pbear
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Posts posted by pbear
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FWIW, I think DDF was making a different point, i.e., that his friends who are always hunting for a deal would save even more money if they made a simple stock rather then throwing away their bones. He's not saying one need bones, and certainly not cleaned ones, to make stock. In fact, as DDF mentioned upthread, the best way to do this cheaply is to use whole legs cut into pieces. That said, supermarket chickens don't make very good stock IMHO (they're too mild) and I'm prettey sure that's why your various attempts were disappointing. Since canned is working for you, don't worry about it. And since you don't have bones you're throwing away, DDF's comment doesn't apply to you.
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LOL!
Mass market chickens?
Not hardly!!!!
The chickens I eat are raised by the local Mennonites.
Aromatics may or may not be added to the stock depending on how I intend to use it.
The few minutes of active time required is no big deal to me.
First, an apology. I misread the post to which I was responding and thought you had said "I apologize if ...", a form of apology I find particularly maddening, when in fact you said no such thing. My mistake, no excuses.
Second, I'm envious you can get good chickens at such low prices. (I assume these are the same ones you mentioned upthread as being $0.69/lb for legs and $0.99/lb for whole birds.) You do appreciate, I hope, that most of us don't have access to this sort of thing. Back when I was making my own stock (had a big freezer then), sourcing chickens worth the effort was the most difficult part of the exercise, and they were a good deal more expensive.
Third, coming back to the topic, I would suggest you're explaining why you go to the trouble of making chicken stock when most of us just buy it. That's fine and I do similar things. For example, I make my own dijon mustard, because it's not hard and a heck of a lot better IMHO than commercial brands. But I don't have any trouble understanding why most people don't bother. I respectfully submit you should take the same view on canned chicken stock.
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I have a Rösle food mill, which I like a lot, but it's almost three times as expensive as the OXO. I got it because I was uniformly dissatified with the cheaper ones I tried. (No experience, though, with the OXO.) In particular, the Rösle has a very good clamping mechanism.for holding the pusher in place, pusher instability being the main complaint I had with the others. Another thing I like about the Rösle is that discs are available in a wider range of hole sizes than any other I've seen.
As for whether a food processor will serve as well, about the only application I can think of where this is true is mashed potatoes and other root veggie purees, where one can use the grating blade for the puree without the glueyness the knife blade produces. Otherwise, I mostly use it to remove seeds and skins, which a food processor doesn't do.
Hope that helps.
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DDF, of course you're entitled to your opinion. Others, of course, are entitled to disagree. Discussion of such is the point of the forum. IMHO, for the reasons mentioned, by me and others, canned stock is a rather poor example of the sort of products to which the thread was directed.
This thread is about opinion.
I'm sorry I insulted your pre-made store-bought stock/broth!!!
Enjoy!!!!
The funny thing is that I don't actually use canned chicken stock much. But I don't have any trouble understanding why many people do.
Meanwhile, your ten minute stock is no such thng. Also, mass market chickens make feeble stock. If one wants usable meat, the stock produced will be even more feeble. A home made stock without defatting isn't worth having. A home made stock without aromatics (including carrots and celery) isn't worth having. And, as I noted earlier, there's the storage issue. Sorry if I've insulted your frugal home made stock. Enjoy!!
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FWIW, @Home (p.317) says the perfectly melting cheese slices can be held up to 10 days in the refrigerator or 2 months in the freezer. This recipe is a little different from the MC one, as it includes no iota carrageenan, so the latter might actually hold longer (less available water), but I think you can take the @Home recommendation as a safe minimum. Especially as I generally find the storage notes in the book to be quite conservative.
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DDF, of course you're entitled to your opinion. Others, of course, are entitled to disagree. Discussion of such is the point of the forum. IMHO, for the reasons mentioned, by me and others, canned stock is a rather poor example of the sort of products to which the thread was directed.
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If it's a gravy that will be served heated, why not use potato starch? Sometimes a thickener is just a thickener.
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.
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Home made is only cheaper if one ignores labor.
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.
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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.
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It's also attributed to Irma Rombauer.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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re reason I started this thread was to ask; has anyone see something that can stack between these chickens so I can make 2 - 3 layers of squash/potatoes / "grill"
sort of like those cookie cooling sets w multiple trays but sturdy for the grill?
the idea for the racks is something like this:perhaps a bit sturdier ? no need for non-stick
Apparently a company called Nifty makes what you're looking for. Out of stock on Amazaon, but allegedly in stock at Williams-Sonoma.
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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.
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Gotcha. Thanks for the elaboration.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Best Cook in Your Family
in Food Traditions & Culture
Posted
Me, by a long shot, but I think it's mostly a generational thing. My parents and grandparents came of age in a time when food tastes were much simpler. If one had aspirations, the big thing was baking (i.e., sweets). At which my mother was, in fact, very good. (Still is, but doesn't do it much any more.)