Tri2Cook

I agree, accept for the "pretty interesting" part. It's #$%@ing awesome!

Kofta. You could even season the meat before you go so all you have to do is squeeze it on sticks and cook it over the fire.

Could you bake a chunk of chocolate inside a couple really thin layers of some sort of cookie dough so you have a crunchy shell holding the melty chocolate inside? Or maybe fill little bite-size tart shells with ganache.

That's pretty much what I was saying. I mentioned freezing just to make it easier to keep the first sphere in the second sphere but you could definitely try it without freezing. Doing alginate spheres means you won't have the luxury of doing them ahead which means you'd be trying to encapsulate the red and immediately encapsulate that in the white. Unless it's for one or two plates, that sounds like a lot going on. I think I'd try the "reverse" spheres (calcium-fortified base in alginate bath) or using another hydrocolloid as the gelling agent (pectin, gellan, carrageenan). Then you could do them ahead and store them in a container of the white wine. I'd definitely do a test run though, just to be sure how much of an issue synerisis is going to be and, if it is an issue, in what timeframe. If the red bleeds into the white too quickly you'd just be doing a lot of work for nothing.

It would take more than that to achieve what I think you're after. While technically it may work, the outer gelled layer of most encapsulations is not of sufficient thickness that there would be any real taste benefit to using a flavored liquid (wine in this case) instead of water. Doing two wines may make it tricky. If you were doing wine inside a non-alcohol liquid you could probably reverse-sphere the wine, put the spheres in molds, fill the molds with the other calcium-fortified liquid, freeze, then drop in an alginate bath. The white wine probably isn't going to freeze sufficiently for that but it might be worth a try (maybe do a white wine spritzer type thing for the outer layer if that would work for what you have in mind, that'd be easier to freeze). Even if that works, the hold time probably won't be great due to syneresis. The inner red wine is going to turn the outer white wine pink eventually. How long that eventually would be, I have no idea but probably not long with alginate spheres. You could minimize the syneresis issue by trying a pectin encapsulation instead of alginate. I've never tried this, I'm basically just brainstorming here, but it does sound kinda fun. It may be the "F#%k, what should I try next" type of fun, but fun nonetheless.

I'm guessing they probably didn't whip the whites, just add enough to get a spreadable paste. Whipping would give you more of a banana meringue thing. It's also entirely possible they added additional flavor elements but he didn't mention any in the post.

The result speaks for itself and I stand corrected. I've never coated anything in mayo before, it just seemed like a fatty coating on a moist surface would equal slippery. Apparently not!

They used pulverized banana chips and egg white to make the crisps. Spread it thin and dehydrate. He mentioned it on their Ideas in Food blog in a post about the sliced chocolate. No specific recipe was given but it should be easy enough to work out from there.

I really like gooseberry jam so that would probably be my vote. Maybe less exciting than you had in mind though, and definitely not new. Maybe replace the tomatillos in a recipe with gooseberries and see what happens? Pickled gooseberries? Gooseberry salsa? Gooseberry sorbet? Dry 'em into gooseberry raisins? Gooseberry summer pudding? A gooseberry gastrique? Sorry, just kinda brainstorming a bit.

Edit: Now I've watched it, so I can join the discussion. In this episode, no. There was nothing that favored any of them in any way. Knowing the challenges would not have helped me decide. I ended up going with Chef Besh because I had to pick one and I loves me some Louisiana food. When I lived in the southeast U.S. I used to hit the N.O. Jazz Festival every year because it's a much more pleasant time to be there than Mardi Gras... I think I would gain about 20 lbs. every time I was there. My decision was based on nothing else and I picked wrong. He didn't have any advantages or disadvantages in the challenges, Chef Lo just did exactly as pogophiles posted. She came, she cooked, she kicked butt.

Haven't watched it yet but it appears I've lost yet again. Oh well... it's really just a guessing game anyway without knowing what the challenges will be. I'll have to stay out of this thread 'til I watch it, don't want to know too many details.

I'd flour them first if I was doing it. Pretty much eliminates the worry of moisture causing your coating to slip.

