Tag Archives: Sous vide

Gifts for your favorite cook

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Even though this seems to come at Christmas, it’s really useful for other occasions, too; like birthdays, or just to pamper yourself type occasion.

Some of my favorite comestibles here. Most of the websites mentioned have gifts or starters kits available. Add something new to your kitchen–there are so many things we don’t see in the supermarket are worth adding to your pantry.

  • Salt: . Seriously, yes, salt! Kosher salt is fine for the basics; however, salt is not salt is not salt. Salted: A Manifesto is a treatise that will introduce you to the world of salt outside the Diamond Crystal or Morton box (available hardbound or Kindle editions). Finishing salt as a final touch is awesome. It’s like that final drizzle of extra virgin olive oil or that treasured balsamic vinegar to put the final touch on a meal. The Meadow is a great website (or store if you’re in the right areas) for salts.
  • Lentils: Lentils go far beyond the plastic bags that you see in the supermarket. If these pulses haven’t found their way into your kitchen, start here for information on different kinds. There are many colors, sizes, textures and flavors. My personal favorite for my kitchen are the French green from Bob’s Red Mill, but you can also get red and brown lentils there too; even Amazon.com has several varieties. For a visual surprise try some black (aka beluga) lentils for salads.
  • Potatoes: A vegetable that we often take for granted, but there are so many other varieties that don’t appear in the supermarket; they do have different flavors. So try some; yes, there is a potato of the month club. Here are so of the varieties of potatoes that you certainly won’t find in the supermarket.
  • Heirloom beans: Just like potatoes, we’re missing some good ones with the typical supermarket supply. Even the garbanzo (chickpea) has some surprises for us. The bean has made it into the gourmet food list. Rancho Gordo, Elegant Beans, and North Bay Trading Company have a variety of beans that many of us had never heard of. There is a bean club with quarterly shipments if you want to keep your kitchen supplied.
  • Extra virgin olive oil: It’s always good to have variety here and a source that is reliable given how much “fake” or adulterated is on the market. Just a drizzle of a great oil can add a lot of a simple dish. My favorite local (does online orders, too) is Bull City Olive Oil–definitely one that keeps appearing here as a source for infused/fused oils, and vinegars (balsamic, sherry for example). Try a vinaigrette with lavender balsamic vinegar and herbs de Provence infused oil. Or go totally decadent with some truffle oil (black or white to drizzle (lightly) on a baked potato–add a glass of champagne, too.

Other suggestions based on the latest additions and most used things in my kitchen:

  • Instant Pot: It took me a while to get on the bandwagon for this kitchen appliance but it now has permanent place on my kitchen counter–especially for cooking beans without all the planning you’re used to if you don’t have an Instant Pot (or other pressure cooker). Though this recipe lists common supermarket varieties, it works just as well with the heirloom varieties. Not to denigrate canned beans since I do keep some on my pantry shelf, with the Instant Pot there are so many more to experience. However, beans are not the only reason to give this appliance kitchen counter space–it performs other functions as well–yogurt, sterilizing, rice cooking and slow cooking to mention just a few. It’s also wonderful to have those steel-cut oats ready for you when breakfast time arrives–no morning fumbles and long cooking time.
  • Instant Pot accessories: Since I do a lot of cooking for one with my Instant Pot I have found the “pot-in-pot” technique (also here and here) wonderful for small or even single servings or for several things at one time. Some of the “accessories” that I’ve found particularly useful for this can be found at ekovana, life without plastic, and of course, Amazon.com. I also use Pyrex bowls, but not plastic. For covers when cooking this way (to avoid extra water in the bowl) silicone lids (oven-safe) work well.
  • Sous vide circulator: Another fine way to enhance your cooking is to add sous vide or precision cooking to your methods. It’s my most recent addition but I’ll be quick to point out that it’s not displaced my Instant Pot by any means. I finally decided on Joule from ChefSteps but the Anova was a consideration too. This is really a different way of cooking. The results are fantastic, but it’s not going to replace the slow oven braised stew, baked garbanzos, or lamb stew, made in a cast iron dutch oven or a clay cooker (Romertopf) but it’s a method that’s going to stay in my kitchen. The low temperatures make it possible to use infused oils to flavor proteins–e.g. mushroom and sage to flavor chicken, Chilean sea bass with fennel oil, or salmon with fernleaf dill oil. For review of Joule see here.
  • Sous vide accessories: Even cooking for one sous vide is a great addition to the kitchen. Once you start this precision cooking process you’ll find that a craving for accessories develops. While I’ve used my dutch oven, or the inner container of my Instant Pot for containers for sous vide cooks, I think that I’ll have to make room for a different kind of container dedicated to sous vide for several reasons: for long cook times, it’s unhandy to have your dutch oven occupied that way if you want to do some unplanned braising. For long cook times (e.g. short ribs) the bath needs to be covered to prevent evaporation and plastic wrap is really klutzy. Finally, I want a rack to wrangle multiple bags in the same container that wouldn’t fit in my existing pots and pans. I’ve been using Ziploc freezer bags. I’m considering reusable vacuum bags but more research is needed.
  • Already got the sous vide circulator? Add a cookbook to get started with it.

