paulraphael

Along with xanthan, my recipe includes gelatin and nonfat dry milk, which all like to clump. By mixing them together thoroughly with the sugar, like you said, the problem disappears.

I used to use cornstarch in combination with gelatin and egg custard. Traditional custard bases give great texture, but I don't want to taste egg in my ice cream. So I drop the egg content down until it's too little to intrude ... 2 or 3 yolks per quart of ice cream, depending on the flavor. This is anywhere from half to a fifth the yolks you'll see in French ice cream, so the reduced thickening and stabilizing will need to be made up somehow. Gelatin is phenomenal in ice cream because it gives a body-temperature melt similar to butterfat. Cornstarch works well in combination with gelatin because it maintains thickness in the melted ice cream in your mouth ... gelatin by itself will leave you with a somewhat milky/watery feel in your mouth. Cornstarch makes the melt creamier. However, I've recently replaced cornstarch with xanthan gum, and find it superior. It's a better stabilizer (ice cream stays smooth and free of ice crystals longer) and it works in much smaller quantities. The final texture of the ice cream is a bit different than with cornstarch--I find it gives a bit more body/chewiness. So you may prefer cornstarch for textural reasons. There are other gums that I haven't played with. Locust bean gum has a reputation as the best stabilizer for frozen desserts. I imagine it would work well in combination with gelatin.

These are my favorites. They have the most intense chocolate flavor of any brownie I've ever had. The baking temperature is low, so you should be able to make them as thick as you want just by varying baking time ... but I haven't experimented with this. I'm going to experiment with the recipe soon to add just a bit more crumb and structure to them. But that's just me being OCD.

I'm with the OP on everything but thickness. A full pan high (2" thick) dense, fudgy brownie sounds pretty gross to me. Like eating a cinder block!

I'd be curious to know if they were aged under the same conditions. For that matter, I'd just like to know what conditions they used for the 8 month meat. Even with aging times a quarter as long, it's a tricky balancing act: if the humidity is too low, the meat completely dries out ... you get a subprimal sized piece of jerkey. If the humidity is too high, you get a petry dish. If the temperature is too low, the enzymes don't do their job. If it's too high, you get a petry dish. Some people keep the meat under UV light, to slow down microbial action on the surface. I don't know if this is enough to keep the meat from spoiling on the inside.

I'd be curious about the rationale behind six month or longer aging. I don't know if the enzymes keep doing their thing at a continuous rate. Or if they end up doing something else at some point. The drying process will continue indefinitely, however, which means a huge amount of meat will desiccate and have to be thrown out. My butcher custom ages meat for me. He's done everything from the more pedestrian four and five week stints all the way up to ten weeks. After eight weeks, the differences are minimal and inconsistent. In fact, for reasons I don't understand, the most intense aged flavor I've ever experienced came from a six week aged strip steak. I suspect methodology (temperature, humidity, ventilation) has a lot to do with it, and I know for sure that my butcher is no lab technician. At any rate, a meaningful comparison would require two pieces of meat that as identical as possible in all ways except the duration of aging. I haven't had a chance to try this.

I mostly see this kind of discussion in books by individual chefs about their own cooking styles. Seems like everyone has opinions on how the flavors of classic sauces can be improved, especially when it comes to the stock itself: cut the mirepoix in half; use two batches of mirepoix; cut out the cellery; replace the cellery with cellery root; never ever brown the bones; brown the bejeezus out of everything; leave out tomatoes; use more tomatoes and cook them down to brown paste; leave out the onions; blacken the onions; add pigs feet; add chicken feet; use blonde roux instead of brown; use arrowroot instead off roux; use gums instead of starch ... I'm sure anyone passionate enough to issue manifestos like these will end up making a pretty good sauce. As far as which method you'll prefer ... I don't see any way around trial and error. Maybe start with methods used by chefs whose food you like.

Yes, this is the kind of thing demi-glace was invented for, but the result is a separate category of sauce. The question was about achieving the qualities of a pan sauce, which is an integral sauce ... meaning the sauce is derived from the food it's getting served with. This is in direct contrast with stock and glace-based sauces, which are made by cooking something else.

