KennethT

ACK!!! My wife just discovered my 2 wagyu beef cheeks that had equilib. brined for 4 days, smoked, and then SV for 3 days for the pastrami.... in the SINK!!! I took them out of the water bath late last night, put them in a bowl of ice water in the sink to chill rapidly for a party on Saturday... I forgot to put them in the refrigerator before I went to bed - so they've been sitting at room temp for who knows how many hours!!! I was thinking about putting them in a 140F waterbath for 6 hours or so to completely re-pasteurize... anyone have any thoughts about this??? Thanks...

You mean Apiary, right?

Be careful with Activa. Once it's opened and exposed to air it degrades fairly rapidly (or at least that's what they say). I keep my opened pack vacuum sealed and in the freezer as per Ajinomoto's recommendation. I have read (on another eG topic) that some people report decent shelf life for opened packs, but I've not heard of keeping it at room temperature, and I don't want to waste any by trying it out. Cheers, Peter. Hi Peter, Thanks for that. That's kind of what I'm hearing also. It's good to get the information about vacuum packaging and freezing it. I'll definitely do that with what I get. What percent vacuum do you use? I guess over time we'll be the test subjects for shelf life. Regards, Larry Edited for spelling Larry, I've had a sample package of GS that has recently celebrated its 2 year birthday since first being opened. I think it's important to say though, that I'm neurotic about how it's kept. When I plan on using it, I take it out of the non-defrosting chest freezer only long enough to remove the amount I need. I then press as much of the air from the sample bag as I can, and heat seal it shut, then put that in a vacuum bag and remove the air again with my foodsaver (my chamber vac is still in the works). I do it this way because my foodsaver would suck the powder into the pump - which you won't ahve a problem with your chamber vac. The original ajinomoto bag that holds the sample has a metal foil layer and is very good at keeping oxygen out, unlike most plastic vacuum bags. They also have an oxygen absorber in the bag to absorb any residual oxygen. I've actually added more oxygen absorbers as time has gone on, becasue I don't know how effective the original one is anymore. So, if you want to distribute the RM, I'd do the same thing - get a pack of either Mylar or foil lined bags, and stick an oxygen absorber in there with them, and you should be good to go.

Kenneth, just to make absolutely sure that I don't kill someone, please read my response to e-monster, above, and DON'T DO WHAT I WAS SUGGESTING IN MY EXPERIMENT! Bob Bob - exactly... it occurred to me after I had written the last post, which is why I edited it to bring up the safety issue... I'm glad you didn't try eating your experiment!

