Medellitin

Sous Vide Historical Note: Count Rumford

2010-08-24T08:00:00.012-04:00

If you read the Sous Vide article at wikipedia, you will notice an uncited reference to Count Rumford discovering sous vide. Now, there are two banes to my existence, wikipedia and uncited references. Since wikipedia content is religiously stolen, aggregated and republished, Google becomes useless when trying to hunt down the minutia that keeps me going.

Fortunately, I managed to hunt down the essay written by Count Rumford. I should I say eſſay. Or ſhould I ſay eſſay? Because, apparently, as late as 1802 we were still using the long s. Which makes reading Count Rumford's ſeminal eſſay, "Of the imperfections of the Kitchen Fire-places now in common uſe" a real delight.

You people owe me.

This essay, which could be found in 1802's timeless classic Essays, political, economical, and philosophical, Volume 3 not only gives us valuable insight into the culinary happenings of the 1800's, but also gives us one of the earliest documented efforts of low temperature cooking.

The opening salvo reads much like an essay you would have read at the beginning of the modernist cuisine movement:

The advantage that would result from an application of the late brilliant discoveries in Philosophical Chemistry, and other branches of Natural Philosophy and Mechanics, to the improvement of the Art of Cookery, are so evident, and so very important, that I cannot help flattering myself that we shall soon see some enlightened and liberalminded person of the profession take up the matter in earnest, and give it a thoroughly scientific investigation.

Doesn't that sound a lot like the beginnings of modernism?

But let's get to the nut. The part we have all been waiting for. The earliest, bestest documented, sort-of accidental discovery of low temperature cookery.

I had long suspected that it could hardly be possible that precisely the temperature of 212 degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer (that of boiling water) should be that which is best adapted for cooking all sorts of food; but it was the unexpected result of an experiment that I made with another view, which made' me particularly attentive to this subject.

Desirous of finding out whether it would be possible to roast meat in a machine I had contrived for drying potatoes, and fitted up in the kitchen of the House of Industry at Munich, I put a shoulder of mutton into it, and after attending to the experiment three hours, and finding it showed no signs of being done, I concluded that the heat was not sufficiently intense; and despairing of success, I went home, rather out of humour at my ill success, and abandoned my shoulder of mutton to the cook maids.

He didn't have the benefit of the Internet. He wasn't able to email Douglas Baldwin, to ask him "What is the proper cooking time/temperature for the perfect shoulder of mutton?"

Also, 'rather out of humour' is a nineteenth century euphemism for 'ſo fucking piſſed'.

Basically, he stormed out of the kitchen saying, "I ain't cleaning this shit!"

It being late in the evening, and the cook maids thinking perhaps that the meat would be as safe in the drying machine as anywhere else, left it there all night.

The cook maids also said, "We ain't cleaning this shit!"

When they came in the morning to take it away, intending to cook it for their dinner, they were much surprised to find it already cooked, and not merely eatable, but perfectly done, and most singularly well-tasted. This appeared to them the more miraculous, as the fire under the machine was gone quite out before they left the kitchen in the evening to go to bed, and as they had locked up the kitchen when they left it, and taken away the key.

The next day, the cook maids sang, "This shit is delicious!"

This wonderful shoulder of mutton was immediately brought to me in triumph, and though I was at no great loss to account for what had happened, yet it certainly was quite unexpected ; and when I tasted the meat I was very much surprised indeed to find it very different, both in taste and flavour, from any I had ever tasted. It was perfectly tender; but though it was so much done, it did not appear to be in the least sodden or insipid; on the contrary, it was uncommonly savoury and high flavoured.

Rumford also proclaimed, "Thiſ ſhit is delicious!"

Then he continued...

It was neither boiled, nor roasted, nor baked. Its taste seemed to indicate the manner in which it had been prepared: that the gentle heat to which it had for so long a time been exposed, had by degrees loosened the cohesion of its fibres, and concocted its juices, without driving off their fine and more volatile parts, and without washing away or burning and rendering rancid and empyrumatic its oils.

Does this sound familiar? When I first read it, I was wondering if this was more like the one true barbecue, but the second half of the description really sounds closer to low temperature sous-vide style preparations.

Count Rumford has a couple of other notable accomplishments:

The Convection Oven.
Candle Power Measurement. Or at least the candle so consistent in its light level.
The Modern Kitchen Range.
A pressure cooker.
A double boiler.
The Rumford Fireplace.
Rumford Baking Powder is named after him.

Less notable, but totally scandelicious ones:

Marrying into a wealthy and influential family, which led to him being:
Promoted to a Major. This, of course, made him incredibly unpopular with the folks he just lept over. So, that makes it all the more curious that:
He was accused of being a British Loyalist, and was charged with crimes like “being unfriendly to the cause of liberty”. This seems to have been true, but I wonder if he was just "being apathetic to the cause of liberty" or "playing hard to get with the cause of liberty". Either way, he knew when he wasn't wanted, so he:
Fled America during the British evacuation of 1776, without...
His wife or daughter.

Finally, I am sure you are wondering, "Well, wait, how should I prepare a shoulder of mutton?"

I asked Douglas Baldwin that question. Here is his response:

Hello Pablo,

I have lamb shoulder in my "Temperatures & Times" on page 28 and would increase the time by 25--50% since it's mutton.

First you have to decide if you want a medium-rare/medium muttonshoulder or if you want a braised-style mutton shoulder. If you want medium-rare (130F/55C) or medium (140F/60C) then I'd cook it at that temperature for 2--3 days (but it might be done in 1 day). I usually just feel the meat through the bag to decide if it's done yet. If you want a braised-style mutton shoulder, then I'd do either 160F/70C for 24--32 hrs or 175F/80C for 12--18 hrs.

Very best wishes,

Douglas

Eat your heart out, Rumford.

KitchenAid's Chef Touch: Whirlpool's Foray Into Sous Vide Appliances

2010-08-16T21:34:00.001-04:00

Jean-François, over at sousvidecooking.org, posted about KitchenAid's first foray into a sous vide solution: Chef's Touch. As a casual observer of the consumer sous vide market, I am excited to see the one of the largest home appliance manufacturers dip a toe into the space. So excited, that I scoured their website trying to absorb as much as possible.

QUICK RUNDOWN OF THE KITCHENAID CHEF TOUCH

Image of the KitchenAid Chef Touch

Their website indicates that the Chef's Touch Solution is comprised of three parts:

Chamber Vacuum. The chamber vacuum will support bags and containers, both sold by KitchenAid. The only bit of technical details I could glean form the website was: "the residual pressure inside the bag is just 5 mbar compared to the 350-500 mbar offered by other machines, ensuring an optimal vacuum that means your food will be preserved for longer compared to traditional refrigeration.". While not explicit, reading between the lines makes me think you cannot control the amount of pressure, which may limit compression applications. Either way, it's still pretty impressive that they are shipping a chamber vacuum for home kitchens.
Steam/Combi Oven. The website indicates two oven models, one exclusively using steam and the other a combi oven, using hot air and steam. Alas, they are somewhat vague on the technical details. I would love to see how temperature stable this is. My initial inclination is that it won't actually matter if it is less accurate than a water bath.
Blast Chiller. The blast chiller is used if you want to utilize the cook/store benefits of sous vide. It two modes, one for refrigerator ('blast chilling') storage and one for freezer ('fast freezing') storage. The blast chiller will bring which will bring food temperature down to 3ºC and -18ºC respectively. This might be an overlooked component in current home appliances. The consumer market currently doesn't offer any solution other than suggesting manual methods of rapidly cooling down items in ice water. Even though it raises the price significantly, it will simultaneously remove some of the safety objections people have with sous vide, and differentiate itself from smaller appliances.

