nickrey

Which leads us into another complicating factor. With the invention of the saw, cuts of meat no longer had to follow the muscles. Many cuts both in the US and in England and Australia merge a number of different muscles together. I suspect what you are referring to is the "head" of the loin which is a different muscles at is attached tithe conventional cut. In much traditional European butchery the cuts goes along the muscle rather than through it giving a much more coherent cut for us to cook with.

The binding is a function of two things: adding salt (try around 12% of total weight and then adjust to taste) and mixing and squeezing the meat (apropos Chris' comment above about activating the Myosin). I'd also second using a coarse rather than a fine grind, keeping the mixture (and your equipment) cool, and adding finely diced back fat to bring the total amount of fat up to around 25%. Wash the chopped fat in a combination of boiled and chilled wine and slightly warm water to separate it out before mixing it in to the meat. Rest the meat in an open container in a refrigerator for a day just above 0C to let it bind without having ice crystals form.

This happens with age as well. Pork from an 18 month old pig is noticeably darker and has more flavour than that from a younger pig. What we are buying from the supermarkets that has come from the industrial meat now being created is far different from this. They are younger and bred to have less fat because of consumer expectations. They are then pumped with water and flavouring to give back some of what has been bred out of them. We then add various forms of marinades or cures to add flavour in response to what has been stripped out. Someone on another forum commented on the relative expense of chicken breast meat here in Australia. The meat came from a free-range producer, which means that it had a degree more exercise than chickens confined to small boxes, which is required if you are going to make cheap meat. Having a chicken range means more flavour in the meat. According to my charcuterie teacher the other night the best pig to use in sausages is a miix of meat from male pigs castrated at birth because of the greater muscle mass that they have and female, non breeding, pigs who have a greater layer of flavourful fat. And let's not forget natural taints such as boar taint (which is likely hormonal in origin) that can affect flavour in a negative manner. So at this stage I think we are moving towards muscle type, location, and use; marbling; amount of connective tissue (which when cooked adds texture which modifies the eating experience); as well as age all being involved in producing flavourful meat. We are also faced with intensively farmed and engineered meat that is cheap but lacking in flavour and may be all that some of the commentators here may have access to. Any other variables we should add to the equation?

I put something under the front edge of the sealer which gives it a slope so that the liquid doesn't run out. Be careful about getting water into your pump, it will lessen its effectiveness markedly and potentially damage it.

I don't use sous vide daily just as I don't grill daily or fry daily or... If you are going to decide to use a process on daily use, check out the toaster sub-thread. Use what works for what you want that day. Sous vide is something that is part of the cooking pantheon, not something you would worship on a regular basis.

Hanger steak has is the diaphragm muscle. Not sure how this is a relaxed piece of meat like the bits sitting to the side of the backbone, etc. Just because it is not supporting the weight of the animal doesn't mean that it doesn't do heavy work. The heart is the hardest working muscle on the body; by the logic referred to, perhaps it should be one of the most tender. I've eaten heart and it's as tough as old boots if not cooked correctly but damn it is flavourful.

There are a number of threads on Jaccarding already. Check out this thread for a good discussion of the process.

Visually stunning. The first half of each of the books presents pictures of the finished dishes with numbers accompanying them. The back half of the book contains the recipes. If you have seen previous El Bulli books, you'll know what to expect in the recipes. They state yield and then list the five to seven different processes used to create the thimbleful of food that results. This is high-intensity degustation style cookery at its peak. The last volume contains the evolutionary analysis of the dishes: what preceded them, where they went and what the thinking was. Is it worth it? For an obsessive-tragic cook like myself who will select a number of dishes and make them, yes. For a collector of things El Bulli, definitely. For a cook who is unlikely to make the dishes but who will extract pleasure from seeing how they were created, yes. For a cook who doesn't like out of the ordinary ingredients and rare equipment (where did I leave my personal freeze dryer), I'd say "move along... nothing to see here."

Vacuum pickling works best with vegetables that have vesicles that can be crushed when atmospheric pressure hits the food after a vacuum has been applied. A prime example is watermelon which looks like raw salmon after it is vacuum sealed. If there is liquid around the vegetable it seems that this is forced into the vacuumed object when air pressure returns to the chamber. I'm not convinced that this is the same as marinating because the pressure markedly changes the texture of the object being vacuum pickled/infused. Marinating does not do this.

...and no competition with conventionally cooked steak, it's a plane beyond.

