KennethT

I've found that turkey leg/thigh confit was a huge hit (I confited in duck fat since that's what I had lying around). I took the confited parts, pulled the meat, made into patties bound with some methylcellulose (done ahead) and seared at service to serve along with the SV breast meat. I found that turkey skin cooked SV wasn't so good (can be rubbery), so I puffed the skin and seasoned with dried "Thanksgiving spices".

Blue ribbon is good, but I would say far from the best sushi in NYC. I have heard the same about yasuda as Weinoo - I used to go there quite frequently and always thought it excellent, but haven't been in about a year so I can't comment about it now. One of the aspects that I thought set them apart was the quality of their rice. Much more delicate than what is typical in the neighborhood sushi place. I can't say whether that has changed though...

I have - it works ok - but one aspect of the Bouley method is the evaporation, hence concentration. Doing it in the pressure cooker gets you part of the way there faster - but you'd still have to reduce it down

I once took a cooking class with David Bouley who makes a very dense mushroom stock as a base for many preparations. Take a ton of white button mushrooms, medium chop, and just cover with water. Simmer for about 8 hours until the volume has reduced by about half then strain. I've done it before - it comes out very good - almost truffely...

be careful with chocolate - as most commercial chocolates (even dark chocolates) contain quite a bit of sugar. There are sugar-free chocolates on the market - I don't know about quality though....

have you tried Evernote? Really good for things like this.

which transglutaminase are you using? Most people use the RM for meats, but the GS (typically used for seafood) has a stronger bond. And at one point, I seem to remember the rep telling me that salt should make it work better - more available proteins or something like that... also, RM doesn't work well with fat or bone, so they recommend using the GS for those applications as well.

I loved this dish in Thailand - it's very popular in Northern Thai.... here is a recipe I've used and it tasted very similar - especially if you can find Betel leaves or pepper leaves in your area.... http://www.thaifoodandtravel.com/recipes/mkum.html

SV is great for dinner parties - I can't tell you how many times, when prepping for a dinner party with multiple courses, I had several SV rigs running simultaneously.

I've always found it difficult to keep veggies from floating - even "dense" ones like asparagus... I can't imagine what it would take to weigh down a whole head of cauliflower! Maybe using a chamber vac, but I'd be afraid that too much vacuum would crush the head and snap the branches. Please keep us posted! Pics if possible?

I also have a dwarf citrus - a Bearss lime tree growing indoors for 5+ years in a NYC apartment. I used to grow it in soil, but kept having root rot problems even though I had tons of redwood and cedar shavings mixed in with the soil to improve drainage and reduce clumping. Citrus are very root rot sensitive... I bought the tree as a 3 year old tree from a compnay in CA that specializes in dwarf citrus - they have many varieties, many of which do very well grown indoors in containers. Check out 4 Winds Growers.... Being in NY, I also have a grow light on the tree for 18 hours a day for a little supplemental lighting. I used to use a 200W metal halide light, but have since switched to a 90W LED. I have also switched the tree to hydroponics a few years ago - it's a simple ebb/flow system that basically floods the root zone for 10 minutes, twice a day. I used to do it more often, but had some root rot issues. I also add a product called hygrozyme, which is an enzyme that devours rot, every two weeks. Now, the tree is doing great - I have tons of limes that are ripening at the moment, and the tree is also flowering so that means more in the future. I posted some pics of it a while back in the gardening forum... here's the post: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/141848-gardening-2012-season/page-2 .. that was about a year and half ago, so now the tree is probably double the size... if I can, I'll try to take pics this weekend....

there are literally tons of information about duck confit sous vide on these boards... look in the sous vide main thread here: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/136274-sous-vide-index/ I'm sure there are other discussions in the subsequent sous vide thread, as well as in the modernist cuisine/MCAH threads... or do a search for it and I'm sure you'll find tons of responses...

