Sunday 14 April 2013

A week in sous-vide: regular baths!

Well then, it's been a bit of a sous-vide-tastic week all in all. In just a week and a day I've somehow managed to try out salmon fillet, skirt steak, 72-hour belly pork, rack of lamb, vegetables, duck egg -- and finally, duck breast.  Good thing I'm on a diet or who knows what else I could've done with it!

A week ago today, I'd just dropped a big chunk of belly pork into the bath, ready for Wednesday.


By Tuesday I was a bit scared -- how could 3 days of sitting in a plastic bag in warm water be good for a chunk of pig? And what if after 3 days it turned out to have been at the wrong temperature the whole time? I'd started off following a recipe for pork ribs on John Loydall's Food Blog -- so I set the bath at 61.5C. With the slow realization that my hunk of pork was quite different to ribs, I got a bit anxious - so I turned it up to 63C on Monday. Still couldn't resist looking up different instructions and recipes, so by Tuesday decided I'd better listen to the Modernist Cuisine bible and hiked it up again to 65C.  Anyway, suffice to say that by Wednesday afternoon, I was pretty convinced the reserve pork chops would be called into action for dinner!

But as luck (definitely not judgment) would have it, after 3 days at various temperatures and a swift very hot barbecuey glaze in the oven - it turned out luvverly! Unbelievably soft but not mush, with the fat completely rendered leaving flavour but no grease. Taking a leaf out of a recent visit to Momofuku in NYC, thought I'd serve it on steamed chinese buns - and just to be sure of completely obscuring all traces of nationality, we doused the lot with chimichurri sauce!
 

Anyway, now I was on a roll - the machine was finally a hit! So when my sister arrived for dinner on Friday, I thought I'd better demonstrate its powers (despite her insistence that it's a harbourer of salmonella, botulism and all other killer bugs known to man!)

Not quite confident enough to make up my own recipes just yet, thought I'd try another looker from John Loydall's blog - rack of lamb with spring veg. New technique required here - the cooking of 2 different bags of food, at different temperatures -- woooo hoo!  Anyway, all went to plan - my photo's not a patch on the original, but the lamb was another sous-vide hit. Nice and pink, tasty, fat mostly rendered in the bath, and then finished by searing on the hob. And the veg were colourful, and cooked nicely al dente as they say. Shame I forgot to reduce the red wine jus properly!


Looking for something for lunch today after a brisk walk to Blackheath farmers' market and back, I happened upon a duck egg!  Now that I've finally worked out if you fill the bath with hot water, it doesn't take half as long to reach temperature, things've got a lot quicker.  So setting the machine at 64.5C, I dropped in the egg and headed down to the gym for 30 minutes of mad pedalling -- after which right on the beep of 45 minutes, my toast popped out, all ready for its slow poached egg. The perfect post-gym lunch was had!


And finally -- having picked up a nice Fens duck breast at the market, I thought it best to have a bash at bathing that as well -- if only so I could say that in 1 week I'd tried fish, beef, lamb, pork, poultry, eggs AND veg in a bag!  This time it was all my own doing -- vac-packed in a bag with salt, pepper and a few sprigs of thyme and bathed at 57.5C for about 2 hours (well, as long as it took to clean my kitchen and make dumplings!) Once done, seared in a dry pan until the skin was lovely and crispy and served with Nathan Outlaw's fabulous wild garlic dumplings and a port and red wine "reduction" ...


So, all in all a good week of food, if I say so myself.  And now I've found another use for the bath -- couldn't resist buying beef ribs from The Ginger Pig, but no space in freezer -- so tomorrow they'll start their little bath, and continue sitting in it until I get back from Dusseldorf, ready for tea Thursday! However did I live without it for so long???

Monday 8 April 2013

Adventures in sous-vide: initiation complete!

So after a mildly successful bash at a piece of salmon, my hopes were oh so high for a big piece of  rump skirts that was to be marinated, sous-vided and seared as per my Momofuku cookbook.  [No, me neither! Many a slog up the hill to Butcher John with instructions to ask for a pound of skirts when I was a kid in Lancashire, but never heard of rump skirts -- I expect they're just southern skirts, hence the price hike].

