Chris Hennes

I've developed something of a neuroses about it, in fact: I've fallen into a stupidly complicated sequence of unmolding steps to ensure that it happens as seldom as possible.

Wow, that's a quite comprehensive listing to start out with! Have you experimented with different honeys at all, or do you stick with the ones that come in the little plastic bear at the grocery store?

Welcome, CatGirl27—I've played around with caramel a little and have had the best luck using concentrated extracts when I want a particular flavor to really shine through. Caramel itself is such a strong flavor that if you want, say, a fruit flavor to dominate it you really have to work at using the most intense form you can get your hands on (at least, that's been my experience). I haven't really played with textures much but I'd be interested to hear what other ideas people have.

I'm getting ready to book my flights since we're nearing the pricing sweet-spot: any updates?

I made hummus tonight for about the hundredth time since I got mine. I think you will find that there is a "sweet spot" in terms of the speed/viscosity combinations that work the best. For example, with hummus you can start it on high, but once the chickpeas begin to break down you have to lower the speed a bit or nothing will ever hit the blades. But if you lower it too much you can get weird cavitations. With nut butters I find that if you want to make them without adding any additional oil it's actually best to start them in the food processor and process their until they liquify on their own. Then switch over to the blender to get it smooth, running it at top speed until you're happy with it. For things like Mexican dried chile sauces it works best with a fairly large amount of liquid, but if you get it right, there's no need to strain at the end, which is handy.

Yeah, I've had these molds on my wish list since Modernist Cuisine came out, but still haven't pulled the trigger on them yet.

Try making your liquid to be spherified thicker/more viscous.

One strategy is to get the liquid moving in a blender and then slowly sprinkle in the alginate.

I've already sold back my first edition of Greweling's book to (partially) pay for my pre-order of the next one, I'm definitely looking forward to that one. Looks like they aren't offering much on the buy-back anymore, but a month or two ago it was over twenty bucks.

What's your strategy for this? Just mint and hot water?

One thing I discovered about the Art of Choke this past week is that it works pretty well as a bottled cocktail, if you leave the mint out and muddle it in at service time. I wasn't sure how it would hold up given that it has lime juice in it (I don't usually like bottled cocktails that have citrus in them) but I think because there is so little it manages to survive more-or-less intact.

To make it less sweet do you just use a different sugar? What would you suggest?

But of course. Alas, he says his shipping is going to be delayed because of all the extra traffic he's getting right now, so it will be a little while.

Unsurprisingly there is a 72h sous vide cook involved, which is probably its most unique element, but the flavors of the brine and the rub are superb, and the attention to detail in the recipe writing means it's actually possible to just follow on down the recipe step-by-step and get a fantastic product. Have a look at the couple examples in our Modernist Cuisine topic for details. IMO it's better than anything you're getting at Katz's (or whatever your NY/NJ benchmark is).

Well, now... "need" is such a relative term. I mean, pork seasoned with salt and cooked on the BBQ tastes great, because pork is good: it doesn't "need" anything else. But variety is nice too, and sometimes I like the variety that includes sauce. But I agree wholeheartedly that the vast majority of commercial sauces are gross. I haven't tried Weber's line, though.

Wow, 145°F is actually a respectable temperature to cook chicken to, it's what I use most of the time. I'm a little surprised, I would have thought that they would still have gone with 160°F or even 165°F.

I love the mustard sauces with pork butt or chicken thighs, but haven't been fond of them with either ribs or with beef: there is room in the world for more than one BBQ sauce, IMO, and TN-style is a worthy contender.

Did you happen to catch the temperature they recommend? I'd be fascinated to know what the mass-market sous vide chicken target core temp is.

Wow, those all look really sweet: these peaches have plenty of sugar in them for my tastebuds, I was thinking of a strictly sour sort of brine. Has anyone tried anything like that?

That's the one. I liked the recipe in Charcuterie, too, it's definitely good: but the MC is... well, unbelievable.

I've been happy with the Memphis BBQ Sauce in Modernist Cuisine: the basic components are Canned tomatoes (100%) Cider vinegar (27%) Lemon juice (13%) Butter (13%) Brown sugar (11.5%) Worcestershire sauce (10%) The spices they use are chili powder, onion powder, tobasco, mustard powder, and cayenne.

The recipe in Modernist Cuisine is unbelievable, I've got some short ribs in right now.

Pickled peaches sound great: brine recipe suggestions?

Or you could, as suggested above, behave like and adult and talk to them about their tardiness, if you don't want to just work around it.

Good point: so fish is actually an easy option for the perpetually late.