KennethT

The textbook I used was On Cooking bt Lebensky and Haus. A bit pricey, but details all the classic techniques pretty well.

whoops... in my last post, I meant that black bass is typically overcooked not overlooked... but it was perfect the other night - good crust but still really moist.

Had a chance to go last night. Excellent - not much to add that hasn't been said already, other than the fact that they said they're planning on turning the downstairs into a cocktail lounge with small plates. Also, I think one of the dishes referred to above as"black cod" is actually black bass (unless there's a black cod on the menu as well that I didn't notice) - a fish I love but is typically overlooked. This one was great.

I don't know if I'd call them crispy... they get crispy in spots, but not uniformly like if they were deep fried. But they get great maillard coloring, turn almost sweet, and have a great texture where they are tender but still have a little bite to them.

I know you're not a fan of frying, but a while ago, I took a cooking class with David Bouley - and one of the components of one of the dishes was brussel sprout leaves... you can get the leaves pretty quickly by using a paring knife and coring the sprout like coring a head of cabbage - most of the leaves just fall off. He then proceeded to get a saute pan very hot and using a touch of grapeseed oil (just enough to barely coat the pan), throw in all the leaves at once. They will sputter bit. Season and saute until they reach the amount doneness you prefer.

Interesting - so it seems like it's just plain sugar... I guess the purpose is for those who want to make their own flavored candy.... I took a quick look around, and it seems like most "homemade" pop rocks come from hard-crack sugar, with added baking soda and flavoring. Typically, when doing hard crack sugar, you replace a small amount of the sugar with corn syrup to prevent recrystallization... You can make it less sweet by substituting more glucose and isomalt for some of the sugar. Isomalt is much less sweet than sugar is, but structurally acts like sugar. Glucose is also less sweet than sugar. I'd probably try 25% isomalt, 30% sugar, 45% glucose by weight as a starting point - you may need to bump up the sugar and reduce the glucose a bit if it's a little chewy. Making the isomalt behave can be a little tricky... typically I'll heat the sugar and some water in the pan until it starts boiling, then add the glucose. I add the isomalt once it gets to soft ball stage (230-240F?) by sprinkling it evenly over the surface of the sugar and letting it slowly melt in to the mixture. I don't stir it because it can cause crystallization, but I wonder if it's even possible with that much glucose in the mix... keep heating (medium heat? - Don't go too fast) until you get to hard crack - 305-310F, let cool a bit, then add flavoring and baking soda stir to combine then pour out on a silpat and let cool... then pulverize. So, you can make savory spiced pop rocks by adding whole spices (star anise, coriander, clove, etc.) while the sugar is boiling... you can either pick the big pieces out after you've poured onto the silpat or leave them in to get bits of spices in with the rocks...

Does anyone know if the unflavored ones are still sweet (meaning sweet without tasting like cherry, raspberry, "blue", etc.)??? If they're not made entirely from sugar they could be only slightly sweet.. like isomalt and glucose "candies"? I've done savory sugar glass before - there's just a hint of sweetness, definitely not candy-sweet. I use the El Bulli ratio of 50% fondant, 25% glucose 25% isomalt. Maybe the unflavored pop rocks are made from a similar base?

If you can get a hold of jamon iberico de bellota - a slice on pan con tomate is simple, unchallenging, and crazy-good, depending on the jamon...

Wow.. sounds like quite a difference from the old Acme!!! Even more of a transformation than EMP... BTW - what were the prices like, on average?

Chris, 6 years ago, when my wife and I were in Hanoi, we really enjoyed going to Pho Bo Ly Quoc Su, at 42 Nha Trung. They're around the corner from the big church on the west side of the lake, and have a red Coca Cola awning. We went there 3 days in a row - it was always packed, and no tourists - only locals. I wish I remember where we went for Bun Cha... it was an awesome roadside place that was basically a tarp set up as a big tent... Bun cha was ridiculous and also the cha gio were awesome too - the best we've had before or since. Unfortunately, since I can't remember where it was, it's not much help to you!

