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Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

modernistcuisine.com

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Re: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

#111

Post by bavent »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #6

This came out at the end of my career as a serious professional cook and I have mixed experience with it. It's kind of an escoffier guide culinaire type deal for the 2000s. It documents & standardizes, or at least presents emerging conventions for, a huge range of techniques that were in use in certain kinds of restaurants in the preceding two decades. In terms of food like that you sit down and eat with other people…

I worked at the lab. “Modernist” was chosen from what I remember because he didn’t like “molecular gastronomy”, which is what everyone was calling texture manipulations and laboratory techniques applied to food at the time, and to differentiate it from “classical” cooking - the Escoffier through Marco Pierre White era basically.

We cooked a lot of dishes from the book for special events, but it was often the same lot of dishes over and over. Writing the recipes was an absolute pain in the ass (I was a cook, I was not used to documenting things in a lab manual), and I absolutely believe lots of hidden variables got lost - again, while there were lab-trained chefs there - Chris I believe had a background in biology or something - us grunts were line cooks beforehand.

Re: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

#112

Post by mattmaroon »

randerson wrote: post #108
SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The APO is new to me. Looks interesting. Can it really “sous vide” a steak? Does it brown it too?

I have an APO too and love it. While it’s possible to add a second phase to the cook with 0% steam, it isn’t enough to give you a crust on a steak. I still use a cast iron pan to sear it. The main issue I have with SV, either bagged or bagless, is that the meat needs to be thoroughly dried before searing. So I normally cook it without steam but at 200F or so with a wireless thermometer telling me when it is 10F below…

You can just blot the meat with a paper towel really quickly. You don't want surface moisture of course, because evaporative cooling means anything with water in it basically only cooks at 100C, so basically you'll have to cook it longer to get the same sear and thus overcook more of the meat below the surface.

But you want the meat to be as moist as possible, it helps keep the seared portion shallower. Searing dries out the crust, so you want that all to happen as fast as possible, meaning you want it as hot as you can get without "torch taste". (Contrary to popular belief, torch taste comes not from torch fuel but compounds formed at too high heat, that just only happens with a torch.)

So full steam plus hit with a low power torch (Iwatani) is my daily driver and if I'm cooking for a lot of people I use the Searzall but that's like once a year. But it's fun for the whole family to finish the prime rib roast that way.

Re: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

#113

Post by mattmaroon »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #80
mattmaroon wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still poach eggs in the shell in my Anova Precision Oven often. The 13 minute egg is pretty unbeatable. I think the decline in sous vide use in commercial kitchens is largely just because befuddled health regulators pushed everyone toward CVAPs, which do the same thing without the plastic. Now that I’ve got the APO, I cook nearly everything in it. I wish I could get a regular oven-sized version.

The APO is new to me. Looks interesting. Can it really “sous vide” a steak? Does it brown it too?

You wouldn't really brown it that way. It's basically a very large, very accurate wi-fi toaster oven. You could maybe open the door to let the steam out, put the top heating element on full, and broil it, but you'd probably end up overdone in the process. I just recommend a torch, a cast iron pan, or your oven's broiler for finishing most thiungs.

Re: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

#114

Post by mattmaroon »

bbatha wrote: post #79
mattmaroon wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still poach eggs in the shell in my Anova Precision Oven often. The 13 minute egg is pretty unbeatable. I think the decline in sous vide use in commercial kitchens is largely just because befuddled health regulators pushed everyone toward CVAPs, which do the same thing without the plastic. Now that I’ve got the APO, I cook nearly everything in it. I wish I could get a regular oven-sized version.

Miele makes wall combi ovens that are standard sized. Well they lose some cooking volume for the steam components.

Thank you, those are awesome. I'm stuck with freestanding at the moment but may build a house soon and I would for sure get these!

Re: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

#115

Post by diego_moita »

Moosdijk wrote: post #104
diego_moita wrote: post #81

This book is just pretentious and expensive bullshit. It is just hype to grab fools' money. If you want to know how much "science-infused" is this cooking just look at any picture of its author. Nathan Myrvhold is obviously overweight, a sure sign that he doesn't understand nutrition or basics of health science. You don't need spherification, sous-vide baths or ultra-speed blenders to make tasty and healthy food. All…

You're jumping to conclusions that aren't logical (at least not without you listing your assumptions that led to this post). There's more science to food than just nutrition and health. Also, that you can make tasty and healthy food without the technology you mentioned, does not exclude the technology from having a place in a kitchen. Lastly, how do you objectively define "weird obsession". Can you give some examples…

> There's more science to food than just nutrition and health.

Maybe. But nutrition and health is what should mater the most, if you don't want to end up with a country of overweight people.

> does not exclude the technology from having a place in a kitchen

Certainly. From fridges and washing machines to food processors and electric stoves technology is more than welcome to the kitchen. But is always a cost/value calculation. And if you're not a billionaire patent troll like the author of that book then a lot of the gadgets and techniques he advocates are just not worth it.

