Shalmanese

I pour it into large ice-cube trays and freeze. Once frozen, I pry them out with a knife and store in ziploc bags. One cube is roughly the equivilant of 1 cup of stock.

Dip your spoon in the sauce and take it out. If it just coats the back of a spoon, then it's at the right consistancy. Many sauces also vary in consistancy at different temperatures. Sometimes it can be as simple as waiting 2 minutes for the sauce to cool down before spooning or putting a squeeze bottle in some hot water to get it flowing again.

Theres some talk about Washington and Oregon truffles here

What a cool blog jkonick. I had a lot of fun meeting up with you and wandering around the city.

Tenderloin has no marbling so I'm not sure what exactly you're getting with prime. It also doesn't have much flavour so dry ageing isn't going to develop any more. America's Test Kitchen reccomends folding over the end tip of the tenderloin and typing it to get a more uniform shape so that theres no bit that is overcooked. If you have people who like a medium well tenderloin (which really defeats the purpose of it) leave it untied. Otherwise, tying might be a good idea.

It's not. Which is why I advocate flouring the pan after the vegtables have sauteed and letting it cook slowly to brown the flour then. You get brown meat AND brown flour flavour, the best of both worlds. And fried chicken has flour for the texture more than anything else.

I bought some liquid lecithin today. I'm going to experiment with making "pure" vinagrettes and mayos ie: ones made without any other emulsifiers. I'll report back on how they go.

Hmmm... well the first thing I noticed is that your ratio isn't 4:1. It depends on the granular size of the sugar and the temp of the water, but I'd say you're adding at least 1 1/2 cups water to the sugar, possibly even 2. The next time you make it, measure the water and you'll see. That range of water puts you closer to a 2:1 ratio, not a 4:1 ratio. If you did make a 4:1 syrup, it would be a crystal fest at room temp, trust me. Now, as far as being able to consistently produce a 2:1 syrup that doesn't crystallize at room temp... that's a bit of mystery to me. Maybe microwaving has some impact on the process. ← I think it's a matter of getting it boiled long enough for all the sugar to dissolve, putting it into a clean glass container when hot so there is no nucleation sites and not disturbing it as it cools. I remember that I did measure it one time because I wanted to know how to sub it for simple syrup and it was roughly a 4:1 mix.

1.5L plastic measuring cup. I fill it with 3.5 cups of regular white sugar and then just enough tap water to wet the sugar and cover it up to 4 cups. Put it in the microwave on high until the entire this is dissolved and boiling and then decant it into a 1L bottle. Never had a problem with crystalisation.

garlic glazed hand-picked endive with a sesame dressing olive oil tossed fresh spinach with a rosemary sorbet rosemary charred fresh Korubuta sausage with a citrus dressing I guess thats dinner.

I regularly make 4:1 sugar syrup to use for adding to sorbets and in cocktails etc. I've never noticed it crystalise and it keeps stable at room temp for many weeks.

It's not that the flour protects the meat from the heat. It's that the flour browns so quickly that the meat has no chance to brown. Floured meat takes maybe 40 seconds per side to brown and 2 minutes to burn. Unfloured meat should be seared for 3 - 4 minutes. Next time you braise, try and experiment. Flour 90% of the meat and leave the other 10% unfloured. See what the unfloured meat looks like when the floured meat has browned and thats how much browned meat flavour you're adding to the braise. The rest is browned flour flavour.

I quite enjoyed El Bulli (not the famous one) in Surrey Hills. There was a place on Oxford Street (started with an R?) which I didn't think much of.

I've found the sear at the start only to be pretty ineffective. The reason is that when you put the beef in the oven, the outside is still relatively moist so the bulk of your heat goes towards evaporating moisture and not browning the beef. I've worked out a compromise where I start the oven at around 350F or so. After about 5 minutes in the overn, I drop the oven temp down to 140F and the residual heat will sterilise the outside without overcooking any of the meat. Luckily, I (had) an over that could keep rock steady at low temps so I could leave the meat unattended for the 7 or so hours it would take to stabilise in temperature. After the meat hits my desired temp for about an hour (remember, theres no overshoot in LTLT), I take it out and let it rest (oddly enough, you still need to rest for LTLT, I don't know why) and crank the oven up to 500F (This is a good time to roast some potatos to go with the beef since you can't do it at 150F). Once the oven is blazing hot, I throw the beef back in for another 20 minutes. Because juice from the interior has been slowing leaking out and evaporating, the surface of the meat has had meat proteins steadily drying on it for the last 7 hours and it browns *really* well. After 20 minutes, you get a lovely golden brown crust. Give it maybe another 10 minute rest while you wait for the potatos to finish cooking and you finish making some gravy and you can get everything served piping hot. I don't think it's really neccesary to go the full 24 hours. Rib roasts don't have nasty amounts of collagen like braising cuts. After all, you can cut them into steaks and grill them and they're still tender. After 7 hours, there hasn't been too much evaporation and the meat is tender and juicy.

The local fruit market was giving away over-ripe bananas so I made banana bread. The bread was sweetened with a mix of Demera sugar and Dulce de Leche. I added most of the Demera to the wet mix and dissolved it but I also threw some in with the flour so that you would get the texture of the sugar in there as well. Not too sweet but really tasty and really moist.

I swear I saw tapioca starch at Uwajimaya. Near the bubble tea paraphernalia I think.

Since you're using lop yuk, you might try the traditional chinese seasoned salt which, IIRC is 2:1:1 Salt/Sichuan Peppercorn/Black Pepper. You need to provide another fairly thin liquid to dip it in as well. You first dip it into the liquid just enough to wet the food and then give it a quick brush through the salt to get a fine coating. Everything needs to be finely ground for this to work so a spice grider is probably neccesary.

dumb question: How are you mixing the batter? Using the whip attachment on a standard KA mixer is designed to incorporate the minimum amount of air into the batter. If you are using a whisk attachment or mixing some other way, then more air is going to get in.

Hrmm... since you're familiar with the area, do you know if theres any asian butchers in the ID? Looking for somewhere that carries fresh duck, fatty pork, tendon etc..

Wow, that doesn't look like any mint I've ever seen before. This is what mint should look like. Are you sure you got the right herb?

The traditional Christmas cut seems to be the standing rib roast.

I always wanted to know what roasted bone marrow ice cream would taste like but never found a source for enough bone marrow.

"You are served a bowl of smoked eel ice cream in a fancy restaurant. Do you" taste it and assess whether this method of preparing smoked eel revealed anything new or nuanced at the flavour or was it merely an attempt to throw in a mish mash of techniques to dazzle and fool and ignorant crowd? Then, I would post about it on eGullet "A Gastrovac is..." Something I lust after. "Before ordering a lamb dish in a restaurant, you ask the waiter for the provenance of the meat. He shrugs and mutters something about New Zealand. Do you" Order it right away because a) I'm a sucker for lamb and b) NZ lamb is bloody fantastic tasting. "56°C is:" Rather low for LTLT beef IMHO, I prefer closer to 60C.

Why do you use flour? I usually find potato soup thickened with just potatos to be adequately thick. Does the flour give it a better texture in your opinion? I imagine the potato flavour would be somewhat diluted by the flour. edit: Why do you discard the bayleaf so early? The usual method is to keep it simmering in the soup and discard right before pureeing.

I bloody well hope not. I'm not cooking burgers because they're healthy.