Chris Amirault

Nick, you had head-on shrimp/prawns in the photo. Is that standard? Do you try to use the tasty buggers?

Straight up substitution for AP or tipo 00 flour?

Thanks to blogger/twitterer Winterpool, who shared This Malcolm Gladwell article on the popularity of Heinz. I've chosen not to read it carefully, as I prefer my own careful study this evening.

Mike, Smoked salt is a nice finishing touch for some things, and for others it's a background flavor in dishes where you don't have some other smoked item like bacon. Still haven't figured out how to get liquid smoke, I'll add.

Herewith, the rules. You agree to buy fresh bottles of the brand's basic ketchup (both are named, simply, "Tomato Ketchup") with relatively similar expiration dates. You agree to buy or make ketchup-worthy foods for the sake of comparison. You agree to blind, side-by-side taste tests, recording your impressions before revealing your preference. Obsessively detailed tasting notes and close-up snapshots preferred. Off to the store for two bottles of ketchup and a sack of Ore-Ida Crispy Crowns.

Ingredients & Calories: Heinz (from website linked above): "TOMATO CONCENTRATE FROM RED RIPE TOMATOES, DISTILLED VINEGAR, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, CORN SYRUP, SALT, SPICE, ONION POWDER, NATURAL FLAVORING." It's in ALLCAPS, so it must be better, right? And only 15 calories per tablespoon. Hunt's: "tomatoes, sugar, vinegar, salt and other seasonings." Note that HFCS has recently been removed. 20 calories per tablespoon. Yes, 33% more than Heinz.

Let the Ketchup Battle begin. In this corner: Heinz. In the other corner: Hunt's. Crouton dared us to try them side by side. And so we shall.

Bump. I just read this phrase: "duck-confit-studded deviled eggs" in a PR release about a new Zak Pelaccio restaurant. Doesn't that just sound lovely? Might have to try that this weekend.... How about you? Are you doing any deviled eggs these days?

When vice and I were cruising fish stores on the RI coast we were puzzled by an entire freezer section taken up with wooden boxes of salt cod....

Very generous and interesting, Adam. I was surprised to see that all three involve only maceration, particularly given the depth of them. Why only that?

The texture is so great that I think recipes that require fine shredding aren't worth it. Better to go for something that showcases those gnarly leaves.

Both in Shelby's foodblogand my foodblog, we pondered the following question: what can you smoke, and what can you do with the stuff you smoked? I'll bet we can gather a pretty interesting list. My recent experiments have included pineapple, mushrooms, and apples. I made the pineapple into a great sugar syrup and garnish for cocktails and punches, and the mushrooms became part of a Michoacán salsa. I think the apples are destined for a pork chop. You?

I do, and I will. Thanks.

A classic for a reason, to be sure. Enjoying a wee dram of a new bottle of Chichicapa. My goodness, what goodness.

Think so, sure. You might want to coat them in panko or something just before they hit the pan. You'll want to adjust the fish:potato ratio to your liking. I was following that Norwegian recipe at first but 250:200 seemed insufficiently potato-y.

Made salt cod & potato fritters tonight, following a few different recipes roughly. I cooked the salt cod with some onion and black peppercorns: The cooked fish: 250g of skinned, boned fish flaked into pretty big chunks, with about 350g boiled and riced potatoes, 1/4 c or so of minced onion, salt, pepper, and smoked paprika, and two beaten eggs: Fried them in 375F peanut oil: A few of the final products: I was going to make some allioli to go with it, but it was clear that no one wanted more than a bit of lemon juice. The photo doesn't capture how earthy and wonderful they were, served with a potato & leek soup and garlic ginger carrots. We'll be making these again, and more salt cod for sure.

Sometimes my Manhattans are just terrific, and sometimes they are borderline lousy. (I think that it's nigh impossible for a Manhattan to suck, but I get close.) And sometimes I nail it: 3 oz Four Roses Small Batch bourbon 1 1/2 oz M&R rosso vermouth 2 dashes Angostura bitters 2 dashes Fee's WBA 2009 bitters lemon twist Luxardo cherry I know it isn't anything earth-shattering, except insofar as a perfectly made Manhattan towers over all other drinks. Yum.

