ChrisZ

Having watched all three parts, I have to say that this doesn't particularly seem very much like Ragu Bolognese to me. Rather it seems like some highly evolved version of "spag bol," the English bowdlerization of tagliatelle al ragù Bolognese (and for what it's worth, he's quite clear that he's riffing on the English dish, not the Italian one). Yes, that was the point of the series - take common and/or dubious dishes from the 70s and update them. If you have the books of the series you get several pages of notes on its history, diversity, and of course the clarification that the English 'spag bol' is not the same as ragu alla Bolognese. In the videos linked above they note that even in Italian towns 30 kilometres apart they have different ingredients in their ragu, and in the book they also mention that in Abruzzo they would use lamb and in Sardinia they'd use wild boar - and that of course this is no longer ragu alla Bolognese... This is potentially relevant to the way that the English/American tomato & herb dominant 'spag bol' evolved from the traditional 'ragu alla Bolognese'. Some food historians think that the differences between the traditional Italian ragu and the English forms of 'spag bol' simply stem from the fact that Italian migrants found meat much more affordable than it had been in Italy, so they added meat to the tomato based sauce they would have been more accustomed to, and simply called it Bolognese because it was a famous name. If they're right (and there's a ring of truth to the way it comes down to money) then the English 'spag bol' didn't actually evolve from ragu alla Bolognese, but rather it began as a tomato based sauce that had meat added to it. One final note - I was watching an Italian cooking show and the chef was making a basic rabbit ragu, but at the end he caramelised some sugar in a frying pan and poured it into the sauce. I haven't seen caramel mentioned before so perhaps it can be added to the list of potential discussion points...

Thanks for your comments. I already have a professional wordpress blog so it would be pretty easy to set another one up and I like the idea I can access it from anywhere, cross platform. Eat my books also looks interesting, I'll check that out in more detail too. I think that I'll continue to scribble recipe notes down on paper, simply because it's quick and easy and I know that I'll do it! At some stage I'll type them into a digital format- whether that's a blogging platform or something else. I've been quite happy at the way camera phones have improved in quality, so I have no qualms about taking a photo of nice means in restaurants discretely, but I'm not the sort of person to go out to dinner with a DSLR kit under my arm. And Chris - I love reading through your report from your epic Sydney trip and it's been my main inspiration to keep better notes of what I've eaten. If I had eaten 14 meals like that in one week, I'd struggle to remember the names of all the restaurants, let alone all the individual plates! Out of curiosity, if you re-read your own report now, how well do you recall each plated dish? Do you find yourself reminded of dishes you've forgotten about, or are you able to recall every course from every restaurant?

'Cooking for geeks' is less than 10% of the price of 'Modernist Cuisine' - maybe closer to 5% if you find a good price online - and it covers all the basics. If you're keen enough to have bought a starter pack you should definitely have it on your shelf.

I love Heston Blumenthal's bolognese episode of 'In search of perfection'. For those interested it can be viewed on Youtube in 3 parts: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 It's a great introduction to this thread and covers both the traditional and the cutting edge. I think it's worth watching just to see Massimo Bottura's modernist interpretation of spaghetti bolognese - a hen embryo that has had the yolk extracted via syringe, and replaced with a meat ragu. This is also something that others may be able to clarify, as I think the term 'embryo' isn't an accurate translation. My understanding is that the 'hen embryos' that Massimo refers to are actually unlaid/immature eggs that are recovered from chickens that have been butchered for their meat. I don't think they have anything to do with the English concept of an 'embryo', as in a germinating chicken. Assuming this is correct, hopefully you'll feel less squeamish during their discussions about embryos if you remind yourself that they're just talking about eggs... I've adopted many of Heston's techniques demonstrated in this show and the bolognese I make at home is a dumbed down version of his recipe.

