Chris Amirault

Or, I believe, a hard-boiled egg. Unless someone here can say otherwise, I cannot find a method for making good hard-boiled eggs for deviled eggs LTLT, despite what several sources suggest. Julia's method (at least 1" cold water above the eggs; boil for 30-40 seconds; take off heat and sit for 16 minutes, stirring now and then to center the yolks) gives solid whites, soft yolks, and no green.

We collected Culinary Signs of the Apocalypse for 2010. But it's a new year! You were probably busy over the last couple of weeks, so here are three you might have missed: 1. Calphalon has "the perfect pair." Two pans for $100 (down from $300) that do what one Lodge cast iron reversible grill/griddle does for half that. Then again, with the Lodge you don't get the cheap junior high joke. 2. In the "Getting Them Started Early" department, 75% of 5-12 year old kids consume caffeine daily. Shockingly, this disrupts their sleeping. (Tx to Josh Friedland's Food Section.) 3. Three words: Hip. Hop. Cupcakes. (Tx to Eater.)

Wow. Canned bacon. The mind reels at the possibilities.... Posted from my handheld using the Tapatalk app. Want to use eG Forums on your iPhone, Android or Blackberry? Get started at http://egullet.org/tapatalk

How wonderful! You'll have blast. I just spent two weeks in Tokyo -- with a few brief trips to the outskirts -- with the family, and I'd offer the following bits of food advice: Ditto Erin on cooking while there. We rented an apartment in Nakano that was near the metro station and had a small eat-in kitchen, and there were many, many times when we collapsed there to eat simple things and, yes, some Western food as well. (My two kids can only make it so long without some cold cereal in the morning!) It was also handy for tea making: if you're addicted to caffeine, you'll want a system for delivery, because there are very few take-out coffee or tea places around the city (that we found). Finally, having a kitchen will force you to find a supermarket or two, and you'll lose a few hours in there each time you visit. Do some research on neighborhoods or restaurants you want to hit before going, and put them on a map or load them into your google map (if you can access that on your phone while there). Tokyo in particular can be overwhelming to navigate, and my Droid's GPS and google maps got me through many confusing moments. Along the same lines, invest in a good subway map. Prepare to snack, nosh, and eat a wide variety of things that no guide book or eGullet member will mention. The street food situation is phenomenal: diverse, cheap, and for the most part very fresh, and there are thousands of small joints serving quick meals. If you are interested in scotch, visit a few of the high-end department stores, which have scotch tasting counters. For a couple of bucks, you can taste some of the world's best scotches -- and at several hundred to thousand dollars per bottle, that's as close as I'm going to come to more than a wee dram! If you are at all interested in cocktail culture, visit Tender Bar in the Ginza. I've been working on a piece about it for months and it's still difficult to explain just what it's like there, but it's a great place to spend a few hours. Plan for a few hours at each of several food courts, most of which are at the bottom of the big department stores. I'm writing this quickly so I can't remember the ones we hit, but each was fascinating in its own way, and I always wanted to spend an extra hour or two there. Beware getting takeaway food to eat while there, as there is often little to no seating anywhere near the markets. For food enthusiasts, I think that any trip to Tokyo requires a trip to Tsukiji Fish Market. You can read here, and elsewhere, about the restrictions to visiting. There's nothing like it in the world, and while the tuna auction is interesting, the real attraction for someone interested in food is the wholesale fish market, which will blow your mind. The food stalls around the market have some interesting stuff as well. I still wake up in the middle of the night dreaming about an egg custard cup I had there. Similarly, I think any trip to Tokyo requires a trip to Kappabashi, which is the kitchenware center of Tokyo. Knives, ceramics, plastic sushi, tea sets, baking equipment... more than you can possibly imagine and across the quality and price spectrum. Lose twenty pounds before you go so that you can fit into your clothes when you get back.

Excellent: you live in a part of the country I've barely been to, and I'm eager to learn more about its foodways! Can you say more about crop rotation? Why corn in 2011, then wheat?

And what was the gravy?

Based on the comments here, I'm wondering if Death's Door didn't change their formula when they changed their label and bottle. The stuff I have is the most savory gin I've ever tasted, what with the wild juniper, a pronounced vegetal (celery?) note, and an oily mouthfeel. I'm really enjoying the 2:1 Martini I am drinking now (with old NP and a dash of Regan's/Fee's orange, lemon twist). Anyone else have this on hand?

Is anyone finding the Scrappy's celery bitters to be overwhelming? I just got a bottle of Death's Door gin and tried to make a 2:1 Martini with the bitters, old style NP vermouth, and a lemon twist. Egad: it was overpoweringly celery... ish. Now I'm enjoying that same 2:1 DD/NP/lemon Martini, but with a dash of half Regan's, half Fee's orange bitters. Lovely.

In the booklet that comes with the Sous Vide Supreme, there's a chart like that -- but I've found that it's not the most reliable thing in the world. If you snoop through the index linked above, you'll see that there are some things that do coalesce around certain times & temps, 85C for vegetables, for example.

[Moderator note: The original Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment topic became too large for our servers to handle efficiently, so we've divided it up; the preceding part of this discussion is here: Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment, 2010-2011] This is the general topic for discussion of SV recipes, techniques, and equipment. Click here for the original SV topic; click here for the index for that topic and more. Recent topics: Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment, 2011 and Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment, 2012 The index and the search engine will be important resources as you explore SV cooking. However, we open this topic for general discussion. Onward!

