paulraphael

I found a picture of a prime rib roast from a few years ago, using methods fundamentally similar to what I described in this post. This is a 10-week dry-aged piece of USDA prime meat courtesy of my former butcher and partner-in-crime. This was probably cooked to an interior temperature of 129°F or so. Now I prefer to go a few degrees higher, to better melt the marbling. I find I gives a better texture, without any noticeable reduction in juiciness or flavor. It's hard for me to imagine any advantages to the lower temperature ostensibly recommended by Blumenthal. How much more evenly can you cook meat? But you you would definitely get worse texture, greater loss of juices, less predictablility, and as Btbird points out, added danger.

Can you explain how you use RS232? What software would you use? In the pictures there's also what looks like a USB port and some other digital connector (looks almost like midi). I sent a note to customer service to find out the story. Edited to add: I found the manual, which answers some of these questions. There's some interesting stuff about what fluids to circulate at different temperature ranges, including what kinds of water. The water details probably apply to all circulators, but the consumer companies aren't talking about them.

Has anyone seen or heard anything about these? I've read in a bunch of Amazon reviews that people have reliability problems with Anova's later generation circulators. This one's for lab use, looks totally butch, and the price just came down by 50%, to $450. Anova scientific seems to do zero marketing. It looks bulkier than most of the consumer circulators, although it's not so easy to get an exact sense from the pictures. It might be less of a monster than the Polyscience circulators. And it now costs around half as much.

I'm not generally one to argue with Mr. Blumenthal, but the method you're describing here takes a good idea way too far. Yeah, you want to brown the outside with high heat, and yeah you want to cook the meat through slowly with low heat to get a get as little gradient as possible. But a torch is much too hot, and 50C / 18 hours is much too low and slow. A torch is a poor instrument for browning meat, because it's too hot to crisp up the exterior. Part of the browning process involves dehydrating the surface, which allows it to get crisp. A torch will burn the outside before this happens, so you'll never get a crisp crust or any deep browning. And 18 hours is much too long a cook for a prime rib, or any tender cut. Are you sure this is the cut Blumnthal is talking about? 18 hours gets you well into tenderization territory, where you're using heat and time to break down collagen. A prime rib has precious little collagen to begin with; if you break it down you end up with mush. You also loose moisture over the course of that long cook—not plain water, which you lose while dry-aging (which concentrates flavors) but full-on meat juices. So you end up with a dry and yet over-tenderized mushy / grainy piece of meat. Another problem is that unless you have a steam oven / c-vap / combi oven, your oven cannot maintain 50C with any kind of accuracy, and it cannot produce the kind of humid environment necessary to reliably heat the meat. So the oven is going to be functioning like a quite unpredictable dehydrator. I also think most people find that they get better results if they brown the meat after cooking it through, rather than before. Some call this reverse-searing or post-searing. The idea is that the crust you create will not have a chance to get soggy during any any subsequent low-temp cooking. Here's an approach that's pretty foolproof. I recommend a remote probe thermometer so you don't have to think too much. -Preheating oven is optional. Set oven to 200°F (warmer if your oven is untrustworthy at this temp). be sure to have tested oven for accuracy and stablility. -roast until internal temp reaches 118°F. very roughly 20-25 minutes/lb. -put on a room temperature sheet pan; tent with foil; move to a warm (not hot) place to rest for at least 30 minutes. meat can rest for up to an hour or so to fit timing of meal. keep thermometer probe inserted. -preheat oven to 500°F. -put roasting pan in the oven to preheat -about an hour before serving, after oven has thoroughly preheated, place roast on hot roasting pan -put back in oven -remove from oven when internal temperature at center is around 7°F below your target temperature. about 15 to 30 minutes, depending on how much the meat has cooled in the middle—watch closely; it goes fast. aiming for a final temp in the the middle to high end of rare to medium-rare (between 131 and 133 after resting) makes sense with this cut, to ensure that the marbling has a chance to melt. -rest for 10 minutes or so to let juices near the surface to thicken. you can touch it up with a torch if the browning is uneven

It may depend on the particular cultures you've got, but mine is very robust. I use an ischia island culture (popular with Neapolitan pizza makers) that's survived 4 months of total neglect in the fridge. I've heard from pizza makers who have neglected it for 9 months with no problems. I keep mine in the fridge until the night before (or sometimes the hours before) I'm ready to use it. If just a week or two goes by between revivals, it seems to go semi-dormant, and it wakes up quickly. The time I left it on ice for months it took about a day and a half to wake it up all the way. It must have gone fully dormant. It's certainly possible to kill these buggers likely not very easy.

