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paulraphael

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Everything posted by paulraphael

  1. Also regarding burgers: SV cooking time is around a half hour and would progress shortly after the patties are made. So cooking time would be longer than with conventional methods (although still relatively short). But total time between salting and the end of cooking would be lower than what I've done in the past. In other words, the only change I see that could increase curing is time spent while salted at temperatures approaching the cooked state.
  2. Interesting, Enrique. I've generally stopped salting before SV cooking. I've seen evidence of cured flavors/textures/colors on long-cooked red meat that was pre-salted. And with a lot of things I like to use the bag juices in a sauce ... and they can become way too salty, especially if reduced. I may have to do a test on burgers. Salting before grinding is such a great convenience with ground meat. I've worked out salt levels pretty precisely by weight, and pre-salting is the easiest way to get decently even distribution. FWIW, I salt burgers at 0.7%, a bit less than the range you mentioned. Possibly this makes the curing effects less relevant.
  3. Not usually. I generally make patties (loosely, by hand) and refrigerate. If they're for grilling, several hours might go by. For sous-vide I'll probably cook much sooner after grinding.
  4. Burgers: the MC crew says that salting meat before grinding leaches out myocin and gives rubbery burgers. I have always salted before grinding, which allows me to season by weight and use the grinder to help mix it in. It allows me to not mix anything into the ground meat, which would definitely mess with the texture. My burgers have never been close to rubbery. Could this be a sous-vide phenomenon? could the myosin become a problem with the longer cooking time? Anyone tried? I'm inclined to think this advice was not based on experimental evidence, but would rather not be the guinee pig.
  5. With vegetables, cooking is a matter of breaking down cell walls, which is roughly analogous to breaking down collagen in meat. We're not going for a level of temperature-determined doneness, but for a temperature/time-determined texture. Which means timing is important in a way that it's not with most SV proteins. I've only done a few vegetable experiments. So far I haven't achieved the carrot nirvana that some people talk about. I've had great asparagus, though. SV has been brilliant for in-season, fat stalks of it. Just prep them well (including peeling the bottom halves) and bag them with some salt and pepper and olive oil (or whatever) ... 85C for 15 minutes. Really beautiful flavor and texture. Not a total replacement for roasted asparagus (which I still prefer if the asparagus is less than great). But much prettier, and much more pure asparagus flavor. Next up is mashed potatoes ... the circulator is the perfect tool for retrograding the starch for a smooth puree.
  6. The final price is low enough that I'm in no hurry. After they work out the kinks I'll decide if I need a #2 robot.
  7. By "admit mistakes" I assume you mean "brag about awesome adventures."
  8. Fool's erand update: after a long time and plenty of toxic chemical exposure, this unnecessary (but pretty cool, if I may say so) monster is ready for some food. I think I'll enjoy using it, but must recommend against anyone doing it the same way. There's likely not enough to be gained (as some of you have suggested). And spray foam is nasty stuff. Here's the deal: spray foam requires exposure to air in order to foam up and cure. Once cured, it's relatively inert and stable polyurethane. But if you spray it into an enclosed piece of plastic, like a cooler lid, it will seal up its own hole, starving itself of air, and will remain liquid. This liquid is made largely of isocyanates, which you don't want in your lungs, on your skin, or anywhere near your sous-vide short ribs. Bad news if it ever finds a way out. I politely declined the advice of the chemist at the help desk (Get. That. Thing. Out. Of. Your. House.) and salvaged the lid by drilling many ventilation holes, and keeping them clear until all the liquid foamed up and cured. After an extra week, for good measure, I sanded the thing smooth, covered the circulator cutout with epoxy, and sealed the vent holes with silicone. Both the epoxy and the silicone are impervious to water and to the temperatures of any wet cooking method. It wouldn't be a terrible idea to use spray foam just to seal around the circulator cutout, to keep water out of the lid and to slightly improve your feng-shui. For this I'd recommend Dow Corning's Big Gap Filler. I first tried a low volume foam, which was not up to the task. you don't want low volume; you want low pressure. The Dow product will fill the 1+ inch of the lid and will cure better. If you just seal this small area, you could probably vent it with just a couple more holes and be done with the project quickly. Work outside, and leave the lid outside until it's fully cured. Helpfuly, nothing sticks very tenaciously to the HDPE of the cooler, so it's easy to clean off any spilled gunk. I also cut a piece of my reflectix to fit, to reduce evaporative losses even more, and in case there's a need to cook with the lid off for convenience. Note the loop of cord in the reflectix. This makes it easier to pull out of the way, especially if the bath is on the hot side (veggies, etc.)
