Josh71

Thanks for this info! "Lazy Kettle" all natural liquid smoke, hickory. I found it in amazon.co.uk, and bought a bottle. Cost me almost 25 euro including shipping, quite expensive but better than importing from US. I like that it doesn't contain salt, soy sauce, etc. The reason for getting this liquid smoke is this recipe : http://anovaculinary.com/the-food-lab-guide-to-sous-vide-ribs/ And also few recent videos from ChefSteps Well, I hope the shelf life is long enough for that price, two years and I would be happy.

Long time ago, in 2009, I got some bottles of liquid smoke, the brand was Wright's, hickory. A friend gave them to me as gift. I used it regularly, it was nice. And I still have a bottle or two. But, I think they are not good after almost 6 years. Yeah, last time I used it was like 2010 or so. Now, I have searched that Wright's liquid smoke here in Europe, and I could not find one. I could import from US, but it would be very expensive. Instead, I found different brand, Colgin liquid smoke. Anyone has used this brand before? Is it good? I have doubts because the ingredients contains many other things like molasses, salt, caramel color, etc. Although it's quite popular. Compare to Wright's which doesn't contain those. There is other brand which contains salt, SOY SAUCE, caramel color, etc. So, I have limited experience with liquid smoke. Any information would help, thanks

I also said there: I think here you can also use chopped fresh blueberry, loads of them It's just for flavoring the sauce with blueberry taste.

I made seared duck breast with kind of blueberry yakitori (or teriyaki?) sauce. So, it was sweet fruity Japanese tare sauce, which would be nice for duck. Start with making the yakitori by mixing sake, mirin, Japanese soy sauce and brown sugar ... 1/4 cup sake 1/4 cup mirin 1/2 cup Japanese soy sauce (I use Kikkoman) 1 tbsp brown sugar Then add some blueberry jam. Simmer it and adjust the taste freely to your liking. I think here you can also use chopped fresh blueberry, loads of them It was really nice with duck, the sauce was savory and sweet, but not too sweet, with blueberry taste! Well, just an idea from me. NOTE: Please report later what you did, and make some photos of the dish

Thanks Indy D, I will make some experiment. But first, getting the "shallow" canning jars. Hopefully I can find some in the store near where I live

Stunning and beatiful! darch, what is that kind of orange tile? Himalayan salt plate? And how is it lit like that?

You right, 55 is too raw. I just quoted from some of the recipes. I think I will experiment, as I read 63C is the most common voted for thick creamy egg yolk

While researching something about sous vide, I came across to the below article from ChefSteps: http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/a-complete-guide-to-sous-vide-packaging In which we can use canning jar for sous vide packaging. Of course, this would apply only on certain type of cooking. Like in their example, making creme brulee. I am thinking to use this method to make confit egg-yolk. Put egg yolk in a small canning jar, fill in with olive oil and aromatics. Then drop in sous vide. But, I am not quite sure about the temperature inside the jar. How long is it going to be the same temperature as the target temperature set. From few config egg yolk recipe that I read, it calls to cook at 55C for 1 hour. Anyone done this before?

Thanks for all the feedback. I think some of you are right, the skin should be much softer after sous vide and too much saturated with liquid, which is more than raw chicken. I should have pat the skin really really dry and also leave it in open air for some minutes or so. And of course, wait till the maillard reaction enough occurred before flipping it. Never thought about adding some flour to the skin, but it's another good suggestion. Well, there is still another day with sous vide and chicken!

I don't know if you noticed this, but here what I found. I cooked 2 boneless chicken thighs and drum sticks using sous vide, so in total 4 pieces. I added a tablespoon of duck fat and 3 pieces of thinly smoked bacon in the vacuum bag. Then sous vide at 65C for 1 hour 30 minutes. I left the bag in the refrigerator for 1 day because I didn't have time to complete the cooking. Yesterday, I opened the bag, and drained the juices/liquid from the bag. I didn't rinse them under water. I heated a frying pan and add about 2 tablespoon of vegetable oil. I waited until it's almost smoked, then reduce a bit the heat to medium-high. Put the chicken skin side down and wait few minutes. My intention is to crisp the skins. What I found, the skins were sort of glued to the pan! I was really sure the heat was hot enough and there were enough oil. And I have been searing chicken like this for years, nothing sticky like this. But, this was the first time I sous vide them before searing. Did you notice this? Do you think this is caused by the sous vide which change the structure of the skin and causing this sticky thing? Or duck fat? Or bacon ... fat? Because, I have never came across so sticky like this before.

I made some pork satay in the weekend and then grilled them using griddle. And then I smoked them for 10 minutes using Cameron to get smokey flavor (alder wood chips). The smoke taste was present, although not too strong. But, I got some comment from my gf "This is wrong, tasted like BBQ and not like traditional satay where we could smell the charcoal" So, anyone used charcoal with stove top smoker? Well, charcoal usually big. I imagine to smash them into small pieces like wood chip stove top smoker size. I know, people might ask "Why don't you just grill the satay using charcoal grill?" Mmmm, I just want the smoke flavor, and cleaning Cameron is much much easier lol.

Ok, I understand now. It's calculated from the total weight of the chicken plus the water. The only difficult part is the time. It seems it needs at least 24 hours to reach equilibrium. How about, let say 50% equilibrium? Good enough?

I fail to understand your method. How much water for that 1 kg chicken? Because brining means submerging the chicken under the brine (water), correct?

