Cooking with "Modernist Cuisine" (Part 3)

[jfrater]

I'm very interested to know whether all the enthusiastic followers of MC on here are "modernist" in other things: architecture? furniture? design? music (a bit harder that one but i'm thinking more 20th century classical vs Mozart rather than current)?

do they go together? or can you be v conservative in everything else but still be excited by the new in cooking?

(so far i've only sous vided some steak, some duck, some aspargus and some lamb shoulder. nothing done properly from MC - though all good - but i'm still on vol 1)

I love 20th century and contemporary classical music but I am traditional in every other sense of the word - my favorite period is the 18th century and my house is decorated in a very traditional "classical" way. I love antiques and collect rare or very old perfumes. Basically if it pre-dates the 19th century I love it. I do also love historical cooking - so I am not just into modernist cuisine.

[jfrater]

Merkinz - your macaroni cheese looks awesome! I have ordered all the ingredients I need for it and my MC arrives tomorrow! I will be using unpasteurised Swiss gruyere and 3-5 year aged cheddar from a local supplier. I will post a pic when it is done. I might put some crumbs on mine and grill it first though. Is hoegarden the right sort of beer? I only ever drink tiger beer and I have no idea at all what beer is wheat derived.

[Merkinz]

Thanks jfrater. Look forward to seeing your results! I was tempted to throw some crumbs on top as well as that is how we had Mac & Cheese growing up. But I resisted for the fist go at it. I did serve it with a side of home made tomato sauce (basically Heston Blumenthal's pizza sauce recipe from the in search of perfection video... with the addition of onions and a dash of sherry vinegar) and some roasted broccoli with lemon and garlic.

Hoegarden is the right sort of beer but there are plenty of other wheat beers in our supermarkets over here. Look for:

- "Wheat Beer" (obviously)

- "Weissbier"

- "Hefeweizen" of "Hefe Weizen"

- "Witbier" or even just "Wit"

Most of our local brands have a wheat beer, to name a few (and as you can see they all have a different name!):

- Mac's: Great White

- Tuatara: Hefe

- Harrington's: Weissbier

- Three Boys: Wheat Beer

Good luck and take a photo!

[jfrater]

Thanks for the beer tips Merkinz Hopefully my books will arrive today so I can get cooking!

[lesliec]

Hi, fellow Wellingtonian.

The M&C is wonderful. For my next batch I've got some truffled cheese from Ontrays - that might be this weekend's project.

Don't be too fussy about the beer. I don't like the stuff (I only get a small bottle of dark ale for my Christmas pud), so I use cider. Works fine.

[jfrater]

Hey Leslie I love Ontrays though I get most of my cheese and other nice things from More Wilsons. Do you go there as well?

[lesliec]

Most definitely - sometimes I think we're responsible for the continuing good health of their booze department!

The truffled MC cheese came out well. That's one dinner sorted out for this week.

[jfrater]

Most definitely - sometimes I think we're responsible for the continuing good health of their booze department!

The truffled MC cheese came out well. That's one dinner sorted out for this week.

I thought it was ME keeping MW's booze department in business Especially after the $90 bottle of sherry to make Heston's sherry chicken casserole. How did the truffle taste go in the MC cheese? It sounds interesting. I have heaps of raw gruyere left over from today's afternoon tea so I will use that I think. I hope my books arrive tomorrow so I can get started!

[lesliec]

I'm pretty sure somebody said it before, around the time we early adopters were waiting on our copies, but the MC mac and cheese is so good it justifies the best cheese you can find. The first one I did used Myer Aged Gouda and some elderly NZ Cheddar-style. Thing is, it tastes like the cheese you put in it, unlike most traditional macaroni cheese which tends to be more like slightly-cheesy wallpaper paste.

I too hope your books make it soon. It's quite an event, I tell you. Do you have to carry them uphill to home? I guess that's what couriers are for ...

[jfrater]

Lesliec luckily I live on the flat but mine is being couriered - only $570 with free delivery from bookdepository.co.uk. I preordered MC At Home from them too. I can tell from comments on the macaroni that I will soon have a freezer full of modernist cheese blocks has anyone tried adding Parmesan to theirs?

[jfrater]

Okay I now have my books and ingredients. I also bought a smoker so I can try out the BBQ recipes in the book. My first task will be to make the mac and cheese. Here are my ingredients (I will be doing the cooking tomorrow). Once I am done I will post comments and a photo.

I have chosen the best cheese I can and have replaced macaroni with fussili as it is the best pasta I could find (plus they had no macaroni!)

[demo]

Good luck, it will be enjoyable. Some tips on the M&C; The recipe doesn't scale very well, I suspect it is because water evaporation doesn't scale unless you scale the pot. I have also read, and tested myself, that the carragenan is not important. (Someone said it made the cheese freeze-thaw stable, haven't tested that.)

[jfrater]

Good luck, it will be enjoyable. Some tips on the M&C; The recipe doesn't scale very well, I suspect it is because water evaporation doesn't scale unless you scale the pot. I have also read, and tested myself, that the carragenan is not important. (Someone said it made the cheese freeze-thaw stable, haven't tested that.)

Thanks I also read that the carragenan is not essential but I will add it so I can freeze the extra cheese so I can give my parents vacuum bags of pasta and salt to add to water so they get an easy MC macaroni cheese

The penne I have takes about 12 minutes to cook (I have used it before) so my biggest concern will be excess water absorption making the sauce a little too thick. I will keep my eye on that.

