Tri2Cook

Which are? The key rules that is. ch There is a very (very) long, detailed, in depth thread on that right here on these forums. Lots of great information from people who use, study and experiment with sous vide cooking on a regular and ongoing basis have contributed an entire textbook of information on the subject. Search "sous vide" when you have a spare hour or three, read and grab notes. It's worth the effort.

Yes. If Michael V. was intentionally or inattentively doing the dish differently than it was agreed as a team that it should be done during service in a restaurant setting and Robin said "Hey, that's not right. It's supposed to be like this..." she would be correct and I would back her every bit as much. It's "restaurant setting" that's the key to my opinion. Otherwise, why bother with menu planning and testing? Just pile some ingredients on the stations and tell everybody to do whatever they feel as the tickets come in.

If that were the case, I'd go one step further and call it pretty much useless... the money saved would be negated by the drastic reduction in usefulness. I would be surprised if it doesn't handle low temp though. I would think a simple "always heat food to a minimum of xxx degrees" sticker and/or brochure would cover the legal aspect. People likely to buy this item would have no trouble completely ignoring such warnings because they would know such blanket statements are ridiculous.

That's pretty much what I've been doing as well. It does require a little more attention but it works fine for what I do, I haven't got into attempting the 24 - 48 hour stuff yet. Still, a temp controlled bath would make the task much easier.

I would say that depends on how seriously one takes the theme of the challenge. If he was taking the idea that this was a restaurant seriously then he can't just walk past somebody doing something differently than it's supposed to be done and ignore it because it's "their dish". They discussed exactly how they were going to do things, right down to the portion size and plating. If she was doing it differently, he was perfectly correct to step in and say "it's supposed to be like this...". Unless it's your restaurant or you are an exec. chef with full freedom to risk such decisions, you don't start taking creative license on dishes during service. It may seem like a small thing but a train with over 200 wheels connecting it to the track can be derailed if you mess up just one of them. Yes, I realize it's a tv show and an individual competition but restaurant wars is all about the team theme. If your team wins, you are safe. If your team loses, you have a one in four chance of getting the boot depending on where they decide to lay the blame.

I did coconut marshmallow during my marshmallow-a-thon a while back. I posted in the marshmallow thread, I think I did something like 17 or 18 flavors over a couple days. I used coconut milk, with some added spray dried coconut milk to boost it a bit, to hydrate the gelatin. I also infused the syrup with shredded coconut, sieved it out and heated it to temp then proceeded as usual. The marshmallows had a very nice coconut flavor but were a bit more dense and heavy than the usual marshmallow. Nothing off-putting, just not the usual super light fluff. The same thing happened with the chocolate marshmallows, I think it's fat-related. The difference won't matter for making rice krispie treats, it works fine. I know this because I made a soy sauce marshmallow and used it along with toasted sesame seeds for something similar to rice krispie treats and the soy-sauce-mallows had the heavier, more dense texture as well. It made no difference to the end result. You may want to try using just the coconut milk for your purposes, the coconut flavor in mine was pretty powerful and might take over your curry theme. If you have isomalt and use it instead of sugar it will cut the sweetness level back and give a more savory profile (though still leaning towards sweet... but it is a marshmallow after all).

I briefly considered one of these when I saw it mentioned on the Chadzilla blog but it says "U.S. only"... so I decided they didn't want my money and I'll spend it elsewhere. It's not really what I want anyway, the price was just tempting.

Speaking of this dish, I've been thinking on the whole mint/chocolate thing. There's no denying it's a combo that works but I'm trying to come up with another flavor for the party that really helps the overall result. Not shock value or "let's just shove this on the plate to be different". Almost invariably, when you see the mint/chocolate combo it's just mint and chocolate. It seems like there has to be something that fits into the profile that will enhance the experience rather than forking it up. Foodpairing.be shows malt as a common link between the two and a quick google shows that mint malted milk balls exist but I'm wondering if it actually works in practice. Maybe there's a reason the two are usually left alone together? I'm going to have to find out. P.S. I compared Alex and Bryan's recipes. They are identical except Bryan's calls for 1/3 the amount of cream that is used in the Alinea book. Seems like that would end up a bit gummy in comparison to the original but the judges liked it and that's what mattered.

I'm just disappointed that I wasn't there when Jennifer asked if anybody wanted to cuddle.

It seems like many of the culinary backlashes aimed at high-end trends have more to do with the word than the food. When the average person on the street becomes too familiar with a concept then it's no longer cool enough for the elite (even if their elitism is entirely self-proclaimed) and they begin the backlash against it. The whole "I liked it but now that you like it I don't... so I'm still more cool than you" thing. Backlash against a concept abused and done poorly is okay, backlash against a concept in general is ridiculous unless it can be demonstrated that there are no well-done examples to be found.

