teonzo

I gave a quick look only to the description of the episode on Veneto, the region where I lived my whole life. Never seen a single time a salad containing orange, the use of orange in salads is a Sicilian tradition, totally unused here. If I tried serving a radicchio and orange salad to any people here then I would have to censor their comments. Not because it would not be good, simply because it would be alien to our habits and people here don't react that well to non traditional stuff. Teo

Never heard such a thing during my whole life. It would be considered a crime here, because: That's the most coveted part in every lasagna worth of its name! Bottura even made a dish called "La parte croccante della lasagna" ("the crunchy part of lasagna"). More infos here: http://www.nytimes.com/video/t-magazine/100000004708074/massimo-bottura.html Teo

Marshmallow, possibly flavoured with something bitter or acidic. Teo

One important detail: when you add something to a ganache then it's better if it's pasteurized. If you add an un-pasteurized juice to a ganache then you reduce its shelf life. Not a problem if that ganache is part of a plated dessert that's going to be consumed soon, big problem if that ganache will be part of a bonbon for sale. Teo

It goes great. You need to follow some guidelines though: - nuts have different fat content, nuts with high fat content (like macadamias) give a liquid puree, while nuts with low fat content (like pistachios) give a thick paste, in this case it's better to add a small percentage (around 5%) of neutral vegetable oil, otherwise it's difficult for the machine to work properly; - when the nuts become a paste then don't think it's done, it's just the beginning, to get a smooth nut butter (that's smooth at your palate and you don't feel any minimal grain) you need to continue for at least 10 minutes, if you are in doubt then much better 5 minutes more than less; - work in cycles, like 5 minutes on and 5 minutes off, this way you prevent the nut butter to overheat (same with the machine engine). Teo

You asked for a 4" x 4" x 0.75" box, the last link I gave points to various boxes which sizes are 4" x 4" x 1". You just need to open the link and see that those boxes are made with the measures you requested. Teo

The biggest blast freezer producer in Italy sells a home version too: http://irinoxfresco.com/ It works also as a low temperature oven, you can use it for proofing bread or cooking sous vide stuff (of course it's much less effective than a water bath with an Anova). I know some people who bought it, price was around 2000 euro some years ago. They say they are happy, I suppose their electric company is happier. With that money I would install a professional size electric circuit and buy a professional blast freezer (which costs half, is much bigger and performs better). Teo

If you are asking about pistachio oils sold in Italy, I can't answer, sorry. Pistachio oil is far from being a common ingredient here. I remember seeing it only once in a restaurant many years ago, it's impossible for me to remember if it was roasted or unroasted. When I made the MC pistachio sorbet I just subbed pistachio oil with peanut oil (peanut oil sold here is deodorized and neutral tasting), I didn't bother to look for pistachio oil since it's expensive, hard to find and I didn't know what to do with all the leftover. I tried the MC pistachio sorbet just to see how it came out and gain more experience. For personal consumption at home I much prefer fresh fruit sorbets (strawberry, blackberry, peach, pear, pineapple, banana, so on). Teo

I'm still pretty confused: are you looking for a mold that gives you a chocolate tray (a molded tray made of chocolate where to lay the puzzles), or are you simply looking for a box of the right dimensions? If it's the second, then you find a boatload of sites selling every kind of boxes of your required dimensions, just click on the google search I wrote in my first answer. This is just one: https://www.rmboxes.com/pastries/cookiegiftbox.html there are hundreds more. Teo

You can find at least one Thermomix in almost all michelin starred restaurants. It's a great tool for combining mixing + cooking + blending, of all the professional blenders I used it's by far the best, you get purees that are so smooth that you almost don't need to pass them through a chinois. It pays for itself for all the time you save. For home cooking... well, I'd say it's definetely overpriced. Personally, I think about twice per year "I'd like a Thermomix for this" while cooking at home. This depends mostly about how passionate/obsessive someone is for what he eats at home. If someone wants high end food (comparable to fine dining restaurants) every and each day, then it has sense to buy one. If someone just wants tasty comfort food, then it really has no sense. I don't care if my purees are not perfectly smooth, on the contrary, I'm happier since straining them through a chinois eliminate fibers, which I'm happier to include in my diet. The ability to cook at certain temperatures without attending the pot would save me like 15 minutes per month, too few. Teo

Like @kayb I really enjoy reading your reviews and looking at your photos, so please keep them coming! Teo

This is a skill you can't learn from a book: trying to explain this kind of stuff with written words is almost impossible. A lot of cooking skills are based on sensibility, the only way to learn them is having someone showing you what to do, then practice and practice and practice. You develop these skills through your senses: how food changes its color; how smell changes; how noises change; how texture changes (stir frying calls for stirring, so you feel how food texture changes through the utensil you use for stirring). It's impossible to teach this stuff via written words. This is the main reason why graduates from cooking school are considered beginners in every professional kitchen: they have the theory, but totally lack sensibility and experience (which are way more important than the theory). Teo

