Chris Hennes

Thanks, Robert, I'm looking forward to the weekend. Now I have to decide what chocolates to bring! FYI, I do not arrive until Friday afternoon, so the first event I will attend is the meet-and-greet at the hotel.

That makes sense: the sablé and arlette are easy enough to recognize, but I wasn't sure which of the other components was the custard and which the gratin. The translucent gel has me stymied as well. I wonder if it's a gelled onion stock?

Which bean did you have, Msk? I think they are doing two in the lighter roast now, right?

I'm looking at the photos in volume 5, pages 264 and 265, and trying to identify the various components. Can anyone help me out? I want to make this next week and I'm having a hard time figuring out what each component comes out to look like. ETA: That is to say, these are photos of possible platings of the onion tart. Which one of those things is the onion sablé, which the custard, and which the gratin?

What did you have? The menu on their website sounds pretty good. Do their wine suggestions correspond to wines that are available at the Wine & Spirits there on Chestnut?

Hmm. That hash I made yesterday might have had some nominally crispy bits, but I wasn't really shooting for "crispy". Was I supposed to?

Do you all think potatoes are a required element, or could you add some other starchy item?

In your case you'll want something that prominently features the design on the M&Ms then, right? Not just putting them in stuff?

Ordinarily I'd take that as a recommendation

Don't assume that coffee that is less roasted is by definition less flavorful: it tastes less like roast and more like coffee. Yes, in this case, Starbucks is using a mild, uninteresting bean. But you can make strong coffee with a full city roast (what Starbucks insists on calling "blonde").

Agreed. The crosshatch makes it look like a damn Applebees commercial.

To be honest, I'd just go ahead with your normal method of replacement (it's the same technique I use). The 2-4 hour rest is what perplexes me... no amount of rise specified? If doubling the amount of rise time doesn't matter to the recipe, it's not a very finicky recipe.

According to their website, the ingredients of the bacon syrup used in the shake are:

I made the hash tonight for dinner, using the sous vide potatoes I'd cooked yesterday, and a leftover chunk of sous vide brisket from this past weekend. Here is the texture of the beef I decided to go with (I pulled it like pork, and then cut down the strands to bite-sized pieces) I started assembly by frying up some onions: When they started to brown I deglazed the pan with chicken stock: Then added cream and some leftover lentils: I then gently tossed it all together to avoid crushing the potatoes (which were cooked to a firm consistency): Then I fried it all up together: I didn't feel like poaching an egg, so I just fried mine: Overall I thought it was very successful, definitely among the best hashes I've had. The beef had enough bite to it that it was texturally interesting without being tough, and the potatoes were just firm enough to retain their identity. The lentils were pretty subtle, they were a fine addition since I had them on hand, but I wouldn't go out of my way to add them again.

Well, I can't see the cavitation opening up crevices in the hard outer skin of the asparagus. I was thinking that it might work better if it was working on the softer tissues of the interior.

Sure, and add $100 to the price tag. Injection molding is much, much cheaper. Fundamentally this device is a glorified coffee maker, grounding the power supply is completely adequate.

I've made tortillas in pans ranging from cheap, thin stainless, to cast iron, to non-stick, and everything in-between (probably, in fact, on basically every piece of cookware I own, now that I think about it). They all work, but only if they are appropriately pre-heated and kept very hot (but not all the way up to high heat—at least on my burner that's too hot).

Did you peel the asparagus?

If the steak is already cooked SV then you aren't worried about getting even cooking and/or flipping the steak often, so yeah, in that case I don't see the need for oil. But if you want to flip the steak 15 seconds after tossing it cold and raw into the pan, I find that a bit of oil helps it release.

Kitchens without GFCI scare the hell out of me. Nice move on adding the grounding line, though, that will be a good change.

Yep: at 75°C it takes one second to achieve a 6.5D reduction (for E. Coli, I believe), so at 100°C you're basically talking instantaneous.

I'm with IndyRob, and emphasis on "a bit": I'm not dumping in tablespoons of oil—just enough to leave a sheen on the surface.

Insofar as adding salt would reduce the water activity, yes, it would help, as would a marinade of red wine and oregano (a combination which is particularly good at killing bacteria), or a bath in boiling or chlorinated water: there are a number of steps that you can take to help mitigate the risk. As usual it becomes a question of deciding what level of risk is acceptable to you. Just remember that you're going to have the center of that roast square in the optimal bacterial growth temperature range for an extended period of time, surrounded by plenty of food sources.

Very nice, grabbed my copy a moment ago. How about adding some vegetables? I sous vide potatoes and turnips at least as often as I sous vide meat.

Growing up in Minnesota, I'm not sure anyone I knew knew that there was such a thing as fish stock, let alone had attempted to make it. I don't think that is because the local fish are unsuitable.