ChrisZ

For the price of a decent meal in a restaurant, you should be able to get an annual subscription to a food magazine. The "foodie world" is not a static collection of dishes that you much consume in order to be admitted. There is a foodie world but it's just a constantly evolving interest and different things come in an out of fashion all the time. Quinoa is a lot cheaper than fois gras or caviar and dare I say it, currently more fashionable. SO subscribe to a magazine, or several if you can afford it. I can't suggest a US one but I'm sure others here can help out (FWIW I get the Australian Gourmet Travller). Once you start getting a monthly magazine you'll notice trends developing, ingredients that come in and out of season, you'll see how some chefs create headlines when they move to different restaurants and so on. You'll also see ads for events and shows and so on. Joining eGullet and just reading it every day is a more immersive introduction to the "foodie world" than ordering escargot at a restaurant just for the sake of it.

I have not made the exploding chocolate cake, but I did use Heston's recipe for a popping candy dacquoise from the Fat Duck Cookbook, which is similar in principle. The popping candy I used was coated in cocoa butter, and specifically designed to be cooked with (and not eaten directly). If you have used pop rocks or space dust or something from a supermarket then it might not work as well. The cocoa butter coating helps to stop the bits melting prematurely, but the trick is not to heat up your mixture so the cocoa butter melts, or the popping candy melts, and not to press it too firmly (crushing it makes it pop).

Do you have kids? This is a song from my primary school days - the quality of the video gives away how long ago this was. And this is a more recent one. There are actually lots of food songs if you start to include kids. The Wiggles have 'hot potato' for example, but there are lots more that are similar. I'm not sure why you're asking for for songs, so I'm not sure if that's helpful or not. But unfortunately I can't do anything to get these songs out of your head once you listen to them...

Yes but that doesn't automatically make it French! Hypothetically - if there's a cafe in London, or New York or Sydney that has on the menu "Apple Pie with creme chantilly" I think it's a fair question to ask why they dodn't simply have "Apple Pie with whipped cream". I think that sort of question is what the original post is about. Even my local deli has "normal" bread rolls that are simply called bread rolls, and a range of "fancy" artisan sour dough rolls labelled as "batards". Jmacnaughtan - Thanks for the entertaining trivia. I had to google it - unfortunately wikipedia disagrees. But I'd never given thought to the idea that someone "invented" whipped cream. Maybe they were making butter and got lazy. I'm veering away from the original questions but I thought I'd mention that I love Bill Bryson's book "The mother tongue" - a book on the history of the English language, and full of great pieces of linguistic trivia. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who finds this thread interesting. In my part of the world our kitchens only have pantries, but as I grew up reading Enid Blyton books I'm familiar with the terms "larder" and "scullery". In Bryson's book he mentions how the English 'pantry' came from the French 'paneterie' (pain, i.e. bread) and that a 'larder' (a cool meat room) has the same roots as 'lardons' - a term still used to describe bacon strips used when roasting meats. Seems obvious when it's pointed out but I'd never thought about it...

I might be imagining things, but I've noticed an increasing usage of "chantilly" instead of the more obvious "whipped cream". It's probably due to TV cooking shows but I think it's kinda pretentious. Whipped cream is so simple, and unambiguous, I don't see any reason to call it "chantilly"...

Looks great! Sometimes searching by brand name can help to find suppliers, especially online. The chestnut flour I have is branded "Sala Cereali" - try googling that and see if anything comes up in your area.

I was very close to ordering one until I realised my backyard BBQ is basically a big plate of 1/2" cast iron. So I tried using the BBQ to cook pizza and although it took a few goes to get the temperature right, I'm now an absolute convert. And the BBQ adds a nice smoky note that I don't think I'd get if I was using the kitchen oven. With a good home-made tomato sauce and some buffalo mozzarella, I'm now knocking out pizzas that are better than our local pizza shop. I am still looking for the best base recipe, though, to try and get a more yeasty bread taste. I've been using the pizza dough recipe in Heston Blumenthal's "In search of perfection", and it's pretty good but not quite up to Italian standards. It's probably the supermarket dried yeast that's causing the blandness though, I'll try using a fresh yeast one day, but any pointers in that direction would be welcome.

I think there are several threads on this sort of thing if you search around, I have a few family members with gluten issues and other allergies and always read the relevant threads when they come up. In general, you'll find that lots of European recipes are already gluten free - such as Franci's above - as they tend to use nut meals instead of wheat flour. Almond meal is especially common, and I use it a lot. Most of the cakes I like are based on almond meal anyway. If you want to take a normal recipe and make it gluten free, you can try replacing the wheat flour with 75% almond meal and 25% corn flour, and then use baking power if the recipe originally used self raising flour. Or just look for flourless recipes - there are many around for flourless orange cakes and flourless chocolate cakes. FWIW I personally like cakes based on almond meal, but I have also tried hazelnut meal and chestnut flours. Cakes made with hazelnut meal tend to taste like nutella when they're cooked, which can be a good or a bad thing depending on what flavours you're pairing it with.

