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Does pure alcohol also needs particles to freeze like pure water? The way the supercool water experiment works, if I were able to bring pure liquor or wine to some temperature below its normal freezing point (query: what is the freezing point of wine or liquor at different percentages of alcohol?), wouldn't I be able to replicate the same result? Pour liquid wine and watch it freeze?

I'm always on the scour for more blogs in which the authors write about their experiences with the Modernist recipes and techniques. Here's what I've found so far: Seattle Food Geek Jet City Gastrophysics Consumed Gourmet the eGullet discussion thread Does anyone have any others? Constantly on a quest to find more! Lachy

I've starting working my way through Modernist Cuisine and it didn't take long before I was unable to cook a recipe without ordering a special ingredient online (iota carrageenan). Are there ten or so key ingredients that I should stock as I keep reading through so that I can attempt a majority of the recipes? What about the starter kits listed on Amazon? Example:http://www.amazon.com/Experimental-Kit-Artistre-600-grams/dp/B0045KOOXU/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1314771769&sr=8-4 Any advice is appreciated, I'd rather not wait a week for shipping every time I want to try a new recipe!

My wife rolled her eyes when I asked her for a $600 cookbook for my 50th birthday. She immediately reminded me of the exhaustive list of my cooking appliances, both current and posthumous, our cabinets full of our current cookbook collection and inventoried the various gadgets stuffed into every nook and cranny in our large kitchen. Yet she ultimately relented. And, so I set off to acquire a copy of Modernist Cuisine. I will spare you the long saga of the actual acquisition of the volumes, although the process involved haranguing phone calls, supplier lies and misrepresentations. Eventually, a third-party paragon of fairness interceded and I soon received a call from my wife that the box had come. ‚“It‚’s heavy,” she said. ‚“Are you sure you only bought the cookbook?” her tone indicated that I might have once again duped her by what she calls tag-a-long buying (a scheme where you promise to buy just one item, but under the cover of darkness you actually sneak in another kitchen gadget into the order). It was certainly a big box! I had finally extracted my prize: five huge volumes encased in a ¼ inch Plexiglas book container. Each book measured 10 ½ inches by 13 inches with cover photographs fit for a coffee table. The sixth book, a soft cover kitchen manual, fit beautifully on top of its Plexiglas home. I gingerly opened the first book and audibly gasped with surprise. Each glossy page was packed with photographs, statistics, charts and graphs. The $600 list price was starting to look inexpensive (I got for less but cannot reveal my source). I positioned the volumes on the countertop and plotted my next move. I first decided to get acquainted with the table of contents. Segmented into five volumes, the set includes: Volume 1: History and Fundamentals; Volume 2: Techniques and Equipment; 3: Animals and Plants; 4: Ingredients and Preparations; and 5: Plated-Dish Recipes. As a home chef who primarily cooks for my family and to maintain sanity, my first instinct was to dive into Volume 2 to see what I could whip up. Instead, increasingly intrigued by the first volume, I decided to start by reading a few pages about the authors and their journeys and 335 pages later I put it down. The rest of this review focuses only on Volume 1. I know now to read each volume in order. Chapter 1 covers the history of food. One of the central arguments described is that of the ”˜traditionalist‚’ versus the ”˜modernist.‚’ The debate probes: even if you can still eat the way your ancestors did, why would you? Further, food ingredients we associate with authentic regional cooking are, for the most part, not indigenous to the region ' so what is the meaning of ‚“traditional” in this context? Moreover, recipes we consider traditional today were really modernist in their time ' e.g. ‚“three centuries elapsed before the fruits [tomatoes] were fully accepted, due to lingering concerns over their safety.” Throughout the chapter, due deference is paid to the pioneers of the modernist movement and their origins and contributions. After completing Chapter 2: Microbiology for Cooks, I was thoroughly horrified. The authors detailed surprising cycles of illness called ‚“The Strange Life Cycle of Toxoplasma gondi” which I will leave as a story to be discovered (hint: page 127). The book covers an accomplished range, from ‚“Why You Shouldn‚’t Eat People” to ‚“Crazy Cats and Mad Moose.” Chapter 3 delves into the Food Safety, only furthering my depression. Confirming my suspicions, the chapter affirmed that various government food agencies are not exactly the sharpest tools in the shed. A recipe the FDA follows emerged in my head: 1 cup reality; 1.5 cups supposition; fold in one half cup of whipped hysteria to manipulate the masses and shake violently. Let cook indefinitely and deny any errors made along the way. I think the most useful part of the whole Volume is found on pages 192 to 194 ' Simplified Cooking Standards Based on Science. These pages and the authors‚’ preceding discussion are worth the reader‚’s investment and will ultimately lead to safer and tastier food results. Also, you simply must read the section on hygiene; review the UV powder simulation contamination on your hands. By Chapter 4, I was ready to be uplifted. Instead, I found a chapter called Food and Health, where the authors systematically dismantle numerous long-held beliefs using statistical evidence. The net of this chapter is that we know very little about which foods cause what long term problems, but our pharmaceutical companies, medical community and billion dollar diet industry often disregard facts or statistical evidence anyway. Instead, they try to make a buck off of marketing tantalizing lifestyle changes. Chapter 5: Heat and Energy and Chapter 6: The Physics of Food and Water cheered me up with upbeat facts about how things cook and freeze, essentially covering the whys that surround the hows. I recognized most of this content from my days of engineering school. As I closed Volume 1, I was surprised by how much I‚’d learned in this brief time, despite the fact that I‚’ve been cooking for 35 years. If I had gone with my impulse and skipped the first volume, I would have missed incalculably valuable information, and maintained my old mindset. Most books either fail to thoroughly cover the scope of material found in Volume 1 or cannot sustain the financial costs of publishing to do so with style and rigor. So when you buy Modernist Cuisine, start on page one. If you'd like to see my review of volume 2 when I finish it, let me know. http://www.linkedin.com/in/glenndhousesr

