KennethT

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...

so if you could only grow one tomato plant, which variety would it be? I'm growing a Goose Creek heirloom tomato in my small NYC apartment - it's been growing happily since last May or so and it's still producing quite a bit of fruit - although it has definitely taken over the corner of the apartment where it lives... i imagine it will start slowing fruit production over the next few months as it will be getting close to a year of fruiting around then. I'm debating whether to clone it and start over with the same variety or try a new one. To be honest, this tomato has the best flavor of any tomato I've had - intense tomato, acidic and sweet at teh same time... I'd like to stick with a indeterminate variety since my wife and I can only consume a few tomatoes per week, which is what my plant keeps providing - whereas a determinate would provide basically the whole crop all at once...

I would be a little hesitant to throw a whole frozen crab into the deep fryer... I'd imagine it would thoroughly redecorate the kitchen, as well as possibly burn the crap out of you as the melting water explodes out of the oil. I'd try completely defrosting, then dry as much as possible with paper towels... dust with wondra flour or cornstarch and deep fry.... I'd be curious how it turns out - please post the results!

I've been growing Goose Creek for the past half-year or so hydroponically in my apartment windowsill. I got the original plant from Laurel's. This is an exceptional tomato - intense flavor, baseball sized fruits great for eating raw with a touch of salt, or warmed... Very happy with it and would highly recommend it.

Please tell me that you picked up a couple of de Bellota chorizo from the jamon guy by the entrance to the Bocqueria! They're inexpensive, vacuum packed (safe for customs - especially when buried in teh luggage) and amazing. They'll keep unrefrigerated for about a year if unopened...

I second Jamonissimo... if nothing else just to smuggle home some real artisanal jamon de bellota... (they have some sliced and vacuum packed and will last unrefrigerated for a few days). Personally, the jamon from the extremadura region was mine and my wife's favorite.. so complex... it's worth the trip from NY alone... they also do an excellent pan con tomate, and if you're having a snack there, you can get a sampler plate of all 4 regions of bellota for a pretty modest price. Last summer, my wife and I had the extreme pleasure of El Bulli and Can Roca... both were amazing experiences... if you've never been to Can Roca, I would recommend adding the "Return to Havana" dessert to the tasting menu if it's still available - don't worry, it won't be too much food, and I thought it was just so interesting, it's hard to pass up. The smell of the tobacco infused cream stuck in my head for days! Also, I wouldn't get too anxious over El Bulli... when I found out that I had a reservation last year, my heart practically stopped and for months, I was trying not to think about it because I didn't want to be let down... however, it was the most incredible restaurant experience in my life - not just because of the extremely innovative, and tasty parade of dishes - but also the service was so warm and inviting and detail oriented - they missed nothing. My wife is a wine student (currently a candidate for MW) which I mentioned in my email to EB prior to getting the reservation, and when we arrived, they actually remembered it (without looking at any paperwork) and we had a lengthy discussion with their sommalier who also showed us around their kitchen a bit... then we ordered a lovely Lopez de Heredia (white) from an older vintage (which they offered at a great price, btw) and without calling attention to it, the sommalier would constantly take it in and out of the ice bucket to make sure it was not too cold, but not too warm. I just happened to notice it out of the corner of my eye from time to time... who else does that or would even think of that? What I was most surprised about at EB was the accessibility of most of the dishes... I was led to believe that there were to be 30-odd courses of "space food" or whatever, but in actuality, most of the dishes seemed quite "simple" - even though they were not. All were tasty, and many deeply satisfying. We still talk about that evening to this day... Although thinking about it now - I really shouldn't give advice on what to order - with the group you're travelling with, I'm sure you'll be treated extremely well with lots of extra dishes!!!

thanks!

Wow! Thanks so much! Those pics were just what I was looking for... absolutely perfect! I didn't realize how thick the cover is - it looks to be about 1/2 - 5/8 inch (13-16mm) thick, right?

Can anyone take a picture or two of the sealing bar and the top bar of your vacuum chamber? Thanks!

Kenneth, Thanks. I did make note of your times and temperature but also noted that you found the finished asparagus a little too "crunchy". Have you tried it again and reached a texture you approve of? I will try again today with a lower temperature and shorter time. Again, thanks. Anna - I usually use 155F for about 12 minutes now... but I also usually peel the asparagus unless they're super-skinny... I think the skins take a lot more heat to soften than the interior... and, not to mention that the asparagus in the store is typically pretty old (very old by Robuchon standards, who says that asparagus becomes a different (and inferior) vegetable 24 hours after it's picked!) Unfortunately, I don't have access to his purveyors so we do with what we have... Anyway, when peeled and cooked, I like my asparagus texture to bend when held at the end, but not flop over... so I like some toothfullness (is that a word?) but not crunchy.... I think the skins have a lot to do with the extra time/temp necessary to soften though...