Anonymous Modernist 310

Be carefull if you put the dry rub before a long sous vide cooking you'll be curing the meat with it. This will give you a firmer less pleasant texture. Try putting the dry rub between the sous vide and the smoke. Good luck

I'm looking at that recipe and since I don't have a CVap yet I was wondering if it would be possible to cook the breast sous vide before doing the cryosearing to prevent the reabsorbtion of water? The order would probably be perforate, cook sous vide, dehydrate, freeze and sear. It seem simple. Did anybody tried something like that and want to comment? Thanks for your help Louis-Frederic Michaud

I ordered that small format and it worked as advertised. (It's the only place I know that repack smaller amounts) Every week they have a special for the cooking issues listeners. The first thing I did was WD50's shrimp "pasta" using a spaetzle press. Very good and fun results!

Unfortunately thermoelectric coolers are not very efficient. Five to ten time less efficient than a standard refregirator. They use that because they are cheap, they can be small and they have no moving parts. So unfortunately I don't think that you'll find one that meet your needs.

Good idea for the vodka. A cheaper idea (There is no inexpensive vodka in Quebec!) is a strong brine (23.3%wt) it freeze at -21C. Unfortunately I don't have the freezer space for that!

According to Kikkoman the pH of their soy sauve is 4.8. More general sources give a range of 4.6 to 5.2. Ref: http://www.kikkomanusa.com/foodmanufacturers/soysaucebasics/characterizingsoysauce.php http://www.madehow.com/Volume-3/Soy-Sauce.html#b

Hello, i've had the luck this morning of getting a reservation in may for Noma. We plan to stay some days over there and I was wondering if anybody had recommendation about the others restaurants that we shouldn't miss! Thanks for your help Louis-Frederic

Cooking Issues got a great article about that: http://www.cookingissues.com/2011/10/12/to-salt-or-not-to-salt-%E2%80%93that%E2%80%99s-the-searing-question/

Unfortunately the blog is not updated very often but all articles are very interestings.

Dave Arnolds of cooking issues got a great food science blog. (Centrifuge, transglutaminase, sous vide, the whole nine yards!) http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/cooking-issues-mp3-heritage/id380317598 They even have Nathan or Harold McGee sometime on the show

Yes but it's complete in German, less stuff in english and just a placeholder in french!

Modernist Pantry and Cooking Issues are selling the Pectinex SP-L in smaller formats. ULTRA-fruits seem to be cheaper than the Pectinex.

Personnaly I find that the easiest way to have good results with spherification (And give you a baseline!) is to use a reverse spherification recipe and freeze the mix that you want to spherify. (Doesn't need to be spherical mold the tension will mostly make a sphere one way or the other.) and after that put your frozen "sphere" in your warm alginate bath. Once you take it out and you wash it with fresh water it should stick together but it will always bit a little bit slimy like a whole egg yolk.

I have the 6 liters stockpot and I 'm wishing it much more often to be a little bit larger than a little bit smaller! Since They're about the same price I suggest you to take the largest one that fit in your kitchen :-)

There is many typre of pectinases. I had good results with Pectinex SP-L but bad results with a generic pectinase from a brewing shop.

From my experience lepicerie and willpowder have the best price and variety for the large formats.

In the new recipes sent on the mailing list we seem to have a problem with the quantities of the eggnog foam in the siphons. In both recipes we're putting 1195g of preparation and three cardridge in a siphon of an undetermined size. Event if it's the largest quart size is seem that it will clearly overfill it! Are tue quantities corrects and I'n just a coward ;-) or is there a mistake with the recipe? Thanks for the clarification

On my side I would like better access to the errata and a portable version of an advanced recipe finder. ( With option to maintain our equipements and ingredients list for example) I also started on my side an application with information of the cooking tables, best bets for temperatures and some parametric recipes. According to the library of congress that's legalbut I wanted to have the opinion of some members of the MC team about that since I don't want to antagonize peoples who produced such a wonderful work. Happy holidays

If you want a complete answer to all these allegations Dave Arnolds of Cooking Issues published a good article: http://www.cookingissues.com/2011/05/20/the-trials-of-transglutaminase%E2%80%94the-misunderstood-magic-of-meat-glue/#more-5330 For more details on the safety and usage they also have that article: http://www.cookingissues.com/primers/transglutaminase-aka-meat-glue/#more-2129 BTW great blog, I'll probably serve glazed fennel for Christmas. :-) Unfortunately I cannot acces your photographies on Salas Arts.

Thanks for the free print for the first edition buyers. It's really appreciated.

According to Dave Arnolds onhttp://www.cookingissues.com/the best way is to sear it before and after. Like Keith said you need to sear it after so that it has the right texture and mouthfeel. According to the cooking issues team it's also good to sear it before to improve to sterilize the surface of the meat, improve the taste and the qulity of the crust on the second sear.

On the Kuhn Rikon the first ring is 8 psi and the second ring is 15 psi

I'm not using a probe myself but according to Douglas Baldwin and other sources you use closed cell foam tape (which is similar to high density foam weather stripping) with a small probe and you keep the probe there.

Thanks for your help, I was thinking about doing that recipe soon! The first thing I would check is the thickness of the piece of fish because the cooking time is proportional to the square of the thickness. So if the middle of the piece was raw but the exterior correct I would try it with a thinner piece. But if the exterior is also raw I would warm the wine where you put the fish. You can even let itpoachesa little bit in the warm wine beforeputtingit under the broiler. Keep us informed

One cartridge of CO2 is 8g which take ~4 liters of volume at normal temperature and pressure. Hope that help you