Maxim

Somewhat off topic, but on topic in terms of Australia food labelling... As of this month, the requirements for "free range" eggs in Australia have been liberalised, to allow 13 times more chickens per hectare (up to 20,000) in eggs designated "free range". Again, this flows on from what tikidoc was saying: Milk here doesn't mean just milk and 'free range eggs' can come from conditions that we would probably consider no different from battery farming.

Thanks, Robert. I really appreciate you going on with experimentation. I have been hampered more by apathy and the comparatively cold weather in Sydney during the Winter from continuing on with A-G experiments. Also, I've put an ice-cream machine on order which may dull my A-G enthusiasm. If I can find a nice insulated 1/2 size gastronorm pan out there though (that ships to Oz) I think I might pick one up. Then I can play around with seeing how quickly I can freeze things, say, in a vodka bath again. Also, having the big lid should make freezing cubes and non-flat objects much easier. Leaving the A-G on overnight seems a bit too much from my point of view, but even just using the insulated lid solution sounds like a great idea.

I think it sounds great - thanks for the article. I'm curious why your reaction is so dismissive though. Do you think that changing the shape (and hence, taste) of food isn't important, or do you just arbitrarily draw the line as to what sorts of tools and machinery can be used to do so? A lot of what good food is about is about shape and texture. It's possibly main difference between McDonald's french fries and Heston Blumenthal's thrice-cooked chips. Just writing someone's name in a cake or on top of a latte isn't particularly special or admirable, but achieving the right shape for a snack or maximising surface area of something you're about to fry sounds like great news. No doubt it will be outside the reach of the standard home cook for a decade or more, but it's an interesting development!

Dodol is supposed to take hours to render down (at least in the Indonesian method), so I too am curious about how you did it.

I'm well and truly in agreement - especially about the sunk cost! I must say, I haven't really persevered with my A-G experiments as much as I could - I was put off quickly by failures. I have also, by and large, been using the equipment in a room with temperatures from 20-25C, so trying the same experiments in a 10-15C room may make the difference. I thought of the styrofoam idea and I think it's a good one - I just haven't been bothered getting an arrangement going, but I suspect it wouldn't be too hard to jury rig a system with much better insulation. I'm not convinced that any vodka would ever get cold enough to cool foods in direct contact without them absorbing the alcohol and leaving a horrible tasting product (in most cases), but maybe even a silicone mold (especially one with a rounded bottom) floating in a very cold vodka solution would open some possibilities that are a bit more inviting. Maybe there are also more inventive solutions - e.g. coating product in cling film before dunking it in very cold vodka*. At the moment, I can only really freeze things in flat-bottom holds to a centimetre or so - using a shallow bath of more like 1cm of vodka as a thermal conductor may work. My 'experiment' involved more like a litre of vodka in a 4-5cm bath. I often use acetate on top of the A-G to make products easier to remove, but haven't as of yet used the acetate to its full potential considering the flexibility (e.g. making hot-dog-shaped lollipops that involve wrapping an almost-frozen thin layer around the stick). One other thing I am interested in is what is the best way to create an open-bottom mold on the A-G: I'm not sure if the sort of silicon noodles used in confectionary would conduct the cold well enough and one of the few things I haven't wasted money on is a good set of confectioner's bars. Alinea seems to use thick (rubber?) molds to shape their product. One experiment I never really carried out that should be possible on the A-G - especially a better insulated one - is getting perfectly transparent ice cubes. Oh... and a chamber vacuum is next on my list, unless I can exhibit a perverse form of self-control and save up for a PacoJet instead! * really, though, it should be almost as easy to do this with a freezer as with the A-G. In fact, this ties in with my earlier pessimistic outlook - it seems many of the applications I have seen with the A-G could be achieved almost with the same ease using less esoteric equipment. This is what, in my mind, makes it less of a 'must buy' than something like a chamber vacuum, immersion circulator, good blender or PacoJet.

