Chris Amirault

I'm still wrapping my mind around this question, but I'll take a crack at it and, wikilike, someone can come along and correct my errors. These products come in an array of grades and names, which the MC book talks about at length. (It's not here, so I'm just working from memory.) Take the tapioca starches: there's generic "tapioca maltodextrin," and then there's branded products like "N-Zorbit," "Ultra-Sperse," and "Ultra-Tex." To make matters more complicated, at least some of those products have their own grades: here's the pdf for Ultra-Sperse; here's the pdf for Ultra-Sperse M. The book has a detailed chart that explains the different qualities of each of these products, and it uses specific products in most of the recipes. For example, there are many instances of N-Zorbit referenced in the book, so it's not surprising that a project with such exacting expectations would prefer a top-of-the-line item. (That is to say: I'd grab some.) As for grief, I think that we're talking a spectrum that runs from subtle textural effects to gummy disasters. My guess is that the book's precision is usually comparable to the precision that a cocktail fiend like me has about ingredients: I care a lot about which type of sugar is used in simple syrup and which brand of gin produces what sort of Martini, but many people find those ingredients more or less interchangeable.

Why is that significant? Just surprised to see it. I use galangal a lot in my cooking and a little goes a loooooong way. I'd be interested to taste that to see if I can pick its distinctive taste up.

In his "quick" recipe, Claiborne uses hard-boiled eggs exactly like that.

So it would seem that one can either add an egg or two or a boatload of butter to get the right consistency. Makes me wonder what sorts of other emulsifying ingredients could be used....

Chris, how did they taste?

I was wondering the same thing. (I mean, there is the fun of making your own block of processed cheese, I grant you that. ) The texture in the pan was a bit more grainy than I had expected, so perhaps something happens when it firms up in the fridge.

Thanks! Note: There was, indeed, sodium chloride -- salt, that is -- in the cheese mix, but I meant to type "sodium citrate" above. Still gettin' these names straight....

Oh, and the cheese: Lots of cheese there: cheddar and two kinds of aged gouda. And it melts into the beer and water and sodium chloride and iota carrageenan like buddah. (As long as there's no rind.) Once melted and smooth, into a pan: Once it had cooled to room temp, I wrapped it up and put it in the fridge for grating tomorrow:

So the idea here is to wrap the meat entirely in skin and then to SV and fry it. To make the skin and meat stick, you need transglutaminase, the aforementioned meat glue. In preparation to apply the Activa, I put down some wax paper and got out the gloves -- the latter just to make sure the right meat got glued. Forgive the mediocre photos: Weighed out the Activa and got a small strainer so that it was more evenly applied: It was kind of tricky figuring out exactly how much skin to cut, but, I figured, there's no such thing as too much fried chicken skin, so I just halved the whole pieces. Laid out everything flesh up: Activa applied: The thighs & legs wrapped with the extra skin: Bundled them tight with plastic wrap for their overnight in the fridge:

Wow. Galangal.

Yes, I know what you mean. I'm just clarifying that this is not a fish fork; it's a design feature. S'all.

No eggs, you mean?

I haven't been that nervous around white powder since college. Pix to follow.

For the modernist fried chicken, the two birds: The recipe calls for the leg and thigh meat, with the upper bone removed, as well as extra chicken skin to wrap up the exposed meat: Made some SV breasts, stock and paté with the rest. Brining for 5h: About to pull them out and give 'em the meat glue treatment. And I will confess that "meat glue" gives me shivers. Wish me luck.

Pickle prep. Slicing a European cuke (no kirbys at the store) to 4 mm on the Benriner: Pickle brine. One of the great things about cooking with this book is that EVERYTHING is scaled to weight, so you just dump, sprinkle, tare, next: Brine heated, cooled, dill added, and everything sealed up: ETA: the brine called for caraway seeds, which I lack, so I subbed in yellow and brown mustard seeds, which I love.

Photo? Very interested.

