Mallet

I just placed my order as well (I was going to hold off until the website came up, but in the end I couldn't resist).

Right, bad call on the stockbroker example. (Being a grad student, I haven't had to deal with many of these yet ).

Aw c'mon guys, are you telling me that if you call up your stockbroker and he responds "Whaddya want, you little shit?" in an affectionate tone you wouldn't raise an eyebrow? Obviously swearing profusely is usually considered unprofessional. Sure your doctor/lawyer/boss etc.. might drop an f-bomb once in a while, but he/she usually apologizes afterward. Note in 317indy's post upthread: Why this exception, if it's not generally considered unprofessional? From Jakea222: Why do you think that swearing with everyone around eases tension and builds cohesiveness as opposed to, say, exclaiming loudly that one really likes flowers or respects his/her linemates? Could it be that watered-down outbursts of aggression followed by resolution, even if in these environments it's largely ritualized, is a more-or-less universal bonding mechanism? Or that flirting the edge of accepted social norms together builds intimacy? Steven Pinker has thought a lot about swearing: link link

Assuming the eggs are the primarily source of spoilage, you might try pasteurizing just the eggs (as suggested in the SV thread). Another option would be to buy already-pasteurized eggs (something like this ) or reconstitute powdered whole eggs.

Is it possible that there's no egg in their dough?

Could be of great use for anyone doing charcuterie or home-brewing (or both ).

I am inevitably disappointed with game on restaurant menus because real game is illegal (at least in Canada, to the best of my knowledge). As far as I can tell, all pheasant, deer, boar, elk etc. is farmed, and I usually don't find the taste distinctive enough to warrant the extra cost. Give me a pastured pork over a corn-fed ultra lean (and probably wet-aged) deer anyday.

A better option, IMHO, is to make agnolotti instead. These are way easier and faster to make than ravioli (or probably wontons) since you don't have to individually make each one. Here's some pictures that roughly illustrate the process (an excellent description is in Thomas Keller's Bouchon cookbook). pipe out the filling fold the dough over and pinch between close-up cut between, it seals itself It's relatively easy to make large batches

The article was ok, but about 3 years behind (link). I found their attempts to cloak the whole thing in some sort of mysterious aura (the Jedi Master of some sort of obscure internet cult) kind of annoying.

Honestly, there's just no total substitute for these magical products IMHO. Depending on the recipe salted butter and spices (pancetta includes a potent mix of juniper berries, thyme, pepper, and bay leaves) may work if extra richness is all you're after in these dishes. An interesting and possibly more rewarding option, if you're willing to jump into Charcuterie (it's really fun!), would be to create your own subsitutes from other meats (duck pancetta? ). As far as I know these are not easy to find commercially, and will likely be more expensive/less good than anything you can make at home with minimum investment. Martin

pouce, did you mean 140? 104 seems low (and is firmly in the "danger zone" , especially for a couple hours cooking time). Cheers, Martin

A few more sous-vide experiments from a recent game diner (link)

Here are the pictures from the game dinner: Thai-style rare canada goose salad The marinade gave the outside a more cooked appearance, but the breast meat was very tender and rare. Given the strong flavours (fish sauce, lime juice, chiles etc..), I would be curious to see how this would turn out with a more "potent" meat, like merganser. 36 hour leg of deer with cannellini beans and thyme jus This was cooked sous-vide at 130F. I love the ability to tenderize a tough cut while keeping the flavours associated of medium-rare meat. Smelt three ways I made pickled smelt with raw beet rémoulade (bottom left), panko fried smelt with cucumber tartar sauce (bottom right), and tamari-dried smelt with ginger (top). All three were very good, and the raw beet rémoulade is a must-try in my books. Mallard breast sous vide and leg confit The breast was cooked sous vide at 130F for about 3 hours, and both were served with a red wine-based onion/shallot confit . Snowshoe har rillettes with prunes and cheeses This kicked the ass of any rillettes I've ever made. The hare combined both the sweetness associated with rabbit and the full flavours of game together. The wine-braised prune purée just sealed the deal. Salmon mi-cuit This was cooked sous-vide at 104 for about 45 min. While I really like the flavour and texture of the salmon and would definitely do it again, the vanilla oil that the fish was poached in was just too much for me. I guess all the warnings about aromatics and sous-vide were true... Wild blueberry sorbet I don't know what it was, but this was easily the best sorbet I've ever made. Near-revelatory. I chalk it up to the fact that these were the best blueberries in the world (handpicked when perfectly ripe by a seaside bog in northern NB by my grandfather).

