Anonymous Modernist 14818

Well now I feel kinda dumb. It looked very odd just prior to the final grind, but once I had ground it all, it looked fine. I'll be trying it on some salmon tomorrow evening. How did it turn out for you RED?

I followed the MCAH recipe on p. 137 for the Fish Spice Mix. I even had the N-Zorbit brand from Modernist Pantry. The recipe calls for 12g of this powder. The powder is very, very light so it ends up being a LOT of powder for the mix. In fact, my fish spice mix appears to be totally over-saturated by it. It just doesn't look right. There was no way to completely incorporate it. I'm probably going to scrap it and try it again with a fraction of the powder. Maybe 4g or so. Can someone verify that 12g is the proper quantity for the tapioca maltodextrin?

From MCAH... This was a fast and easy recipe to follow. I wasn't totally sure of the whipping siphon process but what I did was: add the first nitrogen bottle, then discharge the air with the bottle right side up. Then I added 2 additional nitrogen bottles. The end result was lovely and it almost perfectly matched the photos in the book. It tasted great - not too sweet - light & fluffy. It was awesome warm out of the microwave. The fiance wanted some frosting so I gave her some on the side. It looks like quite a bit was left in the whipping siphon at the end but I imagine that's the nature of things with that particular implement. Overall a great success!

Ahhh! Clever! Though my food saver does have a "Moist" vacuum option which helps to limit the amount of liquid forced out. But anyhow - this is a clever workaround! Thanks for the reply.

I'm sure this is a total rookie question but here goes: In the recipe for Vegetable Stock, ice is listed as one of the ingredients. I presume that you should literally add ice to the bag of ingredients going into the sous vide, right? I mean, later, that same section of procedure mentions an ice bath. I just didn't want to confuse the two. Given that there is no other liquid I'm pretty sure you want to add the ice. It just seemed a little odd to me that ice is added instead of water. I'm interested in the reasoning behind that.

I completed this last night and enjoyed it with the braised short rib recipe (and the potato puree). A few notes from my experience: * I used the oil from 3 lbs. gnd beef but only used 2 lbs. of the actual gnd beef in the pressure cooker (1 lb. for tacos!!!) * I put all of the solids in a strainer in the cooker. This made it very easy to remove the solids prior to the cheesecloth straining. * BIG TIP: make the glaze ahead of time. Once you strain it (post-pressure cooker), put it in the refrigerator overnight. The fat will rise to the top and harden, making it very easy to remove prior to the final reduction. I had a good 1/8" layer of fat on the top that came off very easily all at once. * I think I over-reduced the sauce. I found that as it was reducing it really accelerated at the end there. Also, I was wondering how thick it should be. Given that it was over high heat, it was less syrupy than it is in the actual dish. In other words, I think you should plan for it to still be fairly liquid as you are reducing it. I'd stop a little short of where you might think you should given the "syrup" description. I ended up adding some liquid from the short ribs (I had about a cup of liquid in the vacuum bag after the 3-day cook) to thin it out. In the end the sauce turned out really well - it tasted great. Was it worth the high cost, time, and effort? Maybe not but it was fun for a one-time thing. I'll almost definitely pursue some other cheaper, less time-consuming sauce the next time I do this rib recipe but for the experience I highly recommend making this sauce at least once. At a minimum, I was just continuously surprised at how much sheer mass is involved in making a flavorful sauce from scratch. Pounds upon pounds of solids and liquids result in such a feeble amount of sauce!! That alone was very educational.

Thank you Tom and Judy for your quick and helpful replies! The meat is cookin' and I'm working to reserve 4 hours tomorrow night for the sauce! Can't believe I'm going to spend 4 hours on a sauce!!! Hope it's good!

Hi Tom, Based on your PS, it sounds like you figured things out. I'm about ready to embark on this one. Any tips on the glaze? I noticed the ribs recipe requires double the amount of the glaze recipe. I presume you just doubled everything - do you think it would all fit in a 6 qt pressure cooker? How did you handle the ground beef addition? Thanks for sharing your experience! Dennis