nickrey

Think you might be confusing me with the other critical couple (they are dot com - I am dot co dot uk) I am the much poorer (and probably thinner) version who is an ABC diner (Anniversaries, Birthdays and Christmas). Guilty as charged. Who'd have known that there'd be two of you? I still stand by the other part of my post: One could propose that someone who would label a dish as cooked sous vide is probably new to the process and has not integrated the process into their cooking regime. A consequent lack of practice and recent adoption says to me that they probably would not have had the skill to give you the best version of dishes or may even have used it inappropriately. Thus not being blown away would be a predictable outcome. I'd never eat something that was labelled as having been cooked sous vide for this reason.

Today's breakfast was the second outing for my home-made smoked salmon. Had on a bagel today with cream cheese, onion, and capers.

Try using more lard than you normally would as this get a deeper fry going with the high heat. Also take the egg off before you think it is done, it will continue cooking after it leaves the pan.

That doesn't look anything like the apricot chicken of the 1970s which if I remember correctly used powdered soup and apricot nectar. Give me your version anytime.

It really depends on the level of hazard at each step of the process. This is how HACCP plans are worked out. You can cook hold and serve following the guidelines for holding to keep the food safe. You can also cook chill store using the guidelines given in that section of Douglas' guide. If the food is still sealed after your hold, you can cook hold chill store as long as your holding temperature was above 55C. As you are just starting to cook sous vide and have some difficulties reading English, I'd be getting Douglas' book "Sous Vide for the Home Cook" and following his guidelines for pasteurising the food. It is a bit more hazardous doing cook hold serve chill revacuum and freeze given the extra steps of chilling and thawing and adding what may now be non-pasteurised food to a vacuum. What you probably don't want to do is cook hold serve chill revacuum and the store in fridge.

See this section of Douglas Baldwin's practical guide to sous vide. Better still, read the whole document. It will answer not only this question but many others you may have about sous vide cooking.

Congratulations. Now for the exploration of variations...

Bit late to the party for this cook-off but here is my first effort at smoked salmon. Dry Salt packed around fish overnight. Rinsed and patted dry. Dried in fridge uncovered on rack for a day. Cold smoked in my Masterbuilt electric smoker using A-Maze-N smoker with oak chips and apple wood sawdust for an hour and a half only. I also used my chamber sealer to seal ice in bags and put one bag on each of the spare racks. It was cool in there. Came out perfectly. Here it is on toasted ciabatta with cream cheese, onions, and capers.

Mostly, I'll cook to 56C. I think that the cooking method and final temperature depends on the steak. Thick cut wagyu, with its extensive marbling, should not be eaten rare because the fat will be chewy. Since cooking tougher cuts low and slow sous vide and finishing with a high temperature sear, I've decided that the traditional tender cuts [eg,. Fillet (tenderloin)] are mostly tasteless and not worth the money that you pay for them however they are cooked.

The brand that I buy has individual serves in styrofoam packs with small packs of sesame oil and mustard. I heat the rice and natto, add the oil and mustard, mix, and eat. The mucousy texture is reduced this way. It still has the smell but for someone who loves cheeses that smell horrible but taste divine, it is scarcely a challenged.

It sounds like your risotto is not cooked appropriately to enable you to make them. Risotto is prepared and served fresh because when it cools it sticks together and is not reheatable as a presentable meal. Hence Arancini. So first start off with leftover risotto, which should be sticking together well when cold. Wet your hands. Take a golfball sized piece and push into it with your thumb to make a hole into which to place a small piece of Mozzarella. Then close over the hole such that the cheese is in the middle. I use three plates. The first has seasoned all purpose flour. The second a well mixed egg. The third has breadcrumbs. Roll your ball in the seasoned flour until covered. Shake off excess. Roll in the egg until coated. Then roll in breadcrumbs until covered. At this stage these can be kept in the fridge until ready for cooking. Heat oil in a deep fryer to 180C. Gently add crumbed risotto. Cook until golden brown. Serve and enjoy.

I was a very fussy eater as a child. Now anything is on the menu except Brussel Sprouts and cooked peas. It took me years to work out why I could eat and enjoy pea soup and raw peas but still react to cooked peas with a gag reflex. It is purely texture. I have had baby Brussel sprouts gently cooked and enjoyed them but as adult vegetables and cooked, I react to them like I react to peas. All other regular things that have been mentioned here I eat and enjoy, including Natto (it's a umami bomb).