As noted above, we are closing and archiving this topic. Please use this index to find subjects discussed herein. For further SV discussion -, please click here. Cheers! [Moderator note: This topic continues here, Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment (Part 8)]

Night Before New Years Eve party ended up as follows: tortilla stations with corn and flour tortillas carnitas chipotle shrimp poached chicken tomatillo salsa smoked mushroom salsa pickled red onions homemade hot sauces additional condiments guacamole tuna tapenade with preserved lemon & olives ras al hanout spiced nuts hummous with crudites smoked salmon crackers Smart Food popcorn chocolate covered pretzels World Peace Cookies prune armagnac ice cream Regent's Punch Cuba Libres Paul Jaboulet Aine Parallele 45 2007 Hugel Alsace Classic Pinot Gris 2006 Fever Tree G&Ts Sam Adams variety pack Details, lots, over here in the foodblog.

There's Four Roses Small Batch lurking back there, and I just ran out of Bulleit.

And, with that, I'll bring this foodblog to a close. I'll be around today to answer questions about recipes, etc. -- we'll keep the topic open through tonight -- and we can continue any of these discussions elsewhere in eG Forums. Thanks for going along for the ride, and see you in the new year!

We rolled out of bed this morning, made our coffees and teas, and set to a quiet family breakfast using up a few things from last night. Smoked Michoacán mushroom salsa (from The Hidden Cuisines of Mexico, a book I got for free in a cookbook club and have found very interesting): Pickled onions: Rancho Gordo Midnight and Good Mother Stallard beans: Bell peppers and red onion in small dice: Condiments: The last of the tortillas, thanks to a few balls of dough we hoarded last night: Scrambled eggs with monterey jack cheese: My finished breakfast burrito:

Some party prep pix. Corn tortilla masa: Flour tortillas ready to be rolled out: Peeled cherry tomatoes and olives with rosemary garlic oil: Milk and dark chocolate pretzels (courtesy of my MIL): Melamine punch cups ready for Regent's punch: Salmon cooling: Turned out really well, with a short (6h) cure using the spice mixture from the new CIA Art of Charcuterie book, then smoked with apple: Ras al hanout nuts: Corn tortillas: Flour tortillas: Tables ready for guests:

I think it's time for a full-on hard boiled egg topic: times, temps, SV possibilities, peeling, you name it. More party pix in a sec.

A step-by-step guide to Dave Wondrich's Regent's Punch can be found over here in my foodblog.

Thanks to Dave Wondrich, aka Splificator, our house is a Regent's Punch house. Of course, anyone reading this topic will have grabbed his splendid book, Punch: The Delights (and Dangers) of the Flowing Bowl. Below please find a step by step guide to this fantastic tipple, just in time for your New Years Eve party. (NB: go buy a pineapple immediately.) Regent's Punch (a 150% variation on this recipe by Dave Wondrich.) Assemble your tools for the oleo saccharum, and any available child labor: Using a vegetable peeler, peel 3 lemons, 2 oranges (3 if they're small), and 2 bitter oranges into your punch bowl or some other receptacle large enough to receive the sprays of precious citrus oil, leaving as little pith as possible on the peels: Weigh out 6 ounces of demerara sugar: Dump sugar over the peels in your bowl: Deploy child in the act of muddling, grinding rough sugar into acquiescing peels to release citrus oils: While child is muddling, obtain appropriate pitcher for your spirits: Mix your spirits: 12 oz Marie Duffau Bas Armagnac 3 oz Appleton V/X 3 oz Batavia Arrack van Oosten If you have a few ounces of rum that has been macerating raisins for the better part of a week, please add that as well. Finally, add three ounces of (in this case, smoked) pineapple syrup, which you made at least 12 hours in advance by macerating cubed fresh pineapple in demerara syrup: Now make 24 ounces of green tea, or, if you have it on hand, a hojicha roasted green tea: By this time, your child should have muddled the peels into submission, producing the remarkable oleo saccharum, the sweet oil that is the foundation of your punch: While still piping hot, pour the tea over the peels and oleo saccharum and stir well to dissolve: Juice and fine strain your citrus: Combine spirit mixture, tea syrup, and juices, strain out the peels, and chill thoroughly. While they are chilling, obtain your crystal clear block of ice from the small insulated cooler in which you've prepared it three or four days in advance, and carve into a shape appropriately sized for your bowl with a bread knife: Pull the three bottles of bubbly (Mumm Napa Brut Prestige, here) out of the snowbank: Combine punch base and sparkling wine in your punch bowl, add your block of ice, and serve in cups with a scrape of nutmeg. No photo here, I'm afraid. I was overrun at point of service and lost the ability to photograph. Cheers!

As promised, shots of the study bookshelf wall as a whole: Ditto for the dining room wall:

Dave hit the nail on the head: too fresh, I'm quite sure. Yawn. Pix en route.

You make eggs that don't peel without tearing the egg whites to shreds.

Rancho Gordo Good Mother Stallard beans: check. Carnitas: check. World Peace Cookies: check. Barbara Tropp poached chicken: check. Deviled eggs: FAIL.

Quick updates: Ras al hanout spiced nuts are very dangerous, as it's hard to leave enough for guests. Those sous vide cherry tomatoes listed in the SV index are terrific: the ones whose skins don't break are a great surprise when you bite into them expecting something raw, and the ones whose skins do break are very tasty in a rosemary garlic infused oil with black oil-cured olives. I don't think that anything smells better than the oleo saccharum for Regent's Punch. Snow is very good for quickly cooling both champagne and sous vide salmon.

jnash85, I tend to go by feel for hot sauces. Arbols and pasillas toasted and soaked, I think, then some garlic, then, um, ... Cooking up a frenzy. Trying to document as I go but it'll be a bit spare.