Chris Hennes

In Modernist Cuisine the team presents a cool way to juice pomegranate seeds: take the seeds and seal them in a vacuum bag like you were going to sous vide them, and then run over them with a rolling pin. Snip the corner off the bag and pour the juice out, discarding the rest: no cleanup at all. Sounds clever (though I haven't tried it).

Really, I'd say that many if not most of the recipes are at least scaled for the home cook. For example, the "Cassoulet Toulousain (Autumn)" recipe only makes four portions. It requires a pressure cooker and a sous vide setup, but seems quite approachable if you have those things. However, I note that the intro lists a centrifuge in its equipment list: I can find no mention of it in the instructions. And I'll wager not many home cooks are breaking out the centrifuge! Those few recipes that call for it will remain inspirations only for the majority of us.

Yeah, I was leaning towards starting with stock, since I'm running low. That kitchen manual is pretty amazing.

How coarse are we talking here? Could you put it on homemade soft pretzels?

I think the only one I keep at the moment is Art of Eating: everything else is lucky to get read, let alone kept.

My plus one and I are in for GHT Friday evening.

Yes, the roller: and I have a 6qt model, but I don't think this attachment will be a problem for your Artisan model, at all. Rolling out pasta is not that stressful on the machine, I don't think.

Serves me right for not even completely reading the recipe: I was so caught up in the notion of including them that I didn't even notice she didn't! So, I cooked and pureed the squash, sauteed a bit of onion and garlic, added a bit of sage, and combined it all with the cookies. Call it five cookies for about half of the squash (apparently channeling mattsrand's ratio in that regard, anyway). All of which is to say, not a particularly traditional rendition of the recipe. Damn, I guess I'll have to make them again: my wife will be crushed...

Phew, finally got around to making these tonight (I've been making a lot of fresh pasta lately now that I have that KitchenAid stand mixer attachment, what a joy to use!). I more or less followed the recipe RWood posted above, minus the goat cheese, which I didn't have on hand but sounds fantastic. The filling: The pasta sheet (times four: two eggs' worth): My grandmother gave me the scoop she used to use to make ravioli, which is a perfect size (must be about 5mL?): I like to fold mine lengthwise, rather than the other way, or using a separate sheet: She also gave me her rolling cutter, and I don't have the stamp kind, so they are not quite square! I got 35 ravioli out of a half batch of filling and two eggs' worth of pasta (yeah, I had a lot of pasta scrap leftover): I served it with a browned butter and sage sauce and some microplaned Parm. I was pretty happy with the way these turned out, though I bet they are considerably better with the goat cheese in the filling. I think I was a little heavy-handed with the cookies, and will probably cut down on the number I use next time: maybe it's the less assertive squash, or maybe it's my tastebuds, but I think I could have served these for dessert.

Over in this topic we are discussing NYC restaurant annoyances, and LPShanet commented on the practice of leaving the last bit of shell and tail on shrimp when serving them, particularly in a fine-dining setting. It came up that in some cultures the tail portion actually gets eaten, rather than what I think of as the typical behavior here in the US of cutting them off and leaving them on the edge of your plate (or even in a non-fine-dining setting, picking them up and squeezing the tail to get that last shrimp segment, but still leaving the last bit of shell and tail behind). So, do you eat the tail? Why or why not?

I nearly always use fresh spinach... no real reason, it's just what I do.I'm wondering about your thoughts on the balance of components in these ravioli. Most recipes seem to include a LOT of ricotta, with just a bit of spinach, but what I am imagining here is the reverse: mostly a spinach filling, with some cheese or whatever as a "binder." Do you think this will even work, taste-wise, or is the more-cheese-than-spinach the best route to go?

I'd think that one bite would be sufficient to dispel (or confirm) any such concern. I agree with the OP on the shrimp: if the restaurant feels the need to leave the tail on as "proof" that the shrimp is fresh, it's probably not.

