KennethT

Right - but, wouldn't the fondant lose its structure once you remelt/boil/bring to hard crack?

So this really isn't a pastry question so much, but I figured this was the best place to put it... El Bulli and other restaurants have been wrapping savory items in very thin caramel. Most techniques out there use the following: 2:1:1 by weight fondant:isomalt:glucose heated to 325-330F (where the fondant is sugar/glucose not rolled fondant). My question is why do they use fondant rather than just sugar and extra glucose? My understanding is that fondant is made up of very small sugar crystals in a saturated sugar solution - so it has a very fine and creamy texture. But if you're going to remelt and bring to hard crack, doesn't that destroy your crystal structure anyway? Does using fondant do anything special in this application?

Wondra flour is a great coating for pan-frying, aka saute, proteins. You sprinkle it on, and a super-thin layer adheres to the protein, the rest blows off. The finished product does not seem to have a flour coating. It also helps proteins not stick to the pan. This is a technique that was lauded by David Bouley a few years ago in one of his demonstration classes - he extolled the virtues of the wondra flour for like a half hour - and even sold it in the Bouley Market when they first opened (which was about the time of this class). He said in the restaurant Bouley (at that time) they used the wondra flour when the sauteed just about everything... he demonstrated using it when searing scallops.

I'm in Manhattan and have no problems finding it - it's in the Food Emporium and Gristede's in the basement of my building/across the street...

It seems to me that the biggest problem I have with poultry skin is rendering the fat underneath and gelatinizing the collagen, rather than the crisping of the surface. Turkey skin is pretty tough and leathery (lots of collagen) unless you do something to convert it, and then it can be crisped successfully.... The problem is how to cook the skin long enough to convert the collagen without killing the meat underneath. I haven't found a solution yet, other than removing the skin and treating it separately - that seems to be the consensus here so far. Pour-over frying works pretty well at rendering some of the fat and crisping, but it's a real pain in the neck as hot oil splatters all over the place and it still doesn't do a completely effective job. 2 years ago, for thanksgiving, I did a turkey breast ballantine (with the skin on) that I tried browning the skin in a hot pan. The legs/thighs were done confit style and the skin from the confit was crisped between two sheet pans in a hot oven. The results: at the end of the night, when cleaning the plates, just about all had finished the white meat ballantine, but left the skin on the side. The crisped thigh/leg skin was completely gone, as well as the confit.

Alex - can you sum up what he said about the future of El Bulli?

I've done things wrapped in banana leaf - like a yucatan style pork shoulder, rubbed with achiote and lime, wrapped in a banana leaf and cooked at either 155F for 24 hours, 176 for 12 hours, or 182 for 8 hours... the banana leaf didn't impart that much flavor at 155, but it imparted a lot of aromatics at both 176 and 182... neither of them were bitter, although we didn't actually eat the banana leaf (does anyone actually do that?)

Just checked my notes... nice thick asparagus, 150F for about 8 minutes with s&p and a couple pats of butter in the bag, then shocked in ice water and held in refrigerator until service - put back in 140 or 150F water (whatever's convenient if you have other things going) for a couple of minutes to reheat: results in a vibrant green color, crisp but tender texture... I thought they were a little too crisp still, but others loved them... maybe I'd try 10,12 and say 15 min. next time I can get really good asparagus... had a very green, grassy flavor... more than normal steaming etc...

Those look great... I've had mixed results with veggies... asparagus at 180F=yuck, but at 140 or 150 (I forget which) they're fantastic... What were temps and times for yours?

Most shellfish is pretty tender, and if cooked too long turns mushy... octopus can be cooked long time, and I'd imagine that abalone would be good that way too, especially if it has lots of collagen in the muscle.

I would love to do abalone SV, but for me, getting them is really expensive (the only source I know of is in San Diego and the shipping to me in NY is really expensive, aside from the abalone being already expensive!)... so I haven't taken the plunge in bringing them in as an experiment. If you do an experiment with one, please please post your results! Also, I wonder if you could take one, and cut it into quarters and use different temps/times? I know it's a lot of work though...

When making the duck cracklin, put the silpat on a sheetpan... then put the duck skin on one side of the silpat, fold over the other side, so you have a duck and silpat sandwich, and cover with another sheetpan...

You can get around the "cooked tomato" flavor with the agar by boiling only a small amount (say 1/4) of the total liquid iwth the total amount of agar - let it boil for a few minutes, then while stirring, stream in the rest of the liquid making sure it doesn't go below 35C (where it'll pregel)... stir to combine then mold and set to cool

Interesting - I never thought of putting a brine in the bag with the meat... I've always pre-seasoned and put some type of oil/fat in the bag. At such low temps/short times, I've never had problems with any liquid being exuded... definitely not true for long time stuff like 36 hour flank steak, etc (there's lots of exuded liquid)... I have to try the brine next time.

I usually put some butter (or even better, rendered foie gras fat) in the bag - maybe a tablespoon or two per bag... and I always season prior to bagging. Just make sure to dry the steaks off with a paper towel prior to searing... you can butter your griddle just prior to adding the steaks for a little extra maillard/butter flavor.