This is the first cocktail I invented from scratch, for my birthday party last month. Like most things it started simple and then took over. Ginger Panther 1-1/2 oz ginger liqueur (see below. if using store-bought pick a sweet one) 1 oz bourbon 3/4 oz lapsang souchong emulsion (see below) 1 tsp lemon juice 1/2 tsp pedro ximinez sherry vinegar (total 3.5 oz) -shake with ice. serve neat. garnish with ginger -for a longer, weaker drink mix over rocks. or split the difference and strain over rocks. (all the sweetness comes from the ginger liqueur. if the finished cocktail is too bitter / medicinal, then the liqueur is too dry. add some honey to the liqueur) Lapsang Souchong Emulsion -make tea: 1 rounded teaspoon lapsang souchong tea leaves per 8oz boiling water. steep 5 minutes, strain. -measure 0.5% xanthan gum by weight (1.13g per 8 oz water) -blend into tea with immersion blender. -cover and refrigerate a couple of hours before using, to chill and let gum hydrate. -store in sealed container in fridge up to a few days. Ginger Liqueur (about 750ml) 120g / 4 oz ginger root* (divided in half) 50g / 1/4 cup sugar 50g / 2TB + 2-1/2tsp honey (orange blossom, clover or other light variety) 375ml / 1-1/2+ cups water 5g / 1tsp lemon juice 1/2 vanilla bean (about 3”) 1/2 orange for zest (ideally organic) 375ml / 1-1/2+ cups 80 proof brandy (cheap) 200ml whole milk (for clarification) *ginger should be very fresh. No brown or soft spots. Skin should be thin. -clean the ginger. remove dirt and any dark or woody patches. -roast one portion of the ginger, unpeeled, in 400°F oven / toaster oven for 1 hour. -disolve sugar and honey into water on stove or in microwave. bring to a boil. -cut both portions of ginger into coarse pieces. no need to peel. -combine ginger and hot sugar syrup in a blender. cover lid with towel. pulverize. -pour into a jar. add brandy. -zest 1/2 orange. split vanilla pod. add zest and vanilla pod to jar -seal and hold at room temperature for 2 days Clarify: -remove vanilla pieces and rinse (should have enough flavor for other projects) -pour 100g whole milk into a jar -slowly stir liqueur into the milk. milk should curdle** -refrigerate overnight -very gently strain, using a strainer and cloth, or a fine superbag. agitate the curds as little as possible. let gravity and time strain the liqueur; if you squeeze the curds you’ll sacrifice clarity for yield (clarity is about esthetics but may also improve longevity). **if milk does not curdle, separate 100ml of the ginger/milk solution and add 2.5g / 1/2tsp more lemon juice. slowly stir this into the remaining liquid.

There are a couple of things you can do to make this family of sauces more wine friendly (vinaigrettes and beurre blancs are both emulsified sauces with an acid base). You can make the acid weaker, by choosing a lower-acid vinegar, or diluting it with water or another neutral liquid. Or using less lemon juice in the beurre blanc. And you can go with a more acidic wine that won't get flattened by the tartness of the sauces. Here's a Serious Eats article that discusses wines and vinaigrettes. Winefolly.com makes similar recommendations for beurre blanc, also taking into account the need to cut through the butter. Suggestions include "lighter zestier white wines and wines with more herbal and savory characteristics such as Sauvignon Blanc, Muscadet, Cortese di Gavi, Verdejo, Vinho Verde, White Bordeaux and Grenache Blanc."

Consumer reports has long been a black sheep, and rather bizarre player in audio equipment reviews. I've learned to ignore them in this sector. Other sources, like Tom's guide, and What Hi Fi, and some other audio-specific sites have called the the homepod the champion when it comes to audio. Nevertheless, if I wanted a smart speaker in the kitchen, or anywhere, I'd think of good sound quality as just a bonus. We've got more serious ways to listen to music when that's the point. I'd be interested in the smart features, which on the home pod are currently—weirdly, disappointingly—dumb.

I butchered the duck just like a chicken ... if there are tendons I should be aware of, they escaped notice, both while cooking and while eating. Where are the ones you're thinking of? "Cryosear" is a Mhyrvold/MC cookbook term as far as I can tell. The idea is that frozen or partially frozen meat takes so much energy to thaw that it lets you sear the thick, fatty skin of a duck for a long time before worrying about cooking the underlying meat. I find that one or two hours in the freezer, pressed skinside-down on a sheet pan does the trick. That last detail is important; you need it to sit flat in the pan. I plop the frozen breasts on a dry pan without any preheating, and turn the flame on fairly low. I'm not sure how hot the pan gets, but the key is that you want to hear it sizzling steadily but not aggressively. If starts to sound loud and hot, turn it down. After 20 minutes I start checking the underside to how brown it's getting. The goal is to brown it all the way, because the post-sear will be brief. You also want plenty of time to tenderize the collagen. You'll render a goodly amount of duck fat to save for other things. You should also have some browned pan drippings if you want to get to work on a pan sauce while the bird's in the bath. Before the freezing step you want to score the fat. Either use a knife (make a fine crosshatch pattern over the whole surface of the skin), a jackard tenderizer (no need to penetrate deeper than the skin and fat) or do it the MC way and use a wire dog / cat brush (maybe get one just for this). This helps render the fat and speeds any air-drying. Optional steps before freezing: 1) air dry in the fridge. Loosely cover with paper towels and let chill a couple of hours to overnight 2) salt dry. after air drying, hold in the fridge skinside-down on a bed of coarse salt, for a maximum of one hour. brush off the salt as well as possible before freezing. Both these steps help concentrate flavors and may improve the crispness of the skin. After SV, dry off the breasts and post-sear in a small amount of neutral, high heat oil in a hot pan. This is to crisp up the skin after it's gotten soggy in the waterbath. Takes no more than a minute. I also like to flib the breat and put a bit of color on the bottom side, in case anyone peeks under there.

