FoodMan

I use kosher salt and never use a salt shaker, so I never have the salt clumping issue. However, I always, always pack my meat grinder parts in dry rice in a Ziploc bag. Before I did this, I would wash the metal parts and dry them and they still managed to get slightly rusty/oxidized from humitity. Now, I dry them somewhat and then into the rice bag they go. They come out perfectly dry and pristine when I need to use them. So could I believe the solution to the initial question is simple: Rice is dry. Put it in an environment where it has less water content than its surroundings, and water will move from where it is in high concentration to where it is in low concentration i:e rice. Your experiment is not very controlled. I would suggest you put something a little damp into a bag of rice and see what happens. Of course that will depend on the kind of material you decide to put in there too....

It's been months, and the vinegar finally is around the 4.5 or 4.7 PH mark. It is really delicious. I think the longer time I needed was probably because I used my homemade red wine vinegar as a base and that might not have been quiet ready yet. Now, the sweetness is much milder but still perceptible and the tartness comes through very well. Really the balance is just about perfect.

I always forllow Blumenthal's (well, it's not just his, but first time I saw it done is in the FD book when I made Beef Royal) advise to dunk any packaged meat that is going to be cooked for a long time at a relatively low temp into a pot of very hot water (around 85C) for about 2-3 minutes. This should kill any surface bacteria that might have a chance to multiply under low cooking temp over a period of a few hours before dying off.

Modernist Wheat Pasta I picked up a pasta extruder recently during Williams-Sonoma summer sale. It was down to $20 and I figured it's not a bad price to experiment a bit with making some other shapes than flat noodles. I figured that's a great excuse to try the MC pasta with Xanthan since it will help make the shapes without much sticking. Per the previous numerous posts, I was ready to add more water to the dough. I ended up with the water closer to 12% instead of 9% listed in the Best Bets on page 191. Other than that the recipe worked beautifully. I might omit the oil next time if I am using the extruder. It made the dough almost too slick and maybe omitting it will give it more of a rougher texture. The machine works pretty well but at that price has limitations. The shapes are small macaroni, large macaroni, bucatini and fusili. Limited (maybe I can buy more dies??) but all work well except for the fusili. These come out straight and I ended up twisting them by hand to get more of a corkscrew shape.

I hate to pick on what is basically a typo, but on the upside everytime I read this I get a big smile. At over 2400+ pages and a lot of recipes, that is quite the accomplishment! On a more serious note, that is some great looking stuff. What smoking technique/gear are you using to stay that low? Its the only thing holding me up right now from those recipes...I currently have only a WSM which isn't a 150 F kind of smoker. Maybe I am being exceptionally dim today, but what is the typo? I use a grill/smoker with a side fire box, this one specifically. I've had it for over 8 years now and it works great. What I do is put an aluminum pan filled with ice and water next to the food and replenish it periodically. It does a very good job of keeping the environment humid and helps with keeping the temp low. I do monitor the wet bulb temp, by a wet paper towel wrapped around a thermometer's probe and I use another one to monitor the dry bulb temp. Works pretty well without much fuss.

July 4th MC Barbecue I made pretty much everything from MC for the 4th of July barbecue. I've been smoking ribs, brisket and pulled pork on my smoker/griller for years so I had a good base of comparison. In a nutshell, everything was fantastic. The MC method of smoking for a long time at a low temperature for a long time (7hrs) and then cooking sous vide for a few days (48-72 hours) is an excellent approach. I had tried SV then smoking a while back, both for shorter periods of time than MC and the result was good, but not as great as this time around. The long smoking time infuses tons of smoke flavor into the meat without cooking it. Then the wet SV cooking environment makes for exceptionally moist and juicy bbq. You can certainly see the thick smoke ring on those spare ribs. I would say that this is by far my favorite way of cooking ribs now. Here's a list of all the recipes I made: - Spare Ribs - Pulled Pork - Lexington BBQ Sauce (the one with a bit of ketchup), for the pulled pork - Kansas City BBQ Sauce, for the ribs. Everyone loved this peppery tomatoey sauce. - Pickled red and pearl onions, used mainly in the potato salad - White Coleslaw. This is so easy, light and refreshing. Adding tart apples to the savoy cabbage works brilliantly with the pulled pork. I did let the cabbage sit in the salt a bit longer than they recommend and then squeezed out excess moisture - Potato Salad. This is so damn good that I could eat it all by itself. Fingerling and small red potatoes, 65C egg yolks, creme fraiche, pickled onions...seriousl, seriously good. Even our picky neighbor loved it although I am not sure she knew exactly what were those lovely creamy yellow half-orbs she was eating. The main downside is the capacity of my sous vide tub. The ribs and 4 lbs (in 2 pieces) of pork shoulder do not fit at the same time with enough "wiggle" room. So I had to do the pork first, remove it and then do the ribs. That's a lot of planning ahead effort.

