faronem

Has anyone experience with cooking eggs sous vide for extended periods of time? It's been my experience that cooking meats for too long, even at precise temperatures, can cause textural changes--sometimes rubbery sometimes mushy. I'm wondering if this could be used with cooking eggs to some advantage.

Has anyone ever made "uova inhaminade" or long-cooked eggs? I'm looking for suggestions for a good temperature at which to cook them and any experience regarding length of time. I'm equally curious if anyone has tried to do this sous vide?

Well those just look awesome, whatever they are. I think they are likely Assam lemons--The last time I saw them, I think I was in NYC buying an etrog and they were nearby. Assam lemons seem like citrons to my nose--the peel is wonderfully perfumed and maybe thats the Chinese slang. Less likely, maybe this: http://idtools.org/id/citrus/citrusid/factsheet.php?name=Faustrimedin

When I am home curing pork, say to make guanciale, pancetta, or coppa, I typically put the meat, cure #1 or #2 depending, spices/herbs together then vacuum seal and keep at about 38F it until I'm ready to do whatever I plan next for it, such as air curing. Rarely is it left in the bag for very long...the longest stretch has been 2 weeks. It has always been successful for me. This time I have a situation where I have several cures which have had to sit vacuum sealed for a very extended period--nearly 4 months. I am confident the temperature was controlled under 40F the entire time. Given the length of time in an anaerobic environment, my first instinct was to toss them out due to fears about botulism. But the more I think about it, I'm questioning whether they might be ok--they are well coated what is effectively a wet cure of salt and sodium nitrate. Importantly, these only have #1. My major concern is the potential for botulism. Secondary concerns would be texture or salt content issues. I have not yet opened the packages, but all visual indications are good--great color, good firmness, no visual mold, discoloration or other visual cues. Obviously putrid odors would require that I trash them, but a lack of putrid odors doesn't rule out botulism toxin. Thanks for any advice!

Well then, Keller probably wouldn't mind them The reference picture from 'ad hoc' above demonstrate the 'teeth' and easily cause tears.

If you put it in water for that long, I'm guessing the water content is going to increase and you're not going to have something with the texture of coppa. Agreed on both points. I wonder what the impact on texture would be if I let it bathe, then re-hung it for a few days?

Tongs have teeth. Teeth chew. For me, for occasions when I can't use a spoon, I find offset pallet knives work great, even on a grill or broiler. Though, they are handy when you need to open a beer bottle. Or for grabbing that mussel which foolishly leapt out of your pan, is now literally on fire, but wedged in the gas burner.

I'm sure this matter has been discussed in part or whole somewhere on egullet, but after 20 minutes of various searches I sure can't find it! ]So, thanks for a pointer if you know of a previous thread. In short, I recently cut down a coppa I made and the end product ended up having too salty a taste. I've made this recipe several times with great success. This time, I'm positive the extra saltiness has to do with the fact that, due to an personal emergency, it had to spend too much time in the salt cure before it was hung (as in over a week extra). This raises a few questions for me about procedures and troubleshooting. 1. First, obviously, any suggestions for an after-the-fact how to rectify this too-salty coppa? Of course, I could chop it up and mix it into some sort of cooked dishes, but in this case, I'm specifically curious about ideas to rescue it to make it more palatable to eat on it's own. I'm open to experimentation. 2. Given that I knew that it had spent too long in the cure, what would have you advised that I had done previous to air curing? I gave it a good vinegar and water washing and about a 1 hour cold water bath before hanging. 3. Can a too-salty result be the result of too much salt in the cure? I wouldn't think so, but now I'm curious. It's been my experience that the amount of salt is less of an issue than the length of time it spends curing. I've always relied on visual cues and firmness. Thanks for any ideas.

It really depends on how gelatinous is your stock. I find if it has any real body or viscosity, it makes the risotto gummy. I really prefer broth. If you don't have broth, I'd severely thin down the stock at least 50/50 with water--or more. As other have mentioned, use the filtered broth from reconstituting your shrooms.

Flott?

