EnriqueB

Wonderful dish Chris. One question I have since seing lentils recipes in MC: I wonder what does cooking lentils sous-vide adds with respect to the standard cooking, given that they stand temperature pretty well (can even ben done in pressure cooker)? Have you perceived some noticeable difference?

Back at home: I'm using an Emmi-20, these are the specs.

Well, my trial was not a very proper experiment neither! Just a first home comparison, useful to get a grasp of each recipe for further testing. For example, I started in the morning and went batch by batch, which meant that the last batch (ultrasonic) was cooling in the fridge for only one hour while the first batch was cooling for almost 5 hours. I'll soon compile all the details on my blog. Your tests also give me a lot of ideas of what to try and how to change things! I remembered having read in MC that heat was recommended when using the ultrasonic bath, but then I reviewed it and only saw that applied to flavour extraction (e.g. truffle butter or vegetable stock), not for fries. And mine turned out overcooked, so next time I'll likely use room-temperature water. I can't see a reason for that neither, especially with small batches. Twenty minutes, except the ultrasonic which were steamed for 15 minutes. The time was right, they had to be handled carefully but not as much that they fell apart. But sure this depends of the potato variety. I'm not sure which was my variety, as most potatoes here in Spain are sold without that information :-(( My provider is looking it up and will tell me next time I go there. I'll look it up when I'm at home this evening. Very interesting discussion!

Very useful thread, as a couple of weeks ago I also began experimenting with MC fries. I made four small batches of 5 fries each, each was cooked with a different recipe: Plain triple-cooked from Heston Blumenthal at Home Pommes Pont-Neuf Starch-infused Ultrasonic Fries after the first frying I could not follow exactly the recipes, due to my limited means: Vacuum-cooling the fries was done with a clamp-type machine, not a chamber machine. The machine is a MagicVac Maxima which according to specs reaches 932 mbar vacuum. I used a canister for vacuum. I kept doing vacuum for 3 minutes by keeping the "vacuumn" key pressed all the time. Can a clamp-type machine get the same effect than a chamber machine? Don't know yet. Next time I want to make a side-by-side test between two batches to verify whether using the machine has a noticeable effect or not Used the fridge for cooling, while some of the recipes instructs to use the freezer Used an electric deep fryer whose temperature range is 150ºC-190ºC. Good for all recipes except pont-neuf which demands 130 and 220ºC. The ultrasonic cleaner is good, it even heats the water up to 85ºC, but pretty small (10 fries maximum). That was one of the reasons for the small batches. Some lessons learn: All batches were pretty good. We liked the ones in HB at Home the least, they were also the simplest. We liked the interior of the pommes pont-neuf the most, we found it the most tender and flavorful, and the exterior was pretty good also. So the sugar and soda definitely add something. Not as crunchy as the ultrasonic, but given that it requires less effort, overall was probably the winner. The ultrasonic were too cooked, and some of the fries fell apart and broke in two. This was probably due to having them too long in the ultrasonic bath (90 minutes, 45 per side), and heating the water (my mistake: I though hot water was suggested but then could not find it in the recipe, so I started with 60ºC but after a few minutes turned the heat down, but still the water was hot after the 90 minutes). They had the most crunchy exterior, but this could also be due to them being so cooked, with more crevices and irregular parts. Starch-infused were somehow in the middle with respect to crunchiness. In forthcoming trials I want to find out whether vacuum cooling with a clamp type machine adds something, also try the ultrasonic without heat and shorter time (as I'm making pretty small batches), and try the starch infused+ultrasonic. I also want to try different potato varieties, as here in Spain I cannot find the varieties recommended on the original recipes.

Thanks Chris!!

Hi, as dry ice is easier to buy than liquid nitrogen, I was thinking about using it for a home version of cryosearing, e.g. for the "perfect hamburguer". Has someone tried it? Any issue I should anticipate?

Apart from cleaning your watches, remember that they are also used in MC for enhancing flavor extraction in vegetable stocks or truffle butter. Last week I tried to used mine (a small model) to enhance flavor extraction in prawn butter, but the crushed prawn shells broke the SV bag and could not finish the test.

