mkayahara

What sealer are you using? I know with the Foodsaver bags, the channels are on only one side, so I just make a point of serving that side down.

Thanks for the kind words! Since this topic will be locked soon, I just wanted to wrap up by saying thank you to the eGullet staff for asking me to participate in the foodblogs, and to everyone here who read, commented and asked questions. I've had a great time this week, and I hope you've enjoyed following along! If anyone has any more questions or comments, I'll do my best to reply. Then I'm looking forward to sitting back and reading kayb's blog this week.

I like that kind of puzzle on the plate. Have you done other such successful reinterpretations? The other one that really comes to mind was from a dinner I did last summer, where the main course was "carciofi alla romana." It was an artichoke puree (and I'm never pureeing artichokes again. What a pain!), croutons, roasted garlic chips, preserved lemon, and mint leaves, with a chicken breast as the protein component. Here's a pic of that one: That's right; the pork belly is brined for three days in a brine that includes pink salt, cooked sous vide for 24 hours at 160F, then chilled and pressed overnight before being portioned and finished for service in a saute pan. The texture was wonderful, so I'd definitely do pork belly that way again! Thanks, Kim! I appreciate the kind words. The miso butterscotch is a mix of brown sugar, glucose syrup, butter and milk that's cooked to 225F, then cooled before white miso is blitzed in with an immersion blender. It's a wonderful balance of sweet and salty. Edit: After a week with no problems, I can't seem to insert the picture into this post where I want it!

Dinner is now done, and I would say it was a success! Here's a rundown of what I made. We started with some oysters with assorted garnishes: the teaser photo I posted last night was of red wine vinegar "pearls" made with agar. I mixed them with some minced shallots and cracked peppercorns for a take on mignonette. The other two oysters had, respectively, a few drops of BenRiach single malt Scotch whisky and a green tea "air" made with lecithin. Next, we had a Caesar Salad. I was pleased that it only took my guests a minute to piece this one together. It's a Caesar cocktail, reinterpreted as an appetizer. Worcestershire sauce spattered on the plate, then a strip of tomato juice gelled with agar and locust bean gum, some chilled clams that had been steamed in white wine (garnished with celery leaves and, in one case, a strip of dried tomato), horseradish mayo, cherry tomatoes, one of which was marinated in vodka, and a celery seed tuile. Oh, and there's also some Tabasco sauce under the strip of gelled tomato juice. All the flavours really came together on this plate, except for the horseradish mayo - the horseradish flavour really wasn't pronounced enough. The next course was a straight-up dish from Sam Mason: pork belly with miso butterscotch and whiskey barigoule. I got the recipe from Art Culinaire magazine, and I have to say that it was every bit as good as when I had it at Tailor. I followed that with a "one-bite cheese course": some Bleu bénédictin cheese, a piece of dried fig, a toasted almond and a sheet of LBV port film. The film was made with port and Ultra-Tex 3; I wanted something with a crispy, glass-like texture. It wasn't bad, but wasn't exactly what I'd been hoping for either, so there's still some work to be done here. And, dessert. When viewing this photo, please keep in mind that I'm really not much of a pastry guy. In particular, I can't quenelle ice cream to save my life. Individual tarte tatin, cinnamon ice cream, apple pâte de fruit, cinnamon fluid gel. The fluid gel was my first time working with gellan, and I'm not quite sure it came out how it should have. Still, it tasted really good, which is the most important thing. And that was dinner! If anyone has any questions, I'm happy to answer them.

You can, in fact, but that's not what this is. I'd love to be able to do that. One of the biggest highlights of my trip to Japan in May was dinner at Roan Kikunoi. I have the restaurant's cookbook, so I could even conceivably do a kaiseki meal... except that access to ingredients is extremely difficult in Guelph, especially things like a variety of fresh fish. Maybe one day I'll be able to do it, and if I do, you can be sure I'll write it up on here! Had time for a slightly more leisurely breakfast this morning, so I made pancakes and bacon. The bacon was home-cured with maple syrup, and smoked on my gas grill over hickory chips. It was the best smoking job I've ever done with my setup; the ambient temperature that day was pretty low, so it got to sit on the grill for a longer time than usual before the core temperature got too high.

