KennethT

Is it possible that your block is out of temper because of time spent at higher temp before your a/c turned on? If that's out of temper, then using it for seeding will not result in tempered final product. Can you try tempering it without seeding? It takes a little longer, but not a big deal in small quantities....

First - I agree with e_monster.. if you have a rotisserie that goes down that low, why play with SV at all? It's a lot of trouble to bag a big roast, SV, then chill, then retherm... If you are dead-set on SV, and like my ideas before - I would like to add that it seems that I'm not coming through clear. I would retherm completely in the rotisserie - not retherm at all SV - but, since the roast is already cooked, you only need to rotisserie so that the inside is warm, proper eating temperature... say 125degF. I'd assume that if you're starting from refrigerator temp, by the time the inside gets to 125F, you should have a decent crust on the outside. Of course, you will get some gradient this way, which is not always a bad thing.

I like the idea of cooking a few days earlier to 130F then quickly chilling in an ice water bath. But would i retherm it back in the sous vide to 125F? or retherm directly in the rottiserie to the target temp of 135F? It seems in that case why not just sous vide to 130F and let it drop 10 degrees before putting it into the rottiserie to climb up to 135F and build a crust.I was originally thinking to retherm it completely in the rotisserie to a target internal temp of 120-125. I would actually get the rotisserie going on the hot side, rather than keeping it cool, which will help get a nice crust, but remember, you just need to warm up the center, as it's already been cooked to 130. Also, according to MC, the showtime rotisserie is more like an oven than a true rotisserie - because the door keeps in heat... maybe you could keep the door open to keep it cooler around the meat while the one side (rotating) gets continually blasted with the infrared?

Is it possible to cook/chill the roast? Cook it to 130 for 12 hours SV, then as quick as possible chill to refrig. temp, then a couple hours in the rotisserie to crust/retherm to an internal temp of 120-125... just a thought

I've been doing something similar for doing Hainanese chicken rice after a trip to Singapore last year as it seems the good stalls do that. But HCR is typically boiled or poached as opposed to braised. But it too gets better and better with use. I was very upset when I had to thow it out after 6 months (being used every other week or so) because of weeklong power outage with Sandy.

I seem to remember MC having tables relating thickness to time charts. I know Nathan put them in the SV thread a long time ago. Before I got SVDash, I would use the EG thread and MC for temp recs, and then use Nathan's tables (which I printed a long time ago) to get times... Now, SV Dash makes it a lot easier and more accurate.

I've done SV asparagus in the past and I thought it came out quite well - especially if you have an application where you don't want the maillard flavors that come with grilling/saute/roasting etc... not there's anything wrong with those, and I do them more often than SV... I posted what I did a long time ago in the first SV thread.... See http://forums.egullet.org/topic/144275-sous-vide-recipes-techniques-equipment-2010/page__st__780__p__1761034#entry1761034 Doing it this way results in a 'crisp/tender' texture that I can't do any other way. Back then, I put butter in the bag, but lately I've been using olive oil.

You don't cut through bone at all iirc, just a bit of cartilage and flesh. That's right. If you do it the Pepin way, you don't even cut through cartilage, you just cut through sinew and flesh

The only thing I can imagine is that boiling cut potatoes releases more starch since there's more surface area... just a guess though.

You can't use a plastic bag of any kind, since it won't tolerate the heat. You can use a retort bag, but they're expensive, and not easily obtainable. You can use a metal or glass bowl, just make sure you keep it off the bottom of the pc with a rack.

I don't know about that particular Ostere, but I have burned out my share of Osters in the past. Also, knowing a thing or two about motors, I will say that power consumption does not always correlate to motor torque. Many times, though, the manufacturer will use the figure in their marketing because it sounds good.

I've seen a lot of ideas online about making a ghetto cold smoker using a coffee can, soldering iron and a thermostat (PID or non). I saw an interesting video of Jordi and Juan Roca smoking a cigar using some kind of hand pump, blowing the smoke into the bowl of a stand mixer while whipping cream to make a cigar infused whipped cream. The video was at the end of their Harvard lecture.

Astor is usually a good place to start since they have a wide variety. Sherry-Lehmann is usually a good bet if you're looking for something French. Just did a quick check - they have 3 different BdV! One of which is from Paul Jaboulet, an excellent Rhone producer.

I've done a lot of foie SV over the past few years - but slices, rather than the whole one. I always use a zip lock bag - but I use the one that has the one way valve with the hand pump since the foie is dry when it goes in the bag. One thing - foie floats! So you'll need something to weigh it down to keep it submerged.

