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jmolinari

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Posts posted by jmolinari

    Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment, 2011

    in Cooking

    Posted

    I tried to research pasteurizing eggs on the web to no avail. The methods used by large processors are closely held & patented trade secrets. That being said, eggs pasteurized using Douglas' method have been perfectly acceptable for every purpose so far, including delicious edible cookie dough.

    Somethign is either a trade secret or patented...it would be hard to be both since for it to become a patent everything has to be disclosed.

    anyhow...the paseurization of shell eggs is readable in patents..i just read one yesterday.

    Take a look here:

    http://www.google.com/search?q=shell+egg+pasteurization&btnG=Search+Patents&tbm=pts&tbo=1&hl=en

    Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment, 2011

    in Cooking

    Posted

    24hrs at 132 for a sirloin tip roast is too long. Meat turned out mushy.

    Will try 12 next time.

    I always do 12, perfect.

    Actually have 2 Snake River Farms kobe tips in the bath right now, timer goes off in 54 minutes :smile:

    Thanks good to know. It was a good lesson in seeing how a piece of meat wont technically overcook sous vide, it can still change by long cooking to the point where eating it isn't that pleasant. It had a strange texture and almost felt dry, even though it was nicely medium.... Odd, and instructive.

    Risotto

    in Cooking

    Posted

    I'm with scottyboy. I tried it last night without the cream and it was less creamy than my standard traditional method. If it made better risotto I'd put up with premeasuring everything ( a pain in and of itself) but it wasn't.

    I have known for a long time that mixing continuously is unnecessary, so my normal

    Method isn't that much harder.

    Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment, 2011

    in Cooking

    Posted

    What you've built is similar to the guard used on the PolyScience circulator (the big one).

    You aren't cooking in the tank directly, so you could have made the guard out of lead, for all that it matters.

    Bob

    I figured the polyscience guard was made of stainless...no?

    I do sometimes cook eggs, so i think i'll avoid the lead :)

    Yes,I think the PolyScience guard is stainless steel.

    However, if you are cooking eggs, I strongly recommend you follow PedroG's suggestion, and cook the eggs in a ZipLoc bag that is filled with hot water, rather than letting them bounce around loose. If one cracks and leaks albumin into the tank, you are going to have a very messy clean-up job.

    Good suggestion. When i do eggs i hang them in a basket/strainer on the side of the tank, but putting them in zip bag isn't hard

    Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment, 2011

    in Cooking

    Posted

    What you've built is similar to the guard used on the PolyScience circulator (the big one).

    You aren't cooking in the tank directly, so you could have made the guard out of lead, for all that it matters.

    Bob

    I figured the polyscience guard was made of stainless...no?

    I do sometimes cook eggs, so i think i'll avoid the lead :)

    Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment, 2011

    in Cooking

    Posted · Edited by jmolinari (log)

    I've been having some trouble with my bagged items getting sucked towards the circulator and blocking the pump, so i decided to make a guard of sorts.

    I have 1 question though. I got a decorative aluminum sheet made out of mill spec aluminum, apparently uncoated. Normally these sheets are used as decorative things on doors...i should be ok health wise right? I know we cook in aluminum pots, and i don't buy into the aluminum/Alzheimers connection...but want to make sure i'm not poisoning myself based on the aluminum grade or type.

    got it at home depot. Cut it, and rolled it into a cylinder.

    photo.JPG

    Risotto

    in Cooking

    Posted

    Other the the addition of cream at the end i'll definitely be trying it...the concepts and trials he runs tell me it could be a very viable way to make excellent risotto.

    Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment, 2011

    in Cooking

    Posted

    Oh, any thoughts on the thickness change through cooking?

    Howard, i have no issue cooking for the greater thickness, but i have no way of knowing what that final thickness will be, so i can't account for it.

    Time for some empirical research!

    True..i'm just surprised i haven't seen anyone mention it before given the very important relationship between thickness and cooking/pasteurization time!

    Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment, 2011

    in Cooking

    Posted · Edited by jmolinari (log)

    Question on Pedro's ruler, which is based on Douglas' tables...

    Looking at data, it doesn't seem that the conductivity of chicken is that different than beef....yet the tables show that it's quicker to heat a piece of chicken by 58 degrees (5->63) and pasteurize it, than it is to heat a piece of beef 50 deg.

    I'm not sure i understand how that's possible....

    Also, it seems that a chicken breast i made tonight, measured at about 45mm when raw, but when i took it out after about 3 hrs i remeasured it b/c it looked bigger, and sure enough, it seemed to be around 55mm. How do you account for the meat tightening and becoming thicker?

    Be aware of the text to Douglas' table 2.2:

    Table 2.2: Approximate heating times for thawed meat to 1°F (0.5°C) less than the water bath’s temperature. You can decrease the time by about 13% if you only want to heat the meat to within 2°F (1°C) of the water bath’s temperature. Do not use these times to compute pasteurization times: use the pasteurization tables below. (My calculations assume that the water bath’s temperature is between 110°F (45°C) and 175°F (80°C). I use a typical thermal diffusivity of 1.4×10-7 m2/s and surface heat transfer coefficient of 95 W/m2-K.)

    So heating times are practically the same for heating from 5°C to 55°C or 63°C.

