paulraphael

I was able to use it without creating an account. It wouldn't let you?

One of those sample combinations, coffee and carrot, is explored in another book I'd like to check out: The Art of Flavor. I listened to an interview with the authors, and they used this as an example of an entirely new flavor being created by an ingredient combination; one that doesn't seem to reference its constituent parts. So I can imagine that some of the other pairings, like strawberry and mushroom, might be similar. This could be the exact value of a book like this—the discovery of combinations that no one would think of because they sound terrible. Art of Flavor is a more conventional book, in that it's the product of a chef and a perfumer finding overlap in their creative processes. They then attempt to systemetize a process of combining and balancing flavor. I have and enjoy The Flavor Bible, which is probably the most conventional (conceptually) of all these books, but is useful for its rigor. It doesn't attempt to discover new possibilities; it just catalogs combinations that have been discovered by hundreds of chefs around the world, and ranks these combinations based on how standard or harmonious they are. All these approaches seem useful, but I find the one explored in the Matrix the most exciting. Edited to add: the Flavor Matrix team has a website which gives access to their flavor pairing engine. I haven't played with it yet, since last I checked you needed a paid account. But it looks open now. The project is a collaboration between IBM's Watson AI team and some chefs, including the book's author.

We grow herbs in our little container garden, and for the last few summers have been happy with everything but the basil. It's mostly had a sharp, thin, not very basily flavor. No idea what variety it is ... we've just been buying seedlings from a local farmer's market. Seems like we need to shop more carefully. What should we look for? Our garden gets maybe 5 hours of sun during the summer months, and we'd like something that isn't too bothered by casual caretaking (read: benign neglect).

Not really. An electric range tends to minimize the differences between pans. It heats pretty evenly by design, and changes temperature slowly. Also, the pans people are recommending from places like Ikea I think are pretty similar to what you'll find at restaurant stores.

A solid, cheap one from the restaurant supply store. Something like this. Or if you insist on a stainless exterior, this. Don't think of it as an investment. If you take good care of it, it will last a few years, but it's eventually going into the recycling bin. Teflon coatings just don't keep their performance forever. The difference in durability between the cheapest ones and the fanciest ceramic /diamond studded ones isn't what you might think. Those additives help protect against physical abuse, but not against the gradual breakdown from cooking and washing that all the nonstick surfaces suffer. I cry when I see things like $500 copper pans with a teflon interior. The pans will last by far the longest if you use just for what they're good for, which is eggs, and other things that are genuinely sticky and that don't ever cook on high heat. Don't use the pans for things that need a hard sear. Doing so is bad for the pan and bad for your results. Edited to add: I'm talking purely about teflon, not anodized. Anodized surfaces are not non-stick.

As far as the science goes, I'm not sure what difference it makes to feed a dormant starter separately, vs. feeding it by just adding it to a bread recipe. I haven't yet heard a good argument for why this would matter to the yeast and LAB. It would extend the bread's fermentation time at any given temperature, as you did ... this would seem to cause more enzymatic development relative to yeast / LAB. I'd love to hear a microbiologist/breadmaker's thoughts on this.

Has anyone played with CO2 / N2O blends?

It's interesting because it illustrates how easy it is to remain oblivious to racist tropes when we're not on the receiving end of them. I doubt you'll find find any African Americans who grew up during the Civil Rights years who aren't intimately familiar with the implications of watermelons.

Exactly. You can't just ignore 100 years of minstrelsy and ridicule and disenfranchisement by saying "who doesn't like watermelon?"

We stumbled into Ops in Bushwick and were very pleasantly surprised. Perfect crust, well made all around. The tomato sauce on the marinara was a bit unbalanced, but otherwise flawless. They say they use a sourdough crust, although it wasn't as evident as it is (or used to be) at Roberta's.

Looking for places up to $75 / person, all included. We won't drink much. Definitely would like money to go toward food rather than linens and formality. Interested in non-sushi choices at the moment. Thanks for any thoughts!

