Guy MovingOn
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Posts posted by Guy MovingOn
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Reading through this thread, and the post on Cooking Issues (http://www.cookingissues.com/2009/11/22/pressure-cooked-stocks-we-got-schooled/) I have been interested in pressure cooking stock. I understand that the Kuhn Rikon pressure cookers are highly recommended, especially for their spring valve, but I would like to ask if anyone has seen these:
I am very tempted to get one, and it seems that according to their features, they might even be better than the Kuhn Rikon ones... Does anyone have any feedback or recommendations based on this?
Also, in this thread, many people were talking about avoding stirring the stock too much to avoid a cloudy stock, etc. If we were to do a gelatin clarification/filtration, would this negate the need to keep the stock exceptionally still during cooking?
Many thanks for the help!!!
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Yes I understand the VAT exempt thing, I was just disappointed
I don't mind the catalogues, something interesting to read at least
BTW, when you do your vacuum marinading, you put the meat and marinade in the canister and vacuum on high... but then do you release the vacuum immediately to return the pressure so that the marinade can penetrate? Or just leave the canister with a vacuum applied?
Cheers!
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Ive been browsing the Nisbets site since there are a few other items I want to purchase, but I didn't realise their prices dont include VAT
My V2860 didnt include a rectangular box!!!!!!!! I just got a cylindrical vacuum canister, 5 small bags, 5 large bags, and a roll! I'm upset now!
Also I paid £108 including delivery. Do you think that was an ok price to pay?
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I cooked the pork gammon (ham) joint I posted about earlier at 60C for 24 hours. Beforehand, I marinaded it for 24 hours in a alcoholic cider, honey, and many other spices mixture.
I served it with some random vegetables leftover in the fridge, and reduced marinade to form a sauce.
The texture was nice, but honestly not that much superior to traditional cooking methods. Definitely not worth the time involved in the preparation. However, it could have been my technique, marinade, time/temp which caused the less than spectacular results.
iPhone Pic:
I was planning to cook beef brisket for 48 hours, but unfortunately it expired before I got a chance
However I defrosted some pork ribs... i forgot to brine them, but put them in the bag with some budweiser honey bbq marinade, some hickory liquid smoke, a mixture of smoked chilli salt and pepper, some dark soy sauce, and some normal cracked black pepper. Not really sure what that will taste like, but who cares? At the moment I'm just after amazing texture. Since I started the cooking at 12:30am, and planning to eat tomorrow evening, I chose a temperature of 72C. I guestimate they will be in there for about 20hours or so.
Will post results later
This was also the first time that I used my new Foodsaver V2860.
I have to say, despite just using the pulse mode and instant seal buttons, I was really impressed with the results! You can tell from the feel of the machine that it is well built. It also has a huge host of features and useful design. It managed to get almost all the air out, I was quite hesitant since there was quite a bit of marinade in the bag. However it sealed with absolutely no problem at all! I did a second seal, just in case!
It's really easy to use, comes with 2 instruction/guide booklets, has a vacuum canister, and a selection of bags and a long roll.
I would really recommend it to sous-vide newbies! Even though I have only been doing sous vide for less than 2 months, I was really really tempted to get a vacuum chamber machine, but now I really don't think I would need one at all!
Before this, I was submerging my ziploc bags in water and trying to squeeze out the air. The Foodsaver DEFINITELY beats this method!!!
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Any ideas for sous vide guinea fowl?
and whole quail? They look so cute, I really want to sous vide them and present them in a mini casserole dish
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I just ate the chicken. In total the chicken was in the bath for around 3:40 as I was making some soup as well, so it was definitely past pasteurisation.
The chicken was delicious! I really loved the texture. It wasn't at all soggy or flimsy or sponge-like. Perfect structural integrity, nice soft texture, wonderfully moist. It wasn't even that pink at all.