  9. Looks great. i love the bluetooth control. Looking forward to a more in-depth review of the software, including its customizeability, etc.
  10. I use knuckle bones or oxtail as a foundation; but for enriching stocks I use meat, and for making a jus/coulis (as a substitute for demi glace) I extract additional meat directly into stock. In the past I've used stewing cuts from the chuck. I'm just wondering if there's a good bet that's cheap and that has less than the 15% or 20% fat I typically see in chuck. I'm looking for lower fat just because the fat won't be used. I want that 20% fat in a burger. In a stock it's waste. Makes more sense to use something leaner even if it's a bit more expensive, all else being equal. Re: donations to the cat ... it's not as welcome as raw meat or juicy steak pilfered from the table, but it's accepted. There's still flavor in the meat. As much as what's in the stock (law of entropy, etc.) The worst thing about the used meat is dryness. Shanks / shins (same thing, yes?) sound interesting. Do you ever see these off the bone? How's the flavor compared with chuck?
  11. I'm looking for a good choice of beef for pressure-cooked rich stock and for sous-vide jus/coulis. In both cases the meat will be ground before cooking and donated to the cat afterwards, so texture is unimportant. Ideally one of the cheap/tough cuts, but one with as much flavor and as little fat as possible. Any fat will just render off and will have to be disposed of. My inclination would be to use one of the round roasts, but the last time I used one in a braise the flavor was lackluster. Not sure if that was the cut in general or just the piece I got. Thoughts?
  12. How about a reasonable source for veal knuckle bones and trimmings? Jefferey used get this for $1.50 something a pound. Now it seems like most shops price like a boutique item.
  13. That information still doesn't help you compare to another brand. Consider that all clad pans have a pressed lip at the edges, which can distort the relative thickness of the layers where the edge is visible. And some companies (like Demeyere) make clad pans with bottoms that are a different thickness than the walls.
  14. I dislike both granite and marble, since it's hard to tell if they're clean, they stain, and are generally a maintenance hassle. I lived with marble for a while and have used a lot of granite. Granite is better in every way I can asess. If I could choose any natural stone it would be soapstone. But I'd prefer quarz or laboratory epoxy over either. Keep in mind that there are a hundreds of different kinds of stone that fit under the marketing geologic (and marketing) headings of both granite and marble, and they can be very different from each other.
  15. You can't. You can only indirectly infer it, because you have no idea how much of the thickness is taken up by the conductive aluminum on the inside. This seem like a minor point but it's a major one. In many pans the thickness of the stainless cladding (a very poor performer, from most cookware perspectives) makes up a surprising portion of the thickness. You really, truly, absolutely can ignore the number of layers claimed by any manufacturer. If there is ever a correlation between that number and the thickness, it's purely incidental. The thickest conducting layers you'll ever find are on disk-bottom pans, which are often 2-layer.
  16. paulraphael

    Tomato leaves

    Andy, this is a load of serious information. I'm inclined to take this seriously, but it would helpful to see some sources. And it would make sense to send them to McGee, on the off chance he isn't up to speed yet. Last I heard on the subject was his Times article, which said go to town on the leaves. Edited to Add: I hit send before seeing the questions about raw vs. cooked. What do we know about the effect of cooking on those alkaloids?
