ChrisZ

I would really like to see a company bundle a serious book on sous vide with their device. I realise that this would affect the price, but I also think it's important to cover the topic thoroughly. The obvious choice would be Douglas Baldwin's book, but there are possibly others- I haven't checked them all out. I looked at the booklet that comes with the Sunbeam MU4000 and thought it was pretty terrible. The problem is that understanding sous vide requires an understanding of food safety. If sous vide is not done safely it can be deadly, but if it is done too conservatively then many of the benefits are lost. It's probably a bit much to expect an in-depth booklet to be produced by every manufacturer, so better off to just include something like Douglas' book.

I do this a lot, it's one of the main advantages to SV - I have a freezer full of bags ready to go. I haven't done a side-by-side comparison, but basically ditto to nickrey and pbear - a little seasoning is fine. You certainly aren't going to damage the meat. If you're just starting out then my advice is to make sure you label all your bags clearly. I just use a sharpie, but as well as the description of what's in the bag and the date it was bagged, I always note if it's cooked and ready to eat, or if it's raw and ready to cook. When bags have been in the freezer for a few months it's easy to forget, and some braised items like osso bucco are pulled out of a frosty freezer it can be hard to tell (or remember) if they're cooked or not.

I often make creme brûlée on the stove, as I have always found oven-baked custards to be slightly unpredictable. I think that making them on a stove top - especially with a digital thermometer - makes it easier to get consistent results. I have often wondered if making creme brûlée on the stove is some type of sacrilege so I'm glad to know I'm not alone. I adapted the recipe for a "vanilla cream" from the techniques section of an old cookbook, it's basically a vanilla mousse. I sometimes think I should convert the powdered gelatine to leaf so the recipe is even more consistent and it doesn't end up too firm, but I'll leave that for someone else. I already typed up the recipe for a friend, so I can copy and paste: 4 egg yolks (5 if they’re small)60g sugar250mls milk3 teaspoons gelatine300mls whipping cream1 vanilla bean (or other flavour)Extra sugar for the brûlée – approx 1 tablespoon per ramekin Heat the milk with the flavour you’re using, eg. vanilla bean, chocolate, coffee, lavender, etc etc. Allow time to infuse if required. Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar until thick and pale. Whisk in the warmed milk. Heat gently until 75C – 80C. The custard should coat the back of a spoon. You don’t want to go over 80C or it will begin to taste eggy. Once it has reached around 75C, take it off the heat and gently whisk for a minute to stop the temperature from rising much further. Cover and let it cool down, give it a quick whisk every few minutes to stop a skin forming. While the custard is cooling, hydrate the gelatine. Pour about 50mls of cold water into a shallow bowl and slowly sprinkle the gelatine powder on top, making sure the gelatine is soaking up water and not clumping together in dry lumps. Leave for a few minutes to allow the gelatine to absorb the liquid – it will become very thick. Heat the gelatine in the microwave without allowing it to boil – about 10 secs – and then stir until the liquid is a clear amber. When both the gelatine and custard are at room temperature, whisk the gelatine into the custard. Whip the cream and fold into the custard, then pour into ramekins. Refrigerate until set. Do not add the sugar on top until you are ready to blow-torch, or it will simply dissolve into the cream. When preparing the brûlée to serve, allow some time to refrigerate the ramekins again after blowtorching so they can firm up again.

This was one of the things Heston looked at in his "In Search of Perfection" series, when he made spaghetti bolognese. I just did a quick google and found the full episode on Youtube. The bit about pasta and bronze dies begins about 20 minutes into the episode. He visits a factory in Italy where they make the pasta with bronze dies, and talks about the differences with plastic / teflon, and does a fairly simple comparison of their sauce-holding properties. While it's interesting TV and I really love his spaghetti bolognese recipe, over here in Australia the exact brand that he uses in the show (La Pasta di Aldo) goes for about $20 a packet and is only sold by a handful of specialty food outlets. That's about 20x more expensive than generic brand dried pasta, and about 5 times more expensive than the supermarket egg pasta we usually get. Although I'm curious, I'm not going to spend $20 on a packet of pasta that I can only get here by mail-order just to try the difference for myself...