Nope, I don't even know the market. Please report back when you've tried it.

I looked up C02 prices online and came up with some price comparisons. These are average prices of C02 for carbonating a 2L bottle of water: -CO2 bought to fill 20lb tank in NYC: $0.20 Initial investment: $150–200 -Soda Stream, 3rd party cartridges on Amazon: $0.50 Initial investment: $50–$80 -Generic Seltzer bought at supermarket: $0.70–$1.20 Initial Investment: $0 -iSi siphon (2 chargers/liter), 3rd party chargers: $1.76 Initial investment: $100–150 Seems like from an economics point of view, the whole enterprise mostly makes sense if you want to carbonate stuff besides water, or if you consume a LOT of seltzer. If you're in the I-want-bubbles-in-all-kinds-of-stuff camp, one reason to consider the big tank, under-counter, DIY approach is that you can also use nitrous oxide. Dave Arnold talks about this in some detail. The idea is that N2O gives a completely different texture (softer bubbles) and flavor (sweet, not sour), and so being able to mix both kinds of gas with your regulator gives you fantastic control. He shows a picture of his under-counter setup, but declines to give instructions, since technically, N2O is a controlled substance (20lbs of whip-its, anyone?). But he invites you to decipher the picture, and assures you that you can indeed buy pharmaceutical grade N2O in bulk from welding shops, if you ask the right questions (you don't want to use industrial grades in anything you eat or drink).

Awesome, CDH. This should have its own thread.

I admit to liking the big fat ones, if they're done well, with a crisp outside and the right firmness inside. But everyone I know who expresses strong opinions about fries tells me this is sacrilege. They're all skinny pomme frites or go home.

I just learned that Apple recently allowed app makers access to the raw camera files. This has led to several new camera apps that can all make better pictures than the stock app. I downloaded ProCamera, and will play with it soon. Another app that gets good reviews is Halide. I've never been a big fan of the iphone camera, partly because I feel it's extremely heavy-handed with noise reduction, leading to a mottled, pointilized look at high magnifications. They call it a 12 megapixel camer, but in practice it looks more like 3 megapixels. I assume all the great reviews are in comparison with other phone cameras. Being able to shoot raw should allow for much more control, and probably image quality improvements, at least some of the time. On my professional camera it would never occur to me to use a format besides raw. I use Lightroom as my raw converter / jack-of-all-trades photo library organizer. There are other choices that I'm less familiar with. There must be some free options. Many serious photographers believe that PhaseOne's Capture One is the best in terms of quality. I find the workflow maddening so I don't use it.

I'm a big fan of iSi generally, just not for carbonating drinks. Even at 42 cents it's wildly more expensive than the other options. And slower, and less controllable, and more of a nuissance. Ideally I'd like a big tank under the sink that holds 20 lbs of CO2, with a regulator and an attachment to carbonate things in regular 2L bottles.

If the owner is there (Buck) he'll be happy to talk roasting with you all day.

@Rotus, if you don't already have it, you'd probably enjoy Dave Arnold's cocktail book Liquid Intelligence. He goes into fairly obsessive detail on carbonating booze, including wine (his blog gave me the idea to play with this in the first place). His conclusion is that in most cases it ends up being a pointless exercise (the wine was better flat), although the one time my friends and I did it, we thought the cheap chardonnay was much improved ... even if it was too oaky to pass for champaign. He also discusses how to set up a carbonating system with a 20lb CO2 tank for around $200, which over the long term will cost a tiny fraction per drink what a soda stream costs, with its overpriced cartridges. Far in last place, as others have commented, is the Isi siphon with its $1 a hit chargers. Sadly, this is the only gizmo I've got.