  17. I just hope they all work it out. I was late to the sriracha party, but now keep it in the fridge all the time. I like that it's mild enough that you don't have to be too careful, it has a prominent garlic flavor, and hardly any acid, so it won't throw off the flavor balance while upping the heat. And come on, who doesn't love the rooster?
  18. I don't think anything's changed fundamentally. There may be some thicker brands of clad cookware, but to know what difference to expect we'd need to saw them in half and measure. Nathan Myrhvold has a budget for this kind of thing, maybe he can chip in. With a thicker conductive core, a pan will behave more like a disk-bottom pan. More evenness, more heat capacity, and worse responsiveness. You can ignore descriptions like "5-layer" and "7-layer." It's marketing drivel. The only things that matter are the thickness and material of the conducting layer, and the total thickness of the cladding.
  19. Tinned copper is a different story. The stainless clad stuff doesn't require more maintenance than any other cookware. I might treat it a little nicer than I treat the all-clad, but that's just because I don't consider it replaceable. Other than that they get fundamentally the same treatment: detergent and water, and sometimes a scrubbing of BKF on the inside. I usually don't even bother drying the outside. The copper looks like old pennies, which is fine by me.
  20. Lisa mentions enzymatic cleaners; you probably already have some in the form of laundry detergent. Maybe test in an inconspicous place to make sure it doesn't leave a mark of its own. I've used a slurry of laundry soap to get wine stains off the walls and ceiling. Worked like magic.
  21. This is an interesting idea. My first thought was like jmachaughtan's, to make a water-ganache with the wine (possibly reduced). Lisa's idea of making the wine gelee hinted at some other possibilities. You might turn the wine into a fluid gel, emulsify with the chocolate, and then foam it with a siphon. The exact gelling agent and method would need some investigation; you're working with acids and alcohol, both of which can be foam destabilizers. But I bet you can come up with somehting cool. Lisa's right that there's a risk of flavor problems. It's a specific wine you're being asked to use? A port would seem like a natural mix for this. My hunch is to use as sweet a wine and as bitter a chocolate as possible.
  22. I don't find copper to be high maintenance at all. But I haven't polished mine in the 15 years I've owned it. And don't ever plan too. There's no need unless you want to be precious.
  23. The BB&B ones look like a bargain. Hard to go wrong at that price. Re: very fine strainers ... besides my fine chinois, which is used mostly for sauces, I get much more use out of a medium-mesh, cheap strainer. My regular fine-meshed strainer doesn't get used much. It's hard to get thicker purees through it and it's hard to clean. For a very fine mesh, consider a superbag, or the much cheaper and equivalent industrial filter bags you can get online. They go as low as 20 microns (maybe even lower) and are reasonably easy to wash.
  24. Great point. It's a good rule of thumb that the worse your range, the more important your cookware. The handful of high-end commercial ranges I've used made the cookware quality largely irrelevant. You don't need even heating when there are gas jets engulfing the whole pan bottom, and you don't need heat capacity when you have 30,0000 BTU/hr. You could argue that with a heat source like this, a light pan made from any reasonable cookware material would be ideal, because it will be responsive. At Le Bernardin in NYC, they crank out 3-star fish dishes all day long on thin, warped spun steel, and $20 restaurant store non-stick coated aluminum. I don't believe higher end pans would make any difference in that setting. On my crappy stove it makes a difference, although I still believe it's more a difference in my "experience" than in what I'm capable of cooking. I'd have to be drowning in money to pay such a premium for this kind of nicety. To put it in perspective, for the price difference between a single excellent pan made from pedestrian materials and a high end copper one, you could buy an immersion circulator or a pressure cooker ... something that will actually allow a paradigm shift in your cooking.
  25. No way! Just by ingredients alone the stocks I make cost more than the boxed stock. If I consider the value of my time (a dubious proposition, but I still try ...) the homemade stock seems very expensive. Ingredients for my chicken stock are around $8 to $10 / liter, depending on how many bones I've accumulated in the freezer. Beef stock is more, and veal stock more still.
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