KennethT

+1. My sentiments exactly.

Looks great, Chris... but to rival Katz's, you'd need to use 3x more pastrami!

That was really interesting. I was surprised that they're actually using real food, as opposed to more camera-friendly materials. I always thought that the buns were typically made from foam and painted to look browned, and that ketchup wasn't really ketchup but some type of red gel made to look like ketchup, but is much stiffer so it can sit under the hot lights for hours and not sag.

+1

Kim - where did you get your seeds? I found this place: evergreenseeds.com - it's a Yahoo store (temporarily closed until June 20th) but I don't know if there's somewhere better out there...

Just came back from pok pok a few hours ago. Got there at 6:30 and already an hour wait. Totally worth it. Best Thai food since I was in Thailand a few years ago. Really made me miss it, and brought back many memories of that trip to Chiang Mai.

I'd say that probably the most well known self-published cookbook (especially on eGullet) is Modernist Cuisine, and coming soon, the Modernist Cuisine at Home.

I'd imagine that it's already precooked/pasteurized in the bag and that the instructions given are reheating, not cooking instructions. Also, I'd imagine their thickness in the finished product is relatively consistent, so I'd imagine 35 minutes at 145F would be plenty of time to bring to temp.

Agree with Shalmanese, teapot and Nickrey. Yes there's nothing like fresh curry paste. However, most thai's don't make their own either. Every market I saw in Thailand has at least one vendor sitting in front of huge mounds of curry paste, that's been freshly made. That being said, I don't hold Mae Ploy in too high regard. Especially being in NYC, there are much better options. Try theThai store on Mosco St. - they have fresh curry paste from Thailand in foil pouches in the refrigerator. It's the best I've used outside ofThailand. Keeps a long time in the fridge and freezes well too.

I bought a single bulb reflector with clamp-on base from the Home Depot - the kind that's normally used with a light bulb. Also from the HD is an infrared heat lamp, normally used in bathrooms, I guess, the base is the size of a normal light bulb, but the bulb flares out to about a 5-6" diameter. It works well when doing say 4-6 plates at a time - for 12, I'd use two - mounted on opposite sides.

True - but a lot of places use heat lamps over the plating stations to try to limit cooling as much as possible while doing an intricate plating. I've done this at home with moderate success - but I couldn't position my heat lamp exactly where I wanted it so it could've been a lot better.

I'm looking for a large cambro poly box in the NYC area.... Does anyone know where I can get it? If possible, I'd like to avoid online since shipping costs for such a bulky item might be really high.

Check out the most recent (pretty old though) blog post in cookingissues.com They go into a whole tasting comparison of pre/post salting. I haven't pre salted since, except for fish which cooks for 20 min.

Modernist cuisine's treatment of escargot is really good - have made a few times to many rave reviews. Bag escargot with chick broth, carrot and onion and SV 5 h @ 154F

There have been quite a few posts in the past dealing with bag juices. You can separate the liquid from fat, then bring to a boil (I usually use the microwave), then strain out the proteins that coagulate. Member Nickrey came up with an interesting method to pan fry the coagulated proteins until they become the typicaly brown bits that accumulate on teh bottom of a normal roasting pan - you can deglaze with the bag liquid and any other flavorful liquids to get your jus. Works very well.

Thanks.... When your tomato plant flowers, how do you pollinate it? Most, if not all, tomato plants do not self pollinate - they rely on the wind, bees, etc to do it. So, indoors (greenhouse or apartment) you have to do it manually. The easiest way to do this is with a electric toothbrush. It vibrates at the right frequency to shake the pollen out - it's actually similar in frequency to bees wings! Just hold the toothbrush under the truss with flowers on it and press lightly. You should see pollen dust fall out of the flowers. Best to do I the morning, or late evening. I'm not sure if the same is true for peppers. Some hot peppers are notoriously difficult to set fruit indoors. Keep me posted as to your results!

Made the foie gras torchon last Saturday morning. Went by the recipe, but didn't have white port, so I subbed a 10 yr. tawny... 2/3 were aged only a few hours then frozen and shaved... excellent! The other 1/3 has been aging in the refrigerator. My question is: the book says to age "at least 3 days" but doesn't give a maxiumum time... If I started curing Friday night, and cooked Sat. morning, do you think it'll still be good by Sunday evening?

Agar will have syneresis also - hence agar clarification...

That video is in the DVD linked to above, plus others turning the whole chicken into parts for sautee... I love that video!

I don't think they're gearing this restaurant for the foodie set... I think it's for the hordes of tourists who love GF and will go anywhere he tells them - especially if it has his name on it! So, it's good that it's in Times Square, which is perfect for their target audience - and will have 0 impact on most NYers who actually care about food...

You wouldn't use agar to make spheres with a liquid filling... For that, it's better to do reverse spherification using sodium alginate in a calcium bath of some kind. Probably best to make a sphere of pepper jus. Then using an ice cube tray or something, add the olive sphere base about halfway up the mold. Freeze... then add pepper jus sphere and more olive sphere base to top of mold. Freeze again. Drop frozen "spheres" into warm calcium bath for a few minutes? As the warm bath defrosts the sphere, it will gel the outside. Then, when you have removed and rinsed, the sphere can full defrost leaving a sphere within a sphere.

Jacques Pepin has a DVD available (I think through the PBS website) where he shows many different techniques in quite good detail. With a little practice, he can show you how to take apart a whole chicken in less than a minute... granted, with practice, I'm still at about 5 minutes, but it's much better than it used to be before watching his technique! http://www.shoppbs.org/product/index.jsp?productId=11969480&cp=&sr=1&kw=jacques+pepin&origkw=jacques+pepin&parentPage=search

OK - my last guess is MikeHartnett - that picture could be somewhere off the Gulf or kinda swampy (aka New Orleans), and he started the Cooking with Momofuku thread...

Robert Jueneman? I know he has an ultrasonic bath for cavitating french fries...

One of the most effective (meaning giving the most yield) ways of rendering fat was discussed in Modernist Cuisine. It doesn't yield any crunchy bits (so Mrs. Liuzhou won't be happy, but you'll have a lot more fat for the effort). Basically, cut up the raw fat into small chunks and put in the blender and cover with water. Blend until you have a nice fat-shake, then put in a pan and simmer on the stovetop or in low oven. The solids will make a raft on top, and you'll have loads of beautiful rendered fat beneath. They've also taken the fat shake, put in a mason jar and put in the pressure cooker. IIRC, they also added some baking soda but I don't have the book in front of me so I can't check it. I think they found the pressure cooker method to yield the most neutral fat.