Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine" (Part 3)

[Keith_W]

To be honest that risotto looks a bit dry to me. Did you follow the recipe exactly?

[FoodMan]

To be honest that risotto looks a bit dry to me. Did you follow the recipe exactly?

It's really creamier "in person" and the way it's used here as a base for the fish, I think the texture was perfect. That being said if you like it to be wetter or even soupier (like a Venetian risotto) then adding 15-20% more liquid should do the trick.

I did follow the recipe proportions exactly but I scaled it up to 1.5 times the recipe as written.

[thayes1c]

Just sliced up my first batch of pastrami. It was double fantastic. So tender, so spicy. I was a little afraid it would be too sweet for my tastes, but it was perfectly balanced. I used brisket, cooked it SV for 72 hrs and though I didn't smoke it it was still among the best pastrami I've ever had. I did use smoked salt in the rub, but I don't think it was really enough to make a big difference. Next time I'm trying it with short ribs, but I can heartily recommend the recipe to anyone who has the book. Don't let the lack of a smoker stand in the way of pastrami!

And on a beer pairing note, Hop Rod Rye is an excellent choice to wash down your pastrami on rye.

[Robert Jueneman]

I just posted a new topic, "Sous vide, liquid nitrogen, and deep frying" at

It could as well have gone in the Modernist Cuisine thread,or the sous vide thread, but both of those thread are becoming the size of the "Dinner" thread, and I didn't want it to get lost. If anyone is actually using liquid nitrogen for anything other than making ice cream, please post your recipe and techniques to that thread.

Bob

[Pielle]

Modernist smoking.

I smoked some port ribs, some beef ribs and a duck breast in my recently aquired Bradley smoker equiped with a dual probe Auber PID controller. Instead of putting the second probe in the meat, I inserted it in a wet sponge to monitor the wet bulb temperature.

The recipes calls to smoke at 65oC and 60 %RH for a wet bulb temperature of 55oC. Obviously, that woudn't happen so simply in my Bradley.

I first set the dry bulb temp to 65oC and, after stabilisation, the wet bulb stalled at about 42oC. It is relatively cold here at the moment (close to zero) so humidity is obviously a problem. I tried adding warm water to the bottom of the pan but that didnt help much. So I decided to crank up the dry bulb temp until I had the disired wet bulb. This ended up to be around 85 C, the tradoff was to cook in a dryer than ideal environment. I smoked for 4h. The beef ribs and duck breast ended up perfect, with a core temp quite close the the wet bulb temp (a bit higher on the lower racks. The pork ribs, however, while wll smoked, ended up with a dry surface istead of the ideal tacky pellicule.

So, how do you guys deal with this, what is the best compromise to make in this situation? Do you stick with tried and true bradley-PID reciped (which are typically at higher temps) or have you found another middleground?

I was quite happy about the ghetto wet bulb termometer. I only wetted the sponge each time I oppened the chamber and it seemed to be enough.

The ribs are in the water bath at 60 deg at the moment. I noticed the bath water to get quite some colloring. I do not see my bags leaking. I am quite surprised that so much of the "smoke" would diffuse through the plastic. Or maybe it was just sloppy packaging.

The duck breast is like a smoked breast roast. It is delicious

[nickrey]

The ribs are in the water bath at 60 deg at the moment. I noticed the bath water to get quite some colloring. I do not see my bags leaking. I am quite surprised that so much of the "smoke" would diffuse through the plastic. Or maybe it was just sloppy packaging.

It's not our packaging, it always happens. Same things with cloves in packages. The scent molecules must be small enough to penetrate the plastic.

[Pielle]

It's not our packaging, it always happens. Same things with cloves in packages. The scent molecules must be small enough to penetrate the plastic.

Glad to hear that, I am still supprised by the ammount that goes through! A lot of what is in smoke must be small molecules, since they were volatile. It makes sense that some of those compounds are able to diffuse through the plastic.

[pep.]

Yesterday I made the caramelized carrot soup for the first time. As I made it from the Kitchen Manual and not from the third book itself (I'm reading them linearly, currently somewhere in the middle of the second volume), I used store-bought carrot juice and plain butter – missed the instructions for making the carotene butter without a centrifuge.

I had used my last fresh ginger in the sauce for a SV pork loin roast (57°C, 12 h) and wasn't able to scrounge up fresh tarragon or ajowan, so I substituted dried ginger powder and roasted black sesame seeds for the garnish.

