dougal

Sadly, I think you did the right thing dumping anything potentially contaminated. (Just in case you were having ANY doubts!) The odd batch of sausage is absolutely nothing compared to health. That said, I think I'd have mixed the third batch by hand... As regards a replacement (assuming - it isn't automatic - that the current machine is beyond economic repair), do at least consider an Electrolux DLX. Very robust and well able to handle stiff mixes.

The pickle should be fine, but the pork would likely be a problem... This link was quoted previously on this thread http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/travel/vacation...roductsPrepared I do wonder whether they'd even let you through with a packet of Rowntrees Fruit Pastilles (containing gelatine). And, personally, I couldn't quickly locate any "Travellers Tips" section on http://www.aphis.usda.gov/ ... Its *not* that there's any lack of good stuff here, the problem is the severe restriction of what the US border guards (and even the state authorities) will let you take *in* over there ...

I think it would be well worth clarifying exactly what the US Customs (from the previous link) might mean when they say "You may bring bakery items and certain cheeses into the United States." Which cheeses are certain and which un-certain (so to speak) ??? Does it have to do with softness, pasteurisation, or what? (And what proof/documentation might be needed to convince the particular officer that happens to be on duty?) Or is it really about surrender monkeys? Personally, I find it rather amusing that the restriction to importing some cheeses should actually be under the Bioterrorism Act ...

No need worry about a little Vitamin C (ascorbic acid or sodium ascorbate), or some malted flour being in there. Most commercial 'white' flour is bleached. That actually can make for a more extensible (less tear-prone) dough, but doesn't help the flavour (or colour) that many enthusiast home bakers are trying to optimise (or even maximise!) Those apart, be rightly suspicious of the over-application of "food technology". But particularly cavalier use of old tech Bromate.

If he's a good "distributor" he should have quite a wide range... The flours used in the USA for bread are generally higher in protein content than the flours used for bread in, for example, France. One can make "bread" with either, but not necessarily the same bread! If you are wanting to make a light, fluffy, well risen loaf in a tin (for example for sandwiches), then you should be looking for a higher-than-average protein content, perhaps about 12+%. You don't need anything extreme (like 14% or more) - unless you want to see what it does, or perhaps to blend it with something more flavoursome. If, on the other hand, you were trying to make 'authentic' baguettes, then a particularly high protein content would not be what you were looking for in your flour. Protein content is but one measurable quality of a flour. Its usually the most easily discoverable, but its by no means the only one. Most good bread books will devote several pages to the discussion of flours and their analysis, official gradings in different countries, testing methods and their interpretation. Its also worth remarking that some flours sold retail as "breadmaking" (or bread machine) flour is stuffed with almost as many additives as a supermarket industrial loaf. Bromate in particular (still used within the USA) would seem worth avoiding on health grounds.

And again and again, I've wondered just what you might be meaning by "full vacuum"... e_monster may have misread your post regarding pressure and boiling point, BUT - he's quite right that the pressure in a non-rigid s-v bag is going to be at atmospheric pressure (or actually just slightly above atmospheric pressure because of being submerged below the waterbath surface). The flexible bag collapses until pressure is equalised inside and out. Being flexible, and stretchy too, the bag cannot resist the external pressure of the atmosphere. It would be different with a rigid box or bottle. But its a flexy, slightly stetchy bag. And atmospheric pressure is pretty strong about 14.5 pound pressing on every single square inch. The bag doesn't stand a chance! - and boiling point is irrelevant to s-v cooking. (Because pressure - and so boiling point - isn't changed, as above.) However, it does seem to be important that the bag doesn't float to the surface, and that the bag should be well collapsed around the food, so that the waterbath is in good thermal contact with the food - as far as possible on all sides. So "well evacuated" makes sense, but "full vacuum" or even "low pressure" really don't. "Vacuum" sealing and "sous vide" aren't scientifically correct descriptions. Just as "convection" is a pretty inaccurate description for an oven with a fan ...

