phan1

No, it's not rose water, but it's real close to it. I am pretty sure it's some sort of extract and it does have alcohol in it...

Hi, I remember this ingredient as a child but I've long forgotten it. It was in a place that specialized in serving Banh Cuon. They put out a small bowl of fish sauce just as in other typical Viet restaurants. Now the ingredient I'm trying to identify is a condiment that was on all the tables. It was a liquid in a small bottle with a dropper, and we would add some drops of it in our nuoc mam to help perfume it and lessen the "fishiness" of the nuoc mam. I THINK it's jasmine extract or something like it. Does anyone here know what I'm talking about?

It was at 65C. I cooled the bag down, but there was still a lot of air in there. I opened the bag and it smelled.... funny. Not real bad, but not real pleasant either. It smelled a bit sour. I thought it might be due to the raw green onions I put in there. Maybe the sulfur in the onions had no where to go. I ate it anyway though.

Yeah, he didn't want to spoil the secrets to making the drink hot and cold on the show. But I found an old online newspaper article where he only briefly mentions that he's using a gum to make a drink that is half hot and cold.

ARGH! I LOST MY VACUUM! I'm SVing some duck legs and this is my 1st time SVing something overnight. I used my Foodsaver Pro III and the foodsaver bags. It was SVing just fine after 5 hours. But when I woke up this morning, there was lots of air in the bag, as if it wasn't vacuum sealed at all. The bag was floating. I check the bag, and there are absolutely no punctures in the bag. All the fluid is still there. IS THIS A SIGN OF BOTULISM? I don't understand how any air would have gotten in there; it was submerged under water when I started.

Hi, I was wondering if anyone has ever tried or thought of making Heston Blumenthal's "Flaming Sorbet". He made this in hi Christmas Special just last month that aired in the UK. I would definitely like to try it, probably sometime in the next 2 weeks. It's basically a scoop of apple sorbet that sits on a bed of flaming brandy, and it doesn't melt! What he does is make an apple sorbet base that includes apple juice, freeze dried apples, and malic acid. He heats up the mixture and then blends in gellan gum, the heat resistant hydrocolloid that keeps the sorbet from melting. After blending in the gellan gum, he then quickly cools the mixture by transferring it into an ice bath. He then churns it into ice cream. He probably uses liquid nitrogen or something crazy to churn it, but I'm just going to do it on my simple ice cream machine. Now here's what I don't understand. When he quickly cools his sorbet base in an ice bath, won't that mixture gel together? How are you supposed to churn something that has already gelled? Or is it a gel that's still soft enough to churn? He uses an immersion blender and blends the base together at boiling temperatures. He says this prevents the mixture from forming a gel, but that's only at really high temperatures right? Won't the mixture still form a solid gel once it hits room temperature? I actually never used gellan gum before, so I'm not in tune with how it is used exactly. It seems like a complicated but very versatile substance. If added directly to a warm sauce, it can be a thickener. But it blended at boiling temperatures, it will form solid gels. Can anyone give me a crash course on this substance? Oh, and I'm pretty sure he uses this in his drink where one half of it is literally cold and the other hot, where the drink is actually a pureed fluid gel put at different temperatures.

Well, I obviously know what it means, but what does it mean in the food world? I've been reading a lot of chefs book, and one of the things that they keep talking about keeping "honesty and integrity" in their food. Can someone tell me what their talking about? This especially applies to the "technologically advanced" chefs like Blumenthal and Andrea. It seems like that's usually something they talk about when people try to attack them for being "gimmicky" or what-not. To me, it often sounds like they're talking about not being pretentious, not being a pre-madonna, and not being overly flashy. I'm sorry, but isn't this what the top chefs of the world do?!? Don't they take basic dishes and basic flavors and dress them up to look like exotic sculptures? They DO! And I don't think there's anything wrong with that! I don't think there's anything wrong with making a salmon tartare look like an ice-cream cone! In fact, I think that's wonderful! But if you're going to say that dish has "honesty" and "integrity", than I'm not going to know you're talking about...

Phan1, can you tell me more about this unit. It looks like the PERFECT home unit. How much can you fit in the chamber? Could you get four steaks or chicken breasts in there with enough room for the water to move around? Have you tested the temps for accuracy. Does the chamber come out for cleaning - if so could it be used as a crock pot (much like Alton I am generally opposed to uni-taskers)? I assume there is no circulation in it other than convection, maybe some of the others here can comment on the need for it. NOTE: I have emailed Revolutionary Science for more details as well. ← Yup, 4 steaks would fit in there just fine. Just make sure you vaccum seal it so it doesn't float on top of the water. Size-wise, it's really perfect. The only downside is that the temperature raises slowly. I'd say it takes about 2 hours for it to come from room temperature to 70C. But SV is about setting it and forgetting it, so it's not a big deal to me.

