KennethT

I realize you don't have the problem anymore, but an Asian store with no mung bean noodles??? Maybe they have them under a different name "cellophane noodles". They turn translucent when cooked.

Vengroff designed a great ipad app that many of us use called Sous Vide Dash. It's available in the apple app store. Highly recommended.

Actually it turns out this is wrong! I lost power last night along with the rest of Manhattan below 39th St. on the East Side, and am happy to report that the gas still flowed from my burners this morning, thank God, and was lightable with a match. Even on the 11th floor. Would be curious to hear whether others in high-rises still had their gas even though the power was out. KennethT, I think you are in my neighborhood so a similar situation? Well, that would be the main reason, since many people who live in the city don't have an outside. I actually do have an outside, but I'm pretty sure the building would frown on me putting a generator out there. I'm very sorry for the mis-information I gave the other day. I actually didn't know it to be true 100%, but made an assumption based on equipment I have at work. As Patrick said, it turns out that the gas flows just fine with the power out. I too am below 39th St. and will prbably have no power for the next week, but I was lucky enough to get a hotel room with power for tonight through Sat. The gas flows in my range burners just fine - you just have to light it manually with a match or something. My oven doesn't work because it uses a hot-point igniter rather than the old style pilot flame. One additional problem I have is with my hydroponic plants - nothing is going to last very long when the pumps don't work!!!! I never imagined (other than for something like the blackout almost 10 years ago) that midtown Manhattan would lose power for this long of a period of time.

I was in Hong Kong during the summer of 2011. There is a very long thread here started a few years ago, but then was updated before and during my trip. http://forums.egullet.org/topic/107932-reports-on-hong-kong-dining/ I would recommend Yung Kee for anything goose related - their roast goose is incredible, and their other Cantonese dishes are excellent as well - char siu, suckling pig, steamed whole fish,etc. For Dim Sum, I would wholeheartedly recommend West Villa in Tai Koo (it's in a mall by the skating rink) - we thought it was the best dim sum that we had (and we had it every day for 7 or 8 days). They specialize in char siu. Note that you really shoudl have a reservation there (have your hotel make it for you unless you speak the language) as it's very popular with the locals - when we were there, we saw a lot of people turned away. There's anotehr West Villa in Central - but they don't have dim sum, but they have excellent Cantonese food.

SV sausage is a great idea - I think it was discussed in the first SV thread..

That's pretty cool. How do you drain it?

Step 2 can be done in a dehydrator, but definitely doesn't require one. You can use a very low oven instead. Since I don't have a dehydrator, and I only have a crappy gas oven, I set it to the lowest it will go, then prop the door open a bit with the handle of a wooden spoon - this keeps it about 140-150F which is good. When I make it at home, I just buy the prepackaged Italian fresh pasta in the grocery store. I took a cooking class in Chiang Mai and specifically asked to do Khao Soi, and my teacher used fresh noodles that looked like it had some kind of italian label on it... but the writing was in Thai... but there was an Italian flag... go figure... in the end, I don't think it matters that much, she just said to use a fresh wheat noodle. It's not like a Chinese lo mein noodle though... more like the Italian. BTW - if you want to make your own fresh pasta, you can definitely do that... don't worry about having the proper cutter - once you roll it to the proper thickness, you can cut the linguine or whatever you want to call it with a knife rather than using the cutter.

Use fresh wheat noodles (like fresh linguine) - fry in 375-380F oil... this is the traditional method and works great. If you want more of a puffed noodle (not traditional, but still tasty) you have to go through a bunch of steps... 1) Boil the noodles until it is way overdone and almost falling apart. 2) Gently transfer to a rack and dehydrate until plastic-y - like a shrinky-dink 3) Fry a few at a time in 375-380F oil - should puff very quickly after hitting the oil

We get grapeseed oil at Trader Joe's. Fairway...

Also not a fan of Canola... I get the fishy-ness too.. not so much with the raw oil, but when using it for saute - even though it's supposed to have a high smoke point, it gets fishy fast! I wonder if the fishiness comes from it's high Omega-3 content? I think it's commonly recommended because it is supposedly neutral and is supposed to be healthy. In "A Return to Cooking" Eric Ripert commonly uses it in dressings mixed with olive oil - he uses it because olive oil alone can be too thick, and the canola has a lower viscosity. Personally, I use peanut oil for deep frying - it's high temp, lasts for many fries and I like the complexity it can add... For high temp saute, I usually use grapeseed oil which is high temp and very neutral. Olive oil for lower temp shallow fries and dressings - with quality varying depending on application.

Let me reclarify my Blaue Gans recommendation - I like certain things there, but other than those, I could take or leave it. I like the palatschinken, their wurst plates (although Katja's are just as good and a better value), and the schnitzel. That's about it... sometimes they'll have a sauteed fish dish which is usually pretty good, but nothing necessarily Austrian about it. What I liked most was the fact we could make a reservation (usually same day) and get there and not have to wait. I loved Katja, but haven't gone as often as I'd have liked just because I never knew if we'd be able to get a seat when we could get there (unless we went early) and I didn't want to wait a long time for a seat. I haven't been back since the renovation, but I would like to get there soon to check it out - it's very tasty and a great value, especially if you can get seats pretty easily. Especially if they'll be serving schnitzel!

I was there about 8 months ago... very underwhelmed by it... It was really cool to be in a "secret" place, but once we got over that, that was it. I thought the best part about it was their toilet (they had a Toto washlet with built in massage function). My friend got the resy by emailing them, they got back to him a week or two later with a choice of dates/times. For the most part, the menu was ok - nothing was bad, but nothing was standout great either. The service was weird - the waiter would disappear for large blocks of time at a time, always when we happened to need something - more water, another drink, etc. Also, the table we were seated at was more like a cocktail table rather than standard table - so it was very low, and uncomfortable to eat anything other than a snack at. But that's the majority of their tables - they only have a couple of tables that are standard tables. I got their card as we were leaving, but I don't know what I did with it - I think I may have thrown it out after my wife and I decided that we didn't want to bother giving it another shot.

It gives me a headache just to walk by Rolf's... even when it's not Christmas-time....

I'm surprised Weinoo hasn't chimed in yet, but a great choice is Cafe Katja on Orchard st. In the LES. Personally, I also like Blaue Gans, a KB restaurant like Wallse but casual and less expensive.

I don't know if that's lightly enough!!! For a cup of liquid, I'd use a tiny bit - like what fits on the point of a sharp knife. To disperse, while whisking, add gradually and then keep whisking for a bit after... I find a good way to add xanthan by eye is to use a salt or powdered sugar shaker. While whisking, I add a small dash (that winds up getting scattered over the surface) at a time and whisk until completely incorporated. Let sit for a little bit, then repeat as needed.

If you use xanthan, tread LIGHTLY!!! It's amazing how little you need before things turn into a mucousy mess... Plus, I've found it takes a little while to hydrate, so if you're adding by eye, go little by little and give some time inbetween to see the full strength... and, to see how thick it is, don't keep stirring - let it sit for a bit, then when you stir once you can see how thick it is.

The pump you talk about that required ice was an aspirator vacuum pump - works the same way as the faucet aspirator, but recycles the water so you don't waste tons of it. The ice is used because the cold water will result in a stronger vacuum. I don't know what kind of rotovap they have (I can't wait to see it!) but many modern ones use a vacuum pump that does not use water - like a diaphragm pump since you can get much greater vacuum than you can with an aspirator pump. Looking forward to what you ladies come up with this week!!!

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.