I found the tomato confit a fairly simple, but time consuming recipe that makes an intensely flavored dried tomato. I used a majority of my output to make veal stock, but also used some to make a veal Parmesan with mozzarella spheres.

I recently made the bacon jam to pair with a smoked french toast I made. I didn't bother adding coloring to the jam, but it turned out great. Very different from a more traditional bacon jam, but it worked well. Nice and sweet/savory combo in a rich creamy egg base. A hit overall.

I made some of the house-cured bacon a while back and really love the recipe. One of the more porky bacons I have ever had which is great. I find that most bacon cures cover up the pork flavor rather than accentuating it. I didn't follow the recipe exactly, I cured for 9 days because my belly was so thick. Also, I cold smoked the pork, did not use the sodium erythorbate and used boneless belly. Next time I plan on experimenting with the base formula to change the flavor profile a little and make a sweet/savory style of bacon. Also, I really want to get a bone in belly, bacon ribs sound amazing!

MC states the steel sheet method to make pizza works for an electric oven. Will it work for a gas oven? I read somewhere that could be a problem. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

One of the first recipes I'm going to try is the low temp oven beer can chicken. There is no mention of brining the bird first. Thoughts? Thanks in advance.

I was looking at the 'Lychee and Lime Soda' recipe (4-268) and would love to try it out for myself. My one perfectionist issue is that I do not know where I can get the plastic circular molds to form the small lime tablets (as pictured in 6b). Any ideas?

Hi All: I did most of this last night. I Sous Vide for 1 hour at 135F and then deep fried at 190C ( as that is the hottest my deep fryer would go) for 1 minute. I did not have any liquid nitrogen so missed that out. But the burger was dry and more like medium not what I was expecting. So what was the biggest mistake: 2 more degrees in the Sous Vide ' cannot believe that Not using liquid nitrogen ' hmmm unsure Not having the oil hot enough - 232C must be close to flash pointThanks for your help. The outside crunch was great and 240g of burger seemed light and tastey (it was my own grind) which was a win. Just a bit dry. Cheers Drew

Hi: Does anyone know where I can get liquid nitrogen in the UK? Drew

I have a Fissler pressure cooker, and I'm ready to use it to make the Caramelized Carrot Soup. However, the pressure cooker instructions say that I must not cook anything using less than the minimum amount of liquid they recommend (250 to 300 ml). The soup recipe calls for about halt that amount of liquid (the melted butter plus the water). Is everyone just ignoring that minimum liquid requirement when they caramelize the carrots? Anne

I am a small restaurant and wanted to try something new to my town, specifically cooking a steak sous vide, freezing it in liquid nitrogen, then deep frying it. However, my health department won't allow me to to keep the steak in at 131 degrees for more than 4 hours. My local inspector wrote the following: unless scientifically proven to be effective in preventing the growth of foodborne pathogens (lab testing). Those test results would have to be provided to our office for review and written approval. Thanks. I have not yet purchased the book....saving up for it, can someone send me in the correct direction for this, if it is contained in the book then please let me know, but I can't afford lab testing myself. Thanks a million Chris

I asked the european subsidiary of Ajinomoto to get some Koji-Aji and the answer was, it is only available for the food processing industry, not as a seasoning for cooks. Does anyone know someone selling it in small quantities? Greetings from Vienna, Andreas PS: I made a dark beef fond (2-301) and came across beeffilet with jus de roti (4-54).

I plan on making the baked version for a party this weekend. Worst case is that I make it and it doesn't get eaten for 2 hours. Will it be mush by then? I might be able to put it together at home and bake it at the party.

