&roid

Mike, I hope I'll be in the position of doing the whole "dream kitchen" thing in a few years, what things do you find work really well with a combi?

Get yourself an overplay DNS account, dead simple to setup and gives you access to most any country's region locked content. Best thing about it is that it doesn't throttle your connection like a VPN account does and it doesn't need to be switched to each new country you want to access. Just set up once and you will be able to get anything you need. I use it to watch US content on ABC, Netflix, etc.

Or how cliched and grating the pointless filler will be, "these people have given so much over the years, I just want to cook something worthy of that, to give something back" - bleuuuurch! I'm sure the five minutes of cooking each episode will be as good as ever, but if it follows the trajectory of previous series the rest of the shows will be nauseating.

+1: I definitely remember they did a blog where they concluded that the best result was had from pre- plus post-searing.

thanks both of you, breasts (un-brined!) are now in the water bath at 60C, I skinned them and just lightly seasoned before bagging with a tablespoon of butter. The carcass from the crown is in the oven roasting ready to make some gravy from it. Will post results later...

lol - good call. Will do it as is. Last thing, do you SV with skin on and brown it after or remove the skin and crisp it separately? I've heard a lot of people say they struggle to get it evenly done if left on the meat but have to say I've found this fine on chicken breasts and find the flavour it gives the meat to be a bit lacking if I take it off before sous vide-ing.

So it looks like the turkey is "basted" with the following ingredients: Though the overall sodium content is only 0.1g per 100g of the product which doesn't sound much, should I still brine it?

Cheers Rotuts, 60C (140F) for 4 hours is what I'll try, have a crown defrosting now so can get it cooked tomorrow (still time if it all goes wrong!). Will definitely check what the brining situation is, thanks for the tip. Bit despondent about all this as the confit I've made with the legs is pretty damn salty and a bit "firm". I used the duck confit recipe from MC but left it 12h instead of 8h as the turkey was a pretty big one. Hey ho, every day's a school day!

OK, so the stuffing is alright actually, I think the bread has combined quite well with the sausagemeat and the texture is passable. It's like a pate really. The turkey meat is a bit disappointing though, when I've done sv chicken before its been revelatory, this is just "OK", a bit drier than I'd hoped. I might change the plan and do a brined breast without stuffing at 60C instead... Glad I did this so far in advance!

The sous vide dash alarm has just gone off so I'll let you know!

That is a good question! What do people think??

So I'm trying out SV turkey, I have made a sausagemeat stuffing (sausage, egg, breadcrumbs, sage, parsley, shallots) and wrapped two 2lb turkey breasts up in cling film after stuffing. I've bagged them and they are cooking away at 64C to get to 63C internal (sv dash reckons just under 4hrs, they have a diameter of just less than 8cm). Once they have cooked, how long would it be safe to keep them chilled for? They aren't needed till next week so would it be best to freeze them or will they be ok in the fridge for 6 days?

From what I've heard it's pretty much nailed on. A place similar to L'enclume in the main restaurant followed by a bistro in time.

So, I've heard through a friend of a friend that L'enclume is coming to manchester... replacing the French Restaurant in the Midland. Might finally be possible to eat well in Manchester city centre.

comparing it with Larousse is a bit... um... odd! They are not exactly the same sort of book! FWIW I really enjoy Les Halles, I love books that have a bit of background about why a recipe or technique works, not just a set of instructions.

I don't live in NY so I'm sure there are more qualified people than me to answer this, but I'll give you a couple of the things I've really enjoyed on the trips I've done in the last year or so. Momofuku - definitely fits with the budget part, great variety of really well cooked food. The first time you a pork bun is magical. Eataly - not sure if you are big on Italian but as an experience it's tough to beat. We were in New York the week before last so missed quite a lot of the things we had planned due to Sandy. Eataly re-opened on the day we were due to leave, had a really enjoyable lunch in the sunshine at the rooftop Birreria - the Shitake Fritti were amazing. WD50 - When I came over in May I ate at WD50 one night, really impressive, innovative cooking. The different options they do on the menu mean you can sample some of the cooking without going for the full-on, 13 course, $155 tasting menu if that's a bit of a stretch.

I've made the Fattoush as well - amazing recipe, really really tasty and very simple to make. Cribbed the recipe off the "Look inside" section on amazon, will definitely be getting this book.

Another Evernote user here, absolutely changed my life. I use it for all sorts of work/home related things but the food part is probably my favourite: pages ripped out of magazines and scanned, web pages clipped, made up recipes recorded for the first time (I used to make great things and promptly forget them before I started using evernote!). I've got a dedicated sous vide note with all my experiments detailed, its a great way of learning when I cook. Everything gets tagged (things like "Recipe Ideas" "Good Recipes") so I can find them easily. I've even started photographing the food I cook now too. I do a weekly food plan which has links to the note for that recipe and helps me get my shopping sorted, since starting all this I've eaten more new, better food than ever before. Having everything available wherever I am: work, home, out and about, on whatever device I have on me: mac, PC, iphone, iPad is the real killer part of Evernote for me.

Me too, exactly this. Much better solution.

Here it is on Ocado, not sure if they deliver to you but worth a try: http://www.ocado.com/webshop/product/Very-Strong-Canadian-White-Flour-Waitrose/10827011?from=search&tags=%7C20000&param=very+strong+bread&parentContainer=SEARCHvery+strong+bre_SHELFVIEW

If you can get to a Waitrose (there's one in Abergavenny, not sure how near that is to you?) they do some "very strong canadian bread flour". This is the highest gluten content I've found at 15%.

I've not had one of the Gray Kunz spoons but for basting I LOVE the offset spoon that Michael Ruhlman does: http://ruhlman.com/2011/08/dalton-ruhlman-offset-spoons/

I was at a party yesterday where we cooked using a portable tandoor - it was superb and I'd highly recommend it. I've checked the site and the same ones are available in Australia via this company: http://www.tandoorliving.com.au/Tandoor-buy-for-sale.html They aren't light - either 40 or 60kg depending on which size you go for - but if the oven doesn't weigh much you will never get proper tandoori cooking, you just have to have the mass there to retain the heat. They are mounted on wheels though so can be moved around if you have a flat surface.

I'm having some problems with SV potato: I've been trying to make fondants and have found that cooking the potato rounds SV in butter and salt then browning gives a great visual appearance, however I'm not sure about the temp/time as the texture is still a little al dente at 85C for 60 mins. Any suggestions for different time/temp combos to try? The rounds are about 3/4" thick.

3% in the final dish? That is a LOT! Seawater is 3-3.5%.