KennethT

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?

Lately, I've been taking a hunk of fat and meat trimmings and rendering/frying until nicely browned - I then add this to the meat in the bag, then I'll sear the meat post SV. I'm not a big fan of adding liquid to the bag in most cases because I feel that it steals flavor from the meat a la making stock... Rather, I'll drain the juices and follow nickrey's suggestion of coagulating the proteins then frying them (replicating the brown bits on the bottom of the pan) then deglaze and add back the rest of the juices/stock for the sauce. I find that the added fat/trimmings add depth of flavor to the meat. If I'm cooking for a long time, I'll do a quick blowtorch pre-sear to kill any surface bacteria, not for color, and then post-sear for flavor/crust. Edited for a bit more clarity... I hope...

I've had pretty good success dehydrating in my crappy gas oven by turning it on as low as it'll go, then keeping the door propped open an inch or so with a thick wooden spoon... I've dehydrated cooked pork rinds for puffing really successfully this way... I had a failure making a parsely wafer (spinach wafer in the book) but I don't think it has anything to do with the dehydrating - but I'm going to do another trial this weekend.

Update on vacuum filters - I just got off the phone with tech support at Parker (the parent co. of Wilkerson linked upthread). Unfortunately, you can't use a coalescing filter because it can shatter under the vacuum... BUT, they do make a filter made for vacuum.. it only has a 10 micron filter, but the engineer said it should remove water/oil vapors just fine. This is a link to their catalog - once loaded, do a search for "vfp" and you should see it.. It's in section B, digital page 55. It has a stated range of up to 28inHg, but she said that there is a safety factor built it, so you could go a bit higher with no problems. It's just not intended for REALLY strong vacuum, which we wouldn't be using in the kitchen anyway...

I've contemplated this for a while (or even just a vacuum system for jars and compression, but no bags). I'm not as far down the road as you, but I do have a large, fairly powerful vacuum pump (rotary vane). One of the big issues seems to be moisture getting into the pump. The commercial chamber machines have fairly elaborate channels, etc to keep the moisture out of the pump. Have any thoughts on that? I've consider just one of the compressed air drier systems, just run in 'reverse' as it were, but not sure it would work. Correction: It is a "two chamber rocking piston oil-less vacuum pumptwo chamber rocking piston oil-less vacuum pump" with Aluminum parts to prevent corrosion. Still don't want to be sucking some acidic marinade in there Paul - wow, a 2 chamber system should pull quite a lot of vacuum. Much more than you'd need I think... but you can never have too much as you can always stop it early. In any case, I plan to put one of these between the tank and the vacuum pump. Coalescing filters are very good at removing aersol oil and water vapor from compressed air lines, and I'd assume they would work in a vacuum line as well - but I'm planning on calling their tech support to check. With such a powerful pump, just make sure your chamber is very strong - I'd hate for it to implode one day!

I've done the compressed tomato in a chamber, but without the bag... it seems like you have to cycle running the vacuum and then letting the air in several times in order to get good compression - there's actually discussion of this over on the Cooking Issues blog in the comments recently. It seems that unless you've got ridiculously strong vacuum (which most places won't have), the vacuum will only suck the air out of the vacuoles close to the surface, which will then compress when the air comes back in... each time you draw vacuum, the next layer down loses its air and compresses... I've been compressing with my cheap-o faucet aspirator, so it takes several shots to get decent compression - but I'd imagine that if you were doing it in a bag which was being sealed, you'd have to cut the bag each time to be able to draw a new vacuum.

Looks great, Chris - I love the reflection in the plate!

What do you mean by "finest evening tasting menu"? WD-50 is certainly very interesting and worth a visit if you are interested in their style - but it can be a bit of a polarizing place... in any case, I don't know if I'd consider it "fine dining" in the sense of the Per Ses, Bernardins, Daniels sense of fine dining though. When I think of fine dining in NY, I think for the above, Eleven Madison, Grenouille, Jean Georges, etc... granted I don't think some of them are worth going to anymore, but that's just one guy's opinion...

Ha! It's definitely taking me a little effort to get used to thinking in grams rather than ounces/pounds. The one thing I keep reminding myself when looking at measures in grams is thinking 1000g is about 2 pounds, similarly 250g is about a half pound. So yeah, 625g is a LOT of yolks! I didn't get to this part yet (and don't keep my books at work) - do they recommend using fresh yolks, or can you use dehydrated yolks and rehydrate? When I used to do candymaking, I would use dehydrated egg whites all the time - they whipped up perfectly and were easy to measure...

ChrisZ - that's a great idea... I checked out a few hotel pans in the rest. supply store to use as the chamber... as I suspected, they are pretty flimsy (especially the large area bottom) and would need reinforcement. I was also thinking of using a large stockpot for a chamber, but they are much more expensive. I'm going to weigh how much effort it would be to reinforce the flimsy part, vs paying for something already sturdy... another problem with the stockpot is that since it is round, you wind up with a lot of unused space since the sealer bar is straight. So you wind up with a inscribed square in the round pot...