The skin was very soft, but not unpleasantly so. My girlfriend is quite fussy when it comes to food, but she loved this chicken and said it is the best so far, having also tried chicken at 63.5C and 60C. She wasn't a fan of the soft skin though. I was thinking perhaps I could place it skin side down in an extremely hot pan, but I wouldn't want to cook the meat any further.
Why don't you try removing the skin and cooking it separately just before serving? Set it aside in the fridge before you put the chicken in the bath. Spread it out well on a piece of parchment on a sheet pan, dry it well, brush with oil (or bacon grease), season and then place another parchment on top. Put a brick or other weight on top (I use a bacon press) and then cook on high heat in your oven - should take about 15-20 minutes to get nice crispy roasted skin which will make a beautiful garnish for your naked chicken breast. I have also read about people cutting the skin in strips and frying like bacon but I have not tried this. You can cook the skin ahead and hold it warm until serving.
Thank you for the suggestion
I have tried this with duck breast, by placing the skin between 2 sheets of foil and two pans with some seasoning, with some crockery on top to weigh it down. Then for the final 5-10mins left it uncovered. Was wonderful.When I've cooked salmon/trout, I just fried the skin in a frying pan with some olive oil or butter, and they come out wonderfully crisp and hold their shape really well.
I wanted to try the soft skin as it was an experiment of temperature to test for the shanghai drunken chicken.
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I also tried cooking Tetsuya's Confit of Ocean Trout sous vide last night.
Followed the traditional recipe, except I cooked the fish at 45C for 25 minutes.
I have to say, the texture was superb! I think I actually preferred the kind of soft, melt in your mouth feeling that this provided, rather than the still somewhat firm texture of salmon mi-cuit. I absolutely love everything raw, I can eat 2 tuna steaks raw for lunch... but I think the delicate texture of cooking at 45C for 25 mins was something I haven't experienced before. I can't imagine any other cooking method being able to consistently reproduce fish of that texture, where the texture and degree of doneness is the exact same throughout!
My presentation skills are appalling, my lame excuse is I'm a starving student!
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Would you expect an adverse effect to marinading pork gammon (smoked ham joint) in a marinade containing apple cider (6%abv) for 24 hours?
If I sear before bagging then the small amount of alcohol on the surface should have been cooked off?
I'm then thinking to cook at 60C for 24 hours.
Im thinking of a mixture containing apple juice, butter, honey, mustard, and cloves to go in the bag, based on the kind of original English roast gammon style.
Any suggestions??
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Tonight I'm having the shanghai drunken chicken thighs. I went out for a friend's party last night, and wasn't able to get back at the time I planned, so the thighs had a lot longer at 57.5C than I had anticipated, but perhaps they will be even softer now
Will post photos later
I boiled 500ml water with 50g salt, 50g sugar, and some chopped up ginger and spring onion. After a few minutes I added 500ml cold water to cool it down. When it was very cold I added the chicken thighs and brined for 3 hours.
Then I boiled some shaoxing rice wine with some more ginger ans spring onion, rinsed the chicken thighs, bagged the thihgs, added the wine, ginger, spring onion, sesame oil, salt and pepper. Cooked at 57.5C. I went out to a friend's party, and would have let them cook for just over 4 hours, but it ended up being 6 hours. However, the texture was SUBLIME!
I cooled them with ice water, then added some chicken stock I had made from the bones of the thigh to the bag, and poured in more rice wine. Marinaded for a whole day. Then sliced thinly.
Boiled some shanghai noodles with the juice from one bag of thighs, the left over chicken stock, and topped up with some boiling water. Then drained. Then served in a bowl with the juice from the other bag and some more hot water, it made a delicious soup!
Drunken chicken placed on top, and garnished
This is the waterbath with the lid off:
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I'm going to try marinading the gammon for 24 hours in some kind of apple cider, honey, mustard, clove mix (haven't really decided what), and then try 60C for <24 hours. Then go over the skin with a blowtorch. Not really sure what I will serve it with, but the other day I had pork neck in a modern japanese restaurant which was served with "apple confit", so I will try experimenting with that. To be honest, it wasn't that spectacular, in fact, the apple still tasted raw, it just had apple juice on it, or something.