I noticed a post on Ideas in Food recently about a new device from Polyscience (seemingly not available for purchase yet) - the "Sonic Prep" homogeniser. Basically, it seems to be like a commercial quality stick blender with a vibrating tip rather than blades at the end. It should be able to homogenise different liquids, infuse liquids with tastes and make emulsions quicker. It didn't strike me initially as any sort of "mad have" for a mad-scientist-style cook, but I am intrigued by the applications. Any good ideas how one might use one in the kitchen?

I refrigerate them here (Australia) as do other Australians I know. New Zealanders do as well, AFAIK. So, not just an American thing. My wife's family in Jakarta keep eggs on top of the fridge (unrefrigerated), as far as I remember. Their main concern is making sure the eggs are always solidly cooked (no sunny side up!) due to Avian flu. We bring eggs to room temperature before using them for most things, but I think we keep them cool because it's believed to increase longevity - which would justify a chill and then unchill approach. I have never tested if eggs do last longer in the refrigerator, although I know ours are fine even up to around a month after their best before dates. For many it would be a moot point though if whatever eggs are bought are used within the month. We also refrigerate our butter here, although used to keep it out under a cover. In the case of butter though, refrigeration is due to the regular 30C+ days.

I'm a home cook, interested in modern machinery, so have acquired a Thermomix, immersion circulator and Anti-Griddle in recent years. I must say that the Anti-Griddle seems the least useful of all of these and I wish I'd spent the money on a good ice cream machine instead. Why? Simply put, what you can do with an Anti-Griddle is incredibly limited. It is only the *best* device out there for those very few applications where you want a constant and dependable -34C temperature on a flat plane. If you want to freeze something quickly, this is not what you want (rather a cold freezer or liquid nitrogen or maybe even dry ice are better, because these don't just freeze a single surface at a time). If you want to make ice cream then this is not what you want - the fact that it freezes one side quickly but leaves all other sides unfrozen means that in a case where you wanted a similar amount of freeze everywhere you're sure to be disappointed - one part will be hard and icy and the other unfrozen. If you want an ice bath it is also not that good, because (again) there is only the one surface that it is freezing at any one time and that surface is only drawing 800W of power at a maximum. So, if you stick a small amount of liquid with little insulation on top of the Anti-Griddle and constantly stir it and take the freezing crust off the bottom then you would get something like an ice bath, but it would require constant attention and be more finicky than just a bucket with ice cubes and cold water. As a home cook with limited equipment I had thought up a lot of potential ways I might use an Anti-Griddle to substitute for other kitchen equipment - the type of equipment like ice baths, ice cream machines and blast chillers that a restaurant would have anyway. Time and again, it's proved itself to not be versatile in these regards. [1] I have tried making ice cream with the Anti-Griddle, using a method similar to cooking scrambled eggs or even an omelette - pour the mixture on, turn it regularly and occasionally mix a bit. This works, but it can easily get messy, is hard to get a consistent mixture and of course needs to be then stored in a freezer to get the right consistency. Overall, the outcome is no better than a domestic ice cream machine. [2] I have tried an ice bath and even tried a vodka bath. I had thought that if I put a litre of vodka in a bath on top of the Anti-Griddle and gave it time I might be able to get the vodka down to -20C or so in liquid form and then use it to freeze desserts (part of my attempt to make the A-G more than a 2D freezer). This didn't work. The relatively weak 800W of power the machine requires means that it was always losing too much energy to ever cool the vodka mix enough. [3] I have tried freezing semifreddos in silicone molds and similar on the surface. This can be done, but freezing anything thicker than a centimetre or so takes too long and might just as well be done in a domestic freezer. It is unsurprising to me, when looking around the web, that so many people use their Anti-Griddle for something like a frozen tuile of sorts or a lollipop. This is just about all it's good for and all I regularly use it for. It's nice to be able to get a dollop of yogurt and/or honey and stick them on the surface turning them into an instant, scrumptious lollipop, but for me the opportunities the machine presents for a home cook don't match the price. A restaurant with many covers might easily find the machine useful for churning out a particular dish (probably a lollipop) they had in mind, but most people - even most chefs - don't have a need for such a particular sort of cooking on a regular basis.