I agree - you can make a good, stable warm foam using agar - try the upper percentage range of what was listed above then gel it completely. Then shear while cold in the blender to make a fluid gel, which will then have the consistency of ketchup. Then you can warm the gel (up to 85degC, the melting point of agar) and add to your whipping siphon and add 1-2 NO2 charge. Or add the gel to the siphon and stick the siphon in a warm water bath and charge... If you had it available, you could also use a combination of xanthan and LA gellan, but gellan is harder to come by.

Hydroponics is the near-future of farming - vegetable-wise. It uses 30% less water than conventional farming, and about 10% of the space required of conventional farming. You can grow just about anything - although, due to the higher cost of indoor farming (lights, fans, etc) it is usually being done with higher profit and fast growing crops. Hydroponic farming has been done for a long time now - but the newest idea is the vertical farming, where towers of food can be grown in the middle of cities where they are going to be used. Things can be picked at the peak of ripeness rather than picked green and "reddened" to minimize damage in shipping. Check it out.

Slightly off topic, but for all the NYC MCers and modernist cooks, I stopped into Kalustyan's (Lex and 28th) today looking for Agar and Xanthan (they had those a long time ago - located up near the front) but after searching for a half hour in the old location, I couldn't find them and finally asked someone... they've been moved downstairs near the spices - and with them are a lot of their friends - Kappa Carrageenan, Sodium Alginate, Gum Arabic, Guar gum, N-Zorbit plus quite a few others. Unfortunately, some things aren't labeled well - like "Gellan" which doesn't specify if it's LA or HA or a mixture. Their prices, of course, are higher than if you were to buy from Le Sanctuaire or another online retailer, but they are convenient in the fact that you don't have to ship (and wait for arrival from SF) and also sell smaller quantities if you need something and no one is willing/able to share at the moment.

I've done this several times (actually I think many of us on this forum have)... I haven't used the SVDash yet, but according to NathanM's reformatted beef table, 2.5" should not be a problem, assuming that you're cooking to medium-rare 55C.. it should come to temp in just under 3h50m. Also, unless your roast has been jaccarded (either by you or at the processor), the interior is considered sterile by the FDA and not typically a concern for most pathogens. Personally, for cooking beef this way, I like to do a propane torch pre-sear to kill any bacteria on the surface and develop some flavor... I"ll also take any of the fatty trimmings off, and brown/render in a pan and add the rendered fat and browned pieces to the bag. Then, season and sear (again) prior to service.

I agree... SV turkey is the way to go... One way to get more of the roasted flavor is to take some trimmings and brown in a fry pan and add to the bag prior to cooking... not the same as a true roasted turkey, but adds roasted smell...

You can always cut the raw meat off the leg and put the chunks in a bag in your SV setup... Usually the turkey confit is pulled from the bone anway once it's done (like pulled pork) - so if it won't fit, you might as well debone it first. Then should i leave the skin in one piece to SV (and help render some fat) and brown that at the end? I think it depends on what you want to do with the skin... typically, if you were cooking the leg unboned, you would leave the skin on, and then remove it prior to pulling... The skin which has been cooked has become really gelatinous and tender, and will crisp very nicely between silpats/cookie sheets in a hot oven (450?)... So, if boning out the leg first, you can leave the skin in one piece and remove it if you'd like and cook it in the bag with the meat... then when you remove the skin from the bag, you can crisp one big piece if you'd like, or cut it into strips or whatever... just be careful when removing it from the bag as it will tear easily because it's so fragile. Oh, and when I was thinking about turkey confit, I figured it would be cured like confit with the bone in... then prior to cooking, you'd wash off the salt, and bone it out to get it to fit in your SV...