I don't think a whole lot has recently opened, by and large the recommendations on this thread still stand IMHO. Two new places that spring to mind are Aroma Restro/Winebar (in front of the Lonestar) and Ly's Place on Wellington (in front of Golden Viet Thai). Ly's place is alright but doesn't stack up to the other Asian places in Kingston. I haven't yet been to Aroma. On another note, I managed to get a Sunday dinner at Luke's! Three of us will be heading out there on March 2nd for my first real tasting menu (other than the ones I cook at home ). I am definitely bringing my camera.

Thanks to generous donations from my family (I went home for Christmas with an empty cooler ) plus my own harvest I managed to pull enough together for a game dinner featuring sous vide techniques (since I recently got the setup and am eager to see what SV can do). Here's the plan so far: warm curried crab salad with potato crisps I saw this picture on the net and thought it looked good, so I thought I'd have a go at it with some NB snow crab thai-style rare grouse salad deer leg with flageolets Adaptation from Bouchon's "Leg of Lamb with Flageolets", except I will use 36-hour deer SV. smelts panko-fried with cucumber tartar sauce pickled with raw beet rémoulade dried with soy-ginger dipping sauce mallard SV breast with shallot-cassis confit confit leg with red cabbage and wild rice snowshoe hare rillettes with prunes from Bouchon salmon mi-cuit with vanilla pepper oil I got the recipe here . dessert? Not quite decided here, but I thought I'd go light with a wild blueberry sorbet. No decisions on wine yet, but since there's just 4 of us I'm thinking of getting 2 bottles of red (1 with courses 2-3 and 1 with courses 5-6) and 1 white for the seafood.

confit garlic is a pretty darn useful thing to have around.

Both. I'm doing a game dinner feat. SV for a few friends. My planned SV courses currently include leg of deer with flageolets (adaption of leg of lamb from Keller's Bouchon book, I was planning on 130F for 36 hours) mallard breasts (130F for 2-3 hours) grouse breast (130F for 1-2 hour) I'm also doing snowshoe hare confit for rillettes and mallard leg confit, but those are pretty standard methods. I needed to find a compromise temperature (since I only have 1 water bath), and I thought 130F would be it. It's high enough to kill the nasties over long braising periods, but low enough not to overcook the breasts (I think). Everything was previously frozen. I guess I was just wondering if there were special concerns (safety,longer cooking times, heightened gaminess etc...) that I should be aware of or that anyone had experience with.

144F is definitely too high for my taste, so that may have been the problem. I don't think dropping the temp afterward helps, other than to make the collagen conversion go slower (which I don't think you would want). In your example, leaving them in at 144F wouldn't do any harm: certainly there's no risk of overcooking since your bath is the desired final temperature. Try 135F as per Ruth's suggestion and see if you like it better. A question of my own: does anyone have experience with SV and wild game? Are there any special concerns beyond what you would do with 'regular' meat?

