Werdna

I'd buy that. Obviously, we'll probably never know... I don't blame her for wanting to not go first, if her beans were not cooked, and could be cooked if she delayed, then it only makes sense from a team perspective. But much, much more so from a personal perspective (go first with a guaranteed loss? psh, forget that.) As for the game playing aspects, no strategy would work for that game. If you put your weakest player first and vs their strongest, that's a good idea... unless the other team does the same. Now you are trying to guess what they are thinking, only spying would have worked. To get to 4 wins first, you want to put your best dishes forward first, so Jamie going last with hard beans was the right move for her team, and she just got lucky. I still enjoyed the format of the episode (being an avid game player, it was fun to think over)

It really was a bad call, the person who cooked nothing stayed over the person who cooked something poorly. Right, get a cut and pass? Lets see, that 2 stichs per elimination challange if you don't like what you are presented with, and you are allowed to cut yourself. I saw going to the hospital for a little cut as basically saying 'I give up completly on this challange'. I mean, what other way could you interpret it? And if the teams had been switched, it would have been more fun. Some shrimp noodles from the M.G.s, some quick-cured meats, so much potential.

I hate to say it, because I'm loving the show, but me too. There's no need to have a 3-way tie, give the judges score cards with 100 points possible for each chef, you won't have a tie for worst. That said, I like them all and am rooting for Canora. His food looks amazing and it seems like he just never screws up.

I'm still rooting for Nate Appleman "I just made that story up"

I'm suprised no one is talking about it, this one is much better than the previous one. The food cooked is a salve for bruses inflicted by a lot of mediocore dishes presented on the last season of Top Chef. Without Jeffrey Steingarten (thank god, I'm so sick of him) I find myself even liking the judge panel + Alton, sort of a rarity for me in these cooking shows. I can't comment on who I think will win, so many amazing contenders. But I'm having quite a good time watching it play out. A comment on the challenges, these are serious. Almost every one has been 'show off what you can do, with a minor twist'. The 'quickfire' challange is free drama at the begining, everyone rates everyone elses dishs. Winner gets something small, looser looses a minute or something (of an hour) for the elimination. Eliminations so far: Pick something you want to cook, and cook it (at a beach). Pick some classic diner dish (from many examples, chef's choice) and cook it. Catch some fish and cook it. All totally fair, or close enough not to matter IMO. And I can really see a lot of the contestants as an iron chef.

While the contestents seemed to me to be picked completly based on drama-potential (see the 3-fingered man cook! Do they cry when they break an egg?) the cooking just kept getting better throughout the show. "Angelo, you will not be... not cooking... tonight, because you did not... fail to please us... because it was... spectacular! how disgusted... I was... not to have more of this to eat!!" (insert commercial breakes for ...) Very silly, but I liked it much more than anything but top chef. Near the end I felt like doing double-takes, 'specially at the deserts the winner was doing, dang. I almost gave up on it during the first couple casting episodes, but I'll watch it again if it gets another season.

At the tryout site http://www.3ballproductions.com/masterchef.html they mention the contestants being mentored and encouraged. On the flip side, it's the same people who made 'the biggest looser', Fox, and 5 weeks of living on camera. I was thinking, what kind of bias comes into a show when all contestants are required to give up their life for over a month?

I've never figured this one out, how do some restaurants (seems thai places most often) serve fully cooked, even soft eggplant with skin that's still a bright purple? I just heard someone else asking how a place was making baba ganoush with cooked, pale white-instead-of-brown eggplant. Any tips or techniques?

ya, seriously, any press is good press. And I've been watching since the first season, and a lot of those chefs eliminated early could have gone all the way in previous seasons. The brothers and Kevin could have competed on top chef masters and I think skewed people's viewpoints this season.

Gael Greene does BABY FOOD!

Now that I think of it, whassisname got kicked off the show for his deconstructed paella didn't he? Hmm, sounds like they need some fancy zojurishi rice cookers on the show.

In that theme, my wife just commented that no on ever cooks rice on the show. And I remember reading somewhere that Colicchio hates rice...

I'm not sure about that, have you ever cooked matsutake mushrooms? I got some a couple months ago and totally screwed the pooch cooking them, they are like no other mushroom I've ever run into. One mushroom I used, and that was enough to overpower the dish and make it inedible. Apparently a proper way to use them is to finger peel a thin strip or 2 from the outside of the cap, and to steep that in hot water... not really intuitive. I think the challenge there was to realize it was a 'bad' ingredient that the judges probably don't have a taste for yet and try to minimize it. I'm pretty upset at the lack of class shown in the final with Kevin being dismissed first, it was shameful. Also, that should have been a 2 hour finale, damned if I knew what they were cooking when they were cooking it.