I'm an erratic and sporadic cook, but my interest in food is strong enough for me to have joined this forum and to consider cooking my primary hobby. But for a while now it has bothered me that I don't keep any sort of record of the things I have cooked and the meals I've eaten. I've been pondering different ways to go about this and I haven't been able to decide how to start. I like the idea of scribbling on paper but I'm a pretty techy guy and the advantages of a computer based record are appealing. But even so, what software package to use? How best to sort results - alphabetical / chronological / genres? etc etc etc... So many options, I'm not sure how to begin. I'm eating a piece of pork belly that I cooked sous vide a few weeks ago and that has been sitting in its vacuum bag ever since. I can't remember what I cooked it with, which is a shame because it's delicious! I can pass restaurants I have eaten at with little recollection of what I had there or how much I enjoyed it... I can read a review of somewhere that sounds promising and then forget the name and where I read the review... I can flip through old cookbooks and see recipes that I meant to try but forgot about... I have, on only a few occasions, made notes about recipes I've tried and developed over time. My chocolate cake recipe has evolved over ten years and I treasure the pages of scribbled notes that record it's development, under ten years of chocolate stains. I'm currently up to version 6 of a Modernist Dauphinoise Potatoes, and I'll post my results when I eventually find success. But these are isolated cases and I keep thinking I should do this more often. What I would like to do is this: Firstly, keep a record of everything I cook (along with the recipe) and how successful it was. Secondly, keep a list of recipes I've come across that I would like to try- ideally in a form that I can categorise and search. Thirdly, keep a list of places I'd like to eat at and finally, keep a diary of exceptional meals I have eaten at restaurants or other events. How do you do it? Old fashioned paper and pen? Digitally? Desktop or laptop computer? iPad? Alphabetical? Chronological? Something else? This is shaping up to be my New Year's resolution, I just need a plan.

Slice open a chicken breast, stuff in a load of basil pesto and some cheese. I generally use a mix of parmesan & mozzarella, but gruyere or ricotta also work well. Wrap the whole thing up with thin slices of proscuitto like tutankhamun and then roast for about 20-25 mins. Or cook sous vide and sear. I'm also a fan of veal saltimbocca...

Although it's not strictly fish & chips in the traditional deep-fried sense, it's still about southern hemisphere fish... I regularly get a salmon fillet and cook it sous vide for lunch, salmon is something that really makes sous vide shine. The other day I thought I'd try Tasmanian ocean trout instead. It looks just like salmon but is about 1/3 cheaper, and I had some vague recollection that Tetsuya is a fan and almost single-handedly responsible for it's popularity. So I bought a fillet, cooked it simply, and it was delicious. I'm happy to admit that I could not tell any difference from salmon at all. I'm pretty sure that if I had to taste them side by side I still couldn't tell a difference. But it's a lot cheaper, so from now on it will be ocean trout and not salmon...

Different countries have different laws, and I don't know what the laws are there. But in Australia the maximum permissible sell-by date is two years from manufacture, even if the food itself may last longer than that. So even products that have an essentially unlimited lifespan (such as bicab soda, citric acid, etc) are stuck with a 2 year sell by. It doesn't mean they won't last longer. (and I agree about the slicer. Nothing worse than chewing through a poorly cut chunk of hacked up prosciutto)

