Chris Hennes

I believe CFA is the only place these have been rolled out so far, and that just recently.

Spicy Jalapeño Beef Tips (p. 97) Salsa: Roasted Jalapeño Tomato Salsa (p. 23) I did not quite follow the recipe on this one: Bayless calls for a tender steak like ribeye and a short cooking time with the salsa: I modified the recipe to accommodate the awesome chuck roast I had. I cubed the roast and seared it off, then added the tomatoes and worcestershire sauce the recipe calls for to the pot and braised it for an hour. At the last minute I made the salsa and added it to the pot to finish the dish. It was fantastic. I'm sure it would be great as written, but as a braise it was really sublime. The deep earthy notes of the braised beef highlighted by the tangy, vinegary spiciness of the salsa and pickled jalapeños, and that weird indescribable taste of fresh epazote were a fantastic match. I highly recommend giving this a shot.

Has somebody actually confirmed that? The way to approach the problem is to collect outliers, eg you, and study a group of them. There was a study that took exactly this approach: it enrolled a bunch of people with a claimed MSG sensitivity and did trials to determine whether they could detect MSG in food. They could not do so. I'll look up the citation for you when Modernist Cuisine arrives tomorrow.

I think that keeping all five was a clever strategic decision for TC as a whole: it is an interesting twist that doesn't harm the competition, and since this is "All Stars" I could see them wanting to encourage the notion going into the finals that all of these people really deserve to be there. I'd be very curious to know if this was the plan all along, or if it actually did come to pass at Judge's table that night.

Hmm, cranes in the distance, and mountains in the FAR distance... Seattle?

Yep, I buy it completely. Lemme see if I can find one of our past discussions on it, hang on... ETA: Here is one from last season.

Yep (of course...). Tom has stated on his blog that it doesn't happen (except one time, with "clippergate"), it's just a boilerplate disclaimer.

There's no doubt it takes practice: and I definitely don't even attempt to actually fill the ones I tear, I set them aside and just turn them into rajas. It's less critical if you're not going to be battering and deep-frying them, of course, but if you are I can't imagine using the massacred ones.

As I ran through it in my head I realized I omitted a detail: I'm using my right hand to do the above, while with my left thumb and forefinger I grasp the poblano on either side just above the slit and gently push together to reduce the chances of it tearing there.

At this point the chiles are cooked and still warm: I put my thumb, index, and middle finger through the slit and sort of massage the core to work the seeds loose, very gently. (Good lord, even in context that sounds like something else entirely...)

Chilaquiles with Spinach, Zucchini, and Aged Cheese (p. 76) Salsa: Roasty Red Guajillo Salsa (p. 33) I maybe took Bayless a little too literally when he suggested that the tortillas used for this be "thick"--it turns out that normal homemade tortilla thickness would have been just fine. So my tortillas never quite properly softened in the time allotted, and I didn't check before serving. Seems like a mistake off of Top Chef (Tom: "Did you actually taste your food before serving it?"). However, textural issues notwithstanding, this was a very good rendition of Chilaquiles: I particularly liked the quantity of fresh spinach, and the guajillo salsa was excellent here. (I served this with a fried egg on top, which the recipe does not call for, but was good anyway... on top of that is queso añejo, which the recipe does call for)

Interesting that it's not retort-pouch compatible: anyone know why not?

In Modernist Cuisine they seem to use it a lot to prevent overcooking meats when deep frying and things like that.

I wonder if the container it is stored in was not cleaned to food-safety standards? Perhaps it has oil residue or the like? The same may apply to other equipment that was used to handle it. I don't know for sure, obviously, just guessing here.

I no longer have access to the review copy, but aren't those beef cheeks quite small? It's not like you're curing an entire brisket in seven days. Also, does the quantity of fat in the Wagyu alter the speed that the brine penetrates? I didn't get a chance to read that chapter, unfortunately... just have to wait until the real thing arrives.

