alanamoana

i guess i'm just trying to give advice to a home cook who might not have easy access to dextrose or glucose powder. re: stabilizer...just a definition mix up on my part, sorry.

at least lorna can't give henry a hard time about his spelling anymore! you know how you show your "true" self when drunk... i know i can check out henry's last blog to see what his kitchen looks like, etc., but lorna, this is your first blog, right? can you tell us a bit more about yourself as much as it can relate to food? well, it's only 8:30 am on the west coast, so i'm sure you're still sleeping soundly edited to add: i notice that lorna often gives cantonese names for chinese food and henry gives mandarin names. but lorna, you said your mom comes from shanghai (one of your parents at least) and the other from guangdong...do you speak any chinese? henry, you speak mandarin, right?

i also think restaurant food is hit or miss with the salting. they either hit, really, really hard with the salt or miss the plate entirely! my most recent job was at a restaurant that pushed the limits of saltiness. it is typical of this chef's cuisine to have very strong flavors in general. i have noticed that i have adopted this method and have been salting my food very strongly as well. my husband thinks it is an asian thing to notice saltiness at a restaurant, as if this is what makes it a good or bad restaurant...he seems to notice that when someone asks how the food is, the asian person will reply with "oh, the food isn't salty enough" or more likely "the food is too salty there". if i think about it (and all of the asians i know, including my family) i tend to agree. overall, i think chain restaurants tend to oversalt because most of their food is mass produced in a factory somewhere. the meat is probably already cooked and the source of the raw product is probably pumped full of saline to maintain moisture and flavor (like markk mentioned with deli meats that are packaged). scary to think what else is in the food, regardless of what a junk food junkie i am.

ruth, i wasn't completely clear...corn syrup and glucose aren't inherently sweet...relative to granulated sugar. they have different levels of sweetness. yes, corn syrup should be better than simple syrup because it has less water. so less chance of iciness.

just to give this a bump...tupac, where are you? you should be tooling up the 101 or 5 right about now and we're waiting for an update on your l.a. meals! hope you're having a good time with your dad.

actually, from what i understand, grits (or the corn/hominy used to make grits) are treated with lye before being dried and ground...i don't think polenta is treated the same way. anyone else?

ROLF! So basically, the rule is to play it by ear. The texture of the sorbet is perfect as-is; I'm assuming that reducing the alcohol will make it icier. C'est la vie. ← ruth, if you reduce the alcohol another option to create a "smoother" product is to add something like a stabilizer...this can be in the form of corn syrup or glucose or egg whites or other more technical stabilizers specifically for sorbets and ice creams. the corn syrup and glucose aren't inherently sweet (on the taste buds) and perform like sugar and alcohol in that they raise the freezing temperature so the result isn't as icy. slippery slope, eh?

someone needed to point that out! i can imagine ling lording (ladying?) this over henry for years to come! "but who won the iron chef? need i remind you?" i think that the starters and desserts for both iron chefs were amazing in presentation and concept. the mains were both a little off kilter in presentation and maybe didn't fit the style of the overall meal even though they fit the criteria of using peaches. although i agree with some that said the deconstructed bellini is a bit small (henry, we know you don't love sweets as much as your counterpart), i really like the idea of light "crisp" desserts over a heavy ending to a meal. by the way, i don't think there was foam in the dessert as everyone upthread is implying...the prosecco snow is a granita, right? correct me if i'm wrong. i'm going to go against grain: IC #1: 8.5 IC #2: 8.75 i think it was definitely close. oh, and to add to all the comments above about the two of you "hookin' up" on eGullet...i saw that coming a mile away during henry's blog! how fun and how happy for both of you. this blog is surely the eGullet virtual social event of the season!

check Chef's Warehouse or Albert Uster edited to add: don't know if they actually carry chocolate cigarettes, but this might lead you in the right direction

i always just do it to taste. granted, when it is frozen it often won't be as strong, but i find you won't add too much this way. also, you don't want to add too much because of the affect it has on the freezing temperature of the sorbet. too little and your sorbet could be icy...too much and it won't ever freeze. hmmmm...some rule of thumb, eh?