Just thought I'd share a few thoughts on the Spaghetti Carbonara (3.384). It was interesting to make this and then read through Chris Hennes' notes on the same recipe, back on page 22. Relative to the rest of MC, this is quite a simple recipe and takes little time or effort. But there are many aspects to it that have the potential for lengthy discussions! - Firstly, as a fan of spaghetti carbonara in general I closely followed the thread on it's many variations, dating back to May this year (coincientally also started by Chris Hennes!) It seems fairly well accepted that a traditional carbonara contains only egg and not cream, and that the cheese is something of a seasoning, rather than being the dominant flavour. So the first thing that's interesting about the MC spaghetti carbonara is that the dominant flavour is unmistakably the parmesan cheese, and that the sauce is based on cream. - Secondly (and this is more of a personal observation) the first step is so simple and yet so delicious. Bag up some cream with some bacon, add a small amount of cheese and some blanched garlic, and cook it sous vide for 2 hours. About 2 minutes of prep time, but the result was really tasty! Although I've been playing around with sous vide for a while, it's not quite as second-nature as cooking with a frying pan and I also have a preconception that it's only used for 'special' cooking. But this was a valuable lesson that sous vide can be simple, quick, clean and great for applications other than slow-cooking meats! I have already tried a variation that includes porcini mushrooms, to great success. - The recipe only specifies bacon, without defining smoked or un-smoked. I'm not much of a bacon connoisseur and in Australia bacon is pretty much just bacon. But I have noticed in other parts of the world there's a whole universe of different bacon varieties. When I lived in London I was always impressed at the many types on offer even at supermarkets - not just smoked and unsmoked, but maple, hickory, thick, thin... After thinking about it for a bit, I decided to fry the bacon first - it's a beautiful smell and I thought it would add extra depth to the cream sauce. -I found lining up all the strands of cooked spaghetti to be quite easy. After draining the spaghetti I added the sauce and the poured the mix into a baking tray. I just raked through the pasta with my fingers and it didn't take long to get everything lined up. My result was not as perfect as the photo in the book (or as perfect as Chris' on page 22) but it wasn't too far off. -The pasta/cream pancake sets in the fridge, despite the sauce having no obvious thickening or gelling agents. However the recipe specifies 'whipping cream', which usually contains gelatine, so perhaps that helps. Up to this point everything is delicious. The presentation is novel, it's all quick and easy to prepare and doesn't require any unusual ingredients at all. The next step is to make a reconstituted brick of parmesan cheese, a process that will be familiar to anyone who's made the mac and cheese recipe- although this version uses two types of gellan instead of carrageenan. I used a genuine parmigiano reggiano and the result was a soft block of intensely parmesan flavoured cheese. The problem I had was that the parmesan flavour dominated everything. I don't think I was even aware of the egg-yolk (which is piped on top). This is an unmistakably cheese-flavoured dish, which prompts the question of how much cheese you can put in a carbonara before it isn't really a carbonara but something else. Without the parmesan brick this recipe is delicious and also has great potential as a side dish. I'm thinking about serving it with osso bucco instead of risotto milanese. The presentation is eye-catching and not difficult to do. But served up as it is in MC it's pure parmigiano overload... if I do make the full recipe again I won't use a parmigiano regiano, but something milder.

Yep! The silly thing is that I use sesame oil enough to know how potent it is, and although I was following the recipe from the book I actually booted my computer and checked the FT article to see if the recipe was the same, in case it was a misprint. So I'm annoyed I went to the trouble of doing that but then just poured it all in without thinking... I don't think the pumpkin was too young, and it certainly roasted OK. But I would normally use butternut squash for soup. My sesame oil doesn't say anything on it about being toasted or untoasted, but it's from China - a typical asian grocery purchase. So it possibly is toasted, and I can imagine how different it must taste to untoasted. Not that I've ever seen untoasted sesame oil, or even knew there were different types! I actually didn't mind it, it just wasn't recognisably pumpkin. I think that if I got a 30ml shot glass in a restaurant as an amuse, with the hazelnuts dusted around the rim, I'd be suitably confused and intrigued and possibly enjoy it. But working through an entire bowl is different

