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LoftyNotions

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    Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine" (Part 4)

    in Cooking

    Posted

    I'm planning to serve scrambled eggs from MC (cooking the eggs sous vide and aerate in a siphon). Would it be alright to cook the eggs sous vide (72 C), chill the bag and put it in the fridge, and then reheat them in a 55 C bath and pour into the siphon? I only have one circulator and I need it at about 55C.

    That method has worked well for me.

    Larry

    Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine at Home" (Part 1)

    in Cooking

    Posted

    I feel like I'm behind the curve here, never having read the book. I feel like I've been playing in some dark arts til I stumbled on this forum. I got a bag of transglutaminase yesterday, and my centrifuge, so I'm off to explore more and see what happens. Cheers.

    What, no rotary evaporator yet???

    Just kidding. :) Welcome, and let us know what you're concocting.

    Larry

    Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine at Home" (Part 1)

    in Cooking

    Posted

    Thanks for the response. How do you calculate the exact amount of salt, sugar and cure you need?

    In general, most cured meats (either hot smoked or cooked in some manner) use proportions of approximately 2% salt, 1% sugar, and 0.25% Cure #1. Salt and sugar can be adjusted a little for taste. So, for bacon, if I had 1 kg of pork belly I would dry rub it with 17.5 grams of salt, 10 grams of sugar, and 2.5 grams of cure #1. The reason to not use 20 grams of salt in this case is that the cure is made of mostly salt. Also, my personal preference is for a lot less sugar, but a lot of recipes call for around 1%.

    For something like a corned beef or pastrami, I would brine it in an amount of water that would cover it. For the sake of this example, let's say that is 1kg, and we have 1 kg of brisket for a total of 2 kg. Just use twice the quantities listed above.

    Soak or cure times depend on thickness and whether you inject (for brines). Recipes will call for a minimum cure time, but if you go longer your product will not be too salty.

    Or, if you were just looking for a short answer, ... By weight. :smile:

    HTH,

    Larry

    Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine at Home" (Part 1)

    in Cooking

    Posted

    A great resource to get you started with brining/curing is Jason Molinari's (an eGullet contributor) blog found here: http://curedmeats.blogspot.com/

    Another place with good information is: http://www.wedlinydomowe.com/

    The gist of equilibrium brining/curing is that you use the exact amount of salt, sugar and cure you need, rather than using large amounts of ingredients for a specific time and then rinsing or soaking your product to remove the excess. The big advantage to me is that even if you cure your meat a couple extra days it still won't be too salty.

    Larry

    Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine" (Part 4)

    in Cooking

    Posted

    Thanks for your experience, FP

    I have both the "Tomes" and MC@H is there a way to find the errata on-line?

    I plan to get CSA carrots ( 'get the best you can' ) this sat for this. as the helpful hint from ChrisH re buy the carrot juice.

    although I did go to Whole Paycheck to get some Fish Sauce and was reminded why I never go there.

    maybe a 'Juice Bar' in the Mall?

    You can get the MC errata from this page. You can get it as a pdf. http://modernistcuisine.com/2011/04/to-err-is-human/

    HTH,

    Larry

    Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine" (Part 4)

    in Cooking

    Posted · Edited by LoftyNotions (log)

    OK, so regarding the famous caramelized carrot soup...

    Attempt #1 was a while ago when I got the book. At the time the errata and various tips were not yet available so I ended up with burnt carrots at the bottom of my pressure cooker. I diligently separated the burnt bits from the rest of the soup but the burnt/bitter taste had contaminated everything, and it was not edible.

    Attempt #2 was two days ago. I got so much carrots in my CSA recently that I decided to experiment again. I followed the updated instructions, with the butter pre-melted and the cooking time reduced to 25 min. My pressure cooker is the aluminum - venting kind (an antique "SEB") if that makes a difference. After about 20 min the smell mutated from caramelized carrots to burnt caramel and I knew I was in trouble. I opened the lid and sure enough, I got burnt carrots again. A very thick layer of charcoal...

    I think that might be the original problem. (Venting pressure cooker) Glad you finally got a good result.

    I can use the original recipe and go over an hour without burning.

    Larry

    Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine at Home" (Part 1)

    in Cooking

    Posted · Edited by LoftyNotions (log)

    Chris,

    Our favorite has been the Barley With Wild Mushrooms and Red Wine on page 331. We love the texture of barley cooked this way. It hasn't failed us yet.

    The recipe accommodates a lot of variation in cheese, mushrooms, wine and stock.

    I'm more of a fan of a single pass pressure cook than par-cooking. It makes more sense to me in a home environment.

