Jonathan Kaplan

So, combining the above ideas... Would an ordinary large home slow-cooker with one of the Auber Ins. controllers above get a level of control adequate for sous vide for all of about $120 combined??? That seems to be what Auber is claiming one can do... If so, well, that'd be pretty cool... I've been playing with getting set up to do this, but the cost and size, etc., have put me off... This seems to bring it into the 'sane' range! jk

A few things to try: I make a sort of standard pasta dough with 1/2 semolina flour and 1/2 all-purpose flour, whole eggs, olive oil (about 1 tbl / egg), salt & black pepper. I usually start w// about 3 eggs to 1 1/2 cups flour mix, and add more 'til I get the consistency I like. I make a rather nicer pasta dough, based on the TFL cookbook, that uses just all-purpose flour, egg yolks only, about 1 tbl oil-oil per 3-5 egg yolks, salt, etc. The slow incorporation of flour and insane amount of kneading that Keller recommends here actually do make a difference to the final product... In terms of flavored pasta dough, I usually use the "standard" version. I've added the following sorts of things: curry powder (madras), porcini dust, lemon juice and/or zest, of course basil puree, spinach puree, red-pepper puree, etc. Hope this helps for things to try... jk

Ginza-Ko sushi in Beverly Hills, now Masa's in NY, used real wasabi -- it was grated in front of you on a traditional shark-skin grater as needed, using both ends of the rhizome. (The different ends taste somewhat different.) In the pacific northwest, esp. Seattle and Vancouver, fresh real wasabi is available, and while it is expensive (usually around $45-$100/lb, depending on the quality), one doesn't need that much. A good sized rhizome is enough for a large-ish meal for at least several people, and might cost $10-$20, hardly expensive compared to the cost of great fish, etc. You can buy real wasabi in powder form, and as a paste. I would say that freshly grated wasabi tastes "cleaner" and brighter than either of those, with a sweetness that they fail to capture. Fake wasabi -- horseradish, mustard & coloring -- only vaguely resembles real wasabi -- it has more "kick" and heat, and far less flavor and complexity. The taste is *similar* but not nearly as interesting. Best, jk

If I had all the space in the world I would get two (maybe 3!) single-drawer dishwashers and put them all directly under the counters, and put other drawers for the storage of stuff I don't use much under them. That way, I'd never have to bend down to get things in and out of the dishwashers... I have a two-drawer KitchenAid model now -- it works well, I like it, but I really wish I could have found a way to put two drawers side-by-side. BTW: I really do like the two-drawer approach -- it is nice to be able to run half-loads, have one load running while I'm loading another, etc. jk

Well... Greatness *is* a lot to ask of a wine... Bartlett Winery, in Maine, produces some very fine non-grape fruit wines. I think their dry peach has hints of a very good Alsace in it -- not a great one, but then, very few Alsace wines are great. Their dry blueberry is perhaps overrated by them, but it is quite nice, again, not great, but really quite good. And their sweet wines are fun -- not serious, not remarkable, but very pleasant for dessert. And given that they don't cost too much $, whenever I'm in Maine, I tend to buy a lot of their stuff, and enjoy it. jk

