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I had a wonderful cocktail the other night here in Denver. The bartender muddled cilantro, cucumber and jalapeño, added lime juice, simple syrup, green tabasco and reposado tequila, shook with ice and strained it into a cocktail glass. It was delicious. I immediately thought about how to pull out more of the cilantro, cucumber and jalapeño flavors. Of course, my first step was to consult what is now my kitchen bible - "Modernist Cuisine." However, I could not find any extraction direction for these three products. I can guess at the best method for each but thought I should post a request for help to see what you think is the best course of action. I only have a vacuum sealer and a thermal circulator (and a recently purchased pressure cooker which does indeed produce measurably better stock but I do not think it is much help in this department ). Brian

Hi everyone, I am making a white beef stock (2-296), and I am not sure when it describes blanching the bones in water (step 2 of the white stock variation) if this is the same water that the stock will be made from, or if the blanching water is drained following the blanching and fresh water added for the stock. Does anyone have any ideas? Cheers, Ben

I'm ready to buy a pressure cooker and I'm looking at the Kuhn-Rikon Duromatics. I'm not sure which size to get, though. I'm mostly cooking for two, but I like having leftovers, and I'm concerned a 4-qt one won't be large enough for larger proteins or stock (which, in reality, I probably won't be making all that often). I'm leaning towards one of these three: http://www.amazon.com/Kuhn-Rikon-3043-Duromatic-6-3-Quart/dp/B00009A9XT/ref=sr_1_1?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1326995636&sr=1-1 http://www.amazon.com/Kuhn-Rikon-3916-Duromatic-Pressure/dp/B0000Y73UQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1326995628&sr=1-1 http://www.amazon.com/Kuhn-Rikon-3342-Stainless-Steel-Pressure/dp/B00004R8ZE/ref=sr_1_3?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1326995628&sr=1-3 Because they all look fairly similar, this is rapidly becoming the most difficult decision I've ever had to make. Does anyone have any advice?

I'm taking a vacation to New Zealand next month and was wondering if anyone has any restaurant recommendations. I was thinking of trying The White House when in Wellington, as they do some Modernist things and have Heston's Mock Turtle Soup as well as Sous Vide Duck on their tasting menu. Anybody else have any suggestions? I'm looking forward to going to a hangi and eating some seafood as well.

Hello, I was wondering if you could answer a question. In your section on American BBQ in regards to brisket it says to smoke it for 7 hours and then sous vide for 72. I was wondering if it is possible to smoke 3 or 4 briskets and then vacuum seal and freeze 2 of them, remove at a later date and sous vide then. What kind of negative impact would that have on the meat. Thanks.

This was the first recipe I tried. By substituting cashew oil, I had the ingredients on hand. Our blender was the stand-in for the rotor-stator homogenizer. I ran the puree on high for about 4 minutes. The result was terrific. Cooking the stalks separately worked magic. The blender actually made everything very close to silky. My fear that everything would separate were unfounded. My wife and I were like little kids with ice cream, as we scraped our custard cups clean. Is there a better way to serve this dish?

Anybody try this? What other types of fish have you used?

I glanced at the book for canning times and saw pints and quarts. Was there any data collected on half gallon jars? What I am canning is a clear liquid of pH 5.2, and 'overcooking' is not a problem. I just want to make sure it is sterile and I need it in 1/2 gallon jars. Any help in determining a time, even if it has a decent safety factor built in, is much appreciated. Joshua

I wondered whether the lab can provide some information on the effects of smoking ribs at a higher temperature than recommended in the book. Specifically, I wondered what the effects are of smoking at 160F versus the recommended 149F. I am considering purchasing a Traeger smoker (I do not want to have to tend the fire of a Karubecueevery 30 minutes) but learned that the minimum operating temperature is 160F (with a variance up to 20F) .

Hello all. I'm a home cook looking to get into Sous Vide cooking. I'm getting ready to order some of the equipment and I have a question regarding chamber vacuum sealers. I know that in MC's gear guide they recommend the VacMaster VP210C, while in his 2011 Gift Guide Scott recommended the VP112C. A week ago they were only about $75 difference in price, and since footprint isn't really an issue for me I was just going to get the VP210C. However, when I looked today, Amazon has the VP-112C on for only $646.30. That's starting to be a substantial amount of savings. Both seem to be well reviewed items and I'm relatively certain that I won't go wrong with either, but I was hoping that I could find someone here who has used both and get there advice. Is the 210C worth the extra $250? Thanks in advance.

So, I am pretty comfortable, and experienced, with many hydrocolloids, spherifacation etc, but I have never had anything but problems with gellan gum. I've tried numerous recipes from MC and from El Bulli, and the problem is always the same. Everything looks good until the gellan/liquid comes to a boil, then it immediately starts to clump and get disgusting. What, exactly, is going on, and how can I avoid it?