If I'm doing something with no liquid in the bag, I usually use the zip lock bags that have the one way valve and the included hand pump. I was sick of having to dig out the food saver every time I wanted to seal one or two bags (I have very limited counter space). I find the displacement method works great if there's some liquid in the bag, but sealing something that's dry always leaves an air bubble for me. then again, the nice thing about ziplocks is that you can always open the seal, let out the airbubble (once it's surfaced to the seal area) and reseal while keeping the package under the water line.

Yes - any kind of particles will be a problem - you should strain whatever you put into your whipper otherwise it will clog. If your whipper clogs, you have to be careful - usually, you unscrew the top very carefully, and just a little bit, until you hear pressure releasing (don't unscrew all the way or you could get hurt and will certainly have a mess). Once the pressure is released, you can completely unscrew the top, clean the valve and then repressurize.

Since I rarely use my oven, and have practically no counter space, I set my oven to as low as it'll go. Winds up around 180F. My parents have tons of space - they have an electric hot-tray which works very well.

I usually do it the way most do, remove the skin, then sv at 57... but I was wondering - what if you did skin on SV first, then chilled completely, then skin side down in a medium pan. Maybe by the time the fat renders, the meat will be brought back up to temp without going too high?

Recently, I had a dish at Mintwood in DC - wild Scottish pigeon breast, surrounded by a mince of the legs, thighs and innards, wrapped in savoy cabbage and then wrapped with a slice of uncrisped bacon. It was awesome! That sounds great! I love when the Scottish game comes into season... my buddies at Ottomanelli used to hold some Scottish partridge for me when they got it in... great, just really expensive though! Sadly, right now I don't have the time to do a lot of fun (read time consuming) cooking so I don't get to see them as often as I'd like.

I love doing small birds. You're not going to get nearly as much flavor out of a squab in NY as you would in France. I gather they hang them in France for a few days to age them, but that does not happen here. I've had good results doing squab sv. I typically get a bit more flavor out by first browning the skin in foie gras fat (just a few seconds to get color), then putting in the bag and seal with more rendered foie gras fat. I'll do the MC "turbo aging" holding it at 115-120F (I forget the exact number - but it's in MC) for a few hours (no more than 3) then I'll turn up the circulator to 131 and cook until pasteurized using Vengroff's sous vide app. For the legs, I cook them for like 4 hours at 156F or something like that, then a quick sear in more you guessed it, foie fat. Like FP said above, quail and foie are a great combo - but so is squab and foie. Years ago, I had at Atelier Robuchon in Paris a squab dish where he rolled a squab breast and a slice of foie (cooked sv, not seared) in a leaf of cooked savoy cabbage, then wrapped with a single slice of gently cooked bacon (so it was tender, but not crispy) with a line of piment d'espelette. It was awesome. They had it for a whle in the NYC Atelier, but it wasn't the same - the squab didn't ahve as much flavor. But I do it at home with the rendered fg and the turbo aging, and it's a little closer.

I've made a dark roux in the microwave. It actually works really well and only takes abou 10 minutes. The only problem is (for me since I have an over the stove microwave) that you have to take it out every minute or so and give it a stir and it's hot!

Can you be a little more specific? How can the product be used? Only as a component in other products (ie pasta, cakes, batters, etc) or by itself (ie omlette, scrambled eggs, etc) ?

I don't think that will foam when warm though - the gelatin won't hold its structure when warm and will quickly deflate... hence the suggestion above to make an agar fluid gel - that will hold its foam very well even when warm.

Another way to do it to have a hot foam is to make a bacon stock (use the rendered fat as well) then make an agar/xanthan fluid gel using roughly 1% agar and like 0.2% xanthan. You can heat the fluid gel up to 180degF, then add to your whipper and foam away!

I find Fresh Direct's quality to be very good, in general. Here and there, something's not great, but most of the time it's as good as you'll find anywhere else in the area. For all things Italian, you could head to Eataly on 23rd and Broadway - they have an excellent selection of canned tomato products, pastas (both dried and fresh) and a very good produce and meat and fish selection. Their prices aren't always the best but they're actually not bad for most things. Some items are quite pricey, but a decent value for the quality. Their Piedmontese beef is expensive, but excellent quality. When it comes to duck, I haven't noticed a variety of brands, necessarily. Most prepackaged ducks are very similar (if not the same), but you can get different varieties by going to the Chinatown meat markets on Mott btwn. Hester and Grand, or in the butcher dept at Eataly, or by going to one of the specialty butchers like Ottomanelli on Bleecker. But I'm sure you don't want to run around that much... I've found that the meat markets in Chinatown have the best fowl selection outside of a specialty butcher - lots of different types of birds and all good quality. Other than what you'd find there, most supermarket chickens have been bred for large breasts and no flavor.