My experience is with Microsoft who put out revisions that necessitate revisions to meet their updated standards which is a pain in the a.. It all depends on the author and the frustration level. Maybe you should ask Vengroff if he's abandoning it.

I can say it's much easier and less messy. You can pull a vacuum multiple times with the infusing liquid to gain the benefit. We're pushing the boundary a bit here as it is vacuum infusing. You may need to experiment for yourself.

Yep. my point exactly. Working muscle is good steak. It just needs to be treated well to make it tender as well as flavoursome. [HOST'S NOTE: The continuation of this discussion can be found in the topic Do "working" muscles have more flavor?]

My suspicion is that the temperatures were set conservatively to avoid being sued. If you are an advanced user, you can change the temperatures to whatever you want if you know what you want to achieve. Why would you abandon an app which tracks thermal conductivity and lets you know what is happening to your food?

A lot depends on the cut. Muscle that has worked hard is tough but full of flavour. Cooking this type of cut sous vide for long periods tenderises it but retains flavour that you typically can't get in conventional tender cuts (unless you do significant dry aging). I never pre sear but can see the benefit of KennethT's suggestion above. One secret of post searing is to thoroughly dry the surface of the cooked meat. The other is to alkalise the surface, which accelerates maillardisation. When I have fillet steak or other conventional cuts now I like the tenderness but hate the lack of flavour. My suspicion is that those who like conventionally cooked meat like the texture gradient. Texture has a lot more effect on the eating experience than most people give it credit for.

Stuff at room temperature boils. Chill it before sealing.

High profile scalps make the newspapers. It raises the profile of the inspectors and the department. Just saying...

For French recipes, I'd highly recommend The Complete Robuchon, The Complete Bocuse or, as others have said Larousse Traditional French Cooking by Curnonsky or Escoffier's Guide Culinaire. For a more course-like approach, try Cordon Bleu's Compete Cooking Techniques or Jaques Pepin's Complete Techniques

Halloumi was sealed with butter, mint leaves, lemon zest, and chilli. Cooked at 64C for 90 minutes. Removed from bag and then seared in olive oil in hot pan for 30 seconds per side.

Dinner for vegetarian daughter tonight. Sous vide halloumi with mint, chill, and lemon from Modernist Vegetarian Cooking iBook by Eddie Shepherd. hmm. New software, small photo. May need to figure this out tomorrow.

Even if you have a chamber sealer the liquid needs to be cooled before sealing. If it isn't it can boil out of the bag in the vacuum. When I used my food saver for sous vide, I always used the same method as Chris Hennes if liquid was involved or froze the liquid into ice cubes and sealed normally. Either of these will give you the result you want without any of the negative effects you wish to avoid.

If you want smaller particulate size, why not use filter paper? I currently move through rough sieves to finer sieves to super bag to filter paper in a Buchner funnel. You can stop when you get fine enough for your needs.

So did the scotch acolytes teach you the alternative spelling of "Whisky?"

Balsamic really needs to be appropriate to use. I have various classes of balsamic ranging from ordinary for everyday use through to 20 year old for special use (you can go much older than this but it gets very thick and very expensive and is used in drops rather than splashes). My favourites for everyday use are fattorie giacobazzi or guiseppe giusti; slightly better is il caratello and my 20 year old is condiment mussini (bought on Amazon) . Never ever buy a balsamic that has caramel as one of its ingredients. You need to look for cooked grape must and wine vinegar, around 6% acidity as the minimum requirement for balsamic. Never buy anything with caramel in it (I'll avoid saying this again but I'm sure you get the picture). Australia is somewhat spoilt for extra virgin olive oils. They are far better than most European oils that make it to our shores. CobramEstate is a good oil but try Coriole "Evo" or, better still, "1st" or the Diana Novello if you can find it. Lots swear by the little general but I've always found it a bit expensive for what it is. ps. If balsamic has caramel in it, it is a colouring to imitate real balsamic -- run away. pps. While you are in the Cheese room at Spring Street, please say hello to Anthony Femia if he is there. He is going to be one of Australia's best cheesemongers (if he isn't already).

Probably the only thing you won't be able to find is Pademelon, which is a kind of small kangaroo. I'm Australian and I'd never heard of it either. The recipe says to substitute kangaroo but you could just as easily substitute venison for a very similar texture and flavour profile. The book has recipes from all around the world, including ones from Nathan Myhrvold, Wylie Dufresene, J. Kenji-Lopez-Alt, Brad Farmerie, and so on. I don't think you'd be either frustrated in not having availability of ingredients nor disappointed.