Chris Amirault

A couple weeks of cooking with this makes a strong case against the e-book version. Due to the book's rich content and excellent cross-referencing, some part of my house looks like this basically all the time: Tomorrow, we'll have an exciting additional surprise for everyone. Be sure to check in!

Save for the Pichet Ong gougeres I served as an appetizer, all elements of dinner last night followed MC yet were quite simple: meat and two veg, in fact, all prepared sous vide. The meat was the 72h 65C brisket that I had smoked and frozen last weekend; I brought it back to temperature in the Sous Vide Supreme and served it sliced with some of the mushroom ketchup I made a few weeks ago. The potatoes were baby reds, purples, and golds that I cooked at 85C for about an hour with copious amounts of butter, let cool, and then finished with salt, pepper and fresh rosemary in a hot oven. Then we had leeks that I also cooked at 85C: I sliced the green parts into thin ribbons that I tossed with hazelnut oil, and I served the white parts with an excellent sherry vinegar and demerara sugar gastrique to which I added some of the liquid from the brisket bag.

Several recipes, including parametric recipes for preserving and cooking sous vide. Although I don't have access to the book anymore, I read that section with interest. Let's see how good my recall is... The reason that ovens retain heat is because the sides of the oven heat up. The air in the oven is mainly incidental and will heat up fairly rapidly when the door is shut. Hence opening and closing the door causes less damage than most would think (eg. in the questions about basting). Using a sheet of metal means that you add another source that effectively absorbs and radiates heat, thus making the heat sources in the oven more stable. So in answer to your specific questions: any steel should do as long as it can store and release heat. Secondly, it should be good for bread because of its contribution to the overall heat profile within the oven. Nick's memory is excellent. They recommend a piece of steel or aluminum (the latter is much lighter, of course) that is 2 cm -- that is to say, 3/4 in, not 1/4 in -- thick.

Well, I've been cooking steaks for over 30 years, and my guests have been eating a lot of them. We all agreed that it was the best steak they'd ever had, so I'm going with, "Yeah, it was worth it." Does that mean that a grill is a bad way to cook steak? Not at all -- and the MC book details how to think about that issue. But when it's 10F outside, it'd be hard to beat this method.

I don't have the ability to respond in detail now to this -- the book is at home, and I'm just getting started -- but this topic on kits is a good place to start.

I don't know about the others, but I check mine all the time using the US mint coin specs.

Yes, there is a parametric recipe chart on fondue in volume four (223). This pdf index for the book is very handy, btw. Given the benefits of searching on a text string in a pdf file, it's more useful than the on e at the back of volume five at times.

I still have and use this KD-600 for large amounts and this Deal Extreme scale for small amounts. I love them both and use them, especially the KD-600, all the time.

Chris, which carrageenan did you use? I don't have the proper one. Can you sub one for the other ?

Well, um, they recommend a Büchner funnel and filter set-up. I've got one.

I wanted to add a thought: I think that one of the keys to explaining the power of Modernist Cuisine is historical context. There are many "chemical" ingredients that we use all the time -- salt, baking powder, gelatin -- to make food better. Chris's post explains why these newer ingredients can do the same.

OK, that's on this weekend's menu. I just did the 72h 63C smoked brisket for the meat. Now I need two vegetables.

A Racketeer again: 1 oz rye (Rittenhouse BIB) 1 oz mezcal (Del Maguey Minero) 1/2 oz Benedictine 1/2 oz M&R rosso 1/4 oz yellow Chartreuse 3 dashes Peychaud's bitters Talisker rinse Just an amazing drink.

That's what I saw as well: the "and"/"an" and a missing period. And I've read a whole lot of pages by now.

So it just goes down the gullet, bypassing the mouth?

Nope. He wasn't wearing lipstick, and given who it was (male culinary professor) I would have been surprised if it was lip gloss, ChapStick, or any other emollient. Maybe, but... nah.

I admit that I get pretty confused fast when I try to sort out the relationship between added sugar, brix, and perceived sweetness in spirits (which makes reading the sweetness in cocktail topic a bit tricky). Eric's post about Old Tom gin got me thinking even more about this. Can someone school me on the basics -- as they apply to spirits, not, say, wine? Definition of fundamentals would help.

I saw something today I'd never seen before. A student at Johnson and Wales brought back coffee and iced tea for several people in the bread classroom (including yours truly -- more on that visit later), along with straws for all the cold drinks. However, one of the iced tea drinkers was short a straw, and when we looked around to see why, one visitor was drinking the hot coffee through a straw stuck into the little hole in the cover. I have never seen this before. Does it have some meaning of which I'm unaware?

I think that's what it was, but I will look it up when I get home.

Believe me, you won't have this problem with the MC book, which appears to have been packaged at the printing plant in China to remarkable specs. Three layers of reinforced cardboard, paper wrapping, padding: this thing is packed up like a thermonuclear trigger in a Michael Bay movie. That link goes to http://modernistcuisine.com/2011/02/as-the-first-books-arrive-by-air-we-ponder-did-we-print-enough/ I am sure I join the entire MC team in expressing mouth-agape shock in stating, "No. You/we did not print enough."

Lula, Violet Hour, schwa. I'll report back.

Much to learn about those juices in the original SV topic. Index here.

But it's also a guide to barbecue, egg custards, stocks, cooking methods... on and on and on. True, if you want to get your hydrocolloids on, this is the book to have. But that's a pretty small fraction of the book. You want to learn how to use a wok or a pressure cooker? why mince is better than dice for stocks? a couple hundred things to do with those crazy Modernist ingredients known as "eggs"? Then this is the book for you.

I've now shown this book to a wide range of people, from chefs to enthusiasts to the curious. Everyone gets drawn in somewhere and somehow. I know it's weird to say it, but it's just about the most approachable cookbook I can imagine, particularly given the commitment to scientific rigor and impeccable quality food.

Just confirmed that I'll be bringing the MC book by Johnson & Wales tomorrow where I'm spending the morning with professor Mitch Stamm (boulak on eG Forums) and his bread class. I'll be sure to post reactions here.