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Last night's dinner. I bought a small 10lb turkey when they were available for Thanksgiving. Pulled it out of the freezer on Monday and roasted it last night for dinner. Roasted at 500° using the high heat method. Our traditional sides. As much as I love chicken more than turkey, I do like having a turkey carcass to make broth for soup.

I made two batches of sourdough on October 14th. Both started with one of the "scraping" of the jar mini biga. One was baked on October 18th. I didn't exactly forget about the second batch, but I just didn't get around to taking it out of the fridge last night, after a 7 day cold fermentation. Left it on the counter overnight until 4:00 AM this morning. Out of the oven around 6:00 AM. I'm always amazed how even after that long of time in the fridge it still turns out well.

This is the one I ended up with. It was advertised at a regular price of $400, I paid $150. Ordered yesterday, arrived today. I see that today Amazon is showing a regular price of $452, sale price $170. I can understand the difference in the sale price but regular price? I wrote to the selling company and they said the machine will indeed separate blueberries from their seeds. I have some thawing to see if this is so.

I dont think a braise at the boiling point of water would be very succesful. Thats much too hot. Thats the 20 f difference he’s talking about

Its very difficult to accurately , in a scientific sense , if not impossible , to measure flavor. its subjective . its also temperature dependent . and overnight ' rest ' is simply a ... simple unit of time. Vivian Howard made an interesting point in her second show. She was making a casserole . One of the major units in the casserole was ground beef w alf dozen ground apices mixed in. she noted that after throughly mixing the burger , then cooking , you could taste the individual spice components. after letting the mixture rest overnight ( refrigerated of course ) then cooking , you tasted ' one ' flavor . its an interesting point . She's as pretty insightful and honest chef. Id say she tried both , and came to that conclusion . on the other hand , if you are braising for 3 hours , at a temp well above room temp , your flavors are probably evenly distributed . equilibrium is reached faster at higher temps. my feeling is that resting results in , at least , water soluble flavors , possibly also fat soluble ones moving back into meat , as the fibers relax at cooler temps . they probably also move back into say a cooked carrot , as the cellulose has degraded . but probably in vegetable terms , not that far.

Then there's the whole issue of "flavors building overnight". The only test of this that I know of is tasting in the morning and noting improvement. But I've routinely sampled dinner leftovers 30 min after dinner when I'm cleaning up. Flavors are better t hen too. I suspect that our tastes get dulled during a meal and everything tastes better after our taste buds "reset" in a short while. So I propose that sitting overnight is pointless as far as taste development.

It does not. Beside the marginal effect of evaporation, the pot and its content is in equilibrium with the oven environment. No build up. It will not magically heat up above the boiling point of water. The volume above the liquid may have a different temperature, as the saturation of steam will depend on how much you let escape. But that’s not your point. The chart given by Kenji is worthless without the external temperature. It’s all about the rate of evaporation.

Couple of recent dinners - this from a few nights ago: I guess I'd call this chicken thigh braised in white wine and stock with onions, garlic, carrots, celery, peas. Served with Carolina gold rice pilaf. Last night: Ensalada de Col Andaluza (Spanish Garlic Cabbage Salad). Arroz Caldoso con Camarones. I also had ordered 1/2lb. diver scallops, so why not gild the lily...

just found this from a search, but this is what I mean by overheating, particularly the kenji reference. Heats builds in a covered pot. Follow the kenji link, he goes into (surprise!) considerable detail near the end of the article. Harold McGee, in his "Guidelines for Succulent Braises and Stews," advises braising with "the pot lid ajar to allow some evaporation" (On Food and Cooking, p. 163). J. Kenji López-Alt, in his Food Lab article on Great Chile Verde Without Hatch Chiles, notes that a pot with its lid left slightly ajar "stays a good 20°F lower, keeping the meat inside at a temperature far closer to the ideal." Edit- here’s another from Thomas Keller. There’s a link in the bottom to his short rib recipe https://www.masterclass.com/articles/cooking-101-learn-how-to-cook-with-a-cartouche

Had about half a skirt steak left (300gram-ish), SV-ed 3hrs at 53C, that I had to repurpose. So it went in with garlic, oyster mushrooms, oyster sauce, soy sauce, bit of chili and allulose (plus a bit of cornstarch slurry). Adding the beef at the very end kept it moist and medium-rare (tender). Accompaniaments were a cilantro-mint yoghurt sauce and red cabbage salad.

I’d like to know what “overheat” means … Keeping the lid on or using foil, a cartouche etc. simply controls the rate of evaporation. Of course the rate of evaporation affects thermal equilibrium in your braise, but the thermal mass of your cooking vessel the temperature of your oven controls the heat transfer and thus the temperature above the water. As long as there is water in your braise, the temperature under the liquid level remains at 100oC. And without pressure it cannot exceed that, “tight” lid or not … I usually caramelize veggies, reduce wine, etc. and keep liquids below what is recommended, but evaporation at the minimum. Temp at 110-120 oC, 3-4h …

I think the biggest trip up for a lot of people with oven braising is the lid. Get one of those colorful cast iron pots and put the lid on tight and your braise will overheat even in a very slow oven (ask me how I know!). Lately I’ve been following a small variation of this method, but instead of using aluminum foil I make a parchment paper cartouche on top of a small roasting pan. I have an anova oven so I’m at about 250 with 30% steam.

