Werdna

I've gotta throw The Grand Chef into the mix here. Netflix has it, I believe there's also a movie Le Grand Chef which is a condensed version. But I'm talking about the 8 DVD Korean TV series (all subtitled). Man, it was really good. Fun drama, -very- food centric with cooking competitions, backstabbing, and did I mention lots of drama? And more than any fictional work I've ever seen, movie or TV it was -about- the food. I cooked korean food for a week while we were watching, I've never had so much panchan in my fridge

As long as there is a Whole Foods in town, anywhere is fair game... (still looking forward to the show, but for me a location would come more alive if they did a lot more showcasing of local ingredients and markets)

As a followup to this, I spent part of the day yesterday experimenting with the incubator (or warmer as my wife and I have renamed it, because who wants to incubate their food...). Short answer: The heat transfer is definitely too slow and this should not be used to bring any food up to temperature. Long answer: 4 cups of water in a bowl, approx 2 lbs. On being put in the incubator the temp of the water was 87 F (higher than you would normally start with for meat by a lot), and the inc. was 131 F. -30 minutes: water = 103F -60 minutes: water = 110F -90 minutes: water = 115F -120 minutes: water = 116F ...(decidied to give it a while longer, and a better chance without me opening and closing the door every 30 minutes) -4 hours: water = 121F at that point I stopped. As you can see from the numbers, hot circulating air just ain't cutting it. A curve, starting with a fairly good rise in temperature, slowing annoyingly down right in the middle of the danger zone for hours and hours. It's a food warmer now. Nice to be able to keep a pre-cooked/heated meal sitting at 140. And I'll still use it for long sous-vide applications, where I bring the meat up to temperature in a water bath and then put it in.

50C? 18 hours at 122 F, which is well in the danger zone sounds... dangerous to me. Am I missing something here, I know the torch will sterilize the surface, but it's still the same problem too, which is how long does it take the meat to get up to a safe temperature. I'm thinking that if you monitor the meat and bring it up to the right temp in a water bath first then the speed of the heat transfer no longer matters and you can slap it into the incubator. I did 14 hour blade-roast at 133+-3 the other day... by hand and thermopen on the stovetop... man, that's a lot of work. But after say 2 hours I could have tossed it in there and it should have been safe. Problem is, how long to bring it up to temp. The suggestion to seal a probe thermometer in there with the SV bag, or just way overshoot on the side of caution seem to be the best ways.

Ok, I think I will toss this batch and start anew. Doing it stovetop I've been raising the heat of the water to about 5 degrees F above my desired temperature before adding the meats, then adjusting with cold water if necessary after maybe 5 minutes. I thought bringing the meat more or less up to temperature in a warm water bath would be sufficient to compensate for the slow-heating of air circulation, but better safe than sorry. I just removed the ribs from the incubator and they appear just fine, but who knows. Ahh well, time to find a nice square pot

I am primarly interested in safety, but just to clarify my setup, I've got a mercury thermometer that inserts in through a hole in the top of the incubator (and plugs the hole) so I'm confident in my temperature readings. Over a period of 12 hours there was not the slightest shift in temperature. There is also (perhaps?) an advantage to having the temperature remain constant after adding the meat in there, as it's not cooling down water. Not worried about plastic bags in cooking myself, I can't imagine microscopic traces of harmful chemicals being any worse than all the other harmful chemicals in the atmosphere. Besides, it's between 130-140.