In Seattle, can you get Coleman's English mustard (both prepared and powder), HP sauce, Frank Cooper's Oxford Marmelade, Roses Lemon and Lime Marmalade, (and Rose's Lime Juice), and Rowntree's Fruit Gums and Fruit Pastilles? All should be importable, easycare and non-perishable. And you should be able to find them all in most British supermarkets. I'm thinking that hard-to-find is not an advantage here! Relatively perishable, but easy to find at the last minute should be some crumpets - and proper "muffins" too. If you hadn't gone against the Marmite, I'd have suggested a packet of Twiglets... How about some sweet biscuits - McVities' Digestives and HobNobs... ? Some shortbread? Scottish, hmm, they wouldn't let Haggis in, so how about a jar of Scottish Heather honey? There's probably plenty on the chocolate counter that's common here but unusual there - Cadbury's Roses and Quality Street assortments, Terry's Chocolate Oranges... As an off-centre suggestion, how about a big glass jar of (french), french fish soup? (About £3 in Waitrose supermarkets.) And what could be more British than some Indian food? Sharwoods' range is very widely available. Pappadums (and even curry powder or Garam Masala) would take up little baggage weight allowance, the pickles and chutneys should last ages, and the cook-in sauces are probably better than most curry houses'...

This is the sensible way to go. An authoritative, independent view. The manufacturer (if not the dealer) is almost certain to take prompt action on your behalf. Now, I'm unfamiliar with US gas cooker construction, but I wonder whether there is a mismatch between the gas supply and the spec that this particular machine (by error or design) was built to expect. (I'm wondering firstly about the effects of using the wrong jets for LPG or mains gas...) Failing that, it sounds like its a lemon and needs to be exchanged. All that said, personally, I do really like induction for a home cooker.

I wonder... could it be that something briefly stuck inside the stuffing horn, near or at the discharge end, and caused the extruded forcemeat to have a longitudinal groove? It'd be concealed by the casing until the cooking process, which I'd think. And the cooking would also account for it being slightly 'crumpled' - though I'm not so sure about the crumpled areas on either side of the 'crease'. I can't see it as being an air pocket in the stuffer cylinder, rather an air pocket formed from the nozzle...

Yeah, my counter had a screwy shape that makes it difficult to clamp things to, ... ← I empathise! Note when designing kitchen: Design so that there's some way of clamping things to a usable bit of worktop! There is no knowing what you might want to attach occasionally in the future. Opening (or temporarily removing) a drawer can help give you somewhere to clamp to, but allowing somewhere to have a couple of inches of overhang - without any obstruction below - would really facillitate use of a clamp. I can secure my sausage stuffer well enough, but the pasta machine's own clamp is impossible for me (and modifying a clamp to suit is testing my metalwork abilities.) To secure the stuffer, I use a damp 8" square 1/4" thick washing-up sponge, under the stuffer, as a non-skid base layer (and countertop protector) and then use one F-shaped clamp, upside down, on one front corner of the stuffer. The thin 'top of the F' will just slide into the space between countertop underside and the top of the dishwasher! (The clamp has to be upside down because the dishwasher projects sufficiently to obstruct the F's vertical if 'right side up'...) I also have a set of high friction (both sides) silicone coasters (intended for sailing yachts!) that also get used sometimes to stop things sliding around in my dry-land kitchen (and in the workshop too). I was once given a grip-mat thing intended to stop stuff like sunglasses sliding around in the car. Didn't work for my driving, but it could help in this sort of situation...