If you mean the photo in my original post, it's not a fish fork. That's just one of our Rostfrei forks, a midcentury design that features the longer indent on both entrée and salad forks.

Very tasty it was, but it was too crowded, in the end, I think: a bit less shrimp & grits and more bibimbap....

Egged on by my daughter, who has a real jones for the stuff, I've become a chicken liver paté nut. I admit that I used to toss most of the goodies inside whole chickens, but for a while now I've been getting excited if I find a bird with extra livers packed in there, as I did today. At first I sorta followed the recipe from Craig Claiborne's NYT Cookbook, but now I pretty much wing it thusly: 1. Slice up some onions and lightly brown them in schmaltz. 2. Add trimmed livers and cook until they're just un-pink, no more. 3. Add some booze (applejack, cognac, rum) and deglaze; then add a bit of cream, quatre epices, thyme, and scrape up everything off the bottom. 4. Beat a couple of eggs with the immersion blender, and add a few tablespoonfuls of the hot juice from the pan to temper the eggs. 5. Toss in everything else and blend until smooth. 6. Fine strain into ramekins, and cook them in a bain marie at ~300F until they're set (30-40 minutes, usually, but depending on the depth of the paté in the ramekins). Couldn't be easier -- and they're pretty damned good, if I do say so myself. However, I'm sure that there are tweaks, tricks, and other things to learn. I've also been wondering about other flavor combinations -- something Mexican, say, with a añejo tequila, toasted cumin and ancho, bit of garlic, perhaps. I dunno. What's your take?

Finally got a chance to upload the photo of the shrimp & grits I made earlier in the week. I SVed some shelled Maine shrimp for a bit then poured off the juice into the shell stock I made; then I added some onions, celery, carrot, and jalapeño to the stock to enrich it. Turns out those vegetables were very tasty even after the stock was strained again, so I kept them for the dish. Made the grits with the shrimp stock, and added some parmigiano reggiano and smoked monterey jack cheese just before serving. Served the shrimp & grits with a 65C egg for each bowl, some bacon bits (a bit too dark, in fact), slivered fresh jalapeños, the vegetable mix, and scallions: It was a big hit for the kid and the wife alike -- a rare feat, let me tell you.

All due respect to the honorable Mr. Taggart, but I went short on the sugar and never looked back. You can always add more, of course....

That is most excellent. Note to mac & cheese makers: be sure you don't add any grated aged gouda rinds into the cheese. Fine-straining this stuff ain't for the faint of wrist.

1. No idea. Good question - someone around here knows the answer, I'm sure.... 2. I go by feel, usually: longer is better but, yeah, you have to watch out for it getting too dry. Of course, that's subjective. Why not pull some at 14, 21, and 28 days and compare?

Living in Providence, I've had the fortune of getting to know a host of talented, affable chefs who have transformed dining in our state. One of those chefs is Matt Jennings, known hereabout as stinkycheeseman. An award-winning cheesemonger at La Laiterie, he's now become an award-winning chef at Farmstead, the restaurant he owns and operates with wife Kate and a great team. (Click here for a photo essay I did as Farmstead was getting off the ground; click here for a pdf of his James Beard 2011 Best Chef Northeast nomination.) When I went to Farmstead last week to congratulate him for the Beard nomination, I mentioned MC, and he got all excited. Turns out he ordered it months ago, and as we talked, I could see a scheme cooking in his mad brain. The call this morning revealed all. Every year, he and a few other terrific RI chef buds make an annual road trip to Montreal; this year, the trip features the once-a-year McAuslan brunch at Au Pied de Cochon. (I envy them deeply, as you can see from this raving post.) Turns out they wanted to add a seventh to their gang of six. Nope, not me: That's his reaction as we met for the drop at a local Whole Foods. I've been assured that we'll get updates on their reactions, and, as Martin Picard will be in the house, perhaps we'll get one from the crazed Montreal chef himself.

They look great. What's the green?