nickrey

Looking forward to another peek into the New York food world. Thanks for inviting us along!

I take it you mean locational state rather than physical or mental.

Distillation kit = still = illegal. Be careful.

Hmmmm. While the link for the Demi also redirects me to the UK site, the price is listed as £499, call it $750 US). My mistake it was euros not pounds. Conversion is US$835. Now I feel even more ripped off with the $AU950 price tag. At current exchange rates that's $US935. Yes, that is over double what you pay in the US.

For the record 20 hours at 80C is too long! How do you treat the belly after removing from the cooker? I made the mistake of trying to serve it straight out of the cooker after a brief rest rather than chilling, cutting, heating/browning. The meat fell apart in the pan. It was super yummy but we ended up with finely shredded pork rather than the browned cubes I was aiming for. Yep, I think Leslie was on the mark suggesting not to go over 12 hours. The best way to treat the belly is to put it flat in the fridge between two oven sheets with weights (typically cans) on top. This flattens it out to make it suitable to cut into serving portions. You can reheat to bring back up to temp sous vide; or, as I do, put it sealed and flat in the kitchen sink with hot water: the meat has been well and truly pasteurised in the initial cooking so exactness in temperatures is not so much of a problem at this stage if you use tap water at its hottest temperature you will not affect the cooked meat. Preferring a crunch on the outside, I then sear the cut pieces in a very hot pan before serving.

I click on the link, it takes me to the UK site for the SVS. Not the baby but one that sells to you US based people for $450. The price? 600 UK Pounds. That's $US962. Here in Australia the price I've been quoted is $A950. Know what? I'd probably buy one if it was the US cost. At over double as much: forget it. My recently purchased sous vide magic cost me well under $A200. I have the rice cooker. For $500 I can buy a lot of quality things to cook or it's a part of the money I'll save for my future chamber vacuum sealer. Either way, I'm afraid that the Drs Eades will have to miss out on my trade.

Here's a strange one. When my brother and I were young, our mother used to make us lamb's brain and walnut sandwiches for lunch. I suspect she had some strange natural medicine basis for giving us both brains and something that looks like brains in a school lunch. Needless to say it was here that I first learnt the fine art of psychological distraction (in response to the question "what have you got for lunch?"). The combination of the creamy brain texture and the crunchy walnut is actually quite delicious so it qualifies as a favourite childhood food memory.

This has parallels in music as well: Beethoven went deaf but this did not significantly affect his ability to compose (it did affect his ability to perform). Presumably Grant left the tasting and finishing of the created dishes to his sous chefs. I hesitate to put this after a mention of Grant Achatz: it is a change of topic (and level of cooking!!!) but related. I can say from experience that I can read through a recipe, use my taste memory and knowledge of the impact of cooking on food to simulate the cooking. From the taste picture created, I will then decide such issues as whether the recipe is worth exploring further, how to adapt it based on which flavours will be missing, whether the cooking process will leave sufficient texture, whether it is a seasonal recipe that requires very fresh ingredients, etc. Naturally this can only be done with food I have cooked and tasted before but even when a new combination is suggested (eg. lobster with vanilla), I can typically construct a good sense of how it will combine, almost like tasting it but not with direct perception. I'd be mightily surprised if I was alone in the ability to do this, particularly in this august group. To what extent can others combine ingredients and cooking processes in their heads and simulate the taste? This is better termed taste synthesis but is is definitely dependent on taste memory.

Chris, I think you would be surprised to find out how many contributors to both this thread and the sous vide thread have completed experimental research-based PhDs. The type of cooking attracts us. As a corollary we also have very strong search and research skills on the Internet. When we suggest that much of what is being produced in the book, as indicated by the index and the snippets we have seen from Nathan, is not available on the Internet, our opinions tend to be fact- rather than emotion- based.

Oh, you mean on the other Internet with the secret search engine.... Now I see.

Buy yourself a step down transformer.

They spent years experimenting to find out how and why things work and cover it across the books. The information is most certainly not on line. It pays to explore before delivering knee-jerk criticism.

Peter's of Kensington is not a dedicated kitchenware shop but they are cheap and have a reasonable range.

David Thompson has a recipe in his Thai Food book for Deep fried eggs which are served with sweetened fish sauce. They also make deep fried boiled eggs as a dish called son-in-law eggs which is served with a tamarind and chili sauce as a salad.

In addition to a veal stock, why not go the whole hog (or cow?) and make up a demi-glace? Mind you I just take veal stock, add in a bit of tomato paste and reduce it like mad. The resultant liquid gold brings any sauce to life. I actually pour the "demi" into jars and pressure cook it to make it shelf stable. Once you open the jar, it can be stored in the fridge.

Mmmm that Takeda looks really nice. May be a bit long for you though; perhaps the shorter version would be better.

You've already received a lot of good advice in the other thread. I'd only add that if you are using Japanese knives you will need to teach yourself proper holding and cutting technique with these (push cut) rather than the traditional European rolling chop. For this reason, I'd steer away from the two knives with the Euro-style handles and go for a more traditional octagonal/rounded handle like you already have on your Shun. This means that the Devon Thomas or Tadatsuna would be preferable as the Hattori and Blazen both have a handle that may lead you to use a grasp and cutting techniques that could damage a more sensitive blade.

Just found the new Culinary Fundamentals IPad app. Over 260 culinary skills videos on all sorts of kitchen techniques and processes. So far despite setting up in metric, mine seems to have Fahrenheit measurements in the videos. Being on this site often, however, I'm somewhat used to that and will use my Ipad Convert app to turn it into metric.

Living in a humid climate, containers of a hygroscopic compound for use in damp cupboards are relatively easy and cheap to obtain. One example is damprid, which is anhydrous calcium chloride. Has anyone tried this compound to dehumidify their chambers?

This makes a lot of sense. I've seen a fish cooked in this way and it is very effective.

Right. I've experimented with bowls on occasion, and I do think they can be helpful for people who are having poaching difficulties. But if you develop good cracking technique the bowls don't really improve anything -- and they create an extra step and an extra set of things to wash. I always crack one egg into one bowl, add the egg, crack the next egg into the same bowl, add, etc. I find this allows the egg a few seconds to coalesce before adding the next one. Also this only uses one bowl, which saves on washing up.

And don't forget the look of pride on Dad's face as well. Thanks for sharing Steven.

My brother gave me a copy of the book a few days ago. It seems for some reason that we are blessed with early releases of food books here in Australia. Now to settle down to read it... Erin, the fishes on the snacks look like marinated anchovies.

I purchase from a premium supplier but even then the eggs seem to vary across seasons. Seems there's a lot of variance to be accounted for. As an aside, looking at Rene Redzepi's new Noma cookbook he uses sous vide to poach eggs and features them on a number of his dishes. He cooks them for 20 minutes at 58C but always uses only the yolk, discarding the white.

Do you still acidulate them?