andrewk512

Yes all the reviews on the major retailers are sponsored unfortunately and focus on the same manufacturer recipes so I do not trust them. Many of them are "influencers" or do not have experience making ice cream at home. Even if their machine was free, I would at least like to see them test a recipe that they would actually do in a regular machine. I will be testing bases that I would've otherwise churned at home, sorbets and sherbets as I have not done much with ice cream itself to have a reliable comparator. I am going to focus specifically on subjective ice crystal size and mouthfeel

A few redditors on r/icecreamery who own the Ninja have posted rave reviews. A random home cook on twitter has also used the Ninja to make the Modernist Cuisine Pacojet pea soup to good effect. I reached out to Ninja on Instagram to ask them how their device compares to a pacojet but unfortunately only got a boilerplate response. I also reviewed the Dave Arnold - Chris Young convo on Twitter that was mentioned here. I am more and more convinced that this is a Pacojet clone (with likely less durability to account for the cheap price). Even if I had to buy 5 in my lifetime for home use though that would be thousands cheaper than a Pacojet. I don't want to get myself too excited but a pacojet has been my dream kitchen equipment for years, but never been able to justify the price over acquiring other equipment (chamber vacuum, blast chiller, CO2 rig, temp controlled induction burner, nitro dewar came first, the APO is next on my list). I jumped the gun and ordered the Ninja, it's arriving on Sept 7th apparently. I'll test a few of my sorbet recipes and report back. They tacked on an extra 25$ international "fee" without me knowing though, so with that + duties + restocking/reshipping fees, if I don't like it I suspect my best option is to resell it within Canada

Improvement in ice cream for sure, although I'd have to do a side-by-side to determine the full extent of it. Everything else has been convenience It's not at the top of my list of essential cooking equipment but I don't regret it either

Cream cheese is a popular stabilizer in simplified ice cream recipes, some of their recipes do call for it but it does not look like it is necessary for all the recipes. The pacojet functions in the same way as described and the Ninja blade looks near identical from inspecting images. Pacojet runs at 2000 rpm and has a processing time almost double that of the Ninja Creami, which could possibly mean a smoother product although I am sure there are various other factors at play. I am not sure how many RPM the Ninja is. The Ninja also allows re-processing to further smoothen the product. I have never actually used a Pacojet but I believe it also has a button that can vary the amount of overrun. I agree I would really like to see how a professional quality recipe like a custard base, even a Philidelphia base or a properly ratio'd sorbet recipe would turn out in this thing. Some of the photographed recipes look a bit icy but I think it might be just due to the recipes that the company supplies and them promoting low sugar/low fat recipes, or the temperature at which it is processed. I am also looking forward to your review of the unit!

Has anyone heard of this or had experience with it? It was mentioned briefly on Cooking Issues this week and I was immediately intrigued but sadly there is a complete lack of information from any reviewer that is also a serious cook. https://www.ninjakitchen.com/exclusive-offer/NC301WBKT/Ninja-CREAMi-Ice-Cream-Maker/ - it looks to function in a similar way to a pacojet but at the much more affordable price of $200. If it remotely approximates a pacojet in quality of product then it's going to be a game changer. Maybe not for a restaurant kitchen where the reliability of the Ninja brand may be in question but certainly for home use. The only thing stopping me from jumping the gun on it is that it ships from the US to Canada so I will probably be out a small bit of cash due to shipping/restocking if I return it. Honestly, I find it plausible that it would approximate a Pacojet considering the age of the Pacojet technology, the presumed cost savings of converting towards digital components as opposed to primarily mechanical, and marketing towards consumers meaning durability is less of a necessity

I would love to get a Control Freak but instead I have ordered the Hestan Cue + Thermometer at 1/10th of the price of the Control Freak. There is not much info out there about it probably because it is not marketed towards serious cooks. It doesn't have the full versatility of the Control Freak but the main thing I wanted to be able to do was hold liquids at a relatively close temp - for keeping emulsified sauces warm, cooking ice cream base, poaching etc. I will report back once it arrives.

