nickrey

I always thought a single ristretto came from a single basket and was around 20ml (~2/3 oz). A double ristretto comes from a double basket and is around 40ml (~1 1/3 oz). A triple ristretto comes from a triple basket and is around 60ml (~2 oz, or what Chris had).

But credit where credit's due, I think I'll try Ray's idea of blanching the outside of the meat prior to jaccarding it and cooking it sous vide. It seems to make more sense than searing.

I was responding to this sentence:

Let me revise, a long time in the food processor -- I try to keep away from blenders (I hear they eat frogs).

It seems to be three concurrent shots of espresso from a triple basket. That would make it 90ml (3oz) of caffiene hit. However, a lot of pundits talk about pulling 60ml from a triple basket. This actually makes it a triple ristretto, which may be what your guy was getting at. My favourite poison is a double ristretto (around 40 ml from a double basket). If you don't know what a ristretto is, try pouring the first half of a double shot (30ml) in one espresso cup and the second half in another. Taste them both. I can best describe the taste of the first one as sweeter and more syrupy. The second is more bitter and thinner. The first part of the shot is what you are trying to capture in a ristretto. So in a triple ristretto you have a fantastic coffee experience with the same volume as a normal double shot.

I do the same as your friend.

I'm always willing to put things to the test. Here's the results: Meat was topside, from same cut. Cooked for 4mins per side on a grill pan; medium high heat. Turned half way through each side to give grid pattern. Weighed before cooking and immediately after cooking. To be overly fair, I weighed non-jaccarded piece first after cooking. Weight pre cooking: Jaccarded - 132; non-Jaccarded - 128. Weight post cooking: Jaccarded - 120; non-Jaccarded - 112. Weight loss post cooking for Jaccarded - 9.09%; non-Jaccarded - 12.5%. Weight after resting: Jaccarded - 114; non-Jaccarded - 106 Total weight loss post resting Jaccarded - 13.64%; non-Jaccarded - 17.19%. Seems Jaccarded was the winner. Think you may be right Chris.

The point still remains, have you actually used a Jaccard, or are you being "theoretical"? By the way who said anything about "searing"? We know from all that is written that it doesn't work to seal in juices. But we know from real-life experience that a Jaccard doesn't cause juice leakage. It seems you are conflating two arguments to discredit a true one.

I'm not sure what your personal experience is with piercing meat but strongly suspect it didn't involve a Jaccard. We are not talking theory here. Many people up thread were sceptical about the process but willing to try it out. Look especially at the one by NathanM, who is a converted sceptic. I first tried the Jaccard on his recommendation from the sous vide thread. Does it leak more fluid than unjaccarded steak? Not at all. Is it a juicy, tender, piece of meat after cooking? Sure is. I'll also add another: it seems to require less resting than conventionally cooked meat.

I'd use an existing Thai recipe for something like red or green or Panang curry paste as the initial base. Use a proportion of paste to mince that fits with the recipe, reducing the spice ratio slightly to account for the lack of a sauce. Don't forget that coconut milk is pretty fatty by itself, you may need to adjust the ratio of fat to meat accordingly. Mix the spices into the mince. Take a tablespoon or so of the mixture and fry it. Taste and adjust seasonings (just use fish sauce for salt, lime juice for sour, palm sugar for sweet, and chili for heat). Do this until you are happy with it.

This will be an interesting experiment. Nathan M modelled his cooking times with regard to the thermal conductivity of meat so it should be possible to mathematically predict the times that a piece of meat spends at various temperatures given a set temperature water bath and knowledge of the size of the cut of meat. If, as it seems, you are trying for some additional tenderisation of the meat by way of an artificial aging process, you may need to take the following into account in your experiment: 1. type of meat (cut, marbling, etc) 2. degree of aging that the meat already has undergone (presumably it reaches an asymptote in terms of desirable tenderness) 3. initial temperature of the meat 4. thickness of the cut 5. any artificial tenderisation (jaccarding, marinating). With a tender cut like top sirloin, as you used, some commentators have observed that it goes mushy with extended cooking periods although, being a roast, the thickness of the meat may require prolonged cooking to reach the target temperature throughout the cut. Perhaps you might want to try the experiment with a more robust cut where the differences would be more obvious. I'd suggest a British topside cut (US equivalent: the back and upper part of the round steak).

Tonight's dinner was tea-smoked duck breast with puy lentils.

100F or 37.78C is way into the danger zone, 120F or 48.89C is in the danger zone. Three hours in the danger zone is pushing it. 131F or 55C is fine. I'm not sure why you felt you needed to do three-stage cooking. If the final temp was going to be 55, why not start there anyway? Low temp cooking followed by higher temp cooking for extended periods of time seems like a variant on straight higher temp cooking to me. It seems like risk taking to no purpose. If you feel it adds something to the meat, try an experiment where you cook one piece with the first two stages and then toss another in at the target temperature for 12 hours. My bet is that you will not be able to recognize the difference.