As luck would have it, I found myself in roughly the same position as Michelle -- on Monday, November 5th, I found out that I had been designated as the guy to find good/fun places to eat in NY for 6 people on Thursday 11/8, eight people on Friday 11/9, and 6 people on Saturday 11/10! Fortunately, I found this thread, and everyone had pretty flexible schedules. Here is what we did: Thursday, November 8th. WD-50. 9PM reservations. This worked out well for us because we in fact had to be at SUNY Stonybrook until 6PM, and then had to drive back to Brooklyn and then make our way into Manhattan. It was a very nice meal, but before I go further, I feel the need to rant mildly, and then less mildly: Begin mild rant: Why do so many restaurants demand that *everyone* order the tasting menu if anyone does? Yes, I know it is more convenient for the servers, and makes life easier in the kitchen, but I've been to a number of fine restaurants that haven't had a problem figuring out how to serve radically different numbers of courses to the different people eating together. I would have had the tasting menus at every restaurant I was at, as would at least 2 or 3 other people in each party, but none of us could because not everyone wanted to. Begin less mild rant: OK, so WD-50, like most places, demands that everyone get the tasting menu if anyone does. Fine. But for the love of god, is there any plausible reason why everyone has to order the damned dessert tasting menu if anyone does? By the time dessert has rolled around, people are sipping after dinner drinks, some people are getting dessert and some aren't, how bloody difficult would it really be to serve a few tasting dessert menus and a few ordinary desserts? This, in fact, really did piss me off. In the end, as I note below, the problem was "solved" by my simply ordering 4 desserts to share w/ one of my companions. But frankly the experience left a bad taste in my mouth. It wasn't the money -- the 5 course tasting menu, which is what I wanted, was every bit as expensive as the 4 desserts -- but the attitude. Rants end. OK, I started off with the "Fried quail, banana tartar, nasturtium." It was quite nice, but should have been better -- the banana tartar especially needed to be a little more aggressively seasoned. I also tasted the "Grilled octopus, avocado, juniper, lychee-campari" -- the texture of the octopus was simply remarkable. The taste combo didn't do all much for me, but wow, the texture was cool. For my main, I had the "Lamb loin, potato noodles, mustard crumbs, pretzel consomme" It, again, was very very good, but not remarkable. Again, the bit players (the mustard crumbs, noodles, etc.) weren't nearly as interesting as their descriptions. For dessert, I split 4 dishes w/one of my dining companions (see rant above): Fried butterscotch pudding, mango, taro, smoked macadamia Soft white chocolate, potato, malt, white beer ice cream Grapefruit custard, elderflower, blueberry, basil Milk chocolate mousse, peanut, goji berry, whipped soy milk Of these, the fried butterscotch was great, and everything else was fine, with the exception of the wheat beer ice cream, which was remarkable. I was the only person who tasted it who actually like it, but I really really loved it. I thought it was by far the most innovative and clever dish of the evening. In the end, we had 3 quite nice reasonably priced bottles of wine ($60-80ish) and after dinner drinks, and the total bill came out to around $140/person inc. tax and tips. Friday, November 9th. Vong. 6:30PM reservations, 8 people. Vong was more or less exactly what I expected, but I enjoyed it more than I expected to. I shared the "Appetizer tasting plate" which consisted of the Crab Spring rolls Raw Tuna rolls Lobster and Daikon rolls Spiced Quail Prawn Satay All of which were very nice, though not stand-outs, really. For my main, I had the "Lobster with Thai herbs and bok choy." It was a very good lobster, cooked well, not overwhelmed by the seasonings, but neither did it really stand out as a remarkable combination. The "Passion Fruit Souffle" for dessert was quite nice. Again, we had 3 nice-ish bottles of wine, plus before and after dinner drinks, and the total came out to around $100/person, inc. tax and tips. Saturday, November 10th. Hearth. 6PM reservations. This was my favorite meal of the three. We were started with a quite nice amuse of warm cauliflower soup. I then had the "Artichoke Salad with Cranberry Beans, Parmesan, Escarole and Black Truffle Vinaigrette." It was, to my mind, excellent. Probably not to everyone's taste, but it hit all the right notes for me. Similarly, my main, the "Roasted Pork Loin with Braised Pork Belly, Spiced Sausage, Brussels Sprouts, Pomegranate and Chanterelles" was, for me, quite wonderful. One of my companions, whose taste I respect, did not enjoy it nearly as much as I did. I loved the slightly crunchy, slightly bitter, barely caramelized brussel sprouts -- she thought they were too bitter and hadn't been cooked long enough. I loved the nearly unadorned pork -- cooked perfectly, subtly salty, rich tasting. She felt it needed a sauce of some kind. Etc. This isn't to say she didn't enjoy her dish -- she just didn't love it in quite the same way I did. For dessert, I got the "Buttermilk Panna Cotta with Huckleberries" Again, I loved this dish. Again, not everyone who tasted it did. I also tasted the "Sorbet sampler" on which, unfortunately, there was broad agreement -- it wasn't very good. It represented a good try, but the apple sorbet, in particularly, was too "thin" and watery to hold its own. The wines were excellent, and quite reasonably priced. We started with a 1992 Riesling Spatlese by Zillikan. It was awesome -- it had that wonderful creamy-ness that rieslings get with a bit of bottle age, but was still nicely balanced. We then moved on to a Riesling Auslese, by Carl Schmitt-Wagner, 2005. Again, a great wine -- crisp and fun. Finally, our server suggested a Pouilly-Fuissé -- again, I loved it, as did the one other winey guy there, but other people were less thrilled, ranging from liking it but not loving it, to really not liking it. With some after dinner drinks, the total came to about $120/person. Of the three, I would go back to Hearth in a heart-beat, and I'm willing to try WD-50 again, if I go with people who will order the tasting menus. Thanks to everyone here for the helpful input, which, while not directed towards me, benefited me enormously. Jonathan

