slkinsey

I actually like a blend of lemon and lime in certain drinks (the Pisco Sour comes immediately to mind).

So what, exactly, is your question? I wouldn't necessarily think of cooking vegetables together with meat in the bag simply because most vegetables need to be cooked to a much higher temperature than what you would like to have for the meats. Carrots, for example, would never soften properly if you cooked them sous vide with beef at 55C. For this, you would want to cook the vegetables beforehand before bagging them with the beef if you wanted to have some flavor transfer between the two. Another feature of braising, for example, is that the long slow cooking concentrates flavors through evaporation. This also is not possible with sous vide cooking. So, if you want to end up with a rich, flavorful liquid at the end, it is likely that you will need to reduce some of the cooking liquid beforehand. Looking at your coq au vin example, you would definitely want to cook down the wine beforehand, not only to concentrate the flavor but also to cook off any alcohol. Even with the "pre-reduction" of liquids, you will usually need to do a further reduction afterwards to cook down the juices that had come out of the meat. This can get a little complicated sometimes because the meat juices resulting from low temperature sous vide cooking haven't been cooked at a high enough temperature to coagulate certain proteins. My experience is that when these juices reach the boiling point they will coagulate quite a bit of scum that needs to be removed. If you have vegetables that you want to keep in the bag, these may need to be rinsed to remove any scum-forming proteins. I have, on a few occasions, cooked the meat together with some other ingredients in the same bag. Earlier in this thread I did some chicken breasts with shiitake caps on one side and scallions on the other side. This was a short-duration cooking process, however, and neither the scallions nor the mushrooms really needed to be "cooked." I have also done things like brisket with a puree of (pre-cooked) caramelized onions, which I thought worked pretty well. That said, I'm not sure that I think this technique is particularly useful for cooking everything together in one bag. If I were going to make something like sous vide beef stew, I'd be likely to cook the beef sous vice together with a liquid consisting of reduced stock, wine and some other flavorings. This could even be done several days in advance and the cooked meat refrigerated. After that, you could de-scum the cooking liquid and use that liquid to cook the various vegetables conventionally (which could also be done ahead of time). For service, it's then a simple matter of reheating everything, which could be done using bagged portions in a water bath, or over the stove.

Nice review of your meal. Some thoughts below... As a general observation, I'd say that fish restaurants, and especially Italian-style fish restaurants, aren't likely to blow you out of the water. As you've noticed, most of the creativity and novelty will be found in the primi, with the secondi generally consisting of fairly simply treatments. I've heard of a number of people not being particularly blown away by Le Bernardin for similar reasons -- although Ripert's treatments tent to be more transformative than one would find in the Italian aesthetic, there is only so far you can go with fish before the dish loses its essential "fish-ness." All of which is to say that, unless one is likely to be blown away by perfectly cooked, super fresh bluefish (and neither perfectly cooked not super fresh is easy to achieve with the notoriously cranky bluefish), the sedondi at a place like Esca are unlikely to provoke raptures. For my taste, it's as good as any other fish place in the city. More to the point, Pasternack, for all intents and purposes, "invented" crudo. Needless to say, this culinary meme has been widely imitated in the years since Esca opened. But I don't think it's a mark down that Esca continues to serve these crudi any more than it is for Vongerichten to continue serving his famous molten chocolate cake (which has also become overdone through widespread imitation). That said, while I can understand why they continue to serve them, I can also understand that it's not exactly exciting ground for people who have experienced countless derivatives in NYC restaurants over the last dozen years. I do think it's interesting to see the original, however, and in general I find Esca's iterations the strongest. I've long held that the primi are the primary vehicle for creativity in the Italian restaurant tradition. Since the dish is primarily about the pasta, the chef has quite a bit of leeway as to condiments, whereas the secondi are primarily about simple treatment of the protein. This is especially true when it comes to fish. In general, I have found that American diners both here and as visitors in Italy are more enthused about the primi than the secondi, which can seem a bit too much like "just a nice piece of grilled fish." This isn't really a judgment, but rather a reflection of the fact that we tend to value innovation and big, bold flavors. I've had sea urchin pasta there that blew me away, but I'm not sure it was this same dish. I have definitely felt that some of their pasta dishes had too much butter, though. Thanks for the write-up. It reminds me that I need to get back there.