So add some spice to your life and your kitchen! A son gôut!

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Disclaimer:

Brands mentioned here are my personal preferences. I receive no remuneration or consideration for mentioning them. I’m sure there are other equally good sources or brands but these happen to be the ones I use.

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Monkfish (real) sous vide

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Sous vide cooking has intrigued me for quite some time–so much that I had to do some trials to see if I really wanted to purchase a special appliance for it. One of my early experiments was with monkfish and then Chilean sea bass. Well I’ve finally purchased a thermal circulator–made the leap to real sous vide equipment. I’ve already cooked several things with the real equipment: short ribs, lentils, and some vegetables.

While I was skulking through my local Harris Teeter supermarket yesterday, I made my usual swing past the meat and seafood cases, and there was monkfish. It somehow seemed appropriate that I try it again with the “real” equipment. So I blew my budget on a lovely filet of monkfish. The butcher (or perhaps in this instance he should be fishmonger) removed the membranes so that I don’t even have to do that!

monkfish fillets

While searching for recipes, I found a wide range of temperatures recommended: from 113°F to 144°F (140°F was what I had used in my first trial). After reviewing the post from Stefan’s Gourmet Blog again since there were descriptions of texture for different temperatures. I love sashimi, but I wanted cooked fish here so after perusing other recipes, I decided to go with 132°F–tender and flaky. This is a lower temperature than what I used with my earlier monkfish (which was wonderful). The filet that I had was really more like two servings, so I cut it in half and I’ll see how it reheats for the second serving. (For single-serving cooking it would be wonderful to be able to reheat something like this.)

I read in several places that the tail fillets are the only edible part of this fish; however, online see that it is possible to purchase monkfish cheeks, apparently from larger fish. I’ve eaten cod tongues, and cheeks.

I dry-brined for 30 minutes, and then cooked for 37 minutes with just the salt and some extra virgin olive oil. The result was even better than my first try at the higher temperature. I didn’t try to finish by searing, just added a brown butter sauce with some lemon zest and juice. The taste and texture were wonderful! Next time, although the fish was opaque and just starting to flake, I think I’ll try just a degree or two higher for the next cook–e.g. 133 or 134°F as I’d like the fish to be just a little flakier than this was.

it is not a pretty fish, but so tasty–the poor man’s lobster

Not pretty, but certainly tasty and one of my favorite fish. This precision control of the temperature has lots of possibilities–a son gôut!

I’ll be reporting on how the other half of the filet tasted after cooling and reheating (although reheated fish usually just, despite my best intentions, is headed for the garbage despite the waste.

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Short ribs two ways!

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It took me a while to join the Instant Pot (IP) cult, but I finally did and I’m glad that I did–I love my IP. Now I’ve added a new gadget to the kitchen: a sous vide immersion circulator.

