ChrisZ

Well I'm excited and I'm looking forward to the release. An article about the book along with a demonstration of how to cook the perfect duck breast with dry ice, re-ignited my interest in food last year. Following on from that article/video I discovered Herve This, McGee and Blumenthal - my bookshelves and pantry have been filling up ever since and I've done more cooking in the last year than I have over the previous 5 or 6 years combined. Awesome work!

I just looked in McGee's book, he says that cooking time is proportional to the thickness squared, or weight to the 2/3rd power, but no charts or graphs. I have a few graphs bookmarked from sifting through the sous-vide thread, but they're all low temperature like this one.

And there are so many wonderful and quick pestos to make. That's my favorite...pasta tossed with basil and parsley pesto. And because I can't get into town without a planned visit, I usually use walnuts or almonds instead of pine nuts...not to mention the prohibitive cost thereof. Yep I love pestos too! Especially with gnocchi, not sure why. Traditional basil pesto is my favourite but I also like one made with semi-dried tomatoes, cashews and parmesan (and a touch of chilli). One experiment I attempted that didn't quite work was a Thai-flavoured pasta dish. I made ravioli filled with roasted butternut squash (or pumpkin depending on where you are) and a touch of peanut butter- the peanut butter and the roasting give a hint of satay. The ravioli were great. But I tried to make a laksa style sauce based around coconut cream and it wasn't quite right - the subtlety of the ravioli filling was lost. But the potential is there and if you're looking for something different then maybe you could get it to work! On UK masterchef a few years ago they featured an Italian pasta dish that was primarily flavoured with breadcrumbs- I can't remember if the sauce was oil or stock based. They said it was very difficult to get right because the flavour of breadcrumbs is so subtle- it's not a bread sauce in the English sense, it was more like a clear soup. It intrigued me at the time but I haven't been able to find any further references to it. Maybe this vague description makes sense to someone else?

My partner makes a very simple dish with just ricotta, lemon rind and zucchini. It also works as a side dish. Boil your pasta, but when you drain it leave a generous amount of water in the pan. Stir through ricotta cheese until it has mixed with the water and has a creamy texture- like a carbonara would have. Add more hot water if the ricotta is too solid. Add grated zucchini and some lemon zest to taste, and loads of black pepper. For a simple meal for two people she'll probably use 1 - 2 zucchinis and 200-300 grams ricotta, and the zest of a single lemon. I also recommend Annachan's recipe above, with peas, onion and pancetta. It's another one my partner makes often- I like it with a bit of fresh mozzarella. Delicious!

How you stir risotto can depend on the type of rice you have. I have nearly always made risotto with supermarket arborio rice, and I like the creamy texture it gives. Out of curiosity, I recently tried some carnaroli rice instead and was surprised at how much more bite it had, and how different the end result was. A little research revealed that this was normal- arborio rice breaks down more readily than carnaroli rice and so it gives a creamier, less al dente result. I would like to think it's a personal preference but the point is that you can stir carnaroli rice more vigourously than arborio rice without the end result turning gloopy. There's a decent amount of information on risotto in one of Blumenthal's 'in search of perfection' books, including notes on different rice varieties. And I love gnocchi - yes, 'light hands' prevent gluten development and keep the dumplings fluffy. On a TV show last year a competitor make gnocchi in an electric mixer and the results were like rubber balls - the host literally bouncing the gnocchi on the table.

Personally I think the notion of 'authenticity' is exaggerated by authors and journalists but that's a different story. Parmigiano Reggiano has that distinctive sharpness which is wonderful, but can be overpowering, so we tend to use pecorino on pasta instead. I think it's a matter of personal taste, I don't expect the pasta police to come knocking and tell us that not having parmigiano on our bolognese is a crime. I generally buy Grana Padano instead of Parmigiano too, because it's so much cheaper and more subtle- it won't dominate a simple sauce. If I'm making a spinach and ricotta mix- usually for cannelloni - then I'll always add some grated parmigiano to give some substance. But I think the choice of cheese is more of a personal preference rather than a kitchen rule.

