KennethT

Agar agar is easy to find - many groceries in Chinatown have it, but if you're further up, you can get it at Kalustyan's on Lex. and 28th St. Powdered gelatin can be found in most supermarkets, but I don't know whether MCAH calls for leaf or powdered gelatin and the conversion can be tricky. Leaf gelatin can be found at NY cake and Baking on 22nd(?) and 6th Ave. or at Kalustyan's... of course... For any other NYCers, Kalustyans is building quite a little modernist pantry - they now carry things like Versawhip, to sodium alginate, to different calcium salts, etc...

you can use gelatin, but if you want a hot foam, I would tend to use a fluid gel with agar, or one of the other modern thickeners.

Thanks - I think I stumbled on them before, but I was unclear whether it's whole loose flowers, or in tea bags... it doesn't say tea bags specifically, so I dont' know why I originally assumed so... I wonder if there's a price premium on it since it's supposed to be so "healthy" and chock full of antioxidants which is a huge buzzword nowadays. I also couldn't find on their site where they are located, or where they ship from for that matter... but I will email my questions to them... Thanks for the help!

Personally, I"m not a fan of salting before doing long SV... I did it for a few years, then at some point started cooking unseasoned, and then season right before searing or serving (if not searing). I find the meat gets a bit tougher - almost cured texture when seasoning prior to a long cook. Dave Arnold agrees - one of his more recent posts (cookingissues.com) does a comparison of salting pre and post SV.

I'm looking to find these dried blue pea flowers, sometimes called Butterfly pea flowers, to make some Nonya Kueh I've been longing for since my trip to Singapore. I've looked in Manhattan chinatown (specifically the pan-SEasia place on Mulberry) - I didn't check Bangkok Center grocery since when I was there, I didn't realize the Thai also use it... maybe when I get a chance I can run down there... In any case, does anyone know where else to get them, or a good place online that might have them? I've done the basic google searches, and came up mostly with seeds to grow the plant, and a few places selling the dried flowers, but they're located in Europe or in Thailand... One place in the US that I found was selling a minimum of 50g (that's a lot of dried flowers) for like $40+shipping, which is more than I'd like to spend.

I always make my roux with peanut oil, as opposed to butter, and it gets DARK.... No caramelization there....

Is gas that expensive in CA? Seems like the price is like $7.75 a gallon (using an exchange rate of 1.3 and a rough estimate of 4l per gallon.

I think the problem is that if you bring your PC up to the point where it starts venting, then back off the heat a bit so it stops venting, at that point, you'll be very close to full pressure (and full temp) but won't vent - but you don't know as time goes on what's happening inside - your pressure/temp. could be dropping by the minute, so you'll never really know how much time you had at full pressure. I have a Kuhn Rikon non venting stockpot. The directions say to bring it to full pressure, then immediately turn down the heat - and if your burner has residual heat, to transfer to a different burner and turn on low. I do the second one because otherwise I get over pressured if I leave on the same burner and turn to low (and it's a gas range which shouldn't have much latent heat, but oh well). But once I transfer burners, I have to keep an eye on it becasue "low" on my range is too low, and over time I can watch the pressure dropping in the spring valve. My point is - with a spring valve, I can see that my pressure is dropping and adjust accordingly... but with a venting PC, once you're below the vent pressure, you don't know how much lower you are - you could be just below, or way below.

What's the purpose of the apple?

I've eaten SV confit that has been at the bottom of my fridge for half a year... not that I'd recommend that to everyone, but on the SV thread, I once asked the question and got some very good answers by the likes of Douglas Baldwin (who has studied bacteria stuff in great detail). Basically, depending on what temp. you used, and how long it was there, and how cold your fridge is, it technically can stay there indefinitely. BTW - I keep my refrigerator VERY cold - so teh bottom is borderline freezing - in fact, if I put a small pot of water there, after a few days, I'll see a thin sheet of ice on top or on the sides.

If you kept the pie refrigerated, would the foam still deflate? I'd imagine it deflated at room temp as the gelatin lost its structure. Do they talk about other hydrocolloids in the book, or is their discussion limited to the main, easily obtainable ones? (gelatin, agar, etc.)

I'm not an expert baker by any means - I actually do very little baking - but I seem to remember cooling certain types of cakes with lots of leavening (I'm looking at you, angel food cake) upside down. That way, the structure remains as it cools since gravity is not trying to defeat it...

