KennethT

Chris - I've been enjoying your blog so far! I start my seeds in rockwool cubes - I get starts that look like your tomatoes/tomatillos after 4-5 days, rather than a couple of weeks. I find soaking the cubes in 5.5pH water initially, and then misting once in a while with the same water gets faster germination. Once I see the first set of true leaves, I'll transfer to my "incubator" which basically keeps the bottoms of the cubes bathed in 25% nutrient fog for a week or two until the roots are long enough to transfer into my normal window garden. I've also heard really good things about Coco coir, and about these Rapid Rooter plugs. While usually, the rockwool is only for hydro (since it doesn't degrade too easily (although it can be recycled)), the coco coir and Rapid Rooter are great for starts that will go into soil.

When my father grew parsnips, he always over wintered them... saying that they were much sweeter that way.

Thanks. I found out today that if I shut the screen down, the alarm turns off also, then when the screen turns back on, the alarm comes back - so that's a temporary solution. But a pause button is a good idea...

Really enjoying 3.0.... when doing cook-chill, is there a way to turn off the audible alarm but not start the chill timer? Sometimes my ice bath isn't ready when the timer goes off (or I'm in the middle of doing somethign else and don't have the time at that moment to do the transfer) but I don't want to hear the timer beeping the whole time.

Another option is a convection microwave which can act as a small oven...

dcarch - where is the market in above photo? I don't recognize it...

Laurel's Heirloom Tomatoes is a great supplier of hard to get heirloom starts... I had a very successful Goose Creek tomato plant growing hydroponically in the windowsill of my NYC apartment on the 21st floor for the majority of last year... I have another that will be shipped as soon as there is no fear of freezing while in transit. I'm in the process of upgrading the "leafy green farm" of my windowsill garden - I had a bunch of fun things growing since the summer, but then I had a leak issue and decided to start over again after it was fixed. But before the issue I was growing pineapple sage, lime thyme, coconut scented geranium, variegated lemon scented geranium, chocolate mint, various types of leaf lettuce, and chinese broccoli (gailan). Most grew really well, but the mint was a pain since the roots took over the entire garden. The herbs all came as starts from Well Sweep Herb farm, and the lettuces and gailan started from seed from John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds.

Looks great... next time, try taking the bones out - nothing like crunchy boneless wings! Especially if you make it for unsuspecting people - because it looks like a normal wing - so people get a kick out of trying to figure out how you got the bones out.

One of the El Bulli books recommends cooking chicken wings in a little olive oil at 140F for 24 hours. At this point, remove the wings from the bag (be careful, they're very delicate) and you can pull the bones out without damaging the meat or skin. It takes a little practice but it's definitely doable at home. You can then chill (or maybe even lightly freeze), coat in potato starch or other crispy coating and deep fry at really high temp a la modernist cuisine quail dish. You can coat in wing sauce just before serving or provide it as a dipping sauce. In the past, I've done a decent wing sauce by sweating a bunch of finely chopped shallots in a lot of butter, then adding a bottle of Crystal hot sauce, then blend... Another idea is a roquefort foam - the foam is good as roquefort can be very strong and salty, and the foam mellows it just a bit, while letting the essence of it through... melt roquefort in a bit of cream (maybe a little sodium citrate will help melting?), strain, put in nitrous whipper and chill.

The textbook I used was On Cooking bt Lebensky and Haus. A bit pricey, but details all the classic techniques pretty well.

whoops... in my last post, I meant that black bass is typically overcooked not overlooked... but it was perfect the other night - good crust but still really moist.

Had a chance to go last night. Excellent - not much to add that hasn't been said already, other than the fact that they said they're planning on turning the downstairs into a cocktail lounge with small plates. Also, I think one of the dishes referred to above as"black cod" is actually black bass (unless there's a black cod on the menu as well that I didn't notice) - a fish I love but is typically overlooked. This one was great.

I don't know if I'd call them crispy... they get crispy in spots, but not uniformly like if they were deep fried. But they get great maillard coloring, turn almost sweet, and have a great texture where they are tender but still have a little bite to them.

I know you're not a fan of frying, but a while ago, I took a cooking class with David Bouley - and one of the components of one of the dishes was brussel sprout leaves... you can get the leaves pretty quickly by using a paring knife and coring the sprout like coring a head of cabbage - most of the leaves just fall off. He then proceeded to get a saute pan very hot and using a touch of grapeseed oil (just enough to barely coat the pan), throw in all the leaves at once. They will sputter bit. Season and saute until they reach the amount doneness you prefer.

Interesting - so it seems like it's just plain sugar... I guess the purpose is for those who want to make their own flavored candy.... I took a quick look around, and it seems like most "homemade" pop rocks come from hard-crack sugar, with added baking soda and flavoring. Typically, when doing hard crack sugar, you replace a small amount of the sugar with corn syrup to prevent recrystallization... You can make it less sweet by substituting more glucose and isomalt for some of the sugar. Isomalt is much less sweet than sugar is, but structurally acts like sugar. Glucose is also less sweet than sugar. I'd probably try 25% isomalt, 30% sugar, 45% glucose by weight as a starting point - you may need to bump up the sugar and reduce the glucose a bit if it's a little chewy. Making the isomalt behave can be a little tricky... typically I'll heat the sugar and some water in the pan until it starts boiling, then add the glucose. I add the isomalt once it gets to soft ball stage (230-240F?) by sprinkling it evenly over the surface of the sugar and letting it slowly melt in to the mixture. I don't stir it because it can cause crystallization, but I wonder if it's even possible with that much glucose in the mix... keep heating (medium heat? - Don't go too fast) until you get to hard crack - 305-310F, let cool a bit, then add flavoring and baking soda stir to combine then pour out on a silpat and let cool... then pulverize. So, you can make savory spiced pop rocks by adding whole spices (star anise, coriander, clove, etc.) while the sugar is boiling... you can either pick the big pieces out after you've poured onto the silpat or leave them in to get bits of spices in with the rocks...