Yeah, it's the "coarse" plate 3/8"/10mm. I think that they are standard, yes. Here's what it looks like --and that's from a different supplier. Ditto the blade. Having said that, I can't say for sure bc I don't know what "standard" means exactly. That blade does look very unusual. Two (asymmetrically arranged) cutting blades and two pushers, it looks like... Regarding the plates -- the linked one is a #22 whereas I understand that your "grinder" (English English: "mincer") is a #12 size (2 3/4" 69mm diameter plate). Standard outside diameter and centre shaft-bearing hole sizes are two aspects of standardisation. The (rotational) location method is another. The plate you linked has a single locating notch. That supplier also offers versions with three notches and three notches plus flatted sides. I have two "grinders". A little chap from the Lidl supermarket with a 2 1/16" diameter plate located by two lugs protruding from the plate (not notches!) And (via eBay but so newly that its unused as yet) the Electrolux DLX #12 sized attachment (as per the video) - so the exact same size as that NT grinder's plates. But the Electrolux has two locating notches in the plate, and therefore cannot (immediately) take non-Electrolux plates. The coarsest Electrolux plate available seems to have a mere 6mm hole. Chris I envy you that 10mm coarse plate! And even more the ability to use items like *this* ! Problem is that the 230v version is £75 from NorthernToolUK. Adding taxes and delivery makes it £96 - call that $200 - which is getting kinda expensive... I think that the strip question is a good one. I nearly always preseason and overnight my meat before grinding, and mincing is worth the effort for good distribution. But for weeknight burgers, say, I'd think that strips of chuck would be easier and quicker to prep. Given that it's going to be ground up, I don't think the muscle fiber direction matters too much, does it? ← I was thinking that the muscle fibre orientation might make a significant difference to folks with a lightweight, underpowered "grinder" -- maybe even a KA. It shouldn't make any odds with your machine Chris, (except maybe to Heston Blumenthal - who seems to think that the "grinder" orients the meat fibres in the same way as plastics molecules coming out of an extruder BBC hamburger recipe *link* - scroll down to "making the burgers"). My thinking is that directionality might influence the "grinder's" performance (especially if it were marginal), rather than the eating quality of the sausage (or burger) in any direct sense. I'd think that cutting into adequately thin strips would mean that marinade diffusion time wasn't significantly different to cubing the meat. And I'm pretty sure that a long strip would be presented to the plate rather differently to a small cube. Its definitely a technique I'm intending to try next time. But first, I think, is the matter of sourcing that Electrolux 6mm hole plate... The Kenwood A950a attachment is only a #8 (2 3/8" diameter plate), but being a single notch location, ought to take 3rd party plates coarser than the supplied "coarse" one (8mm hole).

Chris - is that the 10mm hole plate? Are the plates a recognisable standard format (if so, which), or are they custom to this machine? Same question regarding the cutter blade, which one reviewer posting on the NT site suggested was unusually shaped (or perhaps they had just fitted it backwards!) No question that it must be way better than the plastic KitchenAid. However, (1) are those brown (rather than pink) bits in the photo not evidence of localised heating? (For example just to the right of the thermometer dial.) And (2) it looks like this was on the coarse (10mm) plate - would the finer plate not be expected to produce rather more meat heating? I was wondering how butchers can generally produce such 'clean' mince without fussing about such detail as chilling the grinder. Certainly their machines have much more powerful motors, larger diameter plates and longer cutting blades. But how does that translate into 'cleaner' cutting? One aspect that occurs to me is that the blade/plate contact pressure must be important to be quite high (certainly lower gives more ''clogging' of the blade with uncut stuff), but that torquing up the big nut on the front to press the plate harder against the blade is going to increase the loading on the motor by increasing the friction of blade against plate... The bigger the plate (and nut) the easier to apply (by hand) a high fastening torque, and hence more blade to plate pressure. However, that blade/plate contact force is also going to produce a longitudinal thrust along the shaft, that needs to be taken by the bearing surface on the back of the mincer... but no-one ever seems to suggest any lubrication (cooking oil?) for that back thrust bearing surface! (The blade at the front is going to be well lubricated by meat fat!) As long as the motor can handle the extra friction resulting from the increased tightening torque, I think that the front nut should really be pretty damn tight. I was personally recalibrated by seeing the amount of torque being applied in the section of the demo movie of the Electrolux DLX mixer that deals with its mincer/grinder attachment. http://www.everythingkitchens.com/electroluxvideo.html Its the fourth item demonstrated (after the roller, dough hook and beater) and perhaps a quarter of the way through for those trying to 'fast forward'. Also of note (to me at least) in the mincer section of that video is the technique of using long strips of meat, dropped straight down the tube from a fork, rather than the standard cubes which need to be chased around the input tray and then pushed down to the spiral. The use of strips then opens the possibility of discussing which way the strips should be cut. My guess is that the strips should be cut along the muscle fibre direction, so that the blade can then cut cleanly across the fibres ... Or should it be the other way round? I'm sure there must be many such subtleties that individually we have been missing out on...

