Shalmanese

Put it in an air-conditioned room, preferably in front of an AC vent. Saurkraut doesn't have to ferment in the kitchen.

A good IR thermometer can help you judge. A stone is heated when the center is at the same temperature as the oven, any additional heating is going to be useless. Unless it's a particularly thick stone, this is going to happen soon after the surface has reached temp. Check with an IR thermometer and once the stone and the walls are the same temperature, it'll only take another 15 minutes max. If you're using a metal stone rather than a ceramic one, you can heat it on the stovetop to give it a jumpstart. Should take no longer than 20 minutes if you've preheated the stone on the stove.

Exactly. So regional classes are out, but what about a good bread-baking class? The San Francisco Baking Institute Is prolly the top baking school on the west coast. http://sfbi.com/weekend_workshops.html It's also $400 for a 2 day course which reflects the degree of commitment they need to put in to offer something worthwhile.

I'm talking about the rollers, not the extruders.

You might also run into problems if the natural proteins that leach from the meat affect conductivity. As a test, I'd put a piece of meat in pure water for 24 hours and see what any salinity meter measures to figure out if that's going to be a problem.

FWIW, it doesn't really matter if there's lead in your crockpot when cooking SV as you have a layer of plastic between the pan and the food anyway.

I'm trying to decide between buying a hand cranked machine (probably and Atlas or Imperia) vs the kitchenaid pasta attachment. The Kitchenaid is about twice as expensive but it's automatic. What are the pros and cons with each? For people who've owned them, which do you prefer?

I've never heard of using skim milk powder to enhance maillard reactions. Does anyone have any more info on this? It sounds really interesting.

Perhaps the microwave might be another way to cook these. Fried herbs work great in the microwave and this seems somewhat similar.

With tender steak, keeping them at temperature too long degrades the texture in my experience. For example a filet left in the bath for four hours can taste mushy. Egg yolks also can change texture significantly. The only way to know with scallop is to try. If you cut a hole in the steak, you will need to sterilize the steak (with a torch or a quick dunk in boiling water) before you cut the hole unless you ate planning on cooking to pasteurization). If he's cooking and serving the dish within 2 hours of coming out of the fridge then pasteurization isn't necessary.

Lately, I've been getting into Asian noodle making and, for the most part, the resources online in english tend to be either recipes of dubious providence or material from industrial food production. I'm hoping to better understand the mechanics of Asian noodle making and how to get better at it. Currently, I'm working on my second batch of Alkaline noodles (aka ramen) and here's what I've learned so far: The resources I used were from Harold McGee, David Chang and Asian Noodle: Science, Technology & Processing Alkaline noodles are naturally yellow, despite having no egg due to the alkalines releasing natural color molecules from the flour. I made baked soda (sodium carbonate) from baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) via Harold McGee. Most recipes use "kansui" which is a mixture of sodium carbonate and potassium carbonate, the potassium carbonate is meant to make a more pronounced yellow flavor. I'm planning on picking up some kansui for my next batch to compare. Consensus is that you should add 1% alkaline relative to flour, I did my first batch with a 2% mixture because 1% didn't seem very yellow and just to see what happens. The springy "chew" of the noodles was far more pronounced. When boiling, the noodles were practically bulletproof, still retaining an al dente texture after 10 minutes (although the cooking liquid was yellow from leached starch). Also, the noodles become a lot more yellow when cooked. This current batch, I'm doing 1%. Industrial recipes suggest 32 - 35% hydration, David Chang in Momofuku suggests 37%, I couldn't get it to form a dough until it was around 40% hydration. Even then, the dough wasn't forming a coherent ball and two pieces pushed together would not stick. Some recipes say knead just enough to let it come together and then rest, others say knead for 10 - 15 minutes for the gluten to develop. I let it knead for a long time but don't expect to be able to do the windowpane test like with western pasta. The dough tore easily but rolled our beautifully. Recipes are divided on what flour to use, some recipes suggest the flour in Asia is softer than the US and so a mix of AP/cake is correct, others say to use bread flour. I did my first batch with KA Unbleached Bread Flour, this current batch is 2/3 bread & 1/3 AP. In any case, I'm currently waiting for the second batch to finish resting and I'll report back once they're cooked.

Lactisole is a chemical that temporarily disables sweet receptors. It's useful for applications where you want the textural or anti-microbial characteristics of sugar but without the taste. Has anyone tried using lactisole in savory sorbets to tone down the sweetness? It's available under the brand name "Super Envision" from Domino sugar.

Also, if you're willing to live with it, you could cut each fillet and scallop in half crosswise so that they're thinner. This should decrease the cook time of the steak by 3/4 but not really affect the cook time of the scallop which means they'll be done at the same time. I would be more worried about how you would handle the post-SV sear.

Do scallops become overcooked at 50C for 80 minutes? Also, if you're geting your scallops frozen, what if you try room temp steak and frozen scallop? That will even out the cooking time a lot.

Time is only an indirect measure, it's more reliable to use temperature. Rest it until it drops 5F from it's peak temperature from a probe thermometer in the thickest part of the thigh or breast.

Mixing stock with meat tenderizer (papain or bromelain) will denature the gelatin. Heat the stock above 65C once denatured to deactivate the enzyme.

If you get a couple of moderate strength rare earth magnets, you can easily clip them together on the outside of the bag to form a weight. They're cheap, you can adjust the weight by adding more magnets and they don't touch the food.

I've visited and lived in many great food cities around the world and I'm still convinced Melbourne might be the best food city in the world. That first post was an excellent example of what I love so much about cooking in Melbourne.

You can also crank up the oven while the pork shoulder is resting and roast them then. Pork shoulder should rest for at least 20 minutes so that's plenty of time.

Search for Man Tou. Also, they're meant to be bland and taste like wonder bread so don't worry if they end up like that.

You can freeze breads at the dough, parbake and baked stages, depending on what outcome you want.

I would hope that any chef entering into Top Chef would do some cursory research on the likes/dislikes of the judges.

Seems it DOES work with ultrapasteurized cream which is about all I can get easily. That was the reason I was put off when I first saw that recipe. Must give it a try very soon. Of course I have to buy a whole litre of buttermilk to get 2 tablespoons. You can also use yogurt, sour cream or creme fraiche to culture.

I would have thought a decent non-stick pan would be OK? All Teflon coated pans will become dangerous if they exceed 500F which can quite easily happen with a dry pan. With a dry pan, yes, but in a pan with a good layer of oil as per in the TV show I'm not sure it would be an issue? I went back and looked carefully at the scene again and it does seem like he had oil in the pan the entire time. However, there's no shot or instruction of him ever putting oil in the pan and every camera angle is low enough that you can't see the bottom. Furthermore, he explicitly advises people to ignore their gut instincts and make the pan hotter than they think. I think all in all, if people end up following his advice, it's going to end up in a lot of ruined teflon pans.

It seems like even a good night's sleep would have been a significant advantage at this point in the game.