Well, speaking of gratins, Savoy cabbage makes a great one with roasted garlic, leeks, cream, and gruyere. I haven't made that in years....

That's exactly what happened to me the first time I tried and failed at this. Yes, the key is cooking them at a boil, not a simmer, the second time. They're much more hardy than ones that haven't gotten the retrograde treatment. And you really can beat them up when they're cooked.

dcarch, how did you make that sauce? Big Mike, you're going to fall in love with those veal bones....

Egad. Now that you mention it, I had a bit of a stomach ache that I couldn't attribute to anything last night....

What have you been doing with the black garlic?

I thought it would be interesting for us to share the new ingredients we're trying out in our kitchens. Of course, some will be familiar staples, and we may split off discussions that delve into a particular ingredient in depth. But it would be interesting to see what items are new to whom around the Society. I'll start. Last night I tried sunchokes, or Jerusalem artichokes, for the first time. They're knobby little things about the size of a fingerling potato; unlike fingerling potatoes, however, you have to peel the buggers. After cooking them SV at 85C for about 90m with carrots and celery root, I added them to a beef daube. I picked up the "artichoke" notes now and then, especially right out of the SV bag, but no one else did, suggesting that this effect was produced as much by marketing and price tag as by flavor. Even with that bit of nutty crunch, I'm not sure they added much, kind of somewhere in the potato/jicama/parsnip zone, with little of the character of any of those alone. So, given that lukewarm response and my nicked up hands from peeling, I'm not sure I'll bask in the glow of sunchokes again.

One of the real advantages of SV/LTLT cooking is that very small amounts of quality ingredients can transform your dish. I've been using a lot of rubs and marinades to get a sense of what works and what doesn't. Here was the prep for the short rib rub: A few smoked Tellicherry peppercorns, some kosher salt, and a small handful of dried porcini mushrooms. I ground them to a powder to insure that they'd distribute evenly as the meat cooked: I then added a very small amount of sherry vinegar just to moisten the rub with a bit of acid: I then prepped the short ribs. As with many meat preparations, it's important to trim off the extra fat from the meat as it won't render at this low temperature the way it would in, say, beef stew cooked at 325F. Fat, whole sections of short ribs, and small pieces left to right: Honestly, I use to toss fat like that, but now I keep it for use in another state (see below). I then made a bag with my FoodSaver, folded over the rim (to keep it from getting wet or smeared with the rub), and put the meat inside. I then scooped up that wet rub and, well, rubbed it all over the meat: Finally, I melted a tablespoon or so of rendered beef fat in a Pyrex bowl in the microwave, as I've found that the meat seems more, well, beefy as a result: Sealed the package carefully (and took a blurry shot): And into the SVS it went. Results, as I said, were excellent.

One of the key aspects of the Society's Year of Modernist Cuisine is you. As we seek to connect professionals and passionate amateurs to cutting edge discussions about food and drink here in eG Forums, topics like this (and the previous SV topic) bring both newcomers and veterans together to share queries and ideas, flops and smashes, in a pursuit of greater understanding of methods that have only recently arrived in home kitchens. There is a new tool available to help out the newcomers: the index to the original sous vide topic, where you can find loads of information about methods, equipment, food safety, and much more. But, as you can see in this topic, this discussion is far from over! In particular, we hope that all participating members will continue to explain and illustrate their experiments, so that everyone can continue to engage and learn. To that end, I wanted to walk step-by-step through my recent preparation of a SV favorite, boneless short ribs. The basics, which you can find in this index post, are these: 60C for 48h in my Sous Vide Supreme, then dried and seared quickly in grapeseed oil in a blisteringly hot cast iron pan and sliced for service. The meat was served with truffled mashed potatoes (using the retrograde starch method described here) and a porcini mushroom sauce using the juice from the bag and the mushroom soaking liquid reduced and then mounted with butter. The plating was pretty, trust me, and it tasted great. But that's not what I'm after here. Instead, I thought I'd share the preparations I went through to make this dish -- old hat for the vets but, I hope, useful for those new to this style of cooking. More, with photos, in a sec.