I noticed that MC recommends sieves purchased from a lab supply rather than the standard kitchen items. I'm intrigued at least in part because I've been frustrated by my inability to buy a coarse but well made sieve, and this would give me the ability to control the mesh size, assuming I can figure out the actual measurement of the mesh size I want. But I'm curious about two things. 1. It appears that these are available in brass and in stainless steel. The stainless costs more. But I routinely see Prop 65 warnings about lead in brass, and I might expect brass to be sensitive to acids, since it is mostly copper. Are the brass ones actually food safe? Dish washer save? 2. How do you actually use a sieve like this? I can buy a tiny receiving dish for it which isn't much use in the kitchen. If I use it with the mixing bowls I have on hand it will either rest on top (with the 1 to 1.5 qt bowls), which is not so good because some of the mesh is hanging over the counter, or it'll fall fairly deep into the bowl (4 qt), leaving not much room at the bottom. (This was based on an 8" diameter sieve.) If I'm trying to force a puree through the sieve, as opposed to simply draining stuff, it seems like lacking a handle is a major downside.

This is, personally, one of my favorite tricks from Modernist Cuisine at Home. Has anyone else tried it? http://modernistcuisine.com/recipes/low-temp-oven-steak/

I've made Caramelized carrot soup a couple of times. It was very good, though not very caramelized. Last night I tried the cauliflower soup, which did caramelize, and it was not very good. It was bitter and mushy. I'm guessing that the baking soda should be omitted and the cooking time reduced a bit. It smelled wonderful at about the ten minute mark, then smelled burned, though it wasn't.

I got a centrifuge, but it cannot do 27,500g... It's a big machine and all I'll be able to get, at best, is 3,900g So the tomato water i spun for 30 minutes at 3900g came out with a reddish tinge, as opposed to crystal clear. 2 more hours at 3900g did not really seem to make a difference. Now I want to try the pea butter... but is it even possible with my centrifuge? will I eventually get the same thing, if I just spin for much longer? and how much longer would that be, exactly, if at all? Are there charts?

If you're answering this, please try to address a few of my comments here if you can! Okay... so i spent the last few weeks acquiring a Beckman GS-6R centrifuge. It's a big machine, for a home, but it can only do about 3900g (for about 3L or up to about 4kg of liquid) as opposed to the 40,000g i seem to see so much in the book. For my first centrifuged recipe, I chose to make tomato water. I'd already made this with agar agar, with good success, to make the quite impressive pasta marinara recipe, but it was a lot of work, really. The centrifuge, after about 30 minutes at 3900g gave me a clear, reddish liquid from a couple cans of pureed tomatos, that I suppose I could have gotten more clear. As an experiment, I ran the same samples for an additional 2 hours at 3900g and did not really see much of a difference. Is there a conversion from 40,000 g to 3900g in terms of additional time to centrifuge for? would I ever get the completely clear liquid obtained at the higher g's? Oh well, I figured, for an experiment, this slightly colored liquid would do. I blended in sodium alginate (from modernist pantry), then I made the bath with water and calcium lactate, as the recipe instructed. I made the basil with canola oil and a dash of olive oil because I didn't have grapeseed oil and I wasn't going to make a special trip to the grocery just to grab that. I figured by "grapeseed oil" the recipe meant, "neutral oil," but if grapeseed oil has some kind of special properties that are important, let me know... Everything was at room temperature. There is nothing in the recipe about temperatures of anything, so I figured that would work. It didn't. when I took my spoon and carefully placed a spoonful of the tomato water into the calcium lactate solution, it merely dispersed. I tried a dropper full. I tried another tablespoon full... i tried more carefully lowering it in, allowing the tiniest bit of the calcium lactate solution to just dribble onto the tomato water sodium alginate solution in the spoon. no good. it just wouldn't work for me. I wondered, did i add too little? I followed the recipe to the milligram... So is there any guess as to what went wrong? Is there anything I can do to get this to work better?

Hi according to http://modernistcuisine.com/cooks/ "Modernist Cuisine at Home search will be available when the book is released" but http://modernistcuisine.com/cooks/full-text-search/ seems to only work for the original MC. Anyone know when search'll be available for MCaH? Thanks!

So after spending $150 bucks on the book, I am really disappointed in a number of things. The recipe list is not very long. I would have expected that for such a premium price, that the crew at MC would have given access to the @home readers to the recipes in the larger set. The registration process is just silly. The qr code doesn't ask for your pin and there is no where to put the code in on the website. Finally, the website. Hey MC if you didn't know, a newer version of Wordpress is available. I know because an annoying pop-up comes and tells me that every time I login. I really do love the book, but when the Bouchon Bakery cookbook has more recipes, that is just silly.

Hello, I was wondering I you were going to translate Modernist Cuisine at Home in French ? If yes, when will it be available ?!

I want to try pressure-cooked vegetable risotto from MC at home (probably, there is such a recipe in the big MC book). But I don't have a separate device for it, I have a multi-cooker which has a function of pressure-cooking. The problem here is that I need to set up the temperature myself. The question is ”” what is the temperature for cooking risotto? Thanks.