I pressure-cooked some beef cheeks yesterday (delicious…) and noted they were the cheapest product at the butcher. As KennethT says, very beefy and in my experience also quite lean. FWIW, in our crazy metric part of the world the beef cheeks were $12 per kilo, and their cheapest gravy / stewing beef was $16.

I don't think I've seen a book that is only about French chocolate cakes. There aren't many books that are only on chocolate cakes, as Chris says it's pretty specific! One older book I can think of is a compilation of 50 chocolate cake recipes that were featured in the weekly food section of our local paper. Some of the contributors are very well respected chefs and I'm sure they're all delicious. I guess you can order it from overseas...

I can't remember which recipe, I think it was one of Heston Blumenthal's, but the sauce was set with agar and then blended. It worked perfectly and I was pretty surprised! I can't comment on flavour release as compared to other thickeners, but where I live agar is easier to get than any of the other, modern thickeners such as gellans or carrageenans.

Well a few weeks ago I wondered the same thing. I did look through the rumours and I think some of them suggested the new version would be a "pro" - which may mean a higher price. But you're always guessing with rumours. So I bought the current model and am very happy with it. It is so much better than using a rice cooker rig. I have no concerns at all about new features, I'm really only interested in price. A new model with more features wouldn't bother me in the slightest. Reducing the price of the current model would be more frustrating if it happened today, but I'd even forgive that in a few months time.

I've had mine for a few weeks and really like it. I'm cooking things sous vide that I wouldn't have bothered with previously, because of the hassle of setting up the rice cooker rig. Now I have no hesitation. Just wondering what sort of tubs you're using Nick? Currently I'm using our largest pot (dutch oven) because it's the only thing I have big enough to hold the Anova. I've started shopping around for a cooler / esky as the many posts here suggest that something insulated is the way to go. Haven't found anything just the right size yet, that also looks OK sitting on the kitchen bench. I'm thinking that if you've got 5 sous vide machines then you must have tried a fair few tubs as well...

Great work, really enjoyed reading through that. Just a suggestion for your door, although I know you're happy with your revised latches. For about $10 on Ebay you can buy a pack of 8mm neodymium magnets. They look a lot like small watch batteries but they are incredibly strong. You can use an 8mm drill bit to make small holes at regular points in your door, and matching holes in the frame. Stick the magnets - making sure you have them lined up so they attract - into the holes with a strong glue such as epoxy (araldyte). If you get everything lined up so the magnets are flush with the surface of the timber the result looks pretty cool. The magnets will hold the door shut tightly. I actually used this method for the sliding door in our bathroom. With 10 8mm magnets - 5 pairs of 2 - the sliding door would actually close itself from about 15 - 20 cm open. You can buy bigger magnets and stronger magnets but the price goes up quickly, and 8mm is an easy size to drill. Keep up the reports!

We just hosted a lunch party for 50 and it was all antipasto, with a few supermarket roast chickens cut up to fill in the gaps. Worked great. I'd suggest a cous cous salad as it's easy, cheap, filling and is as good as the stock you use. If you have the time to make up a home made vegetable stock beforehand, then you'll get a great tasting salad that provides the carbs for the meal. Fancier than a potato salad, not as obviously trendy as quinoa. Not sure how the seasons are working out in your neck of the woods, but I usually cube and roast some butternut squash (pumpkin), throw in some raisons, crusted cashews and diced fetta. But it all comes down to the stock...

It's great that you've found your answer. For something similar, have a look at the German "Bienenstich" - or "Bee sting" to use the translated name. It's one of my favourite cakes. It's a yeast cake, cut in half and filled generously with custard cream, and the top is covered with a honey-almond glaze. I assume the honey is where the "bee sting" name comes from. The crunch of the toasted almond flakes is really special! And the flavours are great - yeasty dough, creamy custard and the sweet honey almonds. You can use any yeast bun dough, for example a hot cross bun recipe, and bake it like a cake. But there are lots of recipes online.

Very sad news, the first thing I thought of was his thread on making mozzarella with his son - a great series of posts that is now tinged with sadness. Condolences to his family.

So I followed through on my previous post and tried a variation of the traditional deep-fried parma, approaching it like a rolled up Saltimbocca alla Romano. I flattened out a chicken breast, topped it with proscuitto and buffalo mozzarella, then rolled it up. I initially cooked it sous vide at about 60C, then browned it on the BBQ. I sliced it up and served it on tomato sauce. Unfortunately I have to say it was a bit of a fail. It was certainly nothing like a parma. I used much more proscuitto than I normally would with a chicken breast and the flavour was very strong. The lovely buffalo mozzarella that I used was totally lost. The tomato sauce was also a bit strong. The taste and flavour balance was off and it was nothing like a chicken parma at all. I didn't really like it. What I missed most was the texture of crumbing and deep-frying. I'm now thinking that deep frying is critical. Next time I will try panko crumbs to try and get even more crisp. Oh well, sometimes you have to take a step backwards in order to move forward...