Higher gas pressure? Not really sure what the correct phrase is. Even on the hottest gas burner at home my stir-frys are never really stir frys, they're stir-boils. I have always assumed that the difference in taste between Asian style food from a restaurant and that cooked at home is not due to ingredients, but simply the temperature of the wok.

Didn't Michel Bras and even Heston Blumethal's copy of that come way earlier?!?! Michel Bras call his a chocolate coulant - perhaps someone misheard 'coulant' as 'fondant'? This link says 1981!! http://www.finediningexplorer.com/rest_of_france/michel_bras_3.php I made this one when it first came out: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Molten-Chocolate-Cakes-with-Mint-Fudge-Sauce-104604 ... dated January 2001. Oh I hate it when I type quickly and hit the 'post' button too soon... I meant to add that I don't think my theory is actually correct, it's just my own private daydream... I'm slightly embarrassed for suggesting that I actually know what I'm talking about! Thanks for the links, very interesting!

I have also wondered this, and my theory is that it's because a recipe for chocolate puddings with soft centres appeared on the everything2 website in 2001, and the creator used the word fondant thinking it meant "melted". The recipe was so brilliantly decadent that it went viral, and almost 10 years later a chocolate pudding that is liquid in the middle is still called a fondant. The recipe is here, dated September 2001. I am not a food researcher but this is the earliest reference I have found for a chocolate pudding that is liquid in the centre. Even if it's not the first, it's definitely the best recipe I have seen. It's the recipe I credit for not being single. I found this recipe on the Everything website in January 2002 and it quickly became my "signature dish"- as much as someone can have a signature dish they didn't create. It's the thing that I can cook that people still talk about years later. There are people who don't know my name but know me as the chocolate pudding guy. I feel deeply attached to the recipe and have been slightly disappointed at the way chocolate fondants have spread so far and so quickly around the world. When I saw Sainsbury's selling them a little part of me died (although that may be from all the butter). I have always assumed that the popularity of chocolate fondants - they've since appeared in Jamie Oliver books, restaurants everywhere around the world, supermarkets and more recently on Australian Masterchef - has stemmed from that posting on the Everything website. Matt Kane - "Ascorbic" on the everything2 website - I salute you.

I never buy or use unsalted butter, I end up adding salt anyway, even in desserts. I never use baking paper to line cake tins, I just grease the tins with butter and dust with flour. I've never had anything stick (all my baking trays are non-stick anyway, so maybe that's why!) I'm not too hung up about using superfine sugar (caster sugar) when creaming butter/sugar for cakes. I even read somewhere (Herve This? not McGee...) that regular sugar introduces more air than superfine sugar and is actually better, despite most cake recipes specifying a superfine sugar.

Pheasant popped up on tonight's episode of Australian Masterchef. If you have clever internet skills and can find a way to fool the server into thinking you're in Australia, then it's episode 71.

I've had fish & chips a few times now at various Ripples cafes... perhaps I'm too suspicious of waterfront eateries but it really was fantastic every time, as well as expensive :-) Not the same as your regular suburban F&C shop but I'll happily go back there again. I worked in South Melbourne for 8 years and Clarendon's fish and chippers (Clarendon Street South Melbourne) was easily the best regular fish & chips I've had... they consistently won awards for the best fish & chips in Melbourne and they deserve too. Over the 8 years I worked in South Melbourne they survived at least one management change without obvious effects, but I haven't worked in Melbourne for over 5 years to know if it's still as good as it was.

I was thinking about this some more last night, and concluded that the reason I accepted the demonstration at face value was because the different stages the emulsion goes through as he adds cream in small amounts reminded me of the different stages chocolate goes through when tempering. For a long time I never knew how or why tempering worked, just that it was a process you did, and so as I watched the Valrhona videos I assumed the same could be true when mixing emulsions. After all- a hand mixed hollandaise is generally assumed to be better than one made in a food processor, so why not a hand-mixed ganache better than one made with a blender? Obviously tempering chocolate works, and it's not too hard to find information on the chemistry behind the process, but when I was younger and I first read about tempering the process sounded bizarre and almost superstitious: heat chocolate to a certain temperature, then cool it, then heat it a bit more - to a teenager this sounded pretty stupid. Of course I was wrong (teenagers usually are) and so I'm more open minded now when I see demonstrations like this one. Yes, I also wondered why he didn't use the stick blender with the other ganaches, but I was more distracted by the way he was leaning on the hotplate - it's not something you want to make a habit of! On a separate note, in McGees bible he notes that it's a slight myth that chocolate can be easily overheated, and that dark chocolate can be heated to 93degrees C (200 degrees F) without problems.

