KennethT

Not everything needs to be pasteurized if you are to consume immediately (or within 4 hours). Whole muscle cuts of beef, like steak are fine - as long as you give it a surface sear which will kill all surface bacteria. The theory is that the interior of whole muscle cuts (meat that hasn't been punctured) are considered sterile, but the surface may be contaminated. BTW - while doing this, I would recommend searing before SV - as many times, low temperature baths for rare steak are like incubators for bacteria - so you'd want to kill any surface bacteria before hitting the bath. Some people drop the bagged steak in boiling water for a short time... but personally, I'm a fan of the pre and post sear. Pre for bacteria, post for flavor/color. Other foods, like poultry, should be pasteurized regardless of when you plan on consuming it. I think the rule of thumb with pasteurization would go along with whether you would consider eating the same item raw. So steak, for instance, can be eaten as tartare, so you wouldn't need to pasteurize other than the surface. I don't know anyone who would ever consider eating raw chicken.

Thanks all for the thoughts. I realized after I posted (and left the apt with no access to a computer) that once the pressure is reduced, the pot is no longer sealed. With that in mind, however, it is still a covered system, keeping evaporative cooling to a minimum, so it does cool very slowly, even without any insulation. The shiny metal pot is a poor radiator of heat, and heat losses due to air convection is low also since the airflow in the kitchen is poor unless the vent is on. So, yes, it does take hours to even get to 160 deg F, let alone 130-140 deg F which is still a temp too high for bacteria to multiply. To get an exact figure, I'd have to run cool down tests and check temp every half hour or so. I know it's not completely exact since every time I open the pot, I get evap cooling, but it would give me a more conservative figure.

I had a question about food safety and pressure cookers about this specific situation: I make a stock that sits at full pressure for at least an hour, which is then naturally cooled. For how long can I keep this on the stove-top with the lid undisturbed without having a huge problem? Theoretically, the contents of the pot are basically steralized, and since it's a sealed system, no new bacteria can enter. I wasn't planning on having it sit for days, but I was hoping I could make stock in the morning, then turn off the heat before leaving for the rest of the day and coming back in the evening. Granted, in my pot, it takes over an hour just for the pressure to reduce to atmospheric to open the lid, and it stays probably over 180F for another hour or two... I just don't know how long it would be sitting in the "danger zone", and if the DZ even applies in this case....

I've done this before - it works great with some modifications. First, in a pressure cooker, I make an intense chicken stock with ginger, garlic, shallots, etc. added. For the best results (especially with the skin, I'll take a whole chicken, do the whole salt scrub thing, then plunge into the boiling stock (which then turns into simmer and kept that way) for about 10 minutes, then plunged into ice water. This chicken is then cut up into parts, and pieces are individually bagged with some of the intense stock, and cooked SV at 140F (for the white meat), or 150F or so for the dark meat. The dark meat is cooked for a few hours, while the white meat can be done just to pasteurization. Some of the resulting stock from the bags is used to make the rice, while any extra is recycled. Over time, your stock becomes more and more chicken-y, although it will need to be topped up with water and more aromatics as time goes by.

The biggest problem with all of this is, like Anna said, the maintenance. I used to have a spreadsheet with the contents of my 2 freezers... The problem is that you have to update it every time you take something out or put something in - which is a task easily forgotten, or put off to the future and then forgotten. In no time, the inventory means nothing anymore. Honestly, I don't have a good solution to the problem, which is why I've stopped keeping an inventory altogether. A ridiculous answer would be to put small RFID tags on everything that you buy, and enter the contents of each tag into a database. As long as you keep adding tags (and related dbase entries) to new acquisitions, keeping track of inventory is easy since you would just need to wave your RFID reader across the face of the freezer.

I'm fascinated by this... can you go into a little more detail about how/why you got into that habit? Where did you learn it from? What is the purpose of doing it? Does it result in a better texture or flavor, or do you do it for other reasons?

