KennethT

I used to do it quite a bit - until I got out of my potato puree phase.... I think I wrote about it about 40 pages ago... haha... I sliced the potatoes about 3/8" thick, bagged, and into the bath - I think I let mine go for about an hour, then cooled. I did the second cook in barely simmering water. The results came out pretty good - but there were always a few granules that never cooked through, so I always had to run the puree through a tamis to get rid of the grittyness. The basic procedure was: 1) retrograde starches/cool 2) simmer until cooked through 3) run through ricer 4) dry potatoes in skillet over low heat 5) add butter 6) run through tamis 7) add starchy potato water to adjust consistency 8) season

A great way to reheat without the microwave would be to put the remainder of the pork loin in a new bag and reheat in the waterbath. You can even slice it first, then put the slices in a bag in a single layer so that it will reheat much faster, with no fear of overcooking. Another option, if you didn't want to eat the remainder of your pork loin so soon would be to put it in a new bag and recook to pasteurization. Chill fast in ice as dougal said, and if your refrigerator is cold enough, you can leave it there for a few weeks if you keep the bag sealed.

I'm not sure - it always has just been called "fondant" and since they're european, I've assumed they meant the european fondant which I've seen in european food science texts as being 1000g sugar, 300g water, 100g glucose, brought to softball, cooled to roughly 86F, then agitated (kneaded) to form small crystals - then let rest to ripen for 12 hours. For example that is.... Plus, I can't imagine why they would use superfine sugar if you're just going to melt it anyway....

Right - but, wouldn't the fondant lose its structure once you remelt/boil/bring to hard crack?

So this really isn't a pastry question so much, but I figured this was the best place to put it... El Bulli and other restaurants have been wrapping savory items in very thin caramel. Most techniques out there use the following: 2:1:1 by weight fondant:isomalt:glucose heated to 325-330F (where the fondant is sugar/glucose not rolled fondant). My question is why do they use fondant rather than just sugar and extra glucose? My understanding is that fondant is made up of very small sugar crystals in a saturated sugar solution - so it has a very fine and creamy texture. But if you're going to remelt and bring to hard crack, doesn't that destroy your crystal structure anyway? Does using fondant do anything special in this application?

Wondra flour is a great coating for pan-frying, aka saute, proteins. You sprinkle it on, and a super-thin layer adheres to the protein, the rest blows off. The finished product does not seem to have a flour coating. It also helps proteins not stick to the pan. This is a technique that was lauded by David Bouley a few years ago in one of his demonstration classes - he extolled the virtues of the wondra flour for like a half hour - and even sold it in the Bouley Market when they first opened (which was about the time of this class). He said in the restaurant Bouley (at that time) they used the wondra flour when the sauteed just about everything... he demonstrated using it when searing scallops.

I'm in Manhattan and have no problems finding it - it's in the Food Emporium and Gristede's in the basement of my building/across the street...

It seems to me that the biggest problem I have with poultry skin is rendering the fat underneath and gelatinizing the collagen, rather than the crisping of the surface. Turkey skin is pretty tough and leathery (lots of collagen) unless you do something to convert it, and then it can be crisped successfully.... The problem is how to cook the skin long enough to convert the collagen without killing the meat underneath. I haven't found a solution yet, other than removing the skin and treating it separately - that seems to be the consensus here so far. Pour-over frying works pretty well at rendering some of the fat and crisping, but it's a real pain in the neck as hot oil splatters all over the place and it still doesn't do a completely effective job. 2 years ago, for thanksgiving, I did a turkey breast ballantine (with the skin on) that I tried browning the skin in a hot pan. The legs/thighs were done confit style and the skin from the confit was crisped between two sheet pans in a hot oven. The results: at the end of the night, when cleaning the plates, just about all had finished the white meat ballantine, but left the skin on the side. The crisped thigh/leg skin was completely gone, as well as the confit.

Alex - can you sum up what he said about the future of El Bulli?

I've done things wrapped in banana leaf - like a yucatan style pork shoulder, rubbed with achiote and lime, wrapped in a banana leaf and cooked at either 155F for 24 hours, 176 for 12 hours, or 182 for 8 hours... the banana leaf didn't impart that much flavor at 155, but it imparted a lot of aromatics at both 176 and 182... neither of them were bitter, although we didn't actually eat the banana leaf (does anyone actually do that?)

Just checked my notes... nice thick asparagus, 150F for about 8 minutes with s&p and a couple pats of butter in the bag, then shocked in ice water and held in refrigerator until service - put back in 140 or 150F water (whatever's convenient if you have other things going) for a couple of minutes to reheat: results in a vibrant green color, crisp but tender texture... I thought they were a little too crisp still, but others loved them... maybe I'd try 10,12 and say 15 min. next time I can get really good asparagus... had a very green, grassy flavor... more than normal steaming etc...

