Chris Hennes

I like the format of this first episode. In years past it has been hard to follow all of the people in the early episodes, but the way the first quickfire narrowed the field successively was a great idea. I also like that it was elimination, which was a fun twist to ratchet up the pressure right away. And I'm glad they got rid of the kid who spent most of his time yacking on about how he wanted to "share his passion." Blech. What a generic non-statement.

Sure, why not? The casing is almost completely impermeable to water, and water's high heat capacity means that it will transfer the heat to the sausage relatively quickly (as opposed to roasting) and very uniformly (as opposed to frying). I make my own sausages, so any flavors I wanted in there are already there. If I'm looking for some Maillard action I might give them a quick sear, but otherwise, water is cheap, gives excellent control of the temperature, and as far as I am concerned yields a perfectly-cooked sausage every time. Note that I am not boiling, however. I cook in a water bath at 150 degrees F, the final target temp for the sausage.

It's very interesting: I had never thought to use oil. I generally treat cooking a sausage as a sort of "sous vide" cooking, putting the sausage in a water bath at the temperature I am trying to cook the sausage to (generally about 150 F). I hold it there for 45-60 minutes, until the internal temp of the sausage is 150, then serve. I occasionally "sear" over high heat once that is done, like you might do with a steak.

Bingo. I try to avoid adding a lot of flavors to my stocks: no need to have a complex, multidimensional stock as a base when you are going to go adding more stuff to it later in the process anyway. I try to keep mine as basic as possible so they are more flexible. It's not like I drink them straight or something.

I disagree on this point: I have never been fond of the Pro Chef stocks. I think they include far to much "other stuff" as compared to the amount of meat. I don't want a stock that tastes like mirepoix, I want one that tastes like chicken! I generally use half that amount of mirepoix, and go light on the carrots, which seem to have the most assertive flavor of the bunch in terms of "contaminating" the chicken flavor. Then again, maybe I just enjoy being contrary...

I'm sure this feature is useful to many people. I am not one of them. I used the timer on my oven a total of one time. After that, I switched to using an external timer. It's easier to set, and it doesn't have any affect on the oven. I agree wholeheartedly: manufacturers are always looking for new "features" to put in their advertising, to the detriment of usability.

Darienne, I had this problem the first couple times I tried as well. My two solutions were to score the chocolate with a very sharp paring knife until it breaks cleanly, rather than cutting it in one go, and cutting it as soon as it is firm. I found that if I waited an hour or two it was more susceptible to shattering, whereas if I cut it right away after putting the bottom on it went much easier. I had not thought to deliberately over-crystallize the chocolate to force it out of temper: I was too proud of having a beautifully tempered coating, even if you weren't going to see it!

The idea of Kosher Pigs in a Blanket cracks me up... I'm having a hard time coming up with much of a list of things you could make that are Kosher, vegan, and nut-free, let alone things that meet that and can be made in 15 minutes, without a knife or a real kitchen. Pita could be fun, but it would be best if they could see them bake so they could witness the "poof" action---think you could sell them on letting the kids into the kitchen, too?

With dry aging, does more equal better, or is there a "sweet spot" where the flavor and texture peak?

HOST'S NOTE: The more general discussion on cooking (not tempering) at high altitudes can be found here.

Is all the MSG in fish sauce artificially added, or is it like soy sauce, where there is some small amount that is naturally occurring? The Squid brand is the stuff I use as well, but I wasn't sure if it was actually completely MSG-free.

I made a jerk-styled BBQ sauce a couple nights ago to go with some brisket: sauteed an onion until soft, added a dry jerk rub and cooked for a minute or two, then some vinegar and oil. Pureed until smooth then simmered for a few minutes to blend the flavors. Pretty nice.

Are there differences in preservation techniques for "exotic" flavors? I would think that a high enough ratio of sugar would make just about anything shelf-stable. Coupled with good sanitation during the production process, I don't see why various other flavored syrups would need different preservation techniques.

I started in on a batch of dry-cured salame today, my first attempt. I have previously made many fresh sausages, and I have made Guanciale, but this is a different beast altogether. In particular, I tried to be very conscious of possible cross-contamination spots. As I did this, I realized that nearly every step in my sausage-making process is a Critical Control Point: the possibilities for contamination are legion. For example: Pull knife off magnetic rack. Realize rack has not been cleaned (ever), and sits in front of cutting board. Probably has microscopical amounts of beef juices from the beef I prepped earlier in day. Clean knife thoroughly and disinfect. Dry. Realize towel has been draped over my shoulder, and who knows where that has been. Clean knife again, dry with new towel. Set on counter. Realize I disinfected the other counter. Disinfect new counter, re-clean and dry knife. OK, so this is a bit extreme, but you get the picture. Just how careful do I really need to be? I think in addition to a sausage-making checklist, I now need a pre-sausage-making checklist.

