jnash85

Strawberry Gazpacho from the Eleven Madison Park cookbook. Probably one of the easiest recipes in the book. I tried plating like the book does, then tried doing my own thing, which I preferred. The strawberries were tossed in olive oil and sugar and cooked in a low oven for 2 hours. I will definitely be using that technique again.

So the post above was technically lunch. Dinner was roast chicken, with spanish rice, black beans, pickled tomato salsa, and creamy jalapeño salsa.

Fried pig tails from Thomas Keller’s Under Pressue cookbook. I would make them again, but with some adjustments. I would prefer the green beans were warm. Also, not a fan of the deviled quail egg.

Amazon had this for $105 so I went ahead and ordered it. Can't wait to get it.

During the week I like to cook a couple of Italian sausages then add some crushed tomatoes, chile flakes, and salt. I enjoy it the most when the leftovers are cold and I’m eating it around 1 am...

Beef meatballs from Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem cookbook. Subbed edamame for favas. Served with basmati rice and orzo and the cucumber yogurt sauce. It was very good. I need to cook more from his books.

Are they still offering the option to dine a la carte in the lounge? I haven't seen any recent postings about it. I will be in NYC in a couple of weeks and I would love to go. Is it correct that they do no take reservations for the lounge?

Full episodes here: http://m.video.pbs.org/program/mind-chef/

I have been asked to make a punch for a small group of people. These are mostly casual drinkers. Usually cut the liquor in a cocktail by about half. They also enjoy frozen strawberry margarita's. I would love to make something from David Wondrich's book, but I'm afraid I would be the only one drinking it. Anybody have any recommendations? I like the look of this one. http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/puerto-rican-rum-punch

Inspired by my shameless love of Pei Wei's Caramel Chicken

I did a kaffir lime margarita. House made kaffir lime syrup, lime juice, and silver tequila. I also had a few lime leafs in the shaker. I think I overdid it with the line leaf. It really takes over. This was inspired by a cocktail I saw on seriouseats at Le Bernardin.

I'm enjoying a Little Bit Country tonight. Bourbon, lemon juice, maple syrup, maraschino, jalapeno, and bitters. The maple syrup / jalapeno combo is great. I'm halfway though and its leaving me with a very nice burn...

The primary bind sounds like the problem. I don't have a stand mixer and mixed by hand. Would hand mixer work for the primary bind?

What about chips vs chunks? I used chunks (not soaked) and smoked the sausages for about an hour. I plan on smoking a brisket for pastrami a few hours in a couple of weeks. Right now its about 40 - 50 F outside. Should I wait for the smoker to come all the way up to temp before I add my food? It took about 45 minutes today to reach 140 F. It would have taken at least another 30 to reach 200 F, maybe longer.

I took the dive into charcuterie today. This is the venison sausage from the book. Venison, Pork, and Seasoning by jnash85, on Flickr Links! by jnash85, on Flickr Smokin by jnash85, on Flickr Partially Smoked Sausages by jnash85, on Flickr Venison Sausage by jnash85, on Flickr I smoked the sausages for about an hour. As you can see from the final pic there were some air pockets inside the sausage. Will this be a problem for the rest that I froze? Also, I felt the texture was a little grainy. Is this normal? I did my best to keep everything cold during the production of the sausage.

I would say all the smoke I saw was gray / white. Is there anything I can do to fix that?

I just built a smoker out of terracotta planters. I smoked some chicken wings for the first time today. Overall it was a success, but I have a few questions. BTW, my smoker consist of a hot plate in the bottom of an 18" terracotta planter, a pan on the hot plate, and wood chips in the pan, A grate sits on the top and an inverted terracotta bowl sits on top. The hot plate is controlled with my PID controller that I use for sous vide. Now: For the first time out I used wood chips. The started smoking quickly, but after about 30 to 40 minutes they were black. Still smoking though. So I added a handful of soaked chips and that reduced the smoke and took it much longer to climb up to temp. It was a cold day, around 0 C, and it took around an hour and a half to reach 85 C. Would I have better results with wood chunks? Should I soak or not soak? After I was finished smoking, the ambient temp was around 85 C. I took the lid off and removed the chicken. When I came back outside the chips had caught fire. I'm sure this is due to the fact that I removed the lid and let the chips get more oxygen. Is this ok? They never caught fire during smoking. Only once I removed the lid, Is this a common thing? I'm making venison sausage tomorrow and I plan to let them spend a couple of hours on the smoker.

mm84321, I take it you do this for a living?

I love the idea, and the price is right, but I hate the form factor they chose. I seem to remember an interview were they said they made this ebook specifically for the iPad. Why then are the pages square? It makes reading it much more difficult. Still, its cool that they are doing this for each menu. The Paris book only has 1 video, but the Thailand book is supposed to have 10.

From the Eleven Madison Park Cookbook. Sous Vide Chicken with Parsnips, Butternut Squash, and Cabbage.

I made the Guinea Fowl recipe on page 285 with some heavy modifications today. For starters I used chicken instead of guinea fowl. I also left out the truffles since I was out, or rather, was not going to spend over $50 on them... I made the parsnip and butternut squash puree's yesterday. They held well in the fridge. I did the sauce, sous vide chicken, and cabbage today. Even with a simple recipe as this one there was a lot of work and a lot of dishes to do. It was very good though. I look forward to making some more recipes in the book as I have time.

That looks great. Could you go into detail how you made the dish?

Any idea how long the fat washed bourbon will last?

How long have you had the HD model? How often do you use it for bread or meat grinding?

I don't do a whole lot of baking. I was hoping to use it for the occasional loaf of bread. I was also hoping to get the pasta roller and meat grinder attachments. All for the occasional use, but know I'm not so sure. I guess everybody on Amazon uses these things to whip cream and nothing else.