Chris Hennes

I don't trust the temper on anything I've got in the house: I've been on a multi-year hiatus from making chocolates. With larger amounts of chocolate this is no big deal, I just table it (a process I enjoy immensely anyway, it's like playing in the mud as a kid). But I just don't think I can table such a small quantity, the temperature will change too quickly.

@paulraphael When you say "Highest relative activity of LAB is around 50–55°F" are you quoting the article, or reading that off the chart? From the image it looks like the whole low- and high-end of the temperature range is dominated by the LAB, with the yeast only becoming equally active around the middle of the range. It looks like a proof stage at 39°F (my preference for convenience) or 55°F (MB's preference, for taste) both yield a relatively high level of lactic acid production.

If @Kerry Beal will send me one for free I'd be happy to use it Alas, it's not really in my chocolate budget at the moment.

I have to admit I'm disappointed in this decision -- it really feels like the Modernist team just can't abide by the criticism leveled their way regarding their previous two forays into the pizza realm, and the only way they know to combat those critiques is to pummel them into oblivion. At some point I think you've just got to agree to disagree, and walk away from the argument. Especially because they just end up being the same arguments, again and again, about taxonomy. Is is Neapolitan? Who should be allowed to say so? Is it even pizza? Blah, blah, blah. Comments taken out of context. Straw men set up and torn down. I mean, I'll probably buy the thing: after all, I do love pizza. But I just can't imagine this book convincing anyone of anything. Count me in as a vote for Modernist Pastry. And Modernist Confections. I promise my co-workers (the beneficiaries of the usual spoils) will be very appreciative of such efforts!

I've got a whole bunch of these tiny (½ oz) jars of colored cocoa butter, and as I discovered last weekend they are badly enough out of temper after all these years that they don't really give me a nice glossy finish, and don't release well from non-dome molds. I'd like to re-temper them, but they are such a small amount I'm not sure what the best way to do it is. I prefer to table chocolate, but I fear these are just too small so the working time will be unmanageably short. I have no usable seed cocoa butter whose temper I am confident in. Any advice?

Chickpeas is a Fresh Cilantro Sauce (p. 134) It's sort of funny to call this a "fresh cilantro sauce" -- after you simmer it for 20 minutes it doesn't really retain much of the character of fresh cilantro. The taste was good, however. I did add the optional chaat masala, about 1 tsp worth, and those are freshly cooked dried chickpeas, rather than the canned ones she calls for.

Green Beans with Potatoes (p. 63) This is a fairly straightforward dish of green beans and potatoes simmered with cumin, ginger, chiles, and a tomato puree. Not my favorite green bean preparation (I like them less cooked), but pretty good.

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I'm preheating to 500°F and baking at 450°F for 25 minutes, then removing the lid and baking for five more.

Interesting, that hasn't been my experience at all with this loaf, but of course I'm proofing very differently than you. How are you baking? I just use a home oven and a hotel pan as a lid, no steam injection, etc.

I had guests for dinner on Saturday, and lasagne is always a crowd-pleaser. I basically follow the instructions in Bugialli's The Fine Art of Italian Cooking (I see there is an updated edition, but I don't have it), but I make the Bolognese from a 1999 issue of Cook's Illustrated. In particular my meat sauce in this instance was all beef, except for a couple of ounces of pancetta and some dried porcinis sauteed along with the vegetables at the beginning. The Cook's Illustrated technique is in four stages: an initial cooking of the vegetables and ground meat, then a simmer in milk until dry, then a simmer in wine until dry (I used a red in this instance), then a simmer in finely chopped canned whole tomatoes and their packing sauce until it's the texture you want. Call it about five hours of total simmering time. The other layers are a double-thick bechamel seasoned with a hint of nutmeg, and a layer of mozzarella and parmesan. I made plain and spinach pasta and alternated layers, so the finished product, with twelve layers of filling, looks like this (at least, the leftovers I ate for lunch today did!):

When I am cooking for guests, I generally make something I've made before, at least for the main course. For myself at home I very rarely repeat, since I tend to cook my way through cookbooks and then move onto the next book.

Spicy Cauliflower Omelette (p. 280) An omelette filled with a mixture of finely grated cauliflower, shallots, chiles, and tomato, spiced with mustard seeds, cumin seeds, ginger and garam masala.

Parker House Rolls (p. 4•316) These are exactly what I think of when I think of a "dinner roll" -- light, fluffy, a tiny bit sweet, perfect torn in half and spread with butter, or just used to sop up whatever they are served with. I over-proofed mine a bit (I was making lasagne at the same time, which is always a slower process than I anticipate!) so they browned quite a bit faster than expected. I popped them out of their pan onto a cooling rack and slid them back into the oven upside down while I was baking the lasagne to make sure they were cooked all the way through.

