Baselerd

I made the recipe from Alinea once and had the same problem. I figure that a lot of this has to do with how thick/thin you cast the sheet initially (assuming you got the texture right with the ganache).

I made the confit turkey leg from this recipe and it turned out insanely good - sounds like you are going to try a similar thing (minus the sous vide cooking). The duck fat and herb mixture worked wonders, while the distinct turkey flavor was still preserved. I would say go for it.

The key to the pressure cooker isn't necessarily the time, but the temperature. Since there will be plenty of moisture in the pot (carrots, juice, etc), the temperature won't go above the boiling point of water (212 F at 1 atmosphere) unless it is all evaporated. However, if you use the pressure cooker you can achieve higher temperatures. As you may know, the delicious flavors we associate from browning are products of the Malliard reaction and caramelization reactions, which are minimal at 212 F, but become more pronounced at higher temperatures (such as those in the pressure cooker.) Thus the pressure cooker enables you to develop a more rich and caramelized flavor. The addition of baking soda increases the pH of your solution to further promote the Malliiard reaction as well. I also have read that the closed environment of the pressure cooker holds in a lot of the volatile flavor compounds, but I would imagine that effect is minor compared to the increased temperature. With that said, I can't imagine butter and carrots tasting too bad without the pressure cooker, they just won't have as much of a caramelized flavor. Maybe an alternative approach would be to brown the carrots before adding to the soup?

If you have access to a pressure cooker, there's a legendary caramelized carrot soup from Modernist Cuisine. You essentially just pressure cook carrots, butter, carrot juice, salt, and baking soda for 1.5 hours. I've made it twice now, and it's a very easy recipe. If you don't have access to a juicer, I'm sure off-the-shelf carrot juice would work well. Not only is it the best carrot soup I've ever cooked, it's among the best I've ever tasted. The recipe is here if you are interested.

To be honest I removed the skin after cooking for that dish, it was served straight out of the SV with no crisping. With that said, I've had pretty good luck with crisping skin by partially dehydrating the skin (off the meat) and then reattaching it with transglutimase. It's a lot of work, but gave me good results. MC takes it a step further by grinding up dehydrated skin into powder and sprinkling it over the partially dehydrated skin before reattaching it to the meat.

Looks good. It's weird that they have two variations of this, but I made the Thanksgiving Stew (SV turkey breast and SV turkey leg confit) from their website as well, and it was amazing. By far the best turkey I've ever had. The dark meat was extremely tender and flavorful, and I'm sure it would work just as fine if you use oil instead of duck fat.

And another. This is the Sweet Potato Beignets with chocolate-chestnut honey ganache, cocoa nib crumble, brown butter ice cream, sweet potato sauce, and orange pate de fruit. I unfortunately was out of soy lecithin so I had to skip the orange foam. I substituted honey for chestnut honey (I know it's not the same thing - but I didn't feel like going online to get some) and the result was excellent, but the honey flavor was mainly overpowered by all the others. Not that it was a problem, this dessert was excellent. I probably say this every time I make a new type of ice cream, but anyone who owns this book owes it to themselves to make the brown butter ice cream - simply amazing.

Try opening a Macadamia nut...

I have to recommend The Uchi Cookbook. It is no means traditional, but it is the cookbook from my favorite pair of restaurants (Uchi and Uchiko) here in Austin Texas. There's a lot of sea food (a whole section on sushi), but there's a lot of other good stuff too, including short ribs, pork belly, etc. All of the dishes have a strong foundation from Japanese cuisine (the chef of the restaurants, Tyson Cole, studied in Japan), but also feature strong influences from American cuisine to make unique flavor combinations. For example, one dish (my favorite) features Wagyu short ribs with a peach-kimchi emulsion and heirloom peaches. If your into modernist-style cooking the book also features a bit of those types of techniques (sous vide, non-traditional thickeners, etc.) but doesn't go overboard like some places. The dessert section is among the best I have ever cooked from as well, although it is definitely more similar to any new-American style restaurant than traditional Japanese cooking. A sample of this book can be viewed here.

True, but sometimes sugar content has just as much to do with texture as it does with sweetness - maybe not with this Panna Cotta, but definitely with other recipes. I don't fully trust my intuition to that end. For instance, I ruined the Guiness Pate de Fruit from the original MC for this very reason.

Are these hot or cold? I haven't done too many gel encapsulations, but from my experience I had great luck with the MC "best bets" for coating gels using the low-acyl + high-acyl gellan mixture. It gives a nice firm texture and can be served hot. If your serving it cold you can use gelatin too, which is a bit less error prone.

I too agree that a Brix measurement would help. I think with MC:AH they omitted a few things that they felt would alienate most home cooks. While you and I know that a kitchen refractometer is a cheap tool that you can use to ensure correct sugar content, I do think the majority of home cooks would be put off by that requirement. The original MC books use Brix measurements here and there if I recall...

Yeah, I'll definitely try that next time (which may be a while with my schedule). Thanks for the tips Robert and pep.