I had tried some “jury rigged” sous vide (here and here) so I was sure it was a way of cooking I was interested in pursuing.

The Joule, from ChefSteps now has a place in my kitchen. We all also know that you can’t have a new kitchen toy without playing. So I had to decide what to cook first.

When I got my IP one of the first recommendations for something to cook was boneless beef short ribs. I’ve done short ribs as a braise in the oven (love them, but it’s a wintertime thing–not for summer when the A/C is working hard to fight the heat and humidity. As I was browsing amongst the cookbooks on sous vide I found a recommendation of something to try with sous vide. Yep, short ribs. There was even a recipe for them in the app on my smartphone (which you need to operate the Joule). An absolute no-brainer–short ribs by sous vide.

After reading the descriptions of sous vide meat, the scientist in me just had to do a little study of my own. I’ve really enjoyed short ribs out of my IP. Certainly they were not the same as the long oven braise that I would do in the wintertime, but for hands-off cooking and summertime, they are great. It seemed logical that I should cook something using my new sous vide that I knew so I could really get a feel for what sous vide really does. So, a little experimental design here.

I got a package of four very homogeneous-appearing boneless beef short ribs. Two of those went into the IP, and two into the sous vide according to the recipe on my smartphone. I seasoned both the same: garlic powder, onion powder, and salt then set to cooking.

The Joule app gave me a choice of cooking temperatures for ribs: 156°F, 167°F, and 176°F, with 167°F marked as the “fave”. Since I thought a good deal of experimentation had probably gone into those recommendation, I opted for the middle one for the recommended time of 24 hours. (Yes, really.) The other two went into the IP for 90 minutes that I’d previously used to get nice tender short ribs. (I’d tried less time, higher pressure but didn’t get the result I wanted. Less and there was just a bit too much chew to the meat.)

When the short ribs in the IP were cooked, I cooled them quickly, put them into a freezer bag and refrigerated them. (The freezer bag was because the sous vide ones and my IP ones would be reheated in the water bath.) At the end of the 24 hours, I chilled the sous vide ribs and refrigerated them too.

Instant Pot (left) and sous vide (right))

For the taste test, reheated both batches in the sous vide water bath at 140°F for 35 minutes and plopped them onto a plate and dug side by side and dug in. Was there a difference? Yes there was.

After all the descriptions of meat cooked sous vide I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. The seasoning on them was just about the same so they were beefy, onion-y, and garlicky. The appearance was slightly different: the IP ribs were a bit darker. Both were very tender, but the “mouth feel” of the sous vide ribs was much moister than those from the IP.

I really like the sous vide ribs! Am I going to give up cooking them in the IP? Not likely since it’s also hands off, but it’s quick. Will cook more ribs using sous vide? You bet! I’ll certainly want to try some different temperatures, though. I perusing the Sous Vide for Everybody* cookbook from America’s Test Kitchen I found that their suggestion of time an temperature for braised short ribs was 160°F for 20 to 24 hours.

When thinking about sous vide you have to remember we’re talking precision cooking here–not hit or miss, or close. So it’s likely to take a bit to get the feel for just how I like things cooked using sous vide, but it should be an exciting journey.

A son gôut!

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*Note: If you’re skulking on Amazon for sous vide cookbooks, be sure to look carefully at the author or editors. There is another with the exact title except that it has 2019 appended.

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Holiday gift shopping

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book

for the wine lover

Do you have someone for whom you can’t decide on a gift for this holiday season?   With exception of the last item on the list, these are all products that I use and admittedly, they reflect my personal preferences.  I have no affiliate connection with any of these; I receive no consideration or remuneration for promotion.