So you're talking about LT/LT cooking that is not in a sealed container? Essentially, using a really accurate Crock Pot set to a low temperature? Or are you talking about sous vide cooking with a lot of liquid in the bag together with the meat? As for one of your questions: Since we are cooking the meat, there is no way it is going to end up with more water content than it started out with. It will always be less. As for using liquids in the bag, it's not clear to me that there is any advantage to using more than simply the amount required to surround the meat once the air is evacuated from the bag.

As far as I know, the ingredients of Bénédictine are not known. Some people may think that it has honey flavors, but that doesn't necessarily mean it contains honey as an ingredient.

I can't speak to the French customs, but I have definitely observed some overlap in Italy among the various distinctions. This is perhaps due to the fact that a place that opened up as a relatively humble osteria 70 years ago that grew into something that might more properly be called a trattoria or even ristorante is unlikely to change its name simply because it has evolved into a higher class of restaurant. Once that sort of thing becomes commonplace, restaurants are named any old thing. Think about just here in NYC: Is Gramercy Tavern really a "tavern"? Is Gotham Bar and Grill really a "bar and grill"? Just because people are loose with naming conventions, however, doesn't mean that people still don't tend to agree about the meanings of these words. For example, if someone were to ask you to describe or define a "bar and grill" I have to believe you'd describe something far, far removed from Portale's outfit.

Steven, I'm sure you're right that there is little distinction, if any, commonly made between a bistro and a brasserie in the United States (and you could throw in cafe while you're at it). One could say similar things about the traditional Italian distinctions.

Producing a distilled spirit (especially an aged one) that is better and more interesting than the established brands, and that is anywhere near competitive on price is a lot more difficult than brewing beer. Other than Anchor Distilling, I'm not aware of too many of these places that are turning out superior product. Other than Junipero, for example, I have yet to taste an American small-batch gin that I thought was in a similar league with Tanqueray.

There are lots of interesting things you can do with sv equipment that is not exactly sv cooking. For many of these things, you really do need a more powerful vacuum. I set forth some of these things above, but for example, you can compress fruits and vegetables to change the texture or you can "pressure wilt" raw vegetables to approximate some of the structural changes of cooking without actually cooking the food. In terms of reduced pressure, you can put a food into a rigid container together with a liquid, reduce pressure (sucking all the air of of the food item) then release pressure, whereupon the food will "suck" up the liquid into the spaces previously occupied by air (this works best for things like cucumber or watermelon).

Chemists measure chilli sauce hotness with nanotubes

Dave can likely speak to this, but he mentions that back in the heyday of the Sherry Cobbler where were more or less two kinds of sherry that would have been available to someone such as Jerry Thomas: a generally dry style and a generally sweet style. The recipe in JT's book calls for enough sugar to suggest strongly that he was assuming the generally dry style. However, there is no reason it couldn't or wouldn't have been made with a sweeter style -- just with less sugar.

Experience in what area, exactly? Could you be more specific?

Interesting, Dave. So, for an approximation of a mid-century Old Tom replica, perhaps a mixture of juniper-forward London dry gin and oude genever? Do you have any sense for how many of the recipes calling for Old Tom gin actually originate from the later 19th and early 20th century? One of the things that's tricky is that plenty of recipes in books such as the Savoy are that they're actually cribbed versions of much older recipes (which is a roundabout way of saying that just because a book published a recipe with Old Tom in the early 20th century doesn't mean that the recipe doesn't actually come from the middle 19th, and therefore be more appropriate with the earlier style of Old Tom).

Does the flame extend around the outside of the base when you are boiling water?

I think that there is a supposition by many that the legal limitations now imposed on thujone concentrations necessarily means a lowering of quality -- like you have to use smaller amounts of wormwood or compromise as to technique in other ways. This would seem to be conclusively disproven by this research, and indeed the authors suggest that modern methods and science should be enable modern makers to produce absinthes with known thujone levels -- not so much in order to produce absinthe with a given concentration of thujone (etc.) but rather to keep it below government limitations without in any way compromising in flavor, etc.

Hi bostonapothecary, nice entry. I'm curious about the rums you suggest. For the east side of Africa Rum, are you suggesting Starr? I keep seeing bottles of it on the liquor store, I'm curious now if it's worth a try. And Santa Catalina Islands... drawing a blank there. Research suggests some Dominican Rums (Santa Catalina Island), Brugal, Bermudez, neither of which have I taken the opportunity to try. Congratulations, you've piqued my curiosity. Aguardente de Santo Antão from Cabo Verde hmm. i mixed up my islands on the brazilian rum... Armazem Viera Esmerelda from Santa Catarina Isn't La República de Cabo Verde a Macaronesian archipelago off the West side of Africa? Armazem Vieira Esmeralda comes from Florianópolis, the capital city of the State of Santa Catarina in Southern Brazil. Specifically, from the barrio of Saco dos Limões on the island of Santa Catarina -- which is about as much of an island as Long Island.

