So, sous-vide cooking is basically vacuum sealing food, and then cooking it in a controlled, relatively low-temperature water bath. What this lets you do is to get food to exactly the right temperature, no matter how long it cooks. You can also seal in other ingredients to add flavor to the cooking process.
I buy a decent amount of frozen fish, and a lot of is is packaged in individually sealed, packages. Normally, I take it out, and then steam, bake, sautee, or do whatever to the fish, and it turns out alright. But, the other day, I took a look at the packaging and just thought, "boy, this is like they're taking the work out of sous-vide cooking."
This ended up being the easiest thing in the world. I filled a 2 qt. sauce pot halfway with water. Put it on my burner at high for a couple minutes, covered. Basically, as the water was getting hot (not to a boil, maybe to 180F), I put in the fish, still in the vacuum package. I assumed that the water dropped in temperature, maybe down to 150F, and I wanted to keep the water at that temperature. So, I put the burner to "warm," and then put the cover on the pot. A few minutes later, you see the fish turn opaque, and you're good to go.
Of course, you'll need to season the fish again, but I find that a simple seasoning (just salt and pepper, or maybe some soy sauce and ginger) works great. The fish is incredibly tender, and still has a great flavor to it.
I'd recommend using fish that are a little fatty (I've used halibut and flounder fillets, both of which were great). They tried to sous-vide salmon on Top Chef, which was disastrous, so I'll probably avoid that. But at some point, I'll give this technique a shot for whatever fish that I can find at the store, and see what works. I'm guessing that tilapia and other lean fish won't be so hot, but you never know.
Anyway, it's about to be grilling season, so I'll probably be moving away from this sous-vide thing for a while :-)
-foodgeek
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Kitchen Happenings: Showing Some Skin
What's interesting is that a lot of folks avoid eating the skin on meat (think salmon or chicken). Salmon skin is absolutely awesome, as is chicken skin, if you get it to crisp up properly. Sushi restaurants make salmon skin rolls, and if done well, they are coveted by folks in the know. When I get the chance, I do my salmon and chicken skins in a pan. You want to season the skin, and cook it in a non-stick pan over medium heat. Some weights over the skins will keep them from curling, and make sure that they cook up evenly. You get this great, crispy skin that's got a great meat flavor. But what I'm writing about is a little different. Today, we're talking pig.
So I was wandering around the grocery store the other day, and I took a peek into the part of the store that contained the smoked animal parts. There was the usual assortment of smoked turkey wings and necks, smoked hog jowls and ham hocks, and all the like. I came across something that I hadn't seen before: smoked bacon skins. Basically, bacon is the pork belly. Whatever fat and meat that they can trim off can get sold at a decent price. The skin? Not so much. But I took one look, and realized that I had just hit the jackpot.
When you roast a pig, one of the best things to do is to take off a little bit of that crispy skin (some folks call them cracklin's), add a little hot sauce, and crunch away. These are like pork rinds you get in the store, only they're awesome, and not Styrofoam. You get a great solid crunch, a meaty flavor, and something that a lot of folks don't ever get to experience.
Now, one of the hard parts is to get the skin crispy , when there's a layer of fat attached to it. The outside dries out and crisps up, but the inside is still being basted by the fat that's melting. So, the skin just burns, before it can crisp. Now, if you can strip off the skin, you can get it to crisp up pretty easily, either in a pan or in the oven. But this is hard to do and sort of messy.
But, if it's already cleaned off for you, you can make cracklin's very easily. And since the bacon skin is smoked, you get a little extra flavor in there. One thing to note is that the skins will curl up on you, resulting in uneven cooking. To quote Alton Brown, "that is NOT good eats." You can either weight down the skins, but I don't have the hardware for that. Instead, I took a number of metal skewers, and wove them through the skin so that the skins would stay flat, with about 1.5" intervals. I put the skins onto a metal cooling rack, over a baking pan. The fat melts onto the bottom of the pan (which you can collect for other purposes, if you like), and the skins just crisp up. If there's still some fat left on the skin, so ahead and score the fat (cross-hatching, lik you would a duck breast). This will let the fat melt out a little more easily.
All of this goes into the oven (250F), until you see the skin start to get golden-brown. I start with the fat-side down, so that the fat melts out. Then, I flip everything, and let it keep baking. I'm guessing that you can go a little higher than 250F, but you want to make sure that the cracklin's don't burn. As I removed the metal skewers, the cracklin's broke into nice-sized pieces. After the cracklin's are ready, you can add a little salt (and whatever other dry spices you like). Splash some hot sauce on the cracklin's and much away.
Be careful. These things are addicting. And I'm guessing that they're not particularly good for you. But boy, they're tasty.
