Raamo

No floating problem, I just gathered from MC@H that I should be clipping ziploc bags to the side, not putting the whole thing under water. I'm guessing this is not true It's clear from the recipes that ziploc bags with most of the air removed is a valid substitute for shorter cooked dishes.

Thanks, what's the best way to get ziploc bags to stay in the middle? There are other recipes were they specifically calling out to attach the bag to the side, I'm guessing time is taken into account then. We're going to try the buffalo wings tonight and I think IIRC that's how they have you do it, in a 1 gallon ziploc bag clamped to the side. I'd like to get a vacuum sealer but I think I want to skip food savers and jump to a chamber vacuum, but that's not a cheap purchase so it'll have to wait.

I made sous vide Salmon on Saturday. My first attempt with the creative series from PolyScience. I used a relatively small food service container to hold the immersion circulator as it took up about 1/4 the space in the container. Even after time listed in the recipe the salmon was not up to 113F, the water was 115F, we ended up polling out the fish at about 107-108F and it was fine. We used Ziploc freezer bags and the water displacement method to get the air out, the bags were clamped to the side of the container with the fish fully underwater. Could this be delaying the heat transfer? Do I need to try and get them away from the sides of the container? I also had problems getting the fish out of the bags without breaking them up, the end result was tasty but nothing I'd want to photo graph The Fish Spice mix turned out quite nummy, though I'm sure part of it was the sheer amount of butter I can definitely see why using N-Zorbit Tapioca Maltodextrin would be helpful as it clumps a lot.

That's a great story, I discovered them in the seed savers catalog listed as super hot and decided to give them a try, I still have the first plat we started. We're going to try starting a bunch from seeds this spring and growing them outside, should be able to get plenty of peppers and make enough sauce to last a while. Going to use the one I have right now in the buffalo sauce from MC@H this afternoon just to see how it works out

We get the Fatali's from Seed Savers out of Iowa, getting them to grow isn't a problem We've never tried to get them to produce a lot of peppers which we'll want to do if we're going to make a sauce out of multiple.

Tandoor Chef Chicken Tikka Masala The sauce in this packet is the all time best frozen dinner I've had, my wife pointed out that the link I have above is sans rice... the stuff I usually get comes with rice, I've made Chicken Tikka Masala from scratch by making the tikka's first and then the next day makeing the sauce and the chicken I made was light years better then the frozen but the sauce was almost the exact same. You get real chicken pieces that aren't exactly small either. I've yet to find anything this good from the freezer that's a meal. Our local high end supermarket has frozen soups that can be gotten on sale for $2 each, it's the same quality of soup we find at the mid tier of resturants that use frozen soup. Very good when we don't feel like making soup. This is one thing I likely can replace when we get a chamber vacuum since I can package soup the same way Edit: Sent the link to my wife and she pointed out the difference

Awesome, someone else who actually grows Fatali's - how many plants do you have? Getting to 24 to make this would be rather difficult so I may have to pair this recipe down when we get a crop. The pepper is so hot but awesome we havn't exactly worried about the low production. I'm in Minnesota so it's only 65 in the room with the peppers much of the time during the winter and I'm sure they don't like that - but there's one pepper on one of the plants right now! Back when I first got into Fatali it was the 5th hottest pepper.. how times change We mostly use it in Fajitas but my wife makes me cook them on the grill because the oil gets so hot it's basically a pepper oil gas in the kitchen. The flavor imparted by the pepers has made resturant Fajita's blah to me and I don't order them any more. I have put them in Chili before and gotten crazy hot chili but it seems to lack some of the double punch you get when the chilis aren't cooked quite as much.

I have a microwave above my stove as well. It was cleary put in after the fact since there's a duct for a proper hood that's not used. It appears one of the advantages of a good hood is you can suck all the stuff up that ends up as splater all over the place when you cook with hot oil.... this seems like a good selling point if I can find a better place for the darn microwave. We do own a microwave cart that's anything but sitting in the dinning room. When I get a chamber vacume it needs some place to sit, perhaps a proper microwave cart would work for both items.

