It's Here!: Spinzall Edition.

Yesterday evening my Spinzall arrived!

 The Spinzall is the latest product from Dave Arnold's company Booker and Dax, makers of the Searzall torch attachment.  It is the first centrifuge designed for the home cook.  Late last year Booker and Dax launched a crowdfunding campaign at Modernist Pantry to fund the tooling and initial production run and since I'm a bit of a gadget hound I jumped in.  The delivery was made in the evening while I happened to be at the grocery store so I picked up some fresh basil and a neutral flavor vegetable oil so I would have something to play with.  After unpacking the Spinzall I cleaned all the parts that would contact the food with hot, soapy water, rinsed well and allowed to dry while I finished reading through the instruction book.  For the first trial run I cooked some whole garlic cloves in about a cup of the oil until they started turning brown, then turned off the heat and added another 3/4 cup of room temperature oil to stop the cooking.  I cooled the oil further by placing the bottom of the saucepan in cold water, then put everything in a blender jar with about 1/2 cup of fresh basil leaves and blended on high for about a minute.  After reassembling the Spinzall the basil/garlic/oil mixture was poured in the rotor, the lid and bowl locked in place and the timer set to 15 minutes.

In the video below I had left the cap off the feeder, so it's a little louder than normal.  I also may not have one of the fins in properly.

I should have taken a photo of the basil oil before spinning to show all the particulate matter it contained, but here is the final product.  Some of the bits came loose while I was removing the rotor from the bowl and the fins from the rotor, but they could have been easily filtered out if I had bothered.  Definitely could have used more basil and there are probably some enzymes I could use that would break down the leaves more.  I ordered the Spinzall Pre-Treatment Starter Kit from Modernistpantry.com this morning so hopefully I'll be able to make a better product in the near future.  Videos of different things that can be made with the Spinzall are starting to pop up so I'll be able to explore more possibilities for this piece of equipment.

It's Here: Paragon upgrade kit

I've had my Paragon Induction Cooktop for a while now and have been using it mostly for deep frying.  I know it's capable of doing much more, but I prefer using the gas range for sauteing and an immersion circulator (Nomiku, Anova, Joule) for sous vide.  Recently they offered an upgrade kit that would expand the cooktops abilities so I jumped in.

As noted on the box, the upgrade kit includes a mat, a temperature probe and a sensor module.

After opening the box.  Pretty sparse documentation but all the important stuff about getting the sensor paired to to the cooktop is easy to follow.  So what does the upgrade kit do?  The new mat goes between the cooktop and a pan and measures the temperature of the pan so you can control the surface temperature, this will be very useful for things like shallow frying, tempering chocolate and candy making where you want to bring your sugar up to a specific temperature.  The battery/sensor module is a separate piece that fits in to both the mat and the sensor probe, the original module was an integral part of the probe.  This should make it much less of a hassle to charge it and if something fails you won't have to replace the entire probe assembly.

Here is the mat in action, depending on which mode you're using you'll get some degree of overshoot with an empty pan (especially in "Rapid Mode") but the sensor reading from the mat seems to mesh pretty well with the actual surface temperature reading from my IR thermometer.

One downside of the upgrade kit is that the mat can only go up to 375°f, same as the temperature probe.  That means it probably won;t be particularly for post sous vide searing.  There is a new product coming from First Build called the Tasty One Top that appears to be basically the same technology.  From the description it looks like the surface temperature sensor is built in to the unit rather being a separate mat.  It also will feature Bluetooth connectivity for control via an app, but minimal on-board controls.  It will also have a higher temperature range up to 450°f making it useful for searing.  These are not out in the wild yet (expected shipping date in November) so I have no idea about the quality of the hardware, but may be something to take a look at if someone is interested in this type of technology.

Next week I should recieve my most expensive kitchen gadget yet, a Spinzall home culinary centrifuge.  Once I've had a chance to play around with it a bit I'll post a review.

Labor day dinner

Just wanted to make a quick post about Labor Day dinner this past week.  More of a lunch, we had to go to a funeral that evening so the meal was pretty early.  On the menu was sous vide ribeye steak, air fried potatoes and broccoli puree.

