slkinsey

Well, this is where the difference between "high quality" and "very good" starts to become a factor. Price tends to rise at a much steeper slope than the quality. While brands such as Calabro or BelGioioso are certainly a step above industrial crap like Polly-O, they are still fundamentally supermarket brands with not all that much in common with real fresh mozzarella. As a generality, anything that comes sealed in heavy plastic packaging is not going to be all that great. A step above that is what one might find at higher end gourmet supermarkets and some cheese shops. These typically are wrapped in a twist of plastic wrap or, better yet, floating in liquid (although some of the supermarket brands also come in liquid). Unfortunately, they have had most of the fresh mozzarella character knocked out of them by age and refrigeration. Really the only mozzarella I have ever bought at a supermarket that had anything in common with real fresh mozzarella has been at my local Whole Foods. This is a local product, delivered fresh daily and displayed on top of crushed ice in the produce section rather than in a refrigerator case. I'd say this stuff qualifies as being a bastard cousin to real fresh mozzarella. After that, you cross over a huge gap in quality and come to real fresh mozzarella made to order by hand in someplace like Casa Della Mozzarella on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, and never refrigerated. This cheese is so far removed from any "fresh" mozzarella you might buy in a supermarket that it might as well be a different product. The point is that the difference between real fresh mozzarella and "fresh style" mozzarella that isn't actually fresh is huge. The difference might even be more stark as that between raw and pasteurized brie. Needless to say, cheese from Casa Della Mozzarella is substantially more expensive than Calabro mozzarella from CostCo, just as D.O.P. San Marzano tomatoes are a lot more expensive than Pastene. Now, of course, you need to have a technique and equipment to handle cheese with this much moisture if you're going to make pizza. I've been using an adaptation of the technique in Modernist Cuisine by baking mine on a massively preheated double-thick baking stone under my broiler and it works very well, although I should hasten to point out that I like the pillowy, soft, moist Neapolitan style. Lower heat techniques and different preferences might actually do better with a lower moisture cheese.

Exactly. I was going for #1 above, since my technique was obviously more laborious than the normal one for CFS. Seriously, the sous vide chicken was detectably better than poached chicken breast?Absolutely! I had cooked them to around 60C. Meanwhile, your average poached chicken breast is going to be hammered through to 80C or even more. Also, something I've noticed is that meats cooked to low temperature, chilled and reheated even to a higher temperature seem to still be more moist and tender compared to meats cooked straight away to the higher temperature. Not sure why.

One of the things that's great about the Modernist Cuisine books, and other books explaining various modernist techniques and the principles behind them, is that you can see what happens when you apply these techniques to everyday dishes. For example, I have made "chicken à la king" (or "creamed chicken" or whatever you might like calling it) by making a herbed white sauce, splashing in a little sherry, adding sauteed mushrooms and small vegetables, and then folding in diced or shredded cooked/chilled sous vide chicken breast at the last minute just to warm the chicken through. The juicy tenderness of the sous vide chicken breast makes a big difference over using chicken prepared using conventional methods. This is a minor kind of way that using a modernist technique improves a traditional dish in a notable way. But sometimes you go to the trouble of using a modernist technique you think will make a big difference and... meh. It wasn't worth the trouble. For example: Last weekend a friend and I threw a small party where we cooked dishes from our families' repertoires of Texas cooking (we both have roots in West Texas). I thought: "Hey! Modernist chicken fried steak!" So I took some beef short ribs, butterflied them and flattened them out to traditional CFS thickness, bagged them and cooked them at 60C for 48 hours, then chilled them in an ice bath and took them to the party. At the party I used Wondra to get a more crispy exterior, and I also strained/reduced the bag liquid and added that to the cream gravy. The thinking was that short rib meat would result in beefier-tasting CFS, that the LT/LT sous vide cooking would make it fork tender, and that using the osmazome from the bag would make the cream gravy beefier as well. All of these things turned out to be true, as far as it went, but it tasted like... really good chicken fried steak, but hardly the OMG THIS IS THE BEST CHICKEN FRIED STEAK EVER I had hoped for. It wasn't revelatory. Definitely not something I'd bother doing again, whereas I really don't ever cook chicken breast with traditional techniques anymore. Any other examples of applications of modernist techniques that just weren't worth it?