I'm with you on that. I picked mine up from Frank on Wednesday. It heats the water up very quickly and holds temperature beautifully. Here's a picture - I'm going to have fun with this one. I'm finally pulling the big things out of the freezer - the eye of round, the whole brisket - all those things that certainly didn't fit in my old set up with the slow cooker. He was mentioning that his free shipping is world wide. My Immersion Circulator is has not crapped out yet, but after some research, it looks like this setup is my best bet should I need a replacement. That's unless a good deal pops up on eBay for a nice IC of course. I am not interested in a Sous Vide Supreme at all seeing as I can get the more versatile FMM for less money. Fingers crossed my IC stays in good condition till at least Christmas.

Sous Vide Systems IC As far as I can tell through various searches here, we have not discussed this machine before (sorry if we I missed it). So, I might need a new IC or other rig soonish since I think my old eBay IC might be ready to choke. I sure hope not, because I promised my dear wife that no expensive crap will be bought this year since getting MC. Anyways, a little research couldn't hurt though. So, anyone has this particular model or heard anything about it? What do you guys think? Is it worth buying this and saving about $300 over a Polyscience model? It does bug me a bit that they only give me a 6 mth warranty. OTOH, I would not mind supporting a small mom and pop operation if it's a good product. From their About page: "Sous Vide Systems is a father and son team out of North Carolina. As a chef in training in several restaurants, I was taught ,and enjoyed ,working with sous vide. I wanted to prepare similar dishes for my wife on my days off, however I could not afford an immersion circulator. Not to be discouraged, I began buying, refurbishing and reselling used units. After several months, I could afford to keep one for my personal use. My co-workers were envious and began to borrow mine when they wanted to prepare special meals at home. I realized that if an affordable, reliable unit was available, anyone who wanted to experiment with sous vide cooking could do so. Through months of thought, design, and trials with my electronics engineer father, we developed the SousVide EZ. - By Chef Daniel Brock."

I forgot to report back on the bacon, but I really do not have much to add to others' comments. It is definitly the best bacon I've made so far. Since my wife is not crazy about star anise, I might change it up and use other flavorings next time (which will be very soon and with more meat). It was my first time monitoring the wet-bulb temeprature via a thermometer with a wet paper towel wrapped aroung it's probe. That was pretty damn cool and I will be using the same process for brisket and other slow cooked meats. To maintain some form of humidity I just used a large aluminum tray and filled it with ice water every hour or so. The belly I used had no boned in it and I did not use the fermento or Sodium Erythrobate.

The recipe for croissants from this book is the best I've tried so far and the most detailed. It produced some fantastic (rose perfectly, flaky, slight chew, buttery but not greasy,...) results that I served, as per our tradition, for Mother's Day breakfast. Like any croissant recipe, this is not easy or hassle-free. However, if you are up for a small and fun challenge and follow the instructions closely, the results should be worht the effort. I blogged some more about it here.

Might not be the exact same thing, but I would think one can be used as a sub for the other.

Pissaladiere I really cannot do this pie justice with my picture. I used what I had on hand to make it since I needed to use up a bunch of onions. So, I used yellow onions and regular green olives instead of Nicoise. The idea of adding the onion juice to the dough is brilliant and adds another layer of flavor. I also really love this version with the yeast dough as opposed to the many recipes that use puff pastry or pate brisee. It makes for a hearty, crispy/chewy and lighter pie that is very addictive.

Thanks guys. I'll try adding in the fruit after primary next time around. I'll report back on the strawberry one when it is ready.

Well, I never boil it so as not to set the pectin and make jam! I add them at flame out. I figured the high heart is needed to deactivate any enzymes and kill any nasties.

I'd zap them in the microwave for 30 seconds to kill any microbes and add them to the secondary. In general, flowers in the boil/primary are going to lose too much of their essential oils and flavors. But I have not worked with elderberry flowers -- if they taste good steeped, toss them in the secondary. If they need to be boiled to bring out the flavor, then do that as close to flameout as possible. They work better steeped in hot water I think, not necessarily boiled. The more I think about it, I might just skip them all together. I do not want the beer to have a greenish tinge. They do that. We'll see. I ended up not using them because of the color issue I mentioned above and I did not think their mild fragrance would make a difference. I am interested with what everyone thinks about using fresh fruit (esp. berries) in beer. What is the best way to include them. I have made a cherry ale by adding the cherries (mashed up) at flame-out and left them in the fermenter for 5 days before scooping them all off. That worked well. I am doing the same thing for the strawberries this time around. I still have a couple of weeks at least before I can tell how the beer ends up working out. Any thoughts?

So? The guy has set himself up as an oracle. Harold McGee he is not. Indeed, my fantasy of a GE episode is AB pontificating away and McGee walking on set, backhanding him and telling him he is wrong, wrong, wrong and then explaining why. Sort of a riff on Woody Allen having Marshall McCluan (sp) step out of the crowd in Annie Hall to correct some pretentious know-it-all. And that...makes no sense.

He did? I thought he talked about umami several times on GE. What am I missing? Check out this blog post, which links to an episode where he suggests that the concept of umami is nothing but marketing hooey, and explicitly calls umami "all smoke and mirrors." Has he revisited the issue since that episode? As I said, I haven't watched the show rigorously. haha...well the funny thing is he does not say anything prticularly wrong and does not deny umami exists. He just seems like he does not like the word Umami and it's "overuse"! Maybe he would have been happy with "Deliciousness" Pretty stupid of him to say that, but then again he has said some dumb things off and on (the Modernist Cuisine comment comes to mind of course). Thanks for the link.

