Shalmanese

I've never seen fresh passionfruit for sale in the US. Apparently they grow well in California climate but retailers assume they wouldn't be able to move it or something.

Just not going isn't going to communicate much since there's a thousand reasons why a regular would stop. Instead, I'd gently tell him that you used to enjoy going but will no longer due to the interaction you had.

Liquid Nitrogen is, in reality, pretty tame. They let us handle it in high school with just some basic safety instructions. As MC points out, in many ways, LN2 is less dangerous than hot oil and we think nothing of using that in the kitchen all the time.

I'm familiar with Lu Shui and the concept is somewhat similar but I don't think exactly equivalent.

An update since I started doing this: I've fallen in love with this method. I've started using this as an all purpose blanching liquid. I've cooked pasta in it, cooked udon in it, blanched vegetables & cooked dumplings and the liquid is developing into a rather flavorful stock. Tonight, I was blanching some leeks before grilling and I threw the leek trimmings into the pot after the leeks were done. I previously never had the patience for the whole "save scraps in the freezer until you have enough to make stock" method but if I can just dump them into my blanching stock instead, it seems like a far more convenient way to take advantage of trimmings. Summer is getting into full swing and much of the fantastic produce is best enhanced with just a quick blanch and so I anticipate this blanching liquid getting a lot of workout during the summer.

Unless they were teflon-coated, I wonder if sheet pans are non-stick enough to be used as a griddle? Every time I bake, I either need to lay down foil/parchment or deal with horrible sticking problems with sheet pans.

I found Australian Truffles, the one time I used them to have a smell similar to Perigords but an inferior taste.

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Actually, it sounds more like a "process" patent which will be a patent on the specific steps used to extract the meat from a primal.

In the US, it's called Kansui and you can buy the Koon Chun brand at most asian markets. A bottle looks like this. Alternatively, you can make baked soda from baking soda which will give you sodium carbonate but not potassium carbonate.

Don't order the mapo dofu. It's the one inexplicably awful dish on the SF menu.

Good. I always found Australian tomatos to be way too sour and out of balance.

Biggest tip is to avoid temptation of shovelling not-very-good food into your stomach. Your limit is basically stomach capacity and you're useless once it's full. Try to avoid all of the ready-to-eat & convenience stuff and focus on tasting the more high end offerings. It can be tough though because the high end stuff tends to not work very well as a complete meal (jams, chocolates, cured meats, nuts etc.).

Has anyone tried making milk mayonaise? It seems like an interesting variation.

Or, just start it in a 200F oven and drop to 140F. I dislike boiling water as I feel like a lot of the flavor of the crust comes from surface meat juices that dry and brown. I've noticed that washed meat has inferior browning to unwashed meat so I try not to let meat touch water if I can help it.

On long cook times, pre-salting can lead to a "cured" flavor in the meat. The solution is to post-salt instead. As for keeping the meat warm, well, sous vide. If it's at the same temp, no more juice is going to be extruded. This is trivial if you have a ziplock, slightly harder for vacuum bags.

If you have an oven that can go that low, I prefer to roast at 140 rather than SV. The main advantage is that roasting dries out the surface, giving you better browning when you blast it with heat at the end. Also, it's logistically simpler to chuck it into an oven than trying to find a water bath big enough.

Have you ever tried using it for sous vide?

First of all, baked bread doesn't have any live yeast in it. It looks like you created an inadvertent sourdough. It's odd though that it's so active. Yeast should be mildly active at fridge temps but not enough to blow the lid off a container.

I disagree about broiling. Unless you have a commercial powered broiler, the loin chops cook so quickly that you're not going to get any color on them before they're pink.

They're also great pan fried.

Start it on the fat side to render and crisp the fat before grilling on the two flat sides.

Are there any books/resources that cover the differences in breaking down large animals between different countries? I know British, French and American cuts are different but I'd love to find out how Japan, for example, breaks down a cow or pig.

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Have you tried agar agar?