Kenneth, you may very well be right. However, it certainly isn't obvious to me, at least, that 131F will kill off all enzymatic activity, such that subsequent holding at 120F would then essentially do nothing. Do you believe that it is enzymes that converts collagen to gelatin? I though that was mostly just due to heat? I suppose enzymes must play a role, somehow, but I don't know at what point they would be come deactivated. But I doubt it is as low as 131F. I do understand that lowering the temperature after cooking meat for a relatively short while doesn't somehow "undo" the previous higher temperature, and make the meat go into reverse!. But on the other hand, it is not obvious that cooking something for say two hours at 131 followed by 48 hours at 120 is going to produce an identical result to holding the meat at 131 for the entire time. Certainly we know that as meat cooks, particularly at higher temperates (like in a braise), the muscle fibers contract and squeeze out the juice, and that is what causes an overdone piece of meat to become dry and tough. But it isn't obvious that this takes place instantaneously, such that once it's been subjected to 131F, that's it, and nothing more is ever going to happen. I therefore think that an experiment is in order. I happen to have a couple of pieces of chuck in the freezer, and sufficient SV apparatus to cook both simultaneously at two different temperatures, beginning later this afternoon for dinner tomorrow night. These are 30mm thick, so they will take 1:23 to come up to temperature, after which I will hold them for 90 minutes to pasteurize them throughout. I will then lower the temperature on one to 120F/50C, and keep the other at 131/55C, and taste the difference after 24 hours. Fair? Robert - I am not a food scientist, so I can't say that I know the answers to your questions. But, I am an engineer, and scientifically minded, and like knowing how things work. I don't have the book in front of me, but my memory of reading MC was that most of the enzymes deactivate somewhere above 123-124 degrees. I don't know if that's all, or just some, or most... but I do know that once deactivated, they do not reactivate. From what I've read, it seems that meat undergoes tenderization via several mechanisms - enzymatic happening around and just above body temperature, which is a completely separate mechanism from collagen denaturing. One has nothing to do with the other - while they may go on simultaneously. I remember Nathan saying in the old sous vide thread that collagen does denature into gelatin at low temperatures such as 122 degrees, but very very slowly. Collagen denaturing isn't like flipping a switch in that it's on or off, it's a gradual, logarithmic increase where it accelerates as temperature increases. If I had to guess, I would assume that meat cooked to 131 for 2 hours, then held for 22 hours at 120 would be less tender than meat held at 131 for 24 hours because the collagen denaturing will happen more quickly at 131 than 120. At 120, it's barely creeping along. But, I'm very eager to see the results of your experiment! Another thing to do is to do a search in the sous vide thread (not sure if it's in the old one or new one) for PedgroG's post regarding "turbo-aging" as I think he called it. I think he held meat at various temperatures (increasing) to take advantage of the various enzymes that deactivate at various temperatures. If I have a minute, I'll look for that post and put a link to it... ETA: also - from a safety perspective, I don't know how safe it is to hold meat at 120 for 22 hours, even if it's been pasteurized. In MC, they describe that if you are to enzymatically tenderize, you are to get rid of surface bacteria by dunking in boiling water for 15 seconds (or torching/searing) and then hold at 122 for no more than 4 hours, then put immediately into a pasteurizing cooking bath. 2 hours at 131 may cause a 6.5D reduction in bacteria (or something around there, I haven't done the math to see what the actual reduction would be after 2 hours), but the spores are still alive, and I'd imagine would be very active at 120F!! Just something to think about! ETA (again): here's the link that I mentioned. PedroG, as usual, gives a very thorough treatment in this post, and in the posts linked from it.

The issue here is tenderness vs. food safety. Chuck at 125 F for 48-72 hours would certainly be tender, but probably not safe. You can do anything you'd like if the food is not outside of the 4F-131F danger zone for more than four hours until it is eaten -- you can even eat it raw, like beef tartare. Unfortunately, the tougher cuts of meat, such as chuck or brisket, simply won't become tender at those low temperatures for such relatively short times. Instead, they take 24 to as much as 72 hours to turn the collagen sinews into gelatin. By cooking at 131F, you are effectively pasteurizing the beef, and thereby avoiding the potentially nasty bacteriological problems you might otherwise encounter. (I'm assuming here that you don't have access to a nuclear reactor or other way of irradiating your meat!) So you have a choice. If you like your steak really rare, buy a filet or a rib-eye, and cook it at 120F the way I do, and then post-sear briefly with a torch or a hot pan (I use both simultaneously). But if you want delicious flavor and reasonable tenderness at $2.50 a pound rather than $10+ a pound, try cooking a 70mm chuck steak for 24 hours at 131F, or a brisket for 72 hours. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. It won't be blood-red, still-bawling rare, but it certainly won't be a gray medium, either. One more thing, and this is something that I haven't tried yet, but Modernist Cuisine talks about a two-stage cooking technique, where the meat might be cooked at 120F for up to four hours for flavor/tenderness, and then briefly heated to say 131F for the desired amount of doneness. I think it ought to be possible to reverse that approach, and heat the meat at 131F for just long enough to pasteurize it (see the tables in Douglas Baldwin's PDF), and then back off the heat to say 120 for as long as you'd like for tenderness. I don't know, and certainly can't guarantee, that this "backwards" approach would preserve the "rare" look and feel that you are looking for, but it might be worth a try, vs. cooking the meat for the whole time at 131F. Just a bit more on pre-searing and post-searing techniques. Many restaurants use a Jaccard to poke lots of tiny little holes in a steak before cooking it. By severing the meat fibers, it adds to the tenderness, and surprising, causes LESS juice to leak out, because the fibers don't contract as much. However, because of the strong possibility that the outside of the meat is contaminated, if you do use a Jaccard, you really ought to either pre-sear (very briefly -- maybe 15 seconds per side), or blanch the meat in boiling water for about the same amount of time, just to be sure. Also, I find that my Jaccard tends to compress the steak quite a bit, making them thinner than I would like (they then cook too fast when post-searing), so ask the butcher to cut them thicker than they usually do -- 60-70 mm is about right. (If Costco is Jaccarding their steaks before selling them, I would be very, very nervous, and would want to see their HAACP and how they are doing this.) With a nice thick steak, I can heat up a dry cast iron pan as high as my gas stove will go, throw in the steak, and while the bottom is cooking, hit the top of the steak with a MAP torch, then flip it briefly. Spritzing the surface before hand with a 4% corn syrup mixture (no high fructose syrup) will also help the Maillard reaction. This gives me about right tradeoff between having smoke and grease all over the kitchen (if I use something like grapeseed oil in the pan for even better browning), vs. the torch-only approach, which tends to burn the little bumps on the surface of the meat, but doesn't evenly brown the surface. If the steak is too thin, however, this double searing technique may overcook it, even if you SV at 120F. In that case you can compromise and use a cold cast iron pan and a torch, but in that case you might find that the steak is cold and underdone, depending on your taste. YMMV. And finally, adding the Scotch to the pan juices was a waste of good Scotch. It vaporized too quickly, make the whole kitchen smell like a distillery, and I couldn't taste any difference in the final result. Next time, I'll imbue the smokey flavor with the meat and the Scotch in my mouth! Robert, I don't think doing the reverse (131 first, then 120 second) will work, because holding at 120 increases tenderness due to enzymatic action. Cooking to 131 first will effectively denature all the enzymes so holding at 120 won't really do anything. Besides, once meat is cooked to a certain temp, you can't undo it by holding it at a lower temp. So once it's cooked though to 131, it'll never get more rare than that by holding at a lower temp. I've used the MC approach before, and it works great - sear the surface to kill any surface bacteria first (I do a quick once over with the torch - not for color, just to kill bacteria) then hold at 120 or 122 for a couple of hours. Then increase the temp of the bath to 131, and hold to pasteurize. Finally, a torched sear (this time for color and flavor). I find the best crust comes when I first spread some oil over the meat, and then use the torch - the oil layer seems to conduct the heat better than just the torch alone.

