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jmolinari

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Posts posted by jmolinari

    Pressure Cookers – what's cooking?

    in Cooking

    Posted

    I think there was a good eats episode where he made DDL by simmering or boiling a can of condensed milk for hours...it would stand to reason then that the same thing could be done in a pressure cooker in much less time.

    I thikn for safety i would put a couple vent holes in the can though.

    Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine" (Part 2)

    in Cooking

    Posted

    Anyone have better results than i did?

    Yes, but I added more water than the recipe called for to make the dough a bit more elastic. Then it rolls like normal pasta dough.

    Thanks, i'll try that then. Did it still remain stickproof? Could you fold and fix tears? If so did it still remain stick proof when in bundles?

    Yes to all that, I think. I didn't have any tears, but it folded and rolled fine. I unfortunately didn't track how much additional water I added, but the end result behaved as normal pasta dough, except in the end it didn't stick to itself, and it had a slightly different (and I think better) texture when cooked.

    Ok thanks. I might leave out the oil next time too...

    Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine" (Part 2)

    in Cooking

    Posted

    Anyone have better results than i did?

    Yes, but I added more water than the recipe called for to make the dough a bit more elastic. Then it rolls like normal pasta dough.

    Thanks, i'll try that then. Did it still remain stickproof? Could you fold and fix tears? If so did it still remain stick proof when in bundles?

    I was thinking of just using a normal 1egg:100g flour ratio including the whites and adding the xanthan and trying that...

    Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine" (Part 2)

    in Cooking

    Posted

    I made the pasta with 1% Xanthan gum, and i can't say i was overly impressed.

    The dough is dry-ish but letting it sit 30 minutes to hydrate after mixing in the egg and dry stuff yielded a nice supple dough. The difficulty came with the rolling. The xanthan leaves the dough very "slick and smooth" and it does not stick to itself very much. This means that even at the widest setting of ym pasta machine the rollers were not able to grip it to pull it through. I had to flatten it so that it was just a little thicker than the roller width.

    Folding in 1/2 and rerolling to develop gluten and smooth the dough was nearly impossible and led to tears, which were unpatchable because once torn the dough didn't stick to itself.

    The ability to leave them dough in piles without excess flour was nice, but certainly not worth the aggravation of it taking 30+ minutes to roll out enough pasta for 3 using an electric roller! I also lost a good 30% of my dough b/c once it was torn or mis-shapen, as i said, folding to fix or reshape , then rerolling did not give good results.

    Texture was nice, but not THAT different from a well worked dough without xanthan.

    Anyone have better results than i did?

    Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine" (Part 2)

    in Cooking

    Posted

    Chris that looks great! I am in the process of sourcing some belly worthy of the MC recipe - although it is unlikely I will find bone on. I have everything else I need, but the sodium erythorbate, which if I understand correctly encourages the curing salts to work more quickly. Does anyone know if the sodium erythorbate changes the final product? I haven't been able to find any.

    SE speeds the break down of the nitrites into nitric oxide...it helps speed the cure, not really the salt absorption as far as a i know. It's probably a good thing to put in bacon that is going to be fried to avoid the formation of nitrosamines.

    Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine" (Part 2)

    in Cooking

    Posted · Edited by jmolinari (log)

    Not really an MC recipe, but i based this on the pressure cooked Tarbais beans where calcium chloride is added to the pressure cooker.

    I used the ratio that the tarbais beans recipe uses which i think is 0.67% of the beans. I had a question though. In Volume 3 when it discusses use of calcium chloride it says to use 1g per 100 of water in the pressure cooker. The Tarbais bean recipe only uses 1g for 400g of water. The amount used in this recipe (0.25% of the water) worked well. The skins held the beans together very well over 1.5 hrs of pressure cooking. I imagine using 4x this amount would give a very hard skin...wouldn't it?

    Pork and beans:

    IMG_3472-2.jpg

    Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine" (Part 2)

    in Cooking

    Posted

    I made Modernist scrambled eggs and they were so insanely good my head almost exploded.

    I blended them with my immersion blender. Cooked them for 25mins at 162. It was more an egg pudding than a scrambled egg. The flavor was amazing, and the consistency and texture unlike any eggs i've ever had.