As MattyC said, it's for textural/flexibility purposes. I don't know of a widely available replacement. That doesn't mean there isn't one, I just don't know what it would be. Sorbitol may not be easy to find in a local store but it's easily obtained and not expensive through online sources. I paid something like $20 for a 5 lb. bag at l'epicerie. That's enough for 272 portions which works out to something like 7 cents per serving. They also have it in 1 lb. bags for ~$5.00 if you just want to give the recipe a try. Chef Rubber and Le Sanctuaire have it as well but their price is higher than l'epicerie.

Yep, Alex Stupak's Pliable Chocolate Ganache from the Alinea book. Paired with mint instead of the lime and avocado of the original but the ganache is basically the same critter. The amount of sorbitol sounds high on paper but the amount per portion is less than 10 grams. I've done the recipe from the Alinea book and some of my own variations on it and never suffered any problems from the sorbitol even during testing phases trying to make the concept work with other mediums. Not that it's particularly relevant here but bending the ganache into those cool twisty shapes Chef Stupak does is not always as easy as one might like it to be. If you decide to do them for a dinner or something and have never worked with it, make extras or be willing to settle for wavy shapes that are flat on the plate like Bryan V's as a backup plan.

Definitely a highly subjective topic. I think the Alinea book is absolutely amazing and I can't even imagine being disappointed with the French Laundry book. Sorry Mark, but I also have a different view on Dessert Fourplay. I love that one too. I've had some disappointing cookbooks but they were usually well-intentioned gifts that I had no hand in choosing. I can't think of any that I had high expectations for going in that disappointed me. I guess I've either been careful or lucky.

I lied! There are still no surprises in my freezer but there is something I forgot to label. It's a box and I know what's in it (six 1lb. blocks of rendered chicken fat that were each dated as added to the box) but I did forget to label the box. That has now been corrected.

That I can handle, it's not nearly as scary and evil sounding as what paulraphael threatened.

Ouch! I hope you never get promoted to devil!

Replacing part of the oil with butter is fine. There are sufficient wet ingredients in most carrot cake recipes for it not to be a real issue. Even if it seems a little dry initially, by the next day it balances out nicely. I always use half butter, half oil at work. I also pre-hydrate the raisins so they don't pull too much moisture from the cake. It's one of our best sellers. I've done them with all butter and didn't find it unpleasantly dry, just not as moist as the usual suspects and a little too far from what people expect to be able to do it that way all of the time.

I'm almost embarrassed to admit that there are no surprises in my freezers. I can tell you right down to the smallest package exactly what's in them without looking... and each thing that is in them is labled complete with the date it went in.

This is the absolute perfect time of year for some individual apple crisps. They're relatively quick, easy and hold/taste great at room temp so fridge space isn't an issue. Bake the day before or early the day of, cool to room temp, wrap and leave them somewhere out of the way until you need them. If you feel the need/desire to sauce them up a bit, a nice caramel sauce or cinnamon anglaise works great. Add a scoop of vanilla or cinnamon ice cream if you want or even toss a slice of good cheddar on top and run them under a broiler for a minute or two at the last minute.

Ok, I guess I'm just not the sophistimicated type. The restroom attendant thing would be creeping into the weird zone for me. Rather than be a comfort benefit, I think it would be a bit uncomfortable. And I'd never be able to do that job myself. If some snooty acting stuffed shirt came in and foghorned the place I would not be able to hand him a towel and brush his coat without laughing. I wonder if they have a courtesy flush policy? If too many dangerous sounding noises are coming from stall 7 do they just do one of those discreet toe taps at their own discretion?

I hate beans. Well, actually I love beans, never met a bean I didn't like, but the beans hate me. No matter how many (or few) I eat or how often I eat them, they always come back to haunt me and anybody else in the general area. None of the folk remedies or wive's tales seem to help. So I very rarely eat them... which sucks.

If nobody serves it in your area, there's not much you can do about that. I'd call around and ask. If nobody has it on the menu as a dish but happens to serve both waffles and chicken then you could order both and put it together yourself at the table. There's no secret to the dish. A waffle, some chicken and maple (maple flavored if you want to be full-on authentic to the roots) syrup makes the dish. Personally, I think it's a better combination with honey than maple syrup but I'm not a huge fan of the dish in any form.

Grocery Store (Eggos + Aunt Jemima) x KFC (Chicken) = You Didn't Make Them.

That was weird, there was this chap in the forum...

While Kerry's offering recipes, hit her up for the apple cake she posted a picture of a while back. It's easy and really tasty.