have you seen the "Cooking with Modernist Cuisine" forum????

Maybe I'm misunderstanding - but are you trying to expand the foam with a covered mason jar, or uncovered? In theory, you should put the cover on the jar pretty loosely, so air can escape, and put the whole thing in the chamber. When the air comes back in, the pressure seals the mason jar, keeping the vacuum inside the jar even though the chamber is pressurized. Then tighten the ring seal on the jar and put in the freezer. Once frozen, you should be able to let air back into the jar without compressing the foam. This is the same theory behind the aerated foie gras done by Wylie Dufresne... he uses a container with a one way valve and puts the whole thing in his vacuum chamber. When the air comes back into the chamber, the one way valve holds the vacuum inside his container and keeps his foie foam expanded. Then it goes into the refrigerator, where the agar and gelatin will set the structure so it is stable under normal pressure.

Szechuan Gourmet can be very busy at prime time on the weekends - I've seen them turn people away because the wait would be too long. I was there once on Friday at 8PM and it seemed like there was a tour bus full of Chinese tourists waiting for tables! I would recommend calling them that day for a reservation, or go on the earliesh side and you should be ok. During the week for dinner, you should be ok to walk in any time with little wait.

Those double and triple head models are pretty cool... but for the single, I prefer my torch on a 3 foot long hose... again, no tipping of the canister, and the canister can hang from my belt and I have tons of maneuverability!

If you're looking for japanese/sushi, I'd recommend Yasuda - you can order a couple of apps, then stagger the sushi so they pace it out and it can be very relaxing there. For szechuan, I'd recommend Szechuan Gourmet on 39th and 5th (or somewhere right around there, I forget) - I think their food is better than any szechuan in chinatown or even Flushing - a few friends and I (including one who grew up in Szechuan province) compared it to Spicy&Tasty in Flushing over a few meals, and for 9 out of 10, we found SG to be vastly superior.