With that said, here are a few suggestions:

  • For the wine lover you know who would like to get off the beaten track and find uncommon grapes and explore obscure wines Godforsaked Grapes by Jason Wilson is a delightful, slightly irreverent when it comes to the mainstream wines that we hear so much about. It’s a delightful, easy to read book.  Available in Kindle, hardcover, paperback, or audio.
  • For the working person who would like hands-off cooking or rapid meals after work, you could go for an Instant Pot.  The different functions can replace lots of other small appliances that might be already in the kitchen.   It’s not going to replace the dutch oven, but it does a lot of things.  Here’s information on what is available.  You can find them at a number of specialty stores like Williams-Sonoma
  • of if there is already an Instant Pot in that kitchen, how about some cookbooks to help really getting into using it.?
  • If you know someone who loves good olive oils, Bull City Olive Oil has a great selection of fused, infused, and ultra premium extra virgin oils, as well as flavored balsamic vinegars.  For some heat and green chili flavor, the Baklouti green chili fused oil is fantastic.  Or blackberry-ginger dark balsamic is wonderful with seared duck breasts.  Salad lover?  Well, to make a salad special the herbs de Provence infused olive oil with lavender balsamic vinegar can make an outstanding vinaigrette dressing.  There is also sherry vinegar and roasted sesame oil that nothing like what you’ll find on the grocery store shelves. Then, there is truffle oil too.
  • For some kitchen basics, consider some traditional cast iron.  Lodge is a brand that you can probably even find at your local hardware store.  Once cured or seasoned, it can be used on the stovetop or in the oven.  For a perfectly seared steak, cast iron is a must; it allows stovetop searing and then finishing in the oven for perfectly cooked steak.  A 6.5-inch skillet is great for roasting spices, and for cooking one or two eggs in the flavorful olive oil without using a lot of oil.
  • The adventurous cook will always love trying new herbs and spices.  Penzys has a great selection and you can get small jars (1/4 cup) which are wonderful if you’re cooking for one.  Pick one of the selections of gift boxes, or make up your own.
  • Give some relaxation with a selection of tea or tisanes from Harney and Sons.  You’ll find a wide selection of black and green teas, as well as fruit and herbals infusions.  Wu Li Quing green is lovely. Peach and the mango fruit tea are warm and cozy, or great iced in hot weather.  Ginger licorice herbal is a favorite of mine.
  • How about some chocolate?  Chuao Chocolate is my go-to for me and for gifts.  There are bars (Honeycomb and Spicy Maya are favorites).  Or check out the organic lavender blueberry,  hibiscus rose combinations.
  • To give a vicarious trip around the world, a subscription to Milk Street magazine (digital or print) will provide you with recipes with a definite 0mandarin-mninternational flair but adapted for the American kitchen.  I still love Cook’s Illustrated and Cook’s Country, but Milk Street has become my new favorite because of the variety.
  • For someone who loves citrus fruit, Mixon Fruit Farms provides the best grapefruit (either red or white), mandarin oranges, tangerines, and a variety of oranges from Florida.  Absolutely luscious!
  • Last but not least, if you’ve been hearing about sous vide cooking consider one of the immersion heaters from Joule or Anova.  (Sorry, no recommendations from personal experience (yet) but here’s a review from Epicurious).  I noticed that Instant Pot also has a sous vide circulator that I think I would consider after reading the review.  I’ve not finished research on these but I’m hoping that the cat will give me one for my holiday gift.  I’ve tried some jury-rigged sous vide cooking including the beer cooler method and I really do like the results.

 

instant pot
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A son gôut!

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Tuna, lovely tuna!

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Tuna_20170709_140604

those lovely tuna medallions

Wow! While skulking through Harris Teeter supermarket I noticed that they had beautiful tuna “medallions” for only $6.99 per pound.  The chunks are not a problem for me since if it were steaks I’d need to cut them up anyway. The main thing is the quality and the price. It’s time replenish my supply of tuna confit.

Since my last post on tuna confit, the recipe from that post, which was from Fine Cooking, I’ve been perusing sous vide recipes and have come up with some modifications for the seasonings, and the method. I’m using the method from ChefSteps this time around (with a little modification of seasoning and cooking time and temperature). One modification was to infuse the oil with some additional herbs suggested in other recipes, and then straining/filtering the oil before packing the confit (in Mason jars).