We made peanut butter ice cream at the shop where I worked way back in the 20th century—we just blended PB into our standard base and it came out fine. My standards were lower then, so I might not think too much of the results today. The challenge you're discovering is that peanut butter puts a bunch of solids and also peanut oil into the mix, which will both affect the texture. My inclination would be to some of the things you've already tried: reduce the eggs, reduce the cream/milk ratio. If that hasn't worked, it's possible that you're just being too ambitious with the amount of peanut butter. If you're not satisfied by the depth of peanut flavor you get when you reduce the amount of PB, then I think your idea of infusing peanuts into the milk is a good one. I'd try crushing the peanuts to the point where they're like coarse sand, and maybe toasting them a bit in a pan first. Then you can heat the milk up to 185°F or so, add the peanuts, cover, and let it infuse for 30 minutes or so off the heat before straining. This is just a guess. I don't know how much flavor you'll get. Possibly between this, and a reduced quantity of peanut buter in the mix you can hit the sweet spot. Also don't forget to throw in a bit of salt. 1 to 2 grams per liter. It really brings out the flavor of peanuts.

I was confused; I think the minimum volume is 500ml. Please ignore.

Great thread. We tried this a few years ago at my gf's parents' house (they have a soda stream, and I'd just read Dave Arnold's post on whipping up faux champaign). We had an inexpensive bottle of California chardonnay and gassed it. All of us loved it. Even the sommellier who happened to be hanging out with us that night. The wine tasted better sparkling than it did flat. It did not, however, taste like champagne. Our sommelier friend suggested repeating with a less oaky white bordeaux, which we haven't tried yet. On his podcast, Dave Arnold once went on a long rant against soda streams and the equivalent, talking about what a massive waste of money they are. He said it's cheap and easy to plumb in a full-sized CO2 tank with filtered water, and have bubbles on tap all day. He'd probably tweat you the details of his setup. I don't have room for that (or even a soda stream, for that matter). Those of you using an isi, are you staying within the volume recommendations of the siphon, and doing a maximum of 500ml in the 1l container? Or have you gone rogue and done a whole 750ml bottle in there?

In Brooklyn, both Stumptown and Toby's Estate have local roasters. There's a small shop at Newkirk Plaza called Coffee Mob that roasts its own and usually does a great job. I don't know where Joe's Art of Coffee and 9th St. Espresso roast, but it's somewhere local. They both know what they're doing (although I've only had their expressos inhouse; have never taken beans home). I don't recommend Gorilla (bad roasting). Haven't tried Brooklyn Roasting Company.

In a dutch oven. I preheat to around 525F, drop the dough in, slash it, cook covered for 12 minutes, uncovered for 4 to 6 minutes. Maybe going a little lower and longer would help with crust development. I'm more interested in flavor than the crust, but it would be great to improve both.

The results were very good. This was the easiest dough to work with of all my various sourdough trials, and it had the best gluten development (I've had some problems with every loaf trying to become a focaccia). The interior texture was excellent. The crumb structure was pretty good (my previous method, with high hydration, gave somewhat nicer / uneven holes). The crust was very soft. The flavor was good—for bread generally, but not much to indicate that it's sourdough. It didn't have the dreamy sweet/sour/creamy flavors that I've gotten from my homegrown method (which is unfortunately a pain in the ass, and which forms a weak gluten structure that doesn't like to rise into a proper boule) I used half KA AP flour, half KA bread flour (a combination that's worked well for me). For proofing, I did not use the refrigerator, because my culture just goes dormant at fridge temps. And I don't have a 55° proofing box. So I used my standard proofing temperatures of ~75°F for a couple of hours (which emphasizes yeast activity) and a couple of hours at ~92°F (which emphasizes LAB activity). Times were extrapolated based on temperature / activity curves that I've used for this culture in the past. I used the machine variation of the instructions. Do the MC people give much guidance on controlling flavor? What about crispness of crust? My method uses a smaller percentage of levain, and a relatively longer proof time. I may experiment with that. Do you you have a sense of how instrumental the bran and malt powder are? These are new addtions for me.