Chris Hennes

Microwaved Eggplant Parmesan (p. 344) This was a fast, simple dish to make: it doesn't require many ingredients, and only needs a pressure cooker (for the marinara) and a microwave. I thought it was mostly successful: I wish the topping stayed a bit crispier (it was crispy, but I wanted more), and I wish that it plated up nicer. I don't know how the MC team got that gorgeous slice they show a photo of, but mine was much too "flow-y" to stand upright. I even tried cooking it like you do brownies, in a waxed-paper-lined dish, so it can just be pulled out instead of scooped, but to no avail.

I got my apple pectin from L'Epicerie, although it's currently listed as out of stock there.

Minimal: the real brining info is in MC.

Are you giving the pressure cooker the occasional shake while the carrots are cooking? How high is your heat when you are at pressure?

It sounds to me like you've just got too much bacteria in there. There's a lot of food for it, so its rapid growth is causing the milk and cream to set up: that can vary due to a ton of factors outside your control, but considering the ingredient combination you'ge got there I wouldn't want to store it for more than three days at fridge temps anyway, even though it's worked for you in the past. If you have your heart set on doing so you could consider pasteurizing the finished mix sous vide, which would extend its fridge life.

I dont' know for sure, but definitely my first inclination would be to try coloring the icing sugar.

Potato Noodles (p. 270) Has anyone tried making the Potato Noodles variation on p. 270? I tried making them tonight with limited success: the dough was quite soft and, while not quite "wet" per se, definitely wetter than a conventional pasta dough. Considering that the ratio of flours:liquids in this dough is about 350:240 (1.45:1), whereas the egg pasta is 436:200 (2.18:1) this isn't surprising, but I do wonder if the recipe is correct. The dough was workable, but it took a LOT of passes through the rollers to get it even close to smooth, and that was adding quite a bit of additional flour as I went. ETA: Photo of the carbonara (I didn't use the MC recipe for the sauce, just for the pasta).

I don't know if it was "insanely popular" but I had superb results with that short rib dish in V5, the one with the tamarind glaze and the crispy beef salad garnish. If it's not insanely popular, it should be.

I used a butternut: the recipe suggests either that or delicata.

Arborio Rice with Caramelized Squash and Saffron (p. 330) Another delicious "risotto" from MCaH: it looks like the MC team's almonds shaved into much prettier shreds than mine, but otherwise the recipe worked pretty much as written, with the usual modification of a bit longer cooking of the rice after it came out of the pressure cooker. The saffron flavor worked very nicely with the caramelized squash puree, I think that by itself would be a great soup. ETA: I garnished mine with a red Hawaiian sea salt for a little visual interest.

About time: I sold my old edition back when this one was announced to pay for the new one!

Thanks for those responses, Judy. Unfortunately I don't have any photos of that particular attempt, and my later attempts have faired better, whether due to correct scaling, better kneading, or better handling, I don't know which. Case in point: Genovese Pizza (p. 306) I'll say it again: this pesto is just awesome. Please forgive the pale-looking crust, I didn't have time to properly preheat the oven today, so it wound up lighter than the last couple attempts. The taste was fantastic, however: I loved the brussels sprouts with the pesto and mozzarella. This is definitely on my regular pizza rotation.

Yeah, they simplified it, removing the carrageenans In addition, the one I made was the second of the two in MCaH (the baked one, as opposed to the purely stovetop one), which is a bit different. ETA: Not that I used the carrageenans in the original after I made it as-written the first time... I always leave them out these days.

Interesting Enrique: I really like the parsley there. Yes, it was a lot, but I thought the flavor balance worked very well.

I let it simmer an extra minute or two until the quinoa absorbed it, I found it a bit too firm for my liking after just four minutes. Not inedibly so, just not to my preference.

Baked Macaroni and Cheese (p. 312) I've made the original "world famous" Modernist Mac & Cheese many times since the original volumes came out, and I've finished it in the oven on a few occasions following steps similar to what they describe in MCaH. The main difference is that I typically cook mine more on the stove and less in the oven. I also have never made a "cheese crumble" for the topping (usually I just use breadcrumbs and shredded cheese). The cheese topping was nice, I thought: crunchier than just breadcrumbs, with more flavor. It's another one where I didn't like the taste on its own, but as a topping for the mac and cheese it worked. I personally thought the cheese for the M&C itself was too thick, with an unpleasantly viscous mouthfeel. In my opinion the cheese should flow a little, even when it's cooled down after a few minutes out of the oven: this started to get overly thick after a short time out of the oven. Really, I'm not sure it was worth jumping through the par-cooking and cooling hoops, I think I'll probably stick to simply broiling a topping for a couple minutes using just-slightly undercooked (and not chilled) pasta, with a thinner cheese sauce.

Quinoa with Pistachio Pesto and Asparagus (p. 332) This dish is in with the "risotto", though it bears little resemblance in terms of ingredients. It's pressure-cooked quinoa (cooked with vegetable stock and vermouth) with the pistachio pesto I talked about the other day, plus some sliced asparagus and a little ricotta salata. It was good, although personally I did like this pesto served on pasta a bit better. The crunch of the raw asparagus slices was nice, though.

If I recall from Modernist Cuisine, they explicitly don't want you to truss the bird, it makes the thighs and legs cook slower so they don't get done at the right time.

There are a few comments in Modernist Cuisine about the team preferring to leave some things on the bone for additional flavor when cooking sous vide (short ribs and pork belly come to mind).

I simply purchased the carrot juice, it's pretty readily available in the health drinks section at my grocery store. The celery juice I made with a blender and a tea towel strainer, which I've also used for apple to good effect.

Vegetable Risotto (p. 328-329) This is a par-cooked risotto made with vegetable stock, carrot juice, celery juice, and aged gouda: no saffron, though you may think it's in there based on the color (which is mostly from the carrot juice and gouda). As usual, my love for that vegetable stock led to my making this dish, and I was not disappointed. The par-cooking has never worked quite perfectly for me, I always have to cook mine longer than the recipe says I should, but that's not really a big deal, it still only takes ten minutes to finish. I used a Noord Hollander 4-year gouda, which I thought was perfect with the stock and juices, the overall balance of the dish was superb. Definitely a top-notch risotto, I'm looking forward to trying the other recipes in the book.

Maybe not 100% pointless (you'd probably be worse-off without a pressure cooker), but there are a LOT of recipes that use it.

I use fresh eggs and then pasteurize them... where does that fall in your spectrum?

Have a look at our Kitchen Scales topic, there's a lot of great advice in there.

It seems to me that the theoretical overlap is larger than the actual: while both books contain recipes for lardo, coppa, pancetta, guanciale, and salami, the actual recipes are different, and the new volume is much more detailed about the overall process and options for dry-curing. It also contains some updated advice regarding things like mold growth, and better food-safety information. There are also a lot more dry-cured recipes in the new book, since it's about as long as the original but doesn't contain any fresh sausages, confits, terrines, etc. That said, I think that if you don't really need the additional detail, are already comfortable with the food safety aspects, and don't need or care about specific recipes, then the new volume doesn't add anything.