Baselerd

You can always add an emulsifier to prevent the sauce from breaking. I think even xanthan gum can go a long ways to help.

Here's one from the Eleven Madison Park Cookbook (with some modifications): Crimini mushrooms three ways (poached in olive oil-white wine reduction on pan-fried bread rounds, pickled, and raw), peanut puree, fresh garden greens, crushed peanuts, and peanut vinaigrette. I've never been a huge fan of Crimini mushrooms, but the poached ones are delicious.

Yeah, it's a bit annoying - although he uses weight measurements for the stuff that really matters (modern thickeners & gelling agents) usually. I can usually just use my intuition on most other things ... no real harm is done if you have a 5% error on your currant measurement.

4-238

The MC books have a recipe just like that. They use activa RM, chicken thigh meat, and a bit of white chicken broth to make the noodles. I've been wanting to make that recipe actually, the broth is kinda cool too - they make a nano-emulsion broth using gum arabic, bay and thyme essential oils.

Good thing I don't live in California... everything causes cancer there.

I actually didn't realize this was a zombie thread. My bad - still a good cookbook

Starting a dish from scratch with no recipe, I usually will take inspiration from other dishes or popular combinations. For example, goat cheese and walnuts. Then I'll pick a few other veggies or major flavors to go with, making sure they each go well with one another. If in doubt, take a bite containing the combination in question and see how it works. For the cheese and nuts I might choose to have some figs and red sorrel, dressed with lemon vinaigrette. All these flavors work well with one another, so it's a start. Don't know if red sorrel and goat cheese go together? Smear some cheese on a sorrel leaf and taste it. This is where it helps to have some experience and familiarity with a wide range of ingredients. Then I'll look at the ingredients and balance the textures - I like a bit of crunchiness and "squish-iness" in a single plate, so I'll choose how to prepare each component. For this, it's generally recalling techniques from your experience. Candied walnuts provide a nice crunch, and a fig puree or fluid gel would provide a nice soft squishy component. Next, balance the flavors - especially salt and sweet/sour (I'm sure I'm missing something...). For the goat cheese example, I could add some balsamic vinegar to the fig puree for a boost in the sour department, etc. At the end, I like to throw in raw or "natural" ingredients that tie back to any flavors used in the sauces (mainly for garnish, but also to make the dish more substantial). For this, I might throw a few sliced figs into the mix to accompany the fig puree (as well as some nice chevre). Usually by this point the recipe is done. Next you cross your fingers and hope for the best...

Maybe a bit cliche, but I love Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill Cookbook: Explosive Flavors from the Southwest Kitchen. Everything I've cooked from it has been delicious, and the recipes are not very hard at all.

I've been looking at this recipe- how well do the flavors work? Does the chocolate not just overpower the fairly delicate fig and jasmine? I have to first say that for the ice cream I did not have access to fig leaves so I used diced figs instead. The fig flavor was slightly overpowered by the chocolate, but not so much to where I couldn't appreciate it. The jasmine cake flavor was a bit light (probably by design, it was nice and refreshing), but it worked well - although I might increase the amount of ground jasmine tea if I make it next time since I prefer heavier desserts usually.

Jasmine tea, regardless of the time of year.

Out of the Elements of Dessert: Fig Ice Cream, Jasmine Tea Cake, Scottish Shortbread Crumble, Chocolate Sauce. The entire dessert was supposed to be contained within a melting chocolate box, but I gave up on that...

Cool, I'll try pinging them - thanks for all the help.

I made some too - were the Sichuan peppercorns supposed to be fresh? I cooked it as directed but ended with a ton of hard peppercorns in the stir fry that had to be removed...

I've always had good luck with deep fried brussels sprouts, dressed in sweet-n-spicy asian fish sauce - just make sure you fry them right before the party.

I made it with the siphon and thought it was great - still it was definitely stronger than traditional scrambed eggs, but not in a bad way. I agree though - the butter makes it very rich. I didn't try it alone, however - I had one of the steamed omelettes filled with egg foam from that section.

It does not mention anything more specific than "Peter's Chocolate." The book has you place a 2 lb block of it on a sheet pan in a dehydrator for 30 mins @ 95F/35C, spoon, and plate. The chocolate is described as "very high-fat, high-viscosity, and low-fluidity."

Alright so I had a question to any of you chocolate experts: I am planning on making one of the plated desserts (Chocolate Tile, Shortbread Crumble, Clotted Cream, Peter's Chocolate) out of The Elements of Dessert by Migoya and I have run into a small bump. The dessert I am making calls for a certain brand of chocolate, Peter's Chocolate. It says it is a special high-fat formulation of chocolate which holds its shape after tempering (rather than running), almost giving the texture of a ganache. It is served on the plated dessert just like this. Unfortunately, I have been unable to source it from any online retailers in reasonably small quantities (i.e. not for restaurant kitchens). Do any chocolate experts here have any insight into this? Are there any other suitable replacements? I was thinking I could simply make a ganache as a substitute, but only as a last resort...

I think this subject expands to our fundamental view of how involved government should be in our lives - I don't think anyone wants the government to tell them how to eat. However, it is pretty clear that obesity and poor diet habits have become a large public health problem in the US (albeit overly dramatized by media) that causes huge costs to the public health sector, causing our medical insurance and health costs to rise. Obesity is only second to smoking as the leading cause of preventable death in the US, causing a laundry list of expensive, potentially fatal complications. It seems pretty obvious, but when one third of the population is incurring massive medical costs, it is a problem that has gotten out of hand. And clearly nobody has found a good solution yet. All I'm saying is that putting calorie counts on the menu isn't going to solve this. The real problem is probably deeply rooted in our psyche (and how lazy we are), I figure convenience foods have really only exploded to dominance in the last 50 years, and now we're seeing the inevitable result.

Perhaps that is a bit of an oversimplification of the issue. Some people obviously don't fully (or in any capacity) understand the effect poor food choices can have on them. I wasn't suggesting anyone nag at you, and I agree that nobody likes that sort of thing.

These entrees are clearly over the top - but blaming the food industry seem silly. I'll be interested to see if the presence of calorie values on the menus will make much of a difference - my guess is not much. The general public has already voted with their wallets, so instead of trying to interfere with restaurants maybe they should focus on educating the public.

I've had some delicious kohlrabi vichyssoise recently too, I think it's prepared just like any other one. If you wanna go all out it was served chilled. and poured into a fresh garden salad with uni and grilled squid.

Regardless of what method you use to brew your coffee, you must get good quality beans (not ground). I like the brand Ruta Maya if you can get your hands on it.

Food carts/trucks/trailors offer a significantly lower capital investment than a brick and mortar. A lot of these places are able to perform most prep-work at an off-site kitchen and then bring their mise-en-place along in the trailer. If your food/price point is good, you can peddle your wares at the best locations for MUCH cheaper than renting a commercial space. If you are successful, you might even be able to transition to a full-on brick and mortar place. Several restaurants where I'm at have made that transition, including one of my favorites (Barley Swine).

We have so many food trucks where I'm at that they're having to invent themes and gimmicks to distinguish themselves from the others. Asian food trucks always seem better than the other genres of food, for some reason.