Ummmm. That's standard consumer advice. And it can save the end-user from shipping charges to the repair centre. As well as filtering out at least some of the "no fault found" non-problems. You should be able to get warranty work carried out by any of their authorised service providers. Give them a phone call to check their procedures for going direct to those repairers. List for France is here: http://www.kenwoodworld.com/fr/customer_repairs.php (note the popup for locations) Those folk would also happily do out-of-warranty work on non-obsolete units. (As would most of the diminishing band who do general appliance repair work - as long as they can get the parts - not a problem in the UK, dunno about France.) In general, I think most problems are caused by customers having an over-ambitious idea of what their shiny new machine might be capable of - and therefore overloading it. Working too much dough (especially stiff dough), too quickly, for too long (for the poor little machine) seems to be a common problem. The capabilities of the basic machines are actually somewhat limited, as this thread testifies. But that's why heavier-duty machines are available, though, yes, they are more expensive. And incidentally, the Electrolux is claimed to be capable of handling dough made with 7lb of flour. Don't try that in any Kenwood or KitchenAid. Has anyone on here *EVER* had a reliability problem with an Electrolux? (And there's a fair few users that have posted enthusiastic reports on using the things...)

You aren't trying to stuff through a mincing plate are you? AFAIK the KA has a special (freeflow) support for the end of the spiral - as shown in the Amazon page... http://www.amazon.com/KitchenAid-SSA-Sausa.../dp/B00004SGFQ/ I've got a "5lb" piston stuffer and really really really wouldn't want to revert to using a mincer/grinder plus a tube...

Basically, if the cut isn't sufficiently deep and angled, the pressure from the bread's expansion in the oven isn't released, resulting in tighter texture. Properly deep and angled cuts allow the gas to expand fully, for the diameter to be consistently large along the entire baguette, and thus for much better texture, feel, and thus taste. ← I'd love to know how to judge "sufficiently deep and angled" for slashing... ! Regarding fridge space, I find that (cheap) rectangular tupperware-type lidded containers stow in the fridge much more conveniently (and space efficiently) than covered round mixing bowls...

I've been using a Kenwood that I inherited (a KM210). Its a low end model from maybe 15 years ago. It'll handle a dough made with about 500g of flour. But I can feel it straining if the dough is 'stiff'. However, at 550 watts, its off the bottom of the scale for the current Kenwood range. I'm getting a deal on a new but obsolete-stock KM005 ("major" rather than chef, so 6.7 litre not 4.5 litre bowl) which should be a worthwhile upgrade - with a 1200w motor. And (bowl/beater stuff apart) take all the KM's accessories. One point for you to consider. If your antique (transformered) Kenwood is a "700" series model, then *none* of its accessories will fit a modern KM-series machine. (The not-quite-so-old "900" series however are compatible with current accessories.) One very new accessory (that is included with some current UK offerings) is a "flexible" beater. Its actually a rigid beater with short flexible silicone 'wings' that sweep against the side of the bowl. Better for creaming cake mixtures, etc. Supposedly. About £25 as an extra. I can't tell you about customer support, because I've never had to call on it... However, *if* you are seeking the ultimate in current Kenwood ruggedness, you might be interested in paying out for one of their 'Professional' series mixers. These are visually distinguished by their stop and start buttons (and in many if not all cases, guarding on the bowls). They have an all-metal gearbox - for durability if not for silent operation! http://www.kenwoodworld.com/ee/product_det...?cat=163&id=353 though seemingly in France there's only a Pro-series Major http://www.kenwoodworld.com/fr/product_det...cat=1194&id=329 Nice that they are "robots" though... As a specialist domestic dough mixer, there's a distinctly odd thing made by Electrolux that outdoes anything else. But its damn hard to find, and while it does have a repertoire of serious optional accessories, I'm not sure anyone seeks out that mixer particularly to use as a blender. In the US, it was called the "Magic Mill" and more recently the "DLX". In Europe, it seems to be called the Electrolux Assistent N22, N24 or N26. (And yes, they do spell Assistent that way...). Its a truly amazingly solid machine, but hard to find outside the Nordic countries. They sell some in Germany, and there's a Luxembourg dealer that sells via eBay buy-it-now (machine, basic toolset and shipping to France ~ €325). While I'm fairly sure I've seen such a thing in France, I can't find internet evidence of its availability (maybe there's a different designation!) It'll handle a dough (made with 800/900g of flour) without even changing over to the dough hook, and without any indication of strain. Changing to the hook is only needed because with too much dough, it climbs up the roller (it is an odd machine!) But it really is excellent for (and unchallenged by) bread dough. The one I was most generously given came from a chap "upgrading" to a new KitchenAid. I'm just worried in case he asks for the Electrolux back... ADDED: Reading this thread one will see that I am far from alone in my enthusiasm for the Electrolux (with one poster even praising its blender!) However, its likely that relatively few eGullet readers will have seen its strange mode of operation. There's a movie on this page... http://www.everythingkitchens.com/electroluxvideo.html And for clarification if its required, I've had no dealings with any of these vendors.

