pbear

This is all a bit off-topic, but since we're discussing the french fry case, an important thing to know is that, at the time, the ingredients list on McDonald's website listed only "natural flavoring" without disclosing the source. (I know this of my own knowledge, as I went to the site after reading one of the early news articles on the controversy.) Identifying it as "natural beef flavor" came later, presumably because of the lawsuits.

Sounds like it would be faster to pass through an OXO 8" strainer rather than a colander. I imagine certain types of soups would clog the gold mesh filter very easily without a decent prefilter step. Fair point. No doubt the liquid should be relatively clear before passing through a gold-mesh filter. In this case, though, I think a colander would be sufficient, as we're talking about chunks of vegetables.It's trickier if doing something with proteins - for me, this mostly comes up with sous vide braises - but there I generally don't bother with a gold-mesh filter, as I'm usually preparing a sauce where absolute clarity isn't necessary or even noticiable. What I do want, though, is to remove and discard the coagulated proteins. If I used a sieve only, those would stay in the dish. If I'm okay with that, I still use a colander and puree the proteins smooth with an immersion blender. Whereas, if for some reason I want a very clear stock, I do three passes, a colander for chunks, a siieve for coagulated proteins (which I discard), then the filter. In fact, I generally do only the first two steps.

FWIW, I hardly ever use cheesecloth for straining any more. Instead, I use a gold-mesh coffee filter. (Which, of course, doesn't get used for coffee.) Less fiddly and doesn't absorb any of the liquid being strained (better yields). For something like this, I'd drain in a regular colander to remove the solids, then pass the liquid through the filter.

FYI, it won't be with the other cooking oils. It's be with supplements, in a refrigerator case. Probably simplest to ask.

No recipe, but I've had some pretty good cookies (from others) made with chopped dates.

Psst, that was supposed to have been 40 minutes at pressure. Twenty minutes is the estimated prep time.Anyhoo, I tried them. They came out fine (though watery, as mentioned in the recipe). Frankly, I get better results by conventional methods, so this one isn't going in the toolbox.

If baking bread in a covered pot, you should use a spritzer. It's a small room and easy to generate enough steam with a few spritzes (plus the dough adds moisture). Whereas the ice method depends on direct contact with a skillet or grill pan, It's intended for steaming the whole oven.

FWIW, my reason for adding salt after the water comes to a boil is different. Depending on the pot, the water can become saturated with water vapor, which quickly comes out of solution when nucleation sites are added. If that's the pasta, you can get a rush of bubbles and a blast of hot steam. If you add the salt just before the pasta, it strips out the steam and the pasta goes in more quietly. If you never have a problem with pasta water foaming up like that, your pot isn't producing steam-saturated water and this rationale doesn't apply.

Can you get Bubbies down your way? (It's a Stockton based company.) That's the brand I like. Only medium heat, but has a nice clean flavor.

Just thinking aloud, but I would think that if you want to go this route agar would be a better gelling agent than gelatin. Agar has the advantage of gelling at room temperature, whereas gelatin will only work if you chill the pie (which I wouldn't consider desirable). Not sure how to do it, as I've never made a pecan pie this way. (I'm content with the conventional, shallower pie.) What probably would work is to warm the dissolved agar with the corn syrup, then add the remaining ingredients and bake. FWIW, 1 tbsp agar is roughly equivalent to 1 envl unflavored gelatin, i.e., will gel about 2 cup of available water. Which, at a rough guess, will be enough to achieve the texture for which you're aiming. Obviously, whatever gelling agent you choose, you're looking at some experimentation to get it right.

I no longer have a regular oven (long story), but when I did my solution to the steam issue was to place an enameled cast iron grill on the bottom rack of the oven in its lowest position, freeze a thin square sheet of ice (about 1 cm thick) just smaller than the grill and put that on the grill right after I had placed the loaves on a pizza stone on a rack in the second lowest position. (I would preheat both the stone and the grill at the same time.) The ridges hold up the ice as it melts, so the melting water falls to the wells between the ridges and vaporizes quickly. The advantage of this method is that the thin sheet of ice is easy to place quickly and safely. YMMV, but it worked for me.