You get different textures and results with different combinations of time and temp. I tried a side-by-side comparison a few weeks ago, making beef bourguignon with beef cheeks. I made up the overall batch together using a conventional recipe, then split it between two bags. I cooked one for about 10 hours at 80C, and the other for 3 days at 60C. The 10 hours / 80C cheeks were falling apart, with delicious gelatinous globs throughout. The meat had a stringy texture. You could have eaten it with a spoon, you didn't need a knife because there weren't any large solid chunks of meat to cut through. The 3 days / 60C cheeks were completely different. Although they were also meltingly tender, the meat had held together and had the texture of a tender steak. If you wanted to you could have eaten it with a knife and fork. In both cases the flavour was the same, and the sauce could have done with further reduction to make it even richer. I was very surprised at the difference in the texture between the two batches and my next step is to try a 4-way comparision that also includes a pressure cooker, and a conventional stove/oven braise.

I have been using foodsaver branded bags for SV - ie. the genuine branded bags, not generic or bulk bags. This is simply because I can buy them at the local supermarket, even though I could possibly save a few dollars by ordering generic rolls online. But I have assumed the foodsaver bags are decent quality. Today I tried SV beef cheeks at 80C and after about 10 hours the bag failed. It wasn't the heat seal that failed - I usually double seal anyway - but the side of the bag just sort of opened up along the seam. I usually SV at temperatures around 60C so this was new to me. It definitely wasn't a tear, the bag just unstuck along the manufactured seam. I know that there are 'special' vacuum bags that are rated for higher temperatures and also 'special' bags for above boiling point, but I was surprised to have a normal bag fail at 80C, I didn't think it was unusually or uncommonly hot. What are other's experiences with bag failures and higher temps? Are foodsaver branded bags any better or worse than generic bags? (by bags I mean rolls - the waffled ones for foodsavers type vacuums and not chamber sealers, which use different bags that can vary more widely)

Assuming the hazelnut cream doesn't taste like nutella, do you think they've slipped in some Frangelico?

In Australia it's still a tradition amongst migrant communities. My in-laws are Italian and they have big vats and stuff in their garage for bottling, mostly tomato sauce. A popular Australian film opens with the daughter of Italian migrants complaining about how she has to help out with the tomato sauce, my wife said she felt exactly the same way!

I'm after opinions on a food safety matter. I was cooking some chicken sous vide @ 58C, it was in the bath for about 1 1/2 hours, maybe more, when I turned it off but forgot to remove the bag. The chicken stayed in the bath as it cooled down and then stayed at room temperature for another 6 hours before I realised it was there and popped the bag in the freezer. Based on the size of the bag (small) it should easily have been pasteurised before the bath was turned off. I'm curious to know what safety issues there may be with the chicken, if any. I have no problem throwing out a small bag of chicken if there's any doubt but just wondering what other people think?

The only thing I can thing of is if the book is aimed towards professionals who make one large batch of pastry on a weekly or fortnightly basis. The author might be assuming that in this situation the pastry will always be frozen before use, and the tip is not simply that pastry can be frozen, but that because it will be frozen waiting until it is defrosted before making the last two folds will give a better result. Don't know why, though. If it's not to do with gluten development then maybe it's to stop the butter melting? I hope you're able to do the experiment and let us know the results.

I think I've written this before, but use-by/sell-by/best-before dates are governed by laws that may vary from country to country. In our case (Australia) the maximum use-by date is two years from manufacture. Something that may last indefinitely (e.g. salt, or bottled water) will therefore have a use-by date of 2 years, which is obvious absurd in these cases. This makes it hard to judge other ingredients though, unless you're into chemistry. Salt won't go off, ever. I don't think sugar will either. Food acids won't but they may absorb water - same sort of thing with bicarb soda. More complex compounds like gellan and carrageenan - I don't know. My bet is that they will also last for many years, but will be labelled with a 2-year useby date because of the regulations.

I imagine that this is too much effort for something that is basically free, but cannoli may work because you can make the shells in advance and then pipe the filling in as you need them. A sweetened ricotta filling may be more heat resistant than custard, but the idea is that it's all refrigerated anyway until you actually need one, then you fill them on demand. A local beach kiosk uses this approach and it works really well - despite the modest appearance you actually get great cannoli from them because they aren't soggy!

