Mjx

Tangentially, pie crust is not my forte, either, but I've had excellent results with the CI recipe for pie crust that replaces a part of the water with vodka; at the risk of being tedious (not many things are more tedious than yet another suggestion for something that consistently crashes and burns on you, but...) have you had any luck with that one? The custard does look good. I'm a curious: how much does a sous vide rig figure into the MCaH recipes? I have $250 in amazon gift certificates and have been wavering on what to get, and this is looking increasingly attractive... but I don't have a sous vide rig. Yet.

Right now I'm looking at a tin of coconut milk, a pomegranate, some orange flower water and an arry of gelling agets, trying to figure out how to make this all come together. I'm wondering whether the fat in the coconut milk might interfere with gelling, but then again, that doesn't seem to be an issue with panna cotta, so optimistic. Dave, I really love your selection of decorative moulds, wish I had something like those, but mine is probably going to be a big white blob.

The flavour will change a bit if it's heated, although that may be worth it if it makes the process easier (since it's going to be heated anyway), but couldn't you just grate the fresh apples (in a food processor, possibly), then press the hell out of them in a chinois or something? It should be pretty quick, unless masses of apples are involved

I'm thinking that a rich panade would help quite a bit, or maybe some mushrooms? Recipes for meat loaf made with game (also usually very lean) might be a good starting point.

Bison meat loaf sounds great, but we're still talking cattle, so you may want to check that your guest can actually eat it.

Unless the corn syrup has some other function in the recipe than adding sweetness (it would probably say, if that was the case), I think you can safely skip it. Hot dogs in Denmark have a virtually identical texture to typical US ones, but are not sweet, and I have to say I really do prefer them (and I like sweet things); the meatiness and savouriness come through far better.

Regular (not high-fructose) corn syrup has a relatively weak sweetness, compared to golden syrup, which is far sweeter. I don't care for the flavour of corn syrup, but if you use golden syrup you might end up with pork candy (depending on how much of it is involved).

As far as I recall, MSG doesn't have to be listed separately, but can be bundled with 'spices', 'seasonings', or '[natural] flavours', so your hunch is probably correct (but it's pretty easy to get, so you're not out of luck).

Anyone planning on giving a gelatina encapsulada/artistica a go? I'm completely fascinated by these, although I know that it could be argued that they're pure kitsch, but as is the case with many kitsch things, a tremendous amount of painstaking labour is involved in creating them, and I think these could be made interestingly tasty, and really lovely. Anyone tried, or at least eaten one of these?

Life is short. Bring on the butter! Qualifier: If we're talking real (not fluffy, not sweet) corn bread corn muffins, make that bacon fat!

Dave, care to run off a short list of what this category covers? I'm planning on giving spherification another go (my first effort yielded mostly a muscatel-flavoured glop, I'm pretty sure I can top that). I love gels and I have a variety of gelling agents (e.g. gelatine, konjaku, alginate), so I'll be playing with a variety of them. This is going to be great, and I'm hoping to also see the interesting things people do with eggs and tofu, and as well as the traditional gelled dishes and modernist takes on this.

No idea of whether or not it's petty to feel this way, but it's possible that they just feel they could never come up to scratch. Especially if you tend to talk about a food a good deal, and to be highly critical (in both positive and negative ways), they may have received the impression that whataver they did, it might seem sub-par, by your standards. Perhaps you could suggest their being the ones to host a picnic (or something of that sort), which is implicitly casual?

My go-to practice in this sort of situation is to do something a bit out of the ordinary with the seasoning, then stuff the meat into empanadas. These days, I look through Modernist Cuisine's v. 5 for inspiration. What I often end up with is a sort of combined strategy that yields interestingly seasoned meat (e.g. pureed quince/hokaido with pomegranate-juice+chicken-stock reduction, seasoned with honey, saffron, and cayenne) that I use to fill empanadas (e.g. buckwheat-flour-based; gives a cement grey crust, which sounds horrible, but is really strking against a vivid yellow-orange filling, and tastes brilliant), or serve with rice or wild rice.

No microwave? Clearly, the Electrolux R&D kiddies didn't read Modernist Cuisine.

Depending on the colours you want, you can successively add colour: tint a quarter yellow, and when you've got about half those piped, add red, and you've got orange; start with red, pipe those, add blue, you've got purple, and so on.

Well, there was also: Beef carpaccio, the chilly maroon flesh stretched out below . . . radish and celery slices that had started to curl, tasted of refrigeration and surrender. . . a white flap of flavorless squid was pulled over a length of octopus leg like a shroud; . . . frigid white beans . . . were crunchy at the center. Roast chicken tasted . . . (like nothing) . . . a muddy, shapeless swamp of porcini. A long log of Dover sole under a sheet of bread crumbs had neither the texture nor the flavor that might justify charging $49 for a fish stick. Soft green bell pepper and watery peeled tomatoes . . . were draped like old newspapers over and around a chunk of striped bass. Summer corn soup . . . tasted almost nothing like corn.

