NY_Amateur

So it turns out I didnt emulsify the cheese sauce enough, I probably was in too much of a rush when I made the sauce. I made it again with just the left over cheddar, took more time to actually add it slowly and it turned out great! The broccoli was extra delicious and is definitely something I will be making again soon.

So... I have finally got my copy of MC and I am making broccolli and Mac and Cheese tonight. One thing has me a bit worried however, after I made the sauce and let it cool I tasted it and it tasted grainy. i had thought the sauce would be very smooth at this point but that was not the case, is this the expected outcome or did I futz something up? I followed the directions exactly but scaled it up to use all the gouda I got, I made it with extra sharp cheddar and aged gouda. Was anyone elses cheese grainy at this stage but ok for the final product?

Yeah the price was a bit higher then i had thought, but it also seems like its a heck of a lot of knowledge so i think I will be pinching my pennys to get a copy when it comes out. I'm not a big swordfish fan but I have had good success with monkfish tail thats sv'ed at 60C and then blotted dry and seared then sliced into medallions swordfish is a bit flakier so i would maybe try 55C. I would try this but im not a big fan so i will take a pass, but i am interested in hearing about successes. edit: nm about the brisket went back and saw previous posts on it, its been a while since i have read this thread.

I like striped bass, its not really inexpensive but it is delicious and it holds up very well.

right that's my view on it, I lead a very high risk lifestyle in general so the risk of a food borne ilness in food I consume at home is on the back burner for me. My comment was just to make sure you didnt assume it was sterile when it was not. If you know the risks then go for it. I semi-regularly eat undercooked pork and other fun things so I am definitely not saying you should be 100% safe especially when cooking for yourself. If you are cooking professionally, then yes, you'd better know and follow all the rules, otherwise who cares (famous last words right?)

I'm not sure why you are specifically pointing out the sterility of the cut, but after you jaccard that it goes to hell anyway as you are using many sharp little knives to push surface bacteria into the sterile interior anyway. Even though you cut it from a larger muscle so that exterior should be sterile, unless you sanitized your knives and did it in a clean room, I wouldn't count on it. That being said, I jaccard things like pork and beef and cook to 121-131f regularly so i don't think its a problem. also you are not jaccarding that meat you are beating the crap out of it. I really don't think steak should compress by 33% when you jaccard it but thats just me....

That sounds like a challenge.... So just to chime in on this whole ostrich egg thing, the best part about a sous vide egg is the combination of yolk and white, I feel like if you sous vide the ostrich egg it will be so massive that you can have a bite of yolk or white but not both unless you portion it and serve it up like that . Also the presentation of the whole egg is a nice touch but would be hard to do with an ostrich.

Isn't any sort of sv 'burger' (or other ground/minced meat product) a rather bad idea from the food hygiene standpoint? ← I would say not really, provided to achieve proper 5/6d reduction times maintaining an intact surface isn't really a concern. in fact given adequate temp and time, a sv burger would be considerably safer then a regular grilled burger. ← How does that work for Clostridium botulinum? Isn't that the major worry (in terms of seriousness of outcome) with any 'comminuted meat' product in a low oxygen, non-acid, environment at these 'warm' temperatures? And where the centre is not going to benefit from post-sv searing? ← My understanding is that botulism needs time to germinate and produce nasty toxins. I don't think you should cook and hold burgers or any ground meat, but if you grind some beef, make a burger, cook the burger and then eat the burger in the time it takes you to do this, I can't see it being a problem but I am not a micro-biologist. Also its not like you have to cook burgers low and slow, you just want to bring them to temp, they are already plenty tender.

Isn't any sort of sv 'burger' (or other ground/minced meat product) a rather bad idea from the food hygiene standpoint? ← I would say not really, provided to achieve proper 5/6d reduction times maintaining an intact surface isn't really a concern. in fact given adequate temp and time, a sv burger would be considerably safer then a regular grilled burger.

This is not true at all. It's very easy to set up a safe home cooking rig, you just have to be sure that the food can get to a safe temp (generally 131/141f they may not all hold the temp exactly correct but that doesn't affect the food temp. I do however wonder if warm air is going to be a sufficient head conductor to work for sous vide type purposes. let us know how it works out. EDIT: Let me just clarify "this is not true at all." - while food safety is clearly important sous vide is not so dangerous that a few degrees temperature fluctuation is going to cause any issues unless you are working at the extremes. I hope people aren't scared off, its as easy to do as boiling a pot of water...