Does anyone know if the unflavored ones are still sweet (meaning sweet without tasting like cherry, raspberry, "blue", etc.)??? If they're not made entirely from sugar they could be only slightly sweet.. like isomalt and glucose "candies"? I've done savory sugar glass before - there's just a hint of sweetness, definitely not candy-sweet. I use the El Bulli ratio of 50% fondant, 25% glucose 25% isomalt. Maybe the unflavored pop rocks are made from a similar base?

If you can get a hold of jamon iberico de bellota - a slice on pan con tomate is simple, unchallenging, and crazy-good, depending on the jamon...

Wow.. sounds like quite a difference from the old Acme!!! Even more of a transformation than EMP... BTW - what were the prices like, on average?

Chris, 6 years ago, when my wife and I were in Hanoi, we really enjoyed going to Pho Bo Ly Quoc Su, at 42 Nha Trung. They're around the corner from the big church on the west side of the lake, and have a red Coca Cola awning. We went there 3 days in a row - it was always packed, and no tourists - only locals. I wish I remember where we went for Bun Cha... it was an awesome roadside place that was basically a tarp set up as a big tent... Bun cha was ridiculous and also the cha gio were awesome too - the best we've had before or since. Unfortunately, since I can't remember where it was, it's not much help to you!

I agree - you can make a good, stable warm foam using agar - try the upper percentage range of what was listed above then gel it completely. Then shear while cold in the blender to make a fluid gel, which will then have the consistency of ketchup. Then you can warm the gel (up to 85degC, the melting point of agar) and add to your whipping siphon and add 1-2 NO2 charge. Or add the gel to the siphon and stick the siphon in a warm water bath and charge... If you had it available, you could also use a combination of xanthan and LA gellan, but gellan is harder to come by.

Hydroponics is the near-future of farming - vegetable-wise. It uses 30% less water than conventional farming, and about 10% of the space required of conventional farming. You can grow just about anything - although, due to the higher cost of indoor farming (lights, fans, etc) it is usually being done with higher profit and fast growing crops. Hydroponic farming has been done for a long time now - but the newest idea is the vertical farming, where towers of food can be grown in the middle of cities where they are going to be used. Things can be picked at the peak of ripeness rather than picked green and "reddened" to minimize damage in shipping. Check it out.

Slightly off topic, but for all the NYC MCers and modernist cooks, I stopped into Kalustyan's (Lex and 28th) today looking for Agar and Xanthan (they had those a long time ago - located up near the front) but after searching for a half hour in the old location, I couldn't find them and finally asked someone... they've been moved downstairs near the spices - and with them are a lot of their friends - Kappa Carrageenan, Sodium Alginate, Gum Arabic, Guar gum, N-Zorbit plus quite a few others. Unfortunately, some things aren't labeled well - like "Gellan" which doesn't specify if it's LA or HA or a mixture. Their prices, of course, are higher than if you were to buy from Le Sanctuaire or another online retailer, but they are convenient in the fact that you don't have to ship (and wait for arrival from SF) and also sell smaller quantities if you need something and no one is willing/able to share at the moment.

I've done this several times (actually I think many of us on this forum have)... I haven't used the SVDash yet, but according to NathanM's reformatted beef table, 2.5" should not be a problem, assuming that you're cooking to medium-rare 55C.. it should come to temp in just under 3h50m. Also, unless your roast has been jaccarded (either by you or at the processor), the interior is considered sterile by the FDA and not typically a concern for most pathogens. Personally, for cooking beef this way, I like to do a propane torch pre-sear to kill any bacteria on the surface and develop some flavor... I"ll also take any of the fatty trimmings off, and brown/render in a pan and add the rendered fat and browned pieces to the bag. Then, season and sear (again) prior to service.

I agree... SV turkey is the way to go... One way to get more of the roasted flavor is to take some trimmings and brown in a fry pan and add to the bag prior to cooking... not the same as a true roasted turkey, but adds roasted smell...

You can always cut the raw meat off the leg and put the chunks in a bag in your SV setup... Usually the turkey confit is pulled from the bone anway once it's done (like pulled pork) - so if it won't fit, you might as well debone it first. Then should i leave the skin in one piece to SV (and help render some fat) and brown that at the end? I think it depends on what you want to do with the skin... typically, if you were cooking the leg unboned, you would leave the skin on, and then remove it prior to pulling... The skin which has been cooked has become really gelatinous and tender, and will crisp very nicely between silpats/cookie sheets in a hot oven (450?)... So, if boning out the leg first, you can leave the skin in one piece and remove it if you'd like and cook it in the bag with the meat... then when you remove the skin from the bag, you can crisp one big piece if you'd like, or cut it into strips or whatever... just be careful when removing it from the bag as it will tear easily because it's so fragile. Oh, and when I was thinking about turkey confit, I figured it would be cured like confit with the bone in... then prior to cooking, you'd wash off the salt, and bone it out to get it to fit in your SV...