Yup... he was really wrong a lot on that one... It does make me wonder if his skill at quickly studying and assimilating info about a new subject and turning it into a show were as off on other subjects I don't know so well. I just re-watched the brewing episode. Outside of sanitizing with bleach, there was nothing horribly wrong with the information presented. He did a mini mash, sparged through a colander, added extract to the boil, two hop additions, chilled with ice (not really a big deal, although a dedicated chiller should have been mentioned), fermented out (he said when the bubbles are 1 minute apart, the yeast is "mostly dead" -- that's wrong, of course), and then used table sugar to prime the bottles (he really should have used priming sugar). His beer isn't going to be nearly as good as what I make. But I'd take one over a domestic "Lite" beer. So the only "wrong" thing I can point to is the fermentation is done when bubbles are a minute apart statement. I still sanitize with bleach (diluted in water) as do lots of brewers. I have not see the episode recently and at the time I did see it I was not brewing beer yet so of course nothing stood out to me as wrong. I know a lot better now, but like you said, that beer he made is not going to be bad. In the grand scheme of things, GE was not a perfect show (What is?), and many might not like his "shtick" but in my book his contributions to the cooking world are far into the net postitive side.

He did? I thought he talked about umami several times on GE. What am I missing?

Any salt with some texture and some "other" mineral content to it rather than pure NaCl. These are the slightly more costly salts. like: - Grey Maldon - Pink Salt - Black Lava - Fleur de Sel - Flor de Sal This is by no means and exhaustive list, but should give you an idea what we are trying to say. Again, I would not worry about the kind of salt to use. Just use Kosher salt in most everything and a couple of finishing salts when plating if you want to. Just avoid "Table Salt" the one that has iodine added to it and is very finely ground. Mostly marketing Rock salt has larger crystals and dissolves slower, so that is a possible reason to use it in the cure where you do not want all the salt to be dissolved. I am sure you can use Kosher salt here as well with slightly different results.

I have my doubts as to whether any such tastes can be detected once the salts are dissolved/diluted into other ingredients at culinarily-appropriate salinity levels. The 2001 Leatherhead Food Research study suggests that it can't be. In pure-undiluted form (i.e., undisolved and used as a "finishing salt") it's clear that different sea salts make a different taste sensation. The extent to which this is due to the mineral content as opposed to the shape and size of the crystal is an open question, but the fact that differences are extremely difficult to detect when the salts are dissolved into water suggests that shape and size are the most important. Makes sense to me. I am sure the difference is perceptible if it is used as a finishing salt, but when used in a pot of pasta sauce or soup, I do not think so.

"G.E. fans, I've decided to cut the half hour series at 249 eps. There will be 3 new 1 hour eps this year and that's it. But mourn not. New things brew on the horizon..."good" things." From Serious Eats I've always loved Good Eats and probably learned more from it than any other cooking show and most cookbooks. Following Good Eats through the years is what kept me curious about cooking and food science. The first episode I ever saw was the baby back ribs one...that made for some good ribs... Anyways, I will miss Good Eats even if it has not been as relevant to me in more recent years as it was 3 or 4 years ago. I enjoyed watching it and still found bits and pieces of useful information. IMHO, this really is the last of the good cooking shows that FN had.

More or less. I'm betting even those people will not be able to discern any difference in a stew or a roasted chicken unless the salt is just sprinkled on top after the food is done cooking. I read some of Bitterman's book and he strikes me as a bit...obnoxious honestly. We can romanticize salt as much as we want, but in the end it is 99%, if not more, NaCl and in 99% of applications Kosher salt is perfectly fine (Oh that horrible industrial product according to Bitterman). Other salts (I have black salt, pink salt, and fleur de sel) are finishing salts. The only time they make a difference is when sprinkled on a finished dish to add an interesting textural contrast to it, a hit of mineral taste and maybe a neat visual counterpoint. Don't get me started on "sea salt"...(as opposed to what exactly? Land Salt?) So, I would not worry about the kind of salt to use skyhskyh. Just use Kosher salt in most everything and a couple of finishing salts when plating if you want to.

I would love to see those cheese slices. It's great that it worked out well with blue cheese. Where the onions what you would call caramelized onions with a good texture or where they closer to onion jam? My MC bacon comes out of the cure today and hopefully will be smoked next weekend. Looking forward to that.

I'd zap them in the microwave for 30 seconds to kill any microbes and add them to the secondary. In general, flowers in the boil/primary are going to lose too much of their essential oils and flavors. But I have not worked with elderberry flowers -- if they taste good steeped, toss them in the secondary. If they need to be boiled to bring out the flavor, then do that as close to flameout as possible. They work better steeped in hot water I think, not necessarily boiled. The more I think about it, I might just skip them all together. I do not want the beer to have a greenish tinge. They do that. We'll see.