Still, they were happy with the front of the house, and they didn't think everything was lousy..?

Agreed; the better places I've eaten have, in fact, had waiters who did this. Head gestures seem to be completely useless (as is 'No, thank you'), since apparently, waiters are often not looking at customer's heads (or listening); their focus is entirely on the glass (or else, they're simply ignoring customers). Raising a hand beside the glass in a deferring gesture is far more likely to be noticed/acknowledged, and I can't imagine how that would be construed as rude. I've seen people clamp their hand down over the top of the glass, which seems a tad... territioral, but I still can't see that it's wildly offensive. Having a waiter pour (and then smile!), when you've shaken your head/said 'No thank you' is one of the most aggravating things.

Absolutely! I've made stack cakes, in fact. But this was supposed to be a layer cake According to the images accompanying the recipe, the layers were supposed to come out of the oven cake-textured cake: soft, flexible. These layers emerged from the oven crisp and dry. My boyfriend's mother, who has experienced over six decades of baked goods here in Denmark, expected them to be soft and cakelike; she was quite surprised at their being crisp! The layers did sort of soften, what with being sandwiched with the chocolate-cream-strawberry filling overnight, and then some, but... Well. Essentially, this was like following a recipe for Boston cream pie, and having the layers turn out like rounds of short-bread But hey, three of the six people who ate it thought it was the bomb, so not an entire failure!

I think this was supposed to yield cakey layers, at least, my boyfriend's mother was expecting something quite different, based on the pictures (as I was). She did say it sort of reminded her of a kiksekage. My initial idea, when I was shown the pictures of the desired result, was to go with the very tasty and reliable recipe for the cake layers for a Boston cream pie (from Cook's Illustrated), which would have yielded something that really looked like the pictures, but that was vetoed. I could have insisted, but I really hated to feel like I was browbeating someone about her birthday cake (read 'totally wimped on this'). But next time I make a cake of this sort, I know I'm not going to have to worry about this

Kind of like crap, actually; I've listened to people talk about this sort of thing many times. Eeeh... somehow, it's being 'just conversation' doesn't quite cut it. I can recall sitting with an older woman (who was in no way in denial or unhappy generally with being older), who sobbed for quite a while over hearing some younger colleagues playfully refer to her and her reproductive organs as dried up, among other choice things. It wasn't meant to be hostile, the girls were just trying to sound clever to each other, but it hurt this other woman like hell. I can remember my horrified shock at hearing a friend casually mention that someone 'tried to Jew me out of [something or other]', at hearing a colleague dismissively ascribe several workers' on-the-dot clocking-out as being due to their being 'lazy ni--ers'. It just sits wrong. Besides, that sort of label is pretty lazy, surely we can do better than that!

Thanks (erm, but the sort of bloody-looking clots of gel..?)! By the way, you might have liked this marzipan, if you simply don't care for almond flavour; this had no flavour at all. Nothing. A vague sweeness was discernible, but I have (very, very distant) memories of sampling Playdoh that was far more flavourful than this. Well, as I said, to my stunned... stunnedness (I know, not a word, but I need it here), the cake was greeted with enthusiasm, with almost everyone taking seconds, or even thirds, and the remainder was scarfed down by my boyfriend's father early yesterday. The cake is effectively buried. Alas, I not only knew what the cookbook wanted me to believe the cake would look like (pictures), but reading the recipe gave me a pretty good idea of how it would actually look (plus a sinking feeling); I could see there was a gap yawning chasm between the two. Trying to get a poorly designed recipe to work is pretty much like trying to assemble an IKEA dining room set with a several crucial structural elements missing. Possible, but it's not going to be pretty!

The flavour was sort of generically mushroomy, but sweeter than most and with a distinctive nuttiness. That may be just the way I cooked them. Further experiments may bring out the flavour more. I want to try stir frying them to see what happens. That is how my friend prefers them and she should know! I'm looking forward to your findings. Yep, I can tell you're suffering

These look lovely; apart from the nuttiness you mention, is their flavour very different from that of other mushrooms? Rather depressing, that about their attrition in the wild, though.

I've had fairly good results with straight rice flour/starch (whichever I have on hand), and sauces and such made with these seem to handle extended heat and reheating very well (even when I've flaked, and forgotten it for several minutes, and left it seething away). The dripping shouldn't be problem, but you could put a cloth under the lid to absorb the condensation, to see whether it makes a difference.