slkinsey

I have a Pro 2300 from these guys, and have not found bagging with a fair amount of liquid to be any problem. For Thanksgiving, I made several Keller dishes from Under Pressure (more on this anon) which included much larger amounts of liquid than I would ordinarily ever put into a SV bag. For various reasons, it proved impractical or unfeasible to pre-freeze the liquids. I figured I'd just keep my eye on the vacuum chamber and hit the "manual seal" button if a lot of liquid started coming out of the bag. I never actually had to do this. I held the bags so that there was always a clear "channel" for the air (no air pockets at the back of the bag). The air was always evacuated first, and while a small amount of liquid (perhaps 1/4 tsp) would typically come out of the end of the bag, the machine would always go over to sealing just at that moment -- before I had a chance to hit the manual seal button. The result was bags sealed with plenty of liquid and no residual air.

Meh. Why? The reward isn't that great.

It's going to be quite some time before Rittenhouse is ever in particularly good supply in places like Santa Fe. It takes a little over 6 years to make the stuff, and it seems quite clear that the popularity of Rittenhouse BIB took the good folks at Heaven Hill a bit by surprise. From what I have been able to gather, part of their strategy is to keep distribution mostly confined to a a few key areas of the country where there is critical mass of mixologists and spirits geeks to keep it in the collective consciousness until such time as they have enough to distribute more widely without shorting these important markets. Considering that we only started getting Rittenhouse in NYC sometime in Spring of 2005, at the very quickest I wouldn't expect to see significantly more widespread distribution until we're into the next presidential campaign season. Which all a way of saying that Rittenhouse was always going to be pretty hard to come by in New Mexico, and that's not likely to change for several years at best.

Somewhat similar, yes. Except that turkey skin is overall considerably thicker and tougher than chicken skin. SV chicken skin can be reasonably crisped up with a blowtorch, or a very short trip in a blazing-hit frypan. Not so turkey skin, IMO, which takes considerably longer to render out (there is a layer of gelatinous subcutaneous fat under the skin). Either way, it seems to end up either tough as a board or flabby. either way, not the treat that chicken skin can be.

How are you going to make the orange gin? I've occasionally tried to fake that up by microplaning an orange's worth of zest into several ounces of gin for a brief infusion.

I've been doing turkey SV for years. Usually I butterfly the breasts and pound them out, then roll them into cylinders around a mousse made with additional breast meat plus herbs, etc. I typically braise the leg meat. This year, I'm doing much the same thing. The only difference is that I'm shredding the braised leg meat and folding that into the mousse. I may also wrap the cylinder in chard leaves (makes a nice presentation). I don't care for the texture of turkey skin in general, especially after cooking SV. I do mine at 60.5C.

To be clear, this a patent application for automated, by-machine sandwich making.

Many of the things he makes in UP are sealed individually and/or cooked only for a very short period of time, thus resulting in a minimal amount of juices on an individual basis. I'm guessing that it's not worth their while to save/reuse them. In a restaurant environment, there would be no time to incorporate these juices into any kind of sauce on an individual basis, of course, and anyway most of his dishes don't particularly feature any sauce... so it's hard to know how these juices might be employed.

I hope this isn't the "premium Overholt" we've been hearing about.

Anyone know where I can pick up a roll or two in NYC?

Not to mention that McGee's solution is, more or less, "go ahead and let the breast dry out, then lubricate it with gravy."

I believe the correct designation of the cocktail would be: the Mulato. From what I have been able to discover, this is a Daiquiri variation originating in Cuba (where the appellation may not carry the same disapprobation as it does in certain parts of the US) and is more or less a regular Daiquiri made with dark rum and a touch of creme de cacao.

There is an interesting and delicious cocktail that's very similar: 2 oz gin, 1 oz vermouth bianco, 1 tsp maraschino and a few dashes of bitters.

Technically it is all apple brandy, of course. I like to describe applejack as apple "whiskey" because I feel like it has a distinctively rough-around-the-edges, "whiskey-like" character whereas other styles of distilled apple product have a more rounded, smooth, "cognac-like" character. As a result, for example, applejack steps very well into the place of rye whiskey in a Tombstone but not so well into the place of cognac in a Sidecar. The reverse is true of Calvados. This extends, in my experience, even to the longer-aged Laird's products. I just tasted some of the 12 year old Laird's I have in the cupboard. It still has a bit of fire in it and reminds me more of an aged whiskey than an aged cognac (it is not as smooth as, for example, the 13 year Van Winkle rye). Again, this is the opposite of what one gets out of Calvados, which becomes increasingly cognac-like as it ages. I should hasten to point out that this is one of the things I like about Laird's products. Yea, I thought that too... although something about it was always tickling at the back of my mind. From the best I have been able to uncover, the "Applecart" is exclusively an eGullet naming convention. Anything outside eG I've seen points to the Apple Car with applejack or the Royal Jubilee with Calvados. I do think it makes sense for these to have different names, considering how different these products are despite having a common raw ingredient.

