Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine at Home" (Part 1)

[Chris Hennes]

I also tried something interesting with the sous vide vegetable stock, of which I made a quadruple recipe. Once I strained out the stock I looked at the huge pile of vegetables and thought, "surely there has to be some more flavor in there." So I bunged it into the pressure cooker, barely covered it with water and pressure cooked it for 30 minutes at 15 PSI. Kind of like a vegetable remouillage. The resulting "second stock" wasn't as deeply flavored or delicate as the first stock, but it was pretty damn good.

Sam, did you find that this resulted in something more "onion-y" than the original stock? I tried it tonight and while it's clearly got other flavors going on, the onion is the one that comes through clearest, to the point that I'm going to have to treat it like an onion stock rather than a vegetable stock, I think.

[Hugh Anderson]

I had a make another batch of Mac and cheese sauce as i like to have it in the freezer. i decided to try the ratio in MC@H instead of MC (which by the way is written very obtusely, with ratios referencing one of the cheeses as 100%, but not the other, but anyhow....)

I used 93% of cheese weight in beer and water, and it basically made cheese soup. I used a gouda and cheddar. Luckily i had enough gouda to add to the "soup" to make it into a sauce. The final ratio of cheese/liquid i ended up with ? 61%, which is, i think, exactly what the ratio MC calls out.

I now have about 3 quarts of cheese sauce. HAH!

Anyone use 93% liquid for their M&C?

I've found that my sauce comes out pretty runny using 93% liquid, but once the macaroni is added the starch thickens it just right. However I made the sauce last night to drape over broccoli, and while it thickened a little as it cooled, next time I'm going to use less liquid because it was a little too soupy.

[slkinsey]

I also tried something interesting with the sous vide vegetable stock, of which I made a quadruple recipe. Once I strained out the stock I looked at the huge pile of vegetables and thought, "surely there has to be some more flavor in there." So I bunged it into the pressure cooker, barely covered it with water and pressure cooked it for 30 minutes at 15 PSI. Kind of like a vegetable remouillage. The resulting "second stock" wasn't as deeply flavored or delicate as the first stock, but it was pretty damn good.

Sam, did you find that this resulted in something more "onion-y" than the original stock? I tried it tonight and while it's clearly got other flavors going on, the onion is the one that comes through clearest, to the point that I'm going to have to treat it like an onion stock rather than a vegetable stock, I think.

Hmmm. Maybe? I'll have to do a comparison. It definitely picked up more of the black pepper.

Edited November 30, 2012 by slkinsey (log)

[pbear]

The only MC of MCAH fail I've had thus far has been pressure-cooking grits in a canning jar. With Anson Mills' antebellum coarse white grits, the product is still not tender even after 25 minutes at 15 PSI. I will have to experiment with seeing whether I get a better result by either pre-soaking the grits or longer cooking times. Either way, however, diminishes the utility of using this pressure-cooking method, because I'm not sure what's so great about it other than getting to tender in a significantly shorter timeframe. It's a bit disappointing because I had assumed, probably erroneously, that when the MCAH recipe called for "coarse grits" they were speaking of something like the Anson Mills antebellum coarse grits. Something like Quaker regular grits hardly takes more than 20 minutes without pressure cooking, so surely this can't be what the recipe is designed around. Considering that Anson Mills recommends cooking their antebellum coarse grits 90 minutes (!) if they are not presoaked, I wonder what length of time I should be looking at for MC/MCAH pressure-cooking if I want to cook from dry.

My hunch would be that they tested the recipe with Bob's Red Mill Grits, as they mention the product line in various other recipes. BRM makes several kinds of grits, but the one I most often see are basically coarse yellow polenta, which I would say generally takes an hour to cook conventionally. If that hunch is right, it would explain why they felt 20 minutes was a significant time saving, but wasn't enough for the kind you were cooking.

FWIW, I think cooking grits or polenta by pressure in canning jars is probably more trouble than it's worth. (Especially if one doesn't have a team of assistants to do the cleanup.) Rather, I use an adaptation of a method I read about in an article several years ago by Paula Wolfert (though, IIRC, she disclaimed having invented the method). First I combine the grits or polena with cold water, then bring just to a boil stirring constantly, cover and move to a 250F oven. Cooking time depends on coarseness, from 20 minutes for relatively fine ground, to an hour (as I said) for coarse, to 90 minutes (I gather) for the very coarse (have never made those). Only needs to be stirred once or twice while baking, then finish on the stove however one likes. It's a wizard method, IMHO. Not as fast as the pressure cooker, but much less fuss, also eliminates the volcanic eruptions and more easily adjusted on the fly. YMMV.

