Q&A with the Modernist Cuisine Team

[JBailey]

Modernist Cuisine/sous vide/butchering. Last night I put a boneless rib eye roast into my sous vide. As I was preparing the roast, again I wondered how much more a roast or a steak or say a rack of lamb ribs need to be butchered. Obviously, silver skin needs removal. My instinct is to shave off the larger caps of fat one finds based upon my guess that at the lower temperatures of doneness, the fat does not sufficiently melt. If I were conventionally roasting, the melting of the fat would take place and further act as a basting or at least render more. Should we cut off the extra fat, but leave the excess in the bags or does this not aid much in flavor development? My practice is to season, sous vide and then sear, while I have seen opinion that pre-searing may be better.

Which also brings up the second question of how 'hot' meat done sous vide is at the table, versus the still sizzling one might find from a steak just off the grill. To compensate and give the expected warmness someone expects when dinner is served, do you heat the plates or how exactly do you keep the food warm?

[DaveJes1979]

Does the book cover adjustments for environmental factors, such as altitude and humidity? I live at 6000 feet, so I'm sure I'll have to make adjustments to things like pizza or most anything that is baked.

[FoodMan]

Like many here, I am looking forward to my copy of MC. It's almost intimidating to have all books on my shelf that I am not sure where or how to start beyond ogling the pictures. What would the MC team recommend as a first (or maybe top 3) recipe/technique to use?

[Wayt Gibbs]

We need inside-the-pressure-canner videos, including some from inside on of the jars, for the next edition, please!

We don't have videos, but Vol. 2 does include a fantastic, two-page annotated cutaway photo of a pressure canner and jars of multicolored tomatoes (which are also shown in cross section). It's one of my favorite shots in the book.

To answer the earlier question, yes, we include a photo of our instrumented canner.

[Wayt Gibbs]

I would like to know what brand of kitchen knives you guys use. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if you guys decided to machine your own ones...

Who needs knives when you have high-powered lasers!

I'm kidding--although laser engraving of food has certainly come up here as an idea.

Each of the chefs on the MC team has their own personal set of knives, which they've chosen over the years based on their own preference. The brands vary.

We do have some tentative plans to start writing up reviews of various kinds of cooking gear, from water baths to freeze dryers, on our blog at modernistcuisine.com. Since there seems to be interest, I'll add knives to the list of equipment to evaluate. You may see those starting to appear sometime in March.

Edited March 1, 2011 by Wayt Gibbs (log)

[Wayt Gibbs]

Does the book cover adjustments for environmental factors, such as altitude and humidity? I live at 6000 feet, so I'm sure I'll have to make adjustments to things like pizza or most anything that is baked.

It does, in several different ways. Perhaps most important, Modernist Cuisine explains, in a clear and accurate way, how pressure and humidity affect almost every kind of cooking technique, from baking to smoking to sausage-making. The sample pages at the start of this Q&A give a glimpse of one facet of the explanation of humidity, but its role is covered thoroughly as a dominant theme that reappears in multiple chapters. The effects of atmospheric pressure also come up in several places throughout the book. So for those who want to develop a really deep and accurate intuition about the actions of these two crucial variables in cooking, this cookbook can give you that.

More specifically, the authors have included marginal notes to accompany quite a few recipes throughout the book with tips for adjustments you might need to make at higher altitudes.

[Wayt Gibbs]

Like many here, I am looking forward to my copy of MC. It's almost intimidating to have all books on my shelf that I am not sure where or how to start beyond ogling the pictures. What would the MC team recommend as a first (or maybe top 3) recipe/technique to use?

That depends a lot on what you're most interested in--why it is you decided to buy the book. But because we expect a lot of readers will have the same question, we're planning on adding soon a "Getting Started with Modernist Cuisine" area on modernistcuisine.com that will offer some suggestions, as well as guidance on where to pick up any special equipment or ingredients you may want to try.

In the meantime, there is a Cooking with Modernist Cuisine thread going on eGullet that you may want to keep an eye on, as readers post about their experiences trying various techniques and recipes in the book.

[Wayt Gibbs]

In my following of the development of the Modernist Cuisine Project, I don't believe I've come across the answer to a few equipment related questions:

1 - Is there a list of all the tools and "toys" that the MC kitchen has? If not could one be provided?

2 - There was a short video with NathanM where he spoke about the tools necessary in order to undertake the recipes in the book. If I recall, he mentions that if one can be persuaded to get an Immersion Circulator that a great many recipes become possible. Would you be willing to provide a list of the equipment that we should have in terms of most necessary to most esoteric?

Thanks to the Whole MC Team.

At the beginning of chapter 10 on The Modernist Kitchen, you'll find four pages of tables that list:

• Must-Have Tools for the Modernist Kitchen
  
• Handy Special-Purpose Tools
  
• Inexpensive but Invaluable Modernist Tools
  
• Classic Tools for Modernist Cooks
  

Each table ranks the gear in priority, lists some common brands, and gives (2010) price ranges.

The chapter also opens with a photo of the kitchen at The Cooking Lab with a numbered key that identifies each piece of equipment in it.

Listed right at the top of that first table are water baths, unstirred or circulating. Also high on the list are liquid nitrogen, a humidity-controlled oven (combi oven or Cvap), a vacuum sealer, and a homogenizer. The vast majority of recipes in the book can be made with just those tools plus standard kitchen items.

[Wholemeal Crank]

We need inside-the-pressure-canner videos, including some from inside on of the jars, for the next edition, please!

We don't have videos, but Vol. 2 does include a fantastic, two-page annotated cutaway photo of a pressure canner and jars of multicolored tomatoes (which are also shown in cross section). It's one of my favorite shots in the book.

Excellent! To this fan of the pressure cooker, it sounds suitable for framing as wall art. Bet you could sell posters of some of these incredible shots. Any plans to do so? I can see them being every bit as popular as periodic tables of the vegetables etc.

[Chris Amirault]

This concludes the Modernist Cuisine Q&A.

I hope you'll join me in thanking the MC team for allowing us this fantastic glimpse into the book, and especially editor-in-chief Wayt Gibbs for his thoughtful answers all week long.