I figure when they say "apple brandy" they're not usually talking about applejack, but something smoother. Plus, whenever there are multiple historical naming traditions of essentially identical similar cocktails (viz. the Allen, Aviation, etc.) I think it makes the most sense to go with the one that has the most popular currency, which seems to be the Marconi Wireless in this case. For sure it's a much cooler name. What I don't like, as a general rule, is calling something a [name of the different-than-usual ingredient as a prefix for the name of a famous and iconic cocktail].

Ever the stickler for nomenclature... That's a Marconi Wireless. I believe that drink is called an Applecart. I've done a little digging around on this drink, which always puzzled me for a few reasons. First is that I've never found the combination of applejack, Cointreau and lemon juice particularly appealing, and certainly not very Sidecar-like. For me, and of course these things can be highly personal, the appeal of the Sidecar is in the combination of Cointreau's refinement and the brandy's smoothness. Applejack's whiskey character, which I love so much, seems a less apt fit and I might rather make a simple applejack sour instead. Second has to do with the name. We've taken around here to saying "applecart" like it's the generally accepted or at least historical name for a cocktail compounded of applejack, Cointreau and lemon juice. My looks around would seem to indicate that this is not the case. Rather, there is the Apple Car cocktail or, if the drink is made with the more brandy-like Calvados, the Royal Jubilee cocktail. The Apple Car goes back at least to Embury. I don't know if it goes back any further than that. Anyway... getting back to drinks. Among the way-too-many I had at Pegu last night was the Hoffman House Fizz with which I began the evening. It is compounded of gin (London dry, although I imagine Hollands would be tasty), maraschino liqueur, lemon juice, orange juice, cream and grenadine (dry shake, shake, strain, highball glass, rocks, fizz). Odd-sounding combination, but it really works.

Strictly speaking, I believe McGee is not quite correct about this. Or, rather, he may be saying that 140F/60C is the minimum temperature for efficient breakdown of collagen into gelatin. As those of us who practice LT/LT sous vice cookery know, collagen begins to dissolve into gelatin at around 122F/50C to 130F/54C and collagenase is active down to 130F/54C. These reactions simply take a lot longer at these lower temperatures. This is why, for example, one can cook collagen-rich meats at 54.5C for 48 hours and both convert the collagen to gelatin and maintain a medium-rare texture. FWIW, I take exception to SeanDirty's temperature chart, which is a bit on the low side. I would suggest it's something more like: Very rare: 45–50C Rare: 50–55C Medium rare: 55–60C Medium: 60–65C Medium well: 65–70C Well done: >70C Certainly, cooking SV at 55 seems to just hit the boundary between rare and medium rare (aka, "medium rare on the rare side"). As for cooking something like a pork butt, the comments as to time-versus-temperature are spot on. Unlike wih a naturally tender meat, it is not enough to cook a collagen-rich meat to temperature. No matter what temperature is used, the meat must be held at the target temperature for a sufficient length of time to convert a sufficient amount of the collagen to gelatin. As noted, this reaction is considerably hastened as at higher temperatures, but there is a trade off in moisture loss, etc. It is up to each individual cook to make a final determination as to what combination of time and temperature to use.

My usual is Sweet Maria's Espresso Monkey Blend with 10% each of whatever their to robusta is (currently Panama Guyami Indian Robusta Rustico) and Monsooned Malabar.

When I have leftover celery, I cut it into fine dice and freeze it. This can then be used in preparations where the celery would be fully cooked anyway (e.g., pasta sauces, soups, braises, crab cakes, etc.).

The easiest way to get around all of these problems (cost as well as time) is to do what a number of NYC cocktail pars do and mist the inside of the glass with absinthe from an atomizer.

Yea, that makes no sense to me either.

I wouldn't go guite that far. Cake can certainly play Robin to pie's Batman... or perhaps Gleek to pie's Wonder Twins.

http://nymag.com/guides/holidays/gifts/2008/52175/

Trimming, if you really care that much. As you can see, it's not really apparent on the plate. My guess is that the way to completely eliminate creasing would be to make a series of smaller "sausages" rather than one big one, and to wrap the "sausage" in multiple layers of plastic wrap before bagging.

It should also be mentioned that Steven (and probably many other eG members -- but, alas, not I) has a powerful externally-vented hood over his stove. That makes a huge difference when it comes to lingering cooking odors from vaporized grease, because the aromatic grease is sucked up the hood and vented away before it has a chance to stink up the place.