nickrey

I think everyone is looking at this through the lens of traditional European or North American climates. Sometimes you just need to adapt to where you are. Lactic fermentation, which is the basis for making sauerkraut, is quite common in food preparation in African countries. This article describes the process. You simply don't leave it around for two weeks. One to three days is all it needs.

Use the air conditioned room. Lactic fermentation will typically not happen below 15C, hence what you have seen with your non-fermenting sauerkraut. I've read that in some hot places, the time spent in fermentation outside the refrigerator is limited to a few days; perhaps this is what you need to do. Otherwise, dig a hole in the ground and put it in there to reduce the fermentation temperature (covering with appropriate barriers for insects, etc).

There's your problem. According to the authors, you need to put it in a cool place (21-23C) for two weeks, not the refrigerator. You've retarded the fermentation through refrigeration.

Thanks Chris, nice to see food from a Melbournian perspective. I enjoyed the trip.

Just make that the seal is below the water line. It's no different from putting them in a rack.

There are also a number of posts relevant to this discussion in this topic.

I was investigating getting a ThermoChef quite seriously but didn't because of lack of space and it not really fitting with my cooking style (I know, the style fits the equipment but that was my decision). It appears from my readings that once someone makes the decision to purchase a Thermomix in Australia, they seem to get almost evangelical about it. Given the cost here, I can see why this happens but it makes gaining objective comparisons very difficult. The forum that andiesenji mentioned above is actually a good source if you can sort out the objective (few) from the subjective (many). I'd recommend reading the posts in there by Stacelee (eg. this one). She compares the two directly and apparently fairly. Bottom line of my research was that the ThermoChef is very similar to an earlier version of the Thermomix (the TM21). It is less powerful that the current Thermomix and doesn't have a reverse function (although it does have a plastic cover for the blades, which at low forward speed gives similar results). To me, the bottom line was the price for features. At around $2000 for the Thermomix versus $800 for the ThermoChef, to my mind there is not sufficient difference to justify purchase of the Thermomix. Had I decided to purchase one or the other, I would have picked the ThermoChef. For balance on this opinion, check out this review, just remember that it was written by someone who had already purchased a very expensive Thermomix. On the other hand, if you decide to spend $2K, you could always get a professional machine for a bit more.

MY concern with that method is that the whole bag is not under water, meaning that if there was any of the meat that rubbed on an area of the bag that doesn't end up underwater and you go for a super long cook time, it's possible that any bacteria will multiple and recontaminate your now pasteurized meat. I always make sure the bags are fully submerged. Like with my comment on storing liquid in bags, you leave a long tail. I believe Pedro also seals marbles in the bags to make sure they keep submerged.

I like PedroG's concept of having the rack above the water and hanging the pouches off that (think of the pouches as coathangers and the rack as the rail inside your wardrobe). This avoids the issue of having a rack that doesn't rust in the water.

You need a long tail to successfully draw all the air out of a liquid filled bag using a non-chamber vacuum. I'd get either some larger bags or a roll of the narrower bags so you can adjust the length.

Ok ok. It seems that the weight of opinion is for the Kitchenaid. I am traditionalist in many ways and actually use a hand stuffer for sausages in preference to an electrical because I like the feel of producing the sausages slowly. I have used an electric attachment previously for pasta making and prefer the hand cranked. I have had no trouble with the Atlas for consistency of thickness and have posted the products a number of times here. Were I to change, I don't think it would be to a Kitchenaid attachment - I'd prefer a manual or electrically driven method of pushing through a brass dye, which gives those irregular bits on the edge of the pasta that catch the sauce. Let's substitute the word artisan for irregular and that is where I'm coming from. As I said above, were I to want to produce larger quantities, I'd look at automating. My current usage means that I don't need to. And to address the point of making more pasta with the Kitchenaid attachment, often I use bought (albeit artisan) pasta because that is the effect I want to achieve. In Italy, pasta is the hero of the dish rather than a vehicle for sauce; it needs character rather than homogeneity. In pasta, like movies and books, I prefer my hero to have depth of character and quirkiness. Vive la difference, oh wait, that's French.

Franci, it is interesting that you say you "know" Italian food when there are so many regional variations and so many different variants of what does and doesn't go into things. If I might venture an interpretation of what you are saying, it would be that you have an internalised template of what your regional and family version of Italian food is. This is based on knowledge, development of skills through observation and practice, and long-term application of the skills. You also have had feedback on what Italian food is from the time you started eating. So if we apply that to learning a different cuisine to a higher level (think Fuchsia Dunlop for Szechuan cuisine, David Thompson for Thai food, Diana Kennedy for Mexican food), what you will need to do is acquire knowledge and skills and apply these frequently until they become automatic. There is a view in some quarters, popularised by Malcolm Gladwell, that to gain expertise in an area you need to have at least 10,000 hours of practice. The expertise literature would also suggest that you need more than basic ability as well as a structured evolution in complexity of what you are doing to achieve this, but the basic point is probably one that needs emphasising: You need heaps of practice and constructive feedback to learn. People have different learning preferences: some like to read about concepts, think about them, and then apply them; others can only learn through doing; still others benefit from lectures, etc. My suggestion would be to work out how you best learn and then apply that to Chinese cooking. Do it all the time and immerse yourself in it. At some stage learning a foreign language if they are immersed in the culture, people start naturally to think in the language and require effort to move back into their native tongue. Think of your journey to cooking in these terms and you will know how to get there and what it will look like when you arrive.