A fav of mine is to grind morels finely (to almost a 'dust') with salt and pepper, coat scallops with the mix, let the scallop "rest" in the 'fridge for a few hours or so, then quickly pan fry it, deglazing with sherry, marsala, or port. I haven't played with it, but I imagine this would work well with salmon, as well. A similar 'dust' made from porcini is quite nice on red meat... jk

"So i just recieved an order from Will Powder of sodium alginate and calcium chloride. I found a recipe online for "Liquid Pea Ravioli", and have to say it worked quite well. I was using a teaspoon measuring device to form the ravioli, and that worked okay. Anyone have any other idea's for dropping the liquid into the CaCl bath? " Spoons work well, yes. For smaller items, a plastic syringe works nicely. I've played with the idea of freezing things, dipping them in a algin bath, and then dropping those into the CaCl, but never tried it (if you do try it, let me know if it works!) "Also, I currently have 2 mango's, a cantalope, and some blueberrys in my fridge. I'm pretty sure i've read that you can use all of them with alginate and chloride. Any other suggestions? " The mangoes may have too high an acid content to work well w/o correction. You might want to test that, or switch to reverse spheres for those. "At an upcoming party i'm having I was thinking of serving the pea ravioli, however i found that the taste (while very pea-ish) is a little strange when served room temp. Is there any way to heat the ravioli (spheres) without breaking the thin membrane?" Yes... But be careful! If you are making them during service, use a very warm bath as the rinse bath, and leave them in it for a few moments (30 seconds or so?) before draining them. *Don't* try to boil them! Good luck! jk

I diverge a bit here in that I do pre-bake the crust. I find that a quick trip into a 550F oven gets the crust crisp (and the top water-resistant ). I then pull it out, sauce and cheese it, and put it back in until the cheese reaches the level of browning etc I want. I used to use a stone, but don't bother anymore -- instead, I flip a heavy-duty aluminum sheet-pan over, pre-heat it with the oven, and cook the pizza on that. I usually use parchment paper, but that's because I'm lazy, sloppy, and don't like to clean up. Neither trip into the oven takes more than about 5-10 minutes -- usually closer to 5. Hope this helps. jk

I must say that my first thoughts were that it was ambitious, yes, but not insane, and that I really wanted to be there! As a 'reality check' I looked over a menu for a dinner party I held a few months ago (if anyone is interested, they can find it at: http://oregonstate.edu/%7Ecloughs/JonsPane...enuApril607.pdf I was working alone in the kitchen, and had only a half-day to do prep the day of the event (and another half day the day before). I got to sit with my guests a fair bit, but obviously not as much as I'd like (that's what after dinner drinks are for!). If you can use the reverse-spherification technique for the ravioli, they at least can be made in advance and held. Otherwise, that is a bit of a pain. The biggest problem I've had is trying to do three or four different preps of something at once, so the beef tasting scares me a bit. If these were served not all at once but in order, as four 'short' courses, I would be more comfortable with the timing, etc. (I once tried to do the three scallop preparations on the above menu at once for 8 people -- 24 plates, three heating techniques, too many accompaniments to keep track of, and a huge mess -- much easier as three courses!) Keep us posted, and good luck! jk