Tonight I'm having the shanghai drunken chicken thighs. I went out for a friend's party last night, and wasn't able to get back at the time I planned, so the thighs had a lot longer at 57.5C than I had anticipated, but perhaps they will be even softer now
Will post photos later
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I'm going to try chicken breasts cooked at 57.5C first. If I like them, then I will try chicken breasts at 55C. To give you an idea, I like my steak very rare
I bagged them with some sea salt, black pepper, garlic powder, thyme, lemon juice, butter, and olive oil. They measure approximately 35mm in thickness, however I will cook to pasteurisation as if they were 40mm, which is 3hr18min, just as a margin of safety, and in case the bath goes slightly below 57.5C. I'm also sure that they were above 4C when I put them in the bath, so they would take less time to come up to temperature anyway.
Will report later this afternoon when I've had them for lunch!
I just ate the chicken. In total the chicken was in the bath for around 3:40 as I was making some soup as well, so it was definitely past pasteurisation.
The chicken was delicious! I really loved the texture. It wasn't at all soggy or flimsy or sponge-like. Perfect structural integrity, nice soft texture, wonderfully moist. It wasn't even that pink at all.
The skin was very soft, but not unpleasantly so. My girlfriend is quite fussy when it comes to food, but she loved this chicken and said it is the best so far, having also tried chicken at 63.5C and 60C. She wasn't a fan of the soft skin though. I was thinking perhaps I could place it skin side down in an extremely hot pan, but I wouldn't want to cook the meat any further. Perhaps I will try with my blowtorch next time. I thickened the cooking juices with some cornflour (probably could have found a better thickening agent in my TexturePro kit, but I'm lame at molecular gastronomy/cooking), and drizzled some over
It made a delicious sauce!Having tried this temperature, I'm not sure if I would prefer it at a lower temperature. I will, however, try it at 55C for experiment's sake.
Furthermore, I have also been rather retarded with my brining, and been doing 1% instead of 10%! Haha, no wonder I wasn't noticing much difference!
I had wonderful results with these chicken breasts, and they are just standard supermarket chicken breasts. I am sure they would be even nicer if I bought some of the organic or free range chicken breasts
Again, terrible photography with my iPhone 3G, and horrible presentation skills, but in case you are interested:
Happy with this afternoon's results, I'm going to make a sous vide version of Chinese drunken chicken.
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I'm going to try chicken breasts cooked at 57.5C first. If I like them, then I will try chicken breasts at 55C. To give you an idea, I like my steak very rare
I bagged them with some sea salt, black pepper, garlic powder, thyme, lemon juice, butter, and olive oil. They measure approximately 35mm in thickness, however I will cook to pasteurisation as if they were 40mm, which is 3hr18min, just as a margin of safety, and in case the bath goes slightly below 57.5C. I'm also sure that they were above 4C when I put them in the bath, so they would take less time to come up to temperature anyway.
Will report later this afternoon when I've had them for lunch!
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I have a question about measuring the thickness from an infinite slab.
.......__
....../../|
...../../.|
..../../..|y
.../../...|
../../..../
./../..../
/__/..../z
|..|.../
|..|../
|..|./
|__|/
x
If the slab above is our piece of meat. I presume that being an infinite slab, it is infinite along z. To measure thickness according to the tables, do we take x or y to be the thickness? In the case of a chicken breast, I guess the slab pictures above would be like a chicken breast on its side?
hmm my diagram doesnt work... using some full stops to space it out
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I wanted to ask you two questions. I cooked some chicken breasts last night. In your guide you suggest a brine solution of 5%. I believe in some of the recipes in Under Pressure, Thomas Keller uses a 10% solution, and sometimes 10% sugar as well. Would there be a noted difference between the two? Furthermore how would the duration of time in the brine affect the meat?