[HowardLi]

For the turkey confit recipe: if the meat is to be shredded, is there any point to searing the skin? And can the confit be done with a boneless leg?

[rotuts]

grits cook very well and easily in a fuzzy logic rice cooker. with milk or not. "porridge" cycle milk never scorches.

[Paul Kierstead]

For the turkey confit recipe: if the meat is to be shredded, is there any point to searing the skin? And can the confit be done with a boneless leg?

Removing it and searing it makes a nice crispy addition to a dish. I wouldn't see searing it on the leg as having a point.

[haresfur]

grits cook very well and easily in a fuzzy logic rice cooker. with milk or not. "porridge" cycle milk never scorches.

I wonder about the pressure cooker quinoa, too. I'm not sure it could come out better than in my rice cooker on the white rice setting. Anyone tried both?

[slkinsey]

The only MC of MCAH fail I've had thus far has been pressure-cooking grits in a canning jar. With Anson Mills' antebellum coarse white grits, the product is still not tender even after 25 minutes at 15 PSI. I will have to experiment with seeing whether I get a better result by either pre-soaking the grits or longer cooking times. Either way, however, diminishes the utility of using this pressure-cooking method, because I'm not sure what's so great about it other than getting to tender in a significantly shorter timeframe. It's a bit disappointing because I had assumed, probably erroneously, that when the MCAH recipe called for "coarse grits" they were speaking of something like the Anson Mills antebellum coarse grits. Something like Quaker regular grits hardly takes more than 20 minutes without pressure cooking, so surely this can't be what the recipe is designed around. Considering that Anson Mills recommends cooking their antebellum coarse grits 90 minutes (!) if they are not presoaked, I wonder what length of time I should be looking at for MC/MCAH pressure-cooking if I want to cook from dry.

My hunch would be that they tested the recipe with Bob's Red Mill Grits, as they mention the product line in various other recipes. BRM makes several kinds of grits, but the one I most often see are basically coarse yellow polenta, which I would say generally takes an hour to cook conventionally. If that hunch is right, it would explain why they felt 20 minutes was a significant time saving, but wasn't enough for the kind you were cooking.

Yes, I think it must be something like that. Some of the pieces of the grits I'm trying to cook are quite large. Yesterday I tried soaking the grits for 12 hours and then pressure cooking them for 25 minutes. They still needed another 10 minutes or so of pressure cooking to fully soften all of the big pieces.

As an interesting piece of data: I and a lot of other people have been historically confused with the Southern term for grits as "hominy grits," and have supposed that grits were therefore supposed to be made from actual hominy -- which is to say, corn that has been treated with lime water. According to Anson Mills this is not so. They say that the functional difference between grits and, say, polenta is that polenta is made from hard flint corn that is processed with multiple-pass reduction milling to have a uniform particle size, while grits is made from soft dent corn that is processed with single-pass milling and has multiple particle sizes. Also, the white corn varieties usually used for grits have a more mineral/floral profile in contrast to more "corny" yellow corn varieties that may be used (count me among those who thinks yellow and white grits don't taste the same).

FWIW, I think cooking grits or polenta by pressure in canning jars is probably more trouble than it's worth.

I'm inclined to agree with this, although I may think differently once I am able to dial in the time for the Anson Mills grits I'd like to use. It would sure be nice to be able to decide on the spur of the moment that I want some grits without having to spend 90 minutes in front of the stove. The issue with figuring that out, unfortunately, involves a lot of test batching and then opening up the pressure cooker to see how they are doing.

[rotuts]

still, why not consider the fuzzy rice cooker? it does what id does, fuzzy like, then you cool your grits and keep then very cold in your refrig and have them when ever you like?

they will need some tiny bit of rehydration be for you re mircowave them.

[RobM]

Tried the Pork Adobo this evening (after all the comments on here about it) delicious and super easy. I served it with some simple Pak Choi and Shiitake mushrooms. Yuuuuuum! This would make an amazing baguette filling with a bit of spring onion...

[slkinsey]

still, why not consider the fuzzy rice cooker? it does what id does, fuzzy like, then you cool your grits and keep then very cold in your refrig and have them when ever you like?

they will need some tiny bit of rehydration be for you re mircowave them.

Cooked, cooled/congealed and then thinned/reheated grits are not anywhere near as good as freshly cooked.