Retrograding the at starch is not designed to help with graininess. Traditional potato puree is not grainy at all. Retrograding is meant to help with the gluiness that can result when you work a potato puree.

Just for what it's worth, the author of that page is incorrect in saying that American flour is made from durum wheat while Italian flour is made from red wheat. American all purpose flour is generally made from red winter wheat. Almost all durum wheat grown in the US and Canada is used to make dry pasta.

After you rice the potatoes, work the puree through a tamis or fine mesh strainer. The retrogradation technique doesn't work well with a coarse-textured potato mash, precisely because of the graininess issue.

This is not quite accurate. The kind of 00 flour you want to use for making Emilia–Romagna style pasta is a low gluten flour. But there are many kinds of 00 flour. Take a look at the Molino Caputo web site and click on the link for "products." You will see that they sell six different kinds of 00 flour, including "Standard," "Extra," "Super," "Pizzeria," "Rinforzato" (strengthened), and "Pasta Fresca e Gnocchi." These all have different protein contents and gluten qualities. Caputo's pizzeria flour is between 11% and 12% protein. For a comparison reference, most American all purpose flour is around 11% protein or lower. On the other hand, 00 flour for pasta is likely to be around 8.5% protein.

I'm not sure that's a legitimate San Marzano tomato product. I'd be interested to hear a careful reading of the label. San Marzano can refer to a point of origin or a varietal of plum tomato. As a result, you can have "San Marzano tomatoes" that are grown just about anywhere. It's like buying "San Francisco sourdough" that was baked in New Jersey. Most San Marzano tomatoes are grown in Italy, but not many are not grown in the Sarno Valley. These are simply San Marzano variety tomatoes grown in Italy. If the San Marzano variety tomatoes are grown in the Sarno Valley, they can be certified under the D.O.P. and called "Pomodoro San Marzano dell'Agro Sarnese-Nocerino D.O.P." Usually this is shortened to something like "San Marzano D.O.P." or "Certified San Marzano." Cento does sell Certified San Marzano tomatoes, but their passata product is not certified (note the lack of "certified" on the label). In my experience, certified tomatoes tend to be quite a bit better than the uncertified ones (and quite a bit more expensive!). The Cento product is likely to be less expensive overall than whole canned tomatoes because it is a crushed tomato product usually made with less-than-perfect tomatoes. I would say it's right around as good as most any decent quality crushed tomatoes, but doesn't approach the quality of crushing your own D.O.P. San Marzano tomatoes. Anyway, what Steven is figuring out is that there is a reason why the super-fancy pizza places charge a lot of money for their pizza: the ingredients can be quite expensive. Now, of course, he was paying retail prices, which drove up the cost even further. But great quality fresh mozzarella and great quality tomatoes are expensive. The one place where he probably overspent was on the Italian 00 flour. Mostly what you're paying for there is the expense of bringing it all the way over to the United States. American wheat is awesome stuff, and I don't think you get much bang for your buck springing for Italian 00. This is especially true because Italian flours are not classified the same way as American flours. American flours are generally classified by the protein content, whereas Italian flours are classified by the the fineness of the grind and the degree of refinement. "00" flour has a finer grind and more refinement than the "0" and "1" types, but it is possible to get 00 flour at a wide variety of protein contents. Meanwhile, the protein content appropriate for pizza might not be the one you buy when you get that sack of Italian 00 flour in the pasta section (in fact, it probably won't be).

The short answer is that, yes, you should double-seal the bags. Any time you have any liquid in the bag whatsoever, there is a chance some of it might get into the sealing area and make the seal less secure -- perhaps not immediately, but over time. One technique to counteract this is to seal the bag once leaving a fair bit of extra bag after the seal, then wipe out the extra bag well with a paper towel and seal the bag again in that area. The seals themselves should be clear, with no folds or anything like that. Also... FoodSaver brand vacuum bags suck. Do yourself a favor and get some 50-foot rolls of bagging material from these guys. I think a FoodSaver should be able to use the 8" and 11" widths, but not the 15" width.

Is there any need for acidulation if the tomatoes are pressure canned? Also, I've seen a lot of canned tomatoes in my day that looked more or less like tomatoes and a layer of tomato solids floating on top of clear liquid. I've been given to understand that there are some methods to counteract this. Any suggestions?