Ok, I'm playing around with this cooking method more, but due to limited cash I'm improvising. I'm wondering if someone could critique my setup, as I've not heard of anyone doing it this way. Specifically, I've got a labritory incubator, a nice big good quality one. It's basicly a hot-air mover, with a fairly accurate PID controller. After a couple hours of calibration, I've got it to hold rock-steady at 56 C (~133 F). Now what? I've got cryovacced beef ribs in there now. Since I've only got a foodsaver, I decided to let the stores do my vacuum packing for me this time, so it's a very good seal. They have been in there for about 16 hours now. Prior to putting them in, I wanted to rapidly increase their temp through the sub 130F zone, so they took a dip in 200F water for about 5 minutes. Now it's just them and their plasticwrap and the warm air. Alternativly, I've thought of just preheating a pot of water and putting it in there, but that limits my space. Are there hazards of cooking at precise temperatures in air opposed to water that I'm overlooking? (I've read through Dr. Baldwin's practical guide, and also have the new Thomas Keller book here, but did not see much mention of cooking in air.)

hmm, probably weld them togeather like glue. I'll have to try it, I think it would be worth it to have some sake-infused cold buckwheat noodles.

Ya, thats why I want to measure the amount of water it absorbs when cooked right, then only put that much in the bag. Instead of the normal bloating of the bag from escaped juices, I imagine the pasta would swell to fill it. Probably have to lay the pasta flat to try and keep the water absorption even. If it works, it would mean I could cook pasta in more expensive liquids than I would otherwise (not wanting to turn a couple gallons of duck-stock or Sauternes into pasta water.)

Hey, thanks, I'll give it a go.

I'm wondering about doing pasta sous vide. I know it sounds like a horrible idea but I was thinking about egg yolk filled ravioli and the weird cooking time involved (aldente pasta but not hard-boiled yolk). If the center could be cooked at 147(?) and the pasta not overcooked, it would be pretty cool. All I could think of was weighing the cooked/uncooked pasta to find out the water absorption of a perfectly cooked piece, then adding that much water to the bag and sealing it. But given the chemistry of pasta is more complex than just water-in I'm not sure if thats the way to go. Anyone played around with this? I really want to make an inside-out carbonara

Well, I'm not there yet, but soon! Usually we do it with salted water, and 2 changes of water. Ive been reading up on it a bit more and it sounds like there are different varieties of milkweed, and the stuff in WI tends not to even need 2 changes of water (no detectable bitterness) so I'm going to try that. Served hot, melted butter, salt and pepper, how can it go wrong? I do know I did not like the blossoms when we picked them a bit late, after they had started opening. Pinch the little flower buds, they should not open up and be full of petals, or at least not mature ones. Then nip them off (we dont gather the rest of the plant). You end up with a bag of brocolli-sized and vaguely shaped buds to cook with. Well worth trying! Almost a week and I'll be up there and ready to try it once again

Growing up, my family would occasionally vacation in northern Wisconsin. One of the most amazing things I've ever had we harvested ourselves there by the roadsides- milkweed. We carefully boiled it in a couple waters, served it hot with butter, salt and pepper. Amazing stuff! I'm traveling back there in a few weeks and suspect that it's not the right time to pick it, but I have my fingers crossed. However... I've been reading through the (very scarce) amount of web sites that mention it, and they mention eating the pods. That seems weird to me. What we ate were the unopened flower buds, just harvesting those. Never tried the pods myself. Never got sick doing it, no bitterness whatsoever. But a really amazing vegetable.

The best I've seen (I used to deliver food for multiple places) were low, wide 2 part containers, with clear tops, black bottoms with compartments. The clear tops allow you to see which dish is which without opening them, and the compartmentalized bottoms kept the food from being a jumble by the time it got to the customer's home. I dont know a source for them, and they are probably more expensive than just the styrofoam, but I think the good shape the food arrived in to be eaten a clear benefit if you want people to reorder. Sometimes the tops could come loose, so some economy sized rubberbands might be necessary.