These three components are not cheap, so I suspect this will command top dollar and be geared towards the upper end of the consumer market. I am expecting the starting price to exceed $7,500 USD. I won't be shocked if it enters the 5 digit range, but if I had to guess, I'd pick a $9,999 price tag for the entry level. Admittedly, this is probably a pipe dream.

Either way, unless your house could appear on MTV cribs, you probably will not be buying one of these. The first microwave ovens were also prohibitively expensive, and now you probably can't give your microwave away.

Whirlpool's earnings press release also indicates that this was launched from KitchenAid Europe:

Whirlpool Europe Region launched:

[...]

-- The KitchenAid brand Chef Touch cooking system for home use, a cooking system that previously was available only for commercial use by top-rated restaurants around the world. The Chef Touch system features three different products: the vacuum-sealing system; the steam-assist oven; and the blast chiller.

Which means, Americans are currently out of luck.

RANDOM MARKET THOUGHTS FROM AN UNQUALIFIED JACKASS

This won't compete with Fresh Meals Magic's offerings, the SousVide Supreme or any of the consumer focused sous vide devices. If anything, this will help the space grow and mature, especially if KitchenAid invests heavily in the marketing of the Chef Touch. It isn't even all that likely that this will eat into the portion of PolyScience customers that would have bought a chamber vacuum and an immersion circulator. This would be true even if the Chef Touch was available in markets besides Europe.

Long term, KitchenAid or anyone of its ilk getting into this game makes for some interesting challenges for the current players in the consumer market. Obviously, KitchenAid (or Kenmore) can achieve scale easily and have a lot of money to market their products. But also consider this, many home kitchens today are built with microwave ovens. They are as aestetically pleasing as we expect and they generally match the other appliances. Of course, for the world of sous vide, that's far from tomorrow.

Finally, please remember that I am an unqualified jackass, who specializes in armchair analytics and shit talking. Although, I have heard from some people that I am, in fact, a fully-qualified jackass.

Would you buy one of these? How much would YOU spend?

DIY PolyScience Form-Factor Smoke Guns Part II

2010-08-11T08:30:00.058-04:00

In Part I of my guide to replicating the PolyScience Smoking Gun, we discussed the basics of the gun as well as previous DIY attempts. In this segment, I will walk you through my process for making your own smoke gun with some very simple parts.

Even though this guide will produce a working smoke gun, in the end, you will not have a PolyScience Smoking Gun. You will have something that looks similar to one, but most likely will not be as durable. Even with some of the improvements I plan to make in the future, it is unlikely that this is as good as a PSG.

PolyScience specifically mentions details that makes me believe this device is different under the hood. I am willing to bet that theirs will survive longer and get better results. For example, they mention a "Heavy-duty metal blower fan". Cursory examination did not reveal anything resembling sturdy construction. That being said, you can't beat the price, and if you find yourself burning out the DIY ones, spend the money and get the real thing. Finally, I have to assume they know more about food safety than I do.

Before we begin, I need to give the disclaimer. You know, the one where I make no warranty that any of this is safe. That applies to both the construction and use of said device. If it explodes in your hand, not my problem. If the plastics or the smoke gives you tumors, don't call me. If it explodes and gives you tumors, don't call me... just email me some pics. Please read the safety section at the bottom of this post.

Ok, let's get started. First off, you are going to need:

A Syba battery powered vacuum
A pipe
Gorilla Tape
Coarse Sandpaper
1' of Food Safe Vinyl Tubing (3/8" Internal Diameter) (pipe to vacuum)
1' of Food Safe Vinyl Tubing (1/2" Internal Diameter) (vacuum to food)
4 AA Batteries

Your best bet is to go to the hardware store and buy the 3/8" vinyl tube, and then go to a pipe store and keep shoving pipes into said tube until you find one that fits. If your experience is anything like mine, you will spend 15 unconvincing minutes trying to convince a thoroughly disinterested shop keeper that your goal involves smoking scallops and not illicit drugs. Finally, after said shopkeeper warns you not to smoke scallops, because it will just melt scallop goo into the pipe, and reiterates that this pipe is for tobacco use only, you will just shut up and buy the pipe. Don't forget to buy screens.

Most Of Our Parts

The first step is to work around a manufacturing flaw with the Syba vacuum. The fan blades protrude too far and touch the outer housing. As a result, the fan won't spin. That's where the coarse sandpaper comes in. Sand down the fan blades as illustrated below.

The Syba Vacuum Sucks.

As you are sanding, every so often, put the outer case back on and test the vacuum. As soon as the vacuum runs smoothly, you can stop sanding. Now, clean the fan and make sure you don't have little plastic bits everywhere, as they are not delicious. The next step is to cover the vents behind the fan blades with the Gorilla Tape. While this won't be good for heat, it will be good for minimizing smoke loss.

Worst Hand Model Ever.

Now, jam the pipe into one end of the 3/8"tubing. Delicately put the other side of the pipe into the input of the vacuum.

Mostly Constructed. Just Add Second Tube.

The last step is to take the 1/2" tube and put it over the exhaust pipe (the long piece below the input). Congratulations! You now have a smoke gun. SO far, I've used it to smoke some sous vide scallops and I also made some tomatillo husk smoked tomatillos. My next version will:

1. Be more permanent. Right now, its pretty fragile. This also means that some of the smoke will exit the vacuum through some of the seams in the unit.
2. Replace the vinyl tubing with something safer for high heat. I think this model is fine for light use, but I wouldn't use it frequently or for high volumes.

AND NOW FOR SOME MORE WORDS ON SAFETY

This particular version is more of a proof of concept, and I would not recommend regular use. This is primarily because of the the tubing. Even though it is food safe, it probably not be safe at high temperatures and may degrade over time. I don't think the risks are that great if you are using it judiciously. I haven't kept mine on for more than 5-10 seconds.

This can be improved by replacing the vinyl tubing with food safe thermoplastic or possibly silicone tubing, which you can purchase from a home brew supply store. This should be safer against high temperature uses (go for the highest temperature rating you can find).

The final concern is that the plastics in the vacuum might release toxins if exposed to higher temperatures. This is also true of other DIY smoke guns as well.

Assuming you aren't using this regularly, you will likely be exposed to these same chemicals in higher quantities via other activities in your life. Just. Be. Smart.

And, see the above disclaimer.

Also, smoke is a carcinogen too. So avoid that too.

Life is a carcinogen.

So is the Internet.

So is this sentence.

Bananas.

DIY PolyScience Form-Factor Smoke Guns Part I

2010-08-08T12:00:00.002-04:00

Smoke guns are culinary gadgets used to apply smoke to food. Under the hood, these devices are basically handheld electric vacuums with a pipe attached to the input nozzle. You turn on the vacuum, apply fire to the pipe, the vacuum pulls the fire into the pipe, setting the woodchips or herbs in the pipe on fire. The smoke travels through the vacuum and out through the exhaust, and onto your dish. They are far less cumbersome than stovetop smokers and are great if you just want to give smokiness to any dish. While PolyScience sells one of these units for approximately $80, a lot of people made their own version. Oh lookie, here comes one now:

Chadzilla's MINI-VAC Smoker. Cite: www.chadzilla.com

These DIY models were based on the Mini-Vac vacuum, which you can buy off of Amazon for about $17. This approach is pretty functional, and all said and done probably costs $25-30 to construct, not including your labor.

Alternatively, you can buy one of these pre-constructed at any full service smoke shop. You know, where they sell "tobacco" equipment. The mini-vac approach is great, but there are some shortcomings:

They don't survive heavy use. This has to do with the heat produced by the smoke as well as the amount of usage. In other words, it won't last in a professional kitchen and may not even be able to survive heavy home use.
Which would be fine if it weren't for the fact that they are not THAT cheap. At $25 a pop, you may spend more on DIY smokers than on just buying a PolyScience Smoking Gun.
As if that weren't enough... they. look. ghetto. No really, your friends will definitely think you are doing drugs. Without a doubt, the PolyScience one looks way slicker:

PolyScience Smoking Gun. Cite: www.polyscience.com

I had seen an early version of the Smoking Gun that looked like it was put together with some off the shelf parts. In fact, it looked like someone glued a pipe jammed into a vacuum. After an hour of scouring the Internet, I found a Syba vacuum that looked pretty close:

Left: PolyScience Smoking Gun. Right: Syba Vacuum. Hrm.