Cool. I just wonder what it is in Angostura that helps the particles stay in suspension for such a long time. I've had artisanal bitters that dropped some sediment within less than a day, whereas Angostura seems to take a long, long time. Do you suppose particle size is the only difference? I wonder what would happen if you want at a batch of sieved-but-not-fined bitters with a rotor-stator? Bet you could get the particles down to colloidal suspension size.

Interesting stuff. One question: "Louche" for many of us refers specifically to the cloudiness that develops when substances precipitate out of solution due to the percent alcohol being lowered (the classic example being the introduction of water into absinthe). This is a bit different from the cloudiness that most people try to solve in homemade/artisanal bitters or in my FHP example above, both of which tend to be caused by microfine particles. (Although I suppose that once a louche has formed, it can also be understood as a suspension of microfine particles.) Do you find this technique works well for those as well? Also, while we're on the subject, while I note that a lot of modern and recreation bitters have a generally see-through aspect, Angostura bitters do not. They are definitely the darkest and least see-through bitters around. Presumably the darkness and opacity are due to particles suspended in the liquid, yes? Anyone know what they do to keep the particles from settling out?

21 CFR § 101.22(3) says: "The term natural flavor or natural flavoring means the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional. Natural flavors include the natural essence or extractives obtained from plants listed in §§ 182.10 [spices and other natural seasonings and flavorings], 182.20 [Essential oils, oleoresins (solvent-free), and natural extractives (including distillates)], 182.40 [Natural extractives (solvent-free) used in conjunction with spices, seasonings, and flavorings], and 182.50 [Certain other spices, seasonings, essential oils, oleoresins, and natural extracts] and part 184 [Direct food substances affirmed as generally recognized as safe] of this chapter, and the substances listed in § 172.510 [Natural flavoring substances and natural substances used in conjunction with flavors] of this chapter." There is nothing in this definition that would seem to rule out substances added specifically to contribute lots of free glutamates. The only requirement is that the substance has to have a flavor, which rules out substances that have no flavor of their own and are merely "flavor enhancers."

Yes, pasta made with egg yolks only takes a lot of egg yolks. One thing I have taken to doing is keeping an egg yolk container in the freezer, so every time I use an egg white (e.g., in a cocktail) I dump the yolk in the container. When the container is full, it's time to make pasta!

I have found certain sediment-type clouding agents to be more or less un-filterable without a centrifuge. My parents have aged our Fish House Punch for a year before drinking it since, well, before I was born. The cloudy sediment from the lemon juice is only practicably filterable to a certain extent, and they have taken to decanting the clear liquor off the lees, filtering the next "layer" through a coffee filter and saving the rest for batch centrifuging every few years. Perhaps one could filter out the cloudy sediment with infinite patience and an infinite number of Büchner filter papers, or using a diatomaceous earth filter or something like that, but it doesn't seem likely to be a very profitable expenditure of effort and time. The sediment, by the way, is far too fine to be held out with a Superbag or anything like that. I wonder if gelatin or agar syneresis clarification might work for this sort of thing...

My portable induction burner does that with my LC dutch oven and, as far as I can tell, it is far worse with the dutch oven then any other vessel. With the LC, you are in serious danger of burning things in that zone. It works well with most other pots, but the "ring" does show some in other pots as well, but not nearly so strong. This seems ridiculous to me! What's the point of having induction if the heat isn't even across the burner?! Is there some technical reason why these have to be an empty ring and couldn't be absolutely even across the surface of the burner, or is it cheapness on the part of the manufacturers?

Interesting. I wonder if the chicken stays crisp?

Sunny&Rummy: Are you sure you made a Jasmine and not one of the Jasmine knock-offs posted above? I ask because, well, the Jasmine doesn't have Aperol in it (this is an Aperol thread) and it's not the least bit orangey tasting.

Everyone has a different palate, of course, but this sounds incredibly sweet to me. As a generality, I try to stay away from any drink with the word "pie" in its name.

They are not so good for applications where the dense creaminess of a Haas avocado is wanted (e.g., guacamole). But I find that they're pretty good just in slices alongside something you're eating. My favorite use is a few gigantic slices on top of a big bowl of sancocho.

So that's another thing to try: Compare samples at a wide variety of ABVs and see what the differences are.

