I have to try all of that asap.

I'd love to see the pics.

Thanks for sharing some vegetarian dishes.

Easiest way (and in my opinion the best way) to carve a chicken or turkey is to completely forget about nice big thin slices of meat. That can be found in a deli. I remove the leg at the thigh - slice through the big joint connecting the thigh to the body, push down a bit, usually the joint pops out, if not use a knife to wiggle the thigh out. Then I take the entire leg to my cutting board, and remove the drumstick from the thigh. You can do this by sort of putting your knife where you think the joint should be, and wiggling the two pieces (thigh and drum) as you cut. You should find it pretty easily. Then, slice meat from the drum and thigh and serve. For the breast, I go about a quarter inch off center of the breast, and make a cut down, with a slight outward bias. I then go from the side of the breast, near the base (above the wing, and above where the leg came off) and slice into the body. You should hit near the ribs. Then I work the two cuts closer together by way of prying, and then I get pretty much the entire breast off in one piece. Then I remove it to my cutting board, slice it up as desired, and repeat on the other side. If you Google "carving a turkey" you can probably find this pretty quick. It works great.

http://youtu.be/tNws_gl0NYY <-- The first part of this is spot on, when he is dealing with the leg, but he tries to make the nice big oval shaped breast slices. In my opinion, this is a waste of time. You can get far better results by removing the breast and slicing it then. Also, the bird used in the demo is horrifically undercooked.

This guy has it right: http://www.chow.com/food-news/53590/...h-mark-dommen/
Note, he does not do a horizontal side cut at the base of the breast - this is because turkeys have massive breasts, and thus the prying from the rib cage is pretty easy. For a chicken, you might have to cut below, so there is more separation.

I really like this guy, his videos are short, informative and he's pretty funny. Here's how he does his roast chicken and its damn good and easy. I cant remember if he brines his but I always brine regardless. (PS, he's improved his video quality big time since the one below was made.. Also, he posts the written recipes on his blog Food Wishes)

Been using the Heston method for a while now. It's great.

Last time out:





Use unsalted butter.

It's hard to believe that deansteak and that came from the same person. That's so good.

Citanul - thanks! I posted on fb an it seems pretty split. I think one is more summer while the other invokes thoughts of winter an root veggies. Interestingly enough, the rib texture is a bit different than anything I had ever tried, which Chang comments on in his book. It retains significantly more structural rigidity, yet not at the expense of tenderness. It's almost as if a regular short rib has been recOnstructed with transglutuminaise <sp - iPhone>.

Snipe you have any other favorites from momofuku? I made the pork buns and ginger scallion noodles and they're both excellent, along with various pickles. I think the bo saam is next.

I think you want the presentation to be more evocative of a braise than a traditionally prepared steak. Based on your post:

http://www.eatdrinkcheer.com/portfol...-ribs-momofuku

Understood that you sort of want to underscore the structural integrity of the sous vide process (vs. a traditional braise), so showed sliced interiors. But from a "I want to eat the **** out of that" perspective, it's the first pic, not too close imo.

Stuff I Love:

Ramen Broth - fantastic - I like it more than 90% of the restaurants I go to (must be done with home made Tare)

Octo-Vinaigrette - great on everything. Love it.

Tomato and tofu salad w/ Shiso - the sherry vinaigrette works amazingly well there and is wonderful

Roast pork shoulder - very tasty, easy way to do pork. I suggest cutting the salt and perhaps even rinsing / re-rubbing with a significantly reduced salt rub before roasting. As written - it is way too salty. That said - roast pork shoulder is easy and incredible

Chicken Wings - they're very tasty, but not really 'doable'. Take liberties and omit steps that don't make sense for you (cold smoking).

48 Hour Sous Vide Shortribs - check my Kalbi Post for alternate uses. I've used this recipe for kalbi marinade, for braising liquid in a dutch oven and in a pressure cooker, and done the 48 hour sous vide thing. They all come out terrific.

Pickled Thai Chili's - these things bring the heat and are great to keep around. I like all of his pickled stuff that I've tried. Sounds like you do to. These are great as a fridge staple.

Stuff I want to try:

His rib eye. I'm guessing it comes out over cooked as written tbh, but the pic is so nice I kinda wanna try it.