I am terrible at following up on posts, sorry. I have mixed opinions. The largest barrier to me using it repeatedly is the time it takes to set up - it takes about 20 minutes for the machine to cool its chamber from room temp to -36C. Most things I use it for are things I want to freeze more rapidly, so I need it to be below -18C fast for it to make more sense than using my regular freezer. If I was using it to simply /cool/ a lot of products, I think this would be more of a non-issue. A lot of times I want to use it but by the time I think of it it is not really going to be more effective than just throwing it in the fridge/freezer at that point. I use it a ton for ice creams, I have a freezer-bowl machine so I take the pre-frozen bowl at -18C from my main freezer and cool it to -36C in the blast chiller. I then churn my base and stick the base in the blast chiller to rapidly bring down the temp. It is nice for this. It is nice to throw in some hot pots of liquid and cool them fast too, without bothering with an ice bath cause I have no equipment to produce large volumes of ice. I have also been able to use it to assist with various niche products - this week I made the EMP recipe Milk & Honey which requires pushing a nitro frozen honey sphere into the center of a sphere of milk sorbet, keeping all of my ingredients super cold by chucking assorted things into the blast chiller while I was in the middle of steps was really nice so as to not risk them melting at critical times. It is also awesome to chill warm bottles of alcohol last minute If I had the money and space I would get the mid-sized chiller, simply because then I could also rapidly chill plates last minute

Ordered my BF100 today, super excited

Lots of cookbooks: Noma Eleven Madison Park Mourad New Moroccan Rustic Italian VOLT ink. and Molecular Gastronomy - Exploring the science of flavor

I moved out east for university, and I couldn't exactly go home for thanksgiving, so I made a thanksgiving dinner in my res for a bunch of other people from out of province. I never made thanksgiving at home because the rest of the family was too picky and it just wasn't worth it, so here I went all out. Bought a turkey and broke it down. Brined and sous vide the breast, and cooked the legs confit. Used the bones to make stock for the gravy. Served that with an orange-cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, sage-apple stuffing, green beans with roasted garlic and caramelized onions, and a warm squash salad with pomegranate, ricotta, arugula and walnuts. Served that with a local apple cider and made pumpkin pie for dessert. It was a good thanksgiving! =D Now I have to catch up on studying for my midterms.

If you don't have sous vide: http://www.americastestkitchen.com/recipes/detail.php?docid=11797 (Low and slow roast, great for larger cuts, works somewhat well on smaller cuts) Otherwise, just sous vide. That pasta machine experiment was rather... creative. I'd argue that something like the round (lean and tough) is considerably less valuable than something that will braise nicely, like a shank, or something that is already tender, like a rib eye.

Go traditional. Make sure to sift your chocolate chunks.

This to me sounds like a major health concern, I wouldn't eat it unless you knew more about the fermentation process.

Did you check the temperature on both? If not, I'm assuming the second one was over cooked due to it being considerably warmer to begin with. (Cooking your meat straight from the fridge will also account for that band of well-doneness in the other piece of meat) If you did check the temperature on both, I'm assuming you didn't leave the thermometer in the second one long enough and you didn't get an accurate reading from it.

What!! I love Ad Hoc, it's probably my most used cookbok, and I don't have trouble finding most of the ingredients, even in my small city. Try some of the soups or side dishes if you can't find the meats. Honestly, I find some of the meat preparations a bit underwhelming, but side dishes like the scallion potato cakes, the polenta or the Nantes carrot stew undergo a complete transformation. I'm surprised that people are also offput by the French Laundry cookbook. For those who have the patience, the recipes are thoroughly well written and verryy rewarding. A bunch ingredients may be hard to find, but rarely is an obscure piece of equipment called for. You could also just take components and use them in your own dishes. The 'quick' sauces and the herb oils are amazing. My favorite cookbook not to cook from: Under Pressure, and Alinea. Alinea: Crazy imaginative recipes that are fun to read about. I would cook more of them, but the dishes are all so small. I don't have much interest in cooking a recipe that will be finished in two bites. I would also appreciate a lot more detail in the instructions since all the recipes are so obscure and the photographs are not very helpful. Many of the recipes also use equipment and ingredients that I don't have (yet!) I have made Beef: Elements of Root Beer, and Pork: Sage, Cornbread and Grapefruit. The elements of root beer dish was absolutely amazing. The pork was also very good, but a little out there for me. Under Pressure: I can't really figure out the instructions, and my city is too small to have most of the ingredients. There are some good looking poultry dishes in there though that I'll eventually get through. I've made the Squab with Piquillo Peppers and Date Puree (except I used chicken), that was realllllllllllllllly good.

Anyone know where I can find locust bean gum?

I'm wanting to try the Alinea "Pork, Grapefruit, Sage, Honeycomb" but I have cubed pork shoulder only. The recipe says to cook an intact 750g portion of pork shoulder at 180F for 5 hours. How would I adjust the cooking time for 1-2" cubes? Thanks! =)

I'd love to try this soon. I'm just wondering if there are any botulism concerns with cooking meat this long at a low temp? And would this 53c/48hr work for 1.5" pieces of beef shank? Thanks =)

Hi. I'm looking to get into Sous Vide cooking. Is the 'Polyscience Sous Vide Professional' one of the best products for it? I found it listed on Williams-Sonoma for $800; is this the cheapest price? And can anyone recommend a good vacuum sealer? Thanks!