1564 replies to this topic

[nathanm]

Total recipe count depends a bit on how you count it because we have some unique types of recipes that have many possibilites. I would estimate about 1000 recipes total in the book, distributed through most of the volumes.

The plated dish recipes include side dishes and garnishes. Each one is multiple side recipes.

However, the book is not just a recipe book. We could fit a lot more than 1000 recipes in that page count if that is all we wanted to do - we have a lot of technique and "how to" photos.

[RDaneel]

Awesome, sounds great. My only concern, before I read the preview site in more depth, was that recipes would be limited to a few dozen. They would certainly be welcome, but I'm glad to have many more considering the length of the compendium! Can't wait for that Amazon delivery to arrive...

The book appears to be a bit of On Food and Cooking, some Complete Techniques, a dash of Under Pressure, and then a whole lot more. I don't see how it could be summed up in a sentence or with a good metaphor, so thank you for putting together the preview site.

[adey73]

Hi Nathan, looks great but still no sign on Amazon UK.
Am sure I was the first to ask for a signed copy on the Sous Vide thread, any resolution there?

[nathanm]

It will be available for pre-order on Amazon UK soon, but I am not sure exactly how soon.

I am happy to sign copies if they are physically accessible to me, but the logistics of signing and then shipping are difficult.

The books are packaged in a shipping box at the printing plant - much like you would get a DVD player, flat panel TV or some other consumer electronics. It goes from there by ship to warehouses for Amazon, or other book distributors.

The book weighs so much that paying for shipping to ship it to me to sign is pretty expensive.

We are looking into a way for me to sign a bunch of books and then give them to Amazon or others as a special signed edition. This only makes sense if there is a lot of demand for a signed book.

Another approach is to sign bookplates which get stuck in the book.

We will look into various solutions...

[Kim D]

Another approach is to sign bookplates which get stuck in the book.

I've never understood why someone would want a signed bookplate. Unless that bookplate had a personal message.

I've pre-ordered the book from Amazon and can't wait to get my hands on it. And I know it's going to cost me way more than $421.87...

Years ago a friend gave me a bottle of Campari along with a recipe for a negroni. That gift cost me $250 because I had to buy martini glasses, a cocktail shaker, gin, vermouth.

I know that as a result of buying Modernist Cuisine, I'll be adding to my collection of kitchen toys.

[RDaneel]

Kim, just repeat after me: I don't need a Pacojet. I don't need a Rotovap. I don't need an Anti-Griddle...

haha

[ScottyBoy]

Haha +1

[Kim D]

Kim, just repeat after me: I don't need a Pacojet. I don't need a Rotovap. I don't need an Anti-Griddle...

haha

Why would I want to resist temptation?

[Dave the Cook]

Awesome, sounds great. My only concern, before I read the preview site in more depth, was that recipes would be limited to a few dozen. They would certainly be welcome, but I'm glad to have many more considering the length of the compendium! Can't wait for that Amazon delivery to arrive...

The full table of contents lists 48 recipes in the "Plated Dishes" volume. But as Nathan has alluded, that number is a little deceptive. The Mushroom Swiss Burger, for example, incorporates 16 subrecipes:

Methylcellulose A15C Stock Solution
Tomato Confit
Rendered Beef Suet
Short-Rib Patty
Hamburger Buns
Mushroom Broth
Freeze-Dried Shiitake
Mushroom Ketchup
Restructured Emmental Slices
Onion Stock
Onion Cracker Breading
Shallot Rings
Hamburger Glaze
Sautéed Maitake Mushrooms
Smoked Lettuce
Compressed Tomatoes

So it's easy to see how a recipe count not only multiplies, but how difficult it is to count them -- some are barely recipes in the classical sense, and some seem to be quite complicated.

Speaking of the burger, here's a larger version of what you can see on the site (this is at 100 dpi; obviously the printed version will be nice and sharp):

[RDaneel]

Damn, I really want to try one of those burgers. And at 16 subrecipes, I'm really hoping I can find someone else to make it for me! (just kidding about that last part)

[nathanm]

The burger is really good!

[Kim D]

I am so glad I pre-ordered this book!

Tomato confit. Mushroom ketchup. Rendered beef suet.

I am in heaven.

The more I can make from scratch, the happier I am.

I may just explode.

In a good way.

[Chris Amirault]

Nathan, can you say a bit about how you and your team developed the recipe flavor profiles, for lack of a better term? For example, in the burger above, there are some standard (cheese, tomato, smoke) and not-so-standard (crimini ketchup with fish sauce and allspice) flavors going on.

[nathanm]

Our goal with this recipe was to make the ultimate hamburger. That isn't a very well defined thing of course because everybody has their own definition, in part shaped by their experiences. Comfort food is often heavily influenced by nostalgia.

Part of the recipe is about using state of the art techniques to execute a more or less standard hamburger. We use short rib as the meat for the burger. The meat is ground via a special technique to align the grain, which makes it seem jucier. The cheese is made using an emuslifier so that it melts perfectly, the way so-called American cheese does, but it is made of real Swiss cheeses so it has high quality cheese flavor. The bun is made using l-cystene, an amino acid that helps make buns soft. The tomato is vacuum compressed to make it denser.

At the same time we wanted to put some twists in the dish.

I ate at a restaurant in Seal Beach, California that had smoked lettuce. So we decided to add that, but we wanted the lettuce crispier than theirs so we did it by vacuum infusion of liquid smoke.