Thank you so much for posting this, I found it interesting, informative and very useful. Although ganache recipes are very simple I've seen a few that include liquid glucose - presumably to control crystalisation. This video series has made we wonder if an invert sugar is unnecessary, and that perhaps they've been added to recipes to try and avoid the problems demonstrated in chapter 4 that are really caused by poor emulsions. I'm curious to know what ratio of cream:chocolate he was using too... But thanks again- this has changed the way I'll make ganache from now on.

Try this thread... might help. Although it seems there are subtle differences between liquid glucose and corn syrup they're both used in recipes as invert sugars.

My guess would be that it's to do with the leavening quantities, and that perhaps you were too generous with the baking soda/ baking powder. This can also happen in you accidentally use self-raising flour in a cake recipe that calls for plain flour (terms vary with geography, I'm sure you get what I mean) There are two leavening agents in the recipe, in addition to the baking powder you have baking soda which will react with the acids in the orange juice and the yoghurt. Both of these reactions produce gas that makes the cake rise. If too much gas is produced then the cake will rise up high, fairly quickly, but will become too big to support itself. Some of the gas will leave the mixture before it has time to bake into a solid and the cake will collapse. So although it might sound counter-intuitive, less baking powder/ baking soda may result in a larger, firmer cake. Cakes can also collapse after baking if they are moved or disturbed before they have cooled completely. Depending on the type of cake, the cooling period can be a critical time for the cake to develop strength in a similar manner to the way that custards set when they cool down. Cakes can benefit from being cooled upside-down, where gravity can counteract the cakes tendency to shrink as it cools and firms up, but you may need a tin designed for this purpose for it to work properly- I've even heard that you shouldn't bake cakes in non-stick tins because then they don't stick to the sides as they cool, but rather allow the cake to slide down and collapse!

His first book - Kitchen Confidential - offers a different perspective on professional cooking than you get from cooking shows on TV. TV cooking shows are so "nice" and celebrity chefs exude so much bonhomie that they generally portray professional cooking as a few clever tips, some witty banter and lots hugs and kisses to famous guests. Kitchen Confidential is a reminder that restaurants are businesses that need to make money, kitchens are tough environments to work in, the hours are long, the work is hard, kitchen staff are more likely to be macho males discussing tattoos than intellectual gastronomers discussing new flavours, most restaurants fail, and basically being a cook/chef is not an easy life. It's definitely entertaining and I'm sure it's still relevant.

Here is a different, but also brilliant recipe. I've made it many times and it has always been a huge success.

I suppose it comes down to how you define "best" and how you define "gourmet". Commercially produced eggs are tested before packing to check for blood spots, blood spots being considered bad, but blood spots may not deter a gourmet who prefers organic food- so it's possible that "best" and "gourmet" have conflicting definitions... It is easy to test the freshness of an egg at home- just place it in a jug of water. A fresh egg sinks to the bottom, and eggs will become more buoyant over time to the point that a stale/off egg will float. My mum, who was raised on a farm, still checks all eggs in a sink of water to see if they float before they're used. But is freshness related to "best" or "gourmet"? Is a fresh cage-egg better than a 2-week old organic egg? I don't know. Organic & free range eggs usually have much more vibrantly coloured yolks. I've used home-laid eggs in vanilla ice-cream and had it finish up deep yellow; the same for sponge cakes. But I won't pretend that I can taste a difference between home-laid eggs and supermarket eggs. So in my experience with baking there can be a huge difference in appearance, but not necessarily taste. I'm sure that others will disagree and this will be the main discussion point... Perhaps cooking the eggs sous-vide and eating them individually will reveal a more obvious difference than making them into custards and cakes. If you can find a copy of McGee's food bible then he has a whole chapter devoted to eggs, it will probably be very useful to your study.