Any food science experts out there? I obtained a relatively large sample of Maltrin M100 from GPC, and was wondering exactly how to use it (formulations, %, etc). The Modernist Cuisine uses this ingredient in a few recipes (which were delicious), but unfortunately doesn't explain the reason for using these too well. Nor is there a parametric recipe for using this additive (with the exception of a "light set foam" such as souffles). Reading up on the product data sheet, I found that M100 is a corn-based maltodextrin, produced by the hydrolysis of of a corn starch slurry. The various grades of Maltrin indicate different dextrose equivalents (a measure of the completeness of hydrolysis). The more complete the hydrolysis, the lower the average molecular weight. Maltrin M100 (according to the data sheet) has a DE of 9 to 12 (10% sweetness vs. sucrose), and has "low" hygroscopicity (ability to adsorb water-based solutions). The most interesting application to me is in dry mixes. The brochure states that Maltrin M100 is an ideal bulking agent for instant beverage mixes or other dry powdered products. This reminds me of the popular tapioca maltodextrin (N-Zorbit), which is prized as a very-low density bulking and dispersal agent for oils and fats. I couldn't find any technical specs relevant to oil adsorption (as far as I know), but can this product be used to make powders in a similar way to N-Zorbit ? I tried briefly by stirring olive oil into a small amount of M100 and it worked reasonably well, but didn't quite have the melt-in your mouth goodness of N-Zorbit. My expectation is that this is simply not the correct application for this additive, but I would love to be proven wrong. With that said, other applications for this product are listed to include quite a few things. A few of interest to me include improved texture/mouthfeel for baked goods, frostings, salad dressings, and fats/creams. It is also used to prevent sugar crystallization (i.e. improve chewiness of sugar candies like fruit leather, soft candies, etc.). Does anyone have anyone have any pointers or experience they could lend? I would love to at least know a ball-park figure for adding this to dressings for improved mouthfeel, or to fruit leathers for improved chewiness.

If you can get your hands on micro-arugula greens you can use it as a garnish. I like to toss it with a modest amount of olive oil and coarse salt.

Looks great Merkinz! Regarding thick foams and ISI whips (I've unfortunately been in your spot several times), I've had the best luck tapping or gently agitating the siphon while repeately pressing and releasing the dispensing lever. Although you suggest you don't want to "siphon to order", that is probably the best way to serve the foam if it is unstable. You just have to judge how much is left by the weight >_< Also, I think it's perfectly safe to fill the .5 L Siphon with two charges.

I don't think I've ever repeated a recipe more than once. Usually for easy things l don't even follow recipes.

It's a little frustrating to see professional critics so dismissive of the techniques and ingredients used, especially when they compare it to how much easier/accessible traditional cooking is. As far as I'm concerned, the whole reason people buy the MC books is to learn about these non-traditional techniques.

Gabrielle Hamilton sounds like she's not much fun in a pot luck party. Obviously a pot luck is first and foremost a social event. I think anyone who resents their friends' poor cooking at pot luck events had missed the point...

All I've used is the Ziploc re-usable sous-vide bags. They're convenient enough, and really inexpensive. I wouldn't say theyre 100% re-usable, as the valve is prone to clog after several re-uses.I generally don't re-use for more than one meal, but it's nice to be able to re-seal the bag instead of having to take all of your meat out just for one portion.

Thanks, your stuff isn't too shabby either. Your plating is almost identical to that from the book - which is to say awesome!

I've cooked plenty of recipes from the books. I just think nobody bothers to use the official forums, they're all here on eGullet. Check out the "Cooking with Modernist Cuisine" topic.

It's hard for me to put much stock into any health studies nowadays... even as the Modernist Cuisine pointed out, most health studies have biased funding or suffer from inappropriately small sample sizes. And so many are contradictory it becomes impossible to make sense of it all, and it seems most people just latch on to one and practice / preach it. While I wouldn't say I'm a proponent of "old fashioned" (I love my hydrocolloids), I will not use artificial sweeteners - and I love using animal fat when convenient. If it's good for me - even better. I above all things, think practicing reasonable eating habits is at least enough. Don't eat convenience or fast foods, don't snack frequently, eat a wide and balanced variety of food, and practice reasonable portion control. A lot of people get cranky when a single meal doesn't contain 50% of their daily caloric values...

I tried the "Oeufs en meurrette" recipe from the Modernist Cuisine a few weeks ago. It's supposed to be a liquid center egg with a fully gelled white. The technique they tell you to follow is to boil eggs for 3-4 minutes in the shell, then cook in a water bath @143 F. The trick was ensuring the initial boil step fully gelled the whites while keeping the yolk fully liquid. My conclusion is that this is nearly impossible. I was able to achieve a good enough consistency, but was never able to get it just perfect. Leave it to boil too long and some of the egg yolk will begin to solidify. Boil too quickly and the white will remain runny, which is far less appetizing to me than having some solid egg yolks. In either case, I'm convinced that its near-impossible to have a perfectly cooked liquid center egg unless you find an egg with whites of uniform thickness...

I live in Austin, and while I love BBQ, Austin has really gotten swept up in the recent farm-to-table trend (which is awesome). Here are some of my favorites: 1.) Uchiko / Uchi; By far the most popular / trendy restaurants in Austin, likely due to the fact that the Chef of Uchiko (Paul Qui) was on Top Chef. With that said, these places are awesome and their menus have significant overlap. Think modernist Japanese tapas, with a lot of high-end flair. The desserts here are insane. Make reservations a week in advance, and be prepared to spend at least $60 per person if you want some alcohol. 2.) The Barley Swine. My personal favorite. Once again, a farm-to-table establishment with seasonal menus featuring 12 - 15 or so small plates, and a great draft beer selection. This place serves up their trendy foods like pork belly and foi gras with some exciting modern flair (foams, gels, etc.), all at a reasonable price ($8-$14 per plate is standard). It's worth mentioning that this place only offers bar or communal seating. 3.) The Carillion. Located within the University of Texas campus, this place serves farm-to-table food very interesting flavor combinations. Fairly expensive, but a three-course mix-and-match tasting menu can be had for $65 each. My personal favorite in Austin as far as food goes, but the atmosphere is a little too fancy-pants for me... As you mentioned, the Driskill Grill is also an excellent choice, and I've never been to Wink but have heard only positive things about it. Congress is also supposed to be amazing, but I can't justify their pricing (they only offer multi-course pre-fixe menus starting at $75 ea).