Tri2Cook

Infuse the butter. Soften the butter to room temp, mix in some peppercorns, seal and toss in the cooler for a day or three. Soften again and sieve out the peppercorns. Fats love to pick up flavors and aromas, they even do it when you don't want them to. You could also infuse the fruit puree with the peppercorns. Blitz the puree and peppercorns in a blender then sieve (unless the recipe calls for heating the puree, then just heat the peppercorns with the puree and sieve them out).

Awesome job Rob. I'm still holding on to my "I don't do weddings" rule but it looks like you did great. A thumbs up from the bride is perfect... she'll tell everybody she knows.

I'm an avid road cyclist and a less serious mountain biker but century rides and a few back-to-back centuries are about as big as it gets for me. Never been to the multi-day race level. However, my summer riding is usually 6 rides a week averaging 60 - 120 fast paced kilometers per ride plus one recovery day with a 20 - 30 kilometer easy cruise to ease the muscles. Foods that don't sit heavy, that are high in easily digested carbs and that don't tend to cause gastric upset or bloating work best for me. To be honest, you're not likely to get many (or any) of the actual riders if this a pro event. They, along with their trainers, managers, team staff, etc, usually have pre-arranged meals at their place of accommodation. Your biggest crowd is going to be spectators, officials, volunteers and possibly media people. So worrying too much over what the athletes eat shouldn't be a big concern. The rest just eat whatever they usually eat so doing your food the way you do it should be the way to go. That way they can say "I had some damn good (insert food item here) at Rob's place, I think I'll go back" without it being something nobody will ever see there again.

Awesome, I'm extremely jealous. The owner is away for 2 weeks which moves me from "in charge of the kitchen" to plain ol' "in charge" so there was no chance of me making it... but I want it to be known that I'm jealous.

tomdarch: I've done that recipe from the book and I just used a plain ol' Wagner sprayer. I use those for pretty much everything I do (which doesn't include needing to be able to do detail work for cakes or chocolate molds). The wagner makes a velvety surface if the object to be sprayed is frozen and you don't hold the sprayer too close to what you're spraying. If you do 2 or 3 very thin coats and stick it back in the freezer for a couple minutes between coats instead of doing one thicker coat it will have that more coarse look to it.

It would definitely be difficult to put a set definition on. I've had food at table service restaurants that was both faster and less tasty than food I've had at some counter service places.

So this is actually about chickens? I thought city chickens were pigeons.

If they're clearing "millions of dollars a year" and flipping 230 seats a service in a single location venue and won't pay (at least) market value for good cooks then they deserve whatever they end up with. Unfortunately, that's going to suck way more for you than them initially... but it will catch up with their bank account eventually.

I'm going to be the selfish &^*! and admit that the main reason I got into it was because it makes me smile. I enjoy it. I like it when what I do makes others happy but I can be equally happy with something I create late at night after closing that nobody but me ever sees (unless I post it on eGullet).

Personally, I would probably pull them before leaving for the other event and let them thaw in the walk-in if you have the weeping problem solved. A couple hours in the walk-in will do all or most of the thawing but they'll still be plenty cold to hold up for transport and setup. Eliminates the worries. But to answer the question you actually asked, an hour at room temp should be plenty of time to thaw. I did a frozen banana-citrus mousse over a frozen ginger parfait in 2 1/2" molds today and set one out to get a feel for how long they need to be tempered to get the texture I want for serving. They were completely thawed and the parfait was heading towards being a liquid again long before the timeframe you're looking at. I realize they're a different item but the mousse part isn't all that different. It was 50% fruit puree, 25% pate a bombe and 25% whipped cream with a bit of gelatin (.8% of the total weight).

Sounds interesting. I did a quick search and couldn't find much more about it then what you posted and one picture. I'll have to search a little deeper and see if I can find more info on the cake part.

None in mine during work hours. Not because I'm particularly against it during prep time, it's just that I usually don't even hear it if I'm busy. My brain just kinda sorts it to the department of unimportant stuff and ignores it completely so I don't usually bother. Sometimes when I'm there late at night after closing experimenting or playing around I'll have music going but even then, if I'm really into what I'm doing, the whole CD will play and I'll suddenly at some point think "hmmm... what happened to the music".