The tenderloin I did last night was 50 minutes at 140°F for a target core temp of 138°F (I used a torch for the sear so didn't expect that to affect the core temp).

My standby for any pork tenderloin is a simple dry rub and then cooked sous vide: I think that the Iberico would likely be ideal for this simple treatment so that you can really bring out the natural pork flavor.

A lot of these centrifuges don't come with the buckets/tubes at all, so the parts that touch your food are going to be purchased separately anyway. I don't know how difficult it is to remove that sort of substance from the containers you do purchase, though.

What, you mean I should have actually read that chapter instead of just skimming it? Thanks for the clarification, I think that makes sense. I'm looking forward to my hard copy of this thing, I think I'll need to take a week off just for the first go-through! Tonight I made two things from MC for dinner, a pork tenderloin and asparagus. The pork was done following the time and temp recommendations in the book, cooking at 60°C/140°F for 50 minutes to a core temp of 59°C/138°F, then zapping it with the torch to finish. I had seasoned and vacuum-packed the pork several days ago with salt and herbes de provence: it turned out very, very well indeed, although I was a bit careless with the torch and cooked a bit more of the outer layer than I intended to on one side. I think this temperature recommendation is spot on, this was easily the best pork tenderloin I've ever had in terms of texture and flavor. I'd previously done tenderloins SV at 145°F, but I think 138°F is much better. And using a small temperature increment above final core temp results in considerably shorter cooking time, which is a handy recommendation. The asparagus was cooked with 10% water, 5% olive oil, and 1% salt at 85°C/185°F for fifteen minutes: it was very good as well. This recipe in particular highlighted the value of including the scaling ratios: it eliminates a step (and therefore source of error) from the scaling process, since I did not make the same amount of asparagus as the recipe called for. I've really come to appreciate this, and I hope we see more cookbooks follow MC's lead (lots of baking books already do, of course, but few others).

Actually Chris, I think you probably could just eyeball the carrageenan, the way you might eyeball xantham gum and the like: add a bit, stir, check the texture, add a bit more, check the texture, etc. I don't know that it's being used in any sort of precision chemical reactions, it's being used as a thickener (please correct me if I'm wrong...).

I just had a bowl of Kellogg's new "Crunchy Nut" cereal and it stayed crunchy the whole way through, easily. A little sweet for my tastes, but you might give it a try.

I think that if you have a chamber sealer and have something you want to keep submerged, sealing it up seems like a pretty good solution to me: I do it when curing bacon to keep the cure as close to the belly as possible, I'd think it works the same for pickles, no?

Thanks for the writeup and photos Steve, it sounds like the class was pretty incredible. I for one am impressed as hell with your finished piece, even if it's not what you originally intended. Way to persevere!

Robust Beef Brisket with Red Chile and Winter Vegetables (p. 92) Salsa: Mellow Red Chile Salsa with Sweet Garlic and Roasted Tomatoes (p. 30) For those who don't have the book: its basic premise is that it starts out with about forty pages of salsa recipes, and then the remainder of the book is various dishes that use those salsas, in much the same way a classic French cookbook might start with recipes for various sauces and then list main courses that use them. So in this case, we have a red chile and tomato salsa that gets spread over a brisket and some vegetables and bakes for a couple hours. The dish could hardly be simpler: about a half hour of prep, a little bit of attended cooking during that time, and then two hours of baking. The salsa is not hot (at least not with the chiles I used: the recipe calls for New Mexico, which can vary somewhat in heat. The salsa works very well with the brisket: you can still taste the beef under the sauce, but it has several layers of complexity from the chiles and tomatoes. The vegetables were sort of "meh" in my opinion: I think you'd be better off roasting the potatoes separately, or making mashed potatoes and dousing them in the salsa when serving, and the carrots and onion didn't really do anything for me, I'd have preferred parsnips and maybe some celery. But a minor nitpick based on personal preference, of course.

Is potato flour the same thing as potato starch? Or is it a different product?