So it’s rather strange that tonight I got an email from Amazon advertising several cooking books. I’ve always been a huge fan of cooking books, to read and drool over rather than cook recipes. I always swear that I’ll never buy another cooking book, until I see the next one I can’t resist.

The first book I looked at tonight in the Amazon email was The Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook: 2,000 Recipes from 20 Years of America’s Most Trusted Cooking Magazine [Hardcover]. You can look inside it here.

It’s quite a big book at 928 pages, and weighs 4.6 lbs. I like the look of this book as Cook’s Illustrated recipes work well, and in this book it explains why the recipes work.  I like that type of explanation.  In a quick browse tonight I was interested to read that I cut onions the wrong way for caramelizing. I cut them around the equator, so to speak, but they should be cut from pole to pole.  However, it is an American book with many recipes for foods we just don’t eat here.

The second cookbook I looked at is the reason for this post.  I was gobsmacked when I read about it.  Whereas the Cook’s Illustrated book weighs 4.6 lbs, the ink alone in the second book weighs about 4 lbs.  The whole book (in 6 volumes) weighs 40 lbs.  For me, that’s a nightmare.  I dislike handling big heavy books.  Perhaps it’s an age thing, as I have a bit of arthritis in my hands.

The book is called Modernist Cuisine.   I’m not sure it’s a book I’d really like, or find useful.  It seems to have many sections devoted to cooking with professional equipment and techniques, such as sous vide equipment, not available to home cooks.  As mentioned above, I’m not a fan of big and heavy books,  and with this book, the price alone is enough to eliminate any interest – $625 full price or $451,59 on Amazon.com.   However, it is a book with spectacular photography or art work, like the image above, and I thought it worth making a post about it, to bring the book to your attention.

The book has a website at http://modernistcuisine.com/ where you can read more about the book, download a PDF file and a 4Mb brochure.   The website also has a blog and lots of links, including to video, etc.  The Reviews page is full of rave reviews.

The following is a Vimeo video promoting the book.

Warning:  In basic terms, sous vide cooking involves cooking slowly at temperatures below the boiling point of water and at the temperature at which you plan to eat the food.  One needs to be aware of the health risks when cooking at temperatures which might not kill all the bacteria.

Almost four weeks ago, my honeymoon period with the Cuisinart Soup Maker / Hot & Cold Blender came to an abrupt end.  I was making a soup and had set to the timer to 28 minutes as usual.  When the timer got close to the 20 minute mark I stood in front of the blender to keep a very close watch on it to be ready for the moment it came to a vigorous boil, and press the Simmer button.  However, as you no doubt know, there is an old saying that a watched pot never boils.  And this proved to be the case.  The liquid just wouldn’t come to the boil while I watching it.  Then I got distracted for maybe 30 seconds, or a minute at most, and the next thing I knew the liquid was shooting out of the top of the blender and making a terrible mess on the counter-top.  It took about 15 minutes to clean up the mess which got into and under everything within reach on the bench.

To add insult to injury, the final soup had more lumps in it than usual, and I found that it gave me some tummy discomfort every time I had it.  In the end I threw the remainder out and haven’t made soup since.  To be fair, I should mention that I had been having tummy discomfort since the week before Easter, and I had to be very careful what I ate.   Simple food worked best.  My tummy discomfort after having the soup could have been from the wholemeal or multi-grain bread, toasted, that I’d eaten with the soup.  I soon afterwards switched to light and white breads such as Vienna loaf, and my tummy has been fine since.

Today I read somewhere that the old food pyramid showing how much we should eat of what, each day, is changing.  Grains are no longer held in such high regard, because for some people they cause sickness.  I don’t want to get into that, but it struck a chord with me because of my recent experiences.  My tummy troubles ended when I switched from Brumbies wholemeal and grains breads to their white breads such as Vienna loaf, French Stick, and Ciabatta.

Coming back to the Cuisinart Soup Maker / Hot & Cold Blender, I have to say that after the overflow four weeks ago when it came to the boil, and the lumps after blending the cooked soup with the blender as best I could, I’ve concluded there are better, quicker, cheaper and surer ways of cooking soup.   I’ll make a post on this when I find the time.  But in short, using the Cuisinart Pressure Cooker to cook the soup and the Kenwood TriBlade Hand Blender to blend it, is the answer.