It's been a long time since I've had an entry in this discussion -- my wife says I cook "in phases." Right now I'm in a bread phase, and before that I was in a Mexican phase. So my confectionery phase was quite a while ago now! However, we're having some guests for dinner tonight and I wanted something for dessert that would be non-gigantic and easy to make ahead. So I scrounged up my notebook from a past eG Confectionery Workshop and made Coffee Liqueur Bonbons These have a Guittard 65% Madagascar shell, Chef Rubber Gold Pearl cocoa butter, and the ganache is a standard E. Guittard dark chocolate with a local coffee liqueur scaled at 20%. At first I was going to do a fancier shell, but it occurred to me that a) I am out of practice and b) all homemade bonbons are impressive to non-eGullet guests, even with simple color swirls. So I took the easy route. Of course, I also decided to temper the chocolate by tabling it, because I wouldn't want to make things too easy. That worked fine, as you can see. I can still do this!

Chili-fried Eggs from Sri Lanka (p. 275) In this simple dish you make a three-ingredient relish (shallots, chiles, and tomatoes) and serve it on top of fried eggs. I'm sure there are a million variants on this idea, since obviously you could add any number of spices to the mixture if you wanted to. A nice easy weeknight dinner, served with rice, sourdough bread, and a selection of chutneys.

Spinach with Fresh Indian Cheese (p. 301) Turnip Bharta (p. 116) Saag Paneer is one of my favorite dishes, and I'd never tried making paneer before, so I gave it a go. My paneer never really became a cohesive block, it stayed quite crumbly, so the dish was aesthetically a bit of a mess. Still delicious, of course, but not quite what I had in mind. The turnip mash was good but not spectacular. I would have liked a bit of acid added at the end, I think.

Presumably it's because they aren't rising as much as a normal recipe would due to the skin that forms. As the skin softens in the water, and they begin to heat up, they eventually lose enough density to float. Really, having them not floating makes for a more even heat distribution, so it's not a problem I'd be inclined to solve anyway!

Green Chutney (p. 304) Gingery Cranberry Chutney with Mustard Seeds (p. 320) Spicy Peanut and Garlic Crumble (p. 312) Almost all of her recipes say something like "serve this with relishes, flatbreads, and a selection of chutneys." I usually ignore this and serve with a relish, and a chutney, since I rarely ever have more than one on hand. Today, however, I had some extra time, so made three more chutneys to add to my collection, bringing the current total to five. That seems respectable.

Okra Dry-Cooked with Yogurt (p. 95) Using up the last of the okra I picked up yesterday, this is a relatively straightforward stir-fry of okra and onions. I overshot the mark on the doneness of the okra by a minute or two, but overall it was still good.

You'd think after all these years I would know better than to doubt @Kerry Beal's sense for eclectic flavor combinations, but I have to admit I was skeptical. However, I gave this a try this afternoon and it was pretty good. I'm not really a big Nutella eater, but the flavor combination of chocolate, hazelnuts, and matcha was pretty effective, if a bit unexpected. Thanks, Kerry!

These are relatively soft -- I didn't try to make them into a sandwich, though, just ate with cream cheese. Your fillings would need to be pretty robust, the crust on the bagel has some bite to it.

Bagel (p. 5•187) Onion Bagel (p. 5•197) This is my first time making bagels, and this morning when the dough came out of the refrigerator I was pretty sure they were going to be a write-off. The instructions are quite specific to cold-proof uncovered, specifically with the intent of setting the texture of the crust. But that, combined with a low hydration dough with comparatively little yeast in it results in very unappealing, almost unrisen, quite leathery rounds this morning. With nothing to lose, I simply pressed forward. At first my suspicions seems to be confirmed: when dropped into the boiling water they sunk like bricks, and only rose to the surface after 45 seconds or so of boiling (in a lye solution, rather than the more traditional malt syrup method). But they did in fact rise to the surface eventually, and when baked they rose far more than I expected, so most of them are sort of bun-like, with a closed up hole. Clearly my shaping needs some work. Also, despite the starch slurry, I still found it quite difficult to achieve a uniform layer of topping on them. Despite all that, however, the finished product, while something less than beautiful, has a great flavor and texture. I have some work to do, but as a first go I'm quite happy with these. The dough after cold-proofing: Plain bagels after baking: Onion bagels after baking: Finished exterior of the plain (coated in poppy seeds, white and black sesame seeds, and flaxseeds): And the onion: Finally, the crumb of the onion:

Punjabi-Style Okra Masala (p. 96) Spiced Hyderabadi Rice (p. 176) Savory Whole-Wheat Pancakes (p. 246) There was okra at the store today so I picked one of the okra dishes from the book and centered dinner around it. I like okra, so unsurprisingly I liked this dish -- it's got quite a lot of fenugreek leaves in it, which adds an interesting and unexpected flavor note. I served it with a pancake that I've made before (and liked less this time... go figure) and a spiced basmati rice dish that was quite good.

I almost always take the 24-hour refrigerated option: pretty much all of the sourdoughs you see uptopic from me, with the exception of the first one or two, use it. It fits better into my life .