Anyway - lump of meat was duly marinated for 24 hours in apple juice, soy sauce, onion, garlic and sesame oil - then carefully dried off in the hopes the vacuum seal would work this time. And admittedly it did suck out most of the air - but again, a drop of juice crept in and it decided to just seal.  Not sure that makes any difference really though anyway - the bag still sinks under water, and it's still sealed - so I expect that's the main thing!

Following David Chang's instructions, for who am I to demur - I left it in the machine for 45 minutes at 51C - which turned out to be the perfect interval to eat a little starter I knocked up - also from the Momofuku book - of grilled octopus salad with konbu, bamboo shoots and chilli.

And so to the results -- above, old-fashioned braise and chargrilling of octopus - and below, the "rump skirt steak" sous-vided then seared in a hot pan!
Octopus excellent - full of flavour and chewy in just the right way (though I did miss the octopus and nearly chew right through my tongue instead, leaving a big lump on the end of my tongue, and a corresponding lisp, but that's neither here nor there ... ).

Skirt steak - well, on the positive side, it was really very soft and tender.  But on the downside, it did also feel a bit like I imagine chewing a cushion might be. Something not quite right about the way it feels against the teeth ...

Of course now I have to go and buy another piece of the same steak so I can cook it from scratch in a pan, and see how different it tastes and feels. Maybe it's the skirt, not the cook!

But before I do that, more sous-vide capers already! A friend's coming for tea on Wednesday, so I've just put his belly pork in the bath. With luck, it'll be just about ready in time. Wish me luck (though I've got 2 pork chops also at the ready, "just in case!")

Saturday 6 April 2013

Adventures in sous-vide: let the experimental cooking begin!

After months of hesitation, the day finally dawned: oh yes, April 5th 2013 -  henceforth known as the day the sous-vide apparatus arrived! [Quite probably soon otherwise known as the day I stopped proudly posting photos of my tea, and started to lose a lot of weight].


A full day's work had to be done before I was allowed to dive in and rip it all out of the packaging, but I made up for that today! First move? Fitted it snugly into the sous-vide sized space that miraculously appeared in my little kitchen (friends kindly removed the last hurdle to purchasing this piece of kit, i.e. the guilt I'd've felt if I'd had to chuck out the perfectly good coffee machine that was keeping its spot warm). Look, it's all shiny!


So, setup and testing compete, onwards christian soldiers for a nice little walk up the Regent's Canal to my favourite Hackney shops - fish from Jon Norris and meat from the Ginger Pig. As usual, very restrained, hardly bought anything at all!



Alright I lied. But all I got was an octopus, a piece of salmon, a lemon sole, some pork belly, rump skirts, 2 pork chops and a couple of bits of bone marrow -- oh, and then the all important duck eggs! [No, just me, no dinner party for 12]. Truth be told, I actually spent £350 on this fabulous boil in the bag machine just so I can make slow-poached duck eggs every day! I'm not that bothered about all the other fine things it can do!  Still, now I've got it, might as well try cooking everything in it, non??


Ah. So photos of stuff cooking in the water bath are perhaps not the most exciting shots. Maybe I won't do any more of them. Sorry.

So with duck eggs poached for 45 mins at 64.5C, a piece of (now brined) salmon took pride of place in the bath - well, it did once I worked out that to drop the temperature to 52C, adding cold water would be quicker than just giving the temp gauge a hard stare.  Also, the salmon wasn't exactly vacuum packed: stupid olive oil shot out the bag into the stupid machine apparently telling it to just seal - no vacuum. Ah well, live n learn.

Next battle? Well, extracting egg from shell is not the easiest trick in the book -- fortunately I forgot to photograph the ones I completely mashed, and only seem to have a pic of the one that went nearly to plan. 

So, without further ado - the big reveal: slow poached duck egg and sous-vide salmon on buttered asparagus (that I forgot to griddle) and potato rosti.


And the verdict? Duck egg, oh so good! Salmon - alright. But quicker, crispier, easier and tastier cooked in a pan.  Will I do it again? Hmm. Not sure. Maybe but I'll sear it afterwards I think!

Still, not to worry - for tomorrow I shall mostly be watching my marinated rump skirts sit in the bath for about 10 hours.  I may photograph it every hour. Watch this space (or don't!)