Chris Hennes

I've never added fruit to a confit cure, but I've certainly added a number of other flavorings, and apple and pork do seem to have a natural affinity. My one concern is that it sounds like you have a LOT of different flavors going on here, I'd be worried that the pork itself would get lost in the crowd.

Sous vide water temps are below the melting temp of your bags: the temperature the heating element itself reaches is much hotter than the water, in general. If you don't have a cage you'll want to take some sort of precaution against your bags touching it (securing them to the sides, using a rib grill rack, etc.)

I'm disappointed to hear that they were bland, since they look delicious in the photo! Do you think there would be a way to make them in such a way that they weren't? Maybe just more salt?

I hadn't made lentils in some time, but I was returning to some "old" favorites from Modernist Cuisine this week and was reminded how excellent their lentil with cherry vinaigrette was. Something about the combination of lentils du puy and cherries really works well. Cooking them sous vide in vegetable stock doesn't hurt either!

Nick, I'm not familiar with this technique: could you say more about it? Is this just part of a standard chorizo recipe, or is it something you regularly do for sausage?

Even with the Ducasse method I go through several changes of butter: I think your idea of doing a higher heat sear with a refined oil and only switching to butter later on is a good one. Do you find that you get the same kind of amazing crust you can achieve with the normal Ducasse technique?

Whole butter is about 16% water, 4% milk solids, and 80% butterfat: if you are going for identical ratios in your finished product make sure to take that into account. If you're just replacing the oil straightaway you'll get more consistent results by using clarified butter.

Is there a characteristic style of Canadian whisky that makes it identifiable as compared to, say, US whiskies?

I chill in an ice bath and have never had a problem, but that doesn't mean you won't!

I posted about them over in the "Cooking with Modernist Cuisine at Home" discussion: they turned out very well.

Recently a couple of the other big brands have jumped onto the gianduja/chocolate-and-nut-butter bandwagon: in my cupboard now I've got three varieties... I haven't tried any of the new ones yet, but a recent article over at Serious Eats suggest that the almond one might be a winner. Have you tried any of the new ones yet? What do you think?

It's been a while since we've talked about meat slicers, and I'm in the market for a new one (the Hobart I restored had a close encounter with the power cord for the vacuum cleaner... the slicer won the battle, but lost the war, as the resulting arc chewed off a disturbingly large chunk of the blade). I've been looking at the various "light commercial use" slicers out there. Does anyone else have one of these? What are your experiences with them?

Interesting: I was unfamiliar with the unusual way ducks used to be killed when used in this dish. The article notes Does anyone know the details of Boulud's preparation?

I wonder if you couldn't cure to good effect.

I was digging through the freezer and found a packet of Bayless's Mole Rojo Clásico from "Fiesta at Rick's"—it's a great sauce, which I had forgotten all about. Right now it's in with a pork shoulder sous vide (65°C for 36 hrs), but I haven't though much about what to serve it with. I'd like some atypical (e.g. non-Mexican) ideas for flavor pairings. Does anyone have any ideas for what to serve it with that might be a bit outside the norm?

Yogurt has a "best by" date? It's a wonder I'm not dead yet, I'm sure I've kept yogurt around far longer than the package recommendation! How long does it say it keeps?

Great link, sparrowgrass: there's a lot of good info in there about making jams and jellies without pectin, but I'm still curious about the "rules" regarding added sugar. They've got a recipe for "PEACH-PINEAPPLE SPREAD": So the sugar is listed as optional, but I'd be very curious about what the final texture was like without added sugar. I think of jams and jellies as having a texture that is closely tied to a sugar syrup cooked to a particular temperature, so I don't quite understand how these work if you are relying purely on the sugar in the fruit itself. Has anyone tried making any conventional jams without adding sugar? I see that in the past we've discussed "Modern Jams" that are made less sweet than traditional jams, and of course there's the Preservation Basics eGCI course, but they are always adding at least some sugar.

What did you decide to do with them, Richard?

Another option is sous vide: even if you don't have access to an immersion circulator, thin chops can easily be done via the beer cooler method.

If I was you I'd do a trial run before making such a large batch. Then again, it sounds like you may not have anything to lose, if you were planning on making a huge batch anyway. If it doesn't thaw well, you pitch it, just like you would have at the end of the day's meal if you found out it did't take to freezing.

I've never had good luck refrigerating them: they seem to turn unappetizing shades, at least the types I make. I have never let the experiment go for more than a few hours before I decided to just chuck the rest since it didn't look or smell like something I'd want to consume.

Interesting: I wonder if it's a defect in my canner (or my care for it?). It's not a subtle thing, the smell is quite bad. I've got the Presto canner.

I don't recommend using a pressure canner for making stock at all, at least not an aluminum one. I don't care for the taste of things actually cooked directly in the canner, and my one experiment with making stock directly in it resulted in my throwing out the entire batch.

In my opinion this is going to come down purely to personal taste, and to the exact recipe you are talking about. I mean, you aren't going to leave the wine out of Beef bourguignon (or at least, you won't call it bourguignon if you do!), but in some cases there may be appropriate substitutions. One thing you'll want to be aware of is the salt and acid level of the dish: you may find that if you don't add wine, you need to add something else to get the balance right. Often I think you'll need to tweak the acidity.

It's been a while since I've cooked from MC@H, but with dinner tonight I decided to make the @H version of the potato purée, in particular the one where you infuse the skins in cream. I made a number of modifications to the recipe: I used red-skinned potatoes of some kind rather than Yukon Gold, I cut the amount of butter in half, and I infused the cream sous vide at the same time I was retrograding the potatoes rather than doing it in a separate step. The result was fantastic: still rich, though not quite as in-your-face as the full-butter version, and with a really terrific potato flavor.