My wife's pressure canner that I bought from a Wisconsin company has both a pressure gauge and a weight that goes on. When we made the polenta in MC@H we used this giant pot since we were basically canning... when the pressure got up to ~13 psi the weight started jiggling a lot and it freaked my wife out since she's never seen that before. When she cans she only goes to 11 psi since that's what the canning books she has say to do.. Since it has both the weight and the gague is this a combo of what you describe above or just a normally pressure cooker? On the topic of Sous Vide I picked up the Sous Vide Professional Creative Series by Poly Science last night at W-S, it came free with a container that W-S tossed in that holds more then 20L but at the sane water level is 20L and it seems to be as big as I could ever need for the party size I would expect to cook for. I'm guessing this device would handle more then 20L but not to the accurency of .1C, I guess I could try it in the former mentioned giant pressure pot which is more then 20L.

I plan on it... I've got a GE Profile electric range that's about 12 years old and keeps on trucking... so I'll likely have to wait for it to die before I replace it. I remember MC@H swears by it, and says cheap Ikea pans are great. I've already got a nice collection of stainless all-clad so I'm in no rush for new pots. When you say great for a low simmer? Is this because it's more effecient? I find it super easy to mantain a simmer on a pressure cooker once you learn the pot / electric range.

Whats the best use for these besides boiling water? This seems like a very cheap way to try this out.

I have a small bookshelf from Ikea, it's full height but only half width. My wife won't let me buy any more cookbooks then what fit on the shelves. I recently got rid of 15+ books, 1/2 were ATK books replaced by the 10 year compalation. Even then I've still got a very full self, easily 40 books. Still not sure wher MC is going to go once I get that.

That's not yet avalible, it's a KS project that's late: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nomiku/nomiku-bring-sous-vide-into-your-kitchen?ref=live From the updates: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nomiku/nomiku-bring-sous-vide-into-your-kitchen/posts First, the bad news: because of issues that have lined up and the 3-week Chinese New Year holiday, it’s likely that we won’t have the Nomiku on your doorstep until March. I think I'm going to go with the creative series and pick one up tonight at William Sonoma, It seems this industry for the home use is just getting under way and I feel more confortable buying from a large company with a histroy of these units in the science community.

Is that the same booklet that contains recipes that comes with the unit, or does that unit have a separate instruction book? Separate instruction book, English is the 3rd Language, after German and French but before about 3 more. So I suspect it's the european model and thus the .8 bar high settings. I got it from amazon, not sure who locally even would sell these units.

Thanks this makes sense, so the 2nd red bar is .8 / 13 psi... I can go over it a little bit to get to 15 psi / 1 bar, too much and I'll hit 1.2 and it'll not be happy

The instruction book says the maximum pressure is 1.2 bars.

Thanks to MC@H I bought a smaller pressure cooker then the giant one my wife uses to can. Kuhn Rikon Duromatic 3-3/4-Quart Pressure Saucepan What I'm curious about if anyone knows is where I should have the popup thingy at when cooking with MC@H who normally wants 1 bar I've read from the manual with the cooker that the 2nd red line is .8 bars... and I've read elsewhere that it's 1 bar when at the 2nd line.... I'm thinking it's supposed to be a little past to be at 1 bar, the unit goes up to 1.2 bars without being unhappy. This appears to be the exact pressure cooker MC cut in half for their cookbook so I'm guessing someone else has it too.

We grow two peppers - Fatalii and Rocoto I'd love to make a sauce out of the Fatalii if I got enough of them. I'm in Minnnesota so it's strickly an indoor project. There's one fatalii on one of the plants right now but I doubt I'd ever get a full pound. What's the reason for fermenting described above?

