inductioncook

You shouldn't need the bamboo steamer; it's purpose is to hold in the steam created by boiling water at the bottom, but you have a whole chamber filled with steam. If you set for 100% humidity and then 100-110 degrees C you should have the same interior Maniere had inside his bamboo steamer, non?

I have the book now. Fascinating!

Slicing at room temperature will best preserve the texture. Does it matter if it crumbles a little? I would think that could add to the character, emphasizing the fact that it is an aged, hard cheese.

I would have to agree; not only does the blender take longer but it's incredibly noisy! Just for grins, I repeated my experiment in bringing 1.5L of room-temperature water up to a boil, this time in a covered stainless-steel saucepan on a gas stove instead of in a Vitamix. Unsurprisingly, the stove was almost 2X faster, completing the job in about 10 minutes vs. 18 minutes for the Vitamix. This implies about 837 watts going into the water from the stove vs. 465 watts from the blender. See chart below. I think I'll stick to the blender for blending and the stove for cooking... And of course it would be much faster and more efficient still on an induction stove.

Does this mean you can't use the Vita-Prep with the "wet blade" for the occasional smoothie? How would that do?

This is a really good and thoughtful answer that seems to sum up everything said in this string!

So, I think it is clear that the Vita-Prep is in lots of kitchens of restaurants everyone in this thread would consider well informed, for making sauces, mixtures for frozen desserts, all sorts of things. The Blendtec dominates the blender-store market, Jamba Juice, Starbucks, etc. Does that tell us anything? Why do serious chefs prefer the Vita-Prep?

I've ordered her version of the book.

she seems to have done this edition some time after he died. Amazon has some other information on her books and teaching, including those on Indian cooking. http://www.amazon.com/Cuisine-Vapeur-Art-Cooking-Steam/dp/0688105076/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281544588&sr=1-3

Sorry--I notice you answered the edition and title question earlier. I'll look for that book. I didn't know he had a book translated into English.

This is interesting. What's the name of the book and when was it published? Maniere was a master. I remember having a chicken breast at his restaurant in Paris in 1978 that was incredibly moist and delicious and unlike anything I'd had before; nowadays the same effect is obtained with sous vide. (He was also a shellfish master, and kept oysters alive in special water tanks in the basement of the restaurant.) Of course with his sort of apparatus if the water is below 100 degrees C there will be little cooking going on; the beauty of your steam oven is that by pulsing steam based on the termostat's instructions the oven can maintain a moist environment at or just above the final temperature you want for the food.

What Jacques Maniere book do you have? Does it address steaming at below the boiling point, such as one would do sous-vide or sous-vide style?

Olney "recipes" are not easily summarized, they're not just a list of ingedients and procedures. That's really the beauty of his writing and approach to the world.

isn't it mayonnaise that poses the risk in potato salad?

Glad this worked out. If you come back, remember Publican is also great with fish. They have an addictive style and a couple of visits may be needed to appreciate the cooking. Hot Doug is worth the return visit and the wait is nothing when you add up the total time. The best things are completely different from anything else you will find anywhere.

In Italy, pizza is viewed as one of the things you can't make at home, unless you have your own wood burning terra cotta oven!

Note that the Miele is a little different (doesn't heat above boiling point) but for sous-vide cooking at lower temperatures would be the same.

By the way, Jacques Maniere was a very talented chef who worked with steaming before such precise temperature controls were available. What book do you have?

Yes, definitely. This is how sous vide was handled before people started using water circulators. I use my Gaggenau this way. Good luck. I'd be interested in knowing how it works. (The thermostat will not be as precise as on a water circulator but it does pretty well.) I use 100% humidity. Incidentally, there is a Gaggenau book in French on using the oven that is quite good.

Be sure not to miss the Publican, and realize that although the publicity is about pork it's one of the best seafood restaurants around!

Eric Ripert's three cookbooks are the best works on fish cooking. Fish Forever by Paul Johnson is the best US book on selecting and understanding seafood. Get a good digital thermometer.

The explanations in the book are very good and it is awfully well written. The pasta/"bolognese" pictured on the cover is a very fine recipe, as is the whole gnocchi section.

In other words, it's not a bug, it's a feature! It's truly a good sign.

Back to the point of how many of these recipes are adapted from more high-tech versions. Isn't the fact that "Keller's have a uniform pink" a suggestion that his were done sous-vide at a precise and lower temperature?

Another thing that may be changed from the restaurant to eliminate sous-vide cooking is the boneless short-rib recipe. The restaurant has had "48-hour short-ribs" while the book has a conventional, higher temperature version that takes only a fraction of that time.