rickster

I think it's quite possible the "block" referred to here means a vacuum packed brick of dry yeast, similar to the form I see SAF instant yeast sold in. Fresh or cake yeast is not that common in the US. (Note, I am not familiar with what is currently sold in Costco).

Pulled this book from the bookcase for the first time in quite a while last weekend and made the Great Grains muffins. I was not impressed with the results. I used a mix of dried cranberries and cherries for the fruit plus some walnuts. I think the problem was partially that I used a coarse grind cornmeal for the cornmeal component and it never hydrated and remained gritty in the finished muffin. Plus for me, something just seemed off in the flavor profile, maybe needing some spice with the maple syrup, or maybe no maple syrup at all.

I would suspect that it was more a social class thing and preserving a certain atmosphere. At one time it would be a given that everyone would be in a suit and tie just because that was the social norm. When the norm began to slip, some institutions thought it necessary to remind people via the code of the type of atmosphere they wanted in the restaurant

There's a book called "Baking Artisan Bread" by Ciril Hitz which has a croissant formula I made last weekend. One of the variations he suggests is a hazelnut or almond snail, in which the croissant dough is spread with a ground nut/sugar/corn syrup paste, rolled up, sliced and baked. Would be pretty easy to add raisins to this, although he doesn't suggest the traditional pastry cream filling.

I have a recipe for a large apple nougat tart, that uses puff pastry and cooked apples. But the topping, which looks similar to this is made of 100g sliced almonds, 100g white sugar and 3 egg whites. You beat the egg whites lightly with a fork and then combine all the ingredients and pour on the tart. I will admit this topping looks a bit more caramely than mine. But you could try the tart with raw apples piled up and the nougat poured and shaped on top of them. The nougat might set before the apples shrink, creating the effect.

I guess to me the question is what is the attractive part of the ravioli to the patient? If it is the filling, you can make gnudi or malfatti, which is essentially the filling without the pasta, and sauce it. If it is the pasta, she is unlikely (I would think) to be attracted by substitutes like vegetables, and you have to look at grain based pasta substitutes like quinoa that try to mimic wheat flour.

Sounds like you've got it worked out!! ← That was my thought too. Seems like a standard apple frangipane tart plus the nut topping. Only question is whether the nuts and caramel are prepared separately and applied after baking, or before baking.

Does sous vide work given the time constraints they usually have to work under?

Don't you think that is a hipster affectation like vege? That was my take on it. ← My take was that it might be the way they pronounce it in her and Ripert's kitchen as sort of a shorthand, "One order of the scallop cevich'"

I've found that with this high hydration and a long retardation, you don't need to mix the dough all that well, just mix the water flour and yeast together and mix briefly. It will look too dry at first, but don't worry.

A couple of thoughts. Compared to Sam Kinsey's recipe upthread (which I have tried successfully) you have a lot of yeast relative to flour for a 7 day fermentation. He uses half a teaspoon for 1000 grams of flour. You're using the same amount of yeast for about 260g of flour. It's possible it was overproofed. I think the hydration was too high Finally (more in the line of speculation) I've used the King Arthur Italian flour and it seems lower gluten than the regular AP flour. I wonder if it breaks down with the long fermentation?

I agree with this regarding the regular Top Chef, but here everybody gave out scores. You can just add up the numbers.

I don't have any recipes at hand, but a scan online indicates that the rule of thumb is by weight, 50% of the flour amount. Which would be roughly consistent with your recipe. Regular puff pastry dough has to be pretty elastic to handle all the stretching and folding with the butter encased, so it doesn't surprise me to see a relatively high water amount, compared to say pie dough.

I agree that the crust is crisper, but I think the internal texture suffers and usually becomes spongier.

Maybe I'm unfamiliar with the fine points of cherry varieties, but I thought all dark red sweet cherries were Bings. We have had a pretty good, although not outstanding crop in the Chicago area markets this year.

If this is for home baking, maintaining 2-3 quarts per starter seems like a lot. Maybe you could cut down the amount to save some flour, effort and time?

As edited, it came across as arrogant. Still not sure how it relates to cooking skills. Not sure I would kick out Emeril Lagasse as a sous chef just because he mispronounces any word that's not English (and some English ones too), for example.

True, but it's hard to see how centering your buffet around a raw bar was going to get you a win. It doesn't really show off any cooking skills. Chiarello's "What's my name?" was very annoying, on the other hand, I didn't have a problem with the rest of the way he handled the sous chefs. It was a contest with a limited amount of time to get a product out and he, not the sous chefs was going home if they screwed up. So he wanted to make sure that they could execute his plan. Bayless seemd to go heavy on the avocado with the guacamole and the ice cream. maybe that's why Keller got the win.

I'd guess someone may be about to quit, or they're having problems scheduling the current chefs due to their outside commitments. Rumor was that Batali got a pass on appearing this season due to other things he was involved in.

Well, in book form, there's also Julia's memoir, My Life In France, that was the basis for the part of the film about her, plus there's a biography of her whole life, Appetite For Life.

Yes. She was the contestant the the judges criticized for playing up her time in France thinking it would come across as snooty and would alienate viewers. The story was that she decided to quit after doing her six episode stint. She's no longer with the network.

I did. It's a little bit of an odd, "Gourmet Cooking For Under $10" show. Surprising number of references to her life in France, for a network that in the past has looked down on that type of stuff. She made an interesting potato/bacon/gruyere/cream gratin encased in pastry that looked delicious but had a zillion calories, plus salad and an applesauce granita. Also threw out a lot of tips that I think most people would find useful. She seemed very nervous. I would call it an OK start.

Seemed to me to be just another in the almost daily stream of articles the NY Times is publishing over the past week or so to promote the Julia and Julia movie.

I don't think you need to poach the apricots at all, probably not the peaches either unless they're on the hard side

I thought it was the most entertaining episode so far, mostly because of the variety of dishes they cooked and lack of constraints. I think Moonen would have won even if he sent out an underdone QF dish.