RB Notes

This thermometer from Thermoworks is an essential tool used daily in our kitchen.   Of course it’s handy for grilling, but I use it to check doneness on a wide range of foods from baked potatoes to Artisan bread.  And if you want a longer list check out Serious Eats piece “Why do I need an instant read thermometer?”

Good news is that both the Thermapen and the Thermopop are on special until the end of August.  Custard, doughnuts . . .lots of things need precision.

The spectacular summer days continue.

Today we have an exciting new cookware to talk about.  As many of you know we have sold All-clad cookware for thirty years.  Recently the company has decided to stop selling to specialty stores like us, the people who have built and supported their brand for all these years.  So we have been looking closely at other lines and have been very impressed with Tramontina, a cookware made in Brazil.  The quality is similar to All-clad but the pricing is much better. It is an extensive line with lots of interesting pieces.   Currently, we are offering this cookware at excellent introductory discounts. So come in and give it a look.

Today I thought I’d talk a little about the Mailliard reaction, which is the fancy name for browning.  We all know that browning improves the flavor of stews, grilled foods and even bread.  It a complex process but put simply the Maillard reaction (/maɪˈjɑːr/ my-YAR; French: [majaʁ]) is a chemical reaction between amino acids and reducing sugars that gives browned food its distinctive flavor. Seared steaks, fried dumplings, cookies and other kinds of biscuits, breads, toasted marshmallows, and many other foods undergo this reaction. It is named after French chemist Louis-Camille Maillard, who first described it in 1912 while attempting to reproduce biological protein synthesis.

What’s really important for cooks to know is that this reaction cannot take place in the presence of water.   This means that if you want browning and enhanced flavor you have to dry whatever you are working with: steaks, chops, chicken etc.  Sometime we even dry a whole chicken overnite in the fridge, so the skin will be crispy and delicious.

This is an exciting time of the year in the coffee roasting department since the new crop coffees from South and Central America have started to arrive.  This last week we started roasting Las Margaritas, a Colombian coffee from the district of Vereda San Bartolo.  This coffee is smooth and gentle with easy acidity and interesting nuances of flavor.  The farm is owned and managed by Dona Lourdes Restrepo, pictured to the left.

• This last week we have been fortunate to see the return of the delicious Creekstone Natural prime strip steaks.  We cut these steaks from the loin ourselves, so they are consistently  12 oz  and 1 1/4” thick.  Either pan seared or grilled these are the best; great flavor and that wonderful ‘tooth’.

• Our new Guatemalan coffee from Huehuetenango El Injerto keeps getting better as we work on the perfect roast for it.  With new crop coffees it is sometime a challenge because they are so bright and vivacious that the flavors don’t come through unless we push the roast.  Anyway  it is a beautiful coffee, very complex with those cocoa overtones that we look for in coffees from this area.  We buy this coffee directly from the farm .  Today the farm is managed by the third and fourth generation of the Aguirre family.

• Way upstairs the Second Story our Emporium of good stuff for less is in full swing. All through the winter we search for bargains, closeouts and discontinued items that we can offer to you at substantial savings.

Hot and sunny today.
For your information:

During the Covid19 crisis Rooster Brother has not been accepting cash payments at the store. A few customers have complained to us about this, referring to it as ‘classist’ and discriminatory. It is neither. We have been in business for thirty-four years and have cheerfully accepted cash from thousands of customers.
Our primary consideration in reopening our business to retail sales is the safety of our staff and customers. Eliminating cash eliminates contact for both staff and customers and allows for a more sanitary transaction. Also, it eliminates an arduous cash out process everyday where a staff member has to handle and count all the money.

We are profoundly grateful to all our customers who wear masks and follow the guidelines set up by the Governor and the CDC. By caring for each other we will endure this difficult time.