slkinsey

Maraska is a great product, and some people prefer it over Luxardo (I am not one). It's overall sweeter and less "funky."

If you think about it (and I think nathanm says something to this effect upthread) there is no faster/better way to defrost your meat than in the circulating waterbath. So, if the meat is frozen, the best thing you can do with it is to toss it into the waterbath frozen. This means that you should season/portion/flavor your meat before it is frozen. As nathanm says, it may not be the best option for something delicate where timing is an issue. Just as a note: This is a long thread, but there's lots of great information in here. Don't forget the "search topic" function down at the bottom of the page. If you put "frozen" in there and search the thread, it returns around 25 posts.

I believe the part I highlighted above is the point of contention. You are obviously saying that you are cooking with temperatures much higher than the desired final temperature. For example, if you have a 2 inch thick steak and throw it into a 130F sous vide bath for a while you'll get a 130F steak. If you take that steak and instead throw it into a 500F oven, how do you get the center to 130F without the layers outside of the center being at a much higher temperature? If you have a non-sous vide technique for doing such a thing with a steak I would surely like to hear how you do it. Because I don't know any way to do it. Because of a steak's high heat capacity (since it's mostly water, not to mention organic compounds naturally have high heat capacities), it's slow to warm up relative to the environment. Mike, here's the thing: you are forgetting thermal conductivity. Water not only has a high heat capacity, but it also has low thermal conductivity (0.609 W/m/K compared to, say, 401 W/m/K for copper). So... you have a piece of 21C (room temperature) beef you want to bring to 54C (medium rare) in a 260C oven. Thermal conductivity says that the outside of that roast is going to be at a much higher temperature than 54C by the time the inside reaches the target temperature, and that there will be a fairly pronounced temperature gradient all the way into the center of the roast. We try to mitigate this temperature disequilibrium somewhat by pulling the roast out of the oven before the inside reaches 54C. When we rest the steak, thermal energy is conducted from the higher temperature outer areas of the steak to the lower temperature inner areas of the steak, and when the temperature equilibrates we hope to have an overall temperature of around 54C. The fact that oven cooking, which transfers heat by a combination of convection and radiation, is extremely inefficient only magnifies this effect. But the bigger the roast and the hotter the oven, the more the outside of the roast will be at a higher temperature than the center of the roast and the more variability in "doneness" throughout the roast will be apparent. This is simple physics. I think you may find that Hervé This was talking about cooking in a low-temperature oven, in which case what he was saying would be correct. Convection/radiation is an extremely gentle cooking method at low temperatures. Not so much at higher temperatures. I'm not quite sure what you have explained about "basic thermodynamics" -- except that you seem to have forgotten to account for thermal conductivity, which explains the commonly observed result that the outside of a roast cooked by conventional means (i.e., with a pan, oven or broiler at a significantly higher temperature than the desired end result) is more "done" than the inside of a roast. Again, I say that it is impossible as a matter of basic thermodynamics that it will be any other way.

Things like pork loin and pork tenderloin, especially nowadays when pork is so low in fat, are extremely temperature sensitive. One degree C can make a difference. This is one reason these particular cuts of meat lend themselves so well to sous vide treatment.

