Cookaholics Bulletin Board

Amy, you're so far ahead of me I don't even know what to say.
fitzie

Some fellow gave a very brief demo of sous vide on Martha Stewart today. Now I know what you are all talking about.
fitzie

Made the caramelized carrot soup last night. Basically carrots, carrot juice, and butter. Really, really good. It is, though, slightly odd in that it is not super identifiable as carrot soup; it could pass as cream of tomato soup. If I used a more pure carrot juice, I think it would have had more carrot flavour, but OTOH it was damn tasty as-is.

Amy,

Wow! You're really pushing the envelope (or should I say, the vacuum sealed bag!). I'm just getting around to london broil and the smoking gun...

I checked out the kit that you cited but they don't tell you what's in it! It looks like something out of Harry Potter... What are all those ingredients and just what do they do (with or without a wand!)? Do you know if the kit comes with recipes and more importantly, is there some other type of equipment that I'll need to get in order to use them? I am totally intrigued. Just what's in that kit?!

Gerard

Gerard,

It comes with:

Calcium Chloride
Calcium Lactate
Calcium Lactate Gluconate
Agar Agar
Lecithin
Xanthan Gum
Kappa Carrageenan
Glycerin Flakes
Sodium Citrate
Sodium Alginate
Methocel F50
Tapioca Malto-Dextrin

No recipes though. These are all referenced in recipes in Modernist Cuisine.

I've been pretty busy, so haven't really started playing with them yet, but when I went to Telluride Top Chef, one of the chefs used the Tapioca Malto-Dextrin to make both bacon and olive oil powders. They were delicious.

Amy

I've used the Kappa Carrageenan from that kit....

Paul,

I've been looking at those Sunny Side Up "Eggs" in 4-148, which calls for the kappa carrageenan.

What did you make with it?

Amy

I did the modernist mac'n'cheese, which was fabulous. It called for Iota Carrageenan; I used the Kappa instead. It worked out very well for the final product, but I expect it would have been easier to shred the cheese if I had used Iota, which likely would have firmed better in that recipe (I think it is more tolerant to calcium, off the top of my head).

Oh, I am so trying that...and, this may actually solve a problem we have in the restaurant I've been noodling over.

Did you use their cheese recommendations, or did you use something else?

Amy

Mmmm ... can't 100% recall exactly what I used, but I believe I was close to their recommendations.