Onions as prepared in Under Pressure were pretty tasty for me at least. (glazed red and white pearl onions).

This was the ticket, they had it packaged from somewhere and they look 100000% better then the Dean and Deluca ones.

Some Whole Foods have them, some don't. I also see them frequently at Korean and Japanese markets (look for "Maitaki"). ← sorry should have mentioned I just checked the one on houston. Any sugeestions for korean/japanese places? I will stop by sunshine mart and .. the other one by there near coopers sq. tomorrow on my way to the union sq. whole foods.

They aren't at whole foods. I was at chelsea market today but I didnt check, its a bit of a trek so I will call but thanks for the suggestion.

Hi, I need Hen of the Woods for a recipe asap, I saw them at Dean and Deluca but stupidly didn't look closely. Later on I impulsively got the lobster went back for the mushrooms and saw they were all dried (some moldy but not all), I got the 4 best clumps and took them home (for lobster and hen of the woods mushrooms from Under Pressure obv. ) I am hoping I can rehydrate them but I'm making this tomorrow (prep tonight) and would like to use really fresh, willing to travel anywhere the subway goes, can anyone help a newb out? Also I guess if you know where to get proper dried ones that may work as well...

The full story, from the NY Daily News, may be read by clicking here. ← wow that's pretty over the top, good for him. one more reason I am so glad to live in the LES.

It's interesting that per se is allowing an ala carte option now. I have a res for april 3rd that I am very much looking forward to (despite only cooking two UP recipes so far....... I'm a slacker) but I really can't wait to repeat the best dining experience of my life. My only concern is that if they offer ala carte on the night I am there that the switch up doesn't affect the quality of the tasting menu, I really don't see that happening but who knows when new things get introduced.

yes it is safe, per DouglasBaldwinds site (http://amath.colorado.edu/~baldwind/sous-vide.html for the nth time) you can hold beef at >130f for basically as long as you would reasonably want to cook them.

That is odd, i mean usually with a tender cut like ny strip you just have to get it up to temp, sear it and it is golden, I have cooked these loads of time doing the minimum time from Douglas' site and have never experienced this, I wonder what went wrong...

I have not done ribs but I have done meats with garlic and ginger and my main advice here is to use way less then you think, the flavors an become incredible strong over a long cook time in the bag. good luck and let us know how it works out.

not at the level you will probably want to be at if you end up enjoying this, as most people seem to do. You can get Reynolds Handivac bag that are both resealable and vacuum-able. One way you could "re-use" bags is to cut them from a roll to be long then you need, then seal the very end and cut right below the seal in a straight line when you open them, then wash the bags (someone suggested flipping them inside out and putting them in the dishwasher), fill em up and seal again, its not 100% environmentally friendly but it does significantly reduce waste if you are willing to put up with the hassle. On a side note, do people have that many issues with food juice/whatever interfering with the sealing options? I never really felt the need to devise a funnel to prevent this...

for immersion circulators, just check ebay/craigslist/whatever constantly till you find one and then clean the heck out of them. On a side note I have a jug of citranox that I used once to clean my circulator and will probably never use again, if anyone is in nyc I will be happy to give you a couple cups of it to clean your new (used and dirty) circ. I have the FoodSaver V2840 Advanced Design and it works reasonably well even so far as allowing me to vac seal liquids with some finagling. As for the bags its not clear but my guess is they will not work, anvil out of chamber/ clamp type vacuum sealers need bags with small "channels" for the air to be pulled out of even when the clamp is closed. if you get a bag with out this texture printed on it they will not evacuate properly.

weird, I will try this now. I would do 185 and 200.

I am inclined to agree, for what it is worh Thomas Keller does not give time and temp for brussel sprouts and the three recipes he has them in, in under pressure they are all caramelized/sauteed. Edit: Wow that's pretty funny I started this reply then when looking for my under pressure copy and then saw I was 5 minutes too late

Also keep in mind that when reheating you can do something much less precise like get a big pot of water up to like 5-10 degrees of the cooking temp and let it just chill in there till it is re-heated. I did this for 8 pounds of tenderloin I had precooked before a dinner, then the day of I just put it in a large pot at 110F and I was good to go.