I've been thinking about this comment. I'm not sure if it is the case in the UK but you would be very hard pressed not to have had many main courses that had components cooked sous vide in Australian fine dining restaurants. I know from your reviews that you eat out fairly regularly. One could propose that someone who would label a dish as cooked sous vide is probably new to the process and has not integrated the process into their cooking regime. A consequent lack of practice and recent adoption says to me that they probably would not have had the skill to give you the best version of dishes or may even have used it inappropriately. Thus not being blown away would be a predictable outcome. I'd venture further that you have had some dishes with elements cooked sous vide and not even known it. You might even have reviewed these dishes positively, again without knowing their provenance. And I actually see this as a good thing. The most important part of a meal is the eating and enjoyment of the finished product, not how it is prepared.

All of us buy computers and run into the problem that "the operating system is no longer supported for your piece of equipment." Support and built-in obsolescence are just as much an issue in large multinational corporations as sustainability is in smaller operations. We shouldn't over-estimate risk for one and under-estimate for the other. In all, I'd say that this issue balances itself out. Go with the equipment that you prefer.

That's totally unlike Frank. Perhaps he's taking a few days holiday.

Do you wash them in the dishwasher?

I've got the 240W Bamix and recommend it fully. Why is it more expensive? These things are made to last. Were you to buy one, I suspect it would be the last stick blender you would buy.

I always grate pepper onto the palm of my hand and add it from there. This has the added benefit of being able to gauge how much you have added.

The type of rice can help here. White rice is a high glycaemic index food but Basmati rice is only moderate. Try switching your rices and having it in moderation rather than cutting it out altogether.

No boiling, not even simmering. Cooking rather than reheating. The food is not pre-processed. But it is in a bag. I suppose as none of us are really that interested in food minor points like those shouldn't make a difference. And boil in a bag just sounds so tacky it's ideal for aggravating people who do it. An ideal choice of put down one would think.

Extremism on either side makes me shudder. Personally I've been cooking for over forty years and have always explored new techniques and adopted those that produce excellent results, including sous vide. Cooking is like any skill, practice it and you will become better. Sure I won't cook thousands of poached eggs in very short time as will a chef in a busy breakfast restaurant but equally I've been in many restaurants for breakfast where the eggs are uniformly mediocre despite the cook's experience. I worked for many months to get on top of the technique of poaching eggs and can say that they are better than the majority of restaurant cooked poached eggs. And yes, I prefer traditional poached eggs over onsen-type eggs cooked sous vide. I've been cooking sous vide for close on four years and use it where appropriate. I've even taken my techniques and cooked 50 serves of a technically challenging dish for my wine and food club. This was something that I couldn't do without learning and mastering the sous vide cooking process. To be able to do this without working full time in a kitchen means that I must practice it at home. Some of us blur the line between home cook and professional. As do some of your friends who post to this forum, even those who talk you into using a PiD for your coffee machine. I seem to remember that he uses sous vide cooking as part of his broad cooking repertoire.

I put the hot stock into a gravy fat separator jug. By pouring carefully and refilling as it gets low you can not only keep the fat out of the stock but also accumulate it to pour it off into a separate jar.

You are not the first person I've come across who feels this way. It seems to me that people used to Asian rice cooking find risotto at best strange, at worst unpleasant. And "undercooked" is a frequent complaint. The staff in my local (ludicrously overpriced) Italian restaurant in the local (ludicrously overpriced) "International" hotel spend hours every week explaining to local clientèle that the translation of risotto into "肉汁烩饭*' might not convey quite what they expect. I virtually had to sign a waive of rights form before they would serve it to me. It was lovely. *Literally "Gravy braised rice" Not just people who are used to Asian rice cooking. Most restaurant "risotto" is par cooked and finished off in a blaze of glory. I've yet to have a restaurant risotto that meets what can be made at home. If it comes out from the kitchen in under twenty minutes, I'd be very suspicious of how it is made. With regard to salting water for cooking rice, are you sure you're not mixing it up with pasta? I've yet to see a recommendation in any Asian or Indian cuisine cookbooks to salt cooking water for steamed/boiled/absorption method rice. It may occur in Persian and Moorish influenced food such as Paella and Pilaf but salt in many Asian cuisines is added through the medium of soy or fish sauce, not through adding table salt and especially not in the initial cooking of the rice.

Special dinner for New Year's Eve. Recipe from The French Laundry Cookbook incorporating sous-vide techniques from Under Pressure. Butter poached Lobster with Vanilla served with Leeks, Pommes Maxim, and a Red Beet Essence.

The trick is not so much soaking it as taking it out of the cure when it is ready. Soaking simply corrects overcuring. If you are used to pressing steaks to see when they are ready, try taking your bacon out of the cure when it starts to feel like a well-done steak. Any earlier and it will be undercured, any later and you'll have to correct it by soaking. Bacon is a bit like pastry: people claim that it is all measurement and accuracy but the number of variations in ingredients, particularly in flour, means that it is more about getting in the ball park by measuring and then adjusting quantities by feel.