Just last night I enjoyed a striploin steak. It had a nice uniform texture and colour throughout the entire piece of meat (minus the seared crust) - just like that picture of the sous-vide cooked lamb. I cooked it under a broiler. It's not impossible - it's just that it takes care to PROPERLY cook a piece of meat using conventional cooking. Conventional cooking will never be able to replicate the EXACT product that sous-vide can (and vice versa), but you can certainly get a piece of meat that has the same colour (which most people use as the benchmark for 'doneness') throughout, which was the original point I refuted. If you can't get that result, you're not cooking properly. If you can show me a picture of a two-inch thick piece of meat that is uniformly medium rare with no gradations of color/doneness and a mailliardized outside with "more than medium rare" penetration of less than 1/8th of an inch (preferably less than 1/16th of an inch) cooked using conventional techniques, I'll believe you. But I've never seen it. This would be easy to do (and I have done it many times) using sous vide and a blowtorch. It this is possible to do under a broiler, I assume it wouldn't be difficult for you to take a picture and post it to this thread. I also take exception with the idea that anyone who can't achieve dead-on perfect medium rare with extremely temperature sensitive proteins "isn't cooking properly." We're talking about situations in which sometimes a single degree can have an appreciable difference, and even experts using first rate equipment and cooking thousands of iterations of the same dish using the very best and most consistent ingredients available (e.g., the broiler guys at Peter Luger) don't get it just right with anywhere near 100% consistency. Now, like I said, I think there are plenty of reasons to go for the standard preparations. I'd rather have a Peter Luger-style porterhouse that's blasted under a power-of-the-sun broiler and has gradations of doneness. But I still say that, as a matter of simple physics, it is impossible to get the same uniformity of doneness using a broiler, grill, conventional oven or pan as one can do using sous vide. Well, a scientist which much more experience in this matter than either of us (or anyone else alive for that matter) - Hervé This, disagrees with you. As do many chefs, barbeque enthusiasts, etc..., people who have observed that there is indeed a redistribution of water in the cooked product (myself included). Try this - take a roast out of the oven and slice it right away. Take a second identical roast, let it rest an hour wrapped in foil and a towel - there will be a difference, and I'm not just talking about the temperature difference... I'll say these things about that: 1. That any "redistribution of juices" is a secondary effect of temperature equilibration, as food that is hotter on the outside than it is on the inside will have liquids behaving in different ways. 2. I'm not quite sure how it follows that the juices running out of unrested meat proves that the meat juices have "redistributed" (i.e., moved out of some areas of the meat and into other areas of the meat). The effect of more juices running out of a roast that is cut straight out of the oven compared to rested does not necessarily "prove" that "juices have redistrubuted." What it proves is that a roast that is rested has had temperature equilibration and has had an overall reduction in temperature, both of which are condusive to retention of liquids. 3. If, indeed, liquids "redistributed" throughout a piece of meat as it was resting, one would expect that liquid would "redistribute" from the relatively moist center of the meat to those areas of the meat that are dry immediately following cooking (e.g., the well-done areas right below the surface of the meat). This would result in those areas meing moist and juicy instead of dry. Unfortunately, this doesn't happen. Try cutting off that outer bit of meat just under the crust and see for yourself whether or not it's dry or juicy. 4. Now, that said, I do think that there is some movement of liquids within a piece of meat as it rests. I just think that this movement doesn't happen on a particularly large scale and that it may be largely attributable to temperature equilibriation. For what it's worth, proteins cooked to temperature sous vide do not need to be rested.

I'm afraid I'm with Bryan on this one. What you suggest is an impossibility as a simple matter of physics (unless you were to cook the meat in a pan heated to, say, 60C -- which I hope we can agree is not likely to happen). It's not clear to me that there is any "redistribution" of juices when meat is rested. Rather, the rest serves for the temperature to equilibrate throughout the piece of meat and for there to be an overall reduction in temperature. Also, once meat proteins contract and squeeze out liquid, there's no putting the liquid back in to "reabsorb." You can inject juices into a cooked piece of meat, but it's just going to come running out when you cut into it. Regardless, there is no way that a dry heat method (e.g., cooking in the oven or in a pan) can retain as much moisture as sous vide, or can have as even a level of "doneness." This is somewhat mitigated with LT/LT oven cooking techniques (often employing a steam oven). I suppose it depends on what you are cooking and how you are cooking it. Certainly sous vide isn't a technique that works for every single food (there are only a few specific applications for vegetables). For example, some foods are improved by being dried out a little, and sometimes it's nice to have a piece of food that has wide variations in the "doneness" throughout. However, I've never felt that any foods I've cooked using that method has suffered from "dilution of flavor." Quite to the contrary, actually. When you cook foods in an open container and smell all those wonderful cooking aromas, those are simply flavor molecules that are flying off into the air. Ultimately, that represents lost flavor. When you cook sous vide, those molecules (many of them quite volatile) are trapped in the bag and remain in the finished dish. Cooking sous vide, one actually has to be quite careful about aromatic herbs and spices, or the added flavor can wind up too intense (one short sprig of fresh rosemary in a big bag of 48 hour short ribs will flavor the meat all the way to the bone). I agree that steaming can often (but not always!) provide a less-than-interesting result, but this is more often than not due to the fact that steaming doesn't produce any maillardization, etc. When one is cooking sous vide, these external flavors are created (either before cooking, after cooking or both) by using a blowtorch, superhot pan or some other method that will quickly cook the outside of the food to the desided degree without having the temperature penetrate too deeply.