I think you have to look at the dish as a whole and figure out what types of flavors you're going for. A traditional pan sauce is a byproduct of a dish that's deliberately browned in the pan to create those familiar roasted mailllard flavors. The sauce incorporates those flavors. If a dish is being cooked sous vide (or poached, or steamed, or en papillote, or any other method that doesn't brown it) the first question is if browned flavors are appropriate. If so, then you want to figure out how you're going to get them; just using a sauce with those flavors may be too superficial. Options include taking the cooked but unbrowned protein and searing in a pan, on a grill, in a deep fryer or in front of a fire. If you want to make a pan sauce, then obviously browning in the pan would be the smartest choice. However, there are ways of making integral sauces with methods like sous vide or poaching that are as good as pan sauces, but don't rely on browned flavors. For example, you can add a small amount of stock or other aromatic liquids to the food in a sous vide pouch. You're essentially doing a sous vide poach (or braise, depending on the temperature), with a very small quantity of liquid. Juices lost from the meat as it cooks past rare will fortify the liquid in the pouch, creating a delicous sauce or sauce base.

Probably an exasperated attempt at portion control. One of the hardest aspects of managing an ice cream store is keeping the employees from giving away too much. I met Jerry of Ben and Jerry's several years ago. He said that they practically went out of business, because he and Ben couldn't even control themselves when scooping. They were so grateful to have customers that they gave away mountainous cones, along with any hopes of a profit. They realized they didn't have the right temperments to give away less, so they got out of retail and into the pint business. The idea was that you can't put more than a pint in a pint container. The result was a minor empire.

Yes, and as I said earlier, bare feet or the equivalent are not an apropriate solution for a commercial kitchen. If I ran a kitchen that used LN2, I wouldn't necessarily follow all the oficial lab saftey recommendations (gauntleted gloves, neoprene-type boots and aprons, etc.) but I'd want employees that handled it to wear high topped boots like blundstones, with their pant legs over the tops of them. The dangers are similar, but in many cases less intuitive. For example, you can freely pour LN2 over your bare skin and watch it roll off ... something you probably wouldn't do with hot fryer oil. This can lead to complacency. Also, LN2 often gets handled in more awkward ways than typical hot liquids in the kitchen. Pouring it into the bowl of a stand mixer from a 4 liter dewar, while the whole counter is enshrouded in white mist, opens up some unique potential for splashes. In addition, there are dangers unrelated to splashing that people need to be educated on ... like the exploding container potential that started this thread, or the suffocation potential from spilling a bunch of it in a closed space.

The ice cream shop where I worked sold it by the size ... small was 5oz, regular was 8, large was something obscene. But the customers always wanted to know how many scoops. Drove me nuts. I'd give smart ass answers, like, "I guess that depends on the size of the scoop."

Here's the full passage (in the section at the bottom called "The Word's Best Pizzerias": "There is an organization called Vera Pizza Napoletana (VPN) that certifies that pizzerias are making authentic Neapolitan pizza. Most of these places prominently post their VPN certification, with one even claiming their certification is "an international award." However, no VPN pizzeria makes it into my top tier and several are among my bottom tier. Basically it's a marketing organization. You pay a few hundred bucks, you take a course and in a few days you are certified and can post a sign up that proves you are a great pizza maker. Yeah right. Personally, the certification means nothing to me. Certainly the best old school pizzerias don't bother with VPN."

Yes, the chances of it going into a shoe are small. But does a regular shoe provide sufficient protection? Debateable at best. I'll challenge anyone to this: I will happily, with witnesses or on video, pour a fluid ounce of LN2 onto my bare foot. Will anyone here volunteer to pour the same amount onto the opening at the top of their shoe? I sincerely hope not.

Well ... a liquid nitrogen dewar is designed to be closed. They close without creating an airtight seal. Except for the pressurized ones, which have a pair of relief valves. So don't ever close a container of LN2 unless it's designed to be closed.

Jeff Varasano commented that the best pizzerias in Naples often don't bother with VPN certification.

I'm waiting for some 100g samples. Can its life be extended by freezing?

Insulation only buys you time. No matter how well insulated the container, the LN2 is going to pick up heat from outside, and a certain amount will boil off. A cryogenic dewar (the only thing liquid gasses should be stored or transported in) is basically a thermos that can't be fully sealed. The better ones are spill proof, but still vent to the outside. A fully sealed thermos is 100% guaranteed to explode ... eventually.

Yup! Imagine a thermos with a glass vacuum bottle ...