Several clicks later and I had two Syba vacuums shipped to my lair. Tune in next time and I will explain:

How to construct a Syba based smoking gun. Spoiler alert: It will even have color pictures!
If and what the differences are between the Syba vacuum and the PolyScience Smoking Gun. Spoiler alert: There are differences!
Is it worth all of this effort? Spoiler alert: Just kidding!

Jelloware: Edible Agar Agar Cups (SquishyCups)

2010-07-24T03:15:00.000-04:00

Squishycups! Cite: TheWayWeSeeTheWorld

Such a simple and clever idea. Agar Agar is a hydrocolloid derived from a sea algae, making it vegan. It has all kinds of great culinary purposes, and now we can add another one.

Many great applications ahead for the use of edible, flavored cups... if they aren't too squishy or slimy.

Would this work for cocktails? Pour some Patron into a margarita shot glass. Tomato glass with horseradish infused vodka? Think that's gross? No worries, it is also biodegradable/compostable.

Escolar: The World's Most Dangerous Fish

2010-07-22T21:00:00.017-04:00

Escolar is the most controversial fish that you are likely to find in your fish market. This firm, white fleshed fish has an incredibly rich flavor, often described as 'succulent', or a fattier version of swordfish. Why so rich? It turns out that Escolar's diet contains food high in wax esters. Wax esters that are really difficult for Escolar to digest. As a result, these esters build up in the fish.

Where is the controversy in a buttery, delicious fish? I would say it is in the laxative like effect it has on a certain percentage of the population. Well, a 'laxative like effect' is how my fish monger described it. Others would describe it as closer to diahhrea. An expert would call it 'keriorrhoea'. Literally translated, it means 'flow of wax'. Oily orange droplets pouring out your pooper. Keriorrhoea occurs because the wax esters in the flesh of the fish pool up in your intestine.

Some reports of Escolar related illness include cramping, nausea, diarrhea, the itis, and other abdominal pains. This could be the result of severe Keriorrhea or could also be Scrombroid poisoning. Escolar related Scromboid (or histimine poisoning) is the result of high levels of histidine being converted to histimine usually as a result of poor storage.

Hong Kong Protest Over Oilfish Sale.

Why would you eat a fish that has such terrible downsides? Two reasons:

Escolar is delicious. Most likely, the same fatty ester in Escolar that makes you sick also makes it taste so damned good.
Taste the danger! If you enjoy a sense of dining adventure, then consider Escolar the log flume of the culinary world.

CROUCHING ESCOLAR, HIDDEN OILFISH
Apart from all of the poop jokes I wanted to make, what really inspired me to write about Escolar is the lack of credible information on the subject. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency suggests grilling, while Queensland's Health Agency states that cooking method does not matter. It is really confusing because not only is Escolar sold under other names, but other fish are sometimes mislabeled as Escolar. Doing some quick google searches, I created the following chart based on all of the references to escolar and oilfish being sold as other fish. The most common form of Escolar trickery is to be found at your local sushi bar. Any place selling white tuna or 'super white tuna' is more likely than not selling you Escolar. White Tuna can technically be either Albacore Tuna or Escolar. Albacore looks like pale tuna, while Escolar looks strikingly white.

This isn't confusing at all...

There are a number of reasons for this confusion. Mostly, it is because suppliers and restaurants mislabel fish, either out of ignorance or fraud. Another reason for the confusion is that Gempylidae, the family of fish that both Escolar and Oilfish belong to, has several other names. According to Wikipedia, this family of fish is also called Escolars or Snake Mackerels. I have also seen at least one reference referring to Gempyldae as 'Oilfishes'. This means that the family name and the common species name can be the same. There is also a segment of the population that thinks they were served Oilfish instead of Escolar, and that is what made them sick. However, I haven't seen much scientific literature to back that up. Both fish seem to have about equal chances of making you ill.

HOW NOT TO CRAP YOUR PANTS
So I have a couple of quick tips to reduce the likelihood of getting sick from Escolar. It is mostly gleaned from the Internet, but the most credible source I found was an excerpt of Nick Ruello's Report On The Oil Content, Composition, And The Consumption Of Escolar.

Limit Quantity. Obviously, less is more when it comes to Escolar. Conventional wisdom suggests no more than a six (6) ounce portion. I suggest an even smaller amount the first time you try it.
Tail portion. While oil distribution varies per fish, the cuts near the tail generally have lower ester count.
Cooking Methods. Don't appear to make a difference. There are some sources that claim grilling will reduce the wax esters but there is at least one scientific report that found this to be untrue. Wax esters are heat stable, so the only potential benefit of grilling is that they somehow leak out of the fish. This can also be achieved by baking the fish on a rack causing the juices, which may or may not contain wax esters to drip into the pan below.
Deep Skinning. With certain fish, this oil resides just under the skin of the fish. By removing the flesh close to the skin, you can reduce the amount of wax ester. While it is recommended to do remove the skin because of its high oil count, there isn't much evidence that deep skinning will help much.
Freezing. also does not work. Wax esters are not damaged by cold, even after extended stays in the freezer.
Fishmonger Trust. Since there are other fish that also contain high level of wax ester, it is best to go to a reputable fishmonger. Also, Escolar has some other toxins that can result in histimine poisoning if the fish isn't stored properly.
Pre-Existing Conditions. As always, pregnant women have no fun. Also, people with malabsorption or bowel problems should probably just stay away. Unless you find your bathroom comfortable and you dislike your pants.

TOO LATE, THE KERI IS O-RRHOEAIN'
I followed most of the advice above the first (and only) time I prepared Escolar at home. I still had ended up with my own British Petroleum style oil leak, endangering most of the local habitat, with several failed attempts to contain the spill. If you find yourself in this situation:

Well it depends. Actually, no it doesn't... wear Depends.
Replenish your bathroom reading materials.
Call in sick, or plan your day around proximity to the bathroom.
Avoid Escolar in the future. The truth is, all you can really do is ride out keriorrhoea. It should only be a couple of days.

Finally, if you developed a case of Keriorrhoea and you didn't knowingly order Escolar, then you should think back the the last time you ate a piece of a mysteriously delicious white fish, and give them a piece of your mind... or a stool sample.

NOTA MALE

By now it has occurred to you, that sharing a name with this fish is terrible. And this is true. But there is some serendipity between the fish and the author. We are both simultaneously fatty, delicious, and will likely make you sick to your stomach when we are over-consumed.

If you have had any experiences with Escolar or Oilfish, or found anything inaccurate in this post, leave me a comment.

Fat Tuesday: Weighting For Godot

2010-07-20T08:14:00.026-04:00

It has been several months since The Health Scare That Was Mostly In My Head. This blessing in wolves' clothing was the final push necessary to affect change. The good news is that the time it is taking to lose weight is lightyears faster than the time it took to gain it. The bad news is, I still have a ways to go.

I gained weight gradually. Maybe, a pound or two a year.

It's easy. You just sit there.

The weight finds you.

Every couple of years, my pants would go from fitting well, to getting tight, to fitting well again, to not fitting. It wasn't till the second time it happened that I realized the fitting well again stage was just my waistline moving south.