I like my Aviation at 2 ounces of Tanqueray to a half-ounce each of lemon juice and Luxardo maraschino. If I'm using R&W violette, I'll dial back the Luxardo to 2 teaspoons and drizzle in around a quarter ounce of violette after the drink is poured.

In Italy I was taught to make cannelloni by rolling out a super-thin long sheet of pasta, blanching/shocking it, laying it out on towels, smearing on a thin layer of meat sauce, drizzling on a little béchamel and rolling the whole thing up like a jelly roll. A little more sauce and béchamel over the top, and the works into the oven. The kind of cannelloni that consists of, more or less, a tube of pasta (either fresh or dried) encasing a finger-sized filling of meat and/or cheese and/or spinach has always seemed more Italian-American to me than Italian, and is usually called manicotti (and, unfortunately, often pronounced "manigot").

In general, it is my experience that one should never ask for a drink involving citrus juice without first asking whether the bar uses fresh citrus juice. If they don't -- or if they don't know what you're talking about or seem confused about why you're asking and why you care -- that tells you a lot about the bar's cocktail program.

Morgan... Not to put this on your shoulders, but it's a little naive to assume that this reataurant would have any real mixological expertise. This is especially true given the overall poor state of mixology in Houston, but I wouldn't assume that Smith & Wollensky in New York City would do any better. It's a sad fact that getting a well-made Sidecar (never mind a real Daiquiri instead of vaguely boozey slurpee) is by no means a gimme, even at an expensive steakhouse. You're way better off ordering something like a Martini or Manhattan, where you can specify exactly how you want it made. Now... once the drink came in, your best bet would have been to call over the bar waiter and say something like: "Er... this isn't a Sidecar, and unfortunately it's pretty terrible. I'm sorry, but I have to send this back. Maybe I should just get a Martini instead?" The chances are pretty good that the bar waiter didn't even know what a Sidecar is, but at some point before you got the drink someone should have told you that Smith & Wollensky doesn't exactly have a cocktail bar for classic cocktails.

You could aways keep your beans in a separate container, weigh out the precise amount you wanted, and drop just those beans into the grinder's bean -storage area. That would help to mitigate any possible small amount of ground beans in the grinder.Personally I can't be bothered.

Yea. Well, for sure Patsy's East Harlem is not baking pizza in the same style as Una Pizza Napoletana. Patsy's is arguably the best example of the NYC coal-fired style which, as you note, does emphasize the charred flavors in the crust whereas the Neapolitan style has more apparent bread flavors. Definitely, in Patsy's you want to order your pizzas one at a time (the best waiters there will usually ask if you want them serially or simultaneously) and you need to eat them quickly. Patsy's is also behind the times with respect to toppings. Personally, I'm not fond of any of their toppings and prefer to go minimal (their Marinara with nothing more than tomato sauce and garlic may be the best they do). Hopefully they'll figure that out and start sourcing better product, as does e.g., Grimaldi's. I think you'll probably like Arturo's whose crust definitely offers more support to the toppings.

Dosers are designed for high-volume professional operations. What happens is that the grinder grinds a whole lot of coffee into a hopper right below the grinding mechanism. This hopper is the doser. Inside the doser is a mechanism that (supposedly) sweeps a predetermined amount of coffee grinds out of the hopper and into a chute every time a lever is pulled. The barista places the portafilter under the chute and clicks the lever once or twice (depending on whether it is a single or double shot) to dump the appropriate amount of ground coffee into the filter. I'm sure you've seen this in Italian bars. As you may imagine, using a doser doesn't make any sense if you are grinding your coffee to order. First of all, you really don't need to "dose" your coffee grinds in pre-determined amounts. Second, it's much more difficult to keep the doser clean of old grinds. Third, if you're not filling the doser with grinds, you're not really using it the way it's intended to be used. Thus, the doserless grinder where the coffee goes from the grinding mechanism to the portafilter without passing through a doser. If you take a look at this page you can see a Rancilio Rocky grinder both with and without a doser.

This is a good reason to use a doserless grinder, and to keep it swept clean of old grinds to the greatest extent possible. Even so, there will usually be some old grinds in the grinding mechanism itself (Versalab mitigates this problem by dosing unground beans into the grinder). To mitigate this problem with my doserless Rocky, I simply discard the first bit of grinds that comes out of the chute in each grinding session. If I'm still getting 2% of old grinds, I cal live with that. That shouldn't happen. Sounds like your coffee isn't ground nearly fine enough, because the coffee shouldn't be coming out fast enough to spray anywhere. It should look more or less like the picture on this page when the coffee is coming out.