The soup was fabulous! The ersatz-garnishes worked very well, but a bit of green would have benefited the presentation. I briefly thought about using some Thai cilantro. However, I decided against it at the last moment. Next time, I'll prepare the carotene butter beforehand. Unfortunately, I will have to continue to use the store-bought juice. A juicer is somewhat lower on my list compared to other equipment (say, a chamber vacuum sealer ;-). Our local supermarket has some nice directly-pressed organic carrot juice with just 0.5 percent lemon juice as an additive.

[paulpegg]

I have made the carrot soup several times without a pressure cooker or centrifuge and it now on my wife's top modernist things I have made to date. I caramelized the carrots in butter in a large stock pot, stirring often and adding a little water about half way through to keep them from drying out. I juiced the remaining carrots, boiled the juice and ran it through my chinois a few times. I found the ajwain seeds in a local Indian market and fresh ginger at a large asian market. I realize that I have not gotten a complete Maillard reaction but it is still a great preparation.

The last time I did it I used the Coconut Foam that is suggested in the recipe on the Modernist Cuisine website Caramelized Carrot Soup.. The Foam described in the recipe was too firm for my taste so I did it with xanthum gum instead. At first it was very loose but after a few hours in the refirgerator it became a soft and smooth foam that suited the silky texture of the soup just fine.

[Keith_W]

Here is a confit ocean trout, prepared as per the instructions for confit salmon in 5.193. The dish is an exact replica of Tetsuya Wakuda's Confit ocean trout which I sampled when I dined in his restaurant last year.

... the trout in the SV machine at 50C.

I had a little accident and dropped one of the trout fillets. Here it is - you can see how moist and voluptuous it is.

Plated!

[FoodMan]

Here is a confit ocean trout, prepared as per the instructions for confit salmon in 5.193. The dish is an exact replica of Tetsuya Wakuda's Confit ocean trout which I sampled when I dined in his restaurant last year.

... the trout in the SV machine at 50C.

I had a little accident and dropped one of the trout fillets. Here it is - you can see how moist and voluptuous it is.

Plated!

Wonderful. Really cooking salmon at 50C (or ocean trout) is a revelation. I bag the fillets with a little olive oil instea dof poaching in pure oil. I did that recently to cook the salmon from Blumenthal's latest book and then quickly crisped the skin. It was an amazing piece of succulent fish.

[avaserfi]

Has any­one had issues scal­ing the pasta por­tion of this recipe? If I fol­low the 100 grams pasta/300 grams water/160 grams cheese mix­ture scal­ing I have no prob­lems, but if I dou­ble those num­bers it takes far too long for the liq­uid to be absorbed result­ing in a watery mac and cheese or over­cooked pasta.

[ScoopKW]

I wish I was rich enough to pay someone to digest this thread for me, now that all 40 pounds of MC arrived. Next up? Home-grown immersion circulator.

[Okanagancook]

I just put pork belly to marinate using the home cured bacon recipe on page 3-182. I did not have fermento (or so I thought) but did find some Bactoferm F-RM-52 so used that instead (2.17 g for the 1042 grams of pork belly). That was 5 hrs ago. Now I found my fermento. Should I start over by washing off the marinate or will it be ok with the Bactoferm. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[jmolinari]

Fermento and bactoferm are very different things. Bactoferm is an actual bacteria, fermento is not, it's just flavoring.

[Okanagancook]

Sound like I should start over!

[jmolinari]

hrmm...maybe not...if you rinse and cure it at fridge temps, the bactoferm should grow not at all or very little, and then it's cooked right? What temp is it cooked at?

[Okanagancook]

it gets smoked at 170 degrees F for 7 hours. It is cured in the fridge but the cure contains spices and insta cure #1, salt and sugar.

[&roid]

I'm going to try out the caramelised onion soup, I don't have any Mason jars but do have this sort of thing, will that be ok? I notice that in the instructions, it says not to tighten the jar too much, not sure I can do that with these, they are tight closed once you clip them shut.

Link to the type of jar

[Robert Jueneman]

I'm going to try out the caramelised onion soup, I don't have any Mason jars but do have this sort of thing, will that be ok? I notice that in the instructions, it says not to tighten the jar too much, not sure I can do that with these, they are tight closed once you clip them shut.

Link to the type of jar

I have very little experience with canning, so take what I'm saying with a grain or two of NaCL.

But I would assume that when canning with a pressure cooker, you would NOT clip the lids shut, but just leave them loose. As the contents cool, the lids will seal themselves, just as they do with a loose Mason jar lid. You can then snap them shut once they cool completely.

I think!