I think salting it for 48 hours was at least part if not all of your problem - depending on how much salt you added before aging, it is basically a cure. That would surely result in the firmer texture you experienced. I find salting even a couple hours in advance can cause a noticeably firmer texture. Out of curiosity, why did you salt it prior to aging?

So I usually don't write about NY restaurants often, usually because I rarely feel compelled to do so... But this evening is one of those odd times. First I'll say that this place just opened recently, and this was our first time there... But wow... The food really blew us away. Unique flavor combinations, really well executed. Everything we had was cooked perfectly, from a squid ink and black garlic pasta with crab and chiles, to an ocean trout with small pieces of cauliflower and some kind of sausage. The menu said nduja, but the server called it andouille... Didn't taste like andouille, so I'll assume the menu description... Vegetables are done really well, as was the sucking pig. The service needs a little bit of fine tuning, but they were very enthusiastic, friendly, and eager to please. I will certainly be eagerly returning....

I've looked to do this for a long time but never did it. I love how pigeon tastes in France, mostly because it is hung post slaughter, as opposed to US ones which are not. I was always told you shouldn't do it at home though, even though I never was able to get a proper reason as to why... I'm definitely very interested in your results!

Depending on how big the roast is, it may be quite dangerous to SV a whole roast as the center may take a very long time to come to temp. Personally, if I were planning on eventually turning the roast into steaks anyway, I would divide raw and cook them SV as steaks.. I would not season until pre-sear... lately, I've been gettnig much better results cooking meat unseasoned - I like the texture better.

Patrick - thanks.. I must have just overlooked them... I'll look again sometime soon... how much better is the milk you get from squeezing your own compared with the frozen milk that has no additives? Is it worth the extra work?

Well, since I regularly buy frozen coconut milk, and have never had a problem with it, I'd say it was safe to assume that it would safe to freeze what you make... I'd put it in a ziplock bag and squeeze the air out using the same displacement method you use for SV, then lie the bag flat in the freezer either on a rack or on a metal tray for fast freezing.

I haven't seen those! I've seen frozen bags of shredded coconut at Kalustyans, but I didn't notice if they had chunks... how does the cost compare to using the frozen coconut milk?

I've had the best results using frozen coconut milk... I used to use the brown Chaokoh cans, but I haven't been able to get the thick cream that floats to the top to crack in a long time. I was having a chat with the thai owner of a thai grocery shop in Chinatown and he recommended the frozen coconut milk... I haven't turned back since... but be careful - they are not all teh same... some of the ones I've seen have stabilizers and preservatives, some are just 100% coconut milk.

I've done similar things before - it works very well. I saute the paste prior to adding liquid to make a sauce. For thai curry, if you can't get coconut cream that will crack, you can sweat the paste in a tbs or so of coconut oil, then add coconut milk... or, if you'd like to make a more western style sauce with curry flavors, you can sweat the paste in a little peanut or grapeseed oil, deglaze with an acidic white wine and then add chicken stock... I will sometimes sweat a few chopped shallots with the paste to add a bit more sweetness if necessary... BTW - like you said, I understand that fresh paste is better than the prepackaged - although some prepackaged are better than others... if you can get it in your area, I'd recommend thai curry paste from Nittaya (also available online). It needs to be refrigerated, but it tastes much better than Mae Sri.

Do you have a whipping siphon?