OK - so I'm almost finished with the prep for the party tonight... whew! I can't report too much on the results yet, as most of it is still in bags in the refrigerator... waiting... I did try a piece of the chorizo french toast, which was awesome. Also, I made the Flourless Gnocchi - haven't tried it yet but I can comment on the procedure. Blooming the gelatin in teh recommended amount of cream is challenging - there's so much gelatin compared to the cream (1:2 ratio, roughly) that I felt I needed to add a bit more cream to get it to fully hydrate. It then says to melt and let cool... I let it cool on the countertop - not in the refrigerator - and when it got to room temp, it was a solid block. So I put the bowl over a really low burner to warm slightly - just enough to melt the gelatin again and added to the riced potato. The potato/gelatin/TG "dough" is quite wet - I didn't even try to mold it into shape by itself. Instead, I rolled it into a snake in a piece of plastic wrap - maki style, and then let it cure in the refrigerator that way, rather than precut as the book instructs... tonight, I'll cut the snake into pieces and fry.

I think Vitamin C tablets are ascorbic acid - which is very different from citric acid... Works great as an anti-oxidant to keep purees from browning, but I don't think it'll work as an emulsifier... plus, mangos have tons of vit. c built in, right?

It also makes prepping for a large party really convenient... I've been mentioning on the cooking w/ MC thread about my prep for a party for 12 people tomorrow... With no helpers, I'll be serving 3 dishes, all of which are multi-component.. for example, the pork dish is a pulled pork patty with sliced belly, chorizo french toast, maple bacon dashi and puffed skin chip garnish. Without SV (and it's ability to start cooking things a week in advance) I'd never be able to pull this off.

I've been thinking about brining - the equilibrium brining, specifically. I've been brining pork belly for 2 days now (jaccarded first), and I've been checking the progress with a TDS meter which measures dissolved solids in parts per million. I've calculated what the final TDS should be once the brine and pork are at equilibrium, and it's getting there... but it's really slow. The book describes the movement of salt as a diffusion process, so if that's the case, do you think it would go faster if the system was at higher temperature? Which then brings up the logical conclusion that if I'm going to be cooking for 40 hours or so, can I cook the meat in the brine so that it will brine as it cooks?

OK - so I've started work on the dinner for next Saturday. After running around in the rain, I was able to get 2 pounds American Wagyu beef cheeks, 2# berkshire pork belly, some awesome smoky bacon, a whole berkshire pork shoulder (I cut into 3 2# portions), marrow bones, high quality kombu, and a bunch of beef chuck. First up: the pork belly had skin removed, and is being brined in a 0.7% equilibrium brine. My initial brine has a TDS measurement of 5870. The skin is being pressure cooked in some salty water to be puffed or crisped later. First question - in the parametric table on 3.172, it recommends a 72h soak followed by a 2h rinse and 24h rest. Is that for equilibrium brining or high concentration method? I'd imagine an equilibrium brine wouldn't need to be rested since it should already be at the proper salinity. But, if it does need resting, since it will be cooking SV for 40h at 144F, can you include the resting time in the cook time, or does it have to be sequential? The pork shoulder will go in 150F for 3 days starting tonight! The beef cheeks have the same temp (144F) as the pork belly, so they can be done together, starting with the cheeks, and putting the belly in midway through.

I have a Food Emporium across the street. It's awful... Simply awful. If you're ever looking for a bright green/sprouting potato, this is the place to go. I also have a Gristede's downstairs in the building... it's even worse...

Over the next week I'll be prepping for a dinner next Saturday. The menu so far, consists of: Risotto with asparagus/morels and mushroom jus Beef cheeks with bone marrow potato puree, potato gnocchi and rare beef jus Pork^5: Chorizo french toast, pulled pork patty, sliced pork belly, crisped skin and bacon water jus All proteins will be cooked SV in ziplocks (no chamber machine yet); beef then probably finished with propane torch, pork in a hot pan with rendered lard. I recently ordered a faucet aspirator (capable of 28.5"Hg vacuum, supposedly - we'll see!) I figured it was a cheap way to get some vacuum stuff going while I'm designing my GhettoVac chamber. I may throw a mango sorbet in the middle as a palette cleanser if the vac works ok....

back to the risotto discussion - when parcooking the rice, how much liquid should you use? In the parametric recipe, it doesn't specify liquid amounts for parcooking, and in the procedure, it says to boil the rice in liquid, then drain (I assume that toasting the rice in fat first is assumed and not specified). Also, do you save the drained liquid (which should have released starches in it) and use it for finishing? Lastly, if making the risotto with broth (I typically use a mild garlic broth for mine) do you use water for the parcook, and then broth for finishing, or broth for the whole thing? Thanks

I think low acyl gellan stays stable at high temps -although I think the gel will dry out. A while ago, we had a discussion in the cooking issues forums of how to keep the bones of a frenched rack of lamb white - the concensus was to dip in a gellan solution. Then, after grilling or searing, you can crack off the gellan like dried clay. Here's the link to the discussion: http://www.cookingissues.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=21 ETA link...

On my chamber first the chamber evacuates, then the sealer bar is pressed up against the red piece in the lid, then energized to make the seal. I believe that's how all chamber sealers work, since there aren't any evacuation channels in the bags. The bar is actuated pneumatically. Since drawing a vacuum will reverse the forces applied to the chamber walls of an autoclave, it's hard to know if the chamber will take it. It sounds like a fun project though. HTH, Larry It seems that the sealer bar is pressed up against the lid with a kind of air bladder - I guess if you have a sealed bladder partially filled with air, as the pressure decreases in the chamber, the bladder will "inflate" more pressing against the lid... I was planning on using a solenoid or something to move the sealing bar. just be careful that your "tank" is strong enough - the bigger the chamber, the more force will be pressing on it from all sides - and the numbers add up really quickly - a 12" square panel will have roughly 2000 pounds pushing against it (roughly 144 sq. in. at 14 psi).

How did the canned escargot work out? I'm on a similar quest now...