held for at least 45 minutes and up to 2 hours.

When ready to cook, Wash and thoroughly dry your fillets (did I mention that they should be dry?).  Portion into long triangular wedges, each about 4 oz.  (English style is skin on; American is skin off.)  Alternatively, if you’re feeling dainty, you may cut the fish into goujon aka fish fingers. Dust the fillets with enough rice powder or corn starch, so they  are fully covered, and completely dry.  Shake off any excess and reserve the fish on a rack.

Heat the oil to 325.  Drain enough chips to fill the fryer without crowding, reserving three for later.   (You may have to work in batches.)  Dry them thoroughly with a towel.  Cook the potatoes through, about 5-6 minutes.  They will either not brown at all, or only brown slightly.

Set the potatoes aside to drain on paper.  A brown paper bag works better than paper towels for draining oil.

Raise the oil temperature to 375.

Remove the batter from the refrigerator.  Add the ice cube and the remaining liquid, and stir until just combined.  Dip the fish in batter until coated.

If you only have one smallish fryer cook as follows: Fry the fish until done, about 5 minutes.  While the fish is frying drain, dry and reserve the remaining three chips.  As soon as the fish comes out of the oil, add those chips, and let them cook for 60 seconds only. Then remove and discard.  (Their purpose is to clean any fish taste that got into the oil.)  Immediately, return the partially cooked chips to the oil, and cook until they pick up some color, about 5 minutes.  Remember, they are already cooked

One big fryer: If your fryer is big enough to handle the temperature shock, you may fry the fish and “par-fried” chips at the same time.  If you do so, chips on the bottom,  fish on top.

Two fryers: Fry the fish and the partially fried chips simultaneously.

Drain the fish and the chips on fresh brown paper.  Salt lightly while still very fresh from the fryer and very hot.

Plate the fish and chips with lemon wedges.  Serve with malt vinegar
on the side.  Some people like tartar sauce as well.

Some people look at it as a series of progressive shapings and polishings; starting on the coarsest stones, and just doing the same thing only doing it finer as they move up the grits.  Deburring is an incidental nuisance, a consequence of a burr which occurs when “bevels overlap.”  (That’s not what really happens, but let it go for now.)  For lack of a better word, let’s call them “polishers.”

I think that’s the most common viewpoint at my primary knife site, Fred’s Cutlery Forum, as well as those other boards where knife, sharpening, and polishing hobbyists congregate.

Polishers are folks who don’t tolerate much gap in grit size well, and consequently tend to have a lot of stones at a lot of different grit levels.  They’re also more likely do stropping on loaded strops, and use other techniques to get the most polish possible.  “Finger stones” are a definite give away.

I think polishers tend to enjoy the whole sharpening process and look to put the smoothest possible edge and best looking polish as their tools and technique allow.

On the other hand, a lot of “experts” (and me too) view sharpening as a process which centers about creating a burr, chasing it, and deburring; and has profiling (or repairing) and polishing as activities which precede and follow respectively.  We can call them (us, ourselves, me) “sharpeners.”

We tend to see the middle grit as the place to chase the burr, and want a stone which is aggressive enough to do that quickly.  At the same time, we don’t want to have to take out more scratch than necessary when we start polishing, so we want our mid grit to refine the pattern left by the stone we used to create the burr.

That is, assuming that we’re (a) looking for a fair amount of polish; and (b) chasing the burr on a different stone than the one we used to create it.

It’s probably worth mentioning, that even though it’s not an essential to the burr part of sharpening the coarse profile/repair stone is fundamental, because a good profile is not only fundamental — but problems which occur or should be repaired at a coarse level, cannot be properly addressed at a finer one.  If a sharpener has a problem at any but the coarsest levels, (s)he goes coarse to fix it.

Anyway, we sharpeners are the ones with three, four, or five stone sets. A four stone kit has one grit each, for: Profile/repair; pulling the wire; chasing it and deburring; and polishing.  A three stone user will blur the tasks by (usually) using the same stone to pull and chase, then deburr on the polishing stone — but one could deburr on the same stone the burr was created and chased; or, alternatively, chase and deburr on the polishing stone.  A five stone kit is like a four stone, but with two complimentary polishing stones.

Sharpeners consider stones and the grit jumps between in light of balancing the amount of work required to do the given task for the stone.  With waterstones, the “amount of work” includes flattening; i.e.,  too big a jump requires too many strokes, and too many strokes makes for dishing, and that means too much flattening.  And with all stones, the absolute number of strokes — too many strokes increases the probability of a screw-up; and the absolute number of stones — too many stones also increases the probability of screw-ups.

Sharpeners look for a Goldilocks kit.  Not too few, not too many, just right.

My kit, for the little it’s worth, has eight stones.  But they’re really two distinct, four-stone sets — one, all oilstones; the other, all waterstones.  Considering the types of knives I own, either would be fine; just greedy is all.

The “sharpener” viewpoint is all about creating as good an edge possible with as little effort as possible; then taking it to the highest, practical polish.

Some people — and it takes very good technique to do this — look at the process as essentially two steps — shaping + initial sharpening; and finish sharpening + polishing.  How does “sharpening fundamentalism” sound?

Fundamentalists shape, repair, and (incidentally or on purpose) create the burr on a coarse stone; then they get rid of the burr, and polish out all scratches on the second.  Murray Carter sharpens this way, and so does John Juranitch (the king of modern sharpeners, IMO), but you really want to look at some of BLW’s (from Fred’s Cutlery Forum and You Tube) videos as a good example of the technique.

Fundamentalists are as much, if not more, bound by practicality as sharpeners; but in my opinion they work harder and are harder on their stones.

As I said, it takes a lot of technique to make the jump from coarse (say 400) to polishing (say 6000 to 8000) really work, not to mention the right stones; and you’re better off learning to sharpen first before even thinking about working on Japanese knives that way.

Don’t confuse fundamentalism with a 1000/6000 (or similar) combination stone or two stone kit.  Those kits don’t include a profiling stone — and the level of polish is determined by the absolute amount of jump most people can handle, rather than the level appropriate for the particular knife and task.

There are also practical disadvantages to maintaining and using up “combi” stones.  They’re usually a budget or beginner’s choice, more than one of sharpening philosophy.