Just put the ingredients into the pressure cooker, lock the lid on, set the timer for the cooking time – maybe 8 minutes (instead of 20 minutes) – and the cooker will take care of everything, and switch off when it’s done.  The cooker doesn’t start timing until it reaches the desired pressure, then it reduces the heat to maintain pressure throughout the cooking.  The Kenwood TriBlade blending attachments with plastic feet are ideal for the non-stick interior of the pressure cooker.  They can blend everything without any lumps.

Despite the above, I still think the Cuisinart Soup Maker (as called overseas) or Hot & Cold Blender (as called in Australia) is a fine product.  I was so pleased with it that this is what inspired me to buy the Cuisinart Pressure Cooker.  With the benefit of hindsight, I think the pressure plus Kenwood TriBlade blender set is the better combination to make soup.  The two products together are about the same price as the Cuisinart Hot & Cold Blender, and they are of course much more versatile.  I cook my corned beef in the pressure cooker, and it’s great for cooking rice in 3-4 minutes, or risotto in 7 minute (with no stirring).  But again, I’ll make a post on that when I get the time (and inspiration).

Today, the Good Weekend supplement to The Saturday Age contained a full page advertisement for the Cuisinart Hot & Cold Blender (called Cuisinart Soup Maker in many other countries).  The photo above is from that advertisement – the rest of it is at the bottom of this post.

The first I heard that such an appliance existed, was almost five weeks ago, when I received an email from Kitchenware Direct in Perth, WA, with a photo and details of the product.  I think it was love (or desire) at first sight for me.  I wanted it. But I resisted buying it for a few weeks, as my brain told me that (1) I can cook soup in a saucepan or pressure cooker, and (2) puree it in the pot with a hand held blender.

My resistance faded when a few weeks later I received a card in the post from David Jones advertising discounts for card holders that week.  The offer included 20% off all electrical kitchen appliances.  That offer was too much to resist.  I decided to trust my instinct and give the appliance a try, so I bought one.

The featured image on the home page of my blog shows two onions cut in half at the bottom of the blender.   The image below shows a segment of pumpkin, like the one in the advertisement photo above, in the bottom of my blender.

In the past two weeks I’ve made soup four times using the Cuisinart blender, and it’s been a taste delight each time.  That’s full credit to me because of having some experience over the past year in making my own soup, and also thinking about what I’m doing, as to how it might affect taste.  But in my mind, it’s also a major credit to the Cuisinart appliance.  The glass blender and 1400 ml limit for soup is for me, a great guide as to how many vegetables pieces to add to achieve the result I want.  I can see through the glass what I’ve added, and then how much stock, or water (with stock powder already added) to reach the 1400 ml level.

Over the years I’ve enthusiastically bought many appliances, pots and pans that have turned out to be a poor choice, and of no use to me after the novelty has died off.  But this appliance is looking like being a winner for me.

It has a lot going for it.  The results are enjoyable.  It’s very easy to use.  And it’s very easy to clean.  That does it for me!

Check out the videos at the end of the above video.

In the coming weeks I’ll make posts about another Cuisinart appliance that has won my great respect.

The Cuisinart pressure cooker.

One of the books I bought Amazon this year was The Flavor Bible (yes, American spelling of flavour).  The best way I could describe this book in my own words is that it is a very comprehensive reference of foods, herbs, spices, oils, nuts, with each entry having a list of what goes well with them.

The photo above (taken with a NEX-5 and kit lens) is the salad I made to today, to use up one of two witlofs I bought this week.  Witlof is also known as chicory, endive and Belgian endive.  The most used name in Australia is witlof, and it’s related to radicchio.  Witlof can be eaten raw, and is apparently a treat when braised correctly (says Stephanie Alexander in her epic 1,100 page book The Cook’s Companion).