Just thought I would report on my first SV trials: poached egg: I did this at 64.5C (148.1F) for 45min . This was unlike any other poached egg. Sort of jarring, but delicious nonetheless. I think I would prefer this as a smaller bite (quail egg?) pork : 140F (60C) for 90 min and briefly seared. Great flavour (superior to the usual sautéeing), but definitely overcooked for my taste. I should have known this, since I normally cook chops to about 135. smelts: 114F (45.5C) for 20min and briefly touched skin-side down to a super-hot skilled. I butterflied the smelt so that the final thickness was about 1cm. Wow! Far superior texture and flavour to the usual pan-fry. I tried them both straight out of the bag and seared, and definitely preferred the seared ones. This could seriously revolutionize all my seafood cooking if future trials turn out as well as this. Overall, I'm happy I made the investment and am looking forward to doing the SV classics (medium-rare braising, duck breast etc..) Thanks to everyone who's contributed valuable information to the thread so far!

[...] How are any of the above statements necessarily inconsistent? ← My apologies for being unclear; I used "enjoy" in two senses there, both "find pleasurable" and "eat regularly." Thus I believe that most folks here would prefer to treat animals, people, and the earth with care, understand the issues, and yet do not fundamentally change their relationships to eating and cooking as a result of those beliefs and knowledge. ← Thanks for clarifying this, Chris. In that case, take me off the list I'm not as suspicious about purity of motive or action, though. I think we should strive to be fully conscious of the consequences of our actions and be constantly checking whether our habits match up to our ideals. Obviously they can't always and there's no sense in guilt for guilt's sake, but I'm satisfied that I'm doing best I can (or at least, steadily moving towards that goal) and that I have fundamentally changed my relationship to eating and cooking as a result of this awareness. I really am confused by true ambivalence, and I always have the nagging thought that ambivalence simply comes from ignorance (not in a pejorative sense, just a lack of information or awareness sense).

Except that birds, deer etc. stuff themselves with nightshade...

I already posted this in the Canadian Thanksgiving thread, but we decided to have a vegeterian dinner this year and it was great! Gougères (French Laundry) Sweet Dumpling Squash Soup (Charlie Trotter's Vegetable) Tomato Sorbet with tomato salad, basil oil and garlic tuile (French Laundry) Vegetable Tourte with chive-cream sauce Wild rice, brussel sprout, and caramelized onion soup (Charlie Trotter's Vegetable) Ontario cheeses Poached apple, apple ice cream, warm cream of wheat (French Laundry) In retrospect, maybe the quantities of dairy involved stretch the definition of vegeterian a little

I'd like to count myself in the group of Society members who subscribe to the above list. However, I don't really see the incongruity. How are any of the above statements necessarily inconsistent?

OK, at the risk of beating a dead horse I'll have a go at it... False. Atmospheric pressure is squeezing the sealed bag (trying to 'fill' the vacuum, as it were), until the pressure inside the bag equilibrates (more or less). Think about it: would a full vacuum crush delicate items? Crappy vacuum initially merely means less pressure on the bag after it's been sealed and residual air pockets. There are several advantages to vacuum sealing: one of the most significant for usual purposes is even cooking. No air pockets = full contact with water in bath. Some other useful features of vacuum sealing are to create interesting textures (through compression), better penetration of marinades/sealing, and prevention of oxidation for certain products. There is no significant food safety benefit to vacuum sealing. Most of the usual nasty critters (Salmonella, E. coli etc..) are facultative anaerobes. They can grow both in the presence or absence of oxygen. SV does sweet nothing to sterilize the food within, only proper temperature control for adequate periods of time can do this (see USDA tables wayy upthread). What's more, the temperatures involved can't even kill botulinum spores, the most dangerous anaerobic bacteria! See above. Removing air does not prevent E.coli and Salmonella growth. Boiling temps are not necessary to kill the bacteria. Consequently, ensuring a good bag seal has nothing to do with bacterial contamination during cooking (obviously, this doesn't apply to stored products). If the nasties can't grow inside the bag, they can't grow in the water!

Are you using the display from the Auber unit as your measure or are you measuring the temperature at different points in your pot independently? If not, while I do believe you can acheive 1F stability at the probe, I somewhat doubt that the actual range of variation throughout the rice is less than 1F without circulation.