Tuna Confit (2017)

Ingredients

  • tuna (about 2 pounds)
  • salt and sugar (4:1 ratio) for the dry cure/dry brine
  • extra virgin olive oil, about 4 cups (enough to cover) the tuna

Infused oil ingredients

  • extra virgin olive oil (about 4 cups)
  • Turkish bay leaves (2 or 3 depending on size)
  • sprig of thyme
  • sprig of rosemary
  • smashed garlic cloves (about 3)
  • black peppercorns (about 2 teaspoons)
  • red pepper flakes (just a dash)
  • zest of one lemon (removed with a vegetable peeler)

Preparation

  • Infused oil:
    • Place the oil in a slow cooker or multifunction pot on the warm setting and add all seasonings.
    • Allow oil to infuse for several hours (a temperature of about 150°F) then cool the oil to room temperature.
  • Tuna:
    • dry cure/dry brine the tuna for about 30 minutes then rinse, transfer to plate and let it dry.
    • put the tuna into 500  mL jars, pouring oil around each piece, adding enough to cover the tuna in the jar
    • cook in a multifunction pot on the warm setting for two hours
    • cool tuna and refrigerate

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When I tasted the oil, the flavors were a bit strong so I diluted it with an additional cup of extra virgin olive oil before using it to pack the tuna. Since the oil had lemon zest added during the infusion–I didn’t add lemon zest to the cans as the ChefSteps recipe had suggested. I think that would have been just too much lemon for even me–and I do like lemon!

My “medallions” were a just little thicker than the usual tuna steak so I allowed them just a bit of extra time with the dry cure (about 45 minutes) before rinsing and allowing them to air dry. There was a big difference in the firmness after that short period of dry cure.

After rinsing and patting dry with paper towels, I left them sitting on parchment paper for about 30 minutes to air dry, turning them over just once, then packing them in 500 mL Ball/Mason jars, adding oil to the bottom of the jar, and then after each piece of tuna

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The ChefSteps recipe suggested cooking the tuna at 113°F  for 1 hour and 30 minutes. My experience has been that, even though I love sashimi, I like my cooked fish cooked just a bit more. Part of the reason for making confit is not to eat it immediately but to be able to keep it longer as my replacement for “canned tuna”–so I’ve opted for a higher temperature–actually a lot higher temperature–more in keeping with the original recipe.

The jars of tuna in olive oil were put into the slow cooker on the warm setting which should give me about 160°F. I know that’s not going to be as lush and velvety as if it were cooked at a lower temperature. But preservation is part of the objective here (I mean, that was certainly the original goal of confit). I want this to last (in the fridge) for a bit.

Jar size was a bit of a problem–three of the medallions were simply too large to be sure that they would remain submerged under the oil, even allowing for shrinkage with cooking. Since the jars were going to be sealed, I didn’t want to take the chance of having to open them to add more oil. So–extra room in the jar with only two medallions in each.

No matter how this turns out it will be hands down better than most canned tuna (unless you spring for the really expensive stuff) and a lot easier than doing it on the stovetop or even in the oven.

 

Dry_cure_20170709_141321

dry curing

post_dry _cure_20170709_145716

air drying after curing

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starting with oil in the jar

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add tuna

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leaving some headroom in the jars

cooked_20170709_183505

it’s tuna confit!

 

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Monkfish sous vide

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I’ve been thinking about sous vide cooking, reading about it, and I’m finally going to try it, especially since it CAN be done without any fancy equipment–except a beer cooler. That I can handle–in fact, I already have one–I just had not thought of it as a kitchen appliance.

I’ve been wanting to try sous vide cooking, especially reading about it Stefan’s Gourmet Blog posts. Being somewhat budget conscious, I’ve explored alternatives to the water ovens and circulators usually used in sous-vide cooking. I’ve looked at articles on how to turn your slow cooker into a sous-vide machine and discovered that requires some additional equipment and “hacking” to work; that’s also not for me.