As @chromedomesaid, making 15% profit would be a dream for the majority of restaurants out there. Seems like a case where the restaurants did not read the small prints in the contract. Teo

Too bad I live a bit far, I'd love to see all of this! Teo

If you search "caramel variegate ice cream" on Google Books https://www.google.com/search?biw=1409&bih=877&tbm=bks&ei=_02GXJi2GvmKjLsPjeuI-Aw&q=Caramel+Variegate+ice+cream&oq=Caramel+Variegate+ice+cream then you get many entries, maybe you can find useful infos there (sorry, don't have a recipe myself). Teo

Wops, my bad, I misunderstood. So you want to make a tray made of chocolate, so you can lay the puzzle on this chocolate tray? The problem here is that if you use a simple mold with a rectangular cavity then you get the shiny surface on the bottom of the chocolate tray and not on top, not what you want I suppose. So you need an unpside down mold, never seen anything similar for sale by any chocolate mold producer. Only two solutions I can think of are: - make a custom mold, which is pretty expensive since if you make it by yourself then you need many molds (it's not cost effective to use only one mold), if you order them from a producer then price skyrockets; - confide in your luck and go on the hunt for something that you can use as a mold but its native use was something completely different. Ashtrays come to mind for this. Maybe you can find a rectangular ashtray with the correct dimensions and that is hollow on the base (you would pour the chocolate on the bottom side, not the one you use for ash). Try looking at 1 dollar stores, supermarkets and so on, hoping luck is on your side! Teo

If you google <<acetate box 4" x 4">>: https://www.google.com/search?q=acetate+box+4"+x+4" you get plenty of results. Many boxes are too high, many producers will be based in another country, but you should be able to find something suitable for you. Those puzzles look great! Teo

Uhm, big doubt: are we talking about vacuum chamber machines, or machines like Foodsaver? I thought about the first, not the second. If it's the second, then things change since it's a different process. BTW, the method described by @Pastrypastmidnight works perfectly, I would say it's the most effective both about cost and time. Teo

Thanks! There's so much to explore with fermentation. Makes me think we are like in the Middle Food Ages. Teo

Good to know, thanks, never used them. It drove me nuts to open a 300 kg order and put all the 3 kg bags on the shelves. Lindt is much more effective about this. Teo

This. When you use a vacuum machine you lower the pression, causing liquids to expand. Whatever components have water (ganache, caramel, so on) will expand, cracking the chocolate shell. Teo

For my tastes, unroasted is better. I always used roasted until trying the unroasted version in one of the best ice cream shops in Italy. I must say that one was a dairy ice-cream, but I tried the MC version with unroasted pistachios and feel the same for that too. Teo

You will still get it in 3 kg bags, packaged in carton boxes each one containing 3 bags. Nothing bigger from them, even if you order 100 kg of the same product. Teo

Sorbitol should give a better texture both about smoothness and elasticity. But I don't think this ingredient was available when this confectionery was first created, so saying it's "vital" is quite a stretch (as using the sous-vide). Teo

I wrote something when talking about easter eggs in the last days. If you have a tempering machine with good capability (which is your case) then in my experience this is the quickest method without using a spinner. First step. Pick the first half mold, fill the cavity / cavities to the brim with tempered chocolate, wait a bit until the chocolate reaches the correct viscosity to get your desired width. When the viscosity is correct, turn the mold upside down over the tempering machine tank, so the excess chocolate falls on the other tempered chocolate in the machine. Lay the mold upside down until the chocolate starts to crystallize. Until now the process is the exact same as for molded bonbons, the only difference is that for big figures you need a thicker chocolate shell (you need to wait for a higher viscosity). Now things changes from usual: instead of running a scraper on the mold to get a smooth plain section, you run a palette knife along the cavity perimeter, holding it at about 45° towards the bottom of the cavity. Here is a crappy image to try to explain what you are aiming for: After this comes the second step. You pick the second half mold, fill it to the brim, wait for correct viscosity, turn it upside down to empty it, then immediately put it over the first half mold, to compose the full figure / mold. The chocolate that normally would protrude from the mold (the one that you scrape away when making bonbons) will fall over the 45° depression of the first half mold, glueing the two halves together. Best thing to do is working mold after mold: as you complete the first half (just after running the palette knife to make the 45° effect) you start immediately with the second half, so they two halves crystallizes together. If you work the second half after the first one is crystallized, then you risk causing cracks on the first half. This method is pretty quick. Only downside is that you don't have perfect control on the final weight. Teo