Tri2Cook

Thanks dejaq! That was me that sent the message but, thanks to some help from Kerry Beal, I found both white and dark pate a glacer. I'm already getting everything ready to go for working through your awesome demo. I already keep most of what's required on hand anyway. I was only missing the pate a glacer and I don't have bronze gelatin (for the white glaze), just gold, but I'll adjust or just order some bronze. I know this isn't going to be anywhere near as easy as you make it look but it's going to be fun.

Yeah, it doesn't sound too exciting and it's not too exciting cold. Actually, it's not super exciting warm either but it tastes like what it is and that was my goal. Actually getting the flavor into the water didn't turn out to be as easy as just pureed fried eggs in water. That was my first failed batch. What finally worked was eggs fried well above and beyond what should be done to any egg, raw egg yolks (that was the part that was most difficult to get across, the first batch just tasted like boiled egg whites), a few peppercorns and a dose of brown butter all simmered in water, strained, reduced and filtered. I wasn't actually after something I would eat or serve to someone else with this, just playing with moving flavors to another medium without all the fancy (pronounced: expensive) gadgets that are out there. Now if somebody wants to buy me a Rotaval or Heidolph evaporator (or a Gastrovac!) I'll be glad to accept. Might as well throw in a Clarimax while they're at it and I can dispense with the whole raft or freeze filtering process for consommes.

Hmmm. I don't know. I fought hard to make sure we didn't bring in frozen fries (one of our suppliers was trying to schmooz the boss on them for a while), I think I'd feel like a bit of a hypocrite if I suggested we tried any other frozen spuds. Interesting though.

My line is drawn when I plan the menu. If I plan a menu around specific dishes, that is what I serve. I don't do dinner parties often but, when I do, I always say (in these exact words too) to the known finicky people I invite "I don't want to hear any of that picky 'I'm-not-eating-that' sh!t from you either". Yeah, I realize that's not overly polite but my friends and family are used to me by now. Now if the event is centered around a particular person I will take their likes and dislikes into account and of course I will always make allowances for allergies. I'm in the process of designing a dinner party menu for a person who has some very peculiar and restrictive allergies and I'm enjoying the challenge. My goal is to have everyone think "it was good", not "it was good considering the restrictions". I don't want to put a spotlight on the fact that I had to make allowances for her allergies, I just want her to relax and enjoy a nice meal with a group of people without having special dishes paraded out to her making her feel like she's the odd person.

Food tv Canada seems to be cutting chunks out of some of the episodes compared to the BBC broadcasts. I noticed on the steak episode that it jumped from him talking in the aging cooler to him tasting in the dining room. There was supposed to be a segment in between where he was showing the meat at different points of aging that they were going to taste-test. Not that it changes the overall point, I just hate when any show is butchered to make more room for commercials. Even with the edits, this is still the most interesting thing that's been on foodtv since Decoding Ferran Adria. I'm not usually a fan of cooking show books, don't own a single one, but I'm going to order this one. I'm curious how well this show is being received by the general foodtv audience though. He designs everything so it can be done by pretty much anyone at home but he doesn't compromise the results so that it's always particularly easy for anyone to do. This is no "30 Minute Messes" or "Open 2 Boxes and a Can with Sandra Lee". I think a lot of people may watch it and think "hmmm... cool" but I'm not so sure many watch it and think "hmmm... I'm going to try that". Personally, I intend to do all of them which is something I've never done with any book. Not so much because of the particular dishes involved but because I think it may make a good launching pad for inspiration. I like the way the man thinks about food.

If you didn't find it, it's HERE.

I think you may be stretching the boundaries of what a cheat is. Canned tomatoes quite often are a much better choice than what's available fresh. Ketchup is a condiment. Yes, I know it's used as an ingredient too but I don't think buying ketchup is committing a fraud. Buying vitamin C powder and dry milk powder are definitely not cheats, how else would you get them? My worst offense to date... when we first added catering as a side venture at work I would often use boxed cake mixes and pile on fresh made buttercream to disguise it. I no longer do that though.

Very nice. I'm not a chocoholic but I think I could make a good try at becoming one in that room.

I'm enjoying the show. I like his approach to finding ways to get the flavors, aromas and textures he wants no matter what it takes. This show and Good Eats are pretty much the only shows I watch on food tv now (I might be tempted to watch some of Gale Gand's show if food tv in Canada carried it), they seem to get rid of most of the decent shows and keep adding more and more fluff.

Nope, can't claim that one. It's from THIS THREAD. My only contribution to it was the layer of milk chocolate and orange ganache between the cake and the glaze. That tart looks awesome... and nice ring too. Congrats!

Yeah, I noticed that and was a bit disappointed that mine wasn't nice and dark like that. I used Schokinag 64% and Callebaut cocoa. I'm guessing the chocolate makes its presence known better with yours based on the intensity of color. Nobody complained but I do plan to try something a little more intense next time. I also used very finely ground almonds, almost almond flour consistency, so that may have made a difference in the color as well. Not really sure. Overall I was happy with it but there are a few little tweaks I intend to try just for fun. My glaze didn't turn out as nice and dark and shiny as yours either and I followed the recipe you posted to the letter other than the brand of cocoa so I'd say that was possibly a factor in the cake as well.

Inspired by Rob's pics and description of the boiled orange cake, I had to give it a try. I'm glad I did. Very tasty and heavy and dense (my cake preference any time so that's perfect). I used satsuma mandarins for the oranges and put a thin layer of milk chocolate and orange ganache on top before the glaze. Everybody that tried it loved it.

This is a really good cake, I'll definitely make it again. I topped mine with a thin layer of milk chocolate and orange ganache before I glazed it. Thanks to The Old Foodie for the recipe and to Rob for making it and inspiring me to give it a try. Sorry about the springform bottom, this one was just for everybody to munch so I didn't bother trying to pretty up the presentation.

This thread is fun. From the department of weird, fried egg consomme. I don't have a practical use for this but it was an idea I wanted to try and it worked. The flavor is there and it clarified nicely. You can distinctly taste the egg, that they were cooked in butter, that they were fried (you can taste the caramelization) and you can pick up the pepper they were seasoned with. It took a little playing around and there were a couple of unsuccesful batches before I got it right. I'm happy it worked even if I never do it again.

Thanks for the encouragement but actually the pastry bug bit me a long time ago. It's the cake decorating bug that I've managed to avoid... and I don't think it got me this time either. If anything, it's strengthened my resolve to not add that to my list of things I do. I think cake artists are awesome but I don't think the desire to become one is going to happen with me.

I called the friend who makes the ones I usually beg for. She uses ground beef, a little of that five pepper pork sausage from the grocery store, bacon, rice, salt and pepper for the filling. The beef and rice are predominant with a little kick from the sausage and bacon. I asked her about the tomato sauce she bakes it in and she sounded kinda embarrassed and said "it's just regular canned tomato juice, the kind you buy to drink". I told her no need to be embarrassed on my account, I don't let my ears tell me what tastes good. These are basic, simple, nothing fancy... and I love 'em.

True. The problem is the majority that equate words like artisan with "weird" or "expensive". They need to learn that artisan doesn't just mean things like wild yeast foccacia with oil cured olives, anchovies and fresh rosemary (drool). That it can be a simple loaf of white sandwich bread for not much (if any) more money than the grocery store rubber and packing foam stuff.

I love cabbage rolls. I like them simple with meat and rice in the filling and baked with a little basic tomato sauce. Definitely no raisins. prasantrin - funny you should mention those whole heads of soured cabbage. I've never tried it but I was looking at them in the store recently and thinking "I'm tempted to buy that but what am I going to do with it?". Never occured to me to use it as cabbage roll wrappers (I don't usually make cabbage rolls, I just do a lot of hinting if someone I know is making them) but that sounds interesting.

Ok, I'm convinced. I'm giving this one a try. I have oranges (satsumas) tucked away on a back burner boiling right now. I'm breaking one of my own rules (when using someone elses recipe, always do it their way the first time) and baking it as small individual cakes so we'll see how it goes. EDIT: I lied. I have another project going on that requires individual cakes and, since that one is for a paying customer, it gets priority. So time constraints sent the boiled orange cake to a springform after all.

I thought the same so I made it again but instead of sticking with the original recipe I blended the roasted banana mixture with a custard base and all that extra fat from the cream and yolks did the trick. It was like a smooth, creamy spoonful of banana bread.

Make a mousse of white chocolate, basil infused cream and mascarpone, pack it in a dome mold with a chocolate basil cake base, use the mirror glazing demo here to cover it subbing a basil-green for the blue in the demo and plate it with a basil syrup, something crunchy (caramel decoration or maybe chocolate basil tuille or something) and some sugared basil leaves. Might be horrible but that's just off the top of my head. Edited to remove a bunch of non-helpful rambling.

Thanks Kerry. I have the pdf version of their catalog but must have overlooked that when I read through it. I was going to contact them about some other stuff anyway and find out if I can order direct or if I'm going to have to deal with them through work (the owner is good about letting me use the business to order personal stuff from places that won't do sales to individuals, the perks of an independent business and a boss who's also a friend) so I'll check into that as well. Thanks for the recipe Rob, I'm going to give it a try. I still want to give the glazes in this demo a try but yours will give me another alternative (always a good thing) and something to try while I gather what I need for the others.

I may have to try other alternatives as well. Pate a Glacer is easy to find through online vendors but none of them seem to ship to Canada. Canada is in a whole time warp thing when it comes to shopping online. I think people camping at the summit of Everest have better odds of getting stuff online than we do here.

I was going to make my own following the recipes above but the pate a glace white and pate a glace brune called for in the two recipes are what I'm having trouble finding. Everything in the recipes is stuff I always have around except for those two items. Did you use the recipe in this demo or do you have one of your own?

Looks good Rob. Nice and shiny. I've been wanting to try this since I first read this demo quite a while back but I've had no luck at all finding pate a glace here in Canada or through an online vendor.