That's awesome. I love it when friends/family say "so, uhh, why don't you cook for us instead of us going out for dinner?"
I, too, would love to have such a high BTU burner, but reality says it would probably not be used enough to warrant it... unless I could also use it to sear meat at crazy high temps that are higher than my BBQ is now (I've drilled out the jets in my BBQ to get pretty insane heat... the grill glows orange and sags if I leave it too long).
My big thing is they are outdoors and I don’t know how much I’d want to do it in winter or if I’m cooking a nightly meal when it rains etc. price wise they aren’t too bad. Wish more home stove manufacturers had a wok burner option. The wokmon is a compromise though you are limited to the but’s your stove puts out. We just got a new stove last year and it’s got way more btus than our old one. Not restaurant levels but we had to readjust what we knew as high/medium/low as it was a significant change.
Yeah... I'm starting to look for a new stove, but the ones I want are a bit wider than my current one so it would involve me digging into the woodshop to build out some new cabinetry in that area. Not adverse to it, but it's a hell of a lot more commitment than just replacing the existing stove. A friend has a great range that has 6 burners and the middle section is a fantastic high BTU burner that has a grill attachment, etc, that would be perfect. Especially since I've upgraded my range hood exhaust fan to be crazy good now. (I can pan sear a steak in cast iron and smoking olive oil and it evacuates all the smoke easily... no more fogging the whole house with oil smoke).
Yeah we just bought some shitbird exhaust of a local auction site. We need a more powerful one bad. We have a griddle in the center of our new on but it’s too narrow and has a cheap Teflon coating that rubbed off immediately. Have to use dish towels to scrub it. It’s a pain. You can buy one with a better surface but I’d rather have just gone with another option. A decent sized cast iron pan gets the same results and easier to clean.
Absolutely. Every year I ask my wife if she wants to go out to dinner for her birthday, and every year her request is that I make the scallops and stuffed mushrooms dinner that she loves. And a few dinners in our regular rotation are meals we had at restaurants that I decided to make at home, including my daughter’s favorite- chicken paprikash.
What recipes do you guys have that call for a high BTU burner? The only thing I've ever come across that needed more heat than my bog standard oven/stove could output is pizza, which likes to chill in a 900 degree sauna. Hell, I smoked the fuck out of my kitchen a few weeks ago on medium heat and made a note to tone it down next time.
Higher BTU burners are primarily for bringing the heat back up faster once you load a pan full of cold/cool food. Usually why most meats sear better on the first side than the flip side. The first side leeched a lot of the heat stored in the pan and a lower powered burner can't bring that heat back up fast enough to have the same sear on the other side. Another benefit would be the amount of food you're trying to prepare in a single pan/wok. I've been to trainings that prepared wok cooked food on a "high" btu residential burner get the same results as the dedicated mega burner. But just with less food in the wok. Think 2 servings vs 6 servings. Also, much like a high horsepower car, it makes your dong bigger.
There is some internet chef science behind high btu commercial kitchen stoves and what you can achieve at home. Asian stir fry and Indian curries I’ve both read are much more flavorful when cooked faster at much higher btus in restaurant kitchens.
Last night my Mom and I went to the Keg for some prime rib and lobster tails. A few bites in and she looks at me and says, "you make it better". Yes... yes I do. Lately I find that for standard stuff, like pasta, or steaks, etc, it's a no brainer to stay home and cook it yourself, assuming you want to. But there are a couple of restaurants in town that have phenomenal chefs that really make incredibly tasty, new dishes, and I love going out and trying things from a "new" menu. I tend to take inspiration from them and learn new things that I incorporate into my own meals. Couple of weeks ago I went out and had some of the most amazing pickled grapes... they were in a red wine vinegar (light), but had the most amazing allspice/cinimon like flavour to them... could not stop eating them. Absolutely amazing, and now a regular on my charcutere boards. Sous vide steaks and meat. You want to char that outside layer as fast as you can, and a normal BBQ just doesn't get it hot enough, fast enough. Alton Brown did a video where he tested various temps for his sous vide steaks.. it was quite interesting. He basically set up an experiment where he had 4 or 5 different searing temperatures/setups for his steak, and found that the highest temperature had the biggest effect on the outside of the steak, in the shortest time, which meant that the internals of the steak didn't cook or change significantly. A lower heat means that the steak is continuing to cook while you're waiting for the char to build on the outside, meaning it could go from medium rare to medium while you're waiting. That's also a reason a lot of people swear by using a thick cast iron pan... it's a hell of a heat sink that can deliver tons of heat in a hurry and accomplish kind of the same thing. You can also add some butter which helps with the charring effect as opposed to higher flash temp oils, etc.
That's how I cook my steaks. Ripping hot cast iron, sear 30 seconds each side, then throw the whole thing into a 500 degree oven for a few minutes.
It's all about the maillard reaction... you NEED it for a good steak, and a higher temp helps achieve it. https://www.seriouseats.com/what-is-maillard-reaction-cooking-science
I do it reverse via the sous vide... it helps tenderize tougher cuts of meat, and I can throw it right in there from the freezer at lunch time and have it cooked whenever I'm ready, just needs to be seared for a few minutes. Don't even have to rest it after.
I ask again: Why always in the road? This isn't some kind of isolated incident; I've been documenting this for years. Who disposes of other types of drug paraphernalia in the roadway? They are obviously doing this for a reason. They could have easily thrown it to the side of the road (or a trash can...), but they threw this in the middle of an intersection. Do any of y'all see this in your areas, ever?
Not those, but there is a half mile stretch of road here that is always littered with airplane bottles, mostly Fireball.