In the past, I’ve always used witlof in a salad, in place of lettuce or other salad greens, and I’ve done nothing special for it.  But today I decided to look up The Flavor Bible to find what goes well with er, … ENDIVE (the name for witlof used in the book).  There was a long list of items, and from it I chose capers, horseradish, olive oil and walnuts (well, I used walnut oil).  For the horseradish (difficult to find the real thing) I used Heinz Epicure Horseradish.  It comes in a small 150gm glass jar.  For the olive oil, I chose Woolworths Select Australian Extra Virgin Olive Oil – which is one of the best olive oils at the supermarket.  Also, I added balsamic vinegar. The rest of the lunch was Primo BBQ ham, vine ripened tomato and red onion.

The result was a delightful lunch with superb favours that worked wonderfully together.  Once again The Flavor Bible got it right.

The main way I’ve made mashed potatoes is to tip the cooked potatoes into an old bowl given to me in the mid-1960′s and mash the potatoes by hand with an old fork (with long splines) given to me at the same time by my Mother when setting me up a bit for the first time I moved into a flat (in Adelaide).  That has been my old faithful way of mashing potatoes.

However, over the years, I have tried out other ways of mashing the cooked potatoes.   One method was to use a Sunbeam Mixmaster, but that seemed like huge overkill to use such large and relatively  heavy equipment when cooking for one.  I also tried using a food mill (some call it a mouli) to try to puree the potatoes, but I never took to this method with the food mill I had. Or to be more accurate, my potatoes never took to it. They refused to go where they had to, that is, under the mashing blade. To be honest, I can’t blame them. If I were cooked potato I wouldn’t choose to be crushed into a mash.

I’ve also tried a potato ricer. Without doubt, the results from my ricer are THE best I’ve ever had. I treat the results with the same respect as one has for whipped egg whites. Extras are folded in gently, to preserve the lightness of the mash.  The downside to my ricer, and the reason I don’t use it often (in fact, not for years), is that it’s a bit small for potatoes, and too much of the potato pieces don’t get processed – but stay in the ricer in out of the way places.  I have since read that this is because the cheaper construction of my ricer allows potato to squeeze back past the plunger.

But this week, I saw an advert on TV for the Kenwood triblade, and it awakened my interest in mashed potatoes.  So I did some YouTube research on making mashed potatoes.

I found this video very interesting, especially the hint to overcook the potatoes for a few minutes if you intend to mash them.  That made good sense.  But my jaw dropped when the demonstrator added milk to the mash.  I couldn’t credit how much milk she added.  Well, she did say it looked like soup.  I wouldn’t go into that in a fit.

This is the demo of the Kuhn Rikon potato ricer.  From what I can see, it’s much bigger than my ricer, and would fit all the potato I would cook for myself, in the ricer at once.   In the video, it works wonderfully.  I’ve read several user reviews and one explicitly mentions that it does suffer from the problem that my ricer does.   In the past I couldn’t find a seller in Australia, but in a check tonight I’ve found several interstate online stores that sell it.  I’ll definitely try to get one, hopefully before Christmas, and will report on it in due course.

And now we come to the Kenwood triblade blender with accessories, which includes a masher.

On Monday this week I browsed at the Chadstone Shopping Centre in Melbourne, and at the David Jones store I came across the Magimix Vision toaster for A$499.   I was impressed by the look and features of the toaster, but not by the price.   Magimix released the toaster in Australia giving exclusive rights to David Jones for the first two months (August and September).   After that, the Vision toaster will be released to other retailers.   I wonder if David Jones are creaming the market while they can, by charging a very price for those who want the toaster as soon as possible.   I’ll watch with interest to see what happens to the price once the toaster is sold by other stores.   Also, will the price one day be subject to the 40% discount that David Jones and Myer offer on merchandise several times a year.

By the way, Magimix has been releasing the Vision toaster overseas only a few countries at a time, and granted similar exclusive rights for two months to one chain of stores on each country.   The current price in the UK is £160 and in the US is $250.  The Australian price is way out of proportion.  However, $499 is the RRP set by the distributor in Australia to cover shipping and freight, etc.   Maybe it’s the problem of being so far away from Europe (I gather the toaster is made in France) and having such a small population.