Luke

The first two of six Haogen Melons ripened today in the garden..... Now I just need to buy some prosciutto to wrap it with....thats if I (and the rest of the family) stop eating it...

Now I cannot claim credit, but inspired from this epicurous recipe: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/celery-root-and-apple-soup-239846 my lovely wife made Parsley Root Soup, as we just dug a bed of 2 year old Italian Parsley. Wow...Double Wow! We made it with regular Italian parsley, but given how great this was I think I might just have to source "Hamburg" parsley grown specifically for its roots! Cheers Luke

Jim, I suspect most domestic ice cream machines have the same issue, although I dont know what you mean by "substantial". My kitchen aid leaves about 2mm on the side of the bowl. I dont try and remove it, or scrape it off and incorporate into the main mix. I leave it as a treat for the ice cream maker (unless the kids beat me to it). I still get a good chill in a short time, but my bowl is frozen to -27 deg C so that helps. Luke

A few comments regarding water baths. Back in June I spent some time experimenting with the water bath method using Ruben's chocolate ice cream recipe that required 60 minutes @ 71.4 deg C. I'll be honest, there was no way I was standing in front of a gas stove maintaining that temperature for 60 minutes...and I did think Ruben was a little quirky for even posting it, but being an engineer myself I appreciate sometimes you have to do what has to be done. At the time, I had just purchased a Sansaire immersion sous vide heater, so the obvious answer was to use a hot water bath for 60 minutes, with occaisional stirring to achieve the protein denaturing and evaporation. Right? Here are the problems I encountered: - You can't use a sealed plastic bag (like you do in normal sous vide) as you wont get evaporation - A water bath is not like a bain-marie : so anything vessel you place in it will try and float - Stainless mixing bowl + the base mix did not have enough weight, but a heavy glass mixing bowl was ok (still a pain) - The "system" is constantly loosing heat, so it can be tricky to get the right water temp to achieve the target mix temp. A lot of experimenting was required. - Even tho I rate the Sansaire temp control as excellent, the reaction time to heat/cool is too slow to accurately maintain target temp So I have to say my experients at using a hot water bath with immersion heater to make the temperature regulation practical over 60 mins was a fail. I think however, the real game changer is Ruben's revised method of 25 mins using milk powder to compensate. I found the time bearable. I even caught up with a few episodes of fail army while doing do. I did use a metal saucepan with a solid copper clad bottom, if anything I needed a shallower pan to assist with evaporation. You need a digital thermoter that reads in 0.1 deg increments. With the smallest burner, gas on low, and the flame half-under the pot, I could without too much effort, keep the temperature between 71.0 and 72.0 deg. Yes I did need to slide the pot onto more or less flame and use the thermometer to watch the temperature trend, so you would sort of watch the temp start to fall, and pre-empt the need for a bit more heat, etc. It wasn't all that bad for 25 minutes...but I'd still like to find a better solution. The only other thought I have had revolves around the magnetic stirring hotplate method... Ruben, I'd love to see a revised chocolate recipe revolving around 25 mins. Luke

I churned the lemon curd ice cream tonight and I have to admit, I don't know exactly what to say. Wow! Double Wow! What a texture and flavour! This is one awesome ice cream. The flavour profile is spot on, this is not "lemon" ice cream, this is "lemon curd" ice cream. It puts all the effort of holding 72 deg C for 25 minutes into context. I think I just found my (new) favourite Ice Cream recipe... I made only one variation to the churn. I first mixed the custard base and the curd in a seperate bowl using a stick blender. As I use a kitchen aid frozen bowl, some ice cream will always set on the sides of the bowl, as you cannot force the blade against the side like you can in a cuisinart. To avoid flecks of unflavoured base in the ice cream (which could happen while removing the ice cream at the end), I mixed both together first and then added to the bowl combined. Other than that, this recipe is a gem. You have my respect Ruben, well done! Luke

Rubén, I made the lemon curd ice cream tonight. It is ageing overnight in the fridge. I was 30g short of my target weight loss after 30mins, but I suspect my thermometer might read 1 deg low. Also, the lemon zest quantity seems wrong. Juice of 4 lemons resulted in juice close to your target but zest of 4 lemons on micro plane was only 11g. Can't wait to churn it tomorrow. Now, back to eBay to find that magnetic stirring hot plate. Luke

My favourite Tuesday night Shiraaz!!! Actually, I had one tonight as well, albeit 2009. They do age well for a mid priced wine. Luke

Ruben, Could you provide more guidance on the quantity of lemon juice? Juice of six lemons could end up wildly inaccurate based on the size and juice content of the lemon. Thanks Luke

