Chris Hennes

Blais's dish was essentially nothing at all like Keller's: the name is an obviously playful homage, in my opinion, and the dish clearly Richard's own. At least, to the extent that serving a raw oyster with some small accent can be said to be one's own. Apparently Richard's "Pearls" really rocked the house.

Yay!

You add butter, which actually has quite a bit of water in it, as do the carrots. But you are correct in that you don't add any other liquids.

I personally use EYB, and like it a lot. They don't have a lot of my more esoteric books indexed yet, but the index they do have is a good one.

Got numbers? Are we spending more per capita, inflation adjusted, on dining at fast food/quick service/etc.?

The egg white has never stopped me...

Wild Rice "Risotto" (p. 6•152) Sous Vide Potato Cooked in Fat (p. 6•143) Glazed Pearl Onions (p. 6•140) Pressure-Cooked White Chicken Stock (p. 6•11) I tried a bunch of new (to me) things tonight, with mixed results. The wild rice risotto tasted good, but I didn't think the rice had enough starch to work properly, I should have added some. When finished mantecado the butter separated out. The potatoes were cooked in butter sous vide. I chose to finish them at service time by sautéing them until browned: these were OK, but bland: everything else on the plate was very powerfully flavored, so the potatoes just got lost. My fault, not the book's, of course. The glazed pearl onions were more assertively vinegary than I was expecting, but they tasted good. The texture would be WAY better with fresh onions (which is what the recipe calls for), but I used frozen because it's what I had on hand. Not a great idea. The chicken was sautéed and then the pan deglazed with vermouth. Then I added about a cup of the white chicken stock from MC and some tarragon, reduced it, mounted with butter, and used it to sauce the chicken (basically a Sauce Estragon). The stock is quite good, no complaints. As usual, the plating could use some work...

Obviously you have a lot of variables to work with there, but for me the first culprit that comes to mind is actually the thermometer. In a roast that compact, 20 degrees of carryover is far more than I would expect, I'm not actually certain it's thermodynamically possible at these temperatures. What kind of thermometer are you using, and are its batteries fresh?

I start by looking up whatever I am looking for in the index (online or paper). That will list the page the recipe is on in the main volumes, but unfortunately not the kitchen manual. If it's in volumes 1-4, then I start paging through the kitchen manual based on that page number, since the recipes are ordered by the page number in volumes 1-4. You have to be careful not to get confused by the inclusion of volume five material interspersed, though. Finding volume five recipes is much harder: you have to try to guess what topic the authors thought that recipe most clearly demonstrated, and then just start reading the table of contents of the manual for that section. I really wish they had included the chapter six page numbers in that index.

Oh, I've brought my butcher stuff I've cured using his products, I guess. Is that a "tip"?

My butcher owns the place: I guess I just figured that by patronizing him I was "doing my part." It would definitely seem weird to tip him, I think. I also suspect he'd refuse it.

Basically, though of course it depends on what definition you are using for "sous vide": if the definition involves precision temp controls then, well... then you're just pressure cooking stuff in a bag.

A vacuum bag that can withstand the high temps of a pressure cooker. They are generally thicker material than standard vacuum bags, and require better sealers.

Hah, that is no fun at all AaronM. How am I supposed to know where to start the bidding?

Is that bar? 15bar is a lot. lol, yeah, a LOT is right! No, it's 1 bar, 15psi. Sorry, transcriber error.

Tonight I made another vegetable side dish using the "Best Bets for Cooking Vegetables Sous Vide Until Tender" on p. 6•139 (which is an incredibly useful table, by the way). Tonight was rutabagas, bagged up with a knob of butter and a pinch of salt, cooked for an hour at 85°C/185°F: they were awesome. Who even knew a rutabaga could be awesome?

I really, really loved the "sudden death OT" rules: I wish they had the time to do those for every elimination. So that every week the bottom three would compete in a head-to-head challenge that didn't depend on the vagaries of team challenges, or luck of the draw, or whatever, but just cooking your best. Worst bite goes home every time. So you never get eliminated based on getting screwed by the challenge, it always comes down to who is making better food.

The polenta is toasted in butter and then pressure-cooked (8 minutes at 15 bar psi). ETA: The cooking liquid in the polenta is clarified corn juice, and it's actually pressure-cooked in a retort pouch. Edited again: should read "15 psi" not "15 bar"

They provide recipes for two different BBQ-specific rubs, the "Kansas Rub" and the "Memphis Rub" -- the Kansas is mostly brown sugar, and the Memphis is paprika-based. Neither have anything "exotic" in them.

What sort of information are you looking for? I made the South Carolina BBQ sauce here, and the BBQ info in all the volumes is quite good. Only one of the BBQ sauces requires a centrifuge .

Agreed, though to be honest I did wish it was Blais v. Antonia. I bet the producers were rooting against that pairing though: they're both too nice! (No, I'm not implying any producer-interference-conspiracy-theory-BS... just suggesting that they are pleased with the outcome)

In Rick Bayless's Fiesta at Rick's he's got a recipe for Atún en Escabeche de Chile Jalapeño (Tuna in Jalapeño Escabeche) that has become my go-to tuna salad. It's almost more of a pickled jalapeno salad with some tuna in it. You start with sauteed onions, then add chopped picked peppers and a can of tuna. It's awesome.

It turns out that during Lent the local stores start to carry the Van de Kamp's fish sticks (they usually only have the Gorton's). Man, the VdK are way better! I may have to stock up.

Even the Bradley isn't great for cold smoking unless it's cold outside. Could you try to rig up something like the Ghetto Smoker 4000?

I saw the commercial in which it appeared they were claiming that a carbonated mojito sphere was something no one had ever done before. Yeah, right. No one except say, Jose Andres in 2006. Or hell, ME, a couple weeks ago. I'm fine with Marcel claiming that he's showing people techniques that are new to them, but is he giving credit where it's due?