Scott, something that greatly impressed me was the overall 'strategic' organisation of the book. As such, the 'fresh sausage' section is a sort of side-step before returning to the overall progression with dried sausage. The book starts with simple salting. And Gravadlax is a great starting point. (Even if it plainly isn't meat!) Rather than treating the book as a mere "recipe book", I'd suggest that its well worthwhile to read the book (from the start), but skipping over the recipe detail - just see what's happening. See how the technique relates and pick up *why* things are being done, then *how* to do stuff, rather than starting with the detail of exactly *what* should be done for any specific recipe. After you've been through a chapter, you'll have a better idea as to which recipes you feel like tackling. (And which ones need even more kit or infrastructure!) Invest a few (less than 20?) dollars in a small digital scale with an accuracy and sensitivity of less than 1 gramme, source some curing ("pink") salt, and off you go! (Meanwhile, you'll have cured and eaten the Gravadlax... )

It sounds as though the author's 1940's (or earlier?) experience/prejudice led to deep distrust of water quality... Boiling would also drive off excess chlorine, if the water had been over-enthusiastically treated against "microbial beasties" - potentially worthwhile lest excessive chlorine inhibit even commercial yeast. However, there is so much in this scheme that sounds as though the author has got a few things confused, that this may qualify as one of those recipes that works despite the method, rather than because of it!

Lets begin by disentangling two aspects 1 - the floating of the dough and 2 - putting all the yeast with some of the flour and fermenting it somewhat before adding the rest of the flour (and water). No 1. This is a measure of the gas content of the dough. Its most commonly encountered when using just a small piece of dough in the water, and used to time the after-shaping proofing. When the testpiece floats, the rest of the dough is proofed and ready to bake. However, its a bit strange (and somewhat uncontrolled for hydration) to submerge the whole of the dough (at that stage) ... To puff up to floating in just the 20 minutes of gfron1's example implies rather a lot of yeast being used... which is rather odd, considering point 2. No 2. There's fine distinctions here, and maybe occasional misunderstanding... The technique known as making a "sponge" is explained by Elizabeth David as being a historical bakers' method of minimising the amount of (expensive) yeast to raise a commercial batch of dough. A small amount of dough is "seeded" with a normal proportion of yeast. That is allowed to ferment, which involves the yeast multiplying. Once the yeast population has maximised, the first dough is used to 'yeast' a larger quantity of flour and water. And the process can be repeated. Ms David (in "English Bread and Yeast Cookery) reported a 1930's description of just such a three-stage build, then commonly used in Scotland, whereby just 6oz of (fresh) yeast is used to raise a dough containing, ultimately, 280lb of flour - the three-stage process taking 16 hours... The Chorleywood Process, used nowadays, needs 16x as much yeast, but takes less than 1/16th of the time. And develops no flavour at all. The fine distinction is between a sponge and a biga. It would seem (and here I cite Hamelman in evidence) that a 'biga' involves a really tiny amount of yeast - and it is used to develop flavour (rather than the sponge's yeast breeding purpose) with lots of additional yeast being added in the makeup of the final dough, to augment the minute amount put in the biga. With a sponge, the only commercial yeast used in the batch of dough is added right at the very start. But both the economical sponge method and the flavouring biga need many hours to work their magic. Neither of them is going to do much in 20 minutes... BTW the French word levain just translates as "leaven" but usually (maybe always), in French, implies a "wild yeast" sourdough culture being used (in whole or in part) - whereas yeast translates as "levure". But, hey, I've even come across folks who talked about making "sourdough", with a culture derived from commercial yeast. Sadly, all this terminology is often used terribly loosely. You have to look at what's actually being done, rather than the process name the author chooses.