The secret to my success is not rocket science. I do the following:

Exercise: Not even that much. I try to go 2-3x a week for 30 minutes.
Eat More Good Stuff: Salads. Chicken. Fish.
Eat Less Bad Stuff: Red Meat. Pork. Fat. Pork Fat.
Eat Out Less: For me, restaurants means fatfuckery. I order more to hit delivery minimums, and I order poorly. Also, at restaurants, I get an extra course and I tend to eat bread and butter.
Eat Less: A corollary to #4, eating at home means smaller amounts of food.

Three months ago, I was surfing the line between obese and morbidly obese. Today, I am fucking thrilled to report that I am surfing the line between overweight and obese.

The weight loss will hopefully continue and I will be surfing the line between average and overweight. If it continues past that, I'll be between average and underweight. If it continues past that, don't just stand there, give me a foie gras donut topped with bacon.

Fu-uck m-e.

TGRWT 19: Tomato And Black Tea

2009-09-04T04:09:00.003-04:00

Special Note: We are extending the TGRWT#19 deadline to October 5th!

Hot on the heels of TGRWT18, Martin Lersch was ~~foolish~~ kind enough to let me host TGRWT 19. In case you've forgotten, They Go Really Well Together (TGRWT) is a challenge where you are encouraged to find creative ways of pairing flavors (that may sound unusual) but have one or more key odorants in common.

I've written and quasi-contributed to TGRWT several times, mostly cause I think it gets you thinking about food. If Michael Pollan is right, then now more than ever we need ways to inspire people to actually cook.

This isn't a competition, as such there can be no winner and there will be no fabulous prizes.

But, maybe, just maybe, you can use this to get your creative juices going, and find your way back into your poor, neglected kitchen. I wanted to choose common ingredients that were familiar, seasonal and could still be exciting for people to riff on. I also wanted to choose things that would let our vegetarian/vegan friends contribute.

While you go and look at the fancy logo and the guideline, I'm going to go and enjoy a refreshing, venti tomato-chai latte. Ciao!

I am Jack's Fancy Logo (color coded with the ingredients).

This is how you can participate in TGRWT #19:

Prepare a dish that combines tomato and black tea. You can either use an existing recipe (if there is any) or come up with your own.
Take a picture of the dish and write an entry in your blog by ~~October 1st~~October 5th with TGRWT #19 in the title. Readers will be particularly interested in how the flavour pairing worked out, so make an attempt at describing the taste and aroma and whether you liked it or not.
A round-up will be posted here (with pictures). Please send an email to pablo.escolar.tgrwt@gmail.com with the following details: Your name, URL of blog, URL of the TGRWT #19 post and a picture for your entry in the round-up. If you don't have a blog, email me your name, location, recipe and a brief description of how it worked out and I'll be glad to include it in the final round-up.

TGRWT #19 Tomato and Tea: Round Up

2009-10-16T03:56:00.002-04:00

Hi TGRWTers!

Tomato and Tea seemed to have pretty mixed results. I think there is a tremendous number of possibilities with these two ingredients, especially with tea. Black tea has a bazillion different varieties, which: can be used to smoke, can be steeped into a liquid, added to a crust or rub, etc.

Leanne Opaskar made a
Lapsang Souchong Tomato Bisque and Sun-Dried Tomato Crostini. She writes:

The soup is smooth, tomatoey, smokey, and pretty tasty. I'd like to play with the balance of flavors just a bit, because I'd like a little more depth with the clove and anise flavors. They're kind of swallowed up in the smokey tea taste. This is very satisfying for a first pass, though.

The crostini are also tasty, but there's really not much tea flavor to them. I'm not quite sure how I'd play with that to improve it, but they taste good as it is. I didn't think about it at the time, but I should have saved the soaking liquid -- it would have made a fascinating vegetable stock.

From Lab To Kitchen whipped up a Black Tea Souffle with Caramelized Tomato-Plum Sauce. She writes:

The souffles tasted really good (pretty much like tapioca milk tea in a warm and fluffy form), and so did the sauce (tartness of the plum, sweetness of the tomato). And did TGRWT? Overall, I thought this was an eccentric but successful pairing. When I first smelled the tomato and black tea together, I thought it made sense--it reminded me almost of a tomato and herb combination. Implementing it was more difficult, but nonetheless, I thought the bold and earthy black tea was offset well against the sweet and tart tomato-plum combo. The tomato here showed off its true "fruitiness", being treated as such in the puree, but it also kept its distinctive "heartiness" in the aftertaste.

Anu Hopia, Elli Laukkanen and Kristiina Niemi over at molekyyligastronomia went to the bar to make us a tea infused bloody mary.

Tea and tomato worked well together & tea made tomato smoothie flavor rounder and also more complex. This is actually a nice version of Bloody Mary for those who prefer lighter drink for a change. The tea flavor was not too strong: if one does not know about the tea, it would be difficult to identify it from the smoothie. However, as we compared smoothie with hot water only, the difference was obvious and it was not difficult to pick the watery version out. The acidity decreased and the tea versions were significantly less acidic.

Linda Roberts wrote in to tell us about her Chicken Breast with Tea Tomato Sauce

First I simply sliced the tomatoes. Before taste testing them with tea I tasted them plain, with soy sauce, and with a blend of soy sauce and sugar (just a tiny tiny bit, don't tell!). Then I tried sprinkling the instant tea powder on the tomatoes. I didn't really like the results at this point, but I had a subtle sense of what this pairing could turn into.

At this point I dumped the can of tomatoes into the Vitamix machine (a food processor or blender would work as well) with a heaping teaspoonful of the tea powder. Gave it a whir. Guess what! That was IT! I really liked the results, the tea really did enhance the tomato flavor. So I served it up with my piece of chicken breast, added some nori flakes and sliced tomato for garnish - it was tasty! Even if I were not on the diet from hell, I don't think I would want to add anything else to this sauce, but I think it might also go well with meatballs and pasta.

The Finnish blog, Sisters Cook, rocked it out with a Rukiiset tomaattimuffinssit black tea. I am pretty confident tomattimuffinssit means something akin to "tomato muffin".

Was it then the black thanks to the tea or not? I think it is a bit difficult to say what proportion of the black tea is a taste of the end. Although the first to separate the black tea properly when the mouth is full of muffaria, after taste is clearly yes black tea aroma. [...] Maybe Assamissa would have been even more taste and half-dried tomatoes would have emphasized better than this sekoitelmani fresh and sun-dried?

Bill Trost wrote in to tell us about his lasagne making adventures:

Details on the lasagne: I made my own lasagne noodles using the pasta recipe from _La Tavola Italiano_, and throwing in a bit of homemade pesto. So much for simple! The pesto didn't seem to add much flavor, but the pine nuts certainly added to the texture of the noodles. After spreading a thin layer of the tomato sauce on the bottom, I spread out a layer of noodles, a layer of ricotta thinned a bit with the tea so that it would spread easily, a thin layer of mozzarella, and a grating of parmigiano, and then the next layer of pasta et seq, ending with a layer of pasta, the bulk of the tomato sauce, and another grating of parmigiano. All told, it was about two eggs-worth of pasta, a pound of ricotta, a pound of mozarella, and a fair amount less parmigiano.

The lasagne I served at the dinner party was rather disappointing. The lasagne as a whole lacked depth, possibly because I didn't bake it long enough or because I served it too soon after baking. The leftovers were much better. The sauce tasted like -- well, roasted tomatoes, but the sauce never did develop any depth. The tea didn't seem to have any impact at all.

What? You made it through the whole post? Well, here is my entry:

I made a vietnamese-ish summer roll, steeping the rice vermicelli in pot of a smoky tea (I think it was Lapsang Souchong). Then I took the tomato and just julienned it and rolled it up in rice paper with some fresh herbs, the tea infused vermicelli, and some fried tofu. The tea infused vermicelli was nice, didn't necessarily feel any benefit for having used the tomatoes, or synergy with the tea. Also, not super inspired, but I was crazy exhausted.

