Tri2Cook

Comparing 53% and 70% (assuming the same origin) isn't really a matter of which tastes better. That would be entirely subjective and relevant to what you intend to do with it. Your basic non-specialty Callebaut is good chocolate, I use it often in desserts, but I don't think I'd rank it as "TOP" chocolate. I consider it a good workhorse chocolate. It's a nice balance of flavor, availability and price and I've never had anyone be unhappy with things I make with it... but I don't do chocolates very often. I'm more into doing desserts.

Thanks for the nice comments. I don't mind sharing at all. For the ice cream I took 40 regular large marshmallows (from the grocery store, I may try it again with homemade marshmallow and see if it makes much difference but then again I may not... I was pretty happy with the result as is) and toasted half of them over a fire. Yes, I built a small fire with some of the hickory chips I was using for smoking the chocolate in a pan and used it to toast the marshmallows, a gas flame just didn't seem appropriate for this one. The other half I put in a pan and smoked while I was smoking the chocolate (I put the marshmallows in a pie pan and the melted chocolate in another pie pan and put them at one end of a large hotel pan, I then put another pie pan of smoking wood chips covered with foil with a few holes poked in it at the other end of the hotel pan, covered the whole thing tightly with foil and left it alone for about 30 minutes or so). I melted the marshmallows in 600ml of whole milk, sieved it, added a little vanilla and 500ml of 35% cream, chilled it and gave it a spin in the ice cream machine. It's not super sweet (compared to an actual marshmallow) so you may want to adjust the amount of marshmallow to your taste or add a bit of sugar. The recipe for the graham cream can be found on the Ideas in Food blog. Search for ritz ice cream. I subbed the grahams in for the ritz crackers, reduced the sugar a bit and used it chilled as a cream instead of frozen. It's a simple 4 ingredient recipe but I don't want to put it here without their permission. Their original ritz version is a thing of beauty and it translated very well to the grahams. The aerated chocolate is 200g of smoked 70% chocolate mixed with 100g of milk chocolate to mellow it a bit then charged in a cream whipper, sprayed and chilled. The crumb is 2 parts oreo crumbs, 1 part graham crumbs, 1 part melted butter, 70% chocolate, sugar and salt to taste and a bit of egg white to bind it a little. It was spread on parchment and baked for a bit then cooled and crumbled.

Ribs and biscuits. Yeah, I'll take a supersize order of that please... but will it offend the Chef if I request just plain butter on my sweet potato?

It tastes like s'mores made over a campfire. When I smoked the chocolate for the aerated chocolates I smoked half of the marshmallows for the ice cream at the same time. The other half of the marshmallows I toasted over a fire. The combination gave the ice cream that nice, toasty flavor that makes outdoors s'mores so much better than the oven versions. The graham cracker cream is a blatant rip-off of the Ideas in Food ritz ice cream recipe. I replaced the ritz with grahams and adjusted the sugar accordingly then used it as is instead of freezing it. The crumb is chocolate cookie crumbs, graham cracker crumbs, butter, 70% chocolate, sugar, salt and a little bit of egg white mixed, baked and crumbled. I'm happy with the result.

Great stuff everybody. Rob, I'm trying that cake. My cycling shorts say no but that picture says I have to. Campfire: toasted marshmallow ice cream - graham cracker cream - chocolate graham crumb - aerated smoked chocolate

It really doesn't require special equipment or precise timing. Toss some wood chips (or whatever you want to use) in a small pan, empty can, whatever. Cover with foil and poke a few small holes in the foil. Put it on the stove on fairly high heat. Melt some chocolate, put it in a pie pan or something wide and shallow and put it at one end of a large roasting pan. When a good smoke is coming from the holes in the foil move that pan to the other end of the roasting pan and seal the entire pan with foil. Leave it alone for a while. Don't worry about leaving it too long, give it 35 - 40 minutes and taste it. If it's more smoke than you want, blend it with some melted chocolate to mellow it. If it's not as much smoke as you want, re-fire the chips and seal it all up again. It works with any chocolate, cocoa butter, regular butter... pretty much anything you want to give a smoke flavor to without cooking. You can give a nice smoke flavor to seafood by laying it in a pan of ice in the roasting pan (the ice cubes smoke too, you can melt them at the end and refreeze them to add smoke to a drink or you can use the water to infuse a light smoke flavor to whatever you cook in it). Have fun with it.

The Duby's Wild Sweets: Chocolate, which is not all sweets, it has 3 sections (fish, shellfish and meat) on the savory side, has an e-version ("e" meaning easier) of every recipe. I usually look more for the "chef's recipes the way the chef actually does it" type personally but having the easier, more casual version along with the original is a kinda cool idea.

I'm going to leech onto this thread and add another twist to the question... Does anybody know of similar sources in Canada?