It's also a threatened species due to its long reproductive cycle. If you're into sustainability, try one of the other alternatives.

How do you do your daikon - I often do mine Korean style - salted and sugared, then drained and sprinkled with chili powder, but it doesn't really keep. It's more of a salad. I'd love a recipe for pickled daikon cubes of the kind that come with Korean fried chicken. Hi Erin, I bought myself a Benriner turning vegetable slicer and use it to slice the Daikon into a fine circular julienne. The marinade is simple: combine 240g water, 120g vinegar, 75g sugar, 10g salt until solids are dissolved. Pour over Daikon in container to cover. Mature for around a week before eating. It will keep as long as other opened pickles in your refrigerator. Checking my refrigerator, I also pickled some finely sliced fennel at the same time.

Hi, Nick. I don't find that surprising, but reading it I realise I've no idea what kinds of fish are taken / can be taken from antarctic waters that'd be analogous to the cod (and its relative haddock) from cold waters in the north ? Probably the closest we would get to this is Blue-eyed Travalla, also known as Antarctic butterfish or Blue-eyed Cod. It was the fish of choice when I was growing up many years ago in South Australia (as butterfish and chips). Like snadra, I'd also recommend flathead. Hoki (Blue Grenadier) is also used for deep frying. The top of the tree for eating fish in beer batter, if you can get it, is King George Whiting from South Australia; although as a son of a keen amateur fisherman, I can't go past this freshly caught, filleted, cooked gently and quickly in butter, seasoned with salt and lemon.

There are some excellent suggestions for pickling vegetables in David Chang's Momofuku cookbook. Currently I have pickled Daikon and pickled Cucumbers in my fridge. I also had some fresh walnuts and made pickled walnuts at the same time. The walnuts were most recently used in a Fish Vera Cruz recipe to give both crunch and acid to the dish.

We don't get much haddock or cod here in Oz. Try flake (shark) or snapper. Personally most of the time I find barramundi akin to eating a dish cloth so I wouldn't recommend it.

As this thread is called Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques and Equipment and most of the recent posts seems to be focussing on techniques and equipment, I thought I'd pipe in with a recipe. Many of the recipes in this thread consist of cooking meat sous vide (sometimes in marinades), searing, and serving with some sort of sauce. Just to be different, I thought I'd share a new recipe with you that goes outside these parameters. I cooked a shoulder of pork the other day at 57C for around 24 hours. Salt was added to the package prior to vacuum sealing. Knowing that pork and prunes are a wonderful combination, I soaked some pitted prunes in port for a few hours, drained them, and then minced the prunes finely. I cut a thick slice of pork off the shoulder (around 2.5 cm/ 1") thick. Next I spread a layer of the minced prunes on top of the pork. This was then wrapped fully in prosciutto and tied together with kitchen string. To serve, it is a simple matter of browning the outside of the parcel in a hot frypan. Cut the string and serve with an acid-based sauce to balance the sweetness of the port-infused prunes and the saltiness of the prosciutto-wrapped pork. The picture below (which has already appeared on the dinner thread) is a previous iteration done with pancetta instead of prosciutto but you can get the general idea of the dish. The prosciutto covered the pork more fully and is my preference for this dish. It was served on a bed of fennel puree (softened in butter with added chicken stock and processed into a puree) with green beans cooked in a tomato-based pasta sauce.

I didn't buy the Ratio book as I can look up any of my other books for ratios or recipes just as easily. However, I am finding the iPhone Ratio app to be invaluable as an immediate aid to improvising in the kitchen.

I've never had an issue with juices coming out of sous-vide cooked meat after searing. My experience is that you simply sear and serve. Has anyone had an issue with seared sous-vide cooked meat that led to a requirement to rest it before serving?

I had always coveted copper cooking ware and when I had the opportunity to get some Mauviel pieces, I purchased a 26cm (10") frypan, as well as 18cm (7") and 14.5 (5.7") saucepans. These are all used frequently in my kitchen. For specific cooking purposes, I have cast iron frypans and grills as well as specific non-stick pans (for omlettes, fried eggs, etc). These do things that copper won't do. As others have mentioned copper sauté pans would be nice as well but I haven't yet seen the need to buy one.

What a great range of lids. But why use them at all? To my mind the purpose of a lid is to seal the rim. It doesn't actually touch the food so having a conductive lid seems expensive overkill. Perhaps if the shape were part of the cooking process, as in a Tagine, it may make sense. I use porcelain plates as lids on my Mauviel saucepan when I require them.

As a tip if you are looking to buy a cookbook, check out booko. It is an Australian based website that checks the prices of a book across many on-line bookstores and lets you choose the cheapest, including postage, all in Australian dollars. You can buy twice or three times as many cookbooks this way.

In Antony and Araminta Hippisley Coxe's "Book of Sausages" (Gollancz, 1987) they say "Merguez (Algeria) A highly spiced, short, stumpy, beef sausage which is usually grilled" (emphasis added).