I don't know about your home kitchen, but mine is a controlled environment. I'm usually in it by myself, the pace is measured, and I won't get kicked out for failing to comly with the chef's (or OSHA's) rules. If I'm wearing flip flops, which I often do on hot summer days while cooking, I'm all the more careful when tossing food in a hot pan. Then you're working for people who don't observe even the most basic industry safety rules and recommendations. Yes. But street shoes are not protective gear, partial or otherwise, with LN2. They're a hazard. Like wearing a neck tie around a printing press. (Edited to add: in previous post I wrote "LNO2," which may or may not exist. I meant LN2)

I strongly disagree. Regular shoes and socks are the least safe thing to wear with liquid nitrogen. You're right that a drop in your shoe won't cause frostbite, but a big splash most certainly will. There are two safe approaches: protective gear (boots that won't let any liquid in, with an apron or cuffs covering the tops) or no gear at all. Spilling LN02 on bare feet won't hurt you ... it rolls off just as it rolls off your hands. Flip flops are the same. If you're in a commercial kitchen, obviously bare feet and flip flops are not going to fly ... but working with it at home, that's exactly what I'd do.

Very different. The Guide Culinaire is a recipe book, based 100% on style and orthodoxy of La Cuisine Classique ... the cooking style developed largely by Carême after the French Revolution and further codified by Escoffier. It's important largely as a historical document. Much of today's cooking points back to classical French cooking in one way or another--either by direct descent, clever reference, or outright rebellion. Because of this it's useful to have the original text for reference, whether or not you plan to actually make any of the recipes. Peterson's book attempts to be encyclopedic. He provides a researched history of Wetern saucemaking, starting with ancient Greece, continuing through classical French and Nouvelle cuisine, and culminating sometime in the late 20th century. He then discusses ingredients and techniques and styles, establishing a kind of theoretical and historical framework for understanding the recipes. The book (starting with the second edition) branched into Latin and Asian sauces and techniques, but these are clearly peripheral interests to Peterson. It's not where he comes from. His inclusion of these sauces demonstrates that he understands their importance, but if you want to dig deeper you'll need to look to his bibiliography (which is one of the most useful sections in the book, btw). The core of the book is classical French sauces and techniques, along with two major waves of their reinterpretation: Nouvelle Cuisine (where demi-glace is replaced with glace de viande, reduced cream, and mounted butter); and more contemporary versions, like 1990s-style, unbound, broth-like sauces. He talks about bad contemporary practices in restaurant kitchens (shortcuts that squander flavor in the name of economy) but he also promotes many contemporary techniques that were unheard of in classical times. Like alternatie methods for making meat coulis, and alternative liaisons, like purees and a whole range of purified starches. What's missing is the latest wave of techniques and ingredients. You won't find anything about gums and other modern hydrocolloids, or about gelatin clarification, vacuum reduction, or laboratory filtration. I'd be happy to have Peterson for the fundamentals, and to get another book that thoroughly teaches the new stuff ... but that other book doesn't seem to exist yet.

Like what?

The Peterson book is the best sauce book I've seen. In fact it's the best cookbook I've seen, in terms of the sheer depth and breadth of the knowledge it encompasses, and its clear and systematic approach. That said, I think it's showing its age and limitations. I'm ok with it being euro-centric (or whatever you want to call it). I don't think one author and one book can be expected to conquer the entire world. My problem is that Peterson hasn't kept up with the important things going on in his own tradition. He was the beacon of cutting edge saucemaking up until 1990 or so, and then aparently just stopped caring. I was excited when the third edition came out. I assumed he'd been busy cataloging all the various hydrocolloids, new methods of reduction and clarification, and other techniques gaining traction throughout the U.S. and Europe at high end restaurants. Instead, these ideas are mentioned in the intro in a list of what WON'T be covered. Hello? I was disappointed. But this is because the book isn't living up to its potential anymore. Not the same as saying another book does it better..

I can't speak for the article, but in general find that people who work with LNO2 don't respect its dangers as much as they should. This includes friends who are chefs, and friends who are molecular biologists! Everyone I know is clever enough to prevent an explosion. What's worrisome is lack of eye protection (a small splash in the eyes is bad, bad news) and lack of respect for the problems associated with spills. There are issues with big spills in enclosed spaces (suffocation). But a more likely problem is small spills that get inside your clothes. People get lulled into complacency by the cool way a blob of nitrogen just beads up and rolls off your hands. They don't stop to think about what happens if it falls inside your shoe and has nowhere to go. The result can be excised, frostbitten flesh, or amputated toes. At a minimum, people should where lab goggles, roll up their sleeves, and kick off their shoes (or wear open shoes like flip flops).