Today while I was out, my husband started preparing this year's batch of fruitcake. Among other things, this meant that he opened a bottle of port. There are two cocktails that I indelibly associate with Christmas: one is the Stinger. (Ever see The Bishop's Wife?) The other is the Coffee Cocktail, mostly because Christmas is the only time of year we can count on having port in the house. (I use 2 oz. of port in the cocktail, rather than the 1 oz. listed in CocktailDB. I just noticed that CocktailDB lists a variation with apple brandy, though. I'm going to have to try that next!) I love the many members of the Flip family, whether Sherry, or Whiskey, or even Cynar. But to me, the Coffee Cocktail is King.

Sadly, we don't have a Sobeys here; I bought them at Zehr's. (A major supermarket chain, for those of you not familiar with it.) What's funny is that the "packed for" label on them lists the name of a local fishmonger, Caudle's Catch. Their products are usually good, but they're about a 40-minute or hour's drive away, so we don't make it there very often. In any case, I figure if they're the ones supplying the local supermarket, the product can't be bad. And it wasn't! These ones were not as good as other I've had in the past, where the texture was perfect (to me) French-fry texture: crispy on the outside, and fluffy on the inside. Tonight's were a little bit dry on the inside, but this bag of potatoes has been mediocre across the board, so I figure that's the problem. Indeed, my working theory is that the dry matter and sugar content of the potatoes is a greater limiting factor on great fries than the technique used to make them! Edit: Oh, I nearly forgot to mention! We also had a lovely little Muscadet with it, which made it an even nicer simple meal. And now, a little teaser for dinner tomorrow night. Any guesses as to what they are?

OK, so I know I said "emergency pub trip" this morning, but when I wrote that, I forgot that we had these little beauties in the fridge: A whole box of PEI oysters! So we had a couple dozen, on the half shell. They weren't the absolute freshest I've ever had: that honour would go to the ones I ate in Malpeque Harbour. These were still plenty good. I generally prefer my oysters naked, but we had them with a little bit of lemon and some fresh grated horseradish tonight. My husband kept saying throughout the meal that we don't do this often enough. He's right. As a side, we served fries: Until recently, I have never been happy with any fries I've made at home. Then I found out about the Robuchon method. This is the third time I've made them this way - all within the span of a month - and I've been thrilled with them every time.

Well, unfortunately, I'm in a meeting all day today, so there won't be much cooking or blogging going on. I'm not sure what's going to happen for dinner tonight; normally Saturday would call for a more time-consuming dish (I'm starting to get a hankering for lamb shanks), but this might end up being one of those days where an emergency trip to the pub is called for... Mine too! What kind of eggs do you use? Regular supermarket ones? I always insist on at least free-run eggs, and the ones I'm using at the moment are certified organic. When I can get myself out to the farmers' market (which runs Saturdays from 7-noon), I'll usually buy eggs there, but I find the quality is pretty variable. I asked the very same question not long in this thread here. I wouldn't hesitate to get that book, it's fantastically detailed. Love your Japanese dog, I'm so making that next time. Thanks, Prawncrackers. Sounds like that might be the book to get! Glad you liked the Japanese hot dog.

Surprisingly, Guelph has a sizable Italian population, so pancetta is easy to come by, as are a lot of other Italian ingredients. I've even seen cardoons here! I also cure my own bacon - though I've fallen behind on that, so I'm out at the moment - so I often use my own. I haven't tried proper pancetta yet, though.

And carbonara it was! My carbonara is a very stipped down version, just pasta, pancetta or bacon, eggs, cheese and butter, plus a light dusting of black pepper over the top. No cream, no peas. The trick, of course, is waiting long enough after the pancetta and pasta come off the heat before adding the eggs, so that they're cooked, but not cooked so hard that they curdle. I think I did pretty well tonight. I say it a lot, because it's true: my life improved immeasurably when I stopped insisting on fully cooked eggs. As you may have noticed, I haven't been feeling much of an impulse to make dessert this week. And it's been driving the hubby crazy. So we went out to our local market and bought some desserts for tonight. I chose a chocolate and pistachio mousse thing, mostly because it was pretty, and because I like pistachios. The chocolate beads on top are chocolate-coated crisped rice. The whole thing is not bad, but not great, either. Typically, I prefer very simple, not-too-sweet desserts (ice cream, pie, custards) or composed desserts. I'm not really much of a cake guy, though pastry may be the next thing I try to learn more about. Anyone have any advice on textbooks? I've been eying the FCI's Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts, but haven't pulled the trigger yet. I think it's just about time for a Manhattan...

