Culinary Modernism

I'd like to try making a whole pork butt (about 14 pounds) using sous vide per Serious Eats. My vacuum sealer is a budget unit from FoodSaver, and (a) there are no bags large enough; and (b) the sealing has become undependable, especially over long cooks. After a little research, I've decided to try bathing this monster in its original cryovac packaging. However, this route seems like it might suffer from not having a rub as it soaks. So here's my question: Is there a way to inject through the plastic and tape the hole shut without the tape coming off over the 18-24 hours the butt will be under water? I'll rub and then smoke it afterward anyway, but if this would work, why would I not do that? FYI, I have the requisite needles, syringes and even a "Meat Pump". Has anyone tried this? Thanks

Im a big fan of SV. once the bag is in the bath , time and temp give you what want , over and over again. I have an inclination to lower temps , longer . thus keeping ' jus ' that might be in the bag in the meat. at what temp , with of course long enough times would you get the ' beginning ' of ' pull apart ' w the usual two folks.? probably not @ 145 F.? so Im thinking , early pull apart , at the lowest possible temp as time is not a variable bye of issue. and Im thinking Pork as the meat. and 145 F might be a good temp to try initially.

Has anyone tried it with success? It is very simple, but I cannot make it work. After two hours in 80C sous vide, the paste is a hard, reddish in color hard paste that cannot be mixed. I searched in the errata but didn't find anything. Any help? Thanks.

So I have this recipe from the modernist cuisine, the pork tenderloin in juniper brine. The juniper brine has 500gr of water and of course salt and juniper. Then it also has some other things in very very small quantities. For example, malt 2gr, hops 0.8gr, allspice 0.25gr etc. My question is, if I do a blind test with a batch that contains all the ingredients and one batch without the malt, allspice and hops, will anyone get it? It seems high unlikely, that someone will say: "this here has a more malty flavor". Of course, I am not an experienced cook, I am a very bad cook with very little experience, but still, we are talking about 0.8 grams in a 500 gr water solution, which will be mostly thrown away.

Good morning folks, I currently possess Modernist Pizza and am wanting to make so many of the creations but I am only equipped with a home oven that only goes up to 500. For those in the same scenario or with experience, would you have any recommendations on how to modify the cooking times/temps to make it work? Thanks so much!

I am looking for Thierry Marx's liquid quiche recipe. Anyone? Thanks!

Hello. I want to cook the eggless citrus curd from MC (4-234) but I don't understand the first step. I also tried to find it online, but I cannot find any reference. There is a broken link here in egullet, but no matter how much I searched, I couldn't find any implementation. So, the recipe starts with whole lemons, in a mason jar, inside a pressure cooker filled with 2.5 cm of water. Questions: - No water or any other liquid in the mason jars? - Should I close the lid of the mason jar? - I don't have access to mason jars in Greece. What else can I use? I imagine that, if the mason jar is left open, then I could use any other jar strong enough to hold the pressure. - If the mason jars are a must, then perhaps I could cook the lemons in a different way? Roast them? Sous vide them? Thanks.

I really really like the taste of my melted cheese, I am using many different cheeses and it is fantastic. Most of the times I am going with 100% liquid to 100% cheese and 4% sodium citrate, as the calculator suggests. It works every time. There are flaws however: - The sauce does not have a body it is almost as it has no gelling qualities at all. It is only a think emulsion, it does not stick on the macaroni, unless it gets cold. - It is way too flavorful, I would like it to be more mild. So I am trying to make a thinner sauce and then add a gelling agent, such as iota or kappa carrageenan. Here I have two problems. 1. when I alter the rate of liquid to cheese, say 150% liquid or more, to 100% cheese, my sauce does not come together. It will be in a weird state, not like when trying to heat the cheese in plain water, where the fat leaks out, but something like water coming out of the cheese. The cheese will be melted but uneven, the thickest part will sink in the pot and the upper layers will be like cheesy water, but the fat will not leak. *Sometimes* this can be solved by adding more sodium citrate, about double the initial quantity (another 4%). 2. The procedure I am following for the iota carrageenan is simple, water, iota, hand blender, pot, sodium citrate, heat and then add cheese. Frustrating result: grainy as sand. No idea what is wrong. Any help in any of these two issues?? Thanks.

I'm curious if anyone has suggestions for useful supplies one might get from a homebrew shop, for modernist or other specialty cooking. I'm looking to buy some amylase and it seems to be the easiest way to get it at a reasonable price. The homebrew shop I'm looking at does flat rate shipping, so I figure I might as well pick up a few other interesting things to play with. Any suggestions?

Hi everyone, I have been eating Sous Vide meats (mostly chicken) almost every day for about 10 years. Now that I'm getting older, I've been thinking about the safety of the Ziplock freezer bags. Is the plastic in the Ziplock freezer bags safe for Sous Vide? I usually portion out 6 pounds of meat, Sous Vide them in Ziplock bags, and then freeze them. I usually Sous Vide chicken 165F for 1-2 hours. I also Sous Vide pork shoulder and pork ribs for 24 hours. I understand once in a while it may not be a big deal, but I eat Sous Vide meats almost every day! Perhaps to be safe I should just Sous Vide in water? What are your thoughts?