Altered Tastes: Epoisses

2010-07-15T00:06:00.000-04:00

I am sorry for folks who are new to the blog, expecting me to be all sous-vide this and sous-vide that. I promise I will get back to you with your regularly scheduled broadcasting. But in the interim, I need to continue to write about the trip to France. Paris was amazing, and there were many delicious meals. Summing them up quickly: Bistro Paul Bert, Comptoir Du Relais, Chateaubriand, L'Atalier du Joel Robuchon, and the wedding I was fortunate enough to be able to attend. I am pretty sure those five meals accounted for about 30 individual plates of food, if not more. All of them awesome, special and deserving more detail than you are going to get.

Day 1 Route

After the aforementioned wedding, we rented a car with the plan of driving around France looking for adventure and cheese and wine. We left Paris and headed for the number one place I wanted to go to. Epoisses. The actual town where the cheese is made.

The first time I had this amazing cheese was at Artisanal, a cheese-centric bistro helmed by Terrance Brennan. The stank of a thousand cheeses kick your teeth in the second you arrive. The first time I ate there, someone at the table ordered this cheese. As it made its way around the table, a pattern started to emerge. Take a bite, eyes roll back in head, moaning. By the time it made its way to me, it was being called 'The Orgasm Cheese'. One bite later, and I pretty much had made a new friend-with-benefits for life.

And now I get to meet her parents...

If you want to know how serious this country is about cheese, I shall simultaneously present to you Exhibit A, and my closing arguments, in the form of a single picture:

The above picture was taken at a GAS STATION off of a highway. A GAS STATION. Have I mentioned that you can PURCHASE GAS AND EPOISSES at the SAME FUCKING PLACE. I wish I had taken a second picture so you could see that this place looked exactly like a GAS STATION. There were refrigerated units with the usual array of softdrinks, pre-packaged sandwiches, maps, potato chips and, oh yeah, intricate, complex and downright funky cheeses that if you opened up in the confines of a car would surely kill you.

I digested that experience for about 45 minutes, before we finally arrived in Epoisses.

Epoisses. Population: Om Nom Nom

Turns out, Epoisses isa sleepy little hallow. And not so much sleepy as it was completely. closed. I mean it. Only signs of life were these fine ladies:

Cows in Epoisses. Let's Pretend Their Milk Makes Epoisses.

So, onward we marched... arriving in Dijon. Dijon is larger than Epoisses, but still pretty dead. Still having some fight left in us, we took the Burgundy Wine Road down to Beaune. On the way to the wine road, we drove by the Gaugry Fromagerie, one of larger Epoisses manufacturers. Also closed.

Paradise Closed.

We finally stopped in Beaune. After getting settled in the Hotel, we went into town to grab dinner, and, during the Dessert course, I finally found my ~~precious~~ Epoisses. It was, of course, amazing. It was hands down the best piece of Epoisses I have ever had. The texture simultaneously gooey and firm, best described as uni-like in texture, combined with the incredible complexities of this pomice-brandy washed-rind cheese. My memories of eating this cheese mostly converge on a moment where I believe I was wielding my knife like a broken beer bottle, menacing waitstaff and my girlfriend alike if they made any sudden movements towards the cheese.

The best piece of Epoisses I have ever eaten.

Even though Fromagerie Gaugry was closed, the next day we backtracked up here (~40 minutes) in an attempt to get to the source. Of course, it was. still. closed. But this time just for the standard French lunch hours. yeah, hours. Fuck those guys. Finally, it opened and we did a little tour of the factory. Moneyshot:

Paradise Found.

Altered Tastes: Baguettes And Your Grandmother's Corpse

2010-06-14T23:57:00.000-04:00

If you are serious about cooking or even if you are like me and failed out of cooking school, France is pretty much the motherland of cuisine. Many of the foundations of professional cooking from sauces to restaurant structure have solid origins in French culture. Try to have a serious conversation about cooking without using a French word. I dare you.

View From A Cafe

My trip to France was revelatory on many levels. Like a first time acid trip forever destroying your seemingly sufficient world-view, replacing it with a gigantic, important, awe-inspiring, utterly confusion nest of unanswered questions. This amazing experience was broken up into two discrete parts: A week in Paris that culminated at a wedding, followed by a week of driving around and exploring the French countryside.

Paris smelled of piss and baguettes. Architecturally beautiful, with parks and fountains. The people were cosmopolitan cold... bordering on rude. In other words, It's just like home, only sometimes it smells like baguettes.

The week in Paris had us staying in the Latin Quarter, just up the street from the open air market on rue Mouffetard. The market was un-fucking-believable. All of the classic French stalls were represented; Bakeries/Patisseries, cheesemongers and charcuteries:

It's like a sea urchin made out of fat coated duck legs.

Wine shops, fresh produce and of course, the crazy, space age, straight-out-of-a-Terry-Gilliam-nightmare frozen food store:

The Future Is Now. And It's Very. Very. Cold.

I would have had more pictures of this place, but photography is verboten. Which is crazy because you'd think, in the future, everything would be photographed. Anyhoo, the store had just about everything imaginable in frozen form. While everything looked like it was of superior quality, I didn't fly across the Atlantic to eat TV dinners.

Classic.

I came to go after the classics. To return to the fundamentals. And in France, I am pretty sure nothing is more fundamental than the baguette. If you go baguette watching, you will see baguettes all over the place, walking their human pets through the narrow, winding streets of Paris. Sometimes they travel in packs, but one thing is for sure... they are everywhere.

Which is awesome, because the baguettes I had in France were outstanding. I could dazzle you with the incredible baguettes I had from Kayser or Le Boulanger de Monge, but even the worst baguette I had in all of France was, no joke, forty-hundred-quintillion times better than the best baguette I had ever had previously. This has the immediate impact of essentially ruining every prior baguette memory of my entire life. It would be like thinking you were having amazing sex only to learn that, in fact, you had been deriving pleasure from dry-humping your grandmother's corpse.

I don't know what's going on in american bakeries, but it ain't baguette baking. I am willing to concede that it is at least part geography, part culture, part technique and part apathy. All I know is that since I have gotten back, every baguette I have had tasted bland. I could almost tolerate the taste deficiency if it wasn't also combined with a never-ending supply of uniquely disappointing crusts.

Fu-uck.

FreshMealsMagic: Octopus Sous Vide

2010-05-03T19:32:00.001-04:00

4# Octopus cooking at 176F in an FMM controlled water bath or alien life-form in hibernation chamber?

Either way, it's what's for dinner.

Low-Technique: Manual Sous Vide

2010-05-19T20:21:00.000-04:00

If you had told someone you were going to cook sous-vide, they would have probably looked at you like you had two faces. And if they did, by some chance, know what sous vide cooking was, they would have thought you had over a thousand dollars worth of equipment. Now-a-days, with home appliances like the Sous Vide Magic and the Sous Vide Supreme, people would think that you were cooking with several hundreds of dollars of equipment.

The truth is, all you really need to cook utilizing the sous-vide method is the ability to put some plastic-wrapped product into a temperature controlled container of water. While not the first to do it, Martin Lersch made a sous vide rib-eye just by using a big pot of water, a thermometer and a plastic bag.

This is not your only option. If you don't like the idea of having a constant heat source going (e.g. the burner or you can also take the pot and try and put it in the oven), you can also use J. Kenji Lopez-Alt's beer cooler sous vide technique. The nice thing about this is that you don't have to watch it during the cooking process the way you do with the oven/burner methods. Fill up the container with hot water and put in your product. The other nice thing about this approach is the amount of space you have in the cooler.