There are a few monthly online challenges that I know about. TGRWT from khymos.org, Daring Bakers, the Royal Foodie Joust (both of which I learned about from gfron1's blog) and Sugar High Fridays which I just recently learned about from Lisa2k's blog. So what others are out there that I don't know about yet? I love the idea of these challenges to inspire creativity or force me to think about ingredients or pairings in new ways so help me put together a list.

Those are some really nice tarts. Glad it worked out the way you wanted. Thanks for the kind words in the post as well but... ummm... uber pastry extraordinaire? Not me, I'm just a hack having fun.

A friend has asked for eggs benedict. She says her mom always made it for her and her siblings on easter and christmas while growing up and she misses it. I'm going to oblige because (sometimes) I'm nice like that. Of course, it can't be as simple as your basic, traditional eggs benedict. That just wouldn't be fun (for me), so I have a few twists and turns in mind. Hopefully they won't ruin it for her... and hopefully I don't make a complete mess of it. Not sure about the rest of the menu at this point.

I don't wear one at home (but I don't wear an apron at home either). I never wear one outside of the restaurant except when catering. I don't see anything weird about doing it though. It's an article of clothing designed to be worn while cooking. If someone wants to wear one in their home while they're cooking, go for it. I'm just more of a comfort-over-style type of person when I can get away with it.

I like it. Those owls are cool. Very nice!

It's definitely a fine line and maybe a line not to be crossed for the true purist. I usually use .5% by weight to the combined weight of the juice, sugar and egg. I dissolve the hydrated gelatin in the hot curd then incorporate the butter with a blender. It may still cross the line for what you want, it will hold it's shape on a plate, but it's not jello.

When I need a sturdy curd, I usually use a very low level of gelatin, agar+gelatin or agar+xanthan with gelatin being my mouthfeel preference if I don't need tolerance to warmer temps but that's when I want to do a sliceable curd or for a tart or entremet or things of that nature. I've never used a curd in a ganache so hopefully someone else that has will see this thread.

In theory any fruit juice with a PH lower than 3 should work without acid embellishment. So if you can check the PH of your juice that should steer you in the right direction. Otherwise, a little extra acid is cheap insurance that won't hurt. In my experience, higher PH juices just don't seem to work too well without additional acid... for whatever reason. Bolster the acid and pretty much any fruit works just fine. I don't know the science, I'll take a look later and see if McGee has anything to say on the subject. I don't remember seeing anything on that in the book but that doesn't mean it's not there.

Upping the acid via citrus juice should help. I've wondered before (but haven't experimented yet) if simply working in some citric and/or ascorbic acid would do the trick without having to dilute the base juice with lemon juice. I'll have to get back to that one of these days.

Very nice. Peppermint-caramel ganache sounds interesting. I'll have to check that one out.

Well, I can kinda understand. They don't usually translate most english cookbooks into french/spanish/etc. either... which may suck for some people that don't read english. Would be nice to have it though.

I want it but, since it's not likely to show up in English, I probably won't get it. Translating is a pain in the butt, I did quite a bit of it with Los Postres de El Bulli and don't like the thought of doing it again. I don't do macs often anyway, I'd mainly buy it to be inspired by his creations.

Well that about covers it then. If I didn't read about it on eGullet, it can't possibly be good. Taste isn't subjective, it's governed by people's opinions on online forums. You don't really believe everybody on eGullet lives on homemade foods and fine dining for every meal do you? If you're using any convenience products from the good ol' grocery store (such as commercial bread, frozen fries, margarine, canned soups, etc.) then you're just eating fast food at home. That is correct. If I believe something is good, then how could I possibly be a sellout by saying publicly that I like it? I'm getting paid for the time I spend making the commercial, not for saying I like it. Everybody gets paid to work. Maybe we're all sellouts... but wouldn't that make her being a sellout irrelevant? What if someone offered to pay you a nice pile of cash to say on t.v. that you like something that you already eat anyway? I know what my answer would be. Call me all the sellouts you want, I'll apologize from my yacht.