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I had one steakhouse that used 50# Idahos a day for mashed and 50# Yukon for fries. And a burger joint that used... Jesus... 1200# of frozen fries a week? That can't be right. It was about twenty cases, but they weren't 60# each. I have to check, but it was a lot of damn fries.

With all the butter, heavy cream, and salt... I doubt the mashed are much healthier, though.
 
I also mash a brick of Philadelphia cream cheese into a pot (10 lbs) of mashed potatoes. Some butter, but never milk or cream.
 
My husband grew up in a dairy farm family. They had cream leftover for their own use after selling the milk. His recipe for mashed potatoes: cook potatoes in cream (or milk, if you happen to not live on the farm any more.) Squish big pieces with a slotted spoon. Add a bunch of butter, salt, pepper, and whip with a hand mixer. Gravy is gilding the Yukon Golds, but he makes good ham gravy, too..
 
That's at least the second time I've heard fingerlings referring to potatoes. What does it mean? In my working life, fingerlings referred to a size of fish used for restocking waterways.

You could explain pee-wees while you're at it. Please and thank you.
 
CatrionaGrace said:
That's at least the second time I've heard fingerlings referring to potatoes. What does it mean? In my working life, fingerlings referred to a size of fish used for restocking waterways.

You could explain pee-wees while you're at it. Please and thank you.
Click to expand...
Fingerling potato Google Search

Louanne Learning said:
can you roast any vegetable in an air fryer?
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Literally anything. Also sous vide, slow cooker, bake, broil... magic!
 
 
I love my air fryer. It rips. Just need to get one of those cans of spray oil to lightly oil what you're cookin.

Potato chunks/fries, mozza sticks, Beyond sausage and chick'n fingers/nugs, all that good stuff. Plus you can easily toast your buns to boot.

Sometimes I miss my deep fryer, but then I remember how horrible it was to clean and change the oil.
 
Air fryers are a meh for me. I don't really eat fried food and I don't use the oven much. I mainly boil my food. And for things like sunny-side eggs or panbreads, I use a frying pan with a tablespoon of oil or two.

The thing about ovens is that they are a pain in the neck to clean. Same with air fryers. It's the oil that makes it so hard. It vaporizes and becomes this extremely tough black gunk that sticks to the oven walls. You can prevent it with low temperatures but most oven dishes need high temps. That's uh... the whole point.

With non-stick pots and pans, life is just so much easier (and healthier, probably).
 
Homer Potvin said:
How do you cook without deglazing fats? Or regulate heat without copper?
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Since I don't cook meats, there isn't a scenario where I need to deglaze fats. Most of the fat I eat comes from olive oil and dairy.

I don't need to regulate heat precisely. I just need to make sure that nothing burns. Good heat regulation would be hard anyway because I have an electric stovetop. It not only heats unevenly, turning down the heat has a delay of minutes.

I have heard that induction stovetops have better heat regulation and that some restaraunts even prefer them over gas-based ones. But eh, electric works well enough for me, so no reason to fuss over it.

I do have stainless steel pots and pans as well. I don't always need the non-stick properties. Non-stick stuff is great but unlike stainless steel, they tend to wear out over time. Pan frying falafels on stainless steel is impossible as far as I can tell, for example. You can if you use lots of olive oil. But that's both not healthy and also wasteful—olive oil is stupidly expensive these days. The one I had from my own trees has ran out and harvest season isn't until next October :( You really have to be efficient with that stuff.

But for things like sunny side up eggs and fried rice, stainless steel is fine and prefered.
 
We've got a big collection of cast iron cookware and another collection of stainless steel, some with aluminum bottoms. Some of the cast iron is just collection- I don't make individual cornbread sticks any more, for example- but the skillets and griddle are priceless. I don't use non-stick cookware because of the chemicals used in the non-stick coating. PFAs accumulate in the environment and pose serious health risks.
 
ps102 said:
I don't need to regulate heat precisely. I just need to make sure that nothing burns. Good heat regulation would be hard anyway because I have an electric stovetop. It not only heats unevenly, turning down the heat has a delay of minutes.
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That's what a diffuser is for. Along with turning the heat down, I slip one under the pot.


So handy that it's in my camping kitchen box, even when I'm cooking with gas, since camp stoves can be tricky on very low heat settings.

I greatly prefer gas stoves, although I hear that there are increased risks of inhaling the gas, particularly if it isn't vented.
 
Homer Potvin said:
Fingerling potato Google Search
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In Syracuse, New York, there is a tradition for "salt potatoes" which are very small potatoes cooked in brine. I've made it using new potatoes but my relatives tell me that they use a special variety that you can't get anywhere else. I don't know the name of that variety.

But there used to be a whole galaxy of potato varieties. In New England, practically every valley had a distinct variety. Same with apples. Central New York is a big apple-growing area, and I remember going to a grocery with my uncle and seeing more than a dozen varieties in the bins there. Around here, it's a half a dozen, if you're lucky.
 
I'm a cast-iron skillet kind of guy. Except I don't baby mine via routine seasoning or anything. I treat it like shit.

Stainless steel for my saucers and junk though. I have a designated 'popcorn' pot with a bit of a scorched bottom (though a vegetable soup batch can help clean it).

With non-stick it's a bit of a commitment to use non-abrasive spatulas. My past roommates' pans ended up shedding their coating quickly, probably due to misuse.
JLT said:
I greatly prefer gas stoves, although I hear that there are increased risks of inhaling the gas, particularly if it isn't vented.
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I've been on gas since we moved into our house. I loathe how it scorches the sides of pots and heats the handles so I'm always handling stuff with mitts. We always have the hood fan on when using it just to be safe. I miss electric. Induction is really cool but seems annoying/expensive to repair. Get me a nice white economy coil electric stove stop and I'm happy.
 
JLT said:
That's what a diffuser is for. Along with turning the heat down, I slip one under the pot.
Click to expand...
Interesting. I had no idea they existed.

JLT said:
I greatly prefer gas stoves, although I hear that there are increased risks of inhaling the gas, particularly if it isn't vented.
Click to expand...
A friend has a gas stove and oven. It emits a particular unpleasant smell, but I'm pretty sure it's because he uses LPG gas. Apparently, LNG smells less. Aside from that, the byproduct hydrogen of the burned gas combines with the oxygen in the air to make moisture! A lot of unexplained mold later, he found out that these gas cookers are a no-no in houses with poor ventilation.

In Greece, γκαζακια (literally meaning "little gas") are pretty popular for brewing coffee and tea. They are just big enough to hold a μπρικη (a little pot for boiling water). They work with hand-sized gas canisters.

We had a mini gas explosion when I was a kid because of those things. I don't know what went wrong but the can exploded as my dad tried to fit into the γκαζακι. Nobody got hurt but I guess it's why I'm super weary of gas-based things now. The chemicals aren't the only danger with these.

They look like this. No idea if they are a thing in the rest of the world.
1777395829309.png
 
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