Let's compare using my handy dandy chart that is guaranteed only to exist and not be accurate in any way:

Finally, my best advice for manual sous vide cookery is to:

Bring food up to temperature prior to dropping it in the water. The colder your food is when it goes into the water bath the bigger the temperature hit will be (A frozen chicken breast is a giant ice cube).
Monitor food and water temperature while cooking.
Make sure that when your product comes out of the water bath, you immediate verify its temperature with an accurate thermometer. There is a line between incredibly moist and food poisoning, know which side of it you are on.
Sear food when it comes out of the bag.

Low-Technique: The Anti-Griddle

2010-05-13T08:11:00.001-04:00

As the name suggests, The PolyScience Anti-Griddle is a flat-top cooking apparatus that uses extreme cold instead of extreme heat to modify the texture and flavors of food. The cooking surface is a metal sheet approximately 15" x 9" that is cooled to -30ºF by specialized refrigeration gear.

This can be used to create some unique dishes or components. Examples include:

The Moto team used the Anti-Griddle to make crepes on a recent episode of Future Food
Grant Achatz's Mango, Bonito, Soy, Sesame course at Alinea
PolyScience's own Philip Preston makes a creme anglaise lollipop by griddling both sides but leaving the center creamy

Most home cooks cannot afford the 1000$ price tag. The good news is that you can simulate the AntiGriddle at home provided you can get your hands on some dry ice. A number of people have talked about AntiGriddle hacks before, but the first mention I could find came from Nick Kokonas. Nick is Grant Achatz's business partner and co-owner at Alinea. In 2007, he wrote this over at the LTHForum:

The first time Grant tried using the "anti-griddle" concept was in my house on the back of a stainless steel spatula that was resting on dry ice. It worked just fine. Obviously, that method cannot be used to prepare 90 dishes per night at a restaurant, but it would be effectively the same at home.

So, for this low-tech hack, you simply need to sandwich dry ice between two sheet pans. Hey, I said low-tech. What did you expect?

If you are going to do this, here are some basic tips and precautions:

At -79ºF and lower, dry ice is considerably colder than the Anti-Griddle. Do NOT touch Dry Ice. You can suffer some pretty serious injuries here, and you need good ventilation in your workspace. Make sure you read the CDC guidelines on handling dry ice. Use similar precautions in handling the sheet pans.
Use some non-stick spray to make it easy to flip and remove items.
Check out PolyScience's guide for some other ideas on what you can do with this technique.

The Foie Gras Fight

2010-05-07T00:08:00.005-04:00

I think there is a huge misconception about the goals of animal rights groups. My reason is that every time an animal rights group attacks the foie gras industry, you see people defend the treatment of the ducks used to make foie gras. Statements like:

Ducks aren't like people. They don't feel pain during gavage.

or:

Why go after foie gras when we all know that the commercial chicken industry is a much bigger offender.

There are two key points that I want to raise about the enemy of foie gras:

They want to stop the slaughter of all animals, no matter how they are treated while they are alive. While I think they are able to perceive the areas between downright animal cruelty and the more respectful means of raising and slaughtering animals, most of these groups really want all animal slaughter to go away. That is the end goal. I don't say this out of paranoia, or fear that they'll take away our meatz, I say this because they think that killing animals is bad. And, in many ways, I agree with this statement. So, there is no lens where because commercial chicken farming is worse, that foie gras is going to be ok. Even if the folks at Hudson Valley Foie Gras were giving the ducks reach arounds during gavage, followed by an hour long spa treatment, most animal rights groups are not going to be ok with the death part even if you convince them that gavage isn't harmful.

They are much smarter than you think. They full well know where foie gras and commercial chicken farming fits in the scheme of animal cruelty. The battle to stop commercial chicken farming vs. the battle to stop foie gras are very different battles. Stopping foie gras appears to be an easier battle. Here's why:

Who eats foie gras? It is fancy-food. Fancy food is eaten by the wealthy. I am guessing a fairly large population of the US doesn't even know what foie gras is. In other words, this doesn't affect most people. You may as well be trying to ban Delorians or Personal Submarines. So, getting federal, state and local lawmakers to make changes isn't an especially hard pitch. Quick SAT question:

Who makes foie gras? A small number of small producers that are not nearly as well funded as Big Chicken. Animal rights groups have zero chance of shutting down Big Chicken. For example, The Humane Society of the United States is suing Hudson Valley Foie Gras over violations of the federal Clean Water Act. The lawsuit alone has the potential to shut down the largest foie gras producer in the US. What do you think happens when The Humane Society of the United States attempts to sue Purdue or Tyson over something like that?

These two factors make foie gras the soft target of the Meatocracy. The soft, buttery and delicious target.

Fat Tuesday: Swordfish Sous Vide

2010-05-04T19:30:00.001-04:00

I think that most fish cooked sous-vide is a little over rated. There is something about the texture that just doesn't work for me. There are a couple of notable exceptions: Swordfish, Monkfish and Skate. With both Swordfish and Monkfish, you can get thick cuts of dense fish that remain incredibly moist, and you can achieve some amazing textures.

Alas, I didn't take any other pictures. Swordfish (thicker the cut the better), lemon zest, salt and pepper. This was tossed into a 127F bath. Lemon zest is an amazing ingredient when used in sous vide cooking. It results in a very powerful and clear lemony flavor. After the bath, I seared it in a cast iron pan.

The only warning I have with fish in sous vide, besides the texture/consistency issues, is that it will turn to mush if you let it cook too long.

The great thing about this was I used a minimal amount of fat (just the oil in the pan for searing). Pretty low in fat, not many calories, omega-3s, dense and protein-y... or... you know, filling.

Fat Tuesday: Intro

2010-05-04T07:29:00.002-04:00

Welcome to Fat Tuesdays, where I talk about health and obesity. You might find some healthy recipes, some rants against the establishment, and a lot of self deprecating humor. There are a lot of reasons why I want to write about health, but the biggest reason I have started to take the issue of health personally is:

For most of my adult life I have seen my weight increase steadily, with my BMI starting at nineteen (19) and ratcheting up to a whopp[er]ing thirty-four (34). For those of you who do not have the scale memorized, a 19 is in the normal range. Thirty-four is solidly in the obese range and getting close to morbidly obese. While there is no confusing whether or not I am fat, I wear it reasonably well enough that most people are surprised to hear I am this unhealthy.

It sucks to be obese, but to have morbidly obese on your horizon is fucking terrifying. But it still wasn't enough to change my ways. My ways were, by the way, that of any food loving, gainfully employed manhattanite. I ate out at the best restaurants in the country. Pre fixe meals. I also combined this a complete lack of activity, partly stemming from a desk job that requires long hours.

Earlier this year, I had a new experience. I had a physical where I did not come back healthy. This is a partial myth as every physical had my doctor telling me to lose weight and that my cholesterol was high, but there was never a real sense of urgency. This time I got a call from my doctor telling me that my bloodwork showed high levels of just about everything. From a lab technician perspective, my blood looked more like something you would find in a reuben sandwich than something you'd find in a person. I had to go back and get another blood test, this time I needed to fast prior to the test.

As a professional hypochondriac, I prefer to go to the doctor for symptoms that I sew together into a rare disease tapestry just so I can hear his stifled laughter just before tells me why I couldn't possibly have Kuru. As it turns out, I don't handle the real possibility of medical issues well. I immediately went into overdrive, scouring the Internet, becoming an expert in every possible combination of diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, cirrhosis, hypertension, and heart failure.

It should be noted that this type of thing will happen to me once a year regardless of a bad blood test result. But fueled with a bad blood test, I was convinced it was too late for me and all was lost. When I called my doctor to get clarification, he stifled laughter and told me that my worst case was that I was going to have a fatty liver (this is pretty close to the equivalent of self induced human foie gras). He then went on to give me one of the best medical diagnoses I have ever had:

"Most likely, I am going to tell you after your blood test that you are fat. And need to lose weight. Actually, I am going to save us some time and tell you that now. You are fat and need to lose weight."

