One of the benefits of a blender like the Vitamix is the size of the container: no more “transfer to a blender in batches” for me! And a good thing, too, because the first preparation I used it for, the chipotle ketchup from Michael Ruhlman’s Twenty, wouldn’t have fit in the 5-cup container of my old blender. One of the ingredients it calls for is a 28-ounce can of tomatoes, which would nearly have filled my old blender on its own.

With this much speed and power, purées form a lovely vortex, perfect for dispersing hydocolloids.

It also calls for seeded chipotles, but I was curious to see how the new blender would handle the seeds, so I added the chipotles whole. When I strained the resulting puree, there were only a couple of fragments left, and even they would probably have been broken down completely if I’d let it run a bit longer. Of course, in keeping the seeds, I also kept the membranes they’re attached to, which is where most of the capsaicin resides, so the ketchup turned out a little hotter than I might have expected. Fine for me, but potentially challenging for more timid palates!

There’s a flip side to the high speed the Vitamix is capable of producing: its low speed is quite low, almost “stir” rather than “blend.” So the next thing I made in it was the chocolate pudding from Ideas in Food. You start by mixing egg yolks and tapioca starch in a blender “on low speed until they form a light colored paste,” then add a boiling hot milk/cream/sugar mixture and increase the speed to medium, before adding the chocolate and emulsifying it all together. Incidentally, this is why I wanted a Vitamix rather than a Blendtec: I liked the idea of a speed dial better than individual push buttons. The pudding, of course, was delicious. (I assume it’s the same as the one I had at the Ideas in Food dinner at Atelier last March.)

This piece of equipment is definitely threatening to move into “How did I live without it?” territory.

What’s your favourite thing to blend?

Whether your cooking is devoutly traditional or boldly avant-garde, a blender is a vital piece of kitchen equipment. (Unless, that is, your cooking is so traditional that you use a food mill for everything.) Obviously, its main use is to puree soft foods and soups, but it can also be used to grind brittle foods, disperse hydrocolloids, and emulsify sauces, such as hollandaise.

Until recently, I had two different blenders to work with: a Braun immersion blender and an old Osterizer upright blender. These were fine for most applications, but in some cases they just weren’t up to the task. One day in particular, I remember swearing that I would never make an artichoke puree again; although it was delicious, the work involved in blending and straining the artichokes just wasn’t worth it. Similarly, I’ve made a few things from the Alinea cookbook that challenged – or downright exceeded – the capacity of my previous blenders. This is notably true of agar-based fluid gels, but also of the roux-thickened dill sauce in the dish “Smoked salmon, salsify, dill, caper.” (When the motor in your blender starts smelling like burning oil, it’s time to stop. I ended up omitting that sauce from the final dish.)

Fortunately, all that changed in December, when my husband gave me a brand-new Vitamix blender. This high-speed blender, much like its competitor, Blendtec, is more powerful, better designed, and faster than most home blenders. The model I got is intended for home use; Vitamix also makes commercial-grade blenders, but that’s probably more power than I need. Of course, this much power comes at a cost, but if you have the money, it’s almost certainly worth investing in one.

Surely I could do better.

In typical modernist home-cook style, I’ve got at least four different recipes for aerated chocolate: one in The Fat Duck Cookbook, one in In Search of Total Perfection, one in Chocolates and Confections, and one in Modernist Cuisine. (Of course.) They all differ slightly, but the fundamentals are the same: temper chocolate (Callebaut milk chocolate, in my case), add some pure fat (oil or cocoa butter) for additional fluidity, charge in a whipped cream siphon, and dispense. This creates a chocolate foam that sets, trapping all the bubbles in a network of crystallized cocoa butter. (Ideas in Food also offers an aerated chocolate dessert, but it’s based on a different principle, being more of an aerated ganache gel than a pure aerated chocolate. I’m looking forward to trying it, too.)

An optional step in these recipes is to make what Modernist Cuisine calls a “vacuum-set foam” by placing the freshly foamed chocolate in a vacuum container, pulling a vacuum on it, and leaving it under vacuum until it has set. This causes the bubbles to expand, creating a much lighter texture in the finished chocolate. I’ve tried this technique before with the aerated mango sorbet recipe in Modernist Cuisine, which is “set” through freezing, but the vacuum pump on my FoodSaver isn’t strong enough for that recipe.