Thanks--your point about removing scum is well taken. I guess I wasn't clear about my cloudiness question--I was wondering if the toenails (not the whole foot) themselves might cause cloudiness. I'd rather not spend time giving these things a manicure if it isn't necessary.

Works fairly well for marinaded thinly sliced flank steak. I found out the hard way that the block cannot have any moisture in it at all before warming (read: explosion). If you wash it off, even with a wet towel, it can take a good 24hrs to dry thoroughly. Melting chocolate onto a cold block is also a good show.

I recently acquired a large amount of frozen chicken feet. I've cooked and eaten these before, but here I'll primarily be using them to enrich a chicken stock. I found a few old threads on this topic, but I didn't see any address my questions; apologies if I missed something. Do the talons/nails/claws actually need to be removed? Specifically, I'm curious if they will cloud a stock. These feet do appear to be de-yellowed/scraped/skinned. What weight proportions might you recommend to just add body? I'm thinking somewhere around 3::1 for bones::feet. Also, I'm curious if anyone can describe a stock made exclusively with the feet. Would you describe it as neutral? I wouldn't imagine it would produce a deep chicken flavor, but I'm unclear if it would produce it's own flavor. Thanks in advance for any time saving tips.

Filling tortellini, surrounded by the aroma of parmesan brodo.

If you look at what your family is saying from a different perspective, is it possible they're saying you don't have enough other flavors to balance it out, like fat or sourness?

The rule I've always followed for a roux ratio destined to make a sauce consistency is 1lb flour, 1lb butter per gallon of fluid. I'm guessing that's what you mean by 2lbs of roux per gallon. I've used this with volumes up to 10gals with no trouble. I'll add water to offset evaporation to end up with a finished sauce volume equal to my starting liquid. A few possibilities come to mind. It is possible you're shocking or breaking the starch in the flour because your butter is too hot when making the roux. Similarly, if your milk is too cold (it should be scalded) it can shock the flour and prevent thickening. The sauce would need to come to a full boil throughout after adding in the milk in order to thicken properly. Are you weighing out the flour (vs. volume measurements)? After making your 54lbs of roux in a large batch, I imagine you could test a small batch of it (1/4c roux per 1c liquid) to measure its effectiveness.

Regardless of "sv vs. old" methods of cooking, the commonality I see in all the suggestions is that cooking (slowly?) to a specified temperature is key to retaining a sense of moisture.

If you're curious about documented dishes, you could start with old cookbooks such as "Le Viandier de Taillevent" circa late 1300's. I'm sure if you researched some of the dishes you'd find he mostly documented dishes which were made long before he published it. Although many of the proteins have fallen out of favor (e.g., peacock), there are recipes for soups, potages, apple tarts, and roasted meats you could likely find on a menu somewhere today. I also remember reading that Jordan Almonds are likely one of the oldest desserts.

With that lean of a meat, I'd probably dry poach it, seasoned and buttered on both sides, in between parchment. Or, if you wanted to be fancy, how about slow poached in a beurre monté?

Maybe you mean pearl onions? Invariably, I end up making some sort of holiday onion dish which involves caramelizing to sweeten, souring with vinegar, and coloring with beet jus.

I always used a middle-of-the-road type, like orange blossom or clover honey.