Check out: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=99784&hl=gluco I've been using 25g/l of gluco, and 5g/l of algin bath. Seems to work well for most things. Let us know how your experiments come out! And thanks so much for the Koerner link! They look really good -- I've been wanting to try some of the gels... jk

I got some from a friend. It is a CP Kelco product and is carried by le-santuaire http://www.le-sanctuaire.com/ Here is some information on it: http://www.cybercolloids.net/library/pectin/properties.php ← I did a quick search yesterday and came up with this: http://www.pomonapectin.com/ I wonder if it would work? (Not that I don't think any excuse to order to le-sanctuaire is a good one -- I love that store!) jk

Very cool. From the pic -- and it might be misleading as I can't really tell how big the plate is -- the yoghurt spheres look closer to ravioli or gnocci sized..? Is the point in this preparation to 'sauce' the salmon without having to bring it out covered in a dull-looking sauce -- so you get the cool look of the cured salmon first...? (I've found the sphereification techniques to be quite good for that...) BTW: How is the green tea curing done? jk

My fantasy is, all things considered, rather dull... I've been playing with ideas for opening a restaurant ever since I last worked in one, over 10 years ago now... The basics stay the same -- small (seating 20 people max), one seating a night, only open 3-4 days a week. A medium-length tasting menu, perhaps a dozen or 18 dishes or so, depending on moods and whims, focused on the things I love to cook... Two options for wine parings -- a reasonable priced one and an over-the-top one. etc etc. Oh, and the critical issue -- it should be able to lose about $100,000 - $200,000 a year, forever, without running out of money. That's the only way I think I'd actually be able to enjoy it! (The obvious solution is to first become very very rich, and *then* open it... Unfortunately, I'm a university professor, so that's out, too.) jk

Ginza Sushi-Ko in L.A., before Masa moved to NY and opened Masa's. The 'food' portion of the bill for two was $600. We only spent another about $60 on sake. Add tax and tip, though, and it starts getting up into the $450/person zone. I was part of a group of 6 that probably spent nearly that much per person for a rather disappointing meal at Flur de Lys in San Francisco -- I wasn't paying for the wine, and we drank some extremely nice, well-aged bottles (including a superb Haut Brion) , that were in fact reasonably priced for what they were. The food wasn't a big part of the final bill, which was just as well, because it wasn't all that good, either. My first trip to the French Laundry, many years ago now, was in fact under $200 per person, with the tasting menu and some very nice wines. But prices have gone up a bit since then jk

I mostly use high-quality 99% chocolate for the surprise effect... My two favorite uses are: 1) finely shaved, served under a small spoonful of manderine orange (or sometimes tangerine) sorbet. Eaten in one bite, the shock of the bitter chocolate perfectly complements the sweet sorbet, I find. 2) with cheese. My fav. way to do this is to take a soft cheese (like d'affinois -- ?sp), whip it until it is smooth, roll it into small balls, and then coat these with grated 99% and a bit of red salt. Again, the bitterness of the chocolate plays off the smooth cheese texture in interesting ways. Neither of these use a lot of chocolate, though! jk

