Disappointed that the Michael Cera & Kristen Kish image didnt have a caption about 'seeing you from across the bar and digging your vibe'. Otherwise Vince, your writeups continue to be more entertaining than the show.
100% agree all the food in this episode looked incredible.
I do have a soft spot for a lot of Canadian desserts, especially butter tarts (served them at my wedding instead of a cake, shout out to Ba Noi bakery) - shame the dishes they inspired were amongst the bottom.
Redemption for actually giving St. Lawrence Market a proper showcase, but curious if anyone clocked that the elimination challenge was shot at, you know, a castle, since they didn't draw any attention to it. Not that they should have, necessarily, Casa Loma is less interesting than "a gothic castle built in the early 1900s" might appear at first blush. But wondered if the location even landed for non-locals.
I do like Vinny Apple Soup, but between making a soufflé for Daniel Boulud and adding gold flakes to his dish for Michael Cera as a callback to Superbad, the man may also be the most sycophantic contestant I can recall.
I know we have a lot of Master & Commander fans here. After reading the books I bought the cookbook based on food from the series -- Lobscouse and Spotted Dog: Which It's a Gastronomic Companion to the Aubrey/Maturin Novels. It is very entertaining and well written with a lot of history and context for the food, but holy hell it has SO MANY recipes for bagged puddings.
I have yet to make one as the recipes are scaled to produce a pudding in excess of 5 lbs. (sailors got hungry back then, even the crews' daily rations were several pounds of salted meat and hard tack) but they are intriguing. I've had small boiled puddings in restaurants before, and they're very 'okay', so it would be more for a novelty dish.
I may try and make one for Xmas this year since we are hosting the extended family. It will likely be a disaster so I'll probably have some backup pies from the local bakery.
On Sous Vide:
I only use mine these days for large cuts of meat that usually require 12-24 hours. I have not had great results when using it on smaller cuts like steaks. The issue I have is getting the meat dry enough after the sous vide process to get a good, even sear on the exterior. I'd rather not use a whole goddamn roll of paper towels to cook 2 steaks. With the larger cuts I can usually take them out and let them air dry then finish them in the oven at max temp to get the sear.
The best recipe I have is for roast beef using a cheap eye of round cut (which is very lean):
Ingredients:
- 5lb or more cut eye of round with any silver skin removed (there shouldn't be much fat to trim but if it has a big cap, take it down to .25 in)
- Salt & Pepper (or a rub you like)
- 3 tbsp Butter
Instructions:
- Rub the eye of round with salt, pepper, or whatever rub you'd like.
- Seal in sous vide bag with the butter and place in water heated to 132 F
- Sous vide for 24 hours
- Remove from bag and reserve juices
- Pat dry and let sit on a baking sheet with an elevated rack for at least 1 hr
- Pat dry again, brush with neutral oil, and sprinkle liberally with salt
- Place in oven heated to at least 500 degrees for however long it takes to get a good crust (8 to 12 minutes)
- Slice thin and serve with heated reserved juices and/or a horseradish cream sauce
This will come out as tender as any fillet you have had and IMO has more beefy flavor. Use whatever you have leftover for sandwiches the next day(s).
The Corwin Hemming being a boxer reveal was the biggest of the season for me. Needle point? Sure. Stamp collecting? That tracks. But boxing? After all these seasons you are still capable of surprising me, Top Chef.
The fruit thing for ginger was crazy to me as well. Now that I'm thinking about it maybe it was supposed to be "root" and whoever made the cue cards messed it up?
Someone else said she said "root," which sounds plausible. I rewound it two or three times and it sounded like fruit to me but it could've been funky audio.
Speaking of the public school effect, I believe "lamb fat madeleine" is what they called your grandma when she emigrated from Alsace.
I can't believe you have a gif from I Think You Should Leave and haven't touched the Vinny/Tim Robinson lookalike connection yet.
I heard fruit. My captions said fruit. But it is possible they said root??