For the ketchup and mayo we wanted to do something a bit more unusual flavor wise. So we developed our own ketchup recipe. We used mushrooms as the base, and then worked some other flavors in. Now, you might think that mushroom ketchup is something new, but no it isn't, see this Wikipedia article , which includes this photo of a bottle of mushroom ketchup hailing originally from 1850. Mushroom ketchup is also discussed here

You may think that Thai fish sauce is unusual, but in fact anchovies are present in Worchestershire sauce, so it is not as odd as you may think. The same is true for allspice, which is found in many ketchup recipes.

The overall goal is to have a recipe that is both familar and different at the same time. I think we achieved that, but of course there are a lot of other things that one could do.

Edited by nathanm, 11 August 2010 - 07:19 AM.

[Chris Amirault]

It's fascinating to read the unfolding of the recipe's design, just as thoughtful as the graphic design of the book, clearly! Makes me even more excited.

[MaxH]

...our own ketchup recipe. We used mushrooms as the base ... you might think that mushroom ketchup is something new...

It's a peripheral point (in what does sound like a good hamburger!) but I had to chuckle. So much have things changed in a few decades that someone might indeed think mushroom ketchup was "new," unconscious of any irony. Apropos recent discussion in the EatYourBooks thread, if someone thought that, it'd imply they haven't read many cookbooks from before recent years. (I'm sure NathanM knows that traditionally, ketchups in the US were made in several flavors.) Even fairly late in 20th century I encountered recipes calling for mushroom ketchup. The Hesses in their late-20th-c. critique The Taste of America (with something of a Michael Pollan role, at a time when far fewer people wrote about these issues) took the dominance and insidious sweetening of tomato ketchup as symbolic of mass mediocrity in 20th-century US cooking. From that book (not from online), emphasis added:

"... the great majority of ketchups that characterized early American cooking was gradually replaced by the ubiquitous tomato ketchup. [Eliza] Leslie, in 1837, published recipes for eight kinds: anchovy (two), lobster, oyster, walnut, mushroom, lemon -- and tomato. (Be it noted again, there was no sugar in any of them.) Anyone familiar with Chinese cooking will recognize the original source of ketchups, but they came to us from England. (The Oxford English Dictionary says the word apparently derives from the Amoy Chinese kétsiap, meaning brine of pickled fish. The Malay k­echap [bar over the e], often given as the source, may be from the Chinese as well.) Until about 1850, when an American recipe called for ketchup, it most likely meant mushroom, walnut, or oyster. These interesting condiments did continue for some decades, because [Leslie’s classic 19th-c. US cookbooks] continued to be best sellers."

[MartinH]

On YouTube there's a video called "Cooking in Silico: Heat Transfer in the Modern Kitchen" which features Nathan Myhrvold and Chris Young showcasing some images and ideas from the book, their recipe for the ultimate duck breast, among several other things. (I haven't noticed a link to this either in this thread or on the Modernist Cuisine website, but it is well worth viewing.)

[Anna N]

On YouTube there's a video called "Cooking in Silico: Heat Transfer in the Modern Kitchen" which features Nathan Myhrvold and Chris Young showcasing some images and ideas from the book, their recipe for the ultimate duck breast, among several other things. (I haven't noticed a link to this either in this thread or on the Modernist Cuisine website, but it is well worth viewing.)

Now watching this video was absolutely the right way to start my day. Thanks so much for sharing.

[Chris Hennes]

Definitely a great watch, I am really itching to get my hands on these books. Nathan, when does works start on the next set of volumes covering pastry?

Here's the video linked to above, embedded for the lazy:

[nathanm]

We are intrigued by the idea of a similar book on pastry, but frankly we need to survive getting this book done before we get too serious about it!

[nextguy]

I was super excited today to see that the book finally appeared on amazon.ca. Unfortunately there is no pre-order discount price. It is 638.87!

Really too bad.

[Chris Hennes]

In that burger above, it seems like most of it is possible with normal home equipment (e.g. a FoodSaver and a Sous Vide Supreme, or something along those line). I assume the compressed tomato requires a chamber machine though, right? I'm really curious about the grinding technique, too: does it need special toys, or can it be done with normal consumer-level stuff?

[Msk]

After watching that awesome video, I pre-ordered the book. I only wish I could have ordered it for my iPad so I can take it with me on the train when I commute!

Everything looks so fascinating to me, from the photography, to the subject matter, to the recipes.

Mike

[nathanm]

The burger certainly is feasible for any home kitchen. You need a meat grinder to grind the meat of course, but there is nothing exotic in the equipment. You don't even need sous vide for the burger if you are OK cooking it in a pan.

Sous vide tends to make burgers a bit too dense. You can cook them in a bag that is unsealed, or with low vacuum.

[Chris Hennes]

So this "aligning the strands" bit with the short ribs is still done with a meat grinder? Man, this book can't arrive on my doorstep soon enough.

[ScottyBoy]

Damn, pre order price going up, must save money fast!

[Amida0616]

What an amazing video. I am in a constant battle not to buy more cookbooks & and modern kitchen gadgets. (a battle i just lost when i purchased a polyscience sous vide professional).


Looks like its time to start saving up for the book....

[nathanm]

Amazon just raised the price to $500, so the pre-order discount appears to be going away, or at least changing.

[nickrey]

I suspect they've found out how big it is! The shipping charges to Australia in the pre-pricing were, thankfully, very low.

[Chris Hennes]

There's no reason not to preorder it: you can always cancel before it ships, and you will get the lowest price they post anytime between now and then. At least, that's what I tell myself... glad I got in early!