The steak was seasoned with salt, pepper, minced dried onion, minced dried garlic and ground togarashi (found this stuff at my local supermarket and have been using it on everything lately!).  It was vacuum sealed with the trusty old FoodSaver and cooked in a 130°f water bath (heated with my Joule immersion circulator) for about 2 1/2 hours then pressed under a weighted sheet pan for 15 minutes and finally seared in a screaming hot skillet.  The potatoes were first boiled to get the cooking process started, then allowed to dry out a bit before dressed with salt, pepper, togarashi and olive oil and placed in my air fryer to crisp up.  The broccoli was trimmed and cooked in the same water as the potatoes, once tender it was put in a blender with a little of the cooking liquid and pureed.  I added a bit too much water to the broccoli which made the puree little too loose, so I added a few of the potatoes to tighten it up.  All in all a great meal.

A good quality chefs knife for a cheap price

A few months ago I was reading through a food-themed message board and came across a post about a really cheap chef's knife the OP had found on Amazon.  At the time the Michlentic 8 Inch Professional Kitchen Chef Knife was selling for a mere $12.90 so it was an easy decision to add one to an order.  I've been using it for almost two months now and have been pretty happy with it's performance.

 The knife comes in a black gift box.

In the box the blade is nestled in to a form-fitting compartment with a cutout protecting the blade.  The box feel sturdy and should offer great protection when travelling with the knife.

With the cutout removed.  The knife has a hollow edge blade to help reduce surface tension when cutting through wet foods.

The knife weighs in at just under 186 grams, about 33 grams lighter than my Missen chefs knife I wrote about last year and 26 grams lighter than the Victorinox 8 Inch Fibrox Pro Chef's Knife.

The knife is balanced right at the bolster.

I've found the knife very nice to hold, the pakkawood handle is shaped to fit comfortably in your hand.  The knife was razor sharp right out of the box and I haven't really seen much dulling with use, however I do hone the edge before each use like I do with all my knives to keep them sharp.  I was able to quickly shred a head of cabbage with little difficulty and have used it for a variety of other tasks, although I still reach for one of my sturdier knives when a little more heft is called for.  

The price on this knife has been going up and down quite a bit, when I made my purchase it was $12.90, as of today it is up to $22.90.  It'll probably go up and down a bit more before the price stabilizes, but even at the current higher price I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this knife to someone who wants a good quality knife for a low cost.

Snappy Beer Cheese

If you're from Central Kentucky you're most likely familiar with snappy beer cheese, a spicy, flavorful cheese spread that's somewhat unique to the area.  My first memories of the spread are from our family going to Hall's on the River just outside Lexington in Winchester Kentucky.  Our whole  extended family would gather there for dinners several times a summer, and we always had their beer cheese.  Over time Hall's declined (but I'm told has rebounded since I moved away in the 90's) so we found other sources for beer cheese.  For the last 15 years or so a friend of my parents would make large batches of her family recipe beer cheese and sell it to friends in 10 pound buckets, which would then be divvied up amongst us.  She kept the recipe close to the vest, all I know is that she used a spreadable processed cheese and added flavorings.  The standard flavorings are worcestershire sauce, garlic, cayenne (or tabasco), mustard and (of course) beer.

Now that the parents have moved further down south I have to find a new way to get my beer cheese fix.  I've tried a few times to make my own version using spreadable processed cheese, but adding enough beer to make it noticeable resulted in a very loose cheese sauce rather than a spread. Recently I came into possession of a rather old (1949) cookbook of Kentucky recipes (a newer edition can be found here) and while leafing through found a recipe for beer cheese that I had to try.

I ended up making a few changes to the recipe while making it, and made some adjustments later.  What I used was...





8 oz sharp cheddar
8 oz "rat" cheese
1 large clove garlic (grated)
1/2 cup beer (american pilsner)
1 1/2 TB worcestershire sauce
1/2 ts salt
1/2 ts powdered mustard
1/4 ts cayenne pepper  
1/8 ts celery salt                  

I had never heard the term "rat cheese" before, I learned that at the time this book was published it was the common name for young, domestic cheddar, the kind you would use to bait rat traps.  All the cheese was grated and placed in the bowl of a stand mixer to warm up a bit.  The garlic was grated on a microplane and added along with all the dry spices.  The beer was mixed with the worcestershire sauce and warmed up in a saucepan both to get rid of the carbonation and help the cheese become smooth.  I turned the mixer to low and let it blend everything, then added the beer/worcestershire sauce mix and turned the speed up to medium and let it run for a while.  The end result was good, all the flavors were these but it was chunky and a little to stiff for my liking.  A few days later I decided to loosen things up a bit, I mixed another 1/4 - 1/3 cup beer with a 1/2 ts or so sodium citrate in a saucepan and started warming it up, then added the beer cheese and mixed vigorously over low heat until all the cheese melted and smooth.  The result is much closer to the spreadable cheese I remember, but not quite.  It seems to be a very thick liquid that self levels when left alone, next time I'll probably beat more air in to the mixture before packing into tubs.  Still a good starting point and one that I'mm enjoying!