Disappointed that the Michael Cera & Kristen Kish image didnt have a caption about 'seeing you from across the bar and digging your vibe'. Otherwise Vince, your writeups continue to be more entertaining than the show.
I say, "Not great, Bob!" all the time, and exactly one person gets it. Now there are three of us, and I think we should start a club.
100% agree all the food in this episode looked incredible.
I do have a soft spot for a lot of Canadian desserts, especially butter tarts (served them at my wedding instead of a cake, shout out to Ba Noi bakery) - shame the dishes they inspired were amongst the bottom.
Redemption for actually giving St. Lawrence Market a proper showcase, but curious if anyone clocked that the elimination challenge was shot at, you know, a castle, since they didn't draw any attention to it. Not that they should have, necessarily, Casa Loma is less interesting than "a gothic castle built in the early 1900s" might appear at first blush. But wondered if the location even landed for non-locals.
I do like Vinny Apple Soup, but between making a soufflé for Daniel Boulud and adding gold flakes to his dish for Michael Cera as a callback to Superbad, the man may also be the most sycophantic contestant I can recall.
I'd pay food to money to see you attempt to deep throat your TV.
I hate autocorrect because it made my comment completely insane.
On Bagged Puddings:
I know we have a lot of Master & Commander fans here. After reading the books I bought the cookbook based on food from the series -- Lobscouse and Spotted Dog: Which It's a Gastronomic Companion to the Aubrey/Maturin Novels. It is very entertaining and well written with a lot of history and context for the food, but holy hell it has SO MANY recipes for bagged puddings.
I have yet to make one as the recipes are scaled to produce a pudding in excess of 5 lbs. (sailors got hungry back then, even the crews' daily rations were several pounds of salted meat and hard tack) but they are intriguing. I've had small boiled puddings in restaurants before, and they're very 'okay', so it would be more for a novelty dish.
I may try and make one for Xmas this year since we are hosting the extended family. It will likely be a disaster so I'll probably have some backup pies from the local bakery.
On Sous Vide:
I only use mine these days for large cuts of meat that usually require 12-24 hours. I have not had great results when using it on smaller cuts like steaks. The issue I have is getting the meat dry enough after the sous vide process to get a good, even sear on the exterior. I'd rather not use a whole goddamn roll of paper towels to cook 2 steaks. With the larger cuts I can usually take them out and let them air dry then finish them in the oven at max temp to get the sear.
The best recipe I have is for roast beef using a cheap eye of round cut (which is very lean):
Ingredients:
- 5lb or more cut eye of round with any silver skin removed (there shouldn't be much fat to trim but if it has a big cap, take it down to .25 in)
- Salt & Pepper (or a rub you like)
- 3 tbsp Butter
Instructions:
- Rub the eye of round with salt, pepper, or whatever rub you'd like.
- Seal in sous vide bag with the butter and place in water heated to 132 F
- Sous vide for 24 hours
- Remove from bag and reserve juices
- Pat dry and let sit on a baking sheet with an elevated rack for at least 1 hr
- Pat dry again, brush with neutral oil, and sprinkle liberally with salt
- Place in oven heated to at least 500 degrees for however long it takes to get a good crust (8 to 12 minutes)
- Slice thin and serve with heated reserved juices and/or a horseradish cream sauce
This will come out as tender as any fillet you have had and IMO has more beefy flavor. Use whatever you have leftover for sandwiches the next day(s).
Nickname idea - “Hot Messimo”. That guy is chaotic. Use it now ‘cause he won’t be on the show for long
The Corwin Hemming being a boxer reveal was the biggest of the season for me. Needle point? Sure. Stamp collecting? That tracks. But boxing? After all these seasons you are still capable of surprising me, Top Chef.
The fruit thing for ginger was crazy to me as well. Now that I'm thinking about it maybe it was supposed to be "root" and whoever made the cue cards messed it up?
Someone else said she said "root," which sounds plausible. I rewound it two or three times and it sounded like fruit to me but it could've been funky audio.