    Thanks Pedro, but that doesn't explain why a 55mm piece of meat would take 4 hours to come to 55, and a piece of chicken would take 3 hours to reach 63 and pasteurize. If the time to reach 55 or 63 is essentially identical as you say.

    I'm missing how steak could take 33% longer to reach its temperature.

    I've read both Douglas' book and MC, but i never really had the numbers side by side until your ruler, which is why i'm now scratching my head.

    MC gives tables for generic pieces of meat to meet a delta in temperature. If we assume the chicken breast to be a cylinder or a slab, i believe the time to reach a 60 deg. temperature delta was about 1 hour 29. Add pasteurization time to that and we're at about 1hr 40 (about 9 mins at 63C). Seems the calculations are very different between MC and Douglas, which i can understand.

    What i don't get is why steak is so much longer than chicken....

    Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment, 2011

    in Cooking

    Posted

    Question on Pedro's ruler, which is based on Douglas' tables...

    Looking at data, it doesn't seem that the conductivity of chicken is that different than beef....yet the tables show that it's quicker to heat a piece of chicken by 58 degrees (5->63) and pasteurize it, than it is to heat a piece of beef 50 deg.

    I'm not sure i understand how that's possible....

    Also, it seems that a chicken breast i made tonight, measured at about 45mm when raw, but when i took it out after about 3 hrs i remeasured it b/c it looked bigger, and sure enough, it seemed to be around 55mm. How do you account for the meat tightening and becoming thicker?

    The cost of pizza

    in Food Traditions & Culture

    Posted

    I buy my mozzarella at Costco, about $10 for 2 lbs of very good Calabro fresh mozzarella, about $7 if i use the Belgioioso mozzarella, which is also good, which is enough for at least 6 or 7 individual pizzas. Good tomatoes are about $4 a can, which again is enough for at least 5 pizzas. Flour ends up costing about $1 or so....

    Obviously adding expensive toppings raises the costs, but i would be hard pressed to spend $20 on 2 pizzas at home.

    Well, this is where the difference between "high quality" and "very good" starts to become a factor. Price tends to rise at a much steeper slope than the quality.

    While brands such as Calabro or BelGioioso are certainly a step above industrial crap like Polly-O, they are still fundamentally supermarket brands with not all that much in common with real fresh mozzarella. As a generality, anything that comes sealed in heavy plastic packaging is not going to be all that great. A step above that is what one might find at higher end gourmet supermarkets and some cheese shops. These typically are wrapped in a twist of plastic wrap or, better yet, floating in liquid (although some of the supermarket brands also come in liquid). Unfortunately, they have had most of the fresh mozzarella character knocked out of them by age and refrigeration. Really the only mozzarella I have ever bought at a supermarket that had anything in common with real fresh mozzarella has been at my local Whole Foods. This is a local product, delivered fresh daily and displayed on top of crushed ice in the produce section rather than in a refrigerator case. I'd say this stuff qualifies as being a bastard cousin to real fresh mozzarella. After that, you cross over a huge gap in quality and come to real fresh mozzarella made to order by hand in someplace like Casa Della Mozzarella on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, and never refrigerated. This cheese is so far removed from any "fresh" mozzarella you might buy in a supermarket that it might as well be a different product. The point is that the difference between real fresh mozzarella and "fresh style" mozzarella that isn't actually fresh is huge. The difference might even be more stark as that between raw and pasteurized brie. Needless to say, cheese from Casa Della Mozzarella is substantially more expensive than Calabro mozzarella from CostCo, just as D.O.P. San Marzano tomatoes are a lot more expensive than Pastene.

    Now, of course, you need to have a technique and equipment to handle cheese with this much moisture if you're going to make pizza. I've been using an adaptation of the technique in Modernist Cuisine by baking mine on a massively preheated double-thick baking stone under my broiler and it works very well, although I should hasten to point out that I like the pillowy, soft, moist Neapolitan style. Lower heat techniques and different preferences might actually do better with a lower moisture cheese.

    True on everything you said. The Calabro one is fresh in brine. Is it as good as it gets? No, but it is better than what 99% of pizza places use. Additionally, as you said, it isn't possible in a home over, without modifications, to use the wet fresh mozzarella, even the Calabro one, without waterlogging your pizza.

    They also have Leoni fresh wrapped in plastic wrap, for about the same price as the Calabro...haven't tried that one yet.

    Costco also carries Garofalo bufala which is excellent, and it is about 2x the cost...so even using that i don't know that i would be getting to $20 for 2 pies.

    The cost of pizza

    in Food Traditions & Culture

    Posted

    Cento does sell DOP certified San Marzano tomatoes....though not in my preferred, reclosable glass jar packaging (the passata is indeed not DOP). Price for the DOP Cento is around $5 for a 28-oz can.

    Not any more. Cento decided they didn't want to pay for the DOP label anymore.

    I buy my mozzarella at Costco, about $10 for 2 lbs of very good Calabro fresh mozzarella, about $7 if i use the Belgioioso mozzarella, which is also good, which is enough for at least 6 or 7 individual pizzas. Good tomatoes are about $4 a can, which again is enough for at least 5 pizzas. Flour ends up costing about $1 or so....

    Obviously adding expensive toppings raises the costs, but i would be hard pressed to spend $20 on 2 pizzas at home.

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