Ouch. Point made. Actually, he made his point, sharpened it and jammed it in my eye.

Several days later, days where I was still convinced of the worst, I got the blood test back and I was out of the danger zone for things like diabetes and liver related problems. Sure, my cholesterol is still high (especially the LDLs, also known as 'the bad kind'), and my triglycerides were also high, but I wasn't in immediate peril.

The good news is that my fear of being sickness and death has resulted in some lifestyle changes. I exercise (the last time I had been in a gym there were no electronics apart from the occasional walkman) and I pay close attention to what I eat and how much of it I eat.

Let's hope I keep it up.

FreshMealsMagic: Octopus Sous Vide Part II

2010-05-03T21:51:00.000-04:00

As we already know, I cannot get enough of octopus. I feel bad, because they are very intelligent creatures. But, if they were so intelligent, wouldn't they find a way to be less delicious? Or evolve, industrialize and hunt us for food? I had a whole octopus vacuum sealed in the freezer. So I defrosted it, splashed in some olive oil, lemon juice, lemon zest and salt. Cranked up the FMM to 176F and tossed it into my water bath.

I've talked about cooking octopus sous-vide. This is one of those sous vide applications that just. makes. sense. Octopus can be a finicky beast. Cook it right and it is fucking amazing. Cook it wrong and you are chewing on cephalopod chewing gum.

The great thing about using the Fresh Meals Magic here is just the shear amount of space available compared to other water baths that I've used. I also took the liberty to cook some sweet potato in the same bath.

It was going to be octo-taco night (or for the truly international, the tako-taco?), but I was exhausted when I got home. Instead, I took the sweet potato, the octopus and combined it with some sauteed ramps. Squeeze of lemon and boom. Dinner.

On Time And Cooking

2010-05-02T17:37:00.001-04:00

Michael Ruhlman tossed another stone in the stagnant pool of the American dietary habit last week. He called bullshit on the trope that people don't have time to cook at home. Taking aim at all of the television shows, food writing and companies that continuously remind us about how little time we have to cook meals, Ruhlman reminds us that faster meals can come at the price of our health.

I know we need him standing on the wall that protects good, honest cooking, but I feel that his defense sprayed some friendly fire on some allies. It is complete bullshit that you can't make a healthy meal in 20 minutes. If people started making healthy meals in 20 minutes, maybe they would learn to like cooking. And then maybe they'll spend 30 minutes or an hour. Even if they don't, they are still making healthy meals.

If I had the reach of a Michael Ruhlman, I would be encouraging people to cook. Period.

Of course, I don't. But if you read this blog, you should prepare more food from scratch. Make a salad. Broil some fish. In either case: use olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper. It will take 20 minutes tops.

OT: How to Move From Wordpress.com To Blogger

2010-05-02T02:49:00.000-04:00

This is completely not food related, and I apologize. But the world needs to know how to do this, and I have no other soapbox.

BACKGROUND

You'd probably think I wouldn't care about where my blog is hosted, given how infrequently I post. The truth is, I planned on moving off of Wordpress.com for awhile. Wordpress.com was decent enough, but it does have a number of limitations and weaknesses, including:

Cost. Wordpress has yearly fees for domain handling and being able to edit CSS. It isn't a lot of money, but Google is free, and therefore significantly cheaper.

Template Editing/JavaScript. Wordpress doesn't allow JavaScript at all. They blame security, but Google has found a way to handle this.

Stats. Wordpress doesn't make it easy to use external stats and the stats it does provide are a little lacking. The external stats limitations have a lot to do with the lack of JavaScript support.

Feedburner. Blogger integrates with feedburner easier. If you recall, I had to ask you all to click on a link I had to add to get you on feedburner. Feedburner lets me do some more stats (yes, I am a stats nerd), and also lets me move blogging platforms in the future (in case I forget what a nightmare this was).

So you probably didn't care about any of this, and #1 is compelling enough to move. Now for the bad news. Moving sucks. And really, it is because no one wants you to move. What starts below is somewhere between a migration plan and a cautionary tale.

MY GOAL

I wanted to move to blogger and make everything as seamless as possible. You should be able to find a link (e.g. blogrolls, google searches) to my blog or any blog post and still get to that content. The major hurdles:

The import/export process may not work easily. This cost me the most amount of time.

Google and Wordpress.com have opposite DNS philosophies. Wordpress gets all whiny about www.domainname.com and Google does the same about domainname.com.

Post URLs are different. This is incredibly annoying, and I have at best, a stop-gap solution.

Ultimately, I did not kill Wordpress completely. I host older posts there and all of my images. It was just easier, and I am lazy. At some point I might move them, but that will have to wait for another day.

MOVING DETAILS

0. Set up blogger.

Get your templates the way you want them and all that jazz.

1. Move posts and comments from Wordpress -> blogger.

This was probably the worst part. There are several tools that do this. If you can get wordpress2blogger to work, your life will probably be simple. My life was not simple. I suspect internationalization slid some no-no XML characters into the exported file, causing the import to barf.

So I used blogsync, which basically worked. The biggest problems I had was actually configuring the tool. Use a text editor instead of the GUI account setting button. That got me all of my posts into blogger.

2. Clean up posts.

Almost all of my posts required some clean up. Lots of stray newlines, and wordpress image captions don't transfer very well. Then I manually added all of the comments. Fortunately, Medellitin is an internet leper colony so not a lot of comments.

3. Configure DNS.

This by the way is where we start to see how annoying things can be. Wordpress does not want you to use www.domainname.com supposedly out of some righteous sense of DNS purity. Instead, they want you to use the 'naked' domain, like domainname.com.

Blogger is the exact opposite. It will not let you use the naked domain.

So, for DNS you will need to set up a CNAME for www or blog, and then use A records for the naked entry.

Also, setup a CNAME called wordpress that will point to your old Wordpress blog. For me, that was medellitin.wordpress.com.

4. Configure blogger.

Go into Settings->publishing. Using advanced settings, set up your domain to be blog.domainname.com. Check the checkbox Redirect medellitin.com to blog.medellitin.com. If this checkbox does not exist, then make the change anyways. The checkbox should appear afterwards, and you can just change the setting then.

Under Use a missing files host, select yes. Now make your host Wordpress.medellitin.com. What the F is this, you ask?

Well, default Wordpress url's look like:

http://medellitin.com/2009/09/04/tgrwt-19-tomato-and-black-tea/

and blogger url's look like:

http://medellitin.com/2009/09/tgrwt-19-tomato-and-black-tea.html

If we enable the missing files host and point it at the old blog, older links will still find a home. It is your old home, but at least it doesn't disappear. This may not be the best idea, as google may punish you (PageRankwise) for hosting the same content multiple times. On the plus side, you don't lose all those people clicking on your old links. I am eventually going to write a little JavaScript that will handle this for me, but it will need a home somewhere, which means a place I can host some Javascript.

5. Feedburner.

Settings->Site Feed. Put in your feedburner feed url there.

Then login to feedburner and change your original feed url to blog.domainname.com/feeds/posts/default

Whee! You are feedburnt.

6. Wordpress.

Go back to Wordpress and change the domain back to your whatever.Wordpress.com domain.

7. Bask in your own glory

Until something breaks.

Fresh Meals Magic: Turkey Burgers Sous Vide

2010-05-01T22:51:00.000-04:00

As part of a newer, healthier Pablo, I am on the hunt for making a delicious turkey burger. The biggest challenge with turkey burgers are flavor and lack of moisture. Or, said another way: the lack of fat that makes a turkey burger healthy, also makes it suck. As far as flavor goes, I mixed the ground turkey meat, soy sauce, salt, pepper, ramp and garlic powders. I alos figured this would be a good application for sous vide.