I posted some photos in the sous vide thread, but my current favourite is a locally produced caramelised balsamic vinegar. A thick, dark, sweet syrup with a great balance of acidity and sweetness. There are lots of things that go well with scallops but I think the extra acidity in the vinegar really makes them sing. Personally I wouldn't want to overpower a scallop with a sundried tomato, but I haven't tried it so maybe it works well. And depending on your tastes an Asian sweet chilli sauce or even a hoi sin sauce would go OK. But these are fairly ordinary suggestions. I like the idea of the maple syrup bacon! That's something special...

I'm with Darienne, for me it's chocolate. My wife is often given boxes of Lindt Lindor balls as gifts - as a teenager I thought these were divine but now they just taste like margarine to me. I eat a fraction of the chocolate I used to as a kid but my standards are now higher! As a teenager I worked in a local bakery for about 7 years. I wasn't a baker - just packaging and serving - but working in a bakery for so long made me used to fresh bread. Fresh as in straight out of the oven. Same with doughnuts - they may have been made from premix, but straight out of the fryer and into the sugar cinnamon was the only way to eat them. I would refuse any doughnut that was more than a few minutes old! And to this day I don't eat a lot of bread, because I grew so accustomed to only eating fresh bread that even something a few hours old isn't great (although I do love artisan sourdoughs). I understand that in France there is a real culture around fresh bread - I hope that it one day spreads to Australia and we find artisan bakeries replacing the plastic blocks that supermarkets churn out.

Start here ;-) (and there are many more choices - I'm guessing you're a lady, but would a Gentleman's hamper be more appropriate for a car show?)

There's no strict definition of modernist cooking but there is generally an increased level of precision evident. For example 'boiling' an egg in hot water is nothing new, but if you specify an exact water temperature (eg 63C) and perhaps an exact time then it probably would be. Broiling by itself would not be considered a modernist technique, but in Modernist Cuisine there is a detailed analysis of how the temperature in a broiler varies according to the layout of the heating elements and how you can calculate the 'sweet zone' accordingly. So broiling may be considered modernist if the chef has taken this into consideration and understands how the temperature in the broiler varies with position. So baking may not be modernist, but if the chef has calculated a specific approach based on having the raw puddings at an exact temperature, in a ramekin of a specific type (e.g. black ceramic), cooked at a temperature precise to a few degrees for a time calculated accordingly, then the approach could be considered modernist. Even more so if the chef calculated the temperature and time based on the physics of heat transfer and the size of each pudding. A computer might work out that puddings are best cooked at a very high temperature for a very short time, for example. Once that maths has been done the resulting recipe may look like any other baking recipe, but the approach would be modernist. I don't think a modernist approach automatically means unusual ingredients and high-end equipment.

Modernist cooking isn't just fancy chemicals, there's a lot of basic precision too. Make sure your recipe is consistent with digital scales, your oven temperature is accurate with a digital thermometer, and your timing is accurate with a digital timer. If you get the puddings to a consistent temperature before baking then you should be able to find a combination of oven time and temperature that gives you consistent results. The size and colour of the ramekins you use will also affect the result. A modernist approach would be to make sure everything is done exactly the same way, every time.

I never really liked omelettes until I had a soft, un-browned one. But for me the secret is butter. Loads and loads of butter. My ideal omelette is closer to a mound of scrambled eggs than a crepe, but I'll forgive a lot if there's enough butter. Butter butter butter. Who was it that said everything taste better with butter? So true :-)

A recipe for mandarin creme brûlée popped up in the SMH today: http://www.goodfood.com.au/good-food/cook/recipe/mandarin-creme-brulee-20121123-29w95.html I can still remember a mandarin souffle from a french restaurant in the late 80's. The souffle was served in a hollowed out mandarin - pretty amazing stuff back then.

Great to know, thanks! Basting in butter sounds like a great step, I'll try that next. I have tried searing them in butter but it burns too easily. But I love the taste of butter and it should also promote the maillard reactions that brown the scallops - I once tried dusting the chilled scallops in powdered milk before searing them to see if that helped them caramelise (after seeing Heston do it with chicken wings) but it didn't seem to do much. Basting in butter after they've been seared sounds like the best of all worlds...