Nope. As much as I love Top Chef and would totally watch an extended version, there's only so much I can apricate a dish without tasting it. When 2 people have an arguement about if it was too salty, or if the flavor combination was poor, there's only so far my imagination can take me, and I feel left out of the discussion. I have fun passing personal judgement on the dishs from watching them get cooked, final apearance, and listening to what the judges have to say in about equal measure, and I'd not want to change the balance. Now, if they could ditch the waking-up-in-morning and driving-in-car and product-placement shots in favor of more content, that would be great! But that's not gonna happen, so I vote for directors-cut shows. 'Specially for early-season episodes, where in episode 3 you are thinking 'who's that? Did they cook something in episode 1 and 2?'

I like Fabio a lot, but I can see why Tom would want to skip that show. Was food ever an item? Every single reason I could give for not watching Top Chef was paraded across the screen, from deceptive cut scenes to focus on drama instead of food. Where was the food? I wanted to see that Hung \'s salt crusted fish, I wanted to see whatever the hell was in those shot glasses. I think Marcel is a good chef and that he was provoked because, well, they know he will react and make for extra drama, much like the schoolyard bully knows which kid to pick on. This is -not- the direction Top Chef should go in, there is enough stupid on tv as it is.

I gotta say it. I'm past trusting the judges, something weird is going on if Appleman was sent home. Freitag appears to be amazingly uncreative and yet remains forever, has she ever done anything interesting? I'm pretty close to thinking that the whole show is a farce.

Did Dave make anyone elses mouth fall open in shock when he took over the kitchen? He went from meek stoner to G.R. lite in 30 seconds, lol. I'm glad he won. And I think that's about all the Hell's kitchen I can take... forever.

Sooner or later the skin gets soggy if you have leftovers. Instead of trying to crisp it up on the meat again, I pull it off and fry it like bacon. I usually add some extra oil/butter to fry it in, and then... well, it's chicken-bacon, good on everything!

My dad grew up durring the depression, and when I was young he called them vulcanized eggs, and explained that the bread was so you could cook it on your car's engine block without it running off.

I ususally chill the meat fast, still in the bag, and then dry it/sear it in a hot pan. Being fairly cold when I do it the inside does not have much chance to cook while the outside cooks as fast as you like. It works well, with the only problem being returning the rest of the meat to a pleasant 'hot' temperature to serve. Good for dishs where it can be served cold or warm though. I gotta get a blowtorch.

I'm also playing with it in wheat-free bread (4 parts oat flour, 1 part potato starch, 1 part tapioca starch) and the ratio I'm seeing suggested is 3/4 teaspoon per cup of flour. Hope that's not too much, but I used 1 teaspoon before for 3 cups and that did not seem like enough to mimic wheat gluten very well.

I'm wondering if anyone has used sodium nitrate in sous vide applications to prevent the greyish color of beef/pork/etc after a long slow cooking? I'm doing some reading up on it and it looks like it might be a good idea to add some ascorbic acid as well to retard nitrosamine formation, as well as for its antioxidant properties. But then high acid content can cause the meat to turn greyish as well.. I'm also considering a short (1-2 hour) initial cooking at ~115F 'cause McGee is saying that the myoglobin reacts around 120, and if you heat it up slow then the other proteins are mostly done reacting and less reactions occur to change the color when you hit 120. Anyone play around with this and color retention? I'm thinking about cooking very-thin sliced meats (mexican-grocer-bbq style cuts) for a long time, and searing on these I consider kinda counterproductive texture-wise.

131-133 range, 12 hours not long enough, 24 hours pretty good, 36 hours was my favorite. Have not gone 48 hours yet with anything. Thats without jacarrding.

I've seen instructions for smoked olive oil, I'd bet thats the way to go: Heat-resistant plastic tubing melted butter aquarium bubbler in the smoke Bubble smoke up through the butter, then chill. Course, it will probably seperate while you do this, so may as well skim the milk solids and make ghee. Or, you could just work something smokey into the room-temp butter and then chill it, like smoked salt into unsalted butter.

I did fresh Brown Clamshell mushrooms and was -not- happy with the result. 182 for about 15 minutes. Very slimy texture, none of the yummy brown carmelization from pan frying. Mushrooms are off my sous vide list as a main ingredient, though I think dried ones might be nice in the bag to flavor something else.