Natalie Portman huh? Maybe I will watch this season after all. Yeah, I know. *Oink-Oink* but I was probably going to watch it anyway...

It will definitely make a difference if the recipe uses high acyl (LT100) and you use low acyl (F) or vice versa. Many recipes use a blend of both which is where JJ comes in. I haven't worked with JJ so I don't know what happens when it's subbed in for one of the others. In general, recipes designed around a specific hydocolloid only work properly with that hydocolloid. It's not really like subbing tonka beans for vanilla beans or something. Still, if you don't mind risking some ingredients, it can be fun to play around and see what happens.

I didn't say there was anything wrong with having a bread machine, I own two (although both were gifts and the better of the two has never been used). The OP asked for inexpensive options and using the oven you already have is the most inexpensive option there is. If convenience and minimal involvement is a factor then by all means grab a machine. They make a decent enough loaf of bread, definitely better than the commercial stuff. The only factor mentioned in the original post was money. If they're willing to mix and knead the dough then not buying a bread machine is less expensive than even the cheapest machine.

Idea #1: Don't worry about the bread machine, just use the oven you already have!

Hmmmm. This is a tough game with no advance knowledge of the challenges they'll be facing but I suspect I'll be going with Mark or John.

They've pretty much jumped it for me as a tv thing. I watch Top Chef but the last season had me right on the edge of giving it up. Iron Chef America, if I'm not doing anything else at the moment I sometimes try to catch the tasting portion just to see what the chefs came up with but I've grown pretty tired of it otherwise. I'll only sit through an entire episode if there's a chef I'm specifically interested in seeing compete. I've never watched those others you mentioned and I refuse to watch Next Foodnetwork Star under any circumstances.

It took me a minute to remember these posts come from all over the world. I saw "I was bored this saturday afternoon" and almost panicked. I made sure to get up extra early today to get some things done so I can couch potato for a bit and catch the opening time trial for the Tour de France. Then I saw your post and was trying to figure out how I missed an entire day. I might play with some water ganaches with you, I have some ideas I want to work on. They may not fit into what confectioners do (because for what I do shelf life is generally not an issue) but it will be the same basic principal as far as technique and balance.

Yes. Chef Andoni Aduriz uses the technique for the chocolate bubbles in his An Interpretation of Vanity dessert. He pumps the smoke into chocolate water with a little xanthan and egg white powder to stabilize the bubbles. The smoke is trapped in the bubbles and releases when they pop. Seems like a bit of extra effort just to add smoke flavor to melted butter but I've never been opposed to doing the seemingly unnecessary for experimental purposes. Give it a shot and let us know how it goes.

It basically just says to mix smoke powder or a little liquid smoke with some mayo.

Sheesh, what a grouch. You don't need to explain yourself, I understood. You're saying that they can do it because they've developed their own system and anybody else that wants to do it will have to develop their own as well. I happen to agree. My point was that those grandmas can do it and for them the recipe is just fine.

Sounds like someone's grandma's recipe, which is probably delicious. ← I'm in the weigh-everything camp as a rule but I'm gonna have to agree. Some of those country grandmas can whip out a batch of biscuits without ever touching a measuring device of any kind that will kill anything carefully weighed or measured by a less experienced hand.

I've never smoked butter but smoking stovetop without an actual smoker is as easy as wrapping some wood shavings in heavy foil, poking a few holes in the foil, heating it until smoke starts coming out of the holes then tossing it in a hotel pan or something with whatever you want to smoke in the pan as well. Seal the top with foil or a tight lid and leave it alone for a while. I've smoked chocolate that way many times. The idea of smoked butter has me wondering what the results would be like if you put a container of cream set in a bowl of ice in the pan, smoked that, then made your own butter from the cream. Hmmmm... note to self...

That would be the best plan but basically I'm going to go buy booze to work with and I'd really prefer to buy one of each rather than several of each. I just wanted to make sure I won't be doing an injustice to the experiments by using good booze instead of "the best" booze. I think you guys have steered me in the right direction. Thanks!