Ha! Franken-duck... I am definitely guilty of this one... I did a lot of franken-ducks when I first got my Activa back in 2009! Can you believe the opened packages of GS are still good from then?!? In any case, I went a step further back then - I removed the skin and shaved the fat with a knife. Then I removed the piece of tendon that runs through the middle of the duck breast (which basically winds up almost butterflying it). I then glued the meat back together where the tendon was, and glued the almost fat-less skin back on top. After that, I salted (like a quick confit cure but only with salt), then after a few hours, washed off the salt, let dry, then stove-top smoked for about 15 minutes. The whole thing was then cooked SV at 131F or 135, I think, then chilled and sliced. I had a couple of problems back then - I don't know if I used too much activa, but the skin was stuck a little too much to the meat, if you know what I mean. Normal skin isn't completely bonded to the meat, but the above treatment (and yours too, Chris, from the look of the pics) makes it a little un-naturally stuck. I also once tried removing the skin, rendering the fat on a silpat in a hot oven, which also crisped the skin, and tried to then glue that on the raw duck to be cooked SV... but after cooking, it didn't glue so well and it was a pain because first you had to try to get rid of all the rendered duck fat. Chris, did cooking the skin at 131 render the fat? The first pic is post SV I assume?

Right - I thought the same thing - that the wires on the brush are so fine that they disappear. I'm still looking for a decent dog brush (there's no conveniently located pet shop), but I've been using a jaccard on the skin - just no pressing hard enough to go all teh way through the fat, and it works fine with no noticeable holes. And those blades are a lot bigger than the dog brush wires!

Strange... I've never experienced that before with them - but I'm usually very specific in what I'm looking for, and unless it's a small whole cheese, I'll ask to taste it first.. but more often than not, they offer me a sample without me even asking. That way I know what I'm getting. Plus, I've found most the people behind the counter are pretty knowledgable, and give you a straight answer if you ask about the ripeness - and they'll also ask when you plan on using it. So one time I was shopping for a party that night and one of the cheeses I was looking for would have been fine if I was using it in a few days, but not ripe enough yet for that night.

Chris, I've done the sous vide snails using canned burgundy snails. I did it basically word for word from the recipe, but I didn't have any carrot, and I subbed shallots for sweet onion. Methods/cook time were the same as the orange highlight in the parametric table. All I can say is (and I know this has been done a lot) best. snails. ever... Really... I have a friend who's French, and he declared these the best he's ever had and that he actually dreamed about them that night. So I'd say that's a pretty good endorsement. I used the 5 hour temp/time combo... Sorry, I got busy and didn't see the other post with the updated menu... but in any case, if any one else is interested....

That's understandable... I'm usually not cooking for children so it's not really an issue for me. I do have a friend who's allergic to peanuts, but only to the protein... the oil is ok. Proven by how many times she's eaten things fried in peanut oil at my apt.

Could the cardboard boxes be returned to FD for use again? Heavy, well made, cardboard boxes stand up pretty well and when finally they're beyond more use FD could flatten them and have them picked up by a recyling company. Too many people might find other uses for plastic milk crates and not return them, unless there was a deposit on them. Their boxes are definitely in good enough shape to be able to be reused, but I don't think they take them back. I haven't directly asked their management, but their drivers don't accept them. I agree about the plastic crates though - but I'd be happy to put down a deposit to not have to deal with all the boxes.