Good point, I was just trying to imagine the amuses I personally had experienced. "Bold" is maybe not quite the right term: for example, your mushroom soup was "rich" or perhaps ScottyBoy's app is "bright"—what I was trying to mean when I said "bold" was more like "assertive" or maybe just "memorable," which these both fall into. Something flavorful, whether that flavor is acidity or umami or saltiness, etc. But not too restrained.

Jeff, we'll definitely be renting a car, but I don't know for sure if we'll be staying at the airport Marriott yet: however, if we are you are certainly welcome to ride with us. (We have a villion Marriott points, we nearly always stay with them).

It's not quite true that an inflating bag means the seal/bag integrity is fine: it simply means that the pressure in the bag is increasing faster than the leak can let it out. In the case of a slow leak I think it may be possible for air to slowly leak into the bag causing air pockets, and then for the rapid temperature increase in the water bath to cause those air pockets to expand faster than the leak can let them out. Of course it's possible that your plastic bags are contaminated, or that somehow you are getting all of these various types of product contaminated with a type of bacteria that can thrive in all of them at the temperatures involved, but I don't think that's the only possible explanation based on the evidence we have before us.

Interesting, gfweb. If I think back to the most successful amuses I've had, they are all single bites of quite bold flavors. To be sure you need to make certain the progression works, but I think an amuse needs to wake up your palette: I fear that subtlety in a single bite may come across as blandness.

I like the itinerary, esp. the Sunday brunch at the airport Marriott (very convenient for those of us flying out right after). As I've already mentioned, I can't make anything Sunday afternoon or evening, so no opinion on that option. I'm also game for whatever workshops etc. others are interested in.

I'm on a pasta kick this week, and have a few different stuffings planned. I don't know what's traditional in Italy, and am not necessarily looking for traditional recipes, but I'd like to do a filling based primarily around spinach (perhaps with some ricotta, though not necessarily). Any thoughts on what sort of proportions to use, or anyone have a recipe along those lines?

It's not that high: CIA ProChef's ratio is 1 lb white roux to 4.5 quarts of milk, reduced to 3.5 quarts total bechamel.

eG Technology Update: New Tags! "Confections" and "Charcuterie" As I mentioned above, one of our recent additions to the forums is a system for "tagging" topics: tags are keywords that a topic-starter can use to categorize a topic. Tags support many of the same operations as a forum, including subscriptions, and listing all topics with a given tag. The initial stage of the test was successful, and we received some great feedback about the system. Today I updated the tag system to the latest version, and added two more tags: Charcuterie and Confections (in addition to the Modernist tag Fat Guy mentions in his post about the Society's Year of Modernist Cuisine). If you find yourself starting a topic that is about confections or charcuterie, please check the appropriate box under the topic title. You may also want to consider subscribing to e-mail notification when a topic is created with one of those tags. To do that, go to the appropriate tag listing (Charcuterie, Confections, or Modernist) and click the "Watch Tag Collection" button near the top of the page. if you have any problems with the tag system, or suggestions for how we can improve it, please send e-mail to feedback@egullet.org. Thanks!

Blanched: I find that they take too long to cook in the oven. 90 seconds in a giant vat of salty water (per Keller) does the trick nicely.

I don't get why you would need to food mill after blending. I'd think that even with a standard blender that would be unnecessary. Or... you could use this as an excuse to get a new blender! The BlendTec has a soup button on it, you push it and viola! Soup (and hearing damage).

I made a brussels sprout gratin with dinner tonight: sauteed some pancetta and onion, made a roux with the fat from the pancetta and some butter, made the bechamel, added it to the blanched sprouts, added some Cabot extra sharp cheddar to that, and popped it in the oven for 30-40 minutes. Ordinarily I use bacon in this, but all I had handy was the pancetta, which worked fine, though I think that bacon is better here, the smokiness plays well with the sprouts and cheese.

My wife will be there as well, so put me down for a +1 (and her down for a vegetarian meal when we do the pig head roast...).

Know anything about Pappas Bros. steakhouse or t'afia? Folks on OpenTable seem to like them (not that that's a terribly reliable indicator...).