Anonymous Modernist 1843

The Polyscience app, as I undestand, is a licensed version of SousVide Dash: http://www.sousvidedash.com/

Many thanks Keith and Milk for your answers!

Can dry ice, easier to find for home cooks, be used as an alternative to liquid nitrogen for cryosearing? I want to make a try for the "perfect hamburguer". Any issue that I should anticipate?

The test is finished. Results should not be very conclusive as I was not able to exactly replicate each of the recipes, but, taking this into account, our favorites were the pommes pont-neuf for the interior, and the ultrasonic for the crunchy exterior. The fact that the ultrasonic were falling apart provided much more irregularities and crevices, so I cannot determine whether the crunchiness was coming from the ultrasonic bath or from the longer cooking. For the next set of tests I want to try whether cooling in a canister with a clamp-type vacuum machine, as opposed to a chamber one, adds something or not. Also want to try the ultrasonic & starch-infused, but using a shorter time in the ultrasonic bath.

Robert, so you used heat in the ultrasonic cleaner and only 20 minutes per side? I started with heat but then did not see any heating indication in the recipe and stopped the heat. And I used 45 minutes per side for only 6 fries. They went out of the cleaner falling apart too much... wonder if it was the temperature or the time...

I prepared the oxtail consommé for Christmas Eve dinner, with some minor changes. I clarified using traditional egg whites method. The result was really excellent. More details (in spanish, I'm afraid) here

Nice! I'm trying today four small batches with different recipes (pont-neuf, the ones in "Heston Blumenthal at Home", starch-infused, and ultrasonic): This is the aspect after the first deep fry at low temperature. They are now in the freezer, waiting for the second fry. I could not replicate the exact recipes: used a clamp-type vacuum machine instead of a chamber machine, and my old deep fryer only heats between 150ºC and 185ºC. Also used heat in the ultrasonic bath, then realized it was not required, and the fries in that batch are almost falling down. Will report again when the experiment is finished.

I've tried the technique with butternut squash (without the juice, only the caramelized puree as the base for a risotto), with beets (for a soup with nice color!) and pears (with agar and xantana to solidify, then cut into square blocks that were put into bluee chesse water). But the best variation was developed by a friend, who writes the great blog Umami Madrid, the first home cook in Spain trying modern techniques and showing them in his blog for years: caramelized carrots with orange juice instead of carrot juice, crayfish (or similar seafood), almost-burnt hazelnuts, sichuan pepper oil (or chili oil), and chervil. Excellent mix of textures and flavors.

Oh, I just realized the low yield of the Pot-au-Feu Consommé, so I'm changing to Oxtail Consommé. Which makes me wonder what is better extracted by sous-viding the onions 7 hours at 85ºC instead of having them in the pressure cooker at 120ºC...

Hi, anyone made the Pot-au-Feu Consommé (5-52, 6-45)? Consommé is a tradition at Christmas Eve dinner at my family. I'm planning to use the Pot-au-Feu recipe for this year, anyone who has tried it can tell whether it can be a good option? I was surprised to see carrot and parsnip juices directly as ingredients. In any case, I'll post the results. Enrique

Everyone liked them very much around here. And I deep fried them in duck grease, mmmmmmmhhh! Also replaced the "krispies" by toasted pine nuts. Details (in spanish, i'm afraid) and pictures here: Coles de Bruselas fritas de Momofuku

Most of the steps in this recipe are redirected to the version done with combi oven. From the text it seems that the brining step is not done on the convection oven version, but I think it should be done. I've done it once without the brining and I thing the brining may help, and other people in forums have followed all the steps, including brining, also for the convection oven version.