mkayahara

Meringue powder is not a good substitute for egg white powder, but pure egg white powder (which is also pretty widely available) works fine in cocktails in place of raw egg whites.

I finally made the beef with bone marrow crust dish this past weekend. Definitely a lot of fun to make, and a delicious dish. I omitted the yellow chard sprouts, and substituted maitake for the chanterelles, which I can't get locally. I think the recipe is out to lunch calling for 3 bottles of wine to marinate 2 pounds of oxtail, and 8 cups of veal stock to braise it, so I reduced it to one bottle of wine and 3 cups of veal stock, and still thought the results were delicious. It was a challenge at serving time, when I realized I needed about 7 burners to put the dish together (I have only 4): one for the mushrooms, one for the swiss chard, one for the oxtail, one for the sauce, one to melt the marrow fat, one for the garlic-thyme butter, and one for the potatoes. So I melted the marrow fat directly in the sauce, warmed the butter in the microwave, and heated the oxtail through, then set it off to the side while I finished everything else.

Indeed. Why didn't you list that among our assets in the first place?

My recommendation is neither. Having just made my first batch of veal stock, I can say that you're better off substituting chicken stock, rather than beef!

Or a sort of... "frozen" yogurt? Don't forget the importance of honey in Greek desserts!

Was it whisked by hand, or made in a blender?

A single yolk has enough emulsifiers in it to emulsify a massive amount of oil, but a smaller yolk has less water in it, so the continuous phase might have been the limiting factor. That's all I was thinking.

Have you changed any of the ingredients? New bottle/brand of olive oil, different size of eggs, etc.?

+1 on this. I have the same problem with so many current cocktail recipes, and had the same reservations about this book. Of course, I need another cocktail book like I need a hole in the head - I'm never going to drink my way through the ones I already own - but if I feel the urge, this is one I'll very likely pick up.

I've been loving your meals, Hassouni. Not too long ago, I made teriyaki salmon (not a usual dish for me, but I had some teriyaki sauce to use up), soy-simmered kiriboshi daikon with abura-age from Andoh's Washoku, and chawan-mushi with ginkgo nuts and shrimp,topped with a little yuzu zest. I steamed the chawan-mushi a little too hard (hence the bubbles), but not to the point of curdling it. It was still pretty tasty.

I would guess that's just a conversion issue. When converting between volume and weight measurements, cookbook writers usually round things off, which can lead to some pretty big rounding errors at times. That's also partly why they advise against mixing the volume and weight measurements in a given batch of the recipe.

Can someone give me a quick primer on the differences between Wybauw 1 and 2? Thanks!

Unfortunately, it looks like I won't be able to attend this year, either. But I'll be looking forward to the reports!

Thanks for the recommendations. I'll check those ones out!

I'm looking for some advice for a chocolate book for my partner. He's already got Greweling's pro and home books, and is looking to add something else to his collection, ideally something that will provide him with lots of recipes for centres, with less of a focus on the science or recipe-formulation side of things. Recommendations?

I didn't get any further than idly thinking, "I should look into getting those books." Sad to hear that they're not widely available.

There was certainly some fluff (I mean, in some ways, it's a lifestyle magazine as much as anything), but the article on miso types, kimchi, Japanese knives (if you're a neophyte), foams and dry aging were all good solid articles, I thought. Not the most in-depth pieces of their type, perhaps, but solid. I've also really come to appreciate the literary excerpts at the end of the magazine. They may be reprints, but if they're reprints of things I've never read before, I'm not bothered by it!

I was under the impression (from reading Wondrich) that it's supposed to be too sweet on its own. That's why it's diluted with water to make punch, or treated as a liqueur for cocktail applications.

If you're not in too much of a rush, you might try contacting BYOB and see if they can help you out. I don't think they carry that line right now, but they might be willing to start.

This seems like the best approach to me. My first instinct was to start with the higher-temp steak and finish with the lower-temp one (as suggested above), but I agree that this could end up having a detrimental effect on texture, depending on the cut. If you do cook-chill, then you can just heat at a lower serving temperature and not worry about the texture being off.

I've made the alkaline noodles from issue 1. Just make sure you use the right amount of baked soda: there's a typo in the volume measurement - it should be 4 teaspoons, not tablespoons - but the weight is correct. They're not as hard to knead as he makes them out to be; if you've ever kneaded pasta dough, you'll do fine. I would be careful how thin you roll them on the pasta machine. I rolled mine too thin, and they ended up being too soft when I cooked them. Yes, I could've just cooked them less, but I'd rather have a thicker noodle anyway. Lucky Peach is a US magazine: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/luckypeach

Oh, there's definitely rye in it, but from what I understand, most of their bottlings are primarily corn, with some rye and barley for character. Either way, I'm sure that doesn't stop you from missing it! ETA: Er... "some rye and barley for the character of those grains," I mean. Corn can have plenty of character all on its own.

Seconded for Ecuador! I miss my Canadian Club..... Of course, Canadian Club isn't rye whiskey...

Generally speaking, Activa RM isn't intended for slurry applications, because it's got sodium caseinate in the mixture, which will bond to itself. According to Ideas in Food, an RM slurry has a working time limit of about 20-30 minutes. Seeing a seam where the meat was bonded isn't uncommon, especially if the Activa is applied relatively thickly. Your best approach is to dust it generously and evenly, then pick up the meat and dust off the excess. This isn't a case of "more is better"; you want to use as little as possible (but as much as necessary).

DeGroff addresses this question directly, but not (to my mind) satisfactorily in the book. Essentially, it boils down to "real pomegranate grenadine is hard to find, so make the Bacardi with sugar and add a touch of [presumably artificial] grenadine for colour". To me, the more vexing question is: Why lemon juice instead of lime?