I really want to improve the flavor of my chicken breast so I want to try to inject brine with fat and flavors. I would like to try brining with some hydrocolloids. The one example I found is this: https://torontofoodlab.com/2013/08/20/meat-tenderizing-with-a-carrageenan-brine/. However I cannot apply that to my chicken breast because I am cooking it sous vide, so the chicken will not reach the temperature needed for the carrageenan to gel. I am thinking of using Methyl cellulose, first disperse in hot water, then leave it for 24 hours in the fridge, then add salt, fat and flavors and inject it. I am afraid that until it reaches the 50C or 60C that the Methyl cellulose needs in order to gel, the liquid will escape. Any ideas? Thanks.

I picked up enough boneless short ribs to make 3 meals for my Sweetie and me. One meal will be pan-braised tonight. One has been vacuum-sealed and is in the freezer. My question is about seasoning, sealing, freezing, then defrosting and cooking at a later date. I'd like to season and seal the 3rd meal's worth. Can I use a dry rub on the meat, then seal, freeze, and cook at a later date? Does anyone else do this?

So I've now found myself at the water's edge of Modernist Cuisine. Specifically, using sodium citrate for emulsifying all kinds of cheeses. What I'm after is making an emulsified Parmesan sauce as well as another emulsified cheese sauce (most likely using Cheddar or Colby) that I can freeze and use later. I'm a single guy and am no stranger of tweaking recipes for freezing but I haven't done it for modernist stuff yet. I'd love to make a big batch of cheese sauce, freeze it into ice cubes for up to 3 months or so, and then take a few cubes out to thaw on a weeknight and toss with pasta, drizzle over veggies, etc. I looked at the modernist cuisine FAQ and saw this specific post about the cheese sauce that is "probably" freeze-able because it uses something called carageenan. Has anyone been able to freeze sauce and keep it frozen for, say, a few months? And not have to use carageenan? Thanks!

Recently I picked up a few different types of emulsifiers in bulk powder form when I saw them in passing at a catering wholesaler. Having never used powdered emulsifiers before in cooking or baking, I figured I'd find pretty comprehensive instructions for their use on the web - but I can't. I'm not a stranger to food science but nor am I a chemist. I understand that emulsifiers are at least sometimes prepared by pre-mixing them into a (heated?) liquid or fat and then using the resulting solution in the actual recipe, which may explain why a lot of commercial emulsifier mixtures are packages as tubes of gel or paste. I've also checked several industry-level textbooks about emulsifiers and while they are fantastic for in-depth explanations of the chemistry behind each emulsifier, they do not (as you might imagine) provide guidance on how a lowly baker or cook would actually use a powdered form. So does anyone know how to prepare and use a dry powdered form of any of the following in a real recipe? Specifically I am most interested in enhancing baked goods and adding stability to sauces, but would also like to know how to use them for other processes such as sausage-making too. E471 Mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids E481 Sodium stearoyl lactylate E482 Calcium stearoyl lactylate E472e DATEM (diacetyl tartaric acid ester of mono- and diglycerides) Thanks.

I cooked two turkey breasts sous vide. This year had access to the Meater+ thermometer probe which I managed to vacuum seal in the bag without difficulty (it is small). Since it works wirelessly I was able to monitor and it records the internal temperatures at the thickest part of the breast. I thought the results were interesting. I cooked at 60C for 8 hours. I have always used https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/a-better-way-to-turkey-cook-that-bird-sous-vide-for-the-best-feast-ever which gives long cooking times at lower temperature. I have found that as according to this page https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2014/11/sous-vide-turkey-breast-crispy-skin-recipe-thanksgiving.html that 55C gives turkey which is just a little too pink for most tastes. Over the last few years have increased the temperature up to 59/60 and I find it perfect - very moist and tender, but pale not pink. See attached images. I changed my mind a couple of times and started at 58 then 60 then 59 again, so ignore the slight variations. The thing I found interesting was that the thickest part (of a large breast) reached 55C in around 1 hour 40 mins and target of 59 in 2 hours 30 mins. Now I appreciate that sous vide is a combination of temperature and time or duration, but the data make me think that around 4 hours would be sufficient, as per the seriouseats table. I have previously used the chefsteps 55-58 for their much longer advised times, up to 12 hours and the meat is still quite pink at the end, so I dont believe 55 for 12 hours would effectively be the same. From now on I will watching the internal temperatures with interest. This has always been the (relative) unkown for sous vide amateurs.