I'm not claiming credit for the technique, as I said before I've found more info on scallops on other websites than eGullet, so I thought I'd take some photos to share with the members here to expand the knowledge base and prompt discussion. I did google around to try and find the original site that got me onto the cling film step, and it wasn't the Ideas In Food one - which as far as I can see doesn't mention rolling them up in cling film. The problem with reading so many websites, blogs and books on food is that I tend to lose track of what I read and where. I do know that the website / blog that suggested rolling up the scallops in cling film definitely suggested cooking them at 35C (actually maybe the site I'm thinking of rolled them in proscuitto too at the same time? memory is playing tricks on me...) Maybe I found a blog of someone who had read the Ideas In Food post and posted their own attempts... If I do find it again I'll post the link...

Cookalong is right, the cling wrap keeps them nice and tight and round. If you drop them randomly into a foodsaver bag they can get squashed - which wouldn't affect the flavour, but can make them more difficult to sear. Weinoo - I envy you. I'm not buying premium scallops. The juicy fresh local ones are quite expensive and generally out of my league, so I'm picking up the bulk, imported frozen ones a handful at a time. Brining does make a difference to them, though, you can visibly see them plump up. Next time I'll weigh them before and after to see what the difference is.

I have a special place for pumpkin soup. The first pumpkin soup I tried was basically a thin,watery, blended boiled pumpkin which I didn't like at all. Then one day my sister made a soup with 50/50 pumpkin/carrots that was sweet, thick and delicious and changed my mind. I evolved my own pumpkin soup recipe that was crammed full of flavour - starting with 50/50 carrots and pumpkin boiled in chicken stock, but including caramelised onion, smoked bacon, red capsicum and fresh ginger with a splash of port. I thought my recipe was great but then I had a flatmate who made a pumpkin soup by roasting the pumpkin first, adding a dash of coconut milk and a teaspoon of peanut butter. The result was something with a subtle hint of Asia that was totally and completely different to mine and every bit as delicious. My wife's favourite is leek & potato. I have always wondered if vichyssoise is just cold leek & potato soup or if there's some special element to it to make it unique...

I thought I'd share the technique I've been using to cook scallops SV. When I first searched for info on scallops here a few years there wasn't much, but I found a few tips on other sites. We eat fresh fish at least once a week and when I'm at the fishmonger I sometimes get a 'handful' of scallops at the same time if I feel like a treat. A few weeks ago I tried cooking scallops normally - ie. just pan frying them - to compare them against sous vide. The sous vide scallops were much, much softer. I also brine the scallops before cooking them and I'm not sure if it's the brining or the SV, but when I sear the SV scallops they caramelise much much quicker than ones that haven't been brined and SV'd first. I use an equilibrium brine, with the ratios from MC for a basic seafood brine. When I'm ready to cook them, the trick is to roll them up in cling film first... ...then bag them as usual. I've been cooking them at 50C for about 30 minutes, I haven't noticed if higher or lower temperatures make much difference. I want them to be cooked through - that's the point of the SV step - but these temperatures are too low to pasteurise so I have to be mindful of safety. 30 minutes seems to work well. I read one blog that suggested scallops cooked at 35C gave them an amazing custard-like texture, but I like mine hotter (I'm the same with fish - I tried Tetsuya's ocean trout at 42C but it just didn't feel right to me). Today I tried 45C and didn't notice any difference from cooking them at 50C - I thought I'd try a lower temp than 50C as searing them afterwards bumps up the temperature so they don't 'feel' cold. When they're done I take them out the bag and pat them dry, this helps them to caramelise. Finally I heat a frying pan with olive oil and quickly sear them to get some colour and crust. They're already cooked so the frying pan can be smoking hot as all I'm after is colour. As noted above, I find that SV scallops colour up very quickly, much quicker than raw scallops. As a snack, I like mine dipped in a locally produced caramelised fig balsamic. Delicious!

Look, I admire your search for the perfect chicken parma but I think there's something decidedly un-Australian about making one that actually tastes like chicken. I love it when you can find a dodgy old pub where everything that comes out of the deep-fryer tastes exactly the same, no matter if it's beef, chicken, seafood or whatever. I like pubs where the question 'how often do you change your oil' is met with a blank stare. There's a unique flavour to deep-fried pub food that is fundamental to an 'authentic' chicken parma. I have no doubt your chicken parma is delicious - and next time I make them I'll try adding sage, that sounds good - but to suggest there's skill involved in frying the chicken for an Aussie chicken parma is like suggesting there's a level of skill involved in getting drunk ;-)