Not yet. I'm weighing the pros-cons of buying a used one off eBay or wherever. The cheapest chamber sealer is more than twice the money I just paid for those two circulators, so it's not a small investment. (The bar sealers like Food Saver and whatnot are next to useless for serious cooking.)
i've started frying with bacon fat more and more lately. it's like natural MSG - it just elevates everything.
made fried rice over the weekend. used bacon fat for cooking the egg in the wok. superb.
When I was in the Navy one of my roommates would routinely fry up a pan of bacon, fry a couple slices of Spam in the bacon fat, and then fry a few eggs in the bacon/Spam fat combo. It was usually topped with cheddar cheese and eaten as a bagel sandwich. Was pretty gnarly.
Not yet. I'm weighing the pros-cons of buying a used one off eBay or wherever. The cheapest chamber sealer is more than twice the money I just paid for those two circulators, so it's not a small investment. (The bar sealers like Food Saver and whatnot are next to useless for serious cooking.)
So what are you using/doing?
Ziplock bags using water displacement to create the 'seal'.
Get a 1-gallon freezer bag, add your product and some oil and whatever aromatics you want. Leave unsealed, and lower into the water bath; water pressure will force the air out of the bag. You only need to evacuate the air out from immediately around the product. Clip the still-opened bag to the side of the bath. Cook.
Honestly, for like 90% of sous-vide cooking that is totally sufficient. But for really long cook times, I'd seal the bag, and continually re-seal over the cook. Without a chamber vac you also cannot do things like instant pickling or compressed fruit/vegetables.
Never sure if it's better to talk about this in this or the TV thread, but... Top Chef: Duels finale....
Spoiler:
I enjoyed the first 9 episodes, with the caveat that a couple of the battles involved some of my least favorite people on TC. I was wondering, how are they possibly going to handle 10 remaining chefs in only 1 hour. The answer, as I suspected, was not very well.
Why can't TC get finales right anymore? The last good finale I can recall was the last Masters finale (which was surprising given how awful the season was as a whole). You have all of these great chefs and you just start cutting people out/sending them to the finale based on one or two silly dishes.
Now I will say that my enjoyment of this episode was also muted by the fact that Tiffani and Kevin are two of my least favorite people on TC ever. Nothing to do with their cooking, I just don't like them. The show put me in a position where I had to root for CJ, who while I'm not a major fan of, Tiffani winning would have ruined the entire thing for me.
So great season ruined by a **** finale. We've been ehre before, TC... get to your game!
We just watched this last night, and I pretty much agree with everything you said.
Watching this Duels season, I will say I learned this:
Spoiler:
Since he did the stage at Noma, CJ's cooking is really exciting. His restaurant, Girasol, is only 20 minutes from my house, and Mrs Tif and I just put it at the top of the New Restaurants In L.A. To Check Out list. I have a buddy who ate there a couple months ago and he wouldn't shut up about it for weeks.
Also, while I certainly agree with you about Tiffani, I really like Kevin and would like to eat his food. He was on Season 6 - still far and away the best collection of talent the show's ever had. He won a challenge judged by Thomas Keller that got him on to the U.S. Bocuse d'Or team that year (altho he didn't actually get to compete because of time constraints). And he knocked Jen Carroll out to compete in the final against the Mighty Volts of Maryland. So I rate him. I would have eaten my own foot if Tiffani had won.
Ok, I just realized that I mistook Kevin for someone else. "Oops". For some reason, I thought he was the guy with the ridiculous mustache on Brooke and Kristen's season.
I guess that explains why he seemed competent, and his mustache was no longer ****.
That line is produced in conjunction with Michiba-san, one of the original Japanese Iron Chefs. Don't know anything about them other than that.
I will say that when I got my Japanese knife a year or so ago it took a few prep sessions to get used to it. It's a much thinner blade than Western knives, and you actually use it differently.
I want to say someone on here recommended Fibrament baking stones (http://bakingstone.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). I've been meaning to buy one for quite a while.
So our daughter's first birthday party (aka family party early, kegger later), will be happening on the first of November. I want to make a crock pot dish, but I want it to be something out of the box that people aren't normally accustomed to having. Any suggestions?
So our daughter's first birthday party (aka family party early, kegger later), will be happening on the first of November. I want to make a crock pot dish, but I want it to be something out of the box that people aren't normally accustomed to having. Any suggestions?
Terracotta tiles from the Home Depot or pizza stone?
Discuss.
Neither, get a baking steel. The soak and retain heat far better than a stone, meaning they are also excellent heat sinks in your oven when you aren't even cooking on the steel. (I do not have one of those yet, but that heat sink function is why I keep my cast iron skillets in the stove.)
Top Chef seems even more like a train wreck than usual, but it seemed easy to pick out the top five after episode one.
Yeah... not crazy about their "change-ups" so far...
Spoiler:
I never like when they send people home like 3 seconds into a show (Well, except for that idiot that couldn't butcher meat on the Texas season)... you're either getting rid of someone before they get a chance to do anything, or you wasted a spot (or both). Seems like this QF elimination crap is going to happen often unfortunately.
Hopefully the "make everyone stand around during judgement" thing isn't the new thing. Maybe they already knew their decision w/o talking to the chefs, but usually they hear what the chefs have to say and then deliberate further.
Also, pretty ridiculous to see what some of these people decided to churn out to showcase their abilities...
So our daughter's first birthday party (aka family party early, kegger later), will be happening on the first of November. I want to make a crock pot dish, but I want it to be something out of the box that people aren't normally accustomed to having. Any suggestions?
Is your family familiar with Cincinnati-style chili? That could be done in a crockpot. It's on my mind because I made it this week. You could have spaghetti, beans, cheese, and chopped onion on the side and people could do their own toppings.
