sous vide escapes, vol. 2: duck breast

I have never cooked duck before. Finally tried it--duck breast. This seemed like a natural fit for sous vide.

The recipe came direct from Chefsteps and I did not vary it in any way.

There was a slightly elaborate preparation ritual that took place.

Score the skin.
Heat iron skillet, no oil.
Sear, skin side down, for three minutes.
Add garlic and thyme to iron skillet.
Sear, breast side, one minute.

Put duck and thyme and garlic into sous vide bag.
Cook at 136 degrees for about an hour (whatever the recipe says)

Reserve duck fat from pan.
Heat iron skillet. Very hot.
Sear, skin side down, for two minutes to three minutes, until brown and crispy.

It worked like a charm. I could have cooked at a lower temperature. The re-sear will cook the duck a hair more. But quite tasty.

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

Spicy Tarts (Cardamom, Cinnamon Cognac Cherries)

So here's the recipe for the Spicy Tart

1 1/4 cup water
scant 1 cup sugar
(this sugar water hits the spot. A 1 to 1 ratio is too dense. This ratio produced a beautiful syrup, but my guess is that an even thinner syrup will do just as well)

Dissolve sugar in water. Add:

2 cinnamon sticks
5 green cardamom pods
3 cloves

bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer. Simmer for 5 minutes.

Then, add

1/2 cup cognac (and a little more cognac...)

Stir in, turn off heat, let cool.

Prepare eight four ounce jars with dried tart cherries, leaving room for the cognac mixture. Then, pour into the jars.

UPDATE

New recipe features heavy use of spices.

  2 cinnamon sticks
12 green cardamom pods
  8 cloves

Will check back and see, but I think I nailed this one.

Cocktail cherries

Here's a new recipe for quick cherries for cocktails.

1 cup sugar
1 cup water
(bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer)
add 2 cinnamon sticks and a few cloves (six, about, depending on size and strength).
Simmer 5 minutes
Add
1/2 cup Cognac

Pour over dried cherries, cap, let cool, then refrigerate.

I filled one pint jar and two half-pint jars with cherries. Lots of cherries.

It is not overly spiced. I did not have cardamom pods, so I obviously couldn't include them. I did have star anise, but didn't want to go that heavy. Cinnamon and cloves seemed enough.

Ramen ... for once

Small confession: I've never had good ramen. I know there are hip eateries entirely devoted to the noodles, and people who have had the real deal in Japan swear by it. The only place I've had that approximates good ramen is a noodle shop in Manhattan, near Columbia University. I have no idea if that was good ramen or not.

My daughter is a Japanese food nut, and she wants ramen. She announced this half way through a food supply run and it forced me to change up my game a little. Find the ingredients and give it a shot. So I scared up a few recipes, made some adjustments, and then put this out there:

STEP 1: THE PROTEIN

I fried up some boneless/skinless chicken breasts in butter in a cast-iron skillet, and finished them in the oven. They had a nice crust.

I boiled some water and then soft boiled three eggs. the technique was to reduce the boil to a simmer and cook the eggs for 6 minutes, then give them an ice water bath and a manicure. My daughter peeled the eggs. She's better at it than I am.

STEP 2: THE BROTH

the base

2 tsp minced ginger
3 tsp minced garlic
2 tsp sesame seed oil

(fry up garlic and ginger in oil in heavy bottoomed sauce/frying pan), about one minute, then add:

3 tbsp soy sauce (low sodium, as it happens)
2 tbsp mirin

(The broth is too salty, so I recommend reducing the soy-mirin base and increasing the garlic-ginger base.)
(update: reduced the soy-mirin base by 1/2 and doubled garlic and ginger. Much better broth!)

(let flavors meld, then add:)

3 1/2 cups chicken broth (homemade, which is why it wasn't 4)
1/2 cup water
Shitake mushrooms

This is our broth.

I served it over fresh noodles that were a little more like Udon or Soba than Ramen, or so I'm told. I like the noodles, but my wife and chil do not, so I will have to try different ones.

Garnished with scallions.

Tonic Water #8

This is a lemongrass tonic water--no real difference from earlier ones, except I am trying to be more precise in my measurements. And the Lemongrass came from my daughter's school.

4 cups water (plus 1/4 cup excess)
1/4 cup cinchona bark (1.4 oz. cut bark, fairly large grain)
1/4 cup citric acid
1 tsp salt (kosher)

45 minutes simmer.
cut heat.
break lemongrass. 4 stalks. Add. Steep for 2 hours. Stir.

Refrigerate for 2 days.

Cognac Cherries

Cherry season is upon us. Because the window is so limited, I almost always miss out on the ability to turn fresh cherries into cocktail components. But not this year.

I looked up a variety of recipes and found an unremarkable amount of consistency in proportions. In the end, I followed this formula:

for a quart of cherries

1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1/2 cup cognac
2 cloves
1 cinnamon stick
8 cardamom pods

Pitting the cherries was tedious, but not overly so. I found that a paperclip did the job well.

I heated the water and sugar, added the spices, and let it come to a simmer. Once the sugar was dissolved, I let the mixture simmer for about five minutes, turned off the heat, then added the cognac. Then I poured the mixture over the cherries. Then I put them in small jars, lidded them, and put them in the fridge. We'll see how they turn out!

Tilapia Tacos

on a whim, I decided to turn salmon-and-sushi-rice night into tilapia-taco night. The impetus was the trip to the fish counter and its disappointing salmon offerings, but also my daughter's admonition that my meals are becoming boring. The tilapia looked good, so I bought it.

I could not find a suitable recipe for tilapia in tacos. Bittman was uncharacteristically silent. Rick Bayless's cookbook was empty. I could not score an internet recipe without some ad company trying to take over my web browser. So I ditched it all and made up my own recipe.

For the marinade:

2 1/2 tbsp lime juice
zest of 2 limes
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
1 tsp. ancho chili powder
1 tsp. cumin
1/4 cup olive oil
cracked black-green-white-pink peppercorns
WHISK until smooth

I marinated the tilapia in a bowl for about thirty minutes while preparing the rest of the meal, which involves:

heating tortillas (from freaking Sonoita!) in the oven.
dicing green onions
dicing radishes (alas, I didn't actually do this, and it was the one thing missing!)
making fresh pico de gallo (I bought it fresh at Kroger--not bad!)

Remove tilapia from marinade, season with salt, dredge with flour, shaking off the excess.

Pan fry in 1 TBSP of olive oil--enough to cover the bottom of the frying pan and leave about 1/8 of an inch in the pan. The oil must be hot but not super hot--I heated it at 7 on the dial until it was shimmering. I did not have to reduce the heat during cooking, but I did have to add some oil for the second batch.

cook, 4 minutes per side.

Good and filling. Served with Ottolenghi green beans with hazlenuts.