I tried the pumpkin soup, the recipe is listed in the FT article that was linked on page 1 (but I do have the book). I make pumpkin soup regularly and was interested to know how Heston's version would compare. Making the soup base is straightforward, but before the seasoning stage it tasted very sweet and fairly bland (I used kabocha, thinking the roasted half would caramelise well). I then made the big mistake of adding the two main seasoning ingredients - 40g balsamic and 40g sesame oil - all at once and without tasting in between. Maybe I have unusually potent sesame oil but the end result just tasted like sesame. I appreciated the tang from the balsamic but overall it didn't taste like pumpkin at all. It needed quite a lot of salt to get it even vaguely balanced. I thought that the extras - the hazelnuts and red pepper - might bring the balance back but nope. Just a big bowl of very smooth, buttery but unmistakably sesame soup. I got through half a bowl. My wife had one spoonful and declared it disgusting. I followed the recipe pretty much to the letter (weighing everything on a gram-accurate digital scale) but I obviously messed up somewhere. I'm tempted to try the recipe again because I can't believe it turned out so badly. Next time I will definitely, definitely, add the sesame oil and balsamic a little at a time and will taste it as I go! Schoolboy error... I would love to hear from others who have tried the soup to see what they think. It's a simple recipe and as it's listed in the FT article, you don't even need the book...

This piece on producing perfect pesto popped up on the SMH today... it claims that adding salt helps preserve the green colour of the basil.

I read about this somewhere but can't find it now... the thing about store bought pestos is that they have to conform to a range of health & safety guidelines. Anything stored and sold in a jar needs a ph low enough to prevent botulism breeding - this is especially true for fresh fruit and vegetables, including herbs. I can't recall the exact ph, but it's low enough - ie. acidic enough - that store bought pesto will never taste the same as the stuff you make at home. The same goes for those tubes of pureed herbs/garlic/ginger that can be very convenient- they have to have a low enough ph that it noticeably affects the taste. Because of botulism concerns, it's a safe bet that store-bought pesto is made from blanched basil, and this is the biggest factor in keeping it green. The low acidity, while effecting the taste, will actually help dull the colour - there's more on this in McGee's OFAC.

If you're enjoying this thread, then check out Harold McGee's newest book - Keys to good cooking. It's got over 500 pages of this sort of thing.

I was going to suggest tiramisu as well, however it is something that you need to refrigerate, so may not be suitable depending on your travel and setup times. f you're looking for something that is cooked in a hotel pan then the easiest desserts would be puddings and fruit crumbles. Fruit crumbles are incredibly easy to make and if you add muesli / nuts to the crumble then it can not only have texture and flavour but a respectable claim to nutrition as well. As far as puddings go, a sticky date pudding with a caramel sauce is easy and slightly more interesting than a plain chocolate pudding. A caramel sauce is easy and quick to prepare in bulk - melt butter, add soft brown sugar, stir to dissolve and simmer, add cream. Done. If you're cooking to order and have a hotplate available then pancakes/crepes could be an option- just a suggestion but doesn't sound like it's the right thing for your situation. But a friend of mine had a small pancake business and it was impressive how easily you could pump them out for large numbers, especially as the batters can be premixed before. For something a bit more alternative you could purchase pre-made canoli (are they tubes or shells?) and then pipe them with fillings on the spot - custard or a sweet ricotta mix. This way they don't go soggy.

So here's a more general question... I've been experimenting with sous vide for less than a year, and have been very happy with anything meaty. Ribs, pork belly and salmon are now regular dinner items and the humble chicken breast has been improved beyond recognition. But sous vide vegetables... well, meh. Sure they cook ok, but I haven't made any sous vide vegetables that have been an obvious improvement over steaming or microwaving. And although I haven't had any problems, it seems that you can overcook sous vide vegetables, which negates one of the biggest advantages of cooking meat sous vide. By the time you put the bagging step into the equation I find it's easier to just steam them. So far I've only experimented with typical dinner time vegies - potatos, carrots, peas, beans, corn. I also tried brocollini because I read somewhere not to, and I wanted to know what would happen (smelt bad but tasted normal). Can anyone suggest a vegetable sous vide technique that produces a significantly better result than traditional methods?