Those look great... I've had mixed results with veggies... asparagus at 180F=yuck, but at 140 or 150 (I forget which) they're fantastic... What were temps and times for yours?

Most shellfish is pretty tender, and if cooked too long turns mushy... octopus can be cooked long time, and I'd imagine that abalone would be good that way too, especially if it has lots of collagen in the muscle.

I would love to do abalone SV, but for me, getting them is really expensive (the only source I know of is in San Diego and the shipping to me in NY is really expensive, aside from the abalone being already expensive!)... so I haven't taken the plunge in bringing them in as an experiment. If you do an experiment with one, please please post your results! Also, I wonder if you could take one, and cut it into quarters and use different temps/times? I know it's a lot of work though...

When making the duck cracklin, put the silpat on a sheetpan... then put the duck skin on one side of the silpat, fold over the other side, so you have a duck and silpat sandwich, and cover with another sheetpan...

You can get around the "cooked tomato" flavor with the agar by boiling only a small amount (say 1/4) of the total liquid iwth the total amount of agar - let it boil for a few minutes, then while stirring, stream in the rest of the liquid making sure it doesn't go below 35C (where it'll pregel)... stir to combine then mold and set to cool

Interesting - I never thought of putting a brine in the bag with the meat... I've always pre-seasoned and put some type of oil/fat in the bag. At such low temps/short times, I've never had problems with any liquid being exuded... definitely not true for long time stuff like 36 hour flank steak, etc (there's lots of exuded liquid)... I have to try the brine next time.

I usually put some butter (or even better, rendered foie gras fat) in the bag - maybe a tablespoon or two per bag... and I always season prior to bagging. Just make sure to dry the steaks off with a paper towel prior to searing... you can butter your griddle just prior to adding the steaks for a little extra maillard/butter flavor.

I can cut the steaks to whatever thickness. I was thinking about 1", which would allow everyone to have a little more crust than if they were cut thicker. 53C sounds reasonable. I don't think that will be too rare for anyone. I won't need to hold them for a long time at all. i'd prefer to go straight from circulator to searing, just to keep things quick. There won't be any extra hands in the kitchen, so the less time i can spend searing etc. the better. Do you think 2 hours at 53 is reasonable? At this temperature is there any tenderizing effect to consider over these relatively short cooking times? For 1" thick, 2 hours is more than ample, and will not have any tenderizing effect. It will just be uniformly 53C edge to edge. Also, just make sure you trim any big chunks of fat, since they won't render at those temps and aren't so appealing...

How thick are the shell steaks? Once you know their thickness, you can get the minimum time from the tables. At that temp, I have left in the waterbath up to4 hours or so without noticing a difference. At 55C, tenderization takes a long time... Another possibility is to cook the steaks at 55C and leave in to pasteurize in advance - like today if necessary, or if you had the circulator in advance, up to 3-4 weeks in advance assuming your refrigerator is less than 38F. Then at service, the searing will also bring the steaks up to temp (depending on thickness - if it's too thick, then by the time the outside is nicely seared, the inside will still be cold). Doing it from cold has an advantage of getting a thicker crust on the steaks without overcooking the inside. Also, just a thought, but shell steaks are pretty tender... I usually go for 127-128F (53C) for such a tender cut which will leave it more rare. If doing this, you don't want to leave it in the bath for longer than 4 hours, and you can't really pasteurize, so cook-chill is out.. I don't know the "rare tolerance" of your guests, however...

Thanks!

hey Opty - when did you give the EdgePro to the thrift shop? Which one?

I don't know how he does his pork SV, but I've adapted his Yucatan "pig in a pit" for SV with pork shoulder and it works great. You make his achiote marinate and rub all over, then wrap with banana leaf. I put it in a stovetop smoker for about 20 minutes, and then into the bag... A long time ago (a couple of years) I did it for about 7 hours at 82C, and then did another one at 76C for 12 hours. I thought the 12 hour version was better, and both were hot enough for the banana leaf to impart some flavor. Since that time, I've done other pork shoulder (with no banana leaf) at 155F for 24 hours, and that has been best so far, but I haven't tried it with the banana leaf to see if it imparts any flavor at that temp.

I think most supermarket chickens are pretty young - usually you run into tough chicken problems with old "stewing" hens that are mostly intended for soup. A normal 3 or 3.5 pound fryer is a pretty young bird... granted it may not have been sung lullabyes or petted 3 times a day, but I don't think that would have much effect on the amount of collagen in the skin... hehe

Thanks so much for chiming in on this, Nathan. I love the idea of vacuum sealing the whole pan to firmly press the chicken to the pan. In the past, I have pre-rendered skin and then glued it back on with activa GS (I actually did it with duck, not chicken) and it worked pretty well - but it was rather complicated and time consuming to wait until the tg bonds, which is what I'm trying to avoid. I think my next attempt will be to freeze the surface on a flat block and do a medium temp sear.