Anonymous Modernist 3265

Well, made this again tonight and left the spaghetti soaking for three hours. Result was that the spaghetti was quite pliable when it went into the boiling tomato water but it still took around four minutes to become al dente so where does this mythical 1 minute 10 seconds come into it? Or am I still missing something?

You're right, bit of brain fade there! I weighed the juice but forgot that I had already weighed the carrots to 50% before juicing I ended up using all the 360g of juice instead of the called for 317.5g and it gave just the right consistency without having to add any water afterwards. Carrot juice probably tastes better than water anyway!

Made this after reading this thread through. First off, the recipe corrections have been made in the second printing of the book so no need to check the errata page. I was concerned about the burning/adding water issue but had no problems, in fact the opposite! I was making only a half recipe so added only 40g of butter and no water. Brought the cooker quickly to pressure and then turned the heat down low (I have an induction hob so the heat reduces almost instantly) and after 20 minutes there was plenty of liquid but not a lot of caramelisation. I took it back up to pressure and cooked for another five minutes which gave a medium caramelisation. So the trick here seems to be getting the heat right after the pressure has been obtained. One other observation is that the recipe states that 635g of carrot juice can be obatined from 700g of carrots. Not from my carrots! I have a juicer that produces a pretty dry pulp but even so I could manage only 360g of juice from 700g of carrots. Maybe you need fresh pulled carrots for this rather than cheapo supermarket ones that have probably been in the store for three weeks? The result was amazing. Superb caramel flavour and an incredible sweetness despite using the cheapest carrots I could find (65p a kilo). I have never found that elusive 'sweetness' of shop bought carrots despite using stove top recipes that usually call for a spoonful of sugar to be added. This tasted like half a pound of sugar had been added despite there being none! I spent ages chopping the ginger finely and it gave the perfect 'zing' every now and then when catching a piece. There was no problem with the texture when cut so finely. It occurs to me that this might work well and look good with a ribbon of ginger gel laid across the foam and soup or perhaps centred tagliatelle style. Only needs the one ribbon per dish though, anyone got any ideas what I might do with the rest of a sheet of ginger gel?

Made this one last night as I was intrigued to find what difference pre-soaking the spaghetti would make to the taste of finished dish and and interested to see if I could knock up a dish in just over a minute. Since I don't have a centrifuge the Tomato Water was made to a recipe by Raymond Blanc which gives a very clear tomato water with infused flavours from other vegetables and herbs. The store bought spaghetti (as recommended) was soaked for an hour and then cooked in the tomato water. The recipe calls for the water to be brought to a boil and then the spaghetti cooked for 1 min 10 secs. Exactly? Not 1m 8secs or 1m 12secs? Now 500g of water is not a lot to cook spaghetti in and even in the smallest of pans does not give a lot of depth and it took all of the 1m 10secs for the spaghetti to soften enough to fully submerge. A minute later and the spaghetti was still hard and raw. In fact it took all of 6 or 7 seven minutes at a rolling boil to become 'al dente'. Even then it could have done with a minute or two more. So the recipe is clearly wrong. Possible explanations/solutions The time is a typo and should read maybe 7min 10secs - but what possible difference would that extra 10 seconds make? The recipe says 'store bought' spaghetti which I took as normal dried spaghetti in a packet but maybe this is a recipe for store bough 'fresh' spaghetti (the kind you get in a vacuum pack)? It doesn't say that. The soaking needs to be done for much longer than 1 hour - maybe 3 or 4 hours. Maybe this should be done in a pressure cooker? 1min 10 secs would then make sense. Any thoughts? Anyway, the result was quite delicious, a light flavourful pasta without the usual heavy sauce. I didn't make the Tomato Confit but instead served it with thinly sliced sun-dried shop bought tomatoes, thinly sliced bacon cooked in the oven and a few pea shoots. The occasional sharpness of the tomatoes and saltiness of the bacon were the perfect foil to the delicately infused spaghetti. One observation is that the pasta dried quite quickly once plated and I felt that additional olive oil would have masked the flavour. A ladle of the tomato water after plating gave the perfect result. Definitely one to try again when I've got a spare six hours to make the Tomato Water!

Made this at the weekend and it was delicious but, like others, it was a little bit too salty after 10 hours curing. I used ordinary table salt, maybe next time I'll try a couple of hours less in the cure. I was also a little concerned about cooking this at 82° when the Best Bets table says that duck leg should be cooked at 62° but it seemed fine although I don't of course know if it would have been even better at the lower temperature.