> Can you give some examples of countries that do not share this "weird obsession"?

On cooking? Sure! Mexico, India, Colombia, Brazil, most of Italy, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Morocco, Algeria, Thailand, ... all of them with fantastic cuisines based mostly on the freshness of their ingredients, with little preparation, straight from the ground/sea to the table.

Re: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

#116

Post by agos »

hellotheretoday wrote: post #58
fn-mote wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The site has been bought by Breville At $69/year I’d say it’s pretty clear the direction the site is going.

Chefsteps has been in that direction for a very long time. I was in their community early on, like 2013 or so, and the content they put out then was truly excellent. A paywall was reasonable really; the classes were well researched and informative and I am sure their operation is quite expensive. But over time they became a bit less focused on interesting stuff and more focused on stuff that would play to social medi…

I think the turning point was Chris Young leaving, that really lowered the technical level of everything they published

Re: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

#117

Post by agos »

cwizou wrote: post #102
hellotheretoday wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never got a joule because I couldn’t fathom why they would build a device without physical controls. It seemed like such a hostile decision imo bc even back then I had cheaper “smart” devices like lightbulbs where the apps were quickly abandoned and then delisted/no longer working after 3-4 years and several iOS updates. I had some confidence Chefsteps wouldn’t do that (and tbf they didn’t) but why risk it? If they…

Yes and the app wasn't even that great in the beginning, trying to put you into a "flow" where you have to pick a recipe, pick the width of your food, pick doneness from pictures, etc... and at least back then, you couldn't adjust much afterwards, you were set in what it decided for you (and I disagreed with the durations). There was also no manual mode where you could just say, I want 54°, beep me in 45mins but keep…

setting the temperature is very useful when you need control, like keeping the oil temperature stable when frying or avoiding overcooking a creme anglaise. That said, the constant ads (because they're ads) for Breville products are tacky and off putting

Re: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

#118

Post by agos »

kevinmchugh wrote: post #101
tptacek wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Circulator eggs never made a whole lot of sense, because you already have a reference temperature to work from and so cooking any number of them is just a matter of setting a timer (do what the Ideas in Food people do and steam them). I can't remember the last time I circulated a steak. But we did a rib roast for Christmas, and I did that in the circulator, in advance, "for insurance purposes", and then cooked it off…

I also do the Paulina Noah's Ark, and it's a great move for a summer bbq, sending out one variety of sausage at a time and letting people try all that sound interesting. Chicken breast is my favorite use for SV. I don't eat a lot of it, but my wife loves chicken salad, and it's nice for a green salad as well. Eating chicken breast that isn't dessicated is transformative. There's other ways to get there, but boy is SV…

is the Aviary Campari replacer from their book on non-alcoholic drinks? it's very interesting to me!

Re: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

#119

Post by cwizou »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #90
cwizou wrote: post #30

The good thing about Modernist Cuisine is that it goes deep into some niche topics (gelling and hydrocolloids, food safety, etc etc), so if you like that kind of thing (and crazy photography of sliced in half stuff), it's great. In terms of recipes, some have mentioned it but it's barely practical, even if you like spending hours reproducing recipes from Michelin stars restaurant books. There are a few gems, like the…

> The at home version is a lot more practical but is also a bit dated at this point imo. The mac and cheese with sodium citrate is a good example of what to expect. That recipe is an absolute banger, so are you saying that the rest of the book is full of great recipes as well?

There are a few others yes, most are selected/adapted from original MC to be made more practical. A lot are around sous-vide (braised short ribs, potato purée, etc) so be aware of that. It's really a good starting point if you are open to sous vide (and if you don't, you're missing out on 70% of the book probably). There are a few recipes that use some unconventional ingredients like xantham gum, but they don't go extremely crazy with hydrocolloids from what I remember, and provide alternatives most of the time.

I think some absolutely underrated recipes are the soups - which require a pressure cooker. The caramelized carrot soup is one if not the greatest recipe imo in that book, and their other soup suggestions are also great. There's a bunch of other recipes around pressure cooking, and they are great too.

Sous vide lemon curd is also extremely good if you like lemon tarts. It's not a pastry book though, just like the original one, it's more focused on cooking.

Re: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

#120

Post by amluto »

amluto wrote: post #77
tptacek wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ehhhh. I've had lots of issues with it, and I can't cite chapter and verse but I think Dave Arnold has some critiques of it too. Really, for what the Baldwin guide is trying to do, you can just Google stuff off Serious Eats for.

What issues? I’m not in love with Douglas Baldwin’s recipes, but his time/temperature tables for pasteurization are quite useful.

(replying to myself)

It seems like Dave Arnold and Douglas Baldwin even study each others' work -- see the comments here for example:

https://www.cookingissues.com/index.html%3Fp=3304.html

Also, wow, the Cooking Issues people might be good at low-temp cooking, but they are not good at Unicode.

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