pbear

The whole point of using Ultrasperse is that it has much better flavor release than traditional starches. As I said, I'm not an expert, but my understanding is that the main advantages of Ultra-Sperse starches (and the similar Ultra-Tex ones) from a food service perspective are that (i) they're cold-swelling, so they consistently hit the desired consistency without careful attention to heating and stirring, and (ii) they're more stable than conventional starches (under which conditions apparently being the main difference among the various types). Perhaps there's also an advantage with respect to flavor release, but I've never seen this mentioned. Is it discussed in the main MC set? (Which, as mentioned, I don't have.) Stated a little differently, nickrey, of course one can use a conventional starch in a cook-up sauce or gravy. (Not a fan of potato starch, but the same comment would apply to ordinary cornstarch and tapioca flour.) I'm sure almost all of us have been doing this for years. It's mostly a question of whether the greater expense of modified starches is worth the advantages. In the middle is modified cook-up cornstarch, which is what I generally use for sauces and gravies, because it has the stability of the cold-swelling ones but is much less expensive. Also, it holds up pretty well in pressure canning, for which the cold-swelling starches aren't suitable. BTW, ChrisTaylor, glad to hear your gravy came out well.

Homemade and store-bought are not the same product and, for most, labor is required to earn the money to buy stock. Come, now. Labor to buy applies to both parts and cans. I was talking about the additional labor to turn parts into stock. Of course home made is better than canned. But I don't have any trouble understanding why most folks don't consider the difference worth the extra effort.

I agree. Being multi-cellular organisms, trichinae (the roundworms which cause trichinosis) are pretty easy to kill. The USDA regulations, for example, are a little more conservative than the quoted fact sheet, but still approve anything from 30 minutes at 130F to one minute at 140F. Cite (see table at p.2 of the pdf). This is well within any sous vide protocol anyone is going to use for pork. BTW, credit to jmolinari for posting this information in the original sous vide thread, which is where I learned about it.

It's also attributed to Irma Rombauer.

Not an expert. The main difference between the two is that 3 is made from tapioca, while M is made from corn. As i recall, Team Nathan prefers 3 to M for this reason alone. (That's based on @Home, as I don't have the full set.) For a little more information, see the Modernist Pantry entries for each, here and here. FWIW, MP lists sauces and gravies for 3, but doesn't mention any particular applications for M. That said, I'm pretty sure M will work for gravies, as it's heat stable. Haven't tried it, though. Mostly posting to supply the links. As for quantity, I'd start with one-to-one, then add a little more M if needed.

You're welcome. When reading the OP, it occurred to me I'd seen such a thing. A google search on "stackable oven racks" turned up those two sites, plus many more linking to the first.

Surely canned stock falls in the convenience category. Home made is only cheaper if one ignores labor. Also, for most folks (me included), there's a storage issue. Anyhoo, that was a fun thread to read. For me the real stumper is commercial bread, almost all of which has the texture of marshmallows. Obviously this is a convenience item as well. I certainly don't expect many people to make their own bread. But ISTM there should be enough demand for bread with texture that the commercial bakers would supply it. Here in San Francisco, we don't have anything equivalent to Arnold's or Peppridge Farm. Even the rye bread is marshmallows. And, no, I don't want everythng to be artisanal and heavy crusted. That market, actually, is pretty well covered. What stumps me is why the general public doesn't demand something between the two. To the extent, at least, of making it a commercially viable option.

Apparently a company called Nifty makes what you're looking for. Out of stock on Amazaon, but allegedly in stock at Williams-Sonoma.

FWIW, I'm expecting a retherm time of four to six hours for an 8 lb ham. Will be monitoring with a thermometer, so I'll know when it's gotten there and get some idea of the curve. Will decide whether it's worth the trouble when I'm done. As it happens, I'll be heating a ham the conventional way for a pot luck dinner with friends on Christmas Eve (actually, it's the hostess' ham, but I handle the kitchen), so will have a good basis of comparison. Indeed, figuring out whether to use sous vide for that dinner next year is the main point of the experiment for me. Unfortunately, of course, that doesn't help you this year. BTW, I happened to be researching carrageenan this evening and noticed mention of its use in meat processing. See, e.g., this FAO fact sheet, especially section 7.3.3 (towards bottom of the page). I wonder whether that might have been the issue with the ham you didn't like. Apparently they generally use kappa for this application. Was unable to determine how common the process.

Gotcha. Thanks for the elaboration.

On review, I notice you want to further cook the ham to reduce connective tissue. My bad. It's right there in the OP. Sorry.

Paul, thanks for the update. A few questions. First, when you say the steaks were rock hard after 15 minutes, I assume that doesn't mean frozen all the way through. (Otherwise, why bother with the second round of freezing.) Is that correct? Second, I assume you'd mention if you had a problem with the bags cracking. Is it fair to infer you didn't? Third, I'm somewhat puzzled as to why you put the vacuuming step in the middle. Seems to me that would have been best done at the beginning. What was the reason for doing it in the middle?

I've not tried this yet, but intend to next week. I've been planning on a much shorter cook than you, though, as I view this as simply retherming rather than cooking as such. After all, as you note, the ham is already cooked (generally, as I understand it, in a steam oven at low temp). An uncooked one would be a whole nuther kettle of fish, of course. Haven't decided how long the retherm will take, by the way, as it will depend on thickness and I don't yet have the ham. The main thing I'm the fence about is temp. Will try both low and medium eventually, but probably will do the latter first (i.e., 150F), as I find water-added hams rather flabby and think I'll probably be happiest drawing some of that off. YMMV.