We have just started the same process, but for us it's wood vs stone. I like stone, my SO prefers the warmth of timber... A good friend of ours is a stonemason and swears by granite or marble- obviously! Stone composites like Ceasarstone seem to be increasingly popular, and cheaper than natural stone. But mention Ceasarstone to our friend and you'll learn some new swear words- for him it's a type of blasphemy ;-) One thing I like about stone and steel is that I'm not worried about washing the surface or letting it get wet- with timber there's always a concern that water will lead to rot, it's a problem I've had to fix at two previous houses.

Yes I do that a lot too, as crumbs are definitely messy- and they have their own flavour as well. I wouldn't crumb thin fillets- I had some butterflied garfish fillets in Adelaide that were fried in nothing but a dusting of flour and they were lovely. I haven't seen garfish fillets anywhere else but I remember how sweet they were. One of my guilty kitchen secrets is that I like the "Season All" seasoning mix you buy from supermarkets. A sprinkle of that with some flour and you don't need much else. At the opposite end of the complexity spectrum, Heston Blumenthal invested a lot of time and effort to make the "perfect" fish and chips for his TV series. He discovered that making a batter with alcohol (vodka) produced better results because it evaporates faster than water, and he would dispense the batter from a soda siphon to introduce bubbles of CO2 into the mix, which insulated the fish from the heat of the oil and allowed the batter to cook to a golden crisp without overcooking the fish. I may even try that one day, because although it sounds complex it's one of Blumenthal's more accessible techniques. And on a different note, "Butterfish" sometimes refers to Escolar, which tastes OK but has laxative effects in larger quantities.

For deep-fried Fish & Chip Shop style fish then ditto for the flathead & King George Whiting votes, flathead especially really suits deep frying and a beer batter. The fillets of King George Whiting at my local shop were always fairly thin in comparison, probably because the fish was more expensive, but worth the extra cost. If you can find thick fillets of King George Whiting then don't think twice. I'm not a huge fan of fish & chips and I find that deep-frying tends to make different types of fish taste fairly similar. I suppose if fish & chip shops are frying everything in the same oil then it all comes down to how often they change it. At home I prefer to shallow-fry fish, usually in breadcrumbs, and I think this brings out the individual characters of different types of fish more than a batter. Grilling even more so... -As a kid the family favourite was Blue Grenadier. Not only the cheapest fish at the fishmonger, but also quite mild in flavour and very juicy. -Poor choice from an environmental perspective, but Orange Roughy/Sea Perch is unlike any other fish- absolutely delicious. My alltime favourite. But you can't eat it with a clean conscience. -I've bought and cooked some wonderful John Dory, but I'm never 100% confident that what a fishmonger sells me as John Dory really is John Dory. Maybe I'm just paranoid.

I really can't compete with some of these wonderful stories, but my teeth are still ringing from my last cooking experiment. This gorgeous looking dessert popped up on Australian Masterchef a few weeks ago. It was suitably hyped - created by Australia's top pastry chef etc etc - and despite the theatrical excitement of the episode all I wanted to know was what the thing tasted like. I still think it looks divine. On the TV it was completed by a 19 year-old amateur in 1 hour 45 minutes, so I figured it couldn't be that hard to make. I had most of the ingredients in the cupboard so I bought the rest and decided to give it a go. It took me ages. A lot of this is because my current kitchen is the size of a phonebox and I only have one bowl, so I had to stop and do the dishes after every stage. Even so, I have the utmost respect for the Masterchef contestant who did it in 1:45 because it took me over 5 hours including serving the thing up (and cleaning the kitchen!). And I discovered that quenelles are really *@$%£ difficult to get perfect! It felt like I had spent my entire day making dessert. The end result was so overwhelmingly sweet that I could only eat a few spoonfuls. Sugar seemed to dominate the flavours. It looked great but the taste simply didn't match the appearance. All of the individual components tasted delicious on their own but when you put them together they just didn't add up to the sum of their parts. They added up to sugar. Neither me nor any of my 5 guests could finish their modest portions. At the very least I would have used dark chocolate where the recipe specifies milk, but although I have a few tweaks in mind that might steer the result towards my preferences, I don't think I'll be spending 5+ hours on it again...

