lennyk

I recently got my SousVide Magic, Foodsaver, put in some brisket yesterday, looking for 36-48 hours at 150 or so Checking it today, the meat has shrunk a bit and released a lot liquid. Bag is no longer tight

I've been doing the pain l'ancienne from the BBA with decent results except for the cosmetics. The dough is on the wet side and any attempts to move it around whilst shaping or after cutting result in wrinkles from it snagging on the well floured counter. can't get it to keep tight and taut unless I actually work on it on the baking sheet Any suggestions ?

That must be troublesome to mix into the whites

Any issues with keeping unused Italian buttercream in the piping bag for use the next few days frozen or refridgerated ?

Angostura recently launched an Orange Bitters I live in Trindad and was able to get some

I live in the hot tropics and regular buttercream just cant work my base filling is cream cheese whipped with a touch of butter and a touch of sugar , being not sweet it offsets the sweetness of the body

what kind of grinder do you guys use ? I use a kitchenaid coffee grinder, works better than the previous grinder I had it also helps a lot if you toast the almond meal gently to dry them more

Lisa, those macs look pretty good, what kind of filling are you using ? Is it firm or soft ? I see you really packed them with filling

you must really do lots of them I use half sheets, 2 in the oven and always have to watch the top rack as it can be much hotter than below yeah its 118

regarding the lopsided macarons, do you guys use double sheets ? I did 2 sets in the oven today, however I only have 3 same size sheets so I doubled up on 1 set and on the other used a smaller sheet below, the one with the smaller sheet had lopsided ones presumably due to the uneven heat causing uneven expansion which is what forms the feet also do you have a convection oven or regular ? I did some tests with my oven and thermostat was all over the place and there were big differences between the upper and lower racks I also find that heating the sugar syrup to 245 makes for safer since it will have less water and the sugar will be easier to crust

Amrita, you macs look really good, in fact I hardly ever get my feet to look like that, my feet always extend a bit outwards unlike yours which have a nice rise and dont stick out much.

try a different brand, some of the corn starch they put in powdered/icing sugar may have the off taste or texture

are you tapping the sheet from below after piping ? Also shake the sheet from side to side and back and forth hard, it will help smoothen a little I usually hold one baking sheet in each hand and use the corner of one to hit the other from below by holding one above the other and just turning my wrist with the lower one so the corner or edge of it hits the sheet above. It also helps to whack the bowl on the ground with a carpet or mat to clear some of the bubbles in the batter before filling the bag btw do you guys use any cream of tartar with the egg whites ?

yeah about 1 1/2 inches my oven is not a convection though, I have never used a convection oven

I would guess uneven heat also, does the lopside happen on the same side of the oven ? the way this macaron thing works is that after it is piped the surface dries with a crust which the sugar helps(similar to a brownie) then the heat causes the tiny air bubbles in the batter to expand but since the top surface is now sealed due to the crust the batter expands from the bottom and hence the foot forms. if you were to bake them without drying to get a crust and sticky to touch most likely they will fail and the surface will be like a sponge which expanded then contracted with a lot of tiny holes which are the bubbles which came through the surface. the hollow void inside is probably the trickiest to pinpoint or get right since it would most likely be formed when the bubbles expand inside and burst/join and eventually form a bigger bubble or air gap inside, could also be related to how overmixed or undermixed the batter was which would cause too many bubbles to join together and form the big void inside. I can get them to come out pretty ok now but my times are much different, dunno why, could be my oven is inconsistent with regulating temp. Italian is the way for me. I have to bake them at about 350 to get a proper rise with foot and 15 mins to get the inside the right softness, anything less and its almost uncooked, this is with both single tray and doubled up trays. If I do 2 trays, one above the next in the oven the lower tray comes out much different than the top so I have to pull them and swap at the right time.

did you use a single baking sheet or did you stack two together ? I also did some and did not stack one set and the feet came out just like yours

Those are excellent for a first try, it certainly took me more than a few tries to get them right. Did you do the Italian meringue or plain beaten eggwhites with sugar ? The Italian meringue method outlined by Syrup and Tang is very reliable and you can split the meringue to use later with diff color etc.

Hello, I am from Trinidad, if you want seasoning pepper seeds let me know, I also grow a few pepper hot plants of my own. How did you manage to keep a pepper plant going 8 years ? Thats a very long time for a pepper plant. Let me know

Hello, I would like to try making some different flavor French Macarons, I find that the regular liquid food colorings aren't very vibrant. Anybody have suggestions on which brand or type of food colorings can give the vibrant colors like those pics of Herme etc ? Thanks, L

I looked at the Gourmet and Epicurious recipes for the Wuxi spareribs, they didnt seem to have 5 spice powder in the ingredients. Those recipes were pretty much identical to the popular "Red Cooked Pork Belly", an outstanding recipe which can be found in "All about braising" by Molly Stevens The historical claim with this recipes is the continuation of using leftover sauce(lu) for the next batch which I imagine with ribs being a lot of bone would add a lot of flavour to the sauce. I've done this recipe with the regular pork belly but I'm going to try it with ribs to get the bone stock flavor

got some fresh venezuelan style cheese(queso de mano) so I decided to make some cachapas(corn pancakes) - couldnt wait until breakfast

I just cleaned some very large shrimp, I am wondering if there are any tips on frying the heads if possible or any other way of not disposing of them in the garbage ?

btw, true jerk meat is cooked for a few hours over coals and pimento sticks ie just like a bbq smoker but with pimento smokewood

Ok, I think I've got them down now, couple tips, the sugar added to the whites when beating is important, too little and they won't glaze/dry to form a nice crisp outer and the feet wont come out also, for less voids err on a little more tpt than less last tip, I used some red silicone to mark lines under my silpats to make it easier to layout items on the silpat, use masking tape and paint/squeegee the line with a thin layer of the red silicone

I baked at 300 for about 18 minutes, I think after 15 minutes they need to be looked at to be safe