Eric Ripert had a recipe for "lemon confit" in "A Return to Cooking" - his first book. In that recipe, it's just salt - no sugar. I've made mine based on that recipe for years now with some minor variations and they come out great... I basically take a big jar, sterilize it and then take lemons and cut them into pieces - maybe 8-10 pieces per lemon - I cut all the way through as opposed to the originial which just slices lengthwise almost all the way down. I usually only use a little at a time, so I figure why not start with smaller pieces? Anyway, I never measure the salt anymore - I just line the bottom of the jar with some salt, then throw in 1 layer of lemon pieces, then cover with salt and repeat. Once in a while, I'll take a muddler or something and press down to make more space so I can really pack them in there. Then I just make sure I leave some space at the top of the jar to cover with salt. In the refrigerator for roughly 3-4 weeks, shaking around every week or so... As time goes on, you'll have more space in the jar, so I add more salt to keep everything covered. After that time, I take it out of the refrigerator and leave it in the cupboard, ready to use. It keeps basically forever unrefrigerated and indeed gets better over time.

mig - I agree with WillinTO - the NYC jamon iberico de bellota pales by comparison to 99% of the stuff we had in Spain... what we get here is the supermarket equivalent to an artisanally made product that isn't really exported to the US - similar to our experience here with imported cheese - we never get the really small production stuff you get in Europe. I don't know if they're still open, but do a search for Jamonisimo - which specializes in artisinally produced jamon - their product is incredible and was one of the highlights of our trip. I keep thinking about bringing a cello case so I can smuggle a whole jamon back to NYC... haha...

Peter - thanks for the testing and effort. I'm sure others are also, but I, for one, am listening! Your results concur with my much less controlled studies - I find that SV first and then smoking is better than smoking than SV. Do you have any ideas as to why your tasters had their preferences? Was it smoke flavor, texture, combination of them, etc? A big problem I have with smoking prior to SV is that I lose quite a bit of smoke flavor during the SV step - like lots of us have experienced smoky smelling bath water with perfectly intact seals. Especially during long SV or using hot temps...

The typical application of the microwave sponge is to tear it into chunks after unmolding from the cup. You can get a very "organic" look to it this way. You can do a whole modernist chocolate dessert by making a chocolate sponge, make chocolate twigs using tempered chocolate, chocolate hazelnut sand by mixing nutella with N-Zorbit tapioca maltodextrin. You can then add components with white chocolate for visual contrast, or add some chocolate mint (a specific strain of mint that smells like a combination of mint and chocolate) in chiffonade, etc etc... Also with the El Bulli theme is to do a chocolate version of their recent coconut puff - which was a microwave sponge chunk flavored with coconut with finely grated coconut covering the entire outside. So you could take your chocolate chunk, enrobe in tempered chocolate then cover in cocoa powder while still wet for an interesting matte look...

We ate at Din Tai Fung in Hong Kong... it was one of my favorites...

Nothing wrong with failing... it's the best way to learn! Chances are everyone has failed at least a little bit, so don't feel bad if you do, and don't let it stop you from progressing - learn from the mistakes and be better for it!

I agree it would be difficult - but if you were handy with welding, not impossible... rather than using such a thick piece of metal, you could use say 1/2" thick stainless, and weld 2" x 1/2" ribs in a crossed pattern which would significantly increase the moment and stiffness without all the mass... The real trick is welding stainless which typically requires a lot of experience. If a weld fails at some point, consider the jet of high pressure extremely hot steam that would emerge from the void!

I have the same "plancha"... after coming home from the Med. coast of Spain, I was Plancha-Crazy and plancha'd practically everything... I made my own "seawater" by making a roughly 14% sea salt solution and kept it in a squeeze bottle... seawater + olive oil plus seafood or whole fish = awesome... but it makes a lot of smoke!!!

There is a HUGE amount of discussion and info about doing this in the old sous vide thread... the thread was so big, they made an index for it - go through the index and find the stuff about DIY rigs... there's more info in the new SV thread as well...