I've heard wasabiisreally finicky and hard to grow... Can't wait to hear about your experience.

The bar at Acme does some really interesting cocktails as well, plus the food there is awesome!

I've read decent write-ups about the aerogarden - not so much about the light, but about the hydro part... it's a good intro to hydroponics... but yes, the light isn't beefy enough... I use a "daylight spectrum" CFL 24/7 when growing starts - up until the first couple of weeks of growth... leafy plants love it. Lettuce and other herbs will actually grow quite well (and a lot faster) when under the lights 24 hours per day. Can't do it for flowering plants, and some plants after several weeks get a little shocked... but things like lettuce, basil and other quickly harvested plants do great.

If you're just reheating, you can use say 130degF - that way you won't cook at a higher temp, but it's fine for eating purposes....

I grow all my herbs (and other stuff too) indoors, hydroponically. I find that most plants do very well in this situation. Check out the Gardening 2012 forum where I've put some pics of my garden... If you have no hydro experience, I've heard good things about the all-in-one hydroponic systems you can get at the big box stores - it comes self contained with reservoir, fluorescent light, pump, etc... it may even come with seeds.... Good things about hydro: no bugs/pests, faster growth, more essential oils/flavor, uses less water, pretty low maintenance...

Isomalt acts structurally like sugar, but is about 50% less sweet, so it's typically used in savory sugar glasses, caramels or other sugar substitutes.

I find it works much better to use nitrous chargers rather than CO2. It can also help to add vodka to the batter tomake it extra crisp.. And rice flour.

I used your method last week. Everything came out delicious. Thanks again. I decided that in the future i'll do either all thighs or all breasts...doing both from a whole chicken was just too much of a pain because of different temp requirements. Do you use bone in thighs or boneless? Bone-in

Just an update on my quest for Hainanese Chicken Rice in NYC... made a fast dinner last night (with some prep over the weekend) using chicken thighs. Bagged 2 skin-on thighs per bag with about a half cup of previously made broth (see older posts for method). 147F for 1.5 hours, then chilled and stored in the refrigerator until last night. Dropped the bags in a 140F bath to retherm.... results - the chicken skin was very silky and tender, although there was some unrendered fat in some pockets, most of which may have been able to be removed before cooking. The meat itself was super tender and juicy, and there was no trace of pink which can weird some people out. All in all another hit, especially useful on a busy weekday night...

Speaking of risotto, not everyone believes they should be made from a meat stock. A few years ago, the NY Times with Mark Bittman did a video with Mario Batali in the kitchen of Del Posto doing a demonstration of how they did their asparagus risotto. Batali said that they don't use chicken stock for their risotto, but instead use a garlic broth. He made quite a point of how good water can taste if properly seasoned. Ever since then, I've been doing my risottos (risotti?) usinga garlic broth and I actually agree - I like it much better. I find it is a little lighter and not as heavy in the mouth without all the gelatin. You already have that mouthfeel coming from the starch...

When you go to the market in chinatown (at least in NYC) they have different labels. In NYC (Manhattan), I think it's Hong Li meat market on Mott between Hester and Grand that I had good results in.... One chicken that's GREAT for stock is the silky - you can't miss it - it's got black skin and black meat. They're pretty scrawny, but the skin and meat are very tough and make great broths. I put in the pressure cooker for about an hour and a half to completely break it down. They also have different sections in the refrigerator with different kinds of chicken. I forget how they're labeled, but one of them has a larger comb than the rest - those are good stewing chickens as well. If all fails, try to get there when they're not jam-packed, and ask someone - when they're not too busy, I find they can be pretty helpful.

I'm having a party and one of the bites being served incorporates puffed duck skin. The problem is that I don't want to puff the skin pieces at the last minute since I'd rather not have a pot of 400 degree oil around when there are tons of people drinking and milling about, possibly milling about in my kitchen. So, I'd like to puff them in advance (maybe that afternoon) and keep them... The question is - how long will they stay brittle and crunchy? I have airtight containers, and a foodsaver canister, and many many packets of dessicant if that helps...

This is a pretty silly question... but I have to make a pretty large quantity of toast, and would like the slices to be uniformly browned. I have a gas oven where the broiler is on the floor - so not only is it inconvenient to check the browning progress, it is also not very even - the bread in the middle gets browned faster than that at the edges. Has anyone had any success in putting a bunch of slices on a baking sheet (with or without a rack) and baking to achieve a respectable level of toast without completely drying out the interior? Temperature?