Cola-Bear

Were you planning on hitting the mom & pop, hole in the wall type of places for traditional malay cuisine or are you thinking more of a michelin-esque tour of big name chefs like Emmanuel Stroobant?

At the majority of restaurants I've worked at we've changed the menu seasonally like you said, spring (mar/apr/may), summer (june/july/aug), autumn (sept/oct/nov) & winter (dec/jan/feb). And then from keeping both customers and cooks from getting slightly bored we'd add specials from day to day or week to week depending on what's in season/growing.

I know that same feeling, however I remember someone wondering on the MC website if they'd be willing to print just a run of the Kitchen Manuals with the corrections for those people who bought the first printing as it would most likely be the document used for reference when in the kitchen. I don't know if it would be something we could recommend to the MC team but would anyone else be interested in that?

Thanks for the responses guys, dcarch I'm interested to see if I can find a way to incorporate either of those ideas, but Im gonna need to try and get this set up first to see if I can proper attachments, etc. Robert, I really appreciate your input, and it has helped me answer a couple of the questions I was worried about, like you mentioned about the lack of PSI. Also do you remember how fine the filters you were using were?

Hey guy's I know I'm a bit late to the party, but have as far as wondering what certain flavors might be like for other infusions (like you mentioned about cocoa-nibs and different peppercorn) but don't want to invest the hours of infusing before seeing if the flavor is something you actually enjoy, if you have one of those ISI cream whipper you can charge with N02 you could try a super fast way just to see if you like the flavor. Nils Noren and Dave Arnold from the French Culinary Institute figured this technique about a year ago. "You can infuse flavors into liquor (and water based things, too) almost instantly with nothing more than an iSi Cream Whipper . You can use seeds, herbs, spiced, fruits, cocoa nibs, etc. Here’s how: Put room-temperature booze into the cream whipper. Add herbs, seeds, whatever. Close the whipper and charge it with nitrous oxide (N2O –the regular whipped cream chargers). Swirl gently 30 seconds and let stand 30 seconds more. Quickly vent the N2O out of the whipper, open it, and strain out the infusion. Done." http://www.cookingissues.com/2010/08/11/infusion-profusion-game-changing-fast-%E2%80%98n-cheap-technique/ I know you guys seem to love the experience and tradition of long-soaked extracts but I thought some of you guys might be interested.

I have no real idea what a reciprocating tire pump is, after googling it seems to be something that pumps air forward as opposed to vacuuming, unfortunately I have no idea as to how I could reverse that pressure into suction. Another concern with that is it seems all the PSI ratings I found are like 3-5x higher than the max recommended and could actually either start pulling solids through the filter or tear them at the extreme. And as for the foodsaver vacuum sealer you mentioned, I've ever only seen the larger like 1-2 foot long full on vacuum sealers, never just a stand alone pump, and if you could elaborate on that it would be very helpful. Again I realize this is alot to ask, but if you have any more info I would be very appreciative, thanks very much for any time you're willing to give me, thank you.

That is pretty awful, I find if you pre-cook any kind of eggs meant to be served hot and then re-heating them you're just asking for trouble (hardboiled are a different story), I'm sorry you had to witness it. The worst thing I have seen recently at my work was a cook who has been here for upwards of 20 years, I'm discovering its the kind of place that if you work hard enough to not get fired you won't, 80% of the work done by 20% of the people. We had a pheasant breast/risotto special running and it was approx. 15 mins. til close, so most of our mise we had started cooling/putting away (including the stock we were using to finish the risotto). A late two-top shows up and one of them orders the pheasant special. I'm going back and forth to the walk-in putting my mise away, come back out maybe sooner than he expected. I see he's sliced the pheasant breast thinly and is cremating it under the sally and is ladling the god damn dish-water from the bain-marie/steam table into the risotto pan. I literally had to restrain myself from just pushing him off line.

Hey guys, if there is any other thread for this already I apologize but I searched the forums and couldn't find one but still, apologizing in advance. Long story short, I recently got to book 2 of MC, and started reading more about modern techniques for achieving classic results. The section on modern clarifying techniques (Vol.2, p.350-375) especially the vacuum filtering really caught my attention as to how it could save me some time. The faucet aspirators although inexpensive may overall end up costing more due to the amount of water needed to run them as I'm charged by the litre (I live in Canada, no idea what a gallon even is) of water used. So I've been looking around and there are kit's being sold with the Buchner funnel, flask and all of the vacuum hoses and other accoutrements but they attach to a hand-held pump. Something like this: http://www.amazon.com/500ml-Vacuum-Filter-Hand-Pump/dp/B004QXWWI0/ref=pd_sbs_indust_31 ) Unfortunately it doesn't give an idea of the PSI it's able to achieve or anything and I was just wondering if anyone has had any experience clarifying/filtering using vacuum pumps or anything similar who would be willing to share their experiences. Thanks very much for your time and anything you can think of to help guys.

I actually just went through this same process last night, and the first time I tried it, no matter what answer I entered it would come back as incorrect. Then I reloaded the page, it asked me a different question which I typed in and it worked first try, my advice is to try that with and without caps until it works because it will eventually.