I've done with both mustard and (normal, shelled) sesame seeds, same proportions and same time. I think both become more or less soft after a short cooking time, but I the "degree of softness" and texture likely changes with the longer times, though I have not tested, just followed MC guideline of 90 minutes at high pressure. The result are seeds that grow about 25% in weight and are soft in the interior but still retain some hardness in the "skin", so they kind of "pop" when you eat them. See a similar recipe for the mustard in consumed gourmet, and pressure-cooked sesame seeds in this entry from my blog.

And, it will be nice to have such a compilation table online!!

I have pressure cooked sesame and mustard seeds, as per Modernist Cuisine instructions (blanch first, 50 g seed + 250 g water, 1,5 hours). Details here (in Spanish).

Hi, the Marmite Consomme recipe has as first ingredient 750 gr of brown butter, used to sweat the vegetables. 750 gr is as much as the amount of liquid being used for the consomme (500 gr reduced wine + 250 gr water). This seems like a typo to me, even though there are a lot of vegetables to sweat (2,5 kg), in fact I did it yesterday using only 150 gr of brown butter. Anyone has made this recipe? How much butter did you use?

Yes, those tables will do, or other time-to-core tables. I normally check both the tables in Modernist Cuisine and Douglas Baldwin and use the longer time as a bit longer in the bath makes no bad. The "presa" shape is not regular, so I use the steak tables with the width of the "presa" in its wider part.

Yes, wonderful meat with its interspersed fat. It's easily found here, so it's normally the only pork I eat. Here I subjected a loin to equilibrium brining, then sous-vided and torched it.

Hi Toufas, I cook "presa ibérica" at 55ºC, time just to get the 55ºC to the core as determined by tables, then a quick sear.

Thanks Laura! I have two of those, for the other (smaller) pressure cookers, but still the bigger of them fully open is a little smaller than the cooker. I'll search for a bigger one. Enrique

Hi pazzaglia, saw your tweet yesterday with your new Duromatic Hotel pan. That's also my pressure pan, as well as the 12 liters of the same model. Wonderful cooker. Only problem is that I cannot find accessories using the higher width, such as perforated inserts or steamers. Not even Kuhn-Rikon has them in their catalog. Only the ones for the smaller Duromatic...

I do roast them, with just a little bit of olive oil, they get crispy in spots and are delicious. I do with the whole sprouts, not only the outer layer, the smaller leaves get darker while the bigger ones get brown in the edge only or in spots. Saw it first in this entry in the Nom Nom Paleo blog, but they do it only with the outer layers. Edited to clarify text

I am surprised at the high price on this site (300 GBP, about 363 EUR) when the recommended price at the maker site is only 270 EUR, see http://csc.vac-star.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=81&Itemid=105〈=en On the other hand, the absolute price is excellent for a circulator, I'm looking forward for people to evaluate it.

Hi, haven't seen any comments about the supposed new danger of plastic bags mentioned in these articles: http://chriskresser.com/how-plastic-food-containers-could-be-making-you-fat-infertile-and-sick and http://nomnompaleo.com/post/12463202060/cooking-sous-vide-plastic-safety . Any opinions?

About the time for "brine to equilibrium", the other day I brined a lamb leg to a target salt percentage of 0,7%, and left it 48 hours in the fridge. Supposedly you can leave it longer than needed, but what I noticed is that the water had taken some color and smell from the meat. So I wonder whether it was too long, and whether healthy minerals, vitamins, and taste/odor molecules were being lost into the water when using this method...

I normally use 100% chicken stock (lately the MC version, which is quite gelatinous) for my risottos, and I find them excellent, neither bitter nor gummy at all.

Great, Andrés, so I was wrong about the required liquid for water vapor, good to know!

The demi has disappeared from the product web site (at least from the european version, there must be some cookie at my computer that prevents me accessing the US version), anyone knows whether they might have ran out of stock temporarily or there is some other reason?

I've used 50 minutes several times (didn't see the 20 minutes correction) without any problem, and the result is also fantastic.

Andrés, butter and margarine, unlike oil, have between 15 and 40% of water. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I would say this is relevant for the recipe, specially at the beginning as you need to produce some water vapor for the pressure cooker to come up to pressure. Later on the carrots should also release their water, but at the beginning I cannot see where would the water vapor come from if you use olive oil...