We spent 4 nights in Venice a few months ago, the best place we ate at was called Corte dell'Orso, near Campo Santo Bartolomeo. We had a bit of fun finding it but it was great. Nothing fancy, just basic Italian food, but fresh and well done. Their mozzarella was the best we had anywhere, even better than any we had in the Naples area where it's made. We ate outside in a small courtyard that had a side alley leading to a canal, but with no bridge - it was a dead end. All night long an endless procession of tourists would wander through the courtyard gazing at their map/iPhone, head down the alley and then re-appear a minute later looking confused. This was quite entertaining, so you get dinner and a show. Some of the best places we've eaten at overseas have been recommended by the staff of the hotels we're staying at - Corto dell'Orso was suggested by someone at reception along with several others. So if in doubt, just ask the people she's staying with! Having said that, however, the best meal we had in Italy was at a restaurant in Rome recommended by an eGulleter... Eating out in Italy doesn't have to be expensive- I think it's easy to feel as though you must order two or three courses, which adds up and is usually too much food. You can easily find pizzas that are too big to finish for less than 10 euro.

Sorry I have no suggestions, but I would love to know your impressions of the Flower Drum. I have only heard praise from people who have been, but it seems to be often overlooked in the press when they discuss top restaurants...

I haven't tried using xanthan or guar gums in gluten free baking at all, but I have made a note of bits and pieces I've read simply because I know so many people with gluten issues. But the thing I have remembered is that the combination of xanthan gum and guar gum yields an especially gluten-like result, and it's not something you get by using either ingredient by themselves. In the (free) recipe collection at Kymos.org, it suggests using a 2:1 ratio of xanthan gum to guar gum for gluten free baking, or 1.6% and .8% respectively in relation to soy/corn/rice or potato flours. If your recipe equates to about 400g of gluten-free flour, that would mean 6.4g xanthan gum and 3.2g guar gum. But if you simply google "gluten free" along with xanthan and guar, you'll get loads of pages with more detailed information.

Almond meal is my go-to for gluten free cakes. It helps that I like it and prefer to bake with almond meal anyway because it's so delicious and moist, but half my family have gluten issues so it's a win-win situation. For a rich, dense fruitcake you could probably use 100% almond meal, but when I make chocolate cakes I use a 3:1 ratio of almond meal and corn starch. If you want to experiment with more high-tech compounds, then the combination of xanthan gum and guar gum is reported to have gluten-like qualities, but you really want to have digital scales because the only thing I can personally say with authority about xanthan gum is that if you use too much the result is unpalatable, and too much may be half a teaspoon. There are several threads on gluten-free baking if you search through the archives.

Here's an article with links from the SMH.

I am interpreting this to mean that every time I make pasta with 1kg flour, I also get to make 29 cocktails! Woo hoo!

I started making the Modernist Cuisine pasta until I worked out that I needed far more eggs than I had. With normal OO pasta flour, the MC recipe calls for 57.6% egg yolks. I weighed the egg yolks I had and they averaged 20g each, but for 1kg flour that's 576g egg yolks, or 29 eggs! Is it possible to use lecithin powder instead? How would you calculate the amount of lecithin powder needed to emulate an egg yolk? It's possible that it will work out cheaper to simply use the 29 eggs, but I have no idea what I would do with 29 egg whites and adding lecithin powder to pasta seems far less decadent than so many eggs. (BTW I had 180g of egg yolks, so I made the pasta with 310g flour. The pasta was very good, so I'll be doing it again).

If you're really interested, there's a detailed history of the KFC machine in 'Modernist Cuisine', along with photos (maybe even a cutaway, I can't quite remember). What I found interesting is the footnote that chickens have been selectively bred for tenderness so effectively since they invented their technique that we don't appreciate how comparatively tender KFC would have been back then. But the idea of attempting something at home with a deep fryer and oil made me think of the film 'The English Patient', and not in a good way...

Minestrone, something that we make on a weekly basis. The smokiness of the smoked paprika really transforms the minestrone and it's surprisingly different to regular paprika. I also make pumpkin soup often but I usually throw in some red capsicum rather than use paprika, not sure why! It's just one of those things I've always done. But I love having a bit of extra warmth to soups and paprika is a great way to achieve it. Thanks so much for your blog, I have enjoyed it so much and can't wait to visit the places you've introduced us all to.