I just got one the last week as a present! I mentioned wanting to try to make the 65 C egg to my father, and the next day he came over with it. Its a laboratory-grade vacuum flask, about 7 inches wide and 15" deep, open top. He had cut a styrofoam disk and put a handle on it to drop into the top as a seal, with a paper towel to improve the seal tightness. At first I was a bit skeptical, but the thing, when filled with 65 degree water held the temperature stable for over 3 hours (lost a degree or 2, but I fell asleep and forgot about it . The volume of the thing is sufficient that if I don't try to put too much food in at once, the temperature will not be significantly affected by adding food. While it takes a bit more effort than a lab water bath to set up and adjust the temperature, it can get the job done Now I just need a nice little salmon to play with!

I made a wonderfull pozole the other week with low (180 F) braised pork belly, my wife and I spent 3 days eating almost nothing else.

I completly agree, I have both books and Charcuterie is simply amazing. Bones looked really cool when my sister gave it to me as a present, but I found myself thinking 'how many identical recipies for stock are going to be crammed into this book?'... It reminds me of the old 'write 20 pages on...' high school report, where you have 1 page of material and 19 pages of filler. Charcuterie inspires with every page, every 'hey, I can really do that' recipe.

I want a ravolii skin made out of crab! Maybe stuffed with chives and warm egg yolk... some holindase sauce... Maybe puree crab + 1% TG and spread on wax paper, cover with more wax-paper and cinch the edges, then flatten, roll, secure completly with plastic wrap and poach the whole roll? Maybe an egg+more TG wash will secure the edges of the ravolii after you cool/cut it, or maybe just egg will work? Edited to add- I wrote the above thinking that you had to cook the TG for it to bond, but on rereading looks like just time is enough, so just refrigerating the roll overnight should work.. I wanted to play with this stuff until I read the 'inhaling' post *shudder*

Odd that sharing meals is so fun, but seems limited to asian meals. I'd sure like to see more (are there any?) western restaurants themed around sharing... big lazy susan (to try to make it obvious what people are supposed to do), starches, meats and veggies ordered as individual dishes instead of all being arranged on one plate. Heck, that’s how we all eat at home anyway, and it's how we eat the appetizers. Maybe it's the steak, or the big-chunk-of-lasagna meals that are the tripping point, but with a little creativity you could overcome that.

I suppose that's why it's traditional to salt/dry the duck for a couple days before confiting it, to remove the moisture. I've been thinking about the same thing myself, just made some teriyaki-pork confit and I drained and towel-dried the pork as well as I could before starting. But you know, what about putting a 1/2" rack at the bottom of the confiting vessel, to hold the meat above the juice that comes out? I would imagne that would be enough to keep the meat cooking in the fat the entire time.

This is why I have a hot plate in my garage, works great for making stock-stews-etc, all the slow-cooking stuff my wife says I cant make indoors anymore.

Have you heard bad things about the Calaphon 'KATANA' knives? I know they are marketed as high-end knives, but had not heard they were bad. I just bought two 'cheap' oxo good-grip knives just to try them out (I love oxo products), and I am very impresses with their out-of-the-box sharpness, I guess I'll see how long the edge holds up. Anyway, I guess I'm saying that there are a lot of pretty good knives out there, as long as it's not some piece of crap then how much you like holding/using it seems the most important part.

Recently I've been buying pork-shoulder 'steaks', cross cuts of fatty, well marbled pork shoulder for about 1.60 a lb, to me I'm getting the best cut of meat from the pig, for the cheapest price! I've pan-seared em, braised them, sliced em thin and used them for stir frys, they work for anything! Just last weekend I made a filipino adobo-seasoned pork confit from them and my guests said they were the best pork 'chops' the had ever had I see the other cuts of pork, chops without the sleightest trace of fat, tenderloins, and just cant bring myself to want them.

I like it in sticky and fried rice, as well as the consomme already mentioned.

I just broke down and ordered a spyderco sharpmaker after spending most of yesterday reading reviews. Had 100 bucks to spend, so 50 for that and 50 for 2 Oxo knives.. can't find a single review of an oxo blade on the net, but I love how the handles feel (santoku and fileting knife) and I can practice my sharpening skills on them before I start on my good Tojiro-DP