Daunting indeed... I know the feeling... we enjoyed one evening in Banglamphu doing a "pad thai showdown" of sorts... we first went to Thip Samai - the pad thai institution, and then went practically next door to Leung Pha pad thai and got the same thing for a comparison... if you do so, I would recommend getting all versions including what they call "shrimp fat" or "shrimp head fat" - it definitely adds a new dimension to the dish, and I can't imagine why no one is doing it here in NY!<br /><br />We did enjoy Jay Fai (also in Banglamphu - actually just a few doors down from Thip Samai) although it is pricey by shophouse food standards. By most western standards, it is still a great deal.<br /><br />I think a good investment would be to try to purchase Chawadee Nualkhair's book, which is her top 50 BKK street food places... it was expensive on the internet, but I just bought it from her directly by contacting her through her blog bangkokglutton.com (it's a good blog anyway). She ships internationally and is not expensive. You can also pick it up in a lot of bookshops in BKK, but I wanted it before I got there so I could hit the ground running.<br /><br />I know you're planning to eat most meals on the street, but I would stress that we enjoyed Nahm and would recommend it. The complexity of flavors is mind boggling... We got the set menu, which is expensive by BKK standards, but it afforded us the ability to try a huge chunk of the menu which we ordinarily would not be able to do. I did not find neither the quality of product, nor depth of flavors anywhere else in BKK (that we had tried). The only issue we had was that we found the portion sizes too large for the number of dishes that you get, and consequently, we felt like we barely made a dent in most of the dishes even though we enjoyed them immensely.<br /><br />I had heard very good things about Paa Jazz near the Victory Monument, but we didn't have a chance to get there...<br /><br />We were underwhelmed by Polo Fried Chicken near Lumphini Park. We were there around 2PM (not prime time) and our chicken was dry and tasted like it had been sitting around for a while. The skin was just starting to get a bit leathery, although the fried garlic mound on top was great, as were the two dipping sauces on the table. Som tum was spicy, but lackluster and a little off balance. Maybe it would better when they're busier, so YMMV...

hi Nick - thanks for the reply... we actually returned back home about a week ago. We enjoyed jay fai - we got the pad kee mao talay as well as the lard na talay. Our pad kee mao had tons of wok taste - you could even see char all over. The lard na (a suggestion of a bkk resident foodie on another board) was excellent as well - both had an abundance of high quality seafood, and all of the prawns we had were properly cooked. One place that was one of the highlights was a seafood restaurant about an hour outside of BKK towards hua hin called Lomtalay. http://www.lomtalay.com/eng/html/home.html is a link to their English page... I agree about the crabs - I don't know your thoughts on this, but we were able to get a late notice reservation at Jok Kitchen - and his crabs, simply steamed, were incredible, although pretty pricey - but I don't know how they compare to similar quality crabs elsewhere.

I don't want to derail this thread, but I had never heard of the Paleo diet and had to look it up.... http://thepaleodiet.com/getting-started-with-the-paleo-diet/ ..... what a great laugh!!! Sure, our ancestors between 2.6mil and 10K years ago didn't have obesity, diabetes, cancer or osteoporosis, but they also didn't live past 25 years old, and I'm sure they got plenty of exercise running around hunting and gathering! And how do these 'scientists' know that our paleolithic ancestors didn't have acne or hemorrhoids?

Dave - congratulations on this first step and on getting funded! My wife did the Lemonade cleanse years ago back when she was a Raw Vegan yoga teacher... Let's just say she didn't make it past day 3 because of horrible cramps and crazy fatigue, and to this day still can't stand the smell of maple syrup. But, with that being said, many of her co-Vegan Lemonade fasters cruised past day 10 saying they felt better than ever and had tons of energy... Personally, I think their results came from the crystal meth... or they were cheating... Good luck!

wow - that market looks AWESOME!! I wish we had something even 1/2 as good in NYC.

I can't tell you where to get them, but they look like green pods that the cross section looks like an X-wing fighter from Star Wars, about 1/2-3/4" across.

I don't know if the pandan leaves are a major component - I'd say, obviously, that chicken was a major component... as is sesame oil, ginger and garlic in the chili sauce. The pandan leaves add a little something for sure, but I think you can make a perfectly acceptable chicken rice without it.

I've never seen them in a store, but I did see them in a Thai restaurant in NY last summer...

What about a form of kueh? I know it's not typical in the US, but they're great in hot, sticky areas like Singapore and Malaysia... I don't know if it goes with your flavor profile, but sticky rice soaked in sweetened and slightly salty coconut cream is awesome! Pair it with some good fruit in season, ot toasted coconut/peanuts... Yum!