                     
                   

It's Here!: ChefSteps Joule Edition

I started having problems with my WiFi Nomiku giving me erroneous low water alarms again.  This is the second or third unit I've had the same problem with.  I'm not sure why this keeps happening, maybe it's something with the water in my area or something I'm doing.  This last time it started happening after I added some vinegar to the bath to take out some scale that was building up (we have pretty hard water), the manual suggests using citric acid for that.  It's possible that the acetic acid in the vinegar is somehow damaging the water level sensor in the circulator, I'll try a few things to see if I can get everything working again before contacting customer service for another replacement.

Since I'm currently down a circulator I decided to finally try one I've been interested in for a while, but couldn't justify buying...the ChefSteps Joule.  Shipping was amazingly fast, I placed the order for the circulator directly from ChefSteps.com on Sunday and it arrived at my door (all the way from China) on Wednesday.

The Joule is different from my other circulators in that it has no manual controls on the unit itself, with the exception of a single button on top.  The circulator is controlled using an app installed on an Android or iOS.  My understanding is that it can use either Bluetooth or WiFi depending on the situation.  Pairing was pretty straightforward, after setting up the Joule in a bath and plugging it in I just opened up the app and saw a little button that said connect to Joule.  After pushing the button my phone connected to the Joule via Bluetooth and then a screen popped up asking me to select my WiFi network and ask for my password.  A few moments later and we were ready to go.  I pushed the power button at the lower right hand corner of the screen, selected the temperature and the Joule came to life!  At that time I had to leave, so I opened the app and turned off the circulator.  Just as we were about to return home I fired up the app again to see how controlling the circulator from afar via WiFi worked, I touched the power button and selected a different temperature than I had entered earlier to start up the Joule.  On the way home I received a push notification telling me that the bath had reached temperature and was ready to cook.  When we did arrive at the house I pulled out my Thermapen to check the bath temperature and it was spot on at 140°f.  I'll do some more playing around with the Joule tonight after work.  One thing the Joule can apparently do, but that I can't test out, is be controlled by voice commands using an Amazon Echo.  I may have to look at the Echo to see if there are enough other reasons to fork out the cash for one, for now I'll just have to stick to using the app.

Some initial thoughts...

Pros:
Very compact size for easy storage
Powerful heating element (1100 watts)
Water resistant (due to lack of manual controls)
WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity
Magnetic base to stick to the bottom of induction ready pots
Voice control option (with additional gadget)


Cons:
Lack of manual controls means you have to have an Apple or Android smart device to use.

That's pretty much all I can think of at the moment.  I'll have to see if requiring a separate device to use the circulator is a hassle, I have two other "connected" circulators (WiFi Nomiku and Anova BT Precision Cooker) that can be controlled via apps but I almost never use that feature, preferring to set the temperature using the manual controls on the units.  Having to use the app may take a little getting used to.

Mellow Mushroom Pizza Dough

While looking through a Reddit page for my home town I came across a thread about pizza where someone posted a link to a copycat recipe for Mellow Mushroom pizza dough.  It's been a long time since I lived in Lexington and I can't remember if Mellow Mushroom was around at that time or if I ever ate there, but everyone seemed to rave about the crust on the thread so I decided to give it a try.

The recipe can be found here.  I looked up ingredient weights on the internet to convert the recipe  into bakers percentages and came up with this...

1 1/2 cups hot water     338 grams     74%
2 1/2 Tb molasses         54 grams       12%
1 TB Olive oil               14 grams       3%
2 packets IDY               16 grams       3.5%
3 1/2 cups bread flour  455 grams     100%
2 ts salt (table)              12 grams       2.6%

I based the weight of the flour on a site that gave weights of flour using various methods, the greatest weight given used the dip and sweep method.  When I actually made the recipe the actual weight 3.5 cups flour measured with that method was 487 grams.  The only other changes I made were to cut the yeast amount in half as I planned to cold ferment the dough, I used cold water instead of hot since I feared the 15 minute knead time would overheat the dough in the mixer and kill the yeast and I cut down the molasses to 45 grams since what I had was old and somewhat dehydrated.  After making this recipe I looked online and found a significant range of weights given for the same measure of several of the ingredients, but this is my starting point.