I can cut the steaks to whatever thickness. I was thinking about 1", which would allow everyone to have a little more crust than if they were cut thicker. 53C sounds reasonable. I don't think that will be too rare for anyone. I won't need to hold them for a long time at all. i'd prefer to go straight from circulator to searing, just to keep things quick. There won't be any extra hands in the kitchen, so the less time i can spend searing etc. the better. Do you think 2 hours at 53 is reasonable? At this temperature is there any tenderizing effect to consider over these relatively short cooking times? For 1" thick, 2 hours is more than ample, and will not have any tenderizing effect. It will just be uniformly 53C edge to edge. Also, just make sure you trim any big chunks of fat, since they won't render at those temps and aren't so appealing...

How thick are the shell steaks? Once you know their thickness, you can get the minimum time from the tables. At that temp, I have left in the waterbath up to4 hours or so without noticing a difference. At 55C, tenderization takes a long time... Another possibility is to cook the steaks at 55C and leave in to pasteurize in advance - like today if necessary, or if you had the circulator in advance, up to 3-4 weeks in advance assuming your refrigerator is less than 38F. Then at service, the searing will also bring the steaks up to temp (depending on thickness - if it's too thick, then by the time the outside is nicely seared, the inside will still be cold). Doing it from cold has an advantage of getting a thicker crust on the steaks without overcooking the inside. Also, just a thought, but shell steaks are pretty tender... I usually go for 127-128F (53C) for such a tender cut which will leave it more rare. If doing this, you don't want to leave it in the bath for longer than 4 hours, and you can't really pasteurize, so cook-chill is out.. I don't know the "rare tolerance" of your guests, however...

Thanks!

hey Opty - when did you give the EdgePro to the thrift shop? Which one?

I don't know how he does his pork SV, but I've adapted his Yucatan "pig in a pit" for SV with pork shoulder and it works great. You make his achiote marinate and rub all over, then wrap with banana leaf. I put it in a stovetop smoker for about 20 minutes, and then into the bag... A long time ago (a couple of years) I did it for about 7 hours at 82C, and then did another one at 76C for 12 hours. I thought the 12 hour version was better, and both were hot enough for the banana leaf to impart some flavor. Since that time, I've done other pork shoulder (with no banana leaf) at 155F for 24 hours, and that has been best so far, but I haven't tried it with the banana leaf to see if it imparts any flavor at that temp.

I think most supermarket chickens are pretty young - usually you run into tough chicken problems with old "stewing" hens that are mostly intended for soup. A normal 3 or 3.5 pound fryer is a pretty young bird... granted it may not have been sung lullabyes or petted 3 times a day, but I don't think that would have much effect on the amount of collagen in the skin... hehe

Thanks so much for chiming in on this, Nathan. I love the idea of vacuum sealing the whole pan to firmly press the chicken to the pan. In the past, I have pre-rendered skin and then glued it back on with activa GS (I actually did it with duck, not chicken) and it worked pretty well - but it was rather complicated and time consuming to wait until the tg bonds, which is what I'm trying to avoid. I think my next attempt will be to freeze the surface on a flat block and do a medium temp sear.

That's an interesting idea... first I've got to get some blocks of dry ice! The biggest problem is that I think most of the conversion/fat rendering actually goes on during the roasting process. When I do the initial sear in the pan, I don't see any additional fat other than the original oil, but after it finishes roasting, there's a noticeable difference in fat quantity as the fat under the skin and elsewhere has rendered. But it would be interesting to freeze the skin first because maybe then I could do the initial sear at lower temps, so it would first render while browning more slowly. If I can't get a block of dry ice so fast, I wonder what the difference would be if I prescored (a la dog brush) the skin and then froze the whole thigh (not just the skin and area directly below)... then continue with the process... sure it would take a lot longer having to wait for the freezing than just freezing the surface on dry ice, but I think it's worth an attempt.

Right, and then you have a "chip" of skin - not that that is necessarily a bad thing, but some people are used to the idea that skin should be stuck on the chicken, rather than a chip just precariously balanced on top. I've entertained the idea of meat gluing the pre-cooked skin to the chicken - but cooked skin doesn't have much available protein and it doesn't glue well... when using the GS Activa it works ok, but it's still a real PITA and adds a lot of time to the process.

The last few posts have gotten me thinking - whenever I do chicken SV, the skin never comes out that great... I'll do breasts at 140F for about 2 hours, or legs/thighs at 145F for about the same time... I'll then dry it off and sear skin side down in a very hot pan to crisp the skin. The surface comes out crisp, but skin is tough, leathery and a little fatty at the same time - I imagine that the temp/time is not sufficient to breaking down the collagen in the skin so it doesn't crisp well when heated. I'm sure if I cooked them much longer, I'd get good skin, but then it would squeeze more liquid out of the meat. By contrast, I can fry the parts skin side down in a little oil, turn when brown and roast in a 375F oven for 13 minutes and get great skin, and the meat generally comes out really good, but not as consistent as with SV of course. A while ago, I did some wings for 24 hours at 145F. The lower portion (with the double bone) came out amazing - succulent and you could pull the bones out while leaving the meat intact. After searing on the plancha, the skin was fantastic - I imagine it would be even better if deep fried. The upper arm was very dry.... Has anyone found a way to get great skin and meat with SV?