Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine" (Part 1)

[Chris Hennes]

Looks like just a typo to me: the "strong" version of the brine (scaling 2) lists 10% as well.

[JBailey]

Kerry Beal

Thank you for your suggestions about how long and what temp to do pre-packaged corn beef. I put in my corned beef for 18 hours at 170 F. I chose to trim off nearly all the fat and remaining silver skin from the meat with the thought that it might not render or soften as it would if I was using a traditional recipe. When I originally sealed the bag, I neglected to put in the spices which came in the package. This morning, I pulled the bag from my stockpot with the SVP, opened the bag, poured out the accumulated liquids, used the provided seasoninga and then sealed the corned beef back into a new bag and retured it to the 170 F water.

Tonight I served it for dinner. Others had warned me that the corned beef might be 'rubbery', but it was not. It was fork-tender with a very good taste. I did brush off the seasonings before serving because they had not softened and might distract from the meat. 170 was not a bad choice for the whole cooking time. I also might surmise that purging the liquid this morning helped.

[Kerry Beal]

Kerry Beal

Thank you for your suggestions about how long and what temp to do pre-packaged corn beef. I put in my corned beef for 18 hours at 170 F. I chose to trim off nearly all the fat and remaining silver skin from the meat with the thought that it might not render or soften as it would if I was using a traditional recipe. When I originally sealed the bag, I neglected to put in the spices which came in the package. This morning, I pulled the bag from my stockpot with the SVP, opened the bag, poured out the accumulated liquids, used the provided seasoninga and then sealed the corned beef back into a new bag and retured it to the 170 F water.

Tonight I served it for dinner. Others had warned me that the corned beef might be 'rubbery', but it was not. It was fork-tender with a very good taste. I did brush off the seasonings before serving because they had not softened and might distract from the meat. 170 was not a bad choice for the whole cooking time. I also might surmise that purging the liquid this morning helped.

It's Patris you really want to thank - she's the one who told me the time and temp to do it!

[JBailey]

Then a double thanks to Patris! Believe me I held my breathe until the first bite fearing a rubbery texture. I certainly will try this again, maybe with my own curing next time.

[Chris Hennes]

MC does not list sodium citrate as an optional ingredient for direct alginate spherification (in the "Best bets" table on p. 4•187). Does that mean that the direct technique is not sensitive to low-pH bases, or that it can't be used for them at all? The reverse method has you add sodium citrate as an optional buffer (and also calcium sequestrant?) with acidic bases.

[nathanm]

Sodium citrate is a sequestrant. You would need that in direct spherification if the food you are mixing to spherify has a lot of calcium ions in it.

In revers spherification, you add calcium ions to the food. The sequestrant is used to make the gel bath stay pristine from calicum in the water. With distilled or deionized water this less a concern.

[ermintrude]

MC does not list sodium citrate as an optional ingredient for direct alginate spherification (in the "Best bets" table on p. 4•187). Does that mean that the direct technique is not sensitive to low-pH bases, or that it can't be used for them at all? The reverse method has you add sodium citrate as an optional buffer (and also calcium sequestrant?) with acidic bases.

The direct method is sensitive to low PH< 5 and sodium citrate is added to the base if needed to buffer the solution if needed however this can impart a sour taste.

[Msk]

OK I made the grapefruit cured salmons since I happened to have everything in the recipe. I am assuming I can eat this raw like lox or smoke it f I choose? It smells amazing.

MSK

[nickrey]

Like all forms of ceviche, the acid in the grapefruit cooks the protein. You can definitely eat it as is.

[Chris Hennes]

Well, let's be careful here: acid "cooks" fish in the sense that it causes a reaction in the proteins that give it a "cooked" appearance. But a ceviche is still raw fish, and if the fish was crawling with, say E. coli, you'd still be ingesting a lot of bacteria. In this case, you are making a cured salmon, not a ceviche. However, I think the conclusion remains the same: eating properly handled completely raw fish is more or less safe: curing it adds to the time you can keep it and still eat it, but in either case, you are relatively safe.

[Chris Hennes]

I was just checking out the recipe for "Braised Turnips with Saffron" on p. 5•123 and 6•140: it calls for 2 grams of saffron to 250 grams turnips. That seems like a lot of saffron to me, especially cooked sous vide: do you suppose it means 0.2 grams?

[Chris Hennes]

South Carolina Barbecue Sauce (p. 5•70 and 6•219)

Sous Vide Turnip (p. 5•33 and 6•139)

The barbecue sauce is the one I mentioned the other day: it only takes 20 minutes or so to make, so when reheating some leftover pulled pork for dinner tonight I made it again. Still good. I also made sous vide turnips to go with the BBQ: this was pretty simple, just sliced turnip, butter, salt, and water, cooked SV at 85/185 for twenty minutes. This method preserves a lot of the flavor of turnip that is lost otherwise, and I think the quantity of both salt and butter called for is spot on, I didn't have to adjust at all before serving. I also appreciated the texture, firm but not raw. All told very good, except my water bath took two hours to get up to temperature. And I'm sure someone other than me could plate this up nicely, I just put the turnips in a pile.

[abadoozy]

I also made sous vide turnips to go with the BBQ: this was pretty simple, just sliced turnip, butter, salt, and water, cooked SV at 85/185 for twenty minutes. This method preserves a lot of the flavor of turnip that is lost otherwise, and I think the quantity of both salt and butter called for is spot on, I didn't have to adjust at all before serving. I also appreciated the texture, firm but not raw.