I was interested to see that poultry and eggs can be pasteurised at 57.5C, if held at that temperature for a long enough time. Is this the absolute lowest temperature at which pasteurisation can be achieved?
I thought I was going to be short for time last night, so cooked the chicken at 63.5C rather than the 60C I had tried before, in fact I ended up with enough time to have cooked at 60C. I definitely noticed a drier and harder texture. So I would be really interested to try 57.5C
Once again thanks for all your guys help!
You can pasteurize poultry at 54.5C (130F) and 57.5C (135F), it just takes longer:
Reducing Listeria by 1 million to 1 in poultry
130F (54.5C) water bath ; 135F (57.5C) water bath
mm; hours; inches; hours; mm; hours; inches; hours
5; 5.6; 0.25; 5.6; 5; 1.7; 0.25; 1.7
10; 5.7; 0.5 ; 5.8; 10; 1.8; 0.5 ; 1.8
15; 5.9; 0.75; 5.9; 15; 1.9; 0.75; 2.0
20; 6.0; 1 ; 6.2; 20; 2.1; 1 ; 2.4
25; 6.2; 1.25; 6.7; 25; 2.3; 1.25; 2.8
30; 6.6; 1.5 ; 7.2; 30; 2.6; 1.5 ; 3.2
35; 6.9; 1.75; 7.7; 35; 3.0; 1.75; 3.8
40; 7.3; 2 ; 8.3; 40; 3.4; 2 ; 4.4
45; 7.7; 2.25; 9.0; 45; 3.8; 2.25; 5.1
50; 8.2; 2.5 ; 9.8; 50; 4.3; 2.5 ; 5.8Here I used D60C5.66C = 5.94 minutes for Listeria monocytogenes, a thermal diffusivity of 1.08 10-7 m2/s for poultry, and assumed the slowest heating shape (an infinite slab) at each thickness.
Brining is always an interesting subject. For the last couple of years, I've only been brining meat that I cook well done: pork shoulder for pulled pork; duck and turkey legs for confits; brisket for corned beef; etc. I brine meat I'm going to cook well done to compensate for some of the water that is lost when the muscle fibers shrink longitudinally and squeeze out the water held between its thick (myosin) and thin (actin) muscle fibers. At least for pork, a brine of 7--10% NaCl gives the highest increase in water.
But there is another reason to brine: coagulate the albumin before it can coagulate on the surface. This is often called salting out the proteins. This is why Mr Keller sometimes brines fish in a 10% brine for a short time.
Edit: Clarified.
Wow thank you, I think next time I will try cooking chicken breasts at around 55C just as an experiment. Not sure if my girlfriend will like it, but I can just stick hers onto the griddle if she complains!
Thank you for the brining information. I didn't realise duck legs can be brined before confit, I always thought they had a sort of salty dry rub instead.
I had read, either in this thread, or in your guide, about brining fish before cooking to prevent albumen coagulating on the surface.
So I guess it doesn't matter too much? Anything between 5-10% will provide a juicier result than if you had done nothing?
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I tried bidding on the Lava V333, but even at £170 the Reserve wasnt met, and I didnt want to pay the £295 Buy It Now price.
I've therefore just purchase the Foodsaver V2860 for £108.08 including delivery. Will report back upon using it!
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Hahahahaha!!! Omg you are insane! If you have any means to vacuum pack a whole animal, pleeeaaase try this!
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I have a very small joint of smoked gammon (about enough for 2 people). Can anyone suggest how to cook it?
Brine? And if so, other flavourings in the brine?
Temperature? And time once the core has come up to that temperature?
Many thanks!
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Guy MovingOn: When cooking meat, there really isn't any reason to go higher than 80C (175F). Back in the day I did a double-blind taste test between brined (7% NaCl soln for 48 hr) pork shoulder at 80C (175F) for 10 hours and at 70C (160F) for 24 hours: no one was able to tell the difference.