Probably about £10 in a London pet supermarket. You're looking for something rather like this http://www.1st4aquatics.com/tetratec-aps-50-3459-p.asp which is one of the quieter small pumps. Even if it didn't have quite the output pressure needed for the rather different project I was playing with...

I've asked (on that "Kitchen Consumer" thread for tidyness) just how cheap a practical domestic digital kitchen scale can be nowadays. Just exactly how low is the barrier to acceptance of accurate specification of ingredient quantities by weight? My (added detail: digital, metric and imperial) kitchen scale cost £7.99 (say $16) sometime last year. Is it below $10 yet in the USA?

The so-called "English" in my little pamphlet is less than helpful, but it comes on when the scale settles into a single value, so in my head I tell myself it stands for "steady." ← My 100g x 0.01g "pocket scale" has a similar "feature" : "When the "s" shows on left up, the scale is showing the weighing value of the object." So I'd go with Chris H's "Steady". ====== Different matter. Digital consumer goods prices need to be read with their date stamp! My kitchen digital scale weighs 5kg (or 11lb - just push the button) by 1g (or 1/4oz) and cost just £7.99 from a UK supermarket (almost a year ago). It works fine, but lacks an off button (it just times out). Presumably such things are readily available in the US around the $15 mark, maybe less. But they don't get much mention. Not enough, anyway. Such super cheap and plenty accurate general purpose scales (costing way way way less than most cook books) are surely the conclusive argument against those dinosaur North American editors claiming that weighing ingredients involves disproportionate and unnecessary expense. Never mind the "Styling by Porsche" or whatever -- how cheap can a practical digital kitchen scale be in the USA nowadays? Just exactly how low is this supposed "barrier to adoption"?

Wouldn't the water content of the sausage have some bearing on this too? Maturing (draining!) after stuffing has to have some impact. After all, the casing isn't much of a barrier to the moisture within. On cooking, smoking and charcoal grilling would be drying the things, whereas poaching before grilling/frying would increase (probably maximise) the moisture within the sausage.

Ummm. It doesn't sound like the anodisation is breaking down. Might even be building up... "Irridescent" colour is an immediate indicator of "interference" colours, produced by films so thin that they bear comparison with the wavelength of light - commonly seen with a drop of petrol/gasoline on a puddle of water. "Anodisation" is the production of a hard alumina surface by electrochemical means. If the steamer insert was *not* aluminium (maybe stainless?), then with conductive (salted?) liquid in the pan, you'll have some electrochemistry going on. Hopefully not very much though. As the pan boiled dry, so the mineral concentration in the water would increase, eventually hitting the limit of solubility - saturation. If the electrochemical conditions were depositing stuff on the aluminium side, it could have built up a really thin layer of new stuff, incorporating stuff from the saturated solution... In short, the appearance of the irridescent colour indicates a new, thin, (more or less transparent) layer that isn't exactly the same as what's underneath it - making an interface in the solid, from which light could be reflected, interfering with light reflected from the top surface. Hence, I think its possible that your boiling dry with a steamer insert may have *deposited* a new (very thin) layer of anodisation - rather than "breaking down" what was there before. If the new stuff is stable (doesn't come off when cooking or cleaning) then I doubt its going to do any harm. However, if the swirls are changing when you scrub at them, it'd indicate that you were removing material from the new film layer, and changing the interference patterns... So, if you really are sufficiently determined, you might still be able to work this around to an argument justifying replacement...

Any chance of an 'executive summary' as to why? And whether "a good fry" means more than a tasty one? ← Interesting that that article is specifically referring to polyunsaturated oils. Perhaps saturated fats might actually be wiser for deep frying? And I can't make out what the significance of "five hours" might be in that report. Would that be the time for the HNE to reach a maximum? Or an important threshold concentration?