I second this. I had a startling and unpleasant experience when I was briefly convinced to try an all raw-food diet, and forgot that merely soaking beans so they're chewable does not mean they're suitable for human consumption; they need at least some heat. The first and only time I ate raw, soaked beans, I chewed and swallowed a mouthful (perfectly acceptable, flavour and texture-wise), but my stomach was miles ahead of my brain on this one, and rejected the beans so rapidly and aggessively that I didn't even have time to feel nauseated, and barely made it to the sink in time to avoid making a mess of the floor. There weren't any other effects, fortunately (after briefly considering the situaiton, I remembered that beans need heat, and cooked them). I'd consider cooking legumes sous vide only if I was making a dish with at mostly-cooked legumes, and wanted to finish them in a sauce and avoid overcooking them (but I've overcooked beans only when I forgot to set a time).

A variation on Murgh Keema - ground chicken is cooked with eggplants, onions, garlic, chilies, garam masala, tomatoes, parsley and cilantro. In parallel, you sauté some red onion slices, almonds and pomegranate seeds. Everything is mixed and served with rice noodles

Too lazy and in many eastern European shops you can buy pretty good versions

Another soup as we are having a run of cooler rainy weather. Bought pork dumplings with a quickly made broth with Asian flavours… meaning some coriander, fresh ginger, lemon grass paste, soy sauce and chicken stock all simmered for about only half an hour.

@benjamin163 I wonder if you ever tried an unglazed clay pot on a gas stove? I think that this method is pretty forgiving and for my purposes I find it yields excellent results. I have two of these, one small and one medium, I think they’re great and I feel tied to tradition every time I pull one out https://ancientcookware.com/la-chamba-collection/black-clay-la-chamba-rounded-soup-pot-detail edit- sorry, didn’t realize how old this was

More time on my hands these days, so I made dumplings again. With a semi new vegetable for the boys- edible chrysanthemum with a sesame dressing. And a scallion pancake that was the last one in the pack, got to clean out the freezer

Pistachios, again/still. https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/basha-foods-brand-raw-shelled-pistachio-kernal-recalled-due-salmonella https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/certain-pistachios-recalled-due-salmonella-1

Skirt, chimmichurri, plaintains, avocado tomato cucumber onion salad

Grabbed a pair of the Misen "nonstick" carbon steel nitrided pans. Wanted something I could abuse more than my falk copper coeur pans. They are really awesome. My griswalds would be sold if it weren't for cornbread. Going to try the misen and compare, but figure I'll still want the cast? Curious how you like the sizes you've chosen of the Chef's presses. It's time for me to order some and I am torn over getting 3 8's and an 18, 3 13's and an 8..... what have you found size wise you like best and what would you do?

Tonight was a baked potato with broccoli, onion and cheddar. Not the best I've had. Broccoli was from frozen, so not the best. But easy and filling. Was not photo worthy.

Chard with chorizo and potatoes (acelgas con chorizo y papa): Brown chorizo, remove, and then saute white onion, garlic, and cubed potato in the rendered fat. Simmer with chard, blended tomato and chipotle, and the browned chorizo, then finish with Mexican oregano and thyme. Mrs. C made a roasted carrot dip with zaatar and pistachios, enjoyed with pita chips

I’m not recommending this method for cooking beans, the warnings above are wise, but am sharing this little tidbit on the length of time it would likely take. This past weekend, I enjoyed a meal at the Rancho Gordo Heirloom Bean Encuentro at Alta Baja Market in Santa Ana, CA. One of the participating chefs was Tony Esnault of the Michelin star restaurant Knife Pleat (and formerly Church & State and Spring in Los Angeles) who served a dish of RG Buckeye beans, forest mushrooms, allium crumble and fine herbs. It was delicious. When asked how the beans were cooked, he said they were soaked overnight in salted water, then cooked for 24 hrs at 202°. He did NOT specifically say they used sous vide and there are other ways to maintain that temp but it’s in the range where sous vide could work. The texture of the beans was more fudgy than creamy. They were tender, but not soft or mushy at all. Not a revelation, it was the flavors that made the dish special, not the texture of the beans but they contrasted very effectively with the texture of the mushrooms I'm sort of tempted to try it to compare more carefully with conventional cooked beans from the same bag.

echoing what @gfweb has said braise is probably more about the sauce , then the meat on its own. Id suggest always letting the braise cool , and be refrigerated overnight, where hopefully some of that flavor in the sauce re-enters the meat. also , ' tradition ' requires temps that have some bubbling . why not try a lower temp , 170 F ? and thus longer ? traditional cooking techniques , under expert hands , have been tasty for a long long time. but can be adapted , with fairly current knowledge , to yield a better result. and the fat you take off then next day , will not just be beef fat ( currently a Cure-All ) but flavored w other fat soluble flavors. why not use ( some ) of that for a steamed dumpling ?