Thanks Beusho for your reply, just what I was after. To answer some of my own questions, the international version of the Anova is only available in black. So no red for me. And the shipping costs for both are the same = $80US each. I'm tempted to buy the Anova now, but there's the odd rumour of a mkII coming soon so I'm tempted to wait a bit longer...

We have several sets of measuring cups and they are ALL inaccurate. I noticed one day that different sets yielded different amounts and checked everything in the kitchen with a digital scale (1 ml = 1 gram). Every set of measuring cups we own is wrong, some by a lot, and some by a little. Doesn't matter if they're cheap plastic cups from the bargain shop, novelty shaped ones from a gift shop, or "serious" cups from a recognisable brand. They're all wrong. So to answer your question, I don't use measuring cups for liquids, I weigh everything with a digital scale. I'd love it if others could check their cups against a digital scale and see how they compare.

I read that in The Fat Duck Cookbook, and I know I've passed that info on in these forums. It's because of enzymes in the seafood which become more active at those temperatures. I don't know how well it applies to something that's been deep frozen. I would guess that 4 hours is way too long. You should be able to measure the size of the tail and use a table to calculate the cooking time and the time to pasteurisation. There are tables in modernist cuisine, I'm sure there are similar tables online or calculated with sous vide apps. Long cooking times suit meats with collagen, AFAIK there's no collagen to break down in lobster tails and you don't want to overcook them. I don't see any benefit in cooking for longer than the pasteurisation time and I'm guessing that's much less than 4 hours. Having had severe food poisoning I can understand your desire for pasteurisation but with some foods it's just a risk. I still eat sushi and accept the fish is raw, I would be more worried about ruining a lobster tail than I would be about getting sick from one (but I haven't had your exact experience, although any food poisoning isn't pleasant). The sous vide dash app is about $5, a worthy investment to avoid ruining a lovely piece of seafood.

Are there any other articles that compare the Anova and Sansaire? I am intending to buy one or the other when they're available. While the serious eats article is very useful, I'd like to hear more comments from people who've tested them side-by-side. Also, as someone living in Australia, I'd like to compare the shipping costs too. I was going to buy the Anova because it comes in red, but it looks like they've sold out of red (or are international versions black only?) Then my wife said she thought the Sansaire looked better, so I went to buy the Sansaire but they're sold out, and the website has no information about international shipping costs. So while I'm waiting for the Sansaires and the red Anovas to come back in stock, are there any other comments or reviews on them both?

No. It's a really common source of confusion. The real point is the low temperature cooking. You are cooking the food at the temperature you want it cooked at. If you want an egg at 63C, cook it at 63C - don't drop it in boiling water at 100C and judge the cooking time. Likewise, if you want a piece of salmon at 50C, cook it at 50C - don't grill it on a 250C hot plate or put it in a 180C oven and try to get the timing right. While the bagging has some side benefits, the real point is the precise temperature control. Some people call this approach LTLT cooking - low temperature, long time. It's more correct but I think they face an uphill battle to replace the term sous vide. The vacuum bags and water bath are simply convenient ways to get precise temperature control - easily to within tenths of a degree. You don't need to do it this way, and there are less precise ways of cooking food with the same approach. In large commercial kitchens dealing with large quantities, it is easier to use a steam or combi oven than to use vacuum bags and water baths. High end steam ovens (and combi ovens) are also very accurate, maybe not as accurate as a water bath but still within a few degrees. In a general sense, the vacuum isn't the point of sous vide. The temperature is.

If you have the time, check out the khymos website. It's main attraction is a freely downloadable collection of recipes that use all sorts of different gelling agents. There's a little bit of information on each one, such as suggested ratios etc etc. Considering it's free, there's no reason not to have a look at it. At the very least, you can consider it a definitive list of every available option you have. While agar is fairly easy to get, you'll probably get better results with either carageenans or gellan. I find agar gels are too firm for a pleasant dessert, although that's personal. Many of the dairy desserts you buy in supermarkets use carageenans (which come from seaweed), and it's easy to mail-order. There are two types of gellan that give different results and you can mix them to get the exact texture you're after. However gellan is more expensive and I can understand that you might not have the time to experiment. I'll also add that the most common mousse I make is simply chocolate, and it doesn't have any gelatine in it at all. It sets with just egg yolks (I use a recipe that cooks the egg yolks so there's no risk of salmonella).

Ahh I never thought about it like this, even though it's obvious. I'm a sucker for a saltimbocca alla Romana, although it's traditionally made with veal I often see it on menus with chicken. That's a case where I really enjoy the flavour and saltiness that the prosciutto brings, the sage too. I can see the potential for a chicken parmigiana made using the method of a saltimbocca - flatten out the breast fillets, add cheese and proscuitto, then roll it up and serve slices on a tomato sauce. That's totally against the spirit of a deep-fried pub-style chicken parma, but sounds kinda nice. I'll add it to my to-do list.