EnriqueB

I was really curious about beef short-ribs, well known to be one of the best cuts for long sous-vide. They are not available in Spain, where we usually eat veal --whose ribs are not marbled at all-- rather than beef. So I ordered some Angus Black prime short-ribs brought from the US to my butcher and put them in the water bath for 70 hours at 60ºC with some veal stock (following Modernist Cuisine recipe). We were all impressed by the tender result, a meat that almost melts in your mouth! Definitively a well-deserved fame.

Real oxtails here are usually served to restaurants only, I had to order specially at my butcher, it was not cheap but worth the price. Time & recipe comes from Modernist Cuisine, really long time but the result was excellent. Yes, I've tried bull-tail, it's an wonderful dish, the meat is a bit tougher than oxtail but with much collagen and really tasteful when properly cooked.

My first attempt at a tough cut sous-vide was nothing less than Glazed Oxtail (6-90), 100 hours at 60ºC. Oooohhh, I think I'll never go back to stews for tough cuts, what a difference in flavor and texture! For comparison, with half the oxtail I made the braised recipe in TK's French Laundry, SV wins by a huge advantage. And the glaze, after four concentration steps (stock, jus, cook with the oxtail, reduce) was pure beef flavor, delicious.

Ok, so it's just preferences and maybe a typo. Just found the coincidence and wondered whether there was some reasoning behing that I had missed. Thanks for all the answers!

Thanks for the answers. Ufimizm, I think your answer is right. Badiane, I know all these definitions, but the issue is that MC does NOT recommend to roast the bones for veal BROWN stock (on their table for their best bets for stocks, althoug they do on the recipe that appears later), only the meat. Also Thomas Keller says they NEVER roast veal bones, be it for either white or brown stock.

Hi, I've always roasted veal bones for making brown veal stock. But the other day I was reading Thomas Keller's French Laundry and he specified they do not roast veal bones, and I could not find the reason. Then I went to the stocks table in Modernist Cuisine and saw that they don't roast veal bones neither (they tell to only roast the meat for veal stock). So I wonder, is there a specific reason why veal bones, unlike beef or others, should not be roasted?

Thanks, Chris and LoftyNotions. That was my suspicion, but wasn't sure as that breaks their "standard" (whenever they refer to a different recipe they pointing to the corresponding page, and when they say "from above" they rather refer a previous section in the same recipe).

Hi, I would appreciate some help from those of you that have made the Mushroom Ketchup (6-217). I've already grabbed most ingredients, but really don't get the instructions for the third section (steps 3 to 7). One ingredient is "Mushroom broth, from above", but the previous steps do NOT produce a broth, unless there is some missing "horizontal line" somewhere above. Should all ingredients in section 3 be combined and simmered together, from "Crimini mushrooms, thinly sliced", to "Freeze-dried cofee powder", as the recipe seems to imply (and then where does the "mushroom broth" comes from?)? Or rather the simmering is to be done only with the mushrooms, malt vinegar and the dark ale, to produce the "mushroom broth" than is then blended with the rest of the ingredients?

Sure it pays. In Madrid there's a chemical products shop that sells to the public small quantities of many modernist ingredients for prices about TEN times less than the branded ones, and I am convinced that they are pretty much the same.

Some high-end brands are producing full-surface induction cooktops where the whole space can be used (rather than having three or four circles). They adapt automatically to whatever pot size and shape your place over them. Perfect for indoors big paellas For example, Gaggenau makes this one (not available in Gaggenau US)

A pressure cooker was my first pot when I left my parents' home and started to cook on my own. Stocks and beans, always. Purees. Most vegetables, steamed. Steaming on the PC for very short times seems to be the cooking method that preserves most vitamins and minerals (but beware that cooking further than "aldente" with this method may produce the opposite effect).

I'm looking for a water-oil deep-fryer that some relatives are already using. The fryer is filled first with water then oil. Residues falling from the food fall and are captured by the water bellow, thus they don't burn and oil spoilage is minimized, and odors are not mixed. The makes also argue that less oil quantity is required. The maker is Spanish, don't know whether there are similar models in the US. This type of deep-fryers are mentioned on a side node in Modernist Cuisine, quoted as having a Japanese origin, and they say they are one of the more interesting designs. Anyone has experience with these fryers?

It's kind of funny to see pressure-cookers been referred to as "modernist tools", as I remember my mother using them ever since I have memory... The MC white chicken stock recipe is great. It only has minor differences with the one I've been doing for the last years (same time and meat/bone ratios, but grinding the meat and using slightly different aromatics) but it turns out far better. My only problem was that the ground meat did lump together in something similar to meatballs, which likely prevented full extraction. I read upthread that the ground meat should be sauteed before? I thought that was only done for the brown stock...

Made the beer can roasted chicken in convection oven from page 2-109. I was surprised to find the the can should be empty (only use it as a stand), unlike the standard recipe (which I first saw on the roasting a chicken topic). The result was certainly better that most roasted chickens I've made, though next time I'll try at 60º instead of 65º (measured 1 cm from the surface). The separation of skin from meat step is taken from the roasted chicken in combi oven recipe from pages 2-178/179. I guess the other steps there (injecting a brine & dry in the fridge for 48 hours) could also be applied equally well, so I'll give it a try next time.

I also expect Ferran to have a copy since he wrote the foreword, but being close to Ferran & Roca in any list sounds good

Wasn't that myth debunked years ago? MC, pg. 2-184 "The glass door has a perforated metal shield that allows you to see inside, but prevents microwaves from leaving the open." And the wave power is inversely proportional to the cube of the distance, so even in the case of malfunction, unless you stick your nose to the door you won't be noticing much either...

I thought it was not the time but the vitamins & minerals: steaming at high pressure with very short times has been found to be the best way of preserving them, isn't it?

Madrid, Spain. Home cook (and first post here)