I think having very sharp knives in the kitchen is completely reasonable, as long as you're willing to do the maintenance. Among my gaggle of knives I keep three of them extremely sharp: gyuto, slicing knife (sujihiki), and pairing knife. The last two are not super high end knives, but hold their edges for a long time, because the pairing knife doesn't get used against a cutting board and the slicing knife doesn't get used often at all. The gyuto I have to touch up often. It's my main knife, gets used every day on a cutting board, and I like it sharp like a straight razor. It makes a difference that I'm willing to put a bit of effort into. Its level of sharpness requires at least three stones, up to a very fine-grit polishing stone (6000 to 10000 grit). Most touch ups are just with the polishing stone or with a strop. If that's more than you're intersted in, the good news is that you can get kinda close to this level of performance with just a single stone, and very close with a two-sided combination stone. For one-stone sharpening look for something 1200 to 2000 grit. I have a Bester 1200 in this grit range. It's the one stone I use on my European knives and it leaves an aggressive, toothy edge that cuts everything well (although not with a lot of refinement). And it's fast to use. For a combination stone people love the King 1000/6000, which you can get on Amazon for under $30. I haven't used it but it's definitely worth a look. Edited to add: I learned how to sharpen using wet/dry sandpaper, but like most people gave it up for stones. It's false economy, because the paper loads up so fast and has to be discarded. In my 12 years or so of sharpening on stones I've only worn out a couple of them.

Major Disclaimers: I haven't used this product, and it doesn't exist yet, but I wrote some advertising copy for it and so know a bit about it. JBL is introducing a smart speaker later this summer that's covered in splash-proof, easy to clean materials, specifically with the idea that people will use it in the kitchen. It also has a color touch screen, so you can interact with it that way. It uses Google Assistant. Unrelatedly, many reviews suggest that the Apple Home Pod, while currently the dumbest of the smart speakers (Hey Siri: get with it!) is by far the best sounding of all of them. So if you want more speaker and less smart, and you're already in the Apple ecosystem, it's the easy choice.

May I recommend that you binge-watch both seasons of Black Mirror? Twilight Zone will seem quaint and optimistic in comparison.

Usually some version of a pan sauce. I have a freezer full of stocks to use, but sometimes don't even bother with them. I've made some quick and tasty pan sauces just with combinations of the pan drippings, wine, water, shallots, reduced muchrooms, spirits, herbs, sherry vinegar, etc.. How (or if) to thicken is a big decision. For the cleanest flavors I leave it loose and brothy, or thicken with a slurry made from 1:10 xanthan gum and arrowroot starch. If the flavors are too sharp I'll swirl in butter at the end.

I finally nailed duck breasts, on my fourth attempt. In the past I got the meat just right but was unable to get the last of the rubberiness out of the skin. The trick was to cryosear, before sous vide cooking, and to crisp up the skin side with fairly low heat for a full 25 minutes. This not just renders the fat, but renders the collagen in the skin to gelatin, which takes time. Pre-freezing the breast, with the skin side flattened against a sheet pan, keeps the meat from cooking during this step. After cooking SV (2 hours at 56°C) I dried off the breasts with paper towels and re-seared on a very hot pan, to crisp up the skin side and put a bit of color on the top side. I did a couple of other prep steps, including air-drying and salt-drying, and scoring the skin, but the above steps are the important ones. The skin was like crisp but delicate bacon. The meat was nicely cooked with no gradient. Not sure what kind of duck I used. It was a whole duck from Long Island purchased in chinatown. Breasts were smaller than what would be ideal for this. Larger breasts would be more satisfying and also a bit less demanding.

