sous vide escapades, vol. 1: poached eggs

My wife is skeptical of my sous vide stick. Perhaps not for the normal reasons (cooking in plastic? heating water?) but because it strikes her as grossly redundant. You want vegetables? Broil or saute them. You want beets? Boil them? Perfect steak? Warm the meet and then use your big green egg to work its magic.

It did not help that my first forays into sous vide land were utter disasters. I tried Broccoli, which would not sink. The result was mushy and tasteless. I cooked it too long. The beets I did not cook long enough. The asparagus turned out quite well. It was well cooked but retained some crunch. I finished it in oil flavored with lemon zest, salt, pepper, and garlic.

She was not impressed. It was missing the charred flavor that comes with broiling with olive oil and salt and pepper. "Well," I said, "you can always finish it in the pan to char it." But by then I had lost the argument--if you are going to finish with heat, why not start with it?

So today I tried eggs. This was roundly ridiculed. You need a $200 sous vide stick to boil an egg? Not boil--poach. I have tried and never succeeded at poaching eggs on the stove top. Now I had a chance to try something new.

I used the Chefsteps Sous Vide recipe, which was

147.1 degrees for 1 hour.
Dunk the eggs in cold water for a minute or two
crack them over a spoon on a plate, in order to separate the unset whites from the set whites.

The eggs slipped right out of the spoon. They picked up easily and could be served without a problem. They were also delicious and beautiful. Just like actual poached eggs.

It would be nice if the whites were a little more set--I felt like I lost a lot of the egg. There is a shorter cook time at higher heat that is supposed to achieve this:

167 degrees for 15 minutes.

I cooked a mess of eggs and left several in their shells in the fridge. I want to try them cold, and reheated, just to see if they work out either way.

Reheating should occur at:

140 degrees for 15 minutes to one hour.

So, eggs are my first big success. Next comes duck, so let's hope that one goes in the win column.

UPDATE:

Reheated the eggs and it worked just fine.

weekday salmon

perfected the weekday salmon recipe

one salmon side, skin on, 1 to 1.2 pounds. Cut into three fillets.
Salt, pepper, and lemon juice to taste.

(prepare sides while rice in cooker is ... cooking)

Prepare iron skillet at high heat. Pour in olive oil. Just enough to coat the pan.
Put salmon fillet side down into skillet. cook 1 and 1/2 minutes.
Flip fillets. Cook for 1 and 1/2 minutes
Add a half tablespoon of butter. Cook for 3 minutes.

If adjusting time, keep in mind that the butter will smoke, so only add it for the last three minutes, at the most.

Remove the salmon to a plate with a paper towel. Prepare plates and serve.

Thick salmon pieces will be medium rare, thin ones will be medium to medium well if cooked to these specs. You can always pull the thin end of the salmon off early.

Max Eastman Flip

Max Eastman Flip

1 oz. bourbon
3/4 ounce vermouth
3/4 ounce half and half
1/4 ounce sugar syrup
1 egg yolk.

shake stoutly. with ice. serve up in a champagne coupe and sprinkle with nutmeg.

A nice holiday drink. I used sugar syrup from my cocktail cherries, so it was a little cognac tinged.

Derived from the New York Flip recipe:

1 oz. bourbon
3/4 ounce tawny port
3/4 ounce cream
1/4 ounce sugar syrup
1 egg yolk