I am going to cook seared chicken thigh (without bone) with some kind of creamy mushrooms pan-sauce. Before searing, I will use sous vide, to cook it at 65C for 1,5 hour. From what I read, brining before sous vide will improve the texture of the chicken. So, any advice for this brining process? I tried to look up in the internet, there are a lot of variations, with salt or salt+sugar, and also the ratio. 50 gram of salt per 1 liter water, would that be good? Should I add sugar? Is there any minimum / optimum brining time for the best result? Thanks.

Yes, I have tried already and I cannot find any decent information about how to make it. I also checked YouTube. And that, tarako spaghetti is the reason I want to make tarako!

Tarako, salted cod roe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarako_(food) "Plain Tarako" (Photo Attribution: ​Japanese Wikipedia user Hykw-a4). Anyone know how to make this Japanese specialty ingredients? I saw quite often, fresh raw cod roe in the market here, and I often think to make this Tarako. I guess soak them in salt water (plus red food coloring), then put in the refrigerator for few days and that's it?

Sorry if it wasn't clear. I didn't drain them So yes, they were still in the pan with the cooking water. I simply moved the pan out of the stove, and let the pan+water+peas cool down by itself. I think for this method to work, the peas must be cooled down inside the cooking water.

Well, basically this is the thing that I was looking for. I often dress up (garnish) my dish with some boiled green vegetables, including peas. But I hate when they have wrinkles. And I didn't pay attention to find out why in the past. Next experiment perhaps, how to enhance the weak-flavor of this boiled peas! Probably butter-poached-sous-vide can improve the taste ... a bit Really, this is just some fun with food.

Yes, definitely the cooling which can cause wrinkles But, I don't understand your question regarding "cooking vessel". What I did, after the waiting time, I moved the pan out from the heat source (stove). That's all.

And I think obligatory post compared to frozen peas. Well, I didn't test the frozen peas because I don't have "raw" frozen peas. When I defrost them in room temperature and ate them, they were cooked. Probably they were par-boiled then freeze. However, as many users said, the taste of the frozen ones were nicer, sweeter, no doubt! But, for my purpose to garnish my food, to drop some on the plate, I want nicer looking peas That's why I open this thread asking ideas. By the way, I don't have much experience or knowledge about peas. I don't know what variety or kind of that big peas. So, I don't know the exact name. But for sure, they taste like peas! Before doing the above experiments, I was ready to test using sous vide. At the end, I didn't do it.

I think I found the answer It's not about overcooking it, but the way to cool it. See my experiments below. So, basically, the wrinkle is caused by rapid cooling! If you let them rest in the hot water that you used to boil them, until they are cooling down gradually, there will be no wrinkle! First experiment, I drop some peas in the rolling boiling water, timed for exactly 60 seconds and then immediately cool them using cold tap water: As you can see, although they were not badly wrinkled, but they were some kind of deformed. And they were not completely cooked, very crunchy texture, although I didn't taste rawness. Then I thought, let see with 30 seconds: Still some kind of deformation. So, I was thinking, the wrinkle should not be caused by overcooking, that cannot be. It must be the cold tap water. Then I followed with this next experiment: Drop the peas on rolling boiling water, timed for 2 minutes, then off the heat, come back 30 minutes to check. The result put me on a big smile: As you can see there, no wrinkles! And they are still bright green I was happy, but the texture was not the way I want. Completely cooked though. Then I tried various timing, 3 minutes, 4 minutes, and here with 5 minutes, let them cool for 45 minutes: Still nice, and texture was much better. With 5 minutes, I found a few deformed, but plenty are still nice like above. I think I will settle with 5 minutes, then let them cool gradually (no rapid cooling).

Why not? It's not always about flavor, think about texture for example. Some people might like rib eye more than flank steak. Someone might like pork chop rather than pork belly. And so on. You see, cooking is not one dimension. Otherwise it would be boring. Listen, I am not going to make pea soup or pea cake or pea tart or pea burger. It's just for kind of garnish, and I like the chruncy texture of just cooked pea, and big which is pleasing to my eyes. What's wrong with that? I enjoy my food with all my senses, through the taste, the smells, and the look and appearance.

Not in my case. I said it many times already that I like big peas. You see, there are different cut of meat and people cook all of them. They don't always choose the most tender or the most flavoursome meat. Each has its own specific purpose.

Yes, that's true I only put them as additional ingredients for some veggies like broccoli and carrots (steamed/boiled), next to some salad leaves, to accompany kind of roasted protein with gravy / pan-sauce. So, the peas are not the main-ingredient on the dish.

It was nice, the smoke flavor was there, but not so strong. I made 2 versions, one without smoking. Then I asked my gf "what's the difference?". She said "yours were smoked" She didn't see when I did the smoking Recap: So, I smoked the ribs for 20 minutes. I was a bit worried because when I checked using digital thermometer, the smoked ribs meat it registered 100+C (and I stopped measuring). Then I glazed with BBQ sauce and wrapped in aluminum foil, refrigerate overnight. The day after, throw in 160C oven for 1 hour and half, still wrapped. Then I blow-torched quickly the surface to get the crust before glazed again with BBQ sauce. Definitely I will do it again, but probably reduce the oven time to 1 hour. It was still moist, but I want moist-er Question though, with stove-top smoker like Cameron, once the smoke started, may I reduce the stove-heat to minimum? Will the smoke still produced? Is there any minimum heat that needs to be attained to get the smoke? I am thinking this because of the result of the smoked ribs, 100C temperature ... and I have plan to make "tea-smoked-duck-breast". If I do like the ribs, the duck breast will be way overcooked!