Now, cooking vegetables at 80C (175F) may pose some problems. With (non-starchy) vegetables it is all about dissolving enough of the cementing material that holds the cells together to make them easy to bite. [The literature refers to this as the beta-eliminative degradation (or depolymerization) of pectic polysaccharides.] I usually dissolving these pectic substances at 85C (185F) --- others cook their vegetables at 83C (182F). You can cook starchy vegetables though, since most starches gelatinize by 80C (175F) --- I usually cook them for about twice as long at 80C (175F) as I would have boiled them.
Thank you Douglas! Now I'm even happier with my waterbath! I was just a bit worried as I saw many confit and vegetable recipes requiring 83+C temperatures, but thankfully my confit tasted amazing at 80C!
I wanted to ask you two questions. I cooked some chicken breasts last night. In your guide you suggest a brine solution of 5%. I believe in some of the recipes in Under Pressure, Thomas Keller uses a 10% solution, and sometimes 10% sugar as well. Would there be a noted difference between the two? Furthermore how would the duration of time in the brine affect the meat?
I was interested to see that poultry and eggs can be pasteurised at 57.5C, if held at that temperature for a long enough time. Is this the absolute lowest temperature at which pasteurisation can be achieved?
I thought I was going to be short for time last night, so cooked the chicken at 63.5C rather than the 60C I had tried before, in fact I ended up with enough time to have cooked at 60C. I definitely noticed a drier and harder texture. So I would be really interested to try 57.5C
Once again thanks for all your guys help!
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I made confit of duck thighs last night.
They had a marinade inspired by Culinary Bear from the Confit Thread for 12 hours, and since my waterbath can only go to 80C, I cooked them for 12 hours at 80C. Then into an ice bath and then held in the fridge until the next day. Reheated in the oven, and the skin was crisped with a blowtorch:
They were served on top of a bed of spicy sweet potato mash. The portions of the mash was huge as this was a course for 4 people to share, before we ate the breasts.
The flavour was amazing, the texture was great. There was still quite a bit of fat under the skin, but I expect that. It was less salty than the countless versions I have had during my summer holidays in France, and subsequent occasions when we have brought some tins back, which is something that I was pleasantly surprised by. Perhaps they often dont rinse the salt/marinade off before covering with fat? I would definitely do this again, and Culinary Bear's suggestion for marinade worked great. Unfortunately I can't go any higher than 80C, but I am not sure if there would be that much difference between 80C and 83C? But I'm just a uni student cooking for myself and housemates, so I don't know
Cheers
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I'm sorry for the constant questions, especially about vacuum sealers, but I would really like to know which is better:
or
I've seen them both available for purchase on eBay, but the Lava V333 retails for nearly £600! Which is a lot lot lot more than the Foodsaver! Is it really that much better??
Lava V333 is overkill, V100 http://lava-vacuum-packing.com/V100.htm is sufficient, as well as FoodSaver™ V2040 http://www.foodsavereurope.com/Products/ProductDetails.aspx?pid=121 . You do not need high vacuum, but an instant-seal-button is recommendable. MagicVac Elite will do as well, mine is more than 10 years old and still working.
Regards
Pedro
I understand that it might be overkill, but if I can get it for a similar price as the Foodsaver then it might be worth it
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I'm sorry for the constant questions, especially about vacuum sealers, but I would really like to know which is better:
or
I've seen them both available for purchase on eBay, but the Lava V333 retails for nearly £600! Which is a lot lot lot more than the Foodsaver! Is it really that much better??
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Welcome Guy MovingOn,
e_monster is absolutely right: Heston's team assumed that the interior of the intact muscle is essential sterile and that searing the outside is sufficient to make it safe. (The big problem now, is that many processors are mechanically tenderizing their primal beef cuts and are not currently required by the government to label them as such. This is a big problem that a lot of people in the food safety community are angry about. Several people have already gotten sick from eating steaks that they grilled because they didn't know the steaks had been mechanically tenderized. So unless you know your meat hasn't been mechanically tenderized, you should assume it has and pasteurize it.)