OK, but WHY does TIME matter? Once something is frozen solid, I would have thought that was it. But it does not seem to be. For some reason, holding something at freezing temperatures for what to me seems like far longer than it would take to reach thermal equilibrium kills more critters. What is the mechanism through which this occurs? Or is this simply a matter of the FDA over-simplifying the science, and basically assuming that any time we freeze we are freezing a whole animal, and thus at high temperatures it really does take 2-3 weeks to actually freeze through?

Everything you say is true, though the commercial freezing process is specifically designed to prevent the formation of those sharp ice crystals. But even assuming that the ice crystals are to blame, it still does not explain why it sometimes takes weeks to kill all the parasites. In particular, to rid pork of Trichiniosis the FDA says you have to freeze at temperature X for time Y, where sometimes Y is measured in weeks. Can it really take weeks to fully freeze a piece of pork? The guidelines say nothing about muscle thickness, which would govern time-to-freeze. It seems we are still missing a piece of the puzzle. Why does time matter? I am interested in Gabriel Lewis's hypothesis about the continuous formation and melting of these microscopic ice crystals, but I have not read anywhere that this has been experimentally verified.

My normal grocery store was out of brisket this evening so I stopped at the Super Walmart: they actually had quite the selection, ranging in size from a small, tightly-trimmed point cut at 3 lbs up to a basically completely untrimmed 18-lb monster. Three guesses which one I bought...

The gist of it is that you carmelize a bunch of onions in the pan you used to sear the brisket, add the tomato paste, garlic, brown sugar paprika and cayenne and toast them up, then deglaze the pan with red wine and stock. Add in some thyme and a bay leaf and pop in the oven (they have you do it in foil). Then, let it chill overnight in the liquid, defat it, reheat with a bit of vinegar, and voila!

It's really a very interesting question: have you seen Thomas L. Deardorff and Richard Throm, "Commercial Blast-Freezing of Third-Stage Anisakis simplex Larvae Encapsulated in Salmon and Rockfish." The Journal of Parasitology, Vol. 74, No. 4 (Aug., 1988), pp. 600-603 From that article's discussion section: This article seems to indicate that the difference between freezing for one hour and for 24 hours is merely one of ensuring that the interior regions of muscles are completely frozen. Clearly, this would occur well before the extremely long hold times recommended in food safety literature.

At the top of the table, perhaps, but certainly further down they can (and are!). Naturally there are many factors at work and the FDA is not attempting to compensate for all of them. But if, for example) you hold the center of a loin roast at 135 for ten minutes, say by cooking it in a smoker set to 225 degrees, you will have a perfectly safe piece of meat, at least by FDA standards.

This is my go-to braised Brisket recipe: it is really phenomenal. It's hard to go wrong with brisket, but this one in particular is excellent. Good call -- I'll have to pick up a brisket and make it this weekend.

Anything else to worry about beside Trichinea, or once the T. is dead everything else will be, too? It's interesting that the times are so short even down in the 125 F range: doing a slow-cooked tenderloin it seems like you can keep the temp very low. By the time the center has hit 135 F it has probably been long enough to be safe.

Good point: I was assuming it was a loin, since for a shoulder you would be looking for more like 200 deg F (I usually go to 204 F). It's definitely not pink, unless you count the smoke ring .

Do you know the temp? I generally cook chops to 140 F, which definitely leaves them pink in the center.

OK, I took another stab at Jerk, using chicken this time, and the recipe from Jerk from Jamaica: Barbecue Caribbean Style. It had similar ingredients, though in vastly different proportions, to the recipe I used above: I really need to get myself down to Jamaica to see how much intra-island variation exists. For example, her recipe for the marinade-version has no citrus in it: the acid is added as cider vinegar. The bulk of the liquid in this very thick "marinade" actually comes from the onion. Here is the result (I meant to photograph the plated version, but by the time I remembered we had already eaten it!): In the background is a piece of Festival, also from the book. This chicken recipe is a definite keeper: the result, after 3 1/2 hours of hickory smoking, was one of the best barbeque chicken recipes I have ever had anywhere. Even the white meat was tasty! The Festival was not so successful: I do not know what the correct texture is, but I hope this was not it... it was much too dense, in my opinion.