It's cinnamon ice cream; I'm not quite sure why I didn't say that! I've only had the immersion circulator for a little while, so it's still a novelty for me. I don't use it daily, but I'm trying to work it into regular rotation - and see how it can best be put to use in my kitchen - in order to justify the price tag. I've done steaks and so forth with it, but so far my favourites have been the long-time, low-temperature items like brisket. I just got home, and just put on a pot of water for pasta. It's going to be carbonara!

Actually, I don't use white misos, since I like to balance out the sweet that naturally occurs from the squash and give it a bit of smoky depth. I use regular or dark miso if I have it. Good to know. I use more white miso than any other kind, but this will give me an excuse to pick up some good darker miso next time I'm in Toronto. Just to illustrate my point upthread about being able to make anything taste "Japanese" by adding the right condiments, I made this for lunch today: Kwinter's hot dog topped with okonomiyaki sauce, Kewpie mayo, ao-noriko and bonito flakes. It was pretty good! A little pickled ginger might've been nice.

Well, I think the best way is to scale it out. But if I'm trying to follow a recipe that doesn't provide weights, I use scoop and level, too. Over time, I've learned that I tend to measure heavy using that technique, so I adjust accordingly. I think if you're measuring flour volumetrically you just have to figure out your own idiosyncrasies.

One more post for tonight... I don't imagine that it's possible for a person to write an eGullet foodblog without wanting to do something at least halfway impressive, and I'm no exception. So I've planned a small dinner for Sunday evening (not Saturday, because I have an ill-timed meeting all day that day). I started preparations for it tonight, by making an ice cream base. The last time I made this particular flavour of ice cream, I overcooked the custard. Plus, I've only had my immersion circulator for a few weeks. So why not cook the custard sous vide? I don't have a chamber vacuum sealer, so I manually pulsed and sealed the blended base in my Foodsaver, then put it in the circulator at 82C for an hour. By all appearances, it worked well: good texture, no trace of eggy flavour. I'm maturing it in the fridge overnight, then I'll churn it in the morning. I decided to make myself a cocktail tonight. For no particular reason, I've been on a whisk(e)y kick lately, and I've been working my way to the bottom of a bottle of sweet vermouth. So I decided to make myself a Bobby Burns, using Drambuie in place of the Benedictine I would usually use. When I was in university, my preferred drink was a Rusty Nail, so this was a nice reminder of that, with a little added interest from the vermouth. I'm surprised there's no bitters called for in this, though; I think a dash or two of Peychaud's or Angostura could be quite a nice touch. The big problem with stirred whisky drinks is that they all look the same in the photos.

That sounds good; I'll have to try that next time I have squash! I imagine miso and butter would be great with squash. Any particular type of miso? I'm assuming white? Thanks! The fridge was here when we bought the house, but I have no complaints about it. It's big enough for even my needs... most of the time. Please do. OK, Landon Hall. I've been meaning to go here for dinner ever since I moved to Guelph three years ago, but it's taken some time to make it happen. Seeing it on the San Pellegrino list was the catalyst. The property - what we could see of it, given how early the sun sets these days - looks beautiful, as befits a Relais & Châteaux property. The service was exactly what how I like it: attentive, but friendly. We opted for the tasting menu, with wine pairings. Here's what we ate: The amuse-bouche was a quenelle of rosemary lamb rillettes with piquillo puree and walnut crumbs. The piquillo puree kept the lamb from being too rich, and the bold flavours got our mouths watering. First course was crushed mussels (with, I think, Meyer lemon), Northern shrimp and watercress puree, horseradish cream and beet puree (smeared across the plate to look like an Italian flag). The flavours were great, but the I thought the watercress puree could have been a little smoother. Second course was a "risotto" of cuttlefish and kohlrabi, boneless chicken wing, parsley chips and toast crumbs. Weirdly, there was something about the flavours here that reminded me of Canadian Chinese food, but in a good, comforting way... I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there was oyster sauce involved somewhere. Third course was seared duck breast, sous vide foie gras, brandade and pickled vegetables. The duck breast had the most incredible depth of flavour, and the wine pairing with Astrolabe pinot noir was absolutely perfect. Fourth course was braised lentils, house-cured pork belly, and braised lettuce, with a port reduction sauce. Very rich, and absolutely delicious. They sent out an extra of sea-buckthorn sorbet, which I can't help but read as a nod to René Redzepi. Reading through the Noma cookbook, I honestly thought I'd never have the opportunity to taste sea-buckthorn, so right away that made the dish special for me. The fact that it was delicious made it that much better! (For the record, it does taste rather like passion fruit.) And then dessert was carrot cake, carrot cake ice cream, sous vide carrots with orange juice, and carrot top gelée. The gelée was incredible, adding just the right note of bitterness to the dish.

