Chris Hennes

I disagree completely. Yes, the flavor changes, and yes, some of it is changing because it's migrating through the bag into the water. But there is a clear flavor difference between the smoked and unsmoked.

Yep, but it takes a long time (overnight, typically). You might be better off just learning the seeding method for tempering chocolate, if you ever plan to do any more chocolate work.

Smoking before versus after gives you two different flavors: I like them both, they are just different. And how much smoke flavor you like in your ribs is a matter of personal preference, though I agree that at some point you stop having "smoke flavored ribs" and start to have "rib flavored smoke." I just think it's a bit more than an hour.

I somehow missed this: according to the product packaging, it's pronounce "fah-YEH!" Don't forget the exclamation mark!

I had no idea that was called "basted" ... I frankly never had any idea what "basted" meant, WRT eggs, actually. So is that terminology actually common enough to use at a diner?

You're an old-school curmudgeon. SV is easy as can be, and basically foolproof. Why not SV it?

Thanks for the comments, Rory: this one is on my short list. For the crackers: did you measure the diameter of your roll, or just eyeball it?

Careful there: those scales are not "accurate" to 1g, they simply display in 1g increments: they are typically only accurate to ±2g or ±3g. To weigh small quantities (say under ten grams) you should definitely be using a finer scale (should display to at least 0.1g, if not 0.01g).

It has way more ganache recipes in it: the 2007 book was sort of all over the place in what it covered. This one is just ganache. I almost never use the first volume anymore.

No, only when I need the space and the higher temps; I did tonight's fish in a small stockpot.

I had expressed some concern about the device's temperature stability in my earlier review, but tonight was the first chance I really got to test it out on a delicate item where that would have been an issue. I made a cod filet cooked at 41°C and once the temp settled in it stayed rock solid for the half hour or so the fish cooked. The texture was right, so the thermostat and controller seem to be able to handle that sort of task without difficulty.

Carrageenan might be a better gelling agent than agar/gelatin if there is concern about it getting warm: I made a iota/kappa-thickened custard last week that got molded and then served at 160°F, and it's pretty easy to handle when cold.

Yep! Plum, Africa, Lavender, Toscana:

Playing around with some other decoration techniques and different colors:

Cheat: make the sugar topping completely separate and plate it atop the finished dish at service time.

I agree with Jaymes, this is almost certainly the easiest route to go. I suspect you could figure out a way to go all Modernist on it (I do a lot of "custards" using various gelling agents), but I don't think it's necessary, these Mexican "impossible" cakes are probably just what you are looking for.

Yeah, baking is particularly tricky: unless the author is really good at describing the expected texture of a dough it's a bit of a crap shoot, and it barely matters how carefully you measure. Without knowing what you're supposed to end up with you're stuck with just following the recipe as best you can and resigning yourself to some trial and error.

I guess it's time to get rolling on the preparations for Friday night! Four ganaches from Wybauw's second book (sort of... I changed them all to intensify the flavors, of course): From left to right: "Africa," "Plum," "Toscana," "Lavender."

This. Accuracy is great when you are trying to precisely recreate someone else's recipe, but it only matters if they were accurate, too. And they probably weren't. Taste, taste, taste.

It turns out I needn't have worried: I went ahead and used a quite acidic prepared mustard, cooked at 65°C for 30 hours, and the meat texture suffered no ill effects (and tasted fantastic).

I made a pork hash tonight for dinner: sous vide pork shoulder, potatoes, onions, sauce from the bag liquids, mustard, and cream. Plenty of sauce there and an egg didn't seem appropriate:

No arguments here, just pointing out that it's possible that the online errata isn't as out of date as it appears.

I think the website version (rather than the PDF) is newer: at least, the two corrections I sent in last week are up there.

For that you need either a) a table like the ones in Modernist Cuisine, which list the weight of a large range of ingredients, or b) a new recipe . Neither is a very appealing option, but again, if you want to start talking about accuracy, then it's time to upgrade your measuring utensils and your cookbooks. There's no point in worrying about it if your recipes were written with a ton of slop in mind.

You can't really tell from that photo (of course, I posted one that showed the dish in its best light, not its worst!) but the triangular sections didn't work well, the smaller acute angle was too thin to support the custard. I wanted triangles because it's simple to get two exactly equal portions out of it, but they didn't work well physically or aesthetically. I thought the larger sablé worked well in the original plating (the one specified by the recipe), but with the two triangles of stuff being the same size and shape in this case, you're right, it looks silly to have the sablé larger. I also think that flavor-wise, I'd be inclined to replace the custard with a much richer (and smaller) reconstructed cheese item: I'd like something that I could serve hot, rather than lukewarm.