    Larry

    Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine" (Part 3)

    in Cooking

    Posted

    Thanks again Larry - I checked out the site and Jason says (on this page: http://curedmeats.bl...eat-of-all.html) that cure #1 is fine in this case as the meat is solid. I am not quite sure what that means but at least I know it is safe :) I am not excited to say that I will have a 4kg bacon and a 4kg pancetta! I bought a commercial meat slicer so I can't wait to try it out. Oh - also, Jason says to hang the meat for 3 weeks for pancetta so I will just leave it in the fridge when I am smoking the bacon.

    That should take care of part of your charcuterie needs for a while. :) I freeze a lot of sliced bacon and Pancetta, and it keeps well snuggled up in vac sealed bags.

    I think you'll really like your commercial slicer. It's a great addition to any foodie's gadget collection!

    Larry

    Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine" (Part 3)

    in Cooking

    Posted

    Thanks Larry - do you recommend "cooking" the unsmoked bacon in the smoker for the same duration and temperature without the smoke generator turned on?

    You could go ahead and throw it in without smoke. I guess I was thinking more along the lines of letting it dry in the refrigerator on a drying rack for a week or so, slicing it up and freezing what you weren't going to use in a relatively short period of time. Cooking could occur just before eating it. Pancetta would normally be dried for 3 to 4 weeks in a refrigerator, but I'm not sure about the safety of doing that using cure #1.

    Jason Molinari (another eGullet member) has an excellent blog on cured meats and covers Pancetta at http://curedmeats.blogspot.com/search/label/Cured%20meat%20%3A%20Solid%20muscles%20-%20Recipe .

    Larry

    Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine" (Part 3)

    in Cooking

    Posted

    Thanks for the advice guys. The duck is AWESOME - so delicious.

    I have another question - I am making the MC bacon and I decided to do a double batch so I currently have two 4kg blocks of it drying in the fridge after the curing process. I was thinking that it would be nice to have one smoked and one unsmoked. Given that the smoking on the bacon is done hot - do I need to cook the unsmoked bacon before consumption? Also, will the cure be too overpowering for the bacon if it isn't smoked?

    What you will end up with will be similar to Pancetta, with the major differences being different spicing, not drying it as long, and I also assume you used cure #1?

    I would definitely cook it before consumption. I don't think the cure would be any more overpowering whether smoked or not.

    It should taste just fine.

    Larry

    Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine at Home" (Part 1)

    in Cooking

    Posted · Edited by LoftyNotions (log)

    Was greeted with display shelves full of honeycrisp apples when I went to the market today, so the parsnip and apple soup is definitely on the menu tonight or tommorow!

    I have a question about the red wine glaze in the book if anyone has tried that recipe yet. In the first step you brown almost 3 pounds of ground meat, set it aside, then use some of the rendered fat from it in the next step. None of the remaining grease nor the meat is mentioned again, so am I correct in assuming that you are only using the ground meat to obtain rendered beef fat, and then are left with a bunch of ground meat that you will need to repurpose?

    I would think that if they only wanted beef fat there would be better ways to get it than browning 1.25 KG of lean ground beef until dark brown. I made a note that I thought it should be put in around step 6. But I could be wrong.

    HTH.

    Larry

    Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment, 2012

    in Cooking

    Posted

    Does anyone know what happens to vegetables during long cook times? For reasons that are unimportant to go into right now, I'm cooking potatoes at 170F for 12 hours. What will I get at the end of it? Tender potatoes? Mush?

    The potato cooking I've done has been limited to 2 trials, first at 165F and the second at 175F. The first trial was for 60 and 90 minutes, both of which were undercooked. They were edible, but I wouldn't have served them to company like that. The second trial was for 60 minutes only, since there wasn't much difference between 60 and 90 minutes in the first trial. At 175, I would characterize the potatoes as al dente, but pleasant.In both cases, the potatoes were sliced and cooked in butter, salt and pepper.

    I'm sorry that doesn't specifically answer your question. Hopefully someone else will be along shortly to give you a better answer. You're kind of in no-man's land but I'd guess that you have a reasonable chance of having something edible.

    Larry

    Chamber Vacuum Sealers, 2011–2014

    in Kitchen Consumer

    Posted

    Minipack might be a higher build quality and better pump. I think one of the biggest differences would be the sensor vs timer functions. In other words the Minipack will stop after the desired pressure is reached as opposed to being set by a timer.

    This is the main reason I chose the Minpack. I'm also a home user, and don't really need the Minpack, but I've been happy with my purchase.

    If I'm not mistaken, the VPs won't pull quite as high a vacuum, at least the 210 and 112. Also, regarding chamber size, pint jars will fit inside the Minpack. With the Minpack, for large items you can turn the sealer bar around and use it as an external sealer using Foodsaver style bags.

    Hopefully some VP users will be along shortly to discuss their sealers.

    HTH,

    Larry

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