Thanks everyone. This will be helpful with the next round of experiments. I'm liking the flavor of the combined roasted and raw ginger, but think that juicing is probably the best way to extract the flavor, and it seems the simplest way to do that (if you're not concerned with clarity) is to pulverize the ginger in water or syrup in a blender, and then strain through a superbag. I'll let you know how that works out. In the mean time, I've just been adding flavor to my first batch by infusing more ginger in various ways. It's starting to taste good ... but this version won't get repeated.

I'm not convinced my problem is with poor extraction ... it might just be the raw ginger flavor itself. You've gotten full ginger flavors just by grating raw ginger and infusing? If it's just an extraction issue I start by blending.

I'd take a look at the Globe countertop mixers, at least if the 8 quart model would be big enough. People seem to love these. The only complaint I've read is that they're a little top heavy and so they can walk around on the counter (or off) when mixing at high spead. But shouldn't be an issue with dough. The 10 qt model is closer to what you're asking for. I don't know anyone who has this. From the picture it looks rather gigantic.

I'm working on a cocktail that will include a ginger liqueur. And I thought I'd make my own, because how hard could it be? But getting good ginger flavor has been challenging. I get the heat, but not much else. I tried a method based on a recipe on Serious Eats: 90g ginger (sliced thin) / 375ml water, simmered 20 minutes. Then added to equal volume of brandy and some other seasonings, and steeped 48 hours. Then I tried a method from Modernist Cuisine: 90g ginger (sliced thin) / 375ml water + 375mm brandy, cooked sous-vide 60°C for 4.5 hours. Then other seasonings added and steeped for 48 hours. I assumed cooking sv would keep all the arromatics in, but the differences between the methods aren't huge. Both are more heat than flavor. Flavor from orange zest actual dominates. From what I've since read, you can increase the flavor-to-heat ratio of garlic with cooking. Some options would be: 1) roast the garlic first 2) sv at a temperature closer to boiling Any other ideas? Is there a potential problem with vapor preasure of a 20% alcohol solution being cooked sv in a jar at 90+°C?

My favorite so far is the standard 1:1:1 with Plymouth gin and Cocchi di Torrino vermouth. The earthy / leathery qualities of the Plymouth and the spicy qualities of the Cocchi work nicely. I haven't played with Pune e Mes yet. There are of course too many combinations of interesting gins and vermouths to try in one lifetime. Attempts to do so may even shorten said lifetime.

I'd humbly suggest that these are 100% genuine and earnest reviews. Of a fake restaurant. Important distinction! Also I feel that TripAdvisor's sketchiness is more than compensated for by the author's brilliance. I'd make a special journey to dine at the Shed.

I always prep the non-avocado ingredients ahead of time (sometimes by food processor) and store in the fridge. Then the avocados can be peeled and mashed and mixed in right before serving. It's like having a kit ... easy peasy, nothing to think about, and it tastes fresh. If you combined the robot-couped ingredients with peeled, flattened, and vacuum packed avocados, it would truly be a kit.

No salt. You're not trying to cure it. What Jayt90 said about a fridge and fan. Also a thermometer, a humidistat, and some way of controlling the humidity (not sure the best way to do so, but there's probably discussion somewhere online). Fridge needs to be at least big enough for half a subprimal of whatever cuts you want to age. There's little point in trying to age individual cuts.

I don't think humidity in the freezer is an issue, since the rocks are sealed in the foil. But lower temperatures slow chemical reactions, and frozen water migrates more slowly than liquid water ... so my assumptions is that the freezer would be better for longterm storage than the pantry. That said ... mine still didn't last too many months. Edited to add ... I think the freezer or fridge would be a bad place for storing a big pile of pop rocks if you were planning to take them out and use them frequently. For the same reason cold storage is bad for coffee beans. Every time you pull them out and open the bag, you'd be condensing moisture from the air onto the rocks and the inside of the envelope.

My hunch is that cocoa butter would do the trick. I've used pop rocks in various takes on Heston Blumenthal's "exploding cake," where they go into a no-bake pastry shell made from butter and ground up sugar cookies. They pastry keeps its popping action for a few days, with the butter isolating the poppers from whatever ganache or fruit I put on top. I always brown the butter, for more flavor and to get rid of all the free water. This method has always worked, although sometimes there seems to be twice as much popping action as other times. I think the pop rocks have to be used fresh. I seal them in their foil pouch after using, and store in the freezer, but they still seem to lose their mojo after a few weeks. BTW, I've only used the ones sold by Modernist Pantry as "culinary crystals popping candy." I don't think MP is a manufacturer, so it's possible that these have the same origin as the ones everyone's been discussing.

There's a difference, in that the muscles in the chuck section work harder than the ones farther back, even if they're a continuation of the same group. This makes them heavier in collagen and so naturally less tender. The chuck eye is closer to a tender cut than some other parts of the chuck, but it's not something you'll likely mistake for ribeye if the two are cooked similarly. Meat on the 5th rib might come close.