[Pielle]

Not tightning the lid too much is part of the normal canning procedure for masson jars, so vapour can come out. The jars you have work a bit diffrently but I think clipping the lids for canning would be the normal canning procedure. The pressure on the lids might be set so as to let some vapour escape. They need in any case to be closed

While there are certainly some interesting advantages of using canning jars (for service or to store the soup as canned soup) they are not mandatory.

The recipe is made to cook in an autoclave, which is a sterilizing apparatus and not a cooking vessel. The jars therefore serve as a cooking vessel.

When cooking in a pressure cooker, the soup can be made directly in pot. I did it a few times, worked great. I have a PC working with a spring though, which prevents the liquid from constantly boiling inside. If you have a PC working with a weight, it may still be advantagous to use the jars.

[Carlton]

Of course I had to cook a few things from the book for Thanksgiving.

Corn Bread with Bacon Jam

Thanksgiving Gravy

To round it out, sous vide rib roast (the turkey was under someone else's jurisdiction.)

Everything turned out amazing and disappeared rather quick. The Gravy took a lot of work. I started the garlic confit before I went to sleep, then got up at 7am to start everything else. Stripped down the chicken to put in the pressure cooker (this was my first pressure cooked stock too, turned out great) reduced it, and then got everything mixed together. The roast isn't exactly from the book but I was inspired. It cooked at 138 for about 7 hours, then got finished in a 500 degree oven for about 15 minutes. The bacon jam is really good and easily the least healthiest thing I've eaten in a long time.

[&roid]

Not tightning the lid too much is part of the normal canning procedure for masson jars, so vapour can come out. The jars you have work a bit diffrently but I think clipping the lids for canning would be the normal canning procedure. The pressure on the lids might be set so as to let some vapour escape. They need in any case to be closed

While there are certainly some interesting advantages of using canning jars (for service or to store the soup as canned soup) they are not mandatory.

The recipe is made to cook in an autoclave, which is a sterilizing apparatus and not a cooking vessel. The jars therefore serve as a cooking vessel.

When cooking in a pressure cooker, the soup can be made directly in pot. I did it a few times, worked great. I have a PC working with a spring though, which prevents the liquid from constantly boiling inside. If you have a PC working with a weight, it may still be advantagous to use the jars.

Great, thanks for the response, will try it directly in the PC.

[slkinsey]

I'm going to try out the caramelised onion soup, I don't have any Mason jars but do have this sort of thing, will that be ok? I notice that in the instructions, it says not to tighten the jar too much, not sure I can do that with these, they are tight closed once you clip them shut.

Link to the type of jar

This type of jar is only suitable for water-bath canning (for, e.g., tomatoes) and not for pressure-canning, which would melt the gasket.

[FoodMan]

This was a Thanksgiving catastrophe closely averted. My wife requested a ham this year as opposed to turkey, so I went ahead and bought a locally raised free-range lovely fresh ham of about 15 lbs. Previously, I had used Ruhlman's Charcuterie recipe for an American Holiday ham on a small 6-7lb piece of meat. That made a very nice ham, but the amount of pink salt in it needed to be a bit higher I think or the soaking time longer since the cure did not penetrate all the way through. This time I decided to give the Modernist Cuisine cure recipe a try. Using the Best Bets table, I made a Sweet Cure (total liquid was about 3.5 gallons, one of which was apple juice) and soaked the ham in it for 14 days. Then I rinsed it and soaked it in water for about 10 hours (book recommends 8) and then it sat in the fridge dry for about 12 hours (again, book recommends 8). MC uses 20% salt in the cure. That is very high, more than twice what Charcuterie uses (about 7-8% I think). Still I went with it and figured the rinse time / resting time will handle that. Luckily I decided to smoke the meat till it reaches 150F the day before T-Day and to bake/glaze it the day of. Well, as soon as it came off the smoker I took a couple of tastes and holy shit! That was very very salty. To fix the issue, I decided to simmer the ham with some aromatics instead of baking. I simmered it very gently for a couple of hours and changed the liquid twice. Then I glazed it per the Charcuterie recipe and baked it. It was still slightly saltier than I prefer, but it was overall a success. The cure was eben all the way through and the glaze made for a fantastic crust.

Now, maybe the expectation for cured fooods in MC that they should be this salty, but I do not think so. I suppose if you are making a "country" ham then possibly this is good. Making a cure with no more than 10% salt should be way more than enough for something like this. I doubt this should go in the "Errata" page but just a heads-up for anyone planning on curing any meat.