Fortunately, it is strong enough to work with chocolate, and the results were impressive. As you can see in the photo above, the vacuum-set chocolate has much bigger bubbles than the one set at ambient pressure. The only mistake I made was that I forgot to line the ramekins I used to mold the chocolate, which made it hard to get the finished product out in one piece! It would be cool to be able to enrobe this kind of aerated chocolate, or use it in a layer cake like the recipe in In Search of Total Perfection, but for that, I think I would need a square vacuum container…

Some techniques involve both approaches: In much sous vide meat cookery, for instance, a water bath brings the meat to temperature, while a very hot sauté pan or a blowtorch creates a crust on the outside. Even braises combine both approaches, browning the outside of the meat before simmering it gently until the collagen has all been rendered out.

I’ve recently started using a new-to-me source of heat, one that you may not have seen in the kitchen before, but that you may already have in your hardware toolbox: a heat gun. Essentially, a heat gun looks like a very powerful hairdryer, but one that gets so hot that you can use it to strip paint. (You do not want to point it at your head!) By blowing a directed stream of very hot air, it falls somewhere between an oven and a blowtorch: it gets hot enough to cause some serious chemical changes in food, but is relatively inefficient at delivering heat, so it gives you the ability to spread that heat around. My heat gun has “low” and “high” settings, but you can also control the heat by adjusting how close you hold it to the food. And the best part is that they’re not that expensive.

Originally, I bought the heat gun for confectionery use; it’s great for heating a mass of chocolate in short bursts, to keep it at the proper working temperature. If you tried that with a blowtorch, you’d get nothing but burnt chocolate. I also saw it used at Atelier’s el Bulli tribute dinner in place of a broiler, to melt cheese. And I recently used it to toast some walnuts. Normally, I would either dry-roast them in a skillet – an approach that often leads to uneven browning, especially if I get distracted – or toast them in the oven, which uses a lot of time and energy, since you have to heat the whole interior of the oven, rather than just the food. (Though, admittedly, I haven’t actually run the numbers to see if a heat gun is more efficient.)

Now that it’s at the front of my mind, I’m looking forward to seeing what other applications I can find for this tool. But if you’re still not convinced, I have a great “killer app” to share later in the week.

Perhaps surprisingly, I’m not convinced that we do. My first problem came before I even put the lid on the pot: my pressure cooker is 8 quarts, whereas my stockpot is closer to 20. Because I was looking to backfill a complete void of stock, I wanted to make a lot. Which meant doing multiple batches. Even though the cooking time is shorter, there’s still more overhead involved in doing multiple runs; I can’t imagine trying to make restaurant quantities of stock this way. I’d say this is a not-insignificant strike against the pressure-cooker method.

Still, proponents of pressure-cooked stock point to several benefits of this approach. Having tried it myself (even if only once), I have some thoughts on each of them.

Pressure-cooked stock is faster

Because you’re working at a higher temperature, you can extract the same flavour from your ingredients in less time. I typically take 4-5 hours to make a batch of chicken stock, while Modernist Cuisine recommends 1.5 hours under pressure. The difference I noticed is that the pressure cooker has to be monitored more closely, to make sure it’s neither over- nor under-pressurized. I haven’t yet found the sweet spot on my stove’s controls that keeps the pressure cooker right at the second line. I assume that falling under only extends the cooking time, but going over pressure can cause problems. Still, I would call this point in favour of the pressure-cooker method.

Pressure-cooked stock has better clarity

Because the liquid inside a properly operated pressure cooker never boils, you never run the risk of emulsifying fats and proteins into the liquid, which means that your stock should be at least as clear as a traditional stock. In fact, Modernist Cuisine says that “a pressure cooker can yield stock that is nearly as clear as consommé.”

Not in my experience. My stock was no worse than a traditional one, but it was no better, either. Admittedly, there may be a couple of explanations for this: first, that I over-pressurized the cooker once or twice during the process, which would lead to turbulence. That’s just as bad as boiling a traditional stock. Second, I strained the stock by pouring the contents through a strainer, while Modernist Cuisine suggests siphoning it. If I really wanted consommé clarity, though, I would probably just ice-filter it. So I’d say this was a draw.

Pressure-cooked stock has better flavour

There are several reasons why this should be the case: the increased temperature extracts flavours more efficiently, and speeds up reactions in the pot that produce tastiness. Moreover, because it’s a sealed container, you don’t lose volatile aromatic compounds to the air. In practice, though, I found that I didn’t like the flavour of this stock as much as my usual one. This might be because I didn’t use as much meat as Modernist Cuisine recommends, or because I used the wrong ratio of vegetables and aromatics. As well, I had trouble determining how much water to use: because it’s a sealed container, you don’t have to account for evaporation like in a traditional stock. My first batch clearly had too much water in it, so I scaled it back for the second one and, unsurprisingly, liked the flavour better.