First I mixed the water, molasses and olive oil and mixed them together before adding the yeast.  I'd probably let the yeast hydrate in the water/molasses next time before adding the oil.  I them measured out the flour and salt, added them to the work bowl of the stand mixer, attached the hook and started the machine.  After everything was mixed together it was clear that the dough was too slack, I had to add a few spoonfuls of extra flour to the bowl in order to get a workable dough.  I let the dough knead on low to medium speed for the 15 minutes indicated in the recipe, at the end I had a very smooth ball of dough with a finished temp of 77°f.  The dough ball was rounded, put in an oiled bowl and placed int he refrigerator to cold ferment.  The next day I rounded the dough again to allow carbon dioxide to escape and redistribute the yeast and put it back in the refrigerator for another day.

Two days later it was time to make pizza!  I divided the dough in half, rounded both dough balls and put one out on the counter to rest for 2 hours so it could come up to room temperature.  Trying to use dough from the refrigerator before it's had a chance to warm up will result in large bubbles forming during baking.  The dough was very easy to work with, I was able to easily stretch it out without any tears and minimal shrink back after it was formed.  I placed the skin of a piece of parchment on which I had sprinkled corn meal, sprayed the top with olive oil and sprinkled on some romano cheese.  The recipe calls for parmesan crumbs, but I didn't have any.  I then dressed simply with pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese and pepperoni with a final dusting of romano cheese on the top.  The pizza was baked on a baking steel in an oven that had been preheated for about 30 minutes.

After removing from the oven the crust rim was sprayed with olive oil, the recipe calls for brushing it with garlic butter but I didn't have any on hand.

I was pretty happy with the recipe, but plan on making some changes for the next iteration.  Even with the lowered amount of molasses the flavor was pronounced, that may just be because what I had in the pantry was old and concentrated.  Next time I plan on using a new bottle and cutting down the amount to 5% of the flour weight.  I also plan on cutting down the total hydration (water + molasses + oil) to about 70% and then figure out where to go from there.

EDIT 4/27/17

I've been playing around with the dough formula a bit, the current one I'm using is

Bread Flour  100.00% 500
Water           62.20% 311
Molasses      5.00% 25
Yeast (IDY)  1.60% 8
EVOO          2.80% 14
Salt               2.40% 12

This formula is for same day use (2 hour warm ferment), I find that letting the dough cold ferment in the refrigerator for a couple of days yields a final product that's easier to stretch, has better texture and flavor. When I go this route I cut the yeast down to 5-6 grams (1-1.2% flour weight). I try to keep total hydration (water + molasses + EVOO) to 70%.

Sous vide, air fried sriracha wings.

This was something I made for the Super Bowl this year.  Two days before the big game the chicken wings were cut into drumettes and wingettes with the wing tips saved for future stock making.  They were dusted with the hot chicken spice mix from this post, vacuum sealed and cooked in a water bath fitted with my Nomiku and set to 64°C for about 5 hours, my Anova was nearby as a backup if needed.  After removing the wings from the bath they were allowed to rest for about 15 minutes before being stashed in the fridge until the next day.  I Removed the wings from the bag to a paper towel lined sheet pan and patted them dry as much as possible, they were them sprinkled with a 1/2 and 1/2 mixture of pink Himalayan sea salt and baking powder and put in the refrigerator overnight to dry.  This is a technique I saw in a Serious Eats recipe for oven-fried Buffalo wings which I figured  would work as well in the air frier as it does in a conventional oven.  To finish the wings I set my Avalon Bay Air Fryer to 400°F and let it warm up for a few minutes.  The wings were tossed in olive oil until well coated and placed in the fryer basket with as much space between them as I could muster, then the basket was inserted in to the air fryer.  After 5 minutes I shook the wings and returned them to the fryer for another 4-5 minutes.  At the end of that time the skin was nice and crispy and the wings completely warmed through.  The sauce was equal parts sriracha sauce and sweet Thai chili sauce (I usually use Mae Ploy brand but couldn't find it at the supermarket that day so I used another brand) and a touch of soy glaze.  They were served with blue cheese dressing for dipping.

I was pretty happy with these wings, cooking them sous vide resulted in an extremely moist and tasty wing.  The air frying worked ok, but I think finishing them by deep frying in very hot oil would have produced a more crunchy skin.  Since the wings are already cooked in the water bath you don't have to worry about cooking them through in the oil and can go for a short fry in hotter oil.  I'll have to try that next time with and without the baking powder to see how it changes things.