[ChrisZ]

has anyone tried adding Parmesan to theirs?

Check out the recipe in MC for Spaghetti Carbonara, they use essentially the same technique with parmesan. I tried it and though the parmesan flavour was overpowering as they used it in the carbonara recipe, but found that the soft block was a great way to add parmesan flavour to normal pasta sauces. By making the parmesan into a softer and milder block, it's easy to stir it through pasta without it sticking to the plate (I stopped using parmesan cheese when I didn't have a dishwasher) and the flavour seemed to blend in much better.

[jfrater]

Thanks ChrisZ - I definitely will check it out.

In addition to the Mac n Cheese which I am making today, I am also going to be smoking four types of meat as per the instructions in MC. Here is a picture of the meat freshly arrived from the butcher. After tidying it up I will be preparing for a big American BBQ (something I have never tried). I am really excited about it!

[rotuts]

looks good! what is the one on the top R? Flank? I assume the bottom R is brisket? top L shoulder?

Edited September 11, 2012 by rotuts (log)

[jfrater]

looks good! what is the one on the top R? Flank? I assume the bottom R is brisket? top L shoulder?

Top left: pork shoulder

Top right: Beef spare ribs

Bottom left: pork ribs

Bottom right: beef brisket

They are all smoking along nicely right now - I will add another photo when I remove them from the smoker tonight.

[Merkinz]

I'm interested in what smoker you are using jfrater ... cheers

[jfrater]

I am using a bradley electronic - I also bought the cold smoking attachment so I can do stuff like smoked salmon. The meat is now out, vacuum packed, and the first two cuts are in the sous vide:

[larryroohr]

I just tore into my first pastrami last night and have to chime in, maybe the best I've had. Made mine with flank steak (london broil out here). Way beyond my expectations.

[paulpegg]

I took a shot at the pastrami also (MC3-122). I used 2 Kilo's of choice boneless short ribs and brined them for 72 hours.

I have an old electric smoker that was never good at holding temperature very well, so I drilled a few holes in it for the thermocouple and used my sous vide controller to keep the temperature at 77C. I had to run an auto-config cycle first to keep it from over and under running.

It worked great!

Next was rebagging with some of the reserved brine and sous vide for another 72 hours. I double bagged it with two stainless steel rods in the outer bag to keep them from floating.

I made a bit more of the spice mixture than required and put it all on the meat. When I took it out of the smoker it was a bit thick so I rubbed it off of one piece and left it on the other. There was no appreciable difference in the final product.

One week after I started I have the best pastrami I have ever tasted. We will have some for dinner tonight.

[jfrater]

Wow those meat dishes look so amazing!

I made my mac n cheese and, like most people here, had the same issue with the cheese block being too soft for grating. It mixed down into the water/pasta mix perfectly and the end result was incredibly smooth and rich. The only problem - WAY too salty. I used exactly the amount of salt in the water as suggested and added none to the two cheese mix (aged gouda and cheddar). It was so salty I think I need to omit salt entirely from the pasta stage. Tasting the cheese on its own is definitely not too salty.

On another note - I have smoked all four cuts of meat in the American BBQ chapter and have two in the sous vide. The remaining two need to be cooked at 63 and 65 respectively and both for 72 hours. I want to use all four next weekend for a big BBQ entirely from the book. I need some advice, however.

The last two (brisket and shoulder) have been in the fridge double bagged since I smoked them (48 hours ago). Should I freeze them while I wait for the sous vide to be free in another day (bearing in mind that one cut will need to wait another 3 days) or should I just leave them in the fridge? Also, once the first lot is cooked should I freeze them until the day I am using them all and reheat everything together?

I really need to get another 2 water baths!!!

[rotuts]

1 - 2 days in a cold ie COLD refirg? no. put them on the bottom of the Refrig.

did you peel off the inner membrane on those ribs? if you haven't then look into this.

we all look forward to your "Plates"

[paulpegg]

Wow those meat dishes look so amazing!

I made my mac n cheese and, like most people here, had the same issue with the cheese block being too soft for grating. It mixed down into the water/pasta mix perfectly and the end result was incredibly smooth and rich. The only problem - WAY too salty. I used exactly the amount of salt in the water as suggested and added none to the two cheese mix (aged gouda and cheddar). It was so salty I think I need to omit salt entirely from the pasta stage. Tasting the cheese on its own is definitely not too salty.

On another note - I have smoked all four cuts of meat in the American BBQ chapter and have two in the sous vide. The remaining two need to be cooked at 63 and 65 respectively and both for 72 hours. I want to use all four next weekend for a big BBQ entirely from the book. I need some advice, however.

The last two (brisket and shoulder) have been in the fridge double bagged since I smoked them (48 hours ago). Should I freeze them while I wait for the sous vide to be free in another day (bearing in mind that one cut will need to wait another 3 days) or should I just leave them in the fridge? Also, once the first lot is cooked should I freeze them until the day I am using them all and reheat everything together?

I really need to get another 2 water baths!!!

i would think that you could cook both in a 64C bath with no adverse effects. This is not rocket science, although some of the recipes come close!

[EnriqueB]

I have also read, and tested myself, that the carragenan is not important. (Someone said it made the cheese freeze-thaw stable, haven't tested that.)

I have made some tests where I made constructed cheeses with and without iota and tested in several recipes, as well as freezed them with and without iota in paralell, and also found no noticeable difference whatsoever on the freeze-thaw stability. Both samples with and without iota did thaw and then melted equally well. On the other hand, the iota does clearly affect texture.