-foodgeek
So I was wandering around the grocery store the other day, and I took a peek into the part of the store that contained the smoked animal parts. There was the usual assortment of smoked turkey wings and necks, smoked hog jowls and ham hocks, and all the like. I came across something that I hadn't seen before: smoked bacon skins. Basically, bacon is the pork belly. Whatever fat and meat that they can trim off can get sold at a decent price. The skin? Not so much. But I took one look, and realized that I had just hit the jackpot.
When you roast a pig, one of the best things to do is to take off a little bit of that crispy skin (some folks call them cracklin's), add a little hot sauce, and crunch away. These are like pork rinds you get in the store, only they're awesome, and not Styrofoam. You get a great solid crunch, a meaty flavor, and something that a lot of folks don't ever get to experience.
Now, one of the hard parts is to get the skin crispy , when there's a layer of fat attached to it. The outside dries out and crisps up, but the inside is still being basted by the fat that's melting. So, the skin just burns, before it can crisp. Now, if you can strip off the skin, you can get it to crisp up pretty easily, either in a pan or in the oven. But this is hard to do and sort of messy.
But, if it's already cleaned off for you, you can make cracklin's very easily. And since the bacon skin is smoked, you get a little extra flavor in there. One thing to note is that the skins will curl up on you, resulting in uneven cooking. To quote Alton Brown, "that is NOT good eats." You can either weight down the skins, but I don't have the hardware for that. Instead, I took a number of metal skewers, and wove them through the skin so that the skins would stay flat, with about 1.5" intervals. I put the skins onto a metal cooling rack, over a baking pan. The fat melts onto the bottom of the pan (which you can collect for other purposes, if you like), and the skins just crisp up. If there's still some fat left on the skin, so ahead and score the fat (cross-hatching, lik you would a duck breast). This will let the fat melt out a little more easily.
All of this goes into the oven (250F), until you see the skin start to get golden-brown. I start with the fat-side down, so that the fat melts out. Then, I flip everything, and let it keep baking. I'm guessing that you can go a little higher than 250F, but you want to make sure that the cracklin's don't burn. As I removed the metal skewers, the cracklin's broke into nice-sized pieces. After the cracklin's are ready, you can add a little salt (and whatever other dry spices you like). Splash some hot sauce on the cracklin's and much away.
Be careful. These things are addicting. And I'm guessing that they're not particularly good for you. But boy, they're tasty.
-foodgeek
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Compare and Contrast: It's like Breakfast and Lunch all at Once
Sunday Brunch. The old standby in this town is at Silvercreek. Jim Gould's been competing, reasonably well. Which is better? Read on.
Both places do fresh Belgian waffles, omelets to order, and have a carving station that have glazed ham and roast beef, so it's a bit of a wash on that end. Silvercreek does throw prime rib in there as the beef, so there's a bit of an advantage there, but most of that is a wash.
The normal breakfast food is also close. Biscuits and gravy are good at both places. You'll get your usual scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, and home fries at both places. Again, it's about a wash. All of it is solid. If I had to make a call, I'd actually go slightly in favor of Gould's for their sausage gravy, but it's pretty much a push. Gould's also has blintzes, which end up being pretty tasty. It's nice to have one or two, but you don't make a meal out of them. Additionally, Gould's does eggs benedict. I have to say that I love poached eggs. The Hollandaise scares me, particularly after you read or listen to Tony Bourdain. But it's still tasty, and I haven't paid the price, yet. This gives a slight advantage to Gould's for the breakfast.
One of the big things for me is fried chicken. At Gould's you get very tiny fried chicken, so it can dry out if it sits around, but they have a slightly sweet, very crispy chicken, whereas Silvercreek goes with the traditional southern fried. I think that if it's fresh, I lean to Gould's. But you have to have something to go with the fried chicken. Both places will have mashed potatoes. Silvercreek goes with gravy. Gould's does the bacon, onion, and cheddar thing. Both are good. But Silvercreek has deviled eggs. Who doesn't love deviled eggs? Slight advantage to Silvercreek.
The place where Silvercreek jumps ahead is with the peel and eat shrimp. Gould's does the normal shrimp that you'd expect to see, just boiled with some spices that's sort of bland. At Silvercreek, you get giant shrimp, that's cooked in a more traditional boil - salt, pepper, spices, and lemon. Really, you could just sit there and eat shrimp until your arteries clogged, and you'd die happy. Big advantage to Silvercreek.
The other warm dishes are where Gould's does better, simply by having more options. Silvercreek will have a couple other things. Maybe some baked mac and cheese (sort of mediocre) and a couple other things. Gould's will typically have some other fish (like tilapia or mahi mahi, or whatever they had extra of), which ends up being pretty decent. They also have a couple pasta options (often tortellini w/ alfredo, which is always tasty). I'd give the advantage to Gould's.
With regard to dessert, both places are alright, but the Gould's desserts remind you of catering desserts - nothing special, but all sweet and pretty decent. Silvercreek has pretty much their usual assortment of desserts out there, so you get some winners. I give a slight advantage to Silvercreek.