But where the increased extraction of the pressure cooker really shone for me was in the gelatin department. Even in my over-diluted first batch, I got a better gel in this stock than any chicken stock I’ve made without chicken feet – and better even than some with chicken feet. So even though the flavour was disappointing, and in recognition that that may have been from user error, I’m calling this one inconclusive.

So would I do it again?

I didn’t find pressure cooking to be so obviously superior that I would never do it the traditional way again. But I’m certainly willing to give it another try, and especially to be more careful with the ratio of ingredients. Frankly, the size limitation of the pot, combined with the faster cooking time, means that I could make smaller batches of stock more often, giving me plenty of opportunity to tweak the recipe and make the most of the technique. As we all know, practice makes perfect.

Do you prefer traditional stock-making, or pressure cooking?

The mental stumbling block I always had with pressure-cooked stocks was that they cook at a higher temperature than traditional stock. When you learn to make stock, the first lesson is always: “Never let it boil.” Surely raising the boiling point didn’t change that fact!

What I eventually learned is that the contents of a pressure cooker don’t actually boil while under pressure. As Modernist Cuisine explains, boiling happens when a liquid’s vapour pressure exceeds the ambient pressure around it. In a pressure cooker, as the vapour pressure rises, the ambient pressure does, too. So you never reach that point, and the liquid never boils.

What the Cooking Issues tests showed, though, was that you need a specific type of pressure cooker to produce an excellent stock: a non-venting pressure cooker, like the Kuhn Rikon I ended up buying, though it’s unclear why this is the case.

For my first attempt at pressure-cooked stock, I decided to make the fundamental stock in my kitchen: white chicken stock. (I know high-end restaurant books all say that veal stock is the fundamental stock, but sourcing veal bones is tough for the home cook.) In fact, I’ve been completely out of chicken stock for a few weeks now, so I needed to make a fairly significant volume. Considering the cost, I decided not to use the ratio of bones to meat to aromatics that Modernist Cuisine recommends; instead, I took a mix of chicken backs, wings and bones from whole chickens that I had butchered, and added a whole spent laying hen, all chopped up into smallish pieces and blanched. Then I added a bunch of onions, carrots, leeks and garlic (all finely sliced for optimum flavour extraction) and some parsley and black peppercorns. It was time to see what the pressure-cooker could do!

My horizons were broadened yet again this year, when I ate squid cooked sous vide at the Ideas in Food dinner at Atelier in Ottawa. It had been cooked at 59°C for 3 hours, and was beautifully tender, more akin to pasta than calamari. Later, that time and temperature was revised to 72°C for 10 minutes, which is an awful lot more convenient. It takes longer to get the water bath up to temperature than to cook dinner!

My own attempts at grilling cephalopods (both squid and octopus) have almost always yielded results more suited to bouncing than eating, so I figured sous vide would be a step up. I started by brining them for 10 minutes in a 5% brine, before putting them into the bath. Because I was working with slightly larger squid, I figured 15 minutes of cooking time would be appropriate, but checked them at 10 anyway. That was when I noticed the seal on my FoodSaver bag had failed. Not wanting to rebag them for such a short cooking time – and hey, squid grow up in water, right? – I decided to leave them for the extra 5 minutes anyway. Then I quickly marked them on the grill (largely for appearance) and, after taking a couple of pictures, dressed them lightly with some smoked salt, lemon juice and olive oil.

The texture was tender but remarkably meaty, especially since they were so thick, putting me in mind of “squid steak.” Two of these guys were almost too much for dinner, and they could definitely have taken a heavier sear (maybe with a blowtorch) and a heartier seasoning. I wonder if you can dry-rub squid?

What’s your favourite squid preparation?

Lucky Peach offers a sampling of different broths (chicken-and-shiitake, bacon dashi, tonkotsu) as well as a soy sauce tare infused with chicken and bacon. I used the magazine’s tare, though I kludged it a bit with chicken wings instead of a chicken back, but I ignored all the broths in favour of a simple iriko (aka niboshi) dashi. I did borrow Momofuku’s trick of powdering the dried shiitake mushrooms to infuse them into the broth, however. Dried shiitakes are a lot easier to grind to powder than I would’ve thought! As it turned out, my iriko dashi, while tasty, didn’t quite have the boldness or body I was looking for, so experimentation on that front will have to continue. Once I’ve nailed a broth I’m happy with, I’ll start tweaking the tare as well.