Thanks for posting this. I had the pleasure of eating this dish at El Bulli during the last full season and had always wondered how they did it.

oh, and here's more interesting info... this source says that salt in the earth doesn't come from the sea - but it's actually the other way around - salt in the sea comes from the earth! http://www.onr.navy.mil/focus/ocean/water/salinity1.htm

This is true - but interestingly, you will even find that different seas/oceans have different salt concentrations - it seems like this is due to many factors, among which are total depth, amount of sunshine/temperature which leads to localized evaporation, rainfall... etc.. Here's an interesting image which shows global salt concentrations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WOA09_sea-surf_SAL_AYool.png

I don't want to take this off topic, but I definitely think there is a difference between sea salts from different regions. Sea water contains lots of different salts, not just sodium chloride... there's also calcium chloride, magnesium sulfate, potassium chloride, and many more. These other salts exist in varying concentrations in different areas, and can change the flavor of the evaporated salt, as well as the process of evaporation and collection affecting the texture. When I look at my carton of Baleine - it doesn't list Sodium chloride as an ingredient, it just lists "sea salt" which could contain any number of different salts. This is not a finishing salt as it is finely milled - I use it as my normal salt. I have other salts that have different flavors and textures that I use for finishing. There have been studies that have linked iodized "table salt" to higher rates of heart disease and blood pressure issues, with some studies actually going so far as to recommend people with salt tolerance related blood pressure problems to switch to sea salt before resorting to medication. Unfortunately, some of these studies are a few years old, and I can't seem to find them right now to link them. I do believe that some unscrupulous companies could be cutting their sea salt with other salts to make more profit. With expensive finishing salts, I think a good rule of thumb is similar to the olive oil conclusion - taste it... you can definitely taste the difference between high quality sea salt and "kosher" salt and even more difference to any iodized salt. Edited for clarity

Celeste - can you repost the link to the chart from Thermoworks... it didn't come through... thanks!

I used to use food saver brand bags (made from the rolls) all the time, even at 80C+ for high temp and never had a problem.. but for pure convenience I now use ziplocks

I would be worried about olive oil solidifying at the temperatures you need for this process.true... didn't think of that....

FeChef - if your smoker is runnign around 200F, I doubt it would take over 4 hours to go from 40F to 140F unless you're smoking a steamship round. In any case, if you're cooking a single piece of meat that has not been punctured, the inside is considered sterile - especially if you have cooked it SV to pasteurize. Once you remove from the bag, you have only contaminated the surface, which should get up to temp quickly. I don't know if cold smoking is the way to go, unless you want a cold smoked flavor - in my mind, they're different and have different purposes... But, and don't quote me on this, I seem to remember reading that the smoke is "anti-bacterial" or somethign to that effect, so even if cold smoking, you can leave it in the smoke longer than you could on the countertop and remain safe. ETA cold smoke stuff

You can, but it creates a different kind of caviar. The alginate kind have a solid shell and contain liquid and will burst when chewed. The agar will be solid and won't burst. The other problem is that agar needs to be heated above 180degF for a few minutes to hydrate which will completely change the flavors of either raw basil or tomato. Some people have had success in hydrating the total amount of agar in a very small amount of water, and then adding that to your basil or tomato liquid so as not to cook out those flavors. Typically, the agar spheres are dropped into a neutral oil, but since your flavors would probably work very well with it, you could use olive oil.

looks a little like chinese broccoli - only without the thick stems...

I would think that cooking something so thin should use a higher temp - at least 375 so that the crust browns while the inside cooks through...

That leg of lamb looks fantastic! I wonder what would happen if you put a pan of potato cubes or something in the bottom of the roaster so that it would still be in the path of the IR, but would catch some of those great drippings?

this is a tough problem... especially if you don't know what he likes to eat... I second rotuts... When I first started cooking for myself, I started with simple things - pan roast chicken breast with sauteed greens or salad, pasta, etc... something not too hard to really mess up and cause discouragement.