I have now settled (for the moment) on the Pain de Campagne as our standard loaf for baking during the week.... What I have been experiementing with is flour blends. I was originally using 100% Tipo 00 at 12.5% protein, and while the bread was awesome, the crumb was really chewey. Maybe a bit too chewey ... Forkish recommends a flour between 11% and 12%. So I made a few loaves blending the Tipo 00 with "Plain Flour" which in Australia is cake flour, a low gluten all purposes type flour, my plain flour was 10.5% protein. I settled on blend ratio of 70% Tipo 00 @ 12.5% protein and 30% plain @ 10.5%, for the portion of white flour in the recipe. A couple of observations: - Oven spring has increased by 25%. So much now that the loaf will hit the lid of the dutch oven and compress. - The crumb is noticably softer. It still has a nice chewy texture, but not the jaw breaking chew of before - The crumb cooks out a bit easier. By that I mean it doesn't seem to suffer from undercooking as the previous 100% Tipo 00 flour type did. - Taste is just as awesome, however I think my levain has changed its personality. This week our breads have had a more noticable sour twang, subtle but more notificable than before. We love it! I will now scale the recipe down to 75% so the single (combined) loaf fits into the dutch oven with compressing on lid. Cheers Luke This is a really large loaf! I mean really really large! And that's a big banana for comparison!

Baked the Field Blend #2 yesterday in the large dutch oven. The baked loaf weighed in at 1.5kg! Field Blend #2 is a different animal to the Pain de Campagne, no doubt due to the rye. After proofing in the fridge, it was more fragile and sticky when trying to get it in the dutch oven. The bake went really well.... Crust was much darker, and I left it in the oven for quite some time. Crumb was a bit tighter as you would expect from a rye. The flavour is excellent, with some deep complex caramel/bitter overtones from the crust. This bread would go fantastically well with beer. But then again, it goes well with anything! ....Next experiment is see how Pain de Campagne works with plain flour (10.1% protein). Up until now, all of my white flour in these loafs has been Special White Tipo 00 (11.9% protein). Will let you know how I go.... Luke

Gave up on the idea of splitting the loafs into two dutch ovens 50/50 as I found it too time consuming, and I was a little concerned I'd be burning more electricity that I wanted too... So, I dug out the good old camping dutch oven! Now this dutch oven is a monster, and normally used on our camp fire, but it can easily accomodate the whole loaf. Baked the overnight white this time as my schedule would not allow a levain bread. Not bad. Could have left it a bit longer in the oven to brown up. It was a tad under-done in the center, but I put this down to changing to the larger/heavier dutch oven and changing the recipe as well. Note to self: dont change two variables at the same time! Actually, I think the issue was I used a pizza stone with this dutch oven like I did last time, but the cast iron is much thicker, so I will remove it next time. Crust and crumb Now dont get me wrong, this is good bread! But was it better than the levain bread? Not even close. The flavour was somewhat bland (but so are a lot of bakery breads), but it was definitely enjoyable. If I was to make a non levain bread again, I would go for the wholemeal to add some extra flavour. Cheers Luke

Another Ken Forkish convert. Started the Levain (from scatch) on Tuesday and followed it up with the Pain de Campagne on Sunday. Levain was made with 40% whole wheat, 40% whole rye, 20% whole spelt ratios. Awesome crumb and taste.

Eating it raw. However, I am shaving off the mould growth prior to consumption. Luke

My last batch of Bacon didn't go to plan, and I ended up leaving it in the cold smoker for too long, and it ended up very smokey. I did not want to throw it away, so I cut some of the bacon up anyway (which by the way, after a month of "settling" in the freezer turned out really good). But I kept one piece, and decided to dry it out. Now I didn't have a curing chamber, or anything else to control temperature, but I did have winter on my side. So I wrapped it up in some cloth, and hung it in a dry place, exposed to the outside air. I forgot about it for 3 months. So, here it is. Fungus and all! I wasn't sure what to make of it. I had left the skin on one side to avoid drying it out too much, and the flesh side did dry out a bit, but not as much as I expected. The mould - well, if I die in a few days, it was nice knowing you all. The taste - awesome. Just fantastic. Deep, earthy, funky, but with the salt/sweet balance of the bacon. The smoke? Subtle and lingering, but fantastic. The texture....soft and delicate fat, slight chewier as you get closer to the dry flesh side, but excellent in thin slices. Will I do it again...Definitely! Thanks Luke

Ruben et al, I made your chocolate ice cream using a double boiler method using the sansaire as described above. It worked well. The ice cream was great, definitely the smoothest mouth feel of any of the ice creams I have made. I need to tweak a few things. The stainless saucepan was not a good fit with the container that I had the hot water in. My thermometer is not accurate enough, but I was able to keep the mixture around 70 deg C to 71 deg C for the 60 minutes. Two questions: (1) You note 71.4 deg C is the ideal target temp for the 60 mins, but what is the impact of lower temps? ie: if held at 70 deg C instead of 71.4 deg C, is that 20% less effective ? (2) Lots of your recipes call for skim milk powder, but I have full cream milker powder? I can I still use it, but low the cream content to keep the fat content of the overall mix the same? Thanks Luke

