Colombian Empanadas

Ever since I was introduced to the Colombian version of empanadas, I’ve been meaning to try making my own. For some reason this urge struck me again last month and I decided to go for it. This is actually the result from the second time, served with cole slaw and Aji (a sauce make with […]

Pichanha sous vide

We like to watch cooking competition shows and last week was the semifinals and finals of MasterChef Junior. In the semis, one of the young chefs made rib cap. The rib cap, aka deckle, comes from the area around ribeye or prime rib in the forequarter of a carcass, and is regarded by some as […]

Food processor Chocolate-Cayenne cake

It’s Debby’s birthday, so I decided I should make a chocolate cake. This was a last minute decision, and I wanted to try something more conventional than the chocolate genois cakes I’ve done in the past. But, lacking a stand mixer, I also didn’t want to do the whole “cream butter and sugar” think either. […]

Sous vide black bean ribs

I had purchased some pork spareribs intending to try one of the previous rib recipes I’ve posted here, finishing them on a gas grill instead of in the broiler. But I procrastinated getting them marinated, and it’s been a rainy day here in College Station, so I decided to try a sous vide version of […]

More on cocktail thermodynamics

Debby found this post from Dave Arnold that resembles what I discussed in the last post. Shorter version: I’m probably wrong about the ice being close enough to thermal equilibrium for government work, but the explanation of what is going on isn’t quite the way I recall Weitz explaining it. And my old Intro Bio […]

GMO tech makes the Impossible Burger possible

… or at least economically practical. Earlier this week I noticed a retweet of this event in my twitter feed: so much fun being at groundbreaking for @ImpossibleFoods 1,000,000 lbs/mo burger factory in Oakland pic.twitter.com/Mo1Gd8uXu4 — Michael Eisen (@SenatorPhD) March 23, 2017 Coincidentally, someone else posted this video about the Impossible Burger (which I hadn’t […]

Butternut squash ravioli

One of the things I wanted in our new kitchen island was enough of a counter overhang to stably clamp our hand crank pasta machine so I could try making fresh pasta. This is actually the second attempt – the first was used for making Carbonara, and it worked pretty well despite some improvisational changes […]

Sous Vide circulator setups

The last post about making lemon curd shows my two immersion circulators, an original, no-longer available at US voltage, Classic Nomiku and an Anova Precision Cooker (bluetooth only). I’ve had the Nomiku a since Thanksgiving 2013, while I got the Anova about a year later as part of their Kickstarter release (I went in with […]

Sous vide lemon curd again

About a year ago, I posted a mistake where I made lemon curd without butter. Since then, I made some with butter, but forgot to blog about it. Since I’m procrastinating some paper grading, I thought I’d try it again today. We also have some lemons that need to be used. Here’s what I did last […]