I've been searching for the beeswax required for the uni bottarga recipe and can't seem to find it anywhere. Does anyone know where to purchase this? Thanks for the help.

So I have been wanting to serve some savory pop rocks for a little while and was wondering if anyone here has had any experience with flavoring them. More specifically I am talking about these http://www.modernistpantry.com.....candy.html . It says on modernist pantry that they can be flavored with any fat based substance. The flavors I want to do would be Bacon, Chicken 'N' Waffles, Foie Gras, and White Truffle. My thought is to take some N-Zorbit and make a powder from these substances and simply toss the unflavored popping candy in my flavoring powder. Am I way off? Any different way to do this?

Hi! Has anyone tried this immersion circulator from Addelice? http://www.addelice.com/shop/default/cuisson-sous-vide-basse-temperature/einhangethermostat.html I live in Sweden so the price of this circulator is far better than the Polyscience one.

I have been reading and reading and then reading the Curing section over and over and then again along with the bacteria sections (and the whole book in general). I now understand the difference between brining, wet curing and curing and the parametric charts and the the best method charts but other than the one bacon recipe you barely touch upon it (bacon that is). My brain is telling me from all the info that Sodium Nitrite is not necessarily needed for bacon unless you like its flavor and the color it makes the flesh. If one follows the following; Basic cure recipe 7 days in fridge, rinse, some equilibrium time in the fridge, smoke in smoker and vac pac and store in fridge below 40f or in freezer until ready to use. Make sure its cooked to proper temp to kill any potential CB toxin if it ever had the chance the grow but should not have. Cooking over bacon 250 would render the toxin harmless. Or is it that bacon temp cooked never get high enough to render potential toxins harmless? Am I missing something? Which brings me to a question. The first Pork Bellies I did (Skin on Boneless) each weighed about 1.25kg were dry cured with a basic cure with salt, sugar and instacure 1. Left in for 8 days as I had to get smoker ready for a full load. Did a quick rinse and in the applewood they went. When I tried them they were WAY too salty (and I like salt). Any suggestions? They were about 1.5 inches thick does that mean even 7 days is too long? Just sucke blanching the slices in boiling water as it lost its smokey depth of flavors and became one dimensional. Thanks for the great book!

I just got the book and the Baked Potato Broth seems like a good place to dip my toes in the water. I would like a little clarification on how to decant the potato juice from starch residue. All it says is 300g from 700g of potatoes.

I did not have albumin powder but substituted 25g egg white for the 25galbumin powder and it worked well.

Has anyone here tried the Sous Vide Dash app for IOS? http://www.sousvidedash.com/

Does anyone know where to find peelzyme? It is mentioned in the book, and I'm quite interested in using it to peel fruit, but I can't seem to find it. Thanks, -Brian

A friend of mine really likes sour patch candy and I'd like to try to make it into a foam but I don't quite know where to start. I'm thinking of trying a few things. Put the candy into a liquid an let it it, then blend it. Or perhaps melt the candy. Once it's liquid I have an idea about what to do next.

Greetings. I received the ElevenMadison Park cookbook for my birthday (December), and it is one of my favorite cookbooks of the year. The recipes are great (some very involved), as is the presentation of the food. I have cooked a few of the recipes and the flavors pair together quite well. One of my favorite things about the book is at the end. The end of the book contains many vinaigrette, infused oil, gels, pickling, and sorbet recipes, as wellasvarious other dessert recipes. It is a very nicely presented book, with recipes laid outvia each season. Has anyone else purchased the book? Have you cooked any recipes? How cookable did you feel the book was? Seth

The book mentions that there are no cvap ovens that let you directly control wet bulb and dry bulb temperature. The holding drawers have aseparatefood temp and air temp dial that is set in degreesfahrenheit. I would imagine that these correspond to wet bulb and dry bulb temp. My question is, which is which?

I'm looking at buying a used rotary evaporator, because the price for a new device is quite steep for a hobby device. Now I was wondering whether that's a bad idea, considering the fact that there's a good chance they have been used to extract highly volatile chemical substances in a lab. Is this really as unsafe as I think? Is there a reliable way to clean the glassware of such a second hand rotavap? How do the lab guys do this, since I guess they don't want to mix their chemicals with those from previous experiments either? thanks!

The recipe for Cantonese fried rice is listed in the combi oven section, but the directions only give the oven temperature (475F), nohumidity, like they do for the other recipes. Can this recipe be made in a tradition oven, or is a combi oven required?

I want to try and start taking some great food photos as I document what I cook (especially out of Modernist Cuisine). I was wondering if anyone have some good advice on what to buy and how to set up and light shots against a plain black and plain white background? I think that shots that Scott takes over at Seattlefoodgeek.com are excellent. Maybe someone can speculate on his set-up?