I don't think it is possible to get a chocolate pot de creme quite as perfectly smooth and silken as a vanilla, but you are on the right track. My proportions for this are 2 cups half-and-half, 7 egg yolks, sugar to taste & according to chocolate chosen. Use a high quality, semi-sweet chocolate -- perhaps Valrhona or similar, at between 55-75% cacao or so. Chop the pieces up / shave them so they are smallish. Beat the egg yolks until smooth, add the chocolate. Dissolve the sugar in the half and half and warm to just below boiling. Add a bit of the warm cream to the egg to temper, add the egg/chocolate mix back into the cream off the heat while mixing vigorously. Let rest a few minutes. Mix again, and put the mixture through a fine fine strainer. Let it rest again, then put it through the strainer again (without mixing it again). Leave the dregs. Then pour it into the ramekins, putting it through the strainer a third time in the process, and again leaving the dregs. You should end up with something pretty smooth. Oh, and bake a lower temperature than for the vanilla (perhaps 325ish) and for a shorter period of time (should still jiggle in the middle with a light tap), and in a bain marie of course (make sure you pour in hot water to at least half way up the ramekins, preferably 2/3rds). Hope this helps! jk

I've been using the Keller butter-poaching method w/ some success with scallops. I try to keep the beurre monte at around 160F, and keep them in it for about 3-5 minutes... I've tried it with shrimp, but been disappointed with the results. I am looking forward to trying it with lobster, but alas, while I've convinced my mostly-vegetarian wife that shrimp and scallops "don't count," she draws the line at lobsters... So it may be a while... jk

I use my wine 'fridge to store my chocolate, and have been doing that for the past couple of years. I keep the chocolate in flat-ish tupperware-style bins; each bin takes up about as much space as two wine bottles, and holds perhaps a kilo or a bit less of chocolate in bar-form; each would hold more in buttons, etc. But keeping them in bins keeps the humidity reasonable, while letting me use the wine fridge for wine. I keep my wine at around 58F, which some people think is a bit high, but works fine for me. Best, jk

Based on Digijam's suggestion, I made some balsamic vinegar 'caviar' sized spheres for a dinner party -- served them with a blue-cheese in a pear-chip "cup" (about 5 small spheres on the blue cheese, in the pear-chip cup). About 2/3 balsamic (*not* "tradizionale”, but just the "Napa Valley Naturals Grand Reserve" -- cheap, but I think pretty good), 1/3 simple syrup, gluco to 25g/l, standard algin bath of 5g/l. Worked great -- perfect taste, and the 'explosion' of balsamic after the crisp pear and smooth Gorgonzola was perfect. Many of mine still stuck together (d'oh!) but it wasn't a big deal as enough didn't that it wasn't a huge problem. I also served a 'deconstruction' of the walnut and pear soup from the French Laundry cookbook, making "ravioli" out of sweetened pear puree, and serving them in a chinese soup spoon with warm lightly whipped walnut cream. I rather enjoyed it, but it was not as universally loved as the cheese & balsamic, alas. Some of our guests really loved it, some really didn't like it at all. Some rather rude things were said about it. Ah, well. Thanks for all the great suggestions and ideas! I was having my doubts about this technique, but I've now found at least one thing that works great with it and not so well at all without it. jk

Interesting. About 6g/l (+/- 2g/l) sodium alginate is what the recipes recommend. So 2g/250ml (200 ml water/alginate + 50g honey) is a bit on the 'thick' side. Adding another 100g honey brought you to 2g/350ml, or right around 6g/l. And this was your favorite... By 400ml, you've dropped to only 5g/l, which might be a bit low. As another experiment, you might try mixing the algin with less water, and letting it sit in the fridge overnight to fully hydrate, then add honey up to the 5g/l level. The algin is supposedly more effective, and hence less of it is required, after it has fully hydrated. jk

Other people with more experience will no doubt chime in here, but briefly: "Once you are done for the day with your calcic bath, how long can you keep it to play around with some more?" Up to several days, I would guess. But I found that it loses effectiveness with use (not with time). So after a fair bit of use, it seems to need recharging with more calcic. "Is there a way to conserve the caviar? For how long? (ex: ı made the caviar a lot of caviar for the restaurant early in the morning. Can it last at least until the last customer leave around 2am?)" See the tread on "gluco." The problem with the alginate is it keeps 'working' even after it has been rinsed, so the caviar gets chewier and more tasteless the longer it sits around. Letting it rest after rinsing in a flavorful liquid helps, but doesn't solve the problem. "Reverse" sphericalization with gluco avoids that problem, but adds some others. Same holds true for the larger sizes. "Once I made the mix (ex:fresh fruit juice with algin) how long can ı keep it in the fridge?" As long as the fresh fruit juice. Actually, with many preparations, it is better to let the algin mix 'rest' in the fridge over-night or so anyway. jk

Re: balsamic, etc. Cool! I'll look forward to trying that. My guess is that it is the base ingredient that matters -- the "pear" spheres I did (which have a pH of around 3.5 or so) didn't stick much, but the vanilla simple-syrup spheres stuck like mad. I didn't use any xanthan to thicken, so I don't know what effect it would have. As for proportions, I've found it to be a less finicky set up than the 'standard' spheres. I use 25g/liter of the gluco, and 5g/l for the algin bath. When I played with high calcium mixes (cream and milk) I backed off a bit on the gluco, but not in any systematic way. Best, jk

Gluco: First tests I don't have my camera here, so I'm not including pictures, but yes, I have played around a bit. First notes: The long 'cooking' times given in the Adria website for the gluco products are too long for most things. They result in a much too thick and firm shell. Shorter times result in a shell closer in texture to the 'ordinary' alginate/ calcic shell. The product does retain more of a pure liquid texture within the shell -- and maintains that texture for a long time after rinsing (for as long as I've kept them -- about 10 hours). The texture of the shell doesn't seem to change after rinsing, either. The bad news is that the gluco shells will stick to each other in the alginate solution. Once they are rinsed, they no longer stick, but until then, it is a problem. So 'caviar' are hard to do -- you need to scoop them up quickly and get them rinsed fast, or deal with them individually (which is, in practice, too much trouble!). So, I've so far played with pear puree, vanilla simple syrup, chocolate syrup (85% chocolate melted into about equal parts water w/ a bit of sugar added), cream flavored with walnuts, and a butternut squash puree based soup. All worked well, and in general, I preferred smaller to larger sizes. I *think* I prefer the Gluco / alginate method to the alginate / calcic method; the texture seems somewhat better, and the fact that you can hold them for longer is good. Acid seems to be less of a problem, too, though I haven't pushed that as far as I'd like. I'll keep you posted jk

A few ideas... The first set of ideas start with searing the fish in a hot pan, usually in clarified butter, but it can be in oil. Salt and pepper the fillet, sear until crisp on the outside, but still rare. One nice way of finishing this is with cream -- add cream to the pan, reduce, finish with herbs. Dill is classic, but others can be very nice. Maybe a bit of lemon with that... Another nice finish is simple browned butter. Or a reduction of some sort -- citrus is always good, the soy you mentioned works well, too, as does balsamic, etc. Another set of ideas involve using the grill. Obviously you can just grill the fish (always very nice) but hot-smoking can be very good, too. Here you aren't going for the traditional 'curing' of cold-smoking, but a hybrid... Brine the fish (worth doing in any event) in a heavy sugar/salt mix, put it on a medium grill set up to smoke with some nice fruitwood or other, cover and smoke until done (nicely colored, warmed all the way through, but not so cooked that it flakes like smoked fish). Braising can be nice, as can steaming in aromatics... Lately I've been preparing various fish and shellfish by putting them in a shallow pan on a bed made of a lot of aromatic herbs (lemon verbena, cilantro, basil, etc.) along with onion, garlic, etc., a bit of butter, and cooking it tightly covered on low heat... Quite nice. I once had a piece of salmon at the French Laundry that had been slow poached in truffle juice; quite extraordinary. While I've never tried doing that myself, I have cooked salmon "en papillote" with truffle oil and butter, and gotten nice results... I can't wait to see what other people come up with here! jk