Yeah, the comment in Home about ziplocs being unsafe for long cooks had me scratching my head. I assume there are some set of facts under which it's true - perhaps the floater scenario - but it would have been nice for them to explain. Does MC?

You're welcome.

Would love to see it! Thanks! I came up with this years ago because all the commercial brands are too sweet and fake tasting for me. Basically, it’s a thin crème anglaise (stirred custard). The lightly-whipped cream finish is what makes it work. eggs, 4 lg sugar, 3/4 c (divided) nutmeg, 1-1/2 tsp (divided) salt, 1/4 tsp milk, 5 c (divided) vanilla extract, 1 tsp bourbon, 2 tbsp (or dark rum, southern comfort, amaretto, etc.) heavy cream, 1 c (divided)Beat eggs; blend in sugar (reserving 2 tbsp for Step 3), salt, 1 tsp nutmeg and 2 c milk. Measure out another 1 c milk. Cook egg mixture over a heat diffuser or double boiler, stirring constantly, until lightly thickened, 170 to 175 degrees. Remove from heat and stir in third cup of milk. Pour into a two-quart bottle. Add vanilla, liquor, 1/2 c cream and remaining 2 c milk. Chill overnight, stirring occasionally for the first few hours. When ready to serve, whip remaining 1/2 c heavy cream with remaining 2 tbsp sugar until thick and frothy but not stiff; stir into eggnog. Sprinkle servings with a dash of nutmeg. Makes about 1‑3/4 qt. Spiked Eggnog: Chill a bottle of bourbon, rum or other spirit and pass separately. Each person may then add as much (or little) as he or she desires, a pony shot (2 tbsp) being typical. Extra Rich: For an even richer eggnog, increase eggs to six. Reduce milk to 4 c and increase cream to 1-1/2 c. (I reserve this version for Christmas eve.)

If you're interested, I have a cooked eggnog recipe that's generally well received. Otherwise, as I live in San Francisco, I'm afraid I can't be much help.

IMHO, the equilibrium cure in MCAH is too strong. Bear in mind that a kilo of turkey legs is only about 75% meat, so the cure is actually about 5.3%. I'd say half that is probably right. You would never cook 750 g meat with 40 g salt (or, at least, I wouldn't). That's 4 tbsp Diamond kosher salt or 2 tbsp table salt. No wonder you found the confit too salty.I suggest you try your next round taking up Johnny's suggestion of using 20 g salt, even for conventional poultry. And that's still a cured product. IME, for an equilibrium brine without curing, you need to go down to 1.6% (or less), i.e., 12 g salt for 750 g meat (net weight). Also, at these lower concentrations, I find it works best to leave the product on the cure for two days before cooking, flipping every 12 hours to even out the salt distribution. YMMV.

A raclette grill?

Bob: Thanks for the clarification. I was afraid newbies might have gotten an unfairly negative view of the Supreme from the OP. Which isn't to say it's the right solution for everyone. As you mention, Douglas Baldwin does a good job of explaining the advantages and disadvantages of the main options in his online guide. And I take your point about all cooking being complicated. Also, I agree sous vide is no worse. jorach: Yeah, I'd say that counts as an inherent design flaw in the Demi. Bummer. FWIW, as you suspect, no, this isn't a problem with the Supreme, where the bath and racks are all stainless steel. I've had mine for three years with no signs of corrosion. And it usually sits full of water, even when I'm not using it (albeit San Francisco water, which is particularly mild).

