Bojana

Johnny, Thank you so much for taking time to answer. Will try your suggestions next time.

Same here. If there is a trick, I'd love to know, mine was also a shapeless but tasty blob. I've done few more dishes, some of which I've loved, others were just ok, not mu cup of tea I guess. Pistachio pesto was very tasty but I did not specifically taste the pistachio, they got "lost" in all the herbal flavours. I will make it in future with pine nuts and reserve my precious pistachio for gelatto or nougat. Garlic confit great. Would gladly eat it on toast. I could not taste it in Creamed spinach, I guess I prefer stronger garlic taste there, or my taste buds are not as good as those of the MC team (this is very likely). I liked adding milk, already creamed by Xantan gum to spinach, it made it lighter than my usual spinach is, this will be my go to method going forward. Fragrant salmon was amazing, I used the spices on several other fish types since, including halibut, and this time I could taste the added hazelnuts, which was a plus. Finally, Stripped omlet. I wanted to try this ever since I read about it, more than a year ago. It was very tasty,although sticky to silicone and difficult to work with. French omelette foam was delicious but not stable, it lost volume few secs after it left siphon To be fair, I deviated from numerous steps: I piped the mushroom batter instead of combing it (less straight lines than on the pic, but this opens creative omelette writing possibilities) I used square sheetpan size silicon, then cut my squares I had too little batter for the size of my sheet Did not remove the foam before pouring, as suggested All in all, still turned out great, and I know what to correct next time (more batter, bake 2 mins longer, remove foam). Any suggestions how to solve for stickiness (maybe longer baking will do) and especially French egg foam stability. Oh, and the Shitake marmalade was spectacular! I used it in a another pasta dish few days later, it gives such depth and richness, will be making that often and keep it as part of my frozen basics. Still did not manage to do any sweets, but will soon I hope.

I have tried both. Tapioca has much finer structure. I tried fine grinding the protein shake one, to some degree of success but finally gave up and bought a box of sosa brand stuff.

Thanks. I did not make photos of the proces, but to describe it, when i added the pink color, it was pinke for few seconds, then turned red and eventually brown.

Hi all, I have seen a really cool demo on creating sugar coated foie gras bonbons. Frozen balls were dusted with icing sugar and then quickly dipped in boiling manitol (aka the frying sugar). I have managed to recreate it at home but what bugs me is that i cannot color my bonbons. The demo ones had a lovely pink color. Uncolored ones look grey and unapetizing. I have tried adding Wiltons gell color to manitol but it gets fried and the color is lost. Maybe try using powdered color? Or coloring the icing sugar? Anyone knows?

I understand equal parts, but what is the total quantity? Because it then uses fixed quantities of flavourings to infuse this liquid, so I am looking for how to scale. I want to try lemongrass & gigner creme brulee, sounds like a divine combination.

I realize I may have been unclear, my previous post question was about infusing liquids to make creams and other yummy desserts. So far, I've made 10ish recipes from the book, all great success. MC@H will be on my kitchen table, open and in use, for the bigger part of 2013 I suspect. However, I feel that desserts part is not quite at the same level with the rest of the book, hope the team is working, as we speak, on Modernist Patisserie version. To illustrate my point, Panna Cotta recipe is made with raspberries and alternative recipes mention any kind of fruit puree. Doing so results in Panna Cottas of varying level of sweetness, depending on the natural sugar content in fruit used. I'd expect MC team to work with Brix for desserts, to achieve the right level of sweetness, consistently every time. The tool is relatively cheep and I feel is truly in the MC spirit. I'll give few sweet recipes a go and come back to report the results.

Question about infusions: I am unclear about the quantities to be infused. The text says something like 300gr milk/cream/sugar syrup or equal quantities of milk/cream. Does this mean 300 gr of liquid, consisting of 1/3 each cream, milk and sugar syrup or 300 gr milk and 300 gr cream? Anybody understand how this was meant?

Ideas in food book contains nice information on exactly this. I do not own MC (yet) but have been using Ideas in food to play with a number of hydrocolloids succesfully.

Microwave eggplant recipe was amazing. The texture of eggplant was similar to that of melted mozzarela, not chewy, not bitter, not soggy, just a great canvas for tomatoe basil cheese flavours that we know work well together. Quick to do if you keep marinara sauce at ready, which you should bc is so versatile and tasty. Question about the pc squash puree: does lemongrass go inside the pressure cooker as well? I could not figure it out from the recipe. I have made carrot soup before few times, reducing butter slightly bc i felt it was too rich for my taste. Other than that, I am a fan, and hope someone knows what to do with lemongrass. Planning to use it for the risotto recipe tonight.

Thank you for your answer. I have not done much research myself in this area. Generally, I tend to cook healthy for my family, steaming veggies for no more than 5-10 minutes, and eating a lot of things raw. Fine cooking I consider a treat, but wouldn't it be ideal if the MC way prepared food was also good/better for you than the traditional one? My copy arrived last night, and since I am at work the whole day, I'll be making the quick microwave eggplant dish tonight, I figure I can do it between 5.30 and 7 PM, before my kids start eating their wood toys and screaming of hunger.

My copy should arrive any day now and I cannot wait. In the meantime, a question for the MC@H team and the discussion participants: do you know the effect of various MC procedures on nutritive value of food? I know many techniques are used to optimize for flavour but how about vitamin preservation in foods. If I cook my veggies until tender in the pressure cooker for super smooth purees, do I end up with food that is tasty but has no significant nutritive value (other than caloric)? Any views, insights, research done in this area?