Make it even smoother? The mechanical action which turns potatoes into glue doesn't simply become benign once there's enough liquid, does it? To clarify again, I'm talking about smooth potato soups, where a blender has been used (stand or immersion). As a generality, retrograding potatoes actually works against smoothness somewhat. That's not why you retrograde potatoes for potato puree. What this technique does is make it possible to work the starch a lot in a puree with reduced danger of a gluey texture. But, at the same time, if you don't work a retrograded potato puree finely enough, it can have a slightly grainy texture like it's made of tiny little beads of potato. This is why it's advisable to run retrograded potato through a tamis or extra-fine strainer. Notwithstanding the foregoing, I'm not sure that this technique is particularly meaningful with respect to potato soups. I've blasted unretrograded potatoes and stock (etc.) in the VitaPrep and never developed a gluey texture.

Except, if the color difference were the result of more chlorophyll being extracted into solution by the ethanol, wouldn't one expect the color of the drinks with ethanol to be darker? The opposite is what was observed. I don't believe this is particularly true. Try comparing basil leaves that have been cut with a really sharp knife to basil leaves that have been torn into similarly-sized pieces and see how great a difference you observe. Not as much as you might think. As a generality, people tend to cut basil into many more pieces than they might tear basil into, which I believe explains much of this purported effect. I think the belief that "torn basil doesn't darken" is an often-repeated but rarely tested "kitchen truism" similar to the belief that seasoned cast iron is nonstick. That said, to the extent that tearing does have a mitigating effect on browning in basil leaves versus cutting, this is believed to be because tearing has a tendency to separate the leaves along the boundaries of cell walls whereas cutting has a tendency to cut and crush cells, thereby exposing a greater amount of cell contents to oxidation and enzymatic browning. Notably, it is not because the knife is made of stainless steel (I imagine knives made of reactive carbon steel may have an effect). You could cut basil leaves with a ceramic knife and observe the same effect as you would with a similarly sharp stainless steel knife. Anyway, yes... doing straight-up comparisons of the results in glass-and-metal versus all metal shaker sets to see the difference would be step #1. But this has apparently already been done by Joerg Meyer and there is a difference. So now the question is what caused the difference. It could be that there is some fundamental difference between glass and metal that causes the observed difference, which I view as unlikely, or it could be that some associated variable is what causes the observed difference.

Basil is especially affected by enzymatic browning and oxidation reactions. This is why fresh-cut basil will almost immediately darken along the cut line whereas this effect is not as pronounced with many other herbs. I suspect it's also especially noticeable in basil because the initial color tends to be quite light compared to, e.g., parsley or mint. So there are a number of questions you raise here, and there are a number of variables I think you'd want to tease out. For example, I'd start out shaking out samples that contain only basil and either water or water and ethanol. Is one sample different from the other? This then suggests that it's the ethanol alone that's responsible for the difference. If you are finding that one sample has a darker color, then this suggests that the enzymatic browning/oxidation reactions (or whatever it is that turns bruised basil dark) are more pronounced in this sample. It could be that this sample is more effective at bringing the various substances into solution where the reactions happen, or it could be that something in the other sample (presumably the ethanol) has some action that mitigates these effects. The potential effect of fruit juice would then be another layer of complexity, which has two parts: the chemical effect of the acid and the optical effect of the juice. You could start off by shaking the samples of water versus water/ethanol together with measured doses of citric acid. This would separate out any optical color effect of the juice itself. Then you could shake out samples with water versus water/ethanol and citrus juice together with citrus juice and measured amounts of food coloring. This would let you see whether the citrus tended to produce a different color effect just optically when combined with water versus water/ethanol. These things would give a pretty good idea of the relevant variables, I'd think. As for why a basil drink would turn out darker green when shaken in all metal versus metal and glass... that's an interesting question. First, I guess I'd ask what the metal is made of. Are they using silver-plated shakers, for example? If they're using (presumably) nonreactive stainless steel, are they able to shake harder (or less hard) with the metal shakers? Is the headspace the same? Is the amount of ice used the same? Is it possible that the stainless shakers don't rinse quite the same as the glass ones? I can't think of any chemical reason, if everything else is equal, why there would be a stronger browning reaction using all metal shakers.

.... Thanks, Sam. I was obviously misled as to what constitutes an "orange twist" as I followed this googled link. Yikes. Yea, you should delete that from your bookmarks. This gives a pretty good view of how to cut a piece of orange for a garnish, and also how to do a neat trick: