mkayahara

Although I know it isn't universally accepted, I am a firm believer in the existence of "umami" as a separate taste. But in a discussion on Twitter today, it was pointed out to me that not many dishes can be described as having "too much umami", whereas foods are commonly too sweet/sour/salty/bitter. The only counterexample I could come up with was Doritos, mostly due to the amount of MSG they contain. So what do you think? Is there such a thing as "too much umami"?

Thanks for sharing your week with us. It's been wonderful following along!

Thanks, Larry and lesliec for confirming my suspicions. Time to open a new savings account for the chamber sealer, I guess!

Wow, indeed! I think I'm glad I don't know of a comparable supplier near me... I would go broke!

To those of you who have done the aerated mango sorbet: Are you all using chamber vacs for it? I just tried it with my Foodsaver (placing the jars in a canister) and couldn't get the sorbet base to expand at all. I'm wondering if the problem is that the Foodsaver doesn't pull a strong enough vacuum, or I didn't whip enough air into the base in the blender... or something else entirely.

I've been away from the computer for a few days, but I've been enjoying catching up. Glad to see you made a batch of orgeat! I'm looking forward to seeing how you use it. I'm loving all the Tiki drinks. Do you have an ice crusher? (I'm in the market for a new one...) Your kitchen is beautiful, as is the photography. The Bali Hai looks like a wonderful place to visit; I'll have to add it to my list. I realize this is coming a bit late, but when I make sausage, I try to find the right level of stuffing so that the casings are full, but have enough leeway to twist off links after the fact. It just takes a bit of practice to find it. Personally, I think twisting off links as you go sounds like too much trouble. Your fromage blanc looked good, too. Now you've got me trying to track down a source for cheese-making supplies!

As far as I could tell, the magnolia leaf imparted no flavour at all. But then, miso itself can be a pretty strong flavour. I suspect it was just a receptacle to hold the miso close to a flame. I don't know about variety, either; I tried to engage in some discussion at one restaurant, but my Japanese is weak, and her English wasn't great either. I'd love to get more info on the technique, but it doesn't seem to be widely discussed!

I keep meaning to mention hoba miso in this thread. We tasted it on our trip to Takayama, Japan last year: it essentially seems to be miso spread on a dried magnolia leaf and grilled. Sometimes on its own, sometimes with beef and other ingredients, as seen here: Takayama was very much geared to tourism, so packages of the leaves were available for sale everywhere. I resisted the urge, since I imagine Border Services would have had issues with me bringing them back to Canada. But I still think of the preparation every time I see a magnolia tree.

Why not melt the chocolate, steep some coffee beans in it, strain it off, then temper the chocolate? As an added bonus, you'll end up with chocolate-covered coffee beans!

There are always factors that can't be taken into consideration in recipes, mostly because they're just too hard to measure. Initial moisture content of your flour would be one example.

Interesting how everyone here seems to use grade B maple syrup on their pancakes. I was always under the impression that grade A was intended for condiment usage, while grade B was for use as an ingredient, so the maple flavour would come through stronger. That said, I use Canada No. 2 ("Amber") maple syrup on most things, and Canada No. 3 ("Dark") for some baked goods. So I'm no different from the rest of you! What is the Light and Extra Light stuff good for, anyway?

Maple syrup, of course! The real thing.

Does it?

I'm liking the Rorschach latte art! Also looking forward to seeing the Tiki drinks... it's a fascinating branch of mixology; I just wish it weren't so much work! What procedure do you use for your orgeat?

The standard solution to using popping candy in moisture-rich foods is to coat it in chocolate or cocoa butter before adding it to the base in question. (You can buy pre-coated popping candy.) If you add plain popping candy to the ice cream, I imagine it will simply dissolve, ruining the effect. The cocoa butter acts as a moisture barrier.

Another option is the Rembrandt.

Yeah, those hats fall off at the slightest urging. Don't worry about the mess: one of the side benefits of the LCBO's exorbitant prices is that they're financially responsible for all breakage on-site, whether it's your fault or not.

I guess it all depends on what kind of "general guidelines" you're looking for. Prior to the publication of Modernist Cuisine, the most comprehensive resource that I saw frequently referred to was the Handbook of Hydrocolloids.

Last night I decided to split the difference between an Oriental and a Margarita: 1.5 oz. anejo tequila (Cazadores) 0.75 oz. Cointreau 0.75 oz. Martini bianco vermouth 0.75 oz. lime juice It worked!

So... that didn't go so well. I ended up going with the recipe in Imbibe!, but scaled down significantly. (Tri2Cook, I assume the recipe you were talking about was this one?) The gum solution was lumpy, and it took me a while to work out most of the lumps, and I think I evaporated too much water in that time. The resulting syrup was barely fluid while still warm, and is rock-solid at fridge temperature. Obviously I'm going to try to salvage it by reheating and adding more water, but of course I have no way of knowing how much I need to add. Kind of frustrated that I burned through half of my supply of gum arabic on a failed project.

Thanks Tri2Cook. I'll poke around and see if I can find it. I actually have substantially more gum arabic than LBG, so that's probably still the way to go... for now, at least.

For kicks, I was looking at making my first batch of true gum syrup/gomme syrup today. The recipe in Imbibe! calls for one third as much gum arabic as sugar (1 lb. of gum arabic to 3 lbs. of sugar), which seems like a lot of gum arabic. Is that what others are actually doing? I don't need such a big batch, so I can work with the amount of gum arabic I have, but I don't want to burn through my supply needlessly.

Ultimately, this is the same question as in any culinary field, right? If a diner likes well-done steak and instant mashed potatoes with powdered gravy, who am I to try and convince them that they "should" like a medium-rare dry-aged steak with retrograde-starch potato puree and a red-wine beef jus? In the case of cocktails, I think there's a range of what could be considered "balanced," and a craft bartender wouldn't blink at someone who has a slightly sweeter palate. There's a world of difference between adding an extra quarter-ounce of syrup to a Daiquiri and treating butterscotch schnapps as a base spirit. Hospitality dictates that a request for the former should be accommodated with a smile, while a request for the latter should be met with a gentle suggestion that they try something else from the menu or find a bar that's better equipped to meet their needs. God knows they exist.

Thanks for the tips on pressure-cooker dulce de leche, pazzaglia. I gave it a try today, and it worked like a charm!

When making dulce de leche from fresh milk, is reduction an important part of the process? What would be an approximate yield on a litre of milk?