It's never been clearly and definitively explainec to my satisfaction just what a historical old tom gin was like. Is it as simple as sweetening a London dry gin? I have heard this supposition a number of times, but it doesn't seem as though London dry simply consists of old tom minus the sugar. I'd be interested to hear any less speculative ideas as to what the old tom gins JT and others would have been using was like.

I assume you're speaking of either the "Pick Me Up" or "Uplift" kettles. Looking at them on OXO site, I can see how the handles might scorch and burn if the kettle were placed over a burner that was larger than the diameter of the kettle. Not sure I'd call this a "design flaw." If you have a stove with burners that are larger or more powerful than standard residential stove burners, you should either adjust the flame or choose a different kettle design.

I've already outlined some of the important chemical differences, and am not equipped to do double-blind studies as to the perceptual differences. Suffice it to say that they are different, which seems incontrovertible, and that beverage companies in particular find the difference in results significant enough that they are not using maltodextrin as a lower cost alternative to gum arabic. My own sensory evaluations confirm those differences. If yours do not, or if your own sensory evaluations lead you to prefer maltodextrin over gum arabic, then you should of course use maltodextrin. But I would stop short at suggesting that maltodextrin-enhanced simple syrup is functionally the same as real gomme syrup.

If all you want it for is Old Fashioneds, and you're happy with the result, then there is no reason to usa anything else. My experience is that the viscosity obtained with maltodextrin is not quite the same as the viscosity obtained with gum arabic. The maltodextrin seems comparatively "thicker" to my palate, and not quite as "silky." YMMV, of course. I also like gomme syrup for things like Pisco Sours that benefit from the emulsifying and foam stabilizing properties of gum Arabic. Gum Arabic also seems to have a unique effect of smoothing out cocktails and helping to integrate flavors that might otherwise have a little difficulty in playing together nicely. Maltodextrin does many, if not all the things that gum Arabic does -- albeit perhaps not quite as well. Given the availability of gum Arabic, I don't see any compelling reason why a home mixologist wouldn't just use the real thing. I split a $20 bag of powdered gum Arabic into one batch each of white and demerara gomme syrup, and this supply has lasted me a year. That's a lot of cocktails! Perhaps if I were running a commercial operation I might decide on maltodextrin as a cost-cutting measure. But if I were going to all the trouble to make a special syrup just for Old Fashioned-type cocktails, I can't imagine that making up a few gallons of real gomme would add too much to the bottom line or create too terribly much work that I wouldn't still consider using gum Arabic. Perhaps I'd be inclined to have a real gomme syrup for special uses and include a touch of maltodextrin in my base simple.

Maltodextrin adds body through thickening, plus some sweetness and foam stabilization. Gum Arabic is a excellent hydrocolloid emulsifier and foam stabilizer, adds both body and viscosity, reduces surface tension, helps to prevent crystalization. Because gum Arabic is a natural gum, it consists of not one but many different molecules (arabinogalactan oligosaccharides, polysaccharides and glycoproteins) which all contribute to its effects in different ways. It's not so much that maltodextrin doesn't do anything good. But gum Arabic is considered the gold standard of gums. If it were possible for maltodextrin to do all the things in beverages that gum Arabic does, do you think soft drink companies wouldn't go over to maltodextrin? Consider that American soft drink companies immediately switched from cane sugar to corn syrup when they determined that it represented a significant cost savings at an acceptably low reduction in overall quality.

Maltodextrin offers some of the same benefits as gum arabic, but is considered a "low cost alternative." I personally wouldn't use maltodextrin in place of gum arabic, but one could experiment with a blend of gum arabic and maltodextrin. Maltodextrin is a starch, not a gum.

What I found especially interesting was that the study seemed to show that it's entirely possible to have an absolutely top quality absinthe with virtually no thujone.

You could to the gas flush thing also using a tiny piece of dry ice: 1. Seal item together with small piece of dry ice as normal 2. Clip off small corner of the bag leaving small hole 3. Allow dry ice to melt 4. Insert open corner into FoodSaver, vacuum out CO2 and seal.

Dunno. Someone got me three 2-sphere sets for a gift.