Whereas raisins in meatballs sounds good to me. Putting on the list of recipes to try. Don't think I'd like them in tomato sauce, though, which a little googling indicates is traditional. Rather, I'll probably go with Middle-Eastern seasoning for the meatballs and a tajine-style sauce.

I assume the question is whether the storage drawer gets so hot as to degrade the PTFE nonstick coating. So long as the drawer stays below 500F (cite), you should be fine. The one wrinkle which occurs to me is whether it's a self-cleaning oven. If so, I'd empty the drawer when running that cycle.

FWIW, Robenco15, I find that infusions are best strained with a gold-mesh coffee filter. Clarity is good, as the solids generally are on the large side (compared to other things we strain out) and it doesn't absorb any of the liquid (better yields). For other stuff, I mostly use fine-meshed metal strainers and occasionally cloth. As regards the Chemex filters, it occurs to me that iit might be helpful to moisten with water when fitting into a sieve, which will soften the filter and make it easier to conform to the sieve. Just a thought.

How about a salad? As I recall, that's a traditional Italian way to do courses and seems to me it would fit well with your menu.

Robenco15, what are you planning to strain? There are many ways to do this and which is most suitable depends, in part, on what's being strained and the level of clarity desired.

Another endorsement for the Kill-a-Watt. It's wizard and dead simple to use. Can display in watts or amps, and can display total killowatt hours used since plug-in.

rotuts, don't know whether my experience is typical, but I've had rather poor success desalting country-style hams by soaking whole in cold water. No matter how much water I use or how many changes, the hams remain unrepentant salt bombs. Cooking one sous vide has never occurred to me, but what I'd do is this. Cut across the grain into thick slabs (you'll need a hacksaw to get through the bone). Pack in bags with an equal amount by weight of water. Cook 24 hours at 140F or so, as you suggest. This will both cook the ham and, I think, gently draw out about half the salt. To be clear, that's not tried-and-true. Just thinking aloud. But it's what I'd try.

FWIW, Paul, I agree and disagree with Shalmanese about dry aging in a home fridge. That is, I've done it successfully, but you have to be careful not to dry out the meat too much. In which regard, a week would be too long IMHO. For steaks, I've gotten best results with two days, where roasts can take three or four (depending on thickness). I flip every 12 hours, as the upper surface dries faster than the lower one (even with a rack, which I assume you intend to use). Then I wrap with plastic film and chill another 24 hours to equalize the evaporation. Works for me. If you have your own tried-and-true protocol, feel free to ignore all that. Looking forward to your report on the dry ice freezing experiment.

I had a similar thought on reading the OP, except I'd use a fully-saturated saline solution. Cheaper and less volatile. Use the dry ice to chill. (One could use regular ice, of course, as with an ice cream freezer, but dry ice would be more cool, so to speak, and would avoid any issue of dillution.) Vacuum pack the meat, then freeze in the bath. This will be faster than freezing conventionally, or even in a box with dry ice, as water is much more conductive than air. Whether any of that will make a significant difference in the final product is more than I know, as I've not tried it. But, if I did, this is how I'd go about it. A fully saturated salt solution freezes at -21C. Dry ice sublimates at -78C and ethanol freezes at -114C. You can get denatured alcohol fairly cheaply at a hardware store, it's going to work better than saline. I realize alcohol will get much colder, but has its own issues, like effects on the plastic bags. In any event, I think immersion in a sub-freezing liquid (even saline) will be more effective than circulating dry ice chilled air. As the latter is the method the OP has decided to try, I'll be interested to hear about his results. As, I'm sure, are all of us.

Ozcook: With respect, I think you're missing the point of the study linked by ChrisZ. (Which, I will say, was news to me.) The standard assumption, and the one underlying your OP, is that brief cooking at high temp kills substantially all bacteria. See, e.g.,, the American FSIS tables for cooking beef and poultry. The linked study suggests this assumption is overly optimistic. Now, it may be that the real lesson to be learned here is that the effectiveness of brief-high-temp depends on the bacterial load (most failures in the study came early in the slaughter process), but knives vs. meat isn't the issue. BTW, I notice you skipped over the parasites problem. FeChef: If bacteria can migrate into the interior of sous vide fish, the whole premise of the OP and my own practices with respect to previously frozen are suspect. (Surely you don't assume the bacteria can only migrate at moderate temps) Do you have a cite?

I had a similar thought on reading the OP, except I'd use a fully-saturated saline solution. Cheaper and less volatile. Use the dry ice to chill. (One could use regular ice, of course, as with an ice cream freezer, but dry ice would be more cool, so to speak, and would avoid any issue of dillution.) Vacuum pack the meat, then freeze in the bath. This will be faster than freezing conventionally, or even in a box with dry ice, as water is much more conductive than air. Whether any of that will make a significant difference in the final product is more than I know, as I've not tried it. But, if I did, this is how I'd go about it.

Ozcook, you don't mention parasites. Hard freezing will solve that problem, see § 3‑402.11 of the FDA Food Code, but AFAIK heat is the only control for parasites that works with fresh fish (except tuna, which apparently doesn't get them). See Baldwin. Indeed, as I too don't care for the texture of sous vide pasteurized fish, I use sous vide only for previously hard-frozen (or tuna) and cook to very low temp (below pasteurization). Fresh I cook by conventional methods.