Toss the brisket in the smoker instead of the oven and get that swiss cheese out of there and it will probably climb a few notches in the results. Fill 'em with the nice, smokey pork moistened with a bit of your favorite sauce and serve them in spoons on a dab of whatever type of coleslaw you prefer. BBQ and coleslaw... it was contrast when contrast wasn't cool. I think jambalaya would make a nice filling, it would have to be an intensely flavored one to make it's point in small dumplings though. Or maybe a Creole BBQ shrimp or crawfish tail and serve the seasoned butter they cook in as the dipping sauce.

Yeah, I'm giving that one a go this weekend. If it's that much faster with comparable results I'll definitely adopt it.

I'm not bored with it. I do tons of things with it. I just try to keep the posts limited to things I'm particularly proud of so I don't completely bore everybody else to death with it. Play away and share what you discover and create... at minimum one of us (me) will check in to cheer you on.

This should give you a good starting point to work from.

Nice! Thanks.

Too bad it didn't work out, cool experiment though. Trying to make ideas work is fun.

This isn't actually about sous vide. For the purposes of this thread, I'm more interested in discussing compressions, infusions, etc. done with vacuum. I'm guessing your question and it's answer probably came up at some point in the extensive, and, from what I've read of it so far, informative thread on sous vide. I don't know enough about sous vide to know if a waterproof seal is the only purpose of the vacuum bag or not.

I honestly don't know what I want to compress. I'm just curious about the technique in general. I have a foodsaver-type system already, it doesn't really allow a lot of flexibility for playing around with this. I guess I'm just wondering if basic chamber vacuums are sufficient for the task, that a big high power commercial unit isn't necessary. Beyond that I'd just like to hear what others are doing with this and what they've discovered while playing around with it.

I can't find definitive information for doing this technique properly. I'd like to know what's needed equipment-wise. I realize a vacuum sealer is required and I'm pretty sure the chamber type is necessary but beyond that I don't know. Are there minimum requirements for the machine to be effective? Also, any information, experiences, mishaps, specifics, things learned, etc. anyone can/will share would be appreciated. I assume setting the vacuum is a trial and error thing specific to what you're doing and not a static number but is there a general guideline or range that is most often used? I'm not afraid to experiment, I'm just looking for a good place to jump in.

Not a new idea anymore but if you've seen Decoding Ferran Adria and you have some Iberian ham fat slouching around the place looking for something to do... When it's for a small group and I can be certain they understand pits are involved I like to leave the stems on, dip them in tempered chocolate, then coat them in unflavored pop rocks. I call 'em cherry poppers and they're always popular. I suppose they could be done pitted as well but the juice could cause problems with the dipping.

Where were you at 6 this morning when I needed you? Actually that hadn't occured to me but I'm going to give it a try. I already used the rest of the flavored syrup I made as a base for a blueberry-lilac sorbet but it will be easy enough to make more, the whole town (including my yard) is full of blooming lilacs right now. Thanks!

Note for future reference: lilac ice cream doesn't like eggs. The scenario: You walk outside and are confronted with the entire neighborhood being perfumed by all of the lilacs in full bloom. "Hmmm", you think, "that would make a nice ice cream". You collect your lilacs. You infuse cream with them. You make a flavored simple syrup with them. You adjust levels so it's not like eating a spoonful of perfume. You're almost happy. What's missing here? Ahhh... it could stand a little more richness. Egg yolks! That always does the trick for ice cream! No problem. We just custard it up and we're good to go. Sounds not so bad right? Well apparently I wasn't paying attention in art class. It seems that lilac + egg yolk = dirty mop-water grey. I now have a nice fragrant, tasty bowl of the ugliest custard base you have ever seen. Dammit.

Unzip and munch. Lightly steam and butter. Anything that doesn't turn them to mush or bury the fresh flavor. I save those dishes for frozen pea season.

I've only done one of those in my entire life. Didn't go well. The food part was fine, the date part not so much. I was told later by the friend who introduced us that she said she felt like she was intruding on my date with the food. My friend thought it was funny, her friend did not. I guess I overlooked the long lingering glances part... I don't like to be distracted when I'm working. Oh well, ya gotta have priorities.

I haven't seen that one yet Mark, I'm kinda like you in that I don't own many chocolate-specific books but I'm interested in hearing what others think about it. As for the original topic question that I somehow missed at the time, I preordered the "Frozen Desserts" book (Francisco Migoya) that's being put out by the C.I.A. later this summer so I kinda have to look forward to it. Hopefully it's good.

I was testing an idea for my pickled peach consomme so that became last nights dinner. pork belly - salad of dandelion greens, peaches and chive blossoms - pickled peach consomme The pork belly was roasted on a bed of onions with (It's good... honest!) peach tea snapple. The pickled peach consomme tastes like a light spiced peach vinaigrette minus the oil so I just dressed the salad with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper.

Sounds like fun and the pictures are great but you must have some really good friends. I don't think many of my friends would spend 8 hours at the table if I was serving them gold nuggets and salads made of hundred dollar bills.