    I will say they were a little greasy from so much butter. Next time i'll reduce the amount by 50% or so.

    Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine" (Part 2)

    in Cooking

    Posted · Edited by jmolinari (log)

    I'll add myself to saying the pastrami is outstanding. I smoked it 3.5 hrs using grape vines. used short ribs. Super tender, nicely smoked and really flavorful.

    So damn nice Jason. Very good work. Did you make the Saurkraut as well from MC?

    Thanks! Alas, i did not. I used good real fermented sauerkraut (ingredients on bag were cabbage and salt), and MC Sauerkraut is just salt and cabbage (i think)...so i can't imagine it would taste THAT different.

    Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment, 2011

    in Cooking

    Posted

    On an unrelated note, has anybody checked out this web page?

    http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/product-testing/reviews-tests/kitchen-cooking/plastic-safety-heat-food-6

    Looks like regular zip-top bags might be safe after all... but shame on you, Glad.

    Thanks interesting, thanks, but why "shame on you, Glad" ? None of the products leached BPA or phthalates even if some had them in the materials...

    Is it not possible that it could leach out? Just because it doesn't happen in testing (with "food substitutes") doesn't mean that it couldn't happen in particular, untested-for situations in real life.

    True, good point...

    List of Errors in Charcuterie by M. Ruhlman

    in Cookbooks & References

    Posted

    Ok, so to steer this back into an actual useful thread and to cut through all the other stuff. Here is what I could gather from these posts as actual (in some cases possible) errata:

    - 9th line down: "adding 1/4 cup/30 grams of dry cure" should read "adding 1/4 cup/50 grams of dry cure"

    - The recipe for Russian dressing contains no tomato or ketchup despite describing it as a mayonnaise and tomato-ey dressing.

    - the salt levels in Ruhlman's Charcuterie for Soppressata is downright dangerous? 1.7%? That is well below any and ALL accepted minimums of 2.5-3% for cured meats.

    - He calls chunks of shoulder meat Coppa. That is not Coppa, more like "cured shoulder pieces in the style of Coppa".

    - The book uses 1/4 pack of starter culture for a 5 lb batch of salame, where it would be more than enough for 50 or 75 lbs of meat.

    - The recipe for Bread and Butter pickles is clearly wrong. I forget why since I do not have the book with me, but if you read it you can tell. I think he does not use one or two things from the ingredient list. I emailed him about it a long time ago and he said it will be corrected in subsequent printings.

    Did I miss anything that is not subjective? (like how much sage to use)

    Personally I think he uses too much salt in the fresh sausage preparations and a long time ago I resorted to using what works for me. ...another example of a subjective issue with the book.

    Seems like a fair recap. Feel free to delete all the crapola i appear to have generated.

    List of Errors in Charcuterie by M. Ruhlman

    in Cookbooks & References

    Posted · Edited by jmolinari (log)

    I do not really mean to single Jason out but whether many here admit to it or not, this is what this thread boils down to. It might not spell the words "Hate Ruhlman" anywhere but the message is clear. 4, 3 or maybe even a year ago this thread would have had a much different tone. It would have actually been concerned with actual errata and would've been a constructive and supportive thread for the book that spawned a few hundred -mostly postive- posts on eGullet! Are we going to be bashing Myhrvold in a few years too? Oh how quickly we forget...

    I don't mind being singled out, i'm a big boy i can defend my arguments :)

    I also agree with you that that comment was probably was put me "over the edge" to actually boil over and say what i said, but clearly, rightly or wrongly, i've had something simmering for a while that i've kept to myself, and rightly or wrongly it came out in this thread.

    I stand by my statements. Maybe my delivery was wrong, but what i said remains uncontested i believe.

    Edit: The book does remain a good book for beginners to read, i don't argue that. I even put it on my short recommended list on my blog, and intentionally left others off. And the hobby is bettered by having that book. BUT i wouldn't mind seeing some kind of errata or clarifications on his very popular blog. And as far as i know, no corrections were made in the 2nd printing (i could be wrong). As GFWeb said, i would just like to see him hold himself to the same standards as he holds others.

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