paulraphael

I saw a prototype / concept fridge designed by the energy researchers at the Rocky Mountain Institute that took advantage of this. The compressor was mounted in a separate box from the fridge freezer, in an outside wall. In the summer, the heat blew outside. In the winter it blew inside. And it was kept far away from the container that you're trying to keep cold. Brilliant.

With most fridge designs (vertical boxes with doors on the front), this actually makes less difference than most people assume. You loose most of the cold air in the first couple of seconds the fridge is open; it basically dumps out onto the floor. Additional seconds lead to comparatively little heat loss. Opening the door less frequently makes a bigger difference than shortening the time it's open.

I have a half inch baking stone that works well, but I'm convinced the best option for pizza (mentioned by someone in another thread) is a big slab of iron or steel. You could get as much thermal mass as you want, and many times the conductivity of any stone or tile. This would let you mimic some of the performance of a much hotter oven. You could get the char and blistering on the crust of an oven that's 100 degrees or more hotter with this approach. You might have to experiement with placement in the oven, in order to not overcook the crust before cooking the toppings ... I hope to experiment with this one day.

Dougal, I'd like to see a real world test. I suspect you'd be surprised. I know you're correct about the relative heat capacities of air and water, but the difference is that when you open the door, you lose air. Most of it. Perhaps drawers are effective in stemming some of convective loss; I don't know because I throw those things out. While it takes less energy to cool a liter of air than a liter of ... anything else, that liter of air is getting replaced constantly with warm air in a fridge that's getting used a lot. This difference only applies when you're dealing with a fridge that's being opened repeatedly. Overnight, or in a storage freezer, it makes no difference. Also, if the stuff filling the fridge is getting cycled in and out (like, you're putting room temp 2 liter bottles of soda in it, cooling them, and then removing them) then of course you'll use tons of energy. I'm not saying it's a big difference. It's dwarfed by simply having a newer, efficient fridge (or by not setting it colder than necessary. But I'm betting it's more than measureable.

The empty vs. full fridge theory is simple; it's not about how hard it is to cool air vs. food. It's about real world use and what happens when you open the door. Cooled air is denser than the air in the room. When you open the door to the fridge, most of the air inside literally falls out. Imagine a fridge filled with some other dense, fluid substance, like water. Every time you open the door, most of the cooled air leaves ... it spills out and flows away along the floor. The fridge then needs to work to cool the warm air that's replaced it. Unless you have packing issues, food and drink containers do not spill onto the floor. Having a full fridge simply means a smaller volume of air that needs to be cooled every time you open the door. The bigger the fridge, the bigger the issue. And this is not an issue at all for things like top-loading chest freezers. Walk-in fridges and freezers are more efficient by design in this regard. Still, they often have plastic curtains to help slow air loss when the door is open.

I just put them in ziplocks and freeze. My basil loses its color, but the flavor lasts a long time. Everything else stays pristine for months.

Mostly towels ... I always have a couple out that are pure cotton and dry (they only get used for handling hot things). most are scorched. I also keep a pair of silicon mits in a drawer. They're handy for when I have to reach deep into a hot oven. And really handy for pulling out a sheet pan or roasting pan that's got hot liquid or grease in it ... anything that can splash around or soak through a towel. The silicon mits are easy to clean compared with fabric.

The KA dough capacity ratings are simplified to the point of being useless. 11 cups of flour? 9 cups of "specialty flour"? You could make a high hydration dough with 30% more flour than the mixer's rating, and have no problems. You could also stall the mixer with a lesser amount of extremely dry and stiff dough. You really just have to use your senses. Watch the machine, listen to it, feel the back of it for heat. It's easy to tell when it's humming along vs. when it's laboring. Some cases of people wrecking their machines come from defects, but I'm guessing most come from simple lack of attentiiveness. I know of a number of people who have demolished mixers (including professional models) by trying to cream frozen sticks of butter. You might as well throw bricks into the bowl ...

Thanks so much! The butter didn't break at all. Stayed nicely emulsified. I ended up keeping the juices from the bags ... in the fridge the butter has separated. The stuff smells great but I don't know what to do with it. I couldn't put it in the sauce because it would have killed the clarity.

Our steak dinner went off beautifully. Thanks everyone for the advice. After some tests we ended up cooking at 54C for 2-1/2 hours. Steaks were salted and peppered, and bagged with beurre monté made with about 1/2 oz cultured butter, 2-1/2oz water, and salt. I used mounted butter because I was bagging in ziplocks and needed a volume of liquid to take up air space in the bag. If I'd had a vacuum machine, a lump of plain butter probably would have sufficed. Details and pics here.

Quick question: do you find any need for resting sous vided steaks after resting? I did a trial today with a hanger steak (3 hours at 56C, glucose wash, hot skillet). It came out gloriously, although it lost quite a bit of juice when I sliced it. Not sure if a quick rest would help or be pointless.

I'm a little wary of brine ... I don't want to add moisture to meat that's been dehydrated by dry aging. How much moisture does meat typically lose when sous vided at 53C?

Thanks everyone. I'm going to stay conservative since I won't have much chance to experiment. 1.5" sounds good, and I'll probably go for 2 hours. When I cook steaks in a pan I typically finish with butter (unless I'm using the long, slow Ducasse method, where I'll use butter for the whole process). The flavor works so well with aged beef. Has anyone experiemented with putting a little butter in the bag with the meat? Also, when cooking in a pan I generally pre-season with salt and pepper. Would there be any disadvantages to preseasoning before sous-vide?