Unfortunately, souse vide chicken breast doesn't taste special to me like the way SV salmon does. I find chicken breast to be the unappealing, dry, crappy part of the chicken that no one wants to eat. I was hoping SV would change that, but it doesn't. SV seafood is absolutely fantastic though.

OK, I don't know who started this thing about being able to use regular stick butter instead of clarified butter, but I have to say I totally disagree with the idea. As a simple, amateur enthusiast, I love taking generally accepted shortcuts, but this shortcut almost ruined Hollandaise for me. The problem was that I was getting this "heady" note from the butter (typical Land O Lakes). It's hard to describe the "heady" note, but it's like a taste that would give you a headache if you consumed too much of it at once. This heady note was transferred into the sauce the hollandaise sauce that I made, and it was pretty unappealing. Not bad, but it did create an off taste to me. I thought maybe a better brand of butter would do the trick, but it didn't. Then I clarified the butter and it tastes SO MUCH better. The "heady" note I described was reduced greatly. Honestly, I'm on the verge of using clarified butter for everything now. It just tastes so much better than regular butter. They taste different! Why would people think you could substitute one for the other, especially when it's the butter that plays the main course!

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get more info about whether or not the chickens were free-range. Simply based on price, I'd like to believe the Central Market brand was free-range, and the Sanderson's was not. The experiment also reminds me of KFC Chicken and how it is so incredibly tender to the point of mushiness yet also equally flavorless.

Hi, I want to share a chicken experiment I did. After being enlightened by Jamie Oliver's recent show about chickens, I wanted to see if there really was a difference between the quality of chickens. I compared 2 whole chickens: 1) cheaper, frozen, organic Sanderson Farms chicken at HEB and 2) nearly twice as expensive, fresh, organic Central Market chicken (not vegetarian fed). I chose these two as they're the the most likely chickens I would get at each respective store. I brined them in salt solution, and cooked them identically Sous-vide style. The following results reflect ONLY CHICKEN BREASTS! OK, the first difference before the cooking was the difference in color and texture. The Central Market chicken was pinker and more firm to the touch. The Sanderson farms was more white and even had a yellow tint to it. Now the difference between the two after cooking: my French roommate and I actually preferred the cheaper chicken! Even after cooking, the Central Market one retains a better color. In terms of taste, the Central Market was only slightly tastier, but pretty negligible all around. But what made the Sanderson's chicken better was the texture. The meat was more tender and you could feel the fibers come apart in your mouth, something that's especially important for typically dry chicken breast. The Central Market one was more firm and the fibers didn't fall apart in your mouth; they could only be broken up by teeth contact. I think the differences in texture is explained by freezing the chicken. If you have ice crystals in your chicken, it's like a million needles poking at the chicken, so you get more tender chicken breast. That makes sense doesn't it? But then again, frozen scallops and many other things are less tender than fresh ones... I'm really interested in knowing how freezing affects the quality of our food, so if someone could explain why some frozen things taste good while others taste crappy, I'd appreciate that. I've yet to taste the differences between the dark meat and the stock. I'm particularly interested in seeing if the stock is better, but that's a lot of work, and quite frankly, I don't think I care anymore given the disappointing initial result. UPDATE: OK, I just compared the dark meat. This time, instead of sous vide (too lazy), I just simply pan-fried the two. It's a similar story: cheaper chicken is more tender, but more expensive chicken has more flavor. In this case, I actually prefer the Central Market chicken, as the difference in flavor is more prevalent than in the chicken breast. If we were to put a taste test on, I think the votes would be pretty split on which is better. I think the cheaper chicken would end up winning though, as it seems people are more used to more tender but less flavorful meat.

Very cool.

I just recently bought a poly probath for $329. It's about as affordable as a new waterbath can get, and I think it's great so far. Think of it as buying 1.5 Le Cruset pots. I was a bit alarmed at 1st, as it was made out of cheap plastic and relatively light. But the thing words great, and the light weight makes it easier for me to pour out the water. It's very quite, and there's no doubt it was meant to be on for as long as you want it to be on. It's lab equipment after all. And the size is perfect for home use as well, a big plus over the ebay ones that sport huge machines with small volume capacity. There are just so many things you can do with it; I think it's a great investment. One of the other reasons why I wanted a new one rather than an old ebay one (which would still be great I assume) was that I wanted something I could put food directly in if I wanted to. The technique of pre-cooking potatoes at 70C is really great, and I wanted to be able to just toss the potatoes in the water bath instead of some rusty metal thing. Also, I've been SVing chicken breast at 160F, but I noticed people doing it as low as 140F on these boards. Is that safe? Ideally, I'd like to go as low as I can of course, but there's a big difference betwee 160F and 140F, and 160-ish is the bacteria threshold... Sorry if this has been talked about before, but this is a damn long post!