As to why Heston is holding the meat at 50C/122F for 24 hours, let me quote an email I sent to PedroG almost a year ago:
Now, for your more interesting question about rapid aging (also known as conditioning). First, I would only recommend rapidly aging beef: the taste of pork and lamb is (typically) not improved with aging; the interior of poultry is usually not assumed to be sterile; and, the food pathogens associated with fish multiply very rapidly at room temperature. How much benefit is there to aging beef at (warm) room temperature? Well, according to Lawrie's Meat Science (p. 239--240), meat held at 43C/109F or 49C/120F for 24 hours had a greater increase in tenderness than meat kept for 14 days at 2C/36F; he notes, however, that while the tenderness increase was particularly high at 49C/120F, it had a somewhat undesirable flavor. The problem, however, is that these temperatures are well within the real danger zone of -1.6C/29.3F to 52.3C/127.5F --- in the experiment at 43C/109F, they actually sterilized the meat with ionizing radiation before rapidly aging. In theory, however, these microorganisms are only on the surface of the intact meat and rapid aging should be safe so long as we prevent the surface microorganisms from multiplying to dangerous levels. The two easiest ways of doing this are with heat and acid; either vacuum seal the meat and plunge the bag into a large pot of rapidly boiling water for 1--2 minutes or use a marinade with a pH significantly less than 4.1 (since the pH growth range for Salmonella spp. is 4.1--9.0). For extra safety, I would recommend aging at 50C/122F since all but C. perfringens stops growing by 50C/122F (and this is only because of the Phoenix phenomenon which (to the best of my knowledge) has only been observed in the laboratory).Thank you for the warm welcome and great insight, it feels like an honour to have people such as yourself, e_monster, PedroG, et al. to reply and assist me after having read your fabulous contributions over the past 5-6 weeks. I have also used your guide as a starting point for some of my recipes too
Thank you for explaining the rapid aging to me. Unfortunately at that time, it was just a piece of supermarket meat that I cooked for 24 hours at 55C as an experiment on the taste and texture. To be honest, it tasted like very nice roast beef. Next time I will be sure to purchase higher quality and intact beef, marinade in low pH, and then surface sear
Unfortunately I didn't get any feedback regarding the Foodsaver V2860, but I'm finding ziploc bags to be a bit annoying, so I'm just gonna take the plunge and buy the foodsaver. Will report back after having tried it!
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I'm currently watching Heston Blumenthal's Feast videos.
On recreating a Roman feast, he vacuum packs a whole pig, and cooks it in a hot tub/jacuzzi at 60C for 24 hours.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL_K5GjgnH0&feature=PlayList&p=Psdq_du2Xds
You will need to skip about 25 mins in.
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I don't have the book yet, but according to the TV show upon which the book is based, if your oven doesn't go as low as 50C, you can set your oven to the lowest temperature, and wedge it open with a wooden spoon. Also, I think that the purpose of the series was to create perfect recipes which can be replicated at home. I don't think Heston would expect his entire audience to have professional PID controlled ovens, so perhaps the end result would still be lovely at 50C for 24 hours according to a home oven... ?
Pressure Cooked Stock
in Cooking
Posted
The 8.5L one is the exact same one that I was interested in purchasing, since on Amazon it is the same price as the 6.5L one!
I also like the fact that it seems to be extremely easy to clean (dishwasher safe too), and has a universal plate at the bottom to allow it to be used on induction hobs. There are also some good accessories that can go with it, so it can be a multipurpose pot!
Do you find the size of the 8.5L to be too large? I would use it for domestic purposes... but if i could make a large batch of stock at a time, or pressure cook whole joints of meat, that would be pretty cool! Since it is the same price as the 6.5L, i guess bigger is better?
But does it take a very long time to come up to pressure??
Thanks!