Tonight's dinner (by popular request ) involved the delicata squash that had been in my fridge. I made a stuffing by drying out some pieces of bread in the oven, and mixing them with olive oil, salt, grappa-soaked raisins and chopped filberts. Stuffed the halved squash and roasted it in a moderate oven for an hour. After the first half hour, the tops were looking a little too brown, so I covered them with foil. Just before serving, I sprinkled them with some grated pecorino romano and let it melt in the oven. It was delicious! I also served some pork tenderloin that I seasoned and sprinkled with pimenton, then cooked sous vide at 131F for a little over two hours, based on Douglas Baldwin's charts. I seared it in a cast-iron pan to finish. In the past, I haven't been pleased with pork done sous vide, but this was absolutely fantastic! 131 is definitely the right temperature for pork. Braised cabbage flavoured with a little nutmeg went alongside. One of the problem I'm finding with sous vide cooking is that I don't find sauce-making to be as instinctive as it is with pan sauces, so I didn't serve any. I think the plate looks naked without it, though!

Kim, I'll be cooking the squash for dinner tonight. Not completely sure how I'm going to do it, but I've got an idea... I was just feeling a little peckish, so I decided to whip up some hummus for myself. I've started keeping all the ingredients on hand so I can make it at a moment's notice. Unfortunately, as I was sprinkling in the cumin, the lid came off the jar. Whoosh! Big pile o' cumin in the food processor. I managed to scoop most of it out, luckily. I hate it when that happens.

The biggest exception I consistently find in my kitchen is reduction times: if a recipe says to reduce something by half, "about 7 minutes", I know I'm going to be in for at least half an hour of standing over the pot saying, "Is it done yet?"

Yes, the pizza was homemade! I cook almost all of our meals. For the most part, when we eat out, it's destination dining, and it's almost never in Guelph. For example, we had dinner at Langdon Hall last week. Imagine this: On the San Pellegrino World's 100 Best Restaurants list, one of the only two Canadian representatives (#77) is half an hour away from my front door. And based on my experience there, it's with good reason that it's on that list. I can talk about our dinner there more, if people like. Anyway, dinner tonight. I know you all know what this is! No, I did not cook my pizza sous vide. I had some leftover feta cheese from last week, so I decided to make the pizza with one of my favourite sets of toppings: feta, chicken, and pesto. In the past, I've had trouble cooking the chicken to the point that it was fully cooked before going on the pizza, but wouldn't dry out in the oven. So I decided to try cooking it sous vide to top the pizza. From frozen, I gave it 1 hour 15 minutes at 146F. It still came out a little overdone on the pizza, so next time I might try cooking it at 141F. For me, homemade pizza is a convenience food (good for gym days), so I don't really fuss over the dough; I am far from a distinguished bread baker. I still use the recipe I learned in grade 8 home economics: 2 cups of bread flour, 1.5 teaspoons of instant yeast, 3/4 teaspoon of salt, a cup of water and a tablespoon of olive oil. I mix it all in the stand mixer, then let it rise while preheating the oven to 500F. I spread it out with my hands, put it on my wooden peel, top it and slide it on to the baking stone. After 12 minutes, it's done. With it, we drank the rest of the bottle of wine from last night (which I neglected to mention at the time): 2008 "Dolomite" Pinot Noir from Cave Spring, one of my favourite wineries in the Niagara region. I've enjoyed every one of their wines I've had, except for one. They're especially well known for their Rieslings, which are fantastic. Which reminds me, I should pick up a bottle...