I like the hand cranked, probably because it gives more a sense of control over what you are doing. If you were to consider buying a coffee machine and be tempted by an automatic over a semi-automatic, I'd go for the Kitchenaid. As a second consideration, if you are making a lot of pasta, it may be best to go for the more mechanised version.

700mm = 70cm = 27.5 inches, can't wait to see the cow that came from

There is another iphone app that is free called sous vide pro (created by Vac-star who make the circulator that I have just purchased and am awaiting delivery of). Their time for a 70mm sirloin to medium rare (water temp 58C) is 3 hours 30 minutes. Given this time and temp, you'll most likely wind up with a core temperature of 57C, which should be rare-medium, rather than medium-rare.

The DeBuyer that I mentioned above comes with a 4, 7, and 10mm julienne blade, the 10mm is .4 inches. You can also buy a 2mm julienne blade for it.

Try mixing your flour with an equal amount of Texturas trisol (Trisol is a soluble fibre (powder) derived from wheat starch with a neutral taste and smell and is used in the preparation of frying batters and tempura. The result is a crunchy, oil free texture - even with the most moist of products). Only problem is that it only comes in a 4kg (8.8lb) tub.

I've got the DeBuyer Professionnelle V, with the addition of a long pusher attachment. It makes short work of anything, including chips, and comes in its own attache case for portability. While it's more than your limit, it does so much more than just being a french fry cutter.

I love the restaurant, I've been three or four times and haven't had a bad moment there. From what I hear, the book is basically the story of the last few years, so it's likely that they'll be in there. Please keep me in the loop when you do get it, and tell me if it's worth the $150 with shipping (plus the shipping back home when my overseas escapade ends ... and I already have Modernist Cuisine to send home somehow ) Try Amazon UK, they have copies.

I'm with Shalmanese. If the proposed process overcooks the scallops, try freezing the scallops and putting them in a room temperature steak before bagging and cooking sous vide. Make sure that the hole you cut in the steak is the size of the thawed rather than the frozen scallops, otherwise it will fall out as it shrinks with cooking.

You'd run into a problem with this. Typical measuring devices (eg. an Alcohol Refractometer, hydrometer, or vinometer) measure sugar content and use this as an estimate of the alcohol content. In beer, for example, they use a hydrometer before and after fermenting and work out how much of the sugar has been converted into alcohol. As Mirin has glucose added as well as alcohol, it's really going to throw any measurement off. This problem is also found in measuring alcohol content in sweet as opposed to dry wine. Check out this link for a description of different measures.

Thank you for pointing this out Norm, the original article was published outside the range where the journal made papers available so it was not accessible to look at their method. Mirin, which was the original object of discussion here, contains 20% alcohol. Flaming mirin, therefore, would leave 75% of the alcohol or leave it as 15% alcohol by volume. This is not legally non-alcoholic, so you need to look at different approaches. In the US, it seems that non-alcoholic means less than 0.05% alcohol by volume. To get to this, you'd need to reduce the existing alcohol to 25% of its starting point, ensuring that the water content does not change as well. The time required to reduced the alcohol content to 25% is one hour of simmering, as long as you can make sure that the water content remains the same.

The concept of proof is different from percentage akcohol. Proof was when you could put the liquid on gunpowder and the gunpowder would still light. This is 100 proof, which equates to around 57% alcohol by volume. It is also measured at a particular ambient temperature. Move any of these variables and you have a problem estimating percentage alcohol. I suspect the authors of the USDA scientific study had more sophisticated measuring equipment than the hydrometer shown.

Personally, I'd simmer it for three hours to achieve what you are looking for. If it is losing water as you cook, add some back in.

Only rabbit dish in there is young white rabbit with wakame, cashew and zucchini. The book also has a recipe for poached duck egg with salt and vinegar cabbage. eta. I'd better add that each recipe in the book is somewhat conversational. He doesn't have the traditional ingredients, methods, etc. Also, he does not do substitutions: if he uses a pacojet, that is what is in the recipe; similarly, vacuuming fruit or vegetables to achieve a texture is written as if you have this machine. The foreword is by Rene Redzipi, which gives you some idea of the level of recipes included. This is a high-end cook's book.