Most of my family are gluten intolerant, and one of them is lactose intolerant too. I'm curious that you have used the word 'allergy' rather than the more common term 'intolerant' - is this intentional? The majority of the world's population is lactose intolerant, so depending on geography it's very common, but a dairy allergy is quite different and potentially more serious. Are you sure it's a full allergy? The first part- gluten. Gluten is pretty easy to work around, because gluten basically means wheat. So avoid wheat flours and you're avoiding gluten- I suggest using almond meal instead, which is very common in European cakes. Personally I prefer baking with almond meal to wheat flour anyway- I love the texture, flavour, richness and moistness that almond meal brings to a cake, although you can't do a simple 1:1 replacement with wheat flour because almond meal is much heavier. You can also use Hazelnut meal (more expensive but can give your cake a subtle nutella flavour), or even chestnut meal. Any recipe that says it's "flourless" will be gluten free, and the majority will use a nut-meal to replace the flour. A long time ago when I was working in a bakery I was accosted by an angry customer who was under the impression that gluten was a synthetic chemical that was added to bread to artificially improve it. He wanted to know why we couldn't just leave it out. I had to explain that gluten is a natural part of wheat flour and in order to leave out the gluten we would have to leave out the flour, and that there wouldn't be much left to bake... If the bride is truly allergic to dairy then you can try simple nut-meal cakes such as this one. I made it the other day and it was delicious - although I used 8 eggs instead of 6, and added a splash of orange juice before folding in the egg whites as the mix was very dry. As I said earlier, lactose intolerance is very common and not as serious as a full dairy allergy, it means that the body lacks the enzyme lactase (not a typo- lactase digests lactose. No lactase = lactose intolerance). You can buy liquid lactase to add to dairy products which allows lactose intolerant people to enjoy dairy foods normally. Not all dairy foods contain lactose - butter is low, hard cheese is very low and natural yoghurt is low- REAL yoghurt also contains natural lactase which means people who are lactose intolerant can usually enjoy yoghurt without any problems. So a lactose intolerant person can enjoy a cake made with butter. Unfortunately this issue has been complicated by modern manufacturing processes. Yoghurt, butter and sour cream- made traditionally- are low in lactose. But some modern industrial techniques can make sour cream and yoghurt that are high in lactose- they don't actually use a culture, they just add a synthetic tart taste and thickeners. So look for yoghurts and sour creams that are labelled "natural" and check the ingredients for a culture. So if the bride is not fully allergic but is lactose intolerant, then the simplest solution is to buy liquid lactase from a pharmacy and add it to any milk that you might be using. Butter should be fine but you could even look for a European style cultured butter just to be doubly sure. Or else use natural yoghurt (many devil's food cakes use yoghurt) or even try cultured buttermilk instead of normal dairy milk. But even if the bride is fully allergic to dairy products then there are many nut-meal cake recipes around - such as the one above - that only use eggs, sugar and nut meal. Searching on Google for an almond cake or a hazelnut cake will get you started.

When I was 15 I did two weeks work experience in a restaurant, where I was especially impressed by a shelf of high-alcohol liqueurs that were clearly labelled "culinary grade" - "cooking only" - "do not drink", etc etc. They were all about 80% alcohol- or 160 proof. I've never seen them again and I assume you can only get them through specialised suppliers- however aside from the prominent warnings the labels were basically the same as retail versions. They had quite a few but I can only say with certainty that Grand Manier was one of them, and possibly Cointreu as well. If my memory hasn't failed me - this was 20 years ago - it's possible these high-proof "culinary grade" liqueurs are actually made with lower quality alcohol and are intended to be flambe'd rather than encased in chocolate, so I wouldn't assume that high-proof equals high-quality. -Chris