[haresfur]

Anyone have any idea of what might have happened with my garlic confit? Followed the recipe, weighed everything, cooked 2hrs and did a natural release. There was a slight layer of very dark material at the bottom of the jar that mixed in with the oil (not water). The garlic looked like the picture up-thread but tasted horrible - kind of like most of the nice garlic flavour was gone leaving the hard nasty taste you get from raw garlic. The garlic was a little bit old but functional for other dishes.

[pbear]

Did you remember to use a rack or trivet? Jars resting on the bottom of the cooker would scorch like that.

[Shalmanese]

I'm inclined to agree with this, although I may think differently once I am able to dial in the time for the Anson Mills grits I'd like to use. It would sure be nice to be able to decide on the spur of the moment that I want some grits without having to spend 90 minutes in front of the stove. The issue with figuring that out, unfortunately, involves a lot of test batching and then opening up the pressure cooker to see how they are doing.

Given that it's pretty much impossible to overcook grits, why not just leave it in the PC for 45 - 60 minutes? I imagine the main benefit isn't so much the time saving as it is the lack of need for stirring.

edit: alternatively, you could multitask by cooking a braise and putting the grits in with the braise. Both get done at the same time and it simplifies the process.

Edited December 2, 2012 by Shalmanese (log)

[haresfur]

Did you remember to use a rack or trivet? Jars resting on the bottom of the cooker would scorch like that.

yep.

[HowardLi]

After the skin on the chicken is tightened and gelatinized from the blanching, can the skin undergo SV without any negative effects? Or does the skin have to remain dry, such as in a low oven?

I want to get super-crispy skin on perfectly cooked breast but not quite sure how to attain. Will probably use maltose and baking soda.

[slkinsey]

Re the Anson Mills coarse grits: presoaking for 12 hours and then 30 minutes at 15 psi seems to have done the trick, although it still takes a few minutes in a pan for it to fully come together. Next I'll do some experiments cooking from dry. And I suppose I should compare that all to the texture and character when cooked with the traditional methods.

[rotuts]

back to those grits: I take it you want to 'cook, then eat'

if its for breakfast, the fuzzy logic cookers have a timer so can be set ahead of the AM

for dinner, the same. no fiddle, no faddle.

[slkinsey]

What I want is to not have to do a lot of advance planning if I want to have some grits. I would like to be able to use modern techniques so that I can say, "hey, I'd like some grits" and 30 minutes later be eating high quality artisanal/heirloom grits.

I can always freeze presoaked grits in portions, although obviously I would rather have a good method to cook from dry.

What I don't want to have to do is decide whether or not I am having grits 12-24 hours in advance, never mind buying an expensive rice cooker I otherwise don't feel the need to have.

[gfweb]

After the skin on the chicken is tightened and gelatinized from the blanching, can the skin undergo SV without any negative effects? Or does the skin have to remain dry, such as in a low oven?

I want to get super-crispy skin on perfectly cooked breast but not quite sure how to attain. Will probably use maltose and baking soda.

I've SVd turkey breast with skin on, chilled it, and then fried the skin side to crisp it up prior to serving. Parts were perfect, some was incompletely rendered and browned. Next time I'll be more patient

[pep.]

Yesterday I made the butternut squash variation of the caramelized carrot soup. I thought I had a package of coconut milk in my pantry, but I was mistaken. Therefore I eschewed lemongrass and went somewhat traditional Styrian with the spices - just nutmeg. In an attempt to lighten the richness, I also added a bit of freshly juiced ginger after the pressure cooking step. Finished with Styrian pumpkin seed oil.

I think the substitutions worked quite well, but I'm keen on doing it again with the coconut milk and the lemongrass.

[rotuts]

the rice cooker's greatness is in doing things with milk. Steel Cut oatmeal, puddings etc.

it would probably do your grits in 50 - 60 mins. in milk doing this PC set up etc will take longer.

but, well, good luck with your grits.

my Fuzzy RC is over 12 years old. I wouldn't give it away for a Paco-Jet and a blast freezer ( not to be confused with a blast chiller )

to each their own.

the over night feature just sets the time to start in the early AM. an hour before you get up + / - and keeps it warm and perfect for quite some time.

Edited December 2, 2012 by rotuts (log)

[Greg Honeycutt]

@ pep, that looks really wonderful. I've done the soup, complete with centrifuge and thought that butternut squash would work as well if not better. Love it.

Edited December 3, 2012 by Greg Honeycutt (log)

[peterm2]

I'm about to try the mac and cheese recipe, and it looks like the results have been pretty good from others. When I was comparing the recipe to that in Modernist Cuisine, I saw that the iota carageenan isn't used in the At Home version. Any thoughts on what that adds?