Frankly, I don't think what has held back sous vide is the equipment reviews. Rather, based on conversations with friends, the problem is that it's generally perceived as one of those complicated techniques that high-end restaurant chefs use (and a few lunatic foodies). Even if they see the advantages - some do, some don't - the game doesn't seem worth the candle to the typical home cook. (The visceral objection to cooking in plastic also plays a role, like it or not.) And, if they perchance take an interest and do some research, they find a lot of disorganized information, conflicting opinions and few clear cut answers. For example, I respectfully disagree about the recommendation of a PID-controlled slow cooker over the Sous Vide Supreme.. I have both. I use the former more (mainly for long cooks of big pieces of meat), but would recommend the latter to almost anyone interested in jumping in. Yes, it's more expensive. But not unreasonably so, much more versatile and easier to use (subject to the caveat about calibration). I agree about using ziplocs over a Food Saver (a chamber sealer being much too expensive for most people, me included), but many sources argue the contrary. Ditto cooking times, searing techniques, etc. Confronted with this cacophony of voices, most folks (even if they had an interest) throw in the towel and stick to the tried-and-true methods they've been using for years. Maybe this will change eventually, but I'm beginning to have doubts. Seven years ago, I thought sous vide was going to be the next big thing. Unfortunately, the mainstream media (cooking shows and magazines) haven't embraced it, so it remains an oddity and an outlier. To an extent, this is a chicken-and-egg problem. So long as only a few use sous vide, the mainstream outlets will hesitate to give it much play. So long as it gets little play, sous vide has little chance of entering the mainstream. What we early adopters can do to advance the cause, ISTM, is mainly to make the case for why we go to the trouble. How to do it, i.e., the equpment issues, should be the tail to the dog.

FWIW, another couple of data points. As it happens, I have two half-pints of heavy cream in the fridge. One is Berkeley Farms, ultra-pasteurized and has carrageenan. The other is Clover organic, pasteurized but not ultra (with a significantly shorter expiration date, though purchased a few days more recently) and has none. Bear in mnd there are three kinds of carrageenan - kappa, iota and lambda. The latter is the one being used here and is the softest of the three. ETA: By the way, I'm in San Francisco. These are both popular brands here.

Did you remember to use a rack or trivet? Jars resting on the bottom of the cooker would scorch like that.

My hunch would be that they tested the recipe with Bob's Red Mill Grits, as they mention the product line in various other recipes. BRM makes several kinds of grits, but the one I most often see are basically coarse yellow polenta, which I would say generally takes an hour to cook conventionally. If that hunch is right, it would explain why they felt 20 minutes was a significant time saving, but wasn't enough for the kind you were cooking.FWIW, I think cooking grits or polenta by pressure in canning jars is probably more trouble than it's worth. (Especially if one doesn't have a team of assistants to do the cleanup.) Rather, I use an adaptation of a method I read about in an article several years ago by Paula Wolfert (though, IIRC, she disclaimed having invented the method). First I combine the grits or polena with cold water, then bring just to a boil stirring constantly, cover and move to a 250F oven. Cooking time depends on coarseness, from 20 minutes for relatively fine ground, to an hour (as I said) for coarse, to 90 minutes (I gather) for the very coarse (have never made those). Only needs to be stirred once or twice while baking, then finish on the stove however one likes. It's a wizard method, IMHO. Not as fast as the pressure cooker, but much less fuss, also eliminates the volcanic eruptions and more easily adjusted on the fly. YMMV.

In my understanding, nit'ir qibe is generally made with whole butter, not clarified. See, e.g., Daniel Mesfin, Exotic Ethiopian Cooking (1993) at p.5, Tami Hultman, The Africa News Cookbook (1985) at p.9, and DeWitt, Wilson & Stock, Flavors of Africa Cookbook (1998) at p.37. In other words, the spiced butter is clarified by the end, but that's not the starting point. Like ghee, caramelizing the milk solids is an important element of the flavor profile. Not saying grapeseed oil won't work, but it'll be somewhat different from the traditional product. How important the difference will depend on the dish

Sorry, forgot about the mascarpone. I'd say you can break the recipe in either place, but I'd go ahead and prep it through Step 9. It's the Comté that I think won't take being melted and reheated well. As mentioned, there are two ways to do that. Either will work.

Depends on how consistently cold is your fridge. An ordinary one, you should be fine for up to three days. A good one, which consistently stays below 40F, should give you up to a week. (Sorry, can't provide a cite, as the computer with that bookmark just croaked, but I'm not pulling those numbers out of thin air.) One thing. I'd cool the spinach mixture before adding the cheese. Or wait until reheating to add the cheese. Melting and reheating might work, but I wouldn't take the chance. And can see no advantage to even trying.