Mind sharing the turnip recipe? I have a couple in the fridge, left over from Saturday's corned beef feed, and would like to try it. (I realize you mostly posted the recipe, but you intrigued me enough to ask for exacts when you mentioned the spot-on salt/butter ratios.)

[Chris Hennes]

With turnips as 100%: 12.5% butter, 12.5% water, 1% salt. Sliced thin, SV at 85°C/185°F for 20 min.

[nolnacs]

Has anyone else tried removing fat from duck skin as described on 3.82? That is the method where you cook the skin at 55 C for 24 hours and then scrape off the fat.

I tried scraping off the fat earlier tonight after letting the skin cook for the allotted time. It did not work so well for me. The fat did not want to come off unless I applied some force and if I did that I was more likely to rip the skin (which was very fragile at this point) than take off the fat.

I did cook the entire skin instead of just the skin over the breast as was suggested, but I didn't see any difference in scraping the different areas. Perhaps I needed to cook my skin longer?

[Msk]

Sous Vide Pickles

My family devoured them, they danced that fine line between acidic and sweet that kept you wanting to eat just one more.

Grapefruit Salmon

Who knew Zest could penetrate so deeply into a meat. I liked this alot.

Mike

[Paul Kierstead]

Since about the only recipe I had was the mac'n'cheese, made that. Had to use kappa carrageenan and used the reduced salt amounts listed in this thread. Really really good. I think the mouth feel was not 100% dead on (maybe 98%), slightly too .. something. Slick? And I'd swear I could smell the carrageenan. OTOH, this was, by far, the best mac'n'cheese I've had, and I like mac'n'cheese. Delia Smith has a recipe for a 3-cheese one that I quite like the cheese mixture on, so I think I'll try blending this method for super cheesiness with Delia's selection of cheeses down the road.

[Phaz]

All the recipes that require smoking seem to smoke at lower (and precise) temps and humidity. That just doesn't seem possible with a standard egg style charcoal smoker.

Has anyone found a smoking solution that works? I see that Bradley has a digital version which can smoke at temps starting at ambient (which should be fine for the book) but the built in temperature probe it uses to control the temp seems rather questionable according to people online with swings of maybe up to 20 degrees or so in accuracy and depending where the food is in the smoker.

Edited March 21, 2011 by Phaz (log)

[Chris Amirault]

I stuck a hygrometer into my non-digital Bradley and fiddled to get near the right zone. I don't think you're going to be able to do much more than that, given the lack of attention to humidity and wet-bulb temperatures in nearly all home cooking appliances.

[LoftyNotions]

All the recipes that require smoking seem to smoke at lower (and precise) temps and humidity. That just doesn't seem possible with a standard egg style charcoal smoker.

Has anyone found a smoking solution that works? I see that Bradley has a digital version which can smoke at temps starting at ambient (which should be fine for the book) but the built in temperature probe it uses to control the temp seems rather questionable according to people online with swings of maybe up to 20 degrees or so in accuracy and depending where the food is in the smoker.

Several of us on this forum have Bradley smokers. Because of the temperature swings with the digital smoker that you mentioned, I opted for the Original Bradley Smoker, and use an Auber PID for temperature control. The PID keeps temperatures in tight control, but there is some variance in cabinet temperatures from front to back and top to bottom. It's close enough for the girls I go with though. I've opted to place my temperature sensor just under the lowest shelf I cook on which gives me the maximum cabinet temp.

I haven't played around much with humidity control yet, having just learned the importance of it. The 2 easy ways I see of controlling it somewhat are the vent opening and the surface area of the water dish / tray you put in the bottom to catch the spent pucks.

Over all, I've been very happy with the OBS, and would recommend it.

Larry

ETA The only potential advantage I see to the Digital Bradley is that it also comes in a 6 shelf version. I find that the smaller OBS works fine for my needs, and using double racks, I can smoke over 12 pounds of Snack Sticks at a time.

Edited March 21, 2011 by LoftyNotions (log)

[Fat Guy]

This morning I had the opportunity to sample some modernist dishes, prepared by the Modernist Cuisine team, at a modernist breakfast at Jean Georges restaurant here in New York City. This was the menu:

Some photos of the dishes:

I recognize many components from the book, but I no longer have access to the online reading room and don't have a physical copy. Those of you in the book, are these recipes from the book?

I thought the flavor of every single thing served was superlatively deep -- in other words they all delivered on the better... stronger... faster... promise of modernism. The cornbread, for example, was just like normal cornbread except it tasted twice as much like corn. I have a quibble with the texture of the cool-looking striped top layer of the mushroom omelet, which to me seemed a little rubbery the way omelets get in a microwave. If it's in the book I'll be interested to know the exact methodology.

[FoodMan]

I was just checking out the recipe for "Braised Turnips with Saffron" on p. 5•123 and 6•140: it calls for 2 grams of saffron to 250 grams turnips. That seems like a lot of saffron to me, especially cooked sous vide: do you suppose it means 0.2 grams?

yikes! that does sound like a lot. I would just go with a small pinch or 0.2 grams.

[Chris Amirault]

Steven, I definitely recognize a few of those from the book, but I am still working on a carrying case that allows me to bring it everywhere I go without spinal cord injury. Will report later if no one else has.

That striped dish I remember for sure. What was that like?

[Fat Guy]

The striped dish was in layers. The internal part of it was wonderfully eggy and had the flavor of a thousand mushrooms. The top layer had the texture you get when you beat an egg and microwave it. So while it was very cool looking I wasn't sold on the top layer.

[bmdaniel]

Do you know what cut of meat they used for the Pastrami?