There seem to be a lot of reasons for using this technique, not the least of which is to avoid heating up the kitchen and overworking the A/C! There’s also the appeal of the evenness of cooking and not being able to overcook unless you give a lot of attention to the actual cooking. All those advantages and some alternatives to expensive equipment or ones that require engineering know-how at least let me try it. One alternative I discovered was a big pot of water, low oven temperature–not an option in summer for me.  I found references on adding external temperature controls to rice cookers and multifunction pots, using the oven, and, of course, lots of ads for sous vide tools.

So what has precipitated this sudden fit of actually doing it? It’s the hot, muggy, humid, steamy weather we have here in the summer and the fact that I’m a serious fresh-air freak. If it’s at all possible I’ll have the doors and windows open–Frankie especially appreciates this. I want to cook without having all the extra heat–so I’m exploring all possible alternatives, including adapting recipes that normally involve using the oven for the slow cooker–looking for ways to beat the heat.

Krups rice cooker IMG_3796

For food safety temperature is important so I looked at lots of articles giving temperatures for various meats and fish, including on that considered using the keep-warm function on the rice cooker or multifunction pot. Next to the beer cooler method this looked like a possible one for me since I do own a Krups multifunction pot. To check that out I filled the pot with and checked the temperature on the slow-cooking setting–the temperature held at 185 ºF which looks as if it might work for some veggies and, perhaps, for tough cuts of meat. Switching to the keep-warm function and doing a temperature check two hours after I had switched to keep-warm function–but the water started at 185 ºF and I had absolutely no information on what the rate of cooling in the closed multifunction pot was. So–more data, please! I started with water at 110 ºF on keep-warm setting to see what happened. What happened was 165ºF.

So the multifunction pot (Krups) is out for just using the warm function, but I’ve discovered that if the pot is hot and then turned off, it hold a steady temperature for about two hours. Since I’m only doing sous vide for one and quick things, I don’t need a huge pot. This is going to take a bit more tending, but it would certainly be easier for quick things than a beer cooler (my laziness is showing, I know).

Searching for the best temperature to use for monkfish sous-vide produced an interesting array of suggestion. Always preferring data, I was glad to see Monkfish sous vide temperature experiment which tested throughout the range of temperatures that I found and gave a description of the fish texture at each.

From ChefSteps I also found the following temperature guide for fish and from Amazing Food Made easy temperatures and times in the range of 10 to 30 minutes:

  • Tender  40ºC/104ºF
  • Tender and flaky 50ºC/122ºF
  • Well done 60ºC/140ºF

For my monkfish, I think tender and flaky is a good option; for tuna, I might go for just tender–or even rare, depending on the grade. Now for time specifically for monkfish to be medium the general consensus seemed to be “medium” at 140ºF for 10 to 30 minutes. Since my tap water is at 140ºF with the beer cooler I should be good to go–though it seems strange to not have to be concerned about time but since it won’t go above the water temperature anything in that range should work.

For seasoning? Well, simple seemed good for my first try so I went with salt, freshly ground black pepper, and butter. I used the rice-cooking mode to bring the water up to 140ºF, put the monkfish in, closed the lid and crossed my fingers. It just seems too simple even though I’ve cooked other things by putting them in liquid and then turning off the heat and letting the residual do the cooking.

The results? The best monkfish I’ve ever eaten. Okay, so I’ve not had anyone else’s monkfish cooked sous vide, but it’s the best monkfish I’ve ever cooked. I cooked it at 140ºF for 30 minutes. Temperature check at the end of the cooking was still at 140ºF. The fish was tender and just starting to flake. I’m still trying to find some adjectives for it. If i have to pick one I think it will be just plain luscious!

Now that I’ve done all the temperature experiments on the Krups multifunction cooker (in slow-cooking mode and keep-warm mode), and on how it holds temperature, I see more sous vide in my future.

Related links: