FoodMan

No, the recipe does not instruct you to do so and I did not. Storing the meat separately will make the liquid easier to defat though.

A meaty vegetable of some sort might work. For some reason Jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes) come to mind (these will need much less cooking time than mushrooms though). Just brown them well and toss them in for the last thirty minutes or so. I do think the flavor will be much different though without any dried porcini liquid in there. You'll need something to flavor the liquid, maybe a few chopped and browned leeks? Again this will be a completely different dish, but it sounds good to me.

"Pork Daube with Wild Mushrooms" I started working on this Friday evening for a Sunday dinner. Sure, it needs some forethought, but most of the work is quick and most of the time spent is simply marinating the meat and gently simmering it. So, Friday night I marinated the pork shoulder in a mixture of Gewrztraminer, onions, carrots, a spice sachet that included juniper, lavender and pepper, and an herb bundle. That’s all for day one. Like many a French stew the next step involved draining the meat and reserving the marinade. The meat is then browned and transferred to a clay pot along with browned onions and carrots. Lining the clay pot are several pieces of fresh pork skin. The skin here will add tremendous body to the resulting stew due to it’s very high level of unctuous collagen. The reserved marinade is simmered with dried porcini soaking water to make a fragrant flavorful braising liquid (the house just smells heavenly due to the dried porcini – simply amazing stuff). After topping the meat in the pot with the braising liquid, the whole thing goes in the oven for a couple of hours, then it is cooled until the next day. A few hours before dinner, I saute a bunch of cremini mushrooms and toss them in with the meat. Then it goes back in the oven for a few more hours until dinner time. The end result is deeply flavored with what I think of as “winter forest flavors” (dried and fresh mushrooms, juniper, thyme, pork, wine). The cooking juices where rich and delicious and the meat amazing. I served this with nothing more than homebaked French bread. A couple of points to keep in mind if making this dish: First, and this is true of any dish cooked in a clay pot probably, clay pots differ a lot in conductivity. I used a Colombian La Chamba pot not a Daubiere like Paula does. I ended up having to cook the dish a couple of extra hours at 250F to get to the proper tenderness. So plan accordingly and give yourself some more time than the recipe specifies. Second, There is an error/omission in the recipe. For a Paula recipe this is unusual given how thorough she is, but it happens and she was very quick to reply to my email for a correction (thanks!). The dried porcini, after being soaked, drained and chopped are never used. I confirmed with Paula that these need to go in the pan in step 6 along with the onions and carrots. Like all stews or daubes, this is so much better the next day in more ways than one. More on that later.

The premier sucked IMO. The "secret ingredient(s)" were selected for no other reason than shock and novelty. I hope they tone down the "stupid ingredient that they've never even remotely come across or heard of it or anything like it" shtick in future episodes. I am rooting Dominique Crenn for the time being. She's cute and has a great accent. We'll see if she can cook when given ingredients other than sea cucumber.

oh boy. from 12 - 48 hrs? That's quiet a range. I might give my tri tip 24 hours at 55.5 C then and see what happens. It may largely be a matter of personal taste as to what you prefer. It is possible that the sourcing of the meat would make a difference. But I suspect that it is mostly a matter of personal preference. Which will be true of most of the parameters. My recommendation is to do one for 12 hours and sample it and put it back in the bath if it isn't tender enough. I have had pretty similar results tenderness-wise with both very high-quality and medium-quality meat. 12 hours worked great in this case. The beef was about 2 inches thick at it's widest part and maybe 3/4 inches at the thinnest. It was rubbed with a mixture of miso, Ancho chile, honey and soy and finished with a quick sear. It came out moist and tender (even the slices I stupidly sliced with the grain). I served it with a potato risotto, leek tartar and a sauce made fromt the cooking juices and stock. The leftovers make excellent cold beef sandwiches. The leeks definitly needed more than an hour at 85C. They were a still unpleasantly tough and had to be finished in the microwave.

oh boy. from 12 - 48 hrs? That's quiet a range. I might give my tri tip 24 hours at 55.5 C then and see what happens.

I've been experimenting with perfect pork belly temp as well. 170F / 12 hours makes for excellent meat. I am curious about the skin though. Are you (or anyone else) cooking it in the bag with the skin? then what? Do you remove and sear or leave it on and sear? I've been removing the skin, but leaving a good layer of fat on, thinking it might not be soft enough to crisp and eat. I do miss the crispy cross hatch skin on the belly though and been meaning to give it a shot. Any thoughts? Also, I am planning some SV leeks very soon to go with beef. I think for all vegetables, 85C is the majic number, but will 30-45 minutes be good enough for cooking leeks assuming no further cooking will be done?

Robert- You should not go cheap for cling wrap that you want to cook with. The brand I use is Saran Wrap Premium. It does not contain the "bad plasticizers" that can leach into food and is good for cooking. Sorry, not very scientific of an answer, but I do not have any of my references here. It is one of the brands that Michel Richard recommends for such procedures in his book "Happy in the Kitchen" (amazing book BTW).

Nick- I'm curious, if you are not using a FoodSaver-type machine to vaccum pack, why bother with the ice cubes? It should be an easy enough process to add liquid to Ziploc, squeeze the air out (or use the "fill in water bath" technique) and then seal without any danger of sucking out the liquid/marinade. I brine in Ziploc bags all the time using a lot of liquid.

I've never tried it, but I'm thinking just deep frying these is not a good idea. You will most likely end up with one of two results: - Disntegrated gnocchi in the hot oil - A tough crispy exterior, with a dense raw interior The gentle simmering in water is what make them hold their shape together, cook slowly and turn nice and light.

What's a good time/temp to cook a non-jaccarded trip tip piece of beef? This is not a very common cut here in Houston, Tx and I've never cooked it before (SV or traditionally). Is it similar to a chuck roast in texture? So, is 132F/24 hrs good? The recipe I'm probably going to use is from Adam Perry Lang's BBQ book. He marinates it with herbs and honey I think.

I am waiting for my copy of the new "reduced in size and price" copy (same exact content of the $200 one though), in October. I guess I was one of the few who did not know about this copy until Amazon "recommended" it recently. Definitly glad that Blumenthal decided to publish this and make it more accessible. BTW, another Alinea cook the book blog is Martin Lindsay's, click here for it. It is fantastic and by far the best of such blogs there is IMHO. The amount of effort he goes through to accurately duplicate the recipes is both fun to read and very educational for those of us who attempt some recipes.

I really like the Saran wrap idea. IT makes sense for when the meat is lightly marinated and will give it a try next time in an effort to get as tight a package as possible. Like others, I never manage to think far in advance to have frozen marinades or oil or what have you. It also always seems like when I do add a cube of frozen liquid into the bag, when it melts, the contents of the FS bag are very loose. On the other hand I usually do what Sam just suggested, or a variation of it, if I want to bag something with a significant amount of liquid. Having a long "tail" is a bit wasteful but very helpful in this case.

My neighbor has promised to fill my chest freezer with deer meat this year and the odd hog and game birds. I sure hope he comes through. The only game meat I cooked Sous Vide so far was a few months back. I made a fantastic dish from Gordon Ramsay's book using a venison backstrap. I packed the meat with a bit of butter, fresh thyme, salt and pepper. I let it cook in the water bath at 135 F for about 2 hours. It really was "done" in a little over an hour (following nathan's tables) but I had some more prep to do. So, I let sit in the IC tub until I was ready to sear it in very hot clarified butter in my cast iron skillet. It was perfectly cooked, juicy, tasty and looked great. The dish also included parsnip puree, braised cabbage, beets, sauteed mushrooms and red wine sauce. I have more details here if you are interested On a different note, no matter what I do, the FoodSaver bags if "cooked" for a long time manage to start floating in some cases. This is defintily due to exapnding small air pockets in the bags. These miniature pockets that are barely visible at the start of cooking expand and cause the bag to float. Any perfect solutions for this? I've taken to "hooking" bags that I think might float to a make shift weight I made. I basically packed a handful of those decorative marble-like glass balls that my wife used in her vases in a small FoodSaver bag. This works good, but I am wondering if there is a better way. For short cookign times it's no problem, I just do not like floaters if I'm CSV for 10-48 hours. Does this bag-floating happen with Chamber Vaccum machines BTW? Just curious.

Chipotle was a problem at one point. We had everything with the damn smoked peppers in it. Chipotle mayo, ketchup, mustard, yogurt, sauces (western or otherwise), wraps, sandwiches, and who knows maybe even desserts! That was overload. I do not see much of a problem with the cilantro, lime chili thing. It's simply a classic combo in many cuisines like Southeast asian. When I see the CLC Mayo popping up, then I'll worry.

I had to look back to see what you were talking about, and yes!! ChefCrash--please visit Labib's Bakery to try the saj manaeesh FoodMan is talking about! And see if you can get that recipe, too! While you're in Syria, perhaps you can try baklava from many different bakeries. I still believe the best baklava/baqlawa I've ever had was Syrian, but I don't know why it was the best. I do think Middle Eastern baklava/baqlawa is much better than the Greek version, though. ← Sure taste is subjective and all, but I certainly agree, Lebanese Baklava is far superior IMO to Greek. It is milder and does not use honey and much spicing. As far as best one? I believe a certain Hallab in Tripoli makes the best. Period. IT really is scary good. I also posted about it a couple of times, here is one example. Hope ChefCrash gets a chance to go there too. Also, here is the Labib post.

Ah! Lucky you. We probly won't be able to make it till next year. Do try and go to Labib's Bakery in Beirut for the most delicious and unusual Saj Manaeesh. I posted about it and put it on my blog a wile back. Let me know if you cannot find it. I WANT that shawarma recipe if you do get it . Have fun and be safe.

Less sugars for the acidophillus to ferment might, not the quantity of acidophillus. ← Thanks for the tip Jason. That does make sense more than my theory.

For some reason, I thought I already updated this thread. I guess not. Well, the recipe I made and tested back in January was that of Sopressata from Ruhlman's book. I divided in half and use Bactoferm in one and two tablets of the Acidophillus in the other half. I fermented them following the instructions in the book and hung them to dry cure in the fridge, loosely encased in a giant ziplock bag to maintain humidity. Fast forward a month and half or so and I got 4 links (~2 in. diameter) of perfectly cured and dried salami. As far as I could tell there was no discernible difference in the look or feel of the batches. Here they are, along with some homemade terrine I served for a few friends. I honestly do not remember which was which, but like I said, they looked identical. Taste Test? Well, it was unanimous. Both batches were very good, but the Bactoferm one had the edge. It was milder and mellower. The Acidophillus one tasted more acidic and as one taster note, more aggressive. Like I said though, these are very minor distinctions and we devoured both with no problem. Bottom line: I would use Acidophillus in a heart beat. It makes a great salami, is easy to store, buy and use. It is certainly cheaper than the Bactoferm. Now, if I am going to be a salami-making fiend, then yes, I would rather go the more proper way and buy different strains of starter for different sausages. I only make this type of sausage once every few months. I wonder of using less Acidophillus would help to make the salami less "aggressive". More testing is needed I guess.

The cover is cool and useful, but the book so far has been worth the $25 due to it's content. Of course it is his content and what he believes is right and I doubt he makes any claim otherwise. Also, it is worth noting that he make it clear from the onset in the intro, that Ratio is not a cooking bible! He clearly states that cooking is infinitly nuanced, common sense should be used and proper technique is paramount. Ratio is a baselineto work from. That's all. The writing is superb and engaging and with the dreck of mediocre recipe books that gets released every year, this one ius really a gem. So far I gave the Genoise cake a spin using the 1:1:1 ratio of fat, flour and eggs and you know what? It worked fantastically well even though I had my suspicions. IT had a perfect texture in both a round cake form for layering and as a sheet cake to roll or make small cakes from. I even made a cocoa version by subbing some cocoa for the flour. The bread 5:3 ratio also worked out perfectly for me and I am no amateur baker. It is very good to remember a ratio like that. Is that worth $25? To me it is. And no...it does not have a ratio for "like dinner". Even asking that is simply rediculous and tells me you are simply "like poking fun" for fun's sake. I'm guessing sausage ratios do not count as "dinner" either. Cons: Not using metric weights in the recipes. Ask Dorie Greenspan how tough it is to get weights in recipes period (see the thread about baking from her book for a discussion about that with her)! Let alone both Imperial and Metric. Other than that, I'm sure not all recipes are perfect and there are errors. But please, let's "discuss" the book based on what it is trying to do.

I am ssuming you are searing the burgers after CSV. Right?

I would think the STAB3000 would work, but I really do not think it is essential. So, yes, to make this recipe at home you might have to change the mix since you do not have a pacojet. I don't have one either, but have not given the ice cream recipes from Alinea a try yet.

Blackberry, Coffee, Mint, Smoke Scatter brained me, I completely forgot to buy the stupid cigar for the Tobacco piece of this. So, I made it coffee flavored instead. This is easy to make, but looks impressive and tastes fantastic.

That's exactly how they do it. Nothing to it.

Thanks Chris. I will try that. I was mostly concerned with the apparent complete lack of "gurgling" in the airlock. I've never seen this before. ← ← I wanted to wait till I bottle the batch before updating, but since you asked . In short, and as far as I can tell, it seems like my batch is fine. Maybe the fermenter's top was not completely closed? This would explain the no gurgling in the airlock, but I found no proof of that. I did not want to wait till bottling day to find out if this is a complete waste. So, a week into the fermentation I opened the fermenting bucket and took a whif. It smelled pretty nice to me. No major "funky" smells. Then with a very well sanitized ladle I removed about 2 cups worth of wort into a clean bowl. I tasted some of it straight first. Again, tasted pretty nice but a bit on the sweet side. I went ahead and bottled the remaining contents of that bowl into a small bottle with a spoon of honey for priming to see how it would behave. I replaced the top back on the fermenting bucket, sanitized and reinserted the airolock. That one "test" bottle was opened after 4 days. It was certainly active and overcarbonated. I think I used too much honey, but I wanted to see what would happen and if the yeast is still active. The taste was again pretty nice but still a touch sweet. Since I read that honey is a bit slower to ferment I decided to give the beer an extra week or so before bottling. By this weekend it would be 3 weeks and everything from the airlock smells fine. I will either bottle this weekend or give it one more week (total of 4) at the most and hope for the best. What do you think? Oh, since this beer seems to have come back from the dead, it is christened "Zombie Honey Amber". I'll update once I taste it, a week or two after bottling and report how it eventually turned out.