There are a hundreds comments across dozens of threads about cooking beef short ribs by sous vide. I hope the admins dont mind me starting a thread dedicated to this topic to help consolidate some of the knowledge out there. I just picked up a ChefStep Joule this past week and want to break it in cooking some short ribs that are in the freezer. The times and temperatures I have seen vary wildly. What is the consensus here? Are their any good recipes I should check out? Right now my plan is to follow the information on Modernist cuisine's website and cook the ribs for 72 hours at 62c. I will give it a dry rub before going in the bag https://modernistcuisine.com/recipes/72-hour-braised-short-ribs/. I will then place them on the grill with barbecue sauce for a quick sear. This is subject to change based on new information from the peanut gallery. Thanks!! Dan

Update!! --- the sale is still going on at Amazon as of Sunday (11/24) at 11:15am EST ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Did anyone note the sale price on Modernist Cuisine today (maybe yesterday)? Amazon and Target dropped the set of tomes to $379!!! This price looks like it will change after today...so get it ASAP!!! https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/0982761007?pf_rd_p=183f5289-9dc0-416f-942e-e8f213ef368b&pf_rd_r=SRFCHFB5EFTGAA8AZHJX -or- https://www.target.com/p/modernist-cuisine-by-nathan-myhrvold-chris-young-maxime-bilet-hardcover/-/A-77279948

I think about this subject fairly often, but especially when I am thinking about converting a slow cooker recipe to sous vide. While I love the texture and juiciness I get with sous vide, I find that I often want a sauce. And I have quite a few slow cooker recipes that I know have good sauces, but the meat tends to be a little on the dry side. Thus my ideas about converting. I thought this might be a topic with legs if other folks are having the same questions. I'd like to make this recipe: Cranberry Pork Roast. I found a nice little pork loin roast (2.88 lb.) and have rubbed it with Penzey's Ozark seasoning and sucked it (family lingo for vacuum bagging). My thought is to sous vide it and make the sauce on the side and just serve it with/in/on top of the sauce. Advice? Thoughts? Warnings? Also, if you think that this is more of an IP thing tell me that, too. And, considering that the sauce is sweet, would you do it in steps in the IP? Thanks so much!

I was reminded the other day of the egg-in-plastic-wrap-poach method.

I made the Creme Anglaise recipe from Myhrvold Modernist Cuisine - it did look curdled and lumpy coming out of the zip lock bag as described in the recipe. I used my stick blender to smooth it out as instructed, but I think I blended it for too long, and it went from lumpy to smooth to watery. Did I make a fatal mistake of over blending the custard? The recipe does not say how to blend or when to stop. Hoping one of the gurus can give me guidance before I try this again. Many Thanks Luke

Has anyone used Valrhona Absolut Crystal neutral glaze particularly to thicken a coulis or to glaze a tart? If so, how did you like it and is there another glaze you think worked as well but is less expensive or can be purchased in smaller quantities?

Hello. I would like to buy some pectinex ultra sp-l. However I am worried about the temperature during the shipping time. I read that the storage temperature should be between 2 and 8 C. It works best from 15 to 50 C, and if it stays a lot of time in 25 C, it will gradually be deactivated. It needs a week to come here (Greece), then will it affect its abilities? Do you know if I can find a document somewhere that explains the gradual loss of power as a function of time and temperature? Did you have any experience with pectinex not working well due to bad storage? Thanks.

Hello, folks, thanks for reading. My husband thinks, I should start selling my popcorn seasonings (which I make for my family), it’s a good product. But I'm not sure if it’s interesting to other people... So, what do you think, guys? Our story: We’ve bought an air popper machine, but popcorn came out pretty tasteless. Then, we’ve bought different “popcorn seasoning” mixes... But it always ends with all the seasoning at the bottom of the bowl. Then, we've added butter, oil and so on before seasoning... we got soggy, chewy popcorn. Lot’s of disappointments… When we almost gave up… the magic happened! I figured out the way to make seasonings that: Stick to popcorn, but not sticky to fingers (or T-shirt , Easy to apply, May be pre cooked in bulk and stored… And popcorn appears crunchy, tasty, thoroughly covered with seasoning. Sounds good, yep? Now, when I want to treat myself - I only need 2 mins to turn tasteless popped popcorn to a real treat. The only moment - it request 1 extra effort: after you toss it over popcorn, you need to microwave it for 1 min, and stir after. So, I was wondering, if you like popcorn like myself - would this seasoning be interesting for you to purchase? Are you ready for a little extra work (microwave & stir) in the goal to flavor popcorn, or it feels too much effort? As I have no experience in manufacturing and retail, your answers would help me to make a very important decision - to dive in or not... Thanks in advance for your answers, it means the world to me.

How do i explain this... I want to slice it thin against the grain (about 1/8) i want it to have a slight pull, but give way. I want most of the connective tissue to break down. What i don't want is for it to fall apart easy. Confirmed unwanted time/temp is 24 hours @ 160F. Still very moist but falls apart very easily. Also note, this will be chilled before put on the meat slicer too be sliced. Is there a better cut of beef suited for this?

Is there any recipe from the modernist universe or any other galaxy to make ketogenic (low carb) puff pastry and strudel type doughs? Unusual ingredients OK. There must be a way...