My friend commonly brings a selection of their salumi and italian cheeses (some aged quite a long time and really good) I've never tried Koglin's... too bad... I usually don't frequent Penzeys because Kalustyan's is right around the corner.. sure they're expensive on some things, but I don't think you can beat them when it comes to spices. Most of my olive oils come from Fairway - they have a great selection of private labeled artisanal olive oils that they bring in in barrels then bottle here. It's great that you can try them before you buy it, too. Plus, they have an extra virgin olive oil that's private labeled that comes in a 3 liter tin that's inexpensive enough to use for every day pan frying... it's even good enough to use on raw applications, but the private bottle stuff is REALLY good. They also have a huge selection of imported name brand oils, but they're expensive. Lastly, when I'm lucky enough for her to bring some, I have a friend who's greek, and her family has a 500 acre olive grove and make their own family labeled olive oil... I'm the luckiest guy on the planet when a shipment comes in and she gives me a bottle... something to be said about freshness and olive oil. Oh yes, I know Artisanal very well... They're definitely not less expensive than Murrays (I've comparison shopped quite a few times on some of the cheeses that they both carry). It's also frustrating depending on who you get behind the counter. There's a french lady there who is so dismissive - I'll ask for something specific, and she'll offer me something else saying "it's the same" with the air of I-know-better-than-you... when in fact, I know they're not the same - in fact they're quite different... like comparing a bleu d'auvergne to a roquefort.. besides the fact that the roquefort is an AOC, it has a completely different flavor profile - much sharper, saltier, and more metallic for lack of a better word. Then there was another guy there who would constantly try to push domestic cheeses when I specifically wanted a french one (which they had in stock and at a nice ripeness btw)... Every time, I'd get the same answer "well, if you want that, you should REALLY get this one from wisconsin, it's much better" which first of all, to use "better" when it comes to a subjective thing like taste is problematic, and plus after tasting his suggestion, I'd never be a fan of it... not that it was a bad cheese, but not to my taste... sorry, that's my Artisanal rant... and for all the ranting, I'm going for dinner there tonight... so take it for what it's worth! I typically find their produce comparable if not better than Whole Foods... at first I felt the same way as you, but their produce is consistently very good - which I guess it would have to be since you can't pick through it like you could in a store. Plus, they have air chilled organic chicken for a decent price, and I don't have to lug it home from 14th street.

I also sear from about that temp and have no problems, unless it's something REALLY thin... lately, I've been avoiding using the hot pan technique as it creates quite a bit of smoke in my practically ventless small apartment. What I've been doing is a modified torch technique, where in addition to drying the moisture off the surface, I'll spread a thin layer of liquid fat - I try to use the same type of fat that the meat is made of and then torch. I get a much more even result that way, and more browning as opposed to a collection of little black spots.

Kenneth, I'm going to guess that you're a Murray Hill dweller like myself? That Food Emporium actually has the best produce in the neighborhood, though as you point out that's not saying much. That basement Gristede's is truly awful. I'm closer to the two D'Agostinos up the street, and they are even worse in their selection, although the freshness can be OK (with the emphasis on "OK"). Finding quality meat is another problem. I work downtown, so I get to the excellent West Village butchers when I can, but of course all of them close at 6, so it's nearly impossible to get there after work. For many ingredients (but not produce), Todaro Bros on Second Ave. is a lifesaver. Also Grand Central Market (but again, not for produce, and emphatically not for meat at Ceriello's either). Yep... I actually know those D'Ags pretty well - I used to live on 36th and they were the closest thing. Back then the food emporium was actually pretty decent, but their produce quality has gone downhill over the last few years. The selection is ok, if you can find something in the pile that's actually good. A few things in the Gristede's are ok - their herbs are ok because they're constantly being misted. Basically the only things we get from these are paper towels, etc... or emergencies... I have a friend who frequents Todaro's - although to tell the truth I haven't spent much time there... my impression was that they were overpriced, but had decent quality, with a limited selection. Grand Central market is ok for certain things - at least we have a Murray's Cheese pretty close by... the produce guy has some relatively hard to find things sometimes. Lately, we've been using Fresh Direct a lot which is really good. And the uptown Fairway can be on my way home from work, which is awesome! The only thing I don't like about FD is the huge amount of waste with the cardboard boxes. I understand using it for people who don't buy from them on a regular basis. But if you buy from them once or twice a week, I wish they had some type of recycling option - using plastic milk crates of some kind? Who knows.. but I'd gladly store a couple of plastic crates until next week to get rid of all the boxes.

I've been using peanut oil for a while and am pretty happy with it. I can reuse many times before seeing it degrade enough to hinder performace and it has a decently high smoke point. I can also get it pretty inexpensively in chinatown. But, I will say that duck fat does taste better... but is really expensive to get enough to deep fry in!

I used regular belly, not bone-in. It still came out great - but I couldn't say if it wouldn't have come out better!

My thoughts exactly. I bought it years ago and it has certainly paid for itself many times over. I'm sure you'll find other uses for it other than the odd garnish here and there.

I've sliced small things before on my mandoline... you just have to be really careful and go slower than if you were slicing zucchini or something... but it's still a lot faster, and consistent than using a knife. I have a Super Benringer (sp?) that I got at the restaurant supply store. Cheap, works great and easy to clean.

Mandoline?