And if I can carry my metaphor to its logical overextension, garnishes are the ramen’s clothes: they can be serviceable prêt à porter touches to add a little extra flavour and colour to the dish, or they can be sophisticated couture that elevates the dish. I split the difference, piling on some basics like green onions, beni-shouga, narutomaki, and some leftover sliced pork tenderloin, but also taking the opportunity to gussy it up a bit with an Ideas in Food 13-minute onsen egg. Chang and Meehan go on at length in Lucky Peach about the importance of eggs in a bowl of ramen, and offer a technique for making slow-poached eggs even if you don’t have an immersion circulator.

I’m fortunate enough to have one, though, and I’ve been wanting to try the 13-minute onsen egg for a while, because it takes a different approach to egg cookery than I’ve used in the past. Instead of setting a target temperature and holding the egg there for an hour, you set a higher temperature (75°C) and cook your (58g to 62g) eggs for a mere 13 minutes. The result? An absolutely luscious, silken egg with a better texture and shorter cooking time than other slow-cooked eggs I’ve had. It doesn’t get any better than that.

How do you like to dress up your ramen?

So it came as no surprise, when I wondered aloud whether a pressure cooker was a good way to make dulce de leche, that an answer was quick to appear: of course it is!

What makes pressure cookers so time-saving is that they allow you to speed up chemical reactions. Reaction rates increase with temperature, but at atmospheric pressure, the temperature of many foods won’t rise above 100°C, because that’s when all the water in them starts turning into steam. In a pressure cooker at 15 psi, the boiling point of water is as high as 120°C, which significantly speeds up reactions – in this case, the caramelization reactions in the condensed milk – giving you dulce de leche in 30 minutes rather than 3 hours.

Only… don’t expect that the faster cooking time is going to let you satisfy your cravings for dulce de leche instantly. You still have to let the pressure cooker cool down, and then let the can of newly made dulce de leche cool down, too, before you can dig in. What the pressure cooker really helps with in this case is the supervised cooking time. You wouldn’t want to leave an open pan of boiling water unattended for 3 hours, but you can leave a pot to cool while you go about other tasks.

Many chemical reactions speed up as you raise the temperature. For example, when you mix baking powder into a room-temperature batter, you might get a slight fizz, but once you put that batter in the oven, the bubbling increases dramatically, and produces the lift that makes your muffins light and airy. So it goes with many culinary preparations, such as the browning reactions, both caramelization and Maillard reactions, involved in making French onion soup.

Traditionally for onion soup, you cook the onions slowly and gently to make sure they don’t burn. For Modernist Cuisine onion soup, you throw all the ingredients into jars, put the jars into a pressure cooker, bring it up to high pressure, and hold it there for 40 minutes. (If you happen to have an autoclave handy, it takes only 20 minutes.) Because the Maillard reactions are involved, and because their rate is limited by acidic environments, the ingredient list includes a small amount of baking soda to speed them up. Of course, I’ve been browning onions with baking soda for a while, ever since reading about it on Khymos.

As I was packing the sliced sweet onions into the jars, I wasn’t quite sure they were all going to fit, but they did. Barely. A few peppercorns, some butter, sugar, ruby port, thyme, onion juice, made in my handy juicer, and the aforementioned baking soda filled in the gaps. After nervously pacing for 40 minutes – hey, I’m still getting used to cooking in a pressure cooker! – I let the pressure come down, and removed the jars, whose contents had gone from bright white to a rich brown.

The resulting soup, seasoned with salt and sherry vinegar, was good, with satisfying meaty flavours from the browning reactions, and a little richness from the butter. The original recipe calls for a cheese foam to layered on the surface, but I’m missing some of the stabilizers in the recipe, so I omitted it. I also omitted the more traditional cheese croutons – a mistake that I won’t make again. If I had one complaint about the soup, it would be that it was slightly too sweet. This could be easily corrected by using a heavier hand with the sherry vinegar, but I’d also be curious to see what it the results of using a mix of sweet onions and regular cooking onions.

In any case, I will happily make this soup again. The bonus is that the leftovers are already nicely packaged in a jar to go in the fridge!