Ummm... Well, I like to eat new foods, but the things is, it always seems more affordable and convenient to just make it at home, so I'm often left wondering "is it supposed to taste like this?" So one of the things I tried making without actually knowing what it tastes like is Hollandaise sauce. I've had it once about 8 years ago, but I don't remember it being typically memorable. So I end up with a sauce that looks just like typical hollandaise sauces I see in pictures and it tastes like butter... ONLY butter. It is very rich (even in small amounts) and has a very mouth-filling taste. It's literally no different then tasting a piece of soft, warm butter. Of course you can add other things like lemon, but then you end up with a sauce that tastes like.... lemon butter! So from my perspective, the whole concept of Hollandaise is making butter into the form of a thick, attractive looking sauce. Are there also different brands of butter that you'd recommend? It seems like having the right quality butter would make all the difference in the world. My sauce was VERY buttery, and I had to add a whole lot of lemon just to get any of the flavors through. I even added some anchovy paste but quickly stopped wasting my expensive anchovy paste after realizing it was going to take a lot of it before I was going to pick up any of that flavor. I felt like I needed to add sugar to help temper the richness of the sauce. Well, is this hollandaise or is my cooking off? It's the typical sauce: 1 egg yolk to a half stick of butter, bit of water and lemon.

Yeah, I love the skin too, just not on the steak. I'll definitely dead up on the salmon skin temaki. Sounds great. Oh, and I sous vide the Salmon today. It was awesome, very tender. I'm not a fan of cooked salmon either. I just never had cooked salmon that wasn't too dry. The only times I've been able to eat cooked salmon is if its was literally raw in the middle (I LOVE sashimi or cold smoked salmon).

Hi, I don't order Salmon in restaurants, but I'm making Salmon for someone. Could you tell me whether or not a grilled piece of salmon fillet is typically served with or without skin in a restaurant? And if it's served with the skin on, do people typically eat the skin? I know salmon skin isn't very edible unless browned into a crisp, but that also leads to overcooked salmon. I know Salmon is always sold at the market with the skin on... And while we're on the subject, can you tell me the philosophies behind which fish is typically sold in a market with or without their skin on? I know Tilapia fillets are always skinned (a shame IMO), and Salmon always has their skin. Anyone knows why this is? I would always prefer to always the the skin on everything. Let's have the cook decide, right?

Oh OK, thanks for clearing that up for me. I went back and re-read that part and that's what she was referring too. It's hard getting your messages across without many pictures.

OK, I've been reading Madeleine Kamman's "The New Making of a Cook". One of the things that she doesn't believe in is brown chicken stock. She says that unlike browning beef, browning chicken before making it into a stock just makes the stock worse (forgot why). But there are other reputable people who do use brown chicken stock as seen in their recipe books. So does anyone here have an opinion on this?

LOL, well obviously I'm pretty wrong here. I actually don't really go out and buy chocolates, but I get expensive chocolates as gifts sometimes. I've never gone out of my way to taste the difference. I made my hypothesis after disappointingly purchasing a Rocky Mountain Bar, which is pretty expensive for me, but still probably below the standards of aforementioned brands. And the other expensive brands I get sometimes are Godiva chocolate bars. I guess those are cheap-to-middle range chocolates, but I find little difference between them besides the amount of sugar put in them. Of course, I can tell the difference in % of cocoa of a bar, but better QUALITY cocoa (hence the bigger price tag), I've yet to taste anything that makes me go "WOW". I've had great chocolates syrups and desserts, but not a straight-up chocolate bar. Even after my limited range of tasting, my personal favorite is still the Hershey's Special Dark chocolate. I guess I'll try some of your suggestions sometime guys.

Well, I thought this would be a fun/experimental topic. I walked into a nice looking chocolate shop the other day, and tried a nice, expensive bar of chocolate. I noticed something compared with typical Hershey's bars: They all taste the same! Given that taste is 70% from your nose and 30% from your tongue, I noticed that you can hardly "smell" a bar of chocolate. When I initially ate the chocolate, it felt like plastic. I couldn't get any taste into my mouth until the chocolate started melting on my tongue. Now given that your only using 30% of your perceptual abilities, I really don't think you can really differentiate between chocolate bars and say "Hey this chocolate bar tastes great and is so much better than that 50 cent Nestle bar". Of course, this only pertains to straight-up, hard chocolate bars. I know some bars will have some nice hazelnut or almond essences mixed and what-not that will make expensive bars much more palatable then the typical Hershey's. Texture would also play an important role, as some expensive chocolates will melt on your tongue immediately on contact. I'm also sure you'll find differences in desserts that actually give out volatile aromas like cakes and soufflés. Of course, this is just my inexperienced opinion. I don't work with chocolate or anything, but I do trust my tongue. Maybe an experience pastry chef will know the difference (though I doubt it :-P).