Indeed, obesity and diabetes are also strongly correlated with things like telephone poles per capita and plastic bag use.

I don't have it in front of me, but I looked up "confit" in McGee's book last evenening, and I recall him saying something to the effect that a slight rancidity can be part of the traditional flavor of aged confit. WRT the evaporation, while I don't disagree with your example of the one cup on a 180F hotplate evaporating after 8 hours, it's not clear to me that you will evaporate the same one cup of water in 8 hours if it's covered up in 6 cups of fat (not to mention 8 duck legs). I can't imagine how much water would really be cooked off from within the duck legs themselves (which exude liquid throughout the cooking process), but there's no way it could even approach all of it. When I've made confit using the traditional method, there has always been plenty of liquid at the bottom of the cooking vessel. Typically, I'd try to minimize liquid in the actual storage jar by placing the cooked legs in the jar and then pouring only fat around them. Even then, some liquid still usually comes out of the legs and collects at the bottom of the jar.

Tim, how wet was the dough? When I'm making orecchiette, I try to make the dough as stiff as possible (too stiff to practically knead by hand, really). I also cut the disks and let them dry for an hour or so before pressing them out to shape. I've never had any troubles with cracking after drying 24 hours.

I've never heard the theory that the confit process removes all the water (which is presumably what you mean by "moisture") from the meat. And, having made confit using the traditional process many times, I have to say that this is not my experience (there is almost always some liquid at the bottom of the jar). Indeed, duck legs from which all the water had been cooked out would be tough, dry and unappetizing. I also don't quite get the chemistry of "there is no oxygen to go rancid." What would be going rancid, exactly? And how is oxygen being removed by using an open container? If anything, I'd think that heating the confit above the boiling point of water (which would be necessary for the evaporation you suggest takes place) for a long period of time would increase oxidation of the fat, and therefore increase the possibility of rancidity developing over time. As for preservation... afar as I know, what happens is that you cook the duck legs for a long time, effectively sterilizing them, and then you "seal" them in an airtight covering of solidified fat -- fundamentally "canning" the duck legs without using a can. As far as I can tell, the sous vide process should minimize oxidation more than the traditional method.

So, what you're saying then is that there is no such thing as a "credentialed" journalist? Anyway, the American Heritage Dictionary says: Of "credentialed journalists" wikipedia says: This suggests to me that there is no such thing as a "credentialed journalist" in the United States. What would that mean anyway? If the East Pawtucket Bugle hires someone to be a "reporter" or "critic" for their does that make this "credentialed journalist" more legitimate than Andrea Strong?

I've enjoyed rooibos ever since a South African friend introduced me to it. Honestly, I'm not sure where the tobacco comparisons come from (people don't smoke it, do they?) but the thought that it resembled tobacco never occurred to me. Honestly, I don't get that at all. Anyway, rooibos is delicious brewed as a tea, and I don't see why it wouldn't be great infused into alcohol. For one, there isn't the tannin to be dealt with.

Although I realize this is a gross over-generalization, my impression is that cooking school faculty are usually quite firmly in the French camp. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it can have the tendency to make them insufficiently informed as to Italian (and other) technique/aesthetic/ingredients. Not knowing that there are many different kinds of 00 strikes me as an almost shocking lacuna in culinary knowledge for a culinary instructor.

Yea... I gotta tell you, I'd be very reluctant to try a homemade infused tobacco spirit. Nicotine is a very dangerous drug. Personally, I'd want to have the assurance of some kind of testing for nicotine levels in the infused spirit before I'd think of trying any of it. People in prison occasionally use tobacco infusions to commit suicide.

Extensive tagine thread: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=63502

Question about confit: I recently did some duck leg confit sous-vide. Individual duck legs with salt, etc. and a tablespoon or so in each bag. 80C for around 7 hours. So... how long is this safe to keep in the refrigerator? When prepared the traditional way, one hears of confit kept cold for months and months.

If you have the capability, confit is one area where sous vide can really be a cost saver. I recently made some duck leg confit, sealing each leg in an individual pouch with some fat. The beauty of this is that you don't need to use much fat. I only used around a tablespoon of fat per duck leg. When you vacuum the bag, the leg is surrounded by a thin layer of duck fat. It's also nice to have the legs in individual packages.