Thanks Ruben. An alternative to bagging the mix, would be to suspend a bowl in the water (bai-marie style). I tested the Sainsaire out last night with some poached eggs, and it's temperature control is amazing. Once it reached 63.0 deg C it occaisionally fluctuated +/- 0.1deg C. The sainsaire has a strong pump, so it ensures enough turbulence in the water to get an even temperature distribution. While I'm keen to try your modified recipe, I'd rather start with the standard one. I have found a suitable sized rectangular plastic container to hold the water and have a stainless bowl sit on the lip of the container. This would ensure the bulk of the mixture is below water level. If the container floats, I could do the same with a heavier glass bowl. I'll let you know how I go. Luke

Ruben, I have just purchased a Sansaire (http://sansaire.com/) and one of my intentions is to make your ice cream using the device to hold the temp to 71.4 deg C, placing the mixture in a sealed bag. Have you tried something like this? Luke

Has anyone hot smoked their home made bacon twice? I like my smoke but I dont have a cold smoker, and my hot smoker is one of those stainless-steel fish smokers about the size of a medium apple packaging box. I smoke plenty of trout in it, about 30 mins for them, but I am a little worried it might get the bacon too hot too quickly. So I was wondering, could you smoke until the internal temp reaches 65 deg cel, remove, cool, chill in fridge overnight and do the process again. I guess I could freeze or semi-freeze the bacon before smoking, which in theory would mean it would take longer to get to 65 deg cel internal, therefore more time in the smoke. On second thoughts, I have never tried turning the alcohol burning flame down...which might work, but might also just produce less smoke too. Looking forward to my first bacon which is currently curing! Luke

Ruben, I will definitely try that Pistachio recipe! Will let you know how I go. Thanks. Luke

While making another batch of my Pistachio Ice Cream, it occurred to me that my extraction of Pistachio Flavour was not ideal, probably due to the course crumb like texture of the Pistachios after they were blended dry. So I fiddled with the techniqe, and by adding a small amount of warm water, I was able to turn the "crumb" into "paste. It worked really "well! Probably still not as good as the Pistachio paste the commercial shops use, but pretty darn close. This is the recipe I use (I am not expert, so my ratios are probably flawed) but it tastes pretty darn good and my friends all like it so why change... Ingredients: Beat 175g of caster sugar 6 egg yolks Bring to just below boiling 500ml (2 cups) full cream milk add to custard base as per normal methods. Cook out custard... Add 600ml of cream 1tsp of ground cinnamon 1/2tsp of ground cardamom 1/4tsp of ground nutmeg 1/4tsp of ground clove Strain and add 175g of unsalted shelled pistachios blended with a little warm water into a thickish paste Chill and into machine. Cheers Luke

At first glance, I was quite inspired by the book "Making Artisan Gelato" by Torrance Kopfer. Unfortunately, the first recipe I chose seems to have a mistake (well, I can't make it work for me). I chose to make raspberry gelato, which includes 2 Tb raspberry jam. The jam is added to the milk, cream & sugar prior to tempering the egg yolks. the problem is, the book states "heat milk, cream, sugar, raspberry jam to 77 deg C" - but the mixture splits at 65 deg C. i tried this twice, and both times I ended up with raspberry jam flavored sweet cottage cheese. On my third and final try, I omitted the jam from the start of recipe until I had made the custard. I added the raspberry puree, plus jam to the warm (but cooling) custard (at about 65 deg C), mixed thoroughly and strained to remove final seeds. The gelato is fantastic - a hit with everyone, but I just cant make sense of the jam being added to the milk at the start. It must be a mistake. Interestingly, I can only find one other recipe in his book that uses jam, the strawberry gelato. Although in that recipe, he adds jam to the uncooked custard, which sounds like an invitation to increase the potential for a split custard while your trying to cook (thicken) it. Anyone else had the same problem? The other recipes look fine to me (with my limited gelato making experience) Luke

...and Red food colouring but I'm sure the restaurants were not too keen to admit that one... Luke

I have settled on a recipe based around this one from Vah Reh Vah http://www.vahrehvah.com/Butter+Chicken:797 The written recipes on this site don't always match the video so you might modify based on your interpretation. Luke

In a heavy tomato based sauce I pretty much always use a small amount of red wine to deglaze the fried onions and garlic. Just make sure you cook it off so you are not left with a wine taste. Interestingly, in sauces with Bacon I use white wine, but I guess that comes down to personal preference. Anchovies are a must for me in tomato based sauce....Red wine, anchovies both help make a great base flavour. Luke

Just made the second batch tonight .... One comment I will make, I find it a lot easier to do the folding in a plastic container. You can put it back in the fridge between folds, and you can experiment with additional folds later on in the fermentation process (not sure if Reinhart would approved). I'm not sure I agree with Reinhart about not slashing prior to baking. I tried tonight, but my razor blade got stuck due to the high hydration. However, in the few places where the slashing did work, the bread rose significantly higher in that spot, so I think it would bring benefit. Maybe I misread the details about the slashing... Luke