I certainly could! I love delicata squash both for the flavour and the size. It's perfect for the two of us. How do you normally cook squash? With delicata, I usually roast them stuffed. Look what just landed in my mailbox: I had preordered this one, so I don't know why it took two weeks to get here. But I'm looking forward to reading it. I made punch for the first time last year, for our annual Christmas party, and it went over very well, so we're going to do it again this year. Not a lot of cooking around here today. I'm working toward a deadline tomorrow morning, and have the gym this afternoon. Oatmeal for breakfast, another egg salad sandwich for lunch. I'm thinking pizza for dinner...

Uh... so that didn't go exactly as planned. I ended up roasting the pheasant at 350F, and it took forever to be done. ("Done" being defined as "juices from the thigh running clear.") By then, of course, the breast was overcooked and dry. Not exactly the results I was hoping for from my first pheasant! That said, apart from the dryness (and sauce covers a multitude of sins), the flavour was excellent: good enough that I would buy another one to try again. I served it with parsnip puree; brussels sprouts that were blanched, shocked, and sauteed in bacon fat; and a makeshift sauce chasseur. Maybe next time, I'll butcher it raw and cook the parts sous vide.

My favourite part on this bag of Europe's Best frozen blueberries is where it says "Product of Canada" on the back. It was still slightly icy from the freezer, though I'd been thawing it for more than 24 hours. I run my fridge pretty cold, so it usually takes at least two days to thaw anything big. Having it be that cold certainly does help with the slicing. The last time I made bacon, I sliced it while still warm, which went OK - but then I vacuum-sealed it while still warm, too. That was a big, big mistake. The slices all stick to each other. Early lunch today, but nothing special: just an egg salad sandwich, with some tomatoes I dried in my dehydrator earlier in the fall, served with some Zuni Café zucchini pickles. The zucchini were from our garden. These pickles are great! I need help with dinner, though. This is what I'm making: Let me explain: Every fall, I read this book; it's a childhood favourite. If you're not familiar with it, it's about a young boy and his father, who poaches pheasants. And every year, I think to myself that it's a travesty that I've never cooked a pheasant! So I set out to rectify this. I have, in my fridge, one pheasant, which I plan to make into my dinner tonight. Any advice on how to cook it? A high-heat roast like chicken? Is barding necessary? Anything else I need to know?

Yes, the bonito flakes I buy are pre-shaved. I wanted - oh, how I wanted - to buy a shaving box and a few whole pieces of fish when I was in Japan, but the husband vetoed that. Something about importation concerns. I wasn't really listening to him; I was busy inhaling the wonderful aroma of the shop.

I've always preferred my Negronis up, though I have nothing against the rocks version. But then I lost points for trying to serve it that way on the Barsmarts Wired exam, even though the course materials clearly stated that either up or rocks were acceptable. Sigh. I'd say so, yes, though some of them are of questionable nutritional value. (Curry rice, I'm looking at you.) Probably the three most frequent quick-n-easy Japanese weeknight dishes around here are okonomiyaki, yakiudon, and curry rice. Last week, I made soy-simmered sardines, edamame, miso soup, and rice, but that definitely took advantage of the fact that I work from home, since I could sit in the kitchen with my laptop while making the dashi. (I always make dashi from scratch.) I'll get into this in more detail once I get some photos, but I think the walls are the biggest problem: I have two long walls and two short ones; one of the short ones is dominated by a window, and there are three doorways in total between the two long walls. Arranging cabinets around doorways is going to be a challenge - unless we start moving doorways. Here are some fridge pics! I've seen how empty some of my friends' fridges get, and I've never really understood that. My fridge goes from "moderately full" (like now) to "chock-a-block". I won't itemize everything, because there's just too much. I think it's a pretty good mix of fresh vegetables, condiments and what we tend to call "projects": What you can't see is that the jar of brandied cherries on the middle shelf is hiding four more just like it. Fridge door: Main fridge: And freezer: We also have a chest freezer in the basement for larger items. It's very useful when the upstairs one becomes dominated by cocktail glasses... which is usually the case.