I can cut the steaks to whatever thickness. I was thinking about 1", which would allow everyone to have a little more crust than if they were cut thicker. 53C sounds reasonable. I don't think that will be too rare for anyone. I won't need to hold them for a long time at all. i'd prefer to go straight from circulator to searing, just to keep things quick. There won't be any extra hands in the kitchen, so the less time i can spend searing etc. the better. Do you think 2 hours at 53 is reasonable? At this temperature is there any tenderizing effect to consider over these relatively short cooking times?

I'm going to be serving some very prime, 8-week dry aged shell steaks to a big group of people this weekend, and have borrowed an immersion circulator to make it happen (I'm going to think of it as a sous chef with two buttons and no mouth). My plan is to cook at 55°C with a little cultured butter in the bag, then sear on a griddle after brushing with a maillard-promoting glucose solution. I'll serve the steaks sliced on the bias across the grain, in strips a little less than 1/2" thick. I'm wondering about cooking time. Seems like anywhere from an hour to forever will work, but more time seems to equal more tenderness, and this is already a tender cut. At what point will I risk crossing over from tender to mushy?

Chris's idea of authenticity as fiction is a useful way to frame the issue. Although even this could suggess that there is one fiction, while very often there are multiple fictions vying for the the crown of Authentic. My definition of authenticity is recursive, open ended, and deliberately unhelpful: Something is called authentic when it gives the impression of being authentic to someone who holds opinions about authenticity. Which qualities specifically lead to this impression are likely fictional, historically and logically fallacious, and unrelated to anything that will determine the thing's success or failure. But still the impression is likely to be a strong one. This doesn't make the concept completely useless. If you are aware of the perceptions of authenticity surrounding a type of food, you have the choice to either play to them or play against them. Perceptions count, regardless of what, if anything, they're grounded in.

This advice that given to me by guys who break down fish professionally ... I can't personally vouch for it, but plan to act on it one of these days. 165mm is ideal for home use, especially if you don't plan to work with fish bigger than a few pounds. 180mm is good for fish up to 20lbs or so, and 210 for fish bigger than that. Smaller is cheaper and easier to learn; bigger is more versatile. Bigger also gives you the option to put a back bevel on the couple of inches of blade by the heel for smashing through bones and shells. I will probably get a 180mm, in a cheap and not very pretty model, and sharpen it like this. As far as the utility of a Western Deba, I've decided to save space and money and just get a $10 Chinatown cleaver for the abusive tasks. It works fine. I haven't actually used it on crab or lobster, so I don't know if the shape is clumsier for this. But it's great for lopping off heads, talis, feet, etc. etc...

I'd never seen the full text of the law. Good to know that you can brandish a blade longer than 4 inches if it d) is displayed or carried by a duly enrolled member of the Boy or Girl Scouts of America or a similar organization or society and such display or possession is necessary to participate in the activities of such organization or society. For all practical purposes, I think you're fine if the knife is packed away and not easy to get your hands on. A folding knife in your pocket might be pushing it, but who's going to find it?

Still, the term "modified starch" never means GMO. It always refers to chemical or heat or enzymatic altering of starch molecules to change their physical properties. While it's possible for modified starch to be made (at least in part) from the grain from GMO plants, this would have nothing to to do with the "modified" label. With either modified or unmodified starches, the lack of labelling requirements means you won't know if there's any GMO content, unless you're buying certified organic, which is supposed to mean GMO-free (but this may not be guaranteed).

I've seen that model used in the highest end pastry kitchens, so I assume there are no glaring issue with off flavors. The one I have is a bernz-o-matic with an automatic starter. Similar, but you have to turn the gas on before clicking. Works just fine, though not as convenient as ace model if you're using the thing all day long. The most important feature is a pressure regulator. If you have one of the unregulated torch heads, the flame will blow out when the canister is half full and you tilt the torch toward the food. You'll end up with a stockpile of half-full propane canisters. Or half-empty, depending on your point of view.

That's a really standard ceramic rod sharpener. They work very poorly. Better than nothing for old beater knives, but you wouldn't want to use it on good knives.

Also, pickling is a curing / preservation technique. When you pickle you really saturate the food with the pickling solution. Brining is just about adding moderate amounts of salt and water, as a preparation before cooking. Pickling has a long history in savory foods. I haven't heard of pickled turkey, but pickled herring is an old tradition.

I don't think bitterness and acidity are a problem in coffee desserts. In fact, I think some of both is necessary to stand up to sugar and dairy. The best coffee for drinking black isn't likely the best with gobs of cream and sugar. Most of my experience is with coffee ice cream, but I think the same principles would apply to a component of cheesecake. I like a coffee with good body and prominent acidity, and generally one roasted a bit darker than what I'd like for drinking. Not an espresso roast, but somewhere between that and a medium or "new city" roast. For ice cream I extract directly into the milk, but you can use water also. Proportions are about 20g coarsely ground coffee per 100g liquid. Heat the liquid to 190 to 195°F, pour over the coffee, and cover for 30 minutes. Strain through a chinois. The ensuing sludge is undrinkable, but the flavor is amazing and three-dimensional when diluted by other ingredients. You can experiment with this general approach to get the strength right for your application.

Small chips are innevitable, but people avoid big chips (ones that are more than cosmetic) in a couple of ways. One is using the right techinque for going through bones. The other is putting a double (fatter) bevel on the couple of inches of blade closest to the heel, and using that for the brutish work. I definitely agree that there's no need to spend $$$. Two of the pros I know who use a deba every day are partial to the cheap-o house brand sold by Epicurean Edge. Well under a hundred bucks for the 180mm length.