Kerry, I was reminded by this thread being bumped that I never explained Paco T.'s pate de fruit method... First, he calls them "fruit creams" rather than pate de fruit. I'll just quote the passage in the book: So, rather than cooking to specific temperatures and adding the pectin/sugar mix later in the process, he brings the whole thing up to a boil and then stops cooking. The pictures show very clear and bright fruit creams, which is the desired effect. p.s. great mice, and... Have you worked with chocolate bar molds without filling them? Just curious because of the larger volume of chocolate if you'd have to refrigerate the mold, etc. in order to keep in temper.

Mocha? Is that a newfangled California-style black and white cookie? As a New Yorker, I strongly disagree with you. The chocolate should be chocolate, period. I also think that the texture should be a little firmer than pound cake. I think of black and whites as big, relatively soft cookies, not little cakes. ← i think what i meant is that the chocolate side doesn't really taste like real chocolate. it has a sort of funny artificial taste to it which reminds me of instant coffee...and i only just moved here from new york city, so give me a small break, k? edited to add re: texture: because they're baked scooped onto a sheet rather than in a mold, you get more crust (more surface area) which makes them harder, but when you break them apart, they're still cakelike.

black & whites should be cakelike more than cookielike in texture. in my opinion, of the black & whites i've eaten, it is sort of like a pound cake with icing...and the chocolate side of the icing should taste more like mocha (coffee flavored) than chocolate.

look here, but it sounds like you might be in europe, if so, most of these books are french or german, so you might have better access to them than we do here in the states.

i, for one, am eagerly awaiting your impressions of the food and of the california trip in general.

i think you could easily make this with a plain sponge or genoise and add orange zest to it if you want to boost the flavor. the nuts and honey certainly add something to the cake, but if they don't know what's missing, it won't matter too much.

so what's the scoop with the starchefs culinary conference in september? you're listed as doing a demo as chef of "the restaurant to be left unnamed"...are you still doing a demo?

i love threads like this because it somehow makes me feel better about myself! at least you figured it out jgm...other than one of those mysterious "remember when...?" situations.

abra, that galette is gorgeous!! the perfect amount of goo on the bottom crust and the flaky shortness of the crust on top...i can practically taste it right now. what kind of dough/what recipe did you use? it just looks perfect. edited to add: no fair talking about what you're making for Klary's visit! you'll make everyone else jealous! also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEBORAH...A FELLOW LEO!!! your birthday cake looks properly decadent to celebrate such a momentous (if you take it that way) birthday...

has she considered the french pastry school in chicago? it seems to me the closest you can get to a european style education and aesthetic here in the states. might end up being comparable in price to studying in france, but maybe not. i'd recommend chicago over san francisco because of what she's interested in (chocolate with some pastry), mostly because of the stuff that neil (nightscotsman) posted on his personal website which showed what he learned while in school. also, their reputation is so widespread (competitions, etc) that this could only benefit a business. i've never even heard of the san francisco baking institute, until this thread, and i went to culinary school in san francisco.

It's awful. The other day we were at Sarabeth's, one of the better restaurants within a block of my house, and we were all having a conversation when suddenly we realized that half the restaurant was waving at PJ. He had managed to engage the population of an entire wall of banquettes. ← You're just jealous because you aren't at the center of attention anymore with your colorful chef's pants ...but PJ sure is a cutie-pie! I can't believe a year has gone by already. How I miss New York and even the Upper East Side! Nice to see you blogging FG, please pass on my hello to Ellen if she remembers meeting me.

Abra, I second what Kerry said. I didn't use fresh fruit, but I used two different consistencies of purees: strawberry (thick) and passion fruit (thin) and didn't have any problems using Neil's basic recipe. The only difference being the passion fruit didn't get as fluffy as the other marshmallows I made. They weren't by any means dense. They (passion fruit) even "aged" well, in that I made a batch as an experiment and kept them in a container on the counter for at least two weeks, probably three, and they were as good as the first day. You definitely need to try them with your blackberries! If you're concerned at all, you can always replace some of the fruit with a bit of water, but I wouldn't want to water down the flavor.

looks like you could have folded the batter a bit more. don't worry too much. it's the strange part about macarons that you whip up a meringue and then deflate it (mostly), but there's still enough air to cause them to puff up and have little feet.

why would you want to remove the vanilla bean specks? if you don't like them, use vanilla extract.

right...and I'm the pope