You are probably asking why there is a ring mold in the bag. This was done to maintain the shape of the burger during the vacuum sealing process. Even on a weak sealer, a burger will end up tapering on both sides.

As we can see in the picture above, tapering makes your burger look like a flying saucer. This is less visually appealing, but there is a very utilitarian concern here as well. If it is not flat on each side, then less surface area touches a grill or griddle. While a ring mold gives us something that looks a little more manufactured, it still looks more familiar, but not as familiar as the handmade shape.

Finally, while the pic doesn't show it, there are actually two burgers in the ring mold separated by a piece of parchment paper (the ring mold was pretty thick). While it was in the bath, I started to heat up my trusty grill pan. After it came out I gave it a quick spin on the grill pan to give it some texture and additional color and flavor.

After a quick turn on the grill pan, I put it on a bun with some lettuce, tomato, asiago cheese and ketchup. The final product is below.

It was a decent first try. Next attempt will include the following changes:

Add a little bit of oil. It was still more dry than I would like. A little olive oil won't kill me.
Make the burger thinner. This should also reduce the impact of dryness.
Add more herbs and spices to the turkey mixture. Needs heat and more garlic. Maybe some smoked paprika as well.

Miracle Fruit Revolution

2010-04-14T00:54:00.000-04:00

I am really loving 'Future Food' on Planet Green (10PM:EST/Tuesdays). On each half hour episode, Chef Homaro Cantu and his chefs use modern cookery techniques to recycle abused product, creating fish dishes without using fish, and, on the most recent episode, solving world hunger.

How would the Moto team solve world hunger? Their answer begins with a peculiar fruit called "Miracle Fruit". Miracle Fruit contains a taste chemical called... wait for it... Miraculin. Miraculin is a taste modifier. You put it on your tongue and sour/bitter flavors become sweeter. There are a handful of taste modifiers out there, but miracle fruit is the easiest to come by.

At first glance, it is easy to dismiss the idea that the power to make unappealing flavors delicious. After all, if you are starving, does flavor play a huge role in what you eat? I don't know. I also don't know how nutritious crab apples and various weeds are. But I do think there are a number of obvious places where Miracle Fruit can help us be more healthy:

1. Reducing sugar/artificial sweetener consumption.

The Pros: High sugar diets are associated with both obesity and diabetes. Miraculin might help us with both of these dangerous conditions. And if you already have diabetes, you can enjoy the taste of sweet without the risk of death! Also, We replaced sugar with High Fructose Corn Syrup, Sweet N' Low, Nutrasweet and Splenda. Which many people on the Internet think should be called Creeping Fucking Death, Cancer Classic, Cancer New and Cancer Turbo Pro Gold 2000. Since Miraculin comes from a fruit, this might be less controversial. How awesome would it be if we could make foods sweeter without increasing the risk of death! It's like the condom/birth control pill of sweeteners! Food orgies, here we come!

The Cons: Given our track record of replacing sugar with something just as bad, we run the risk that somehow Miraculin will be toxic. My bet is that we develop bifurcated tongues.

2. Finally, your children will eat their vegetables.

The Pros: If your children don't like a given vegetable au natural, dose them with some Miraculin, and try again!

The Cons: Your children will grow vulnerable to sour and bitter tastes. When they are Miraculin deprived, they may taste a grapefruit and die.

3. There is no 3.

The Pros: I never really liked 3.

The Cons: I can't continue this list because of the rift in the base 10 positional system.

In all seriousness, this could actually make people's lives better. But, it may be expensive or impractical to manufacture and distribute, much in the way food can be today. Oh, also, it is really worth noting that Bob Harvey and Don Emery once tried to start a sweetener company, called Miralin, to focus on providing a sweetener for diabetics. Of course, investors wanted to destroy Sugar. Obviously, this threatened the Sugarati. And like anything, if you rage against the cotton candy machine, the cotton candy machine with chew you up and spin you out. (Ω)

A good recap of the story can be found here, but here is the money shot:

Finally, at the end of that summer, Harvey and Emery arrived back at the office after dinner to find they were being burgled. The burglars escaped and were never found, but the main FDA file was left lying open on the floor.

A few weeks later the FDA, which had previously been very supportive, wrote to Miralin, effectively banning its product. No co-incidence, according to Don Emery.

(Ω) Can I just take a moment to say how happy I am that I started a graf with "In all seriousness" and ended it in Rage Against The Cotton Candy Machine? Thank you!

FreshMealsMagic: Pollo Pibil Sous Vide

2010-03-25T01:13:00.000-04:00

It has long been on my list to make that amazing slow roasted pork dish of the yucatan: cochinita pibil. Soak pork or chicken in a marinade made with a base of brick red achiote, garlic and sour orange juice, boosted with powerful spices like cinnamon, allspice, and clove.

After an overnight marinade, wrap everything up in a banana leaf package, and let it roast for hours. Serve with pickled onions augmented with the smoldering habanero chile.

Or in my case, toss it in a plastic bag, vacuum seal and put in a 146 degree waterbath for a two hours. I was worried about several factors going into this:

Would the fresh garlic create that plastic-y, overly garlicy flavor that it is known to do? The answer is: nope!

Would the flavor of the banana leaf transfer and would I like the flavor? The flavor of the banana leaf did come through, and without any surprises!

Chicken isn't pork, and its leanness doesn't really let you do any magic with longer cook times to achieve great results. Would the chicken work? The chicken was unbelievably juicy and tender, but I don't think this resulted in a superior flavor or texture. I would much rather have traditional slow roasting over fire or even in an oven. And I even finished the chicken in the oven afterwards.

FreshMealsMagic: Sous Vide Short Rib

2010-03-20T20:31:00.000-04:00

Short rib is by far the most amazing ingredient to cook sous-vide. One person's cheap, fatty cut of meat is another's delicious and cost effective cut. The last one I made was done using a short rib, removed from the bone, some roasted garlic powder, salt, pepper and some thyme. Dropped into the FreshMealsMagic controlled water bath set at 136F and then left to slowly cook over a period of 72 hours.

Sous vide genuinely lets us do something magical here. We can break down the chewy fats that are typically broken down by braising, while maintaining the rareness of the meat. This is because collagen (our chewy enemy) will actually break down at lower temperatures, if we give it enough time. I have done this a couple of times and there is no doubt that 72 hours is a HUGE improvement over 48 hours.

For our obligatory money shot, Here we can see a morsel of short rib, seared in a hot pan, with a roasted poblano puree.

FreshMealsMagic: The FMM Unbox

2010-03-09T23:09:00.000-05:00

I have in my possession a FMM for evaluation purposes. I got about as far as making sure that everything arrived before I had some travel that took me far away from my kitchen. Now I am back and ready to shift into overdrive on the FMM. I am going to write up a test plan for this, but in the meantime, let's walk through the different components:

BRAIN // The SVM 1500D PID Controller

Input: Power via Outlet

Input: Temperature of Water Via Temperature Probe

Output: Power -> FMM

This component regulates the temperature of the water bath via a temperature probe and power going to the FMM. I promise I'll talk about the differences between the 1500D and previous models.

MUSCLE // The Fresh Meals Magic Bubbler and Heater

Input: Power via the SVM

Input: Air via the Airpump

This is a submersible heater. It is responsible for providing both heat and circulation via air bubbles.

LUNGS // The Air Pump

Input: Power via Outlet

Output: Air -> FMM

This little guy plugs into the wall and provides air to the FMM. It has a dial that you can use to regulate air flow going to the FMM. Turn up the volume, and the FMM produces more bubbles. According to the documentation, more isn't necessarily better as you can cool down your water bath.

BODY IN MOTION

Input: 15 Minutes, Water, Power

Output: Pure Joy -> Pablo Escolar

Setup being tested in the 18L container that comes with the FMM kit. Lots and lots of bubbles.

I just tossed two duck breasts into the water bath as my first test.