Chris Amirault

The WikiGullet topic of the week, salad, got me thinking about salad bars. I only hit the Whole Foods salad bar when I need a quick lunch because my school's offering isn't what I want and I forgot to pack something. So, today, off I went to hit it. When I visit a salad bar, I usually look for a few pretty standard items: -- several small florets of raw broccoli; -- those little cherry tomatoes; -- some greens -- arugula if they have it; and -- a savory protein treat: usually some form of cheese or meat. Today it was four wee chicken drumettes. Had a packet of Paul Newman's greek dressing here at school, so I used that. Easy peasy. You?

What Peter said appears true for me as well. I regularly double-sealed stuff with my FS machine and haven't felt the need to do it so far this time around. There's a flank steak about to hit 48 hours in the SV Supreme and it's doing just fine.

Good question. I think that you can set the vacuum to 0 and it'll just seal, yes? I'll try it now. ETA: Nope: 5 sec minimum. But, hey, that'd be ok, right?

Can you share that chili paste recipe?

Those of you wishing for the index to appear at the back of the other four volumes clearly haven't lifted the thing yet! Adding, effectively, another volume just to duplicate existing content would be weighty and an added unnecessary expense. I mean, I've had the book for a while and just have the index handy on my Droid, laptop, whatever. Definitely a good balance. Without question.

If only the Saturday Night Live Trough & Brew really existed....

Just to compare, the compressed watermelon in this sousvidecooking.org page looks pretty much like what I had, though mine definitely shrunk in size too. Ditto this Chadzilla post -- where he states that the fridge only chills it.

Remove from bag and redo or compress in the sealed bag?

It definitely compresses and is much denser than uncompressed watermelon. The question is a matter of degree. For example, the watermelon leather in the MC book is deep red and mighty thin. I'll have to check the recipe tonight to see what's what.

Yes. Exactly like that. I'll take photos tonight with another watermelon. The kids are going to love you guys! ETA: I'll do two batches and leave one in the fridge unopened to compare to the bag I open.

Yeah, I was wondering about repeated pressure application. Maybe I need to get another watermelon...

It depends on the degree of compression, though: I definitely compressed that watermelon yesterday; I just didn't get it down to fruit leather thickness. ETA: Can you do it, Edsel? What does "do it" look like?

It's not without compression. It's just not pulling the same level vacuum as a much more expensive model -- and I wasn't about to make watermelon "meat" enough to justify the many hundreds of bucks more.

We've got a Kitchen Consumer topic on chamber sealers themselves, but we don't have a topic on all the stuff you can do with them. Let's get started. Last night, I began learning how to use my VacMaster VP112, focusing my attentions on a watermelon. The compression was only fair to good, sadly, but I did have an excellent experience making my first vacuum cocktail, infusing seedless watermelon cubes with a Negroni cocktail (equal parts gin, sweet vermouth, and Campari). They were excellent. So what are some other fun things you can do with a powerful vacuum? There's much in Modernist Cuisine to mine, I know that....

I bought short ribs (on the bone) to make the pastrami, which I'll be detailing here in the topic. Anyone have any tips or adjustments to suggest?

Happy to do it. Be careful, especially, with the spices. I've made batches that were the equivalent of clove cigarettes.

Agree with your last point, Shaun, about aging, steaming, etc. And: pet store! What a great idea!

That's a better summary, yes. But, to the OP's question: SV certainly can and does preserve green colors (and other things) in vegetables. At least, the ones that start out green.

Thanks, Anna. I was just looking for that. The gist of it (in case the link breaks) is that cooking vegetables that have been vacuum-sealed by placing the bags into boiling water is a way to preserve color and flavor, one more effective than blanching.

In Keller's Under Pressure, he consistently cooks things for longer times and higher temperatures due to food safety concerns and publisher liability. (This overconcern issue is discussed at length in Modernist Cuisine.) I don't have UP, so I can't check what's in there, but the claim that all vegetables lose their green color in SV is a sweeping generalization that just isn't true. I do it all the time.

Thanks. Do you have a sense of how others reacted to the omelet?

The owners manual suggests adding as many of the plates -- plastic slabs that adjust the height in the chamber -- for that purpose. One additional note: if the vacuum is pulling slowly at first, you can press down on the cover and it kicks right in pdq. For max vacuum, you could do that from moment one.

I shop a lot at Whole Foods, where there are usually half a dozen samples out. For some reason, I am happy to eat the samples, but I find the concept coercive enough that I get all snooty about buying the product. Not yesterday. I had some tuna salad at the store that was quite remarkable. It was made with American Tuna, which is "pole caught, wild albacore" that's sealed in the can and then cooked in only its own juices and oils. $5 for a 6 oz can and I bought one. That's the first time I've ever bought something after enjoying a sample. You? Are you a sucker for that sort of thing? Or do you just load up on the product like me and then point your nose in the air?

The VP112 here, and it's pretty amazing. A few notes. I think that it's pulling at least a 98% vacuum if you run it at 60 seconds, the maximum. I definitely was able to get both room temp stock and alcohol to boil in less than 60 seconds, which means that it's over 97.4%. Just to annoy me, they have replaced the dial that is in the online user's manual listing cm Hg to bar. The answer to the watermelon compression question is "half-way." They definitely compressed, but this machine isn't going to be making watermelon meat. At first I was folding the bag over the sealing bar, tucking it into the space between the bar and the chamber. That's a no-no: it blocks the release of air from the bag. Just lay the bag over the bar and it's fine. The sealing bar isn't screwed in; it just sits on its posts. If the bar is jarred, it can sit unevenly, causing the sealing action to fail. This thing seals liquids gloriously. I come to bury FoodSaver, not to praise it. Watermelon cubes infused with Negroni are fine, fine things. About to seal a few dozen other things.

Feel free to send any copies to me, as I have about one hundred people who'd be happily uncool while owning them.