That was a very interesting ted talk, my brother currently works as a waiter but he's doing it as a transitory activity. The topic of tipping comes up often on cruise ship discussion boards but there it's tip sharing all the way around so even the cooks get tipped (granted pay is WAY lower then minimum wage in the USA so there's a whole lot more to go with that topic) I to tend to notice a much better experience at the resturants on the top end so I can justify paying them more but less so on the mid tier, there's a chain we went to where it's easily $30-40 a head not including liquour and the service was worse then a place like applebees. I do adjust my tip in those situations so I guess I'm not a straight 15% all the timer The topic of cooks pay is one I never thought about. At a fine resturant where the cooks are actually cooking I've no idea what those cooks make but I know the servers are doing very very well.

Maybe...However, I am sure the 2/3 day response as absolute and arbitrary rubbish and I would ignore it out right. I agree, I don't think that alone should push me to the $800 model over the $500. Why would they put their name on it and have a warrenty if it's that much worse then it's older brother which is fine for full time professional use. Also it's still the sous vide professional creative series.... not the sous vide home user

The professional is +/- 0.07 so that's not that much difference then +/- 0.10 I don't even own a thermometer that's that accurate as my thermapen is old and doesn't do .1's That's kinda scary, but I expect it's over engineered for that... or else they'll have a lot of complaints from active home users. What is the other unit you went with?

The Chef is made in USA, the Creative is made in China... I think that explains the $300 right there. I can't find anything on the web about PolyScience bullying a smaller maker. Doesn't mean it didn't happen, but there's the SousVide Supreme which they don't make and uses SousVide right in the title.

I recently "read" MC@H, but it's more a cook book then a book... Thanks to jumping on the MC bandwagan I picked up On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen for my nook and figure it'll take me a while to read all ~1236 pages. Not exactly a new book, but so far it's excellent and I've learned a few things and I'm only in the milk chapter.

Has anyone looked at or used the Polyscience Sous Vide Professional Creative Series? It might be too new, I'm having trouble finding reviews of it that aren't very much marketing. On the William Sonoma site there are a few very positive reviews and it's not shown up at Amazon yet. It's not cheap, but this company comes reccomended by MC and I like the fact it's a single unit I can use with existing food service containers I got some time ago to brine in from Amazon.

I've now made 5 things from MC@H, my wife gave me the book for xmas. Alas I've not taken pictures of any of the creations, but after reading this thread I might try to change that. The 1st was the Green Romaine Salad, I'll agree with other posters that it's good but not great. 2nd I made the Apple-Parsnip soup that others have talked about, I forgot the baking soda and had to open the pot after 10 mins to add it, the puree turned out darker then others have posted but otherwise excellent. Considering the large amount of butter I don't think I'll make this too often, but it was the first pureed soup I've actually liked. My wife commented after seeing how it was made she's going to cut down on the pureed fruit soups she has on cruise ships 3rd I made Vegtable Stock, I did a double batch in the 3.5L pressure cooker and only was able to fit it all in by cutting down the amount of onions. It turned out very strong, I will likely dilute it in the future if I'm not looking for a strong vegtable taste. But if you want a good veg taste in your stock - this one is a winner. 4th I made Polenta which is why I did the stock (since corn on the cob is out of season), I thought it taked too much like the vegtables but my wife and guests really enjoyed it. Next time I'll dilute the stock or make it with corn stock. 5th I made the chicken meatballs since it was the one option from the chicken skwers page that didn't require sous vide. I made it with Honey-Ginger Teriyaki sauce since I couldn't get dried fish flakes (I'll find a asian store and try the other sauce later) it was very good! Likely a new favorite. Also it's amazing how easy it is to grind meat in the food processor (the book didn't say how I should grind the meat, and I don't have a meat grinder ) I'm planning on ordering a Sous Vide set up this week, I tred both stove stop (for the egg for #1) and in the oven (as reccomended by #1 for a beet) and will never attempt that again! Some point later this year I want MC but that's a spend set of books so I'll work on gear 1st. All this started when I saw the Nova episode last year which had a segmant on MC.