When I lived in Florida, for years I had a pretty good sized pepper garden with several types of habeneros. One "tree" had a 4 inch diameter base stem! They're so damn hot, but unlike most other hot pepper, they have so much flesh with so much deep flavor. Here's what I've found to work for me. I should mention, before you do anything, and I'll spare you the ghastly details, but experience has shown that you want to wear gloves. I'd first recommend that you fully remove the stems, piths, and seeds and lightly roast them skin down for about an hour (or longer if you prefer) in a 200F oven. The goal isn't to brown, just to eliminate some of the water content. You can use them raw, but when prepped like this, you can better manage both the heat and true pepper flavor. Although the seeds and pith are much hotter than the flesh and skin, I've also found that the former are much more variable and the latter are more consistent. Also, to me, the seeds and pith seem mostly just heat and little flavor. However, I've rarely ever used them in the kitchen without first preserving them. The first way, as someone mentioned earlier, is vodka. I've had good luck then taking the peppers and putting about 6 in 1.75 liter of vodka (anything over Smirnoff grade seemed to get lost with the peppers). Let settle for 30 days before use and the heat will tame slightly. Eventually, the peppers will completely lose their color and blanch into ghostly floating forms of their original selves. Pretty interesting addition to a vinaigrette or any marinade. The second, and my very favorite, is to fine chop the lightly roasted peppers and preserve in honey (maybe a 50-50 ratio). After about two weeks, the deep habernero flavor comes through very clearly and the heat seems somewhat tamed by the honey. I never managed to keep them past 3 months (because they got used or given away) but I did keep them refrigerated. Of course, I've put this directly on toast like marmalade (with mascarpone), but frequently put it in various dishes both savory (try it in a pommarola sauce) and sweet (muffins, ice cream). Good luck!

Although I've not read that book, I'd suspect Keller is talking about bringing refrigerated proteins (not thawing from frozen) to room temperature prior to cooking to help ensure more even heat distribution for high-heat/quick-cooking techniques, like pan searing. It shouldn't be a problem if you're thawing or "de-refrigerating" as part of the cooking process and the temp continues to increase. In other words, you're effectively starting to "cook" the meat/fish in a 70F oven--the air in your kitchen--but you wouldn't want hold any part of it at 70F.

Thanks for all the good ideas. I ended up prepping nearly everything in advance and leaving just the grilling and boiling for the site. Since this was for all practical purposes, "car camping", I didn't need to hike the food and gear. I also intentionally selected items which (mostly) didn't require to be refrigerated. Instead of "cook-to-order", I did "assemble-at-leisure". I brought foods people were happy to eat for nearly any meal and could be put out while making a fire (or futzing with the campstove propane): crostini grilled on-site the first night with a slew of pre-made toppings (eg. pickled anchos & shallot, caramelized onions, celery/fennel slaw, etc), some simple charcuterie, about 2 gallons of my salsa, fruits, cheeses. I thought the pesto was a great idea and was also a big hit with the kiddos--it was especially valuable to be able to get hot food quickly into a mob of 5-year-olds. Main meals ended up being a fish protein with the crostini toppings as the condiments, e.g., grilled red snapper (marinade made prior, but soaked on-site) wrapped in tortillas. Breakfast egg burritos with salsa or coleslaw. Various sides were big easy hits, like the coleslaw and the grilled whole corn (soaked on site for about an hour before grilling) with a compound ancho butter. I thought we'd re-use the leftover corn for the vege-chili, but it didn't make it that far. Besides toasted marshmallows and smores, the blueberries and black raspberries with light cream and marsala were a great late night snack. Thanks again for the good ideas.

I'm going on a large camping trip--18 adults and 12 kids--and have been asked to cook breakfast, lunch and dinner for a two days. I'll only have access to a couple of little camping propane stoves and a fire pit. I have plenty of ad hoc recipes which I've used in the past during camping. My rule has always been to plan to re-use the leftovers (e.g., if a simple curry is for dinner, then curry burritos for breakfast). However, I'm seriously struggling for good ideas due to the large number of people and serious dietary restrictions. Basically, I'll need to plan "pesco-vegetarian" meals--fish only, no poultry or meat, and no shellfish! Dairy and eggs are fine, as is cheese (albeit not *with* the fish ). Here are several simple ideas I have so far: Breakfast -pancakes -breakfast burritos -'eggs in a hole' (for kids) -fried eggs or simple frittata Lunches -all the classic sides: cole slaw, potato salad -grilled cheese -cold sandwiches -I'd love to do a paella, but wonder about the limited protein options... Dinner -poached fish -maybe a foil-roasted baked whole fish or two -grilled corn, grilled potatoes -asparagus and some sort of compound butter (or fiddleheads, if I can still find them) -rice and beans -mac and cheese (for the kids) I'm not exactly asking for recipes (although that'd be great, too), just ideas and directions where to take this. Any thoughts or comments would be wonderfully appreciated! Mark