The deserts - everything my gf has made from the Milk Bar book has been really really good.

Stuff I'd stay away from:

I'd skip the kimchi stew. I've made kimchi jigae (sp) before, and much prefer mine. Additionally it doesn't waste a quart of delicious ramen broth that you've spent good time and money making by overpowering it with kimchi flavor. Don't make this.

Ghetto Sous Vide - before I built my sous vide setup I tried his 'ghetto sous vide' setup. It doesn't work. I had my instant read thermometer out and was measuring the temp of the water, but for whatever reason - the hanger steaks just didn't cook. Too ghetto to be useful. Avoid.

god all of those things sound so delicious atm

Snipe have you ever tried the momofoku slow poached eggs? I've tried it ~3 time and they've come out terrible all times (i think either my thermometer is poorly calibrated or i'm not keeping the temp constant). A friend cooked his in his SVS and they came out pretty good texture wise, but still didn't look great (a big sell with poached eggs for me). Wondering if you have any experience with that.

For the momofuku obsessed, I had a lot of fun reading through the blog at momofukufor2. I'm pretty sure she cooked her way through the whole book, and has a good sense of humor and ability to express the pain points of some of the processes, in my opinion.

Here's a link to her post on the ribeye if you want to check it out. Sadly, she forgot her EXTREME MEAT CLOSEUP. It (oddly) doesn't look like she included full instructions for what she did, but man that post makes me hungry.

Yeah - I did them both on the stovetop and in my sous vide setup. To be honest, I don't love them either way as I prefer a more set white, and when slow poached, the white comes out pretty gelatinous. I suppose it could make sense if you wanted to precook a ton of slow poached eggs so that they needed only a quick dunk in boiling water to set the white for a service with several guests who will be having thomas Keller's asperagus with poached eggs, or even Changs Hen and Egg caviar dish. For home use though, I'm not a huge fan.

That said, I didn't really have a problem either way. I used a standard $8 instant read (this was before I had my Polder In Oven which I use for pretty much everything from frying to monitoring the temp of the worlds worst range (no joke - my range is hands down the worst ever.)

When doing them stovetop, I used the steamer basket from my pressure cooker upside down to hold the eggs off the bottom of the pot. I recall that making mine more consistent than my gf's attempt. It was basically a platform of ~1".

Again, they're kinda cool, particularly ramen I suppose as I don't like mixing raw egg in my soups (don't care for the cloudy, muddled aesthetic), but for anything else, I'm just not a fan.

That is hot

That reminds me, country style ribs at 65 C for 48 hours is confirmed the ****. Texture is perfect, plenty of fat, just ****ing awesome. They don't look special, but don't need to. Oh, and it's a cheap as hell cut.

Thanks for the info on Momofuku, I have the book but have not yet tried any of the recipes.

Warning - ugly - but delicious



This is an easy one if you want to try it at home. Careful. It can be very hot.

http://www.eatdrinkcheer.com/sliced-...e-brown-butter

your blog is awesome and you should feel awesome!

Considering your username, this is a surprisingly positive post!

Thanks man! That genuinely means a lot, particularly as my current job is coming to an end which leaves me at somewhat of a frightening inflection point in life. I'm considering trying to spend some time in a kitchen somewhere, but with my background / resume, it brings up some future concerns if I find that food is a great habit, but not a field I want to make a life in. Future employers don't want to see engineering > tech banking > poker > software sales > line cook > HALP on a resume, and given how incredibly difficult the food biz really is, and how little money is in it unless you're able gather the skills from finance to order to menu to design and then raise $500k to start your own place, it's likely to be a long, arduous path with high failure rate.

ANYWHOO - at least I'll some time to get back to lifting and really work on the blog.

Thanks again though.

Snipe:

Dude, go for it! You only live once man!

that looks awfully pink

Pink chicken isn't unsafe. The temps they say you should follow are way higher than is necessary. Pork can be pink too.

It is so nice to be able to go into a restaurant and order pork tenderloin medium rare.

That chicken looks fine. At low and slow it will retain a much more pink color. Chicken pulled off the smoker is that color at 160oF.

shouldnt have looked at this thread at 1am... damn!!!