Silvercreek has been running brunch for as long as I can remember. They have a great dining room that's got an upscale feel that retains a warm, homey look. The brunch, runs $15.99, which includes coffee, juice, or soda. Jim Gould's has a larger dining area, and is generally a bit louder than Silvercreek, but the larger area results in faster turnover for food, so the food stays fresh. The downside is that the brunch runs $19.95, so it's $4 more than Silvercreek.
Overall, for quality of food, I'd give the slight advantage to Silvercreek. For the variety, that goes clearly to Gould's. But for value, given that it's 25% cheaper than Gould's, Silvercreek is the clear winner. Both places are worth going to, as you'll be definitely wanting a nap after you're done eating at either place. But Silvercreek will run you $10 less for 2 people, after you factor in tax and tip.
-foodgeek
Both places do fresh Belgian waffles, omelets to order, and have a carving station that have glazed ham and roast beef, so it's a bit of a wash on that end. Silvercreek does throw prime rib in there as the beef, so there's a bit of an advantage there, but most of that is a wash.
The normal breakfast food is also close. Biscuits and gravy are good at both places. You'll get your usual scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, and home fries at both places. Again, it's about a wash. All of it is solid. If I had to make a call, I'd actually go slightly in favor of Gould's for their sausage gravy, but it's pretty much a push. Gould's also has blintzes, which end up being pretty tasty. It's nice to have one or two, but you don't make a meal out of them. Additionally, Gould's does eggs benedict. I have to say that I love poached eggs. The Hollandaise scares me, particularly after you read or listen to Tony Bourdain. But it's still tasty, and I haven't paid the price, yet. This gives a slight advantage to Gould's for the breakfast.
One of the big things for me is fried chicken. At Gould's you get very tiny fried chicken, so it can dry out if it sits around, but they have a slightly sweet, very crispy chicken, whereas Silvercreek goes with the traditional southern fried. I think that if it's fresh, I lean to Gould's. But you have to have something to go with the fried chicken. Both places will have mashed potatoes. Silvercreek goes with gravy. Gould's does the bacon, onion, and cheddar thing. Both are good. But Silvercreek has deviled eggs. Who doesn't love deviled eggs? Slight advantage to Silvercreek.
The place where Silvercreek jumps ahead is with the peel and eat shrimp. Gould's does the normal shrimp that you'd expect to see, just boiled with some spices that's sort of bland. At Silvercreek, you get giant shrimp, that's cooked in a more traditional boil - salt, pepper, spices, and lemon. Really, you could just sit there and eat shrimp until your arteries clogged, and you'd die happy. Big advantage to Silvercreek.
The other warm dishes are where Gould's does better, simply by having more options. Silvercreek will have a couple other things. Maybe some baked mac and cheese (sort of mediocre) and a couple other things. Gould's will typically have some other fish (like tilapia or mahi mahi, or whatever they had extra of), which ends up being pretty decent. They also have a couple pasta options (often tortellini w/ alfredo, which is always tasty). I'd give the advantage to Gould's.
With regard to dessert, both places are alright, but the Gould's desserts remind you of catering desserts - nothing special, but all sweet and pretty decent. Silvercreek has pretty much their usual assortment of desserts out there, so you get some winners. I give a slight advantage to Silvercreek.
Silvercreek has been running brunch for as long as I can remember. They have a great dining room that's got an upscale feel that retains a warm, homey look. The brunch, runs $15.99, which includes coffee, juice, or soda. Jim Gould's has a larger dining area, and is generally a bit louder than Silvercreek, but the larger area results in faster turnover for food, so the food stays fresh. The downside is that the brunch runs $19.95, so it's $4 more than Silvercreek.
Overall, for quality of food, I'd give the slight advantage to Silvercreek. For the variety, that goes clearly to Gould's. But for value, given that it's 25% cheaper than Gould's, Silvercreek is the clear winner. Both places are worth going to, as you'll be definitely wanting a nap after you're done eating at either place. But Silvercreek will run you $10 less for 2 people, after you factor in tax and tip.
-foodgeek
Monday, January 07, 2008
Kitchen Happenings: Currying Favor
Okay. I have to say that I'm addicted to spicy, slow cooked foods. Only when I make them in my kitchen, they're not always slow cooked. The current incarnation is a curried fish stew.
So, where to start? The base of the stew is a nice pureed, vegetable soup, based primarily on tomatoes and mirepoix (the standard onion, celery, carrot base in French cooking). Cook it down, season to taste, puree, and strain coarsely. Basically, you want to get the seeds and the long fibers out, but leave some texture to the soup. This is good on it's own. I happened to have a quart left over in the fridge.
I was originally planning on making cioppino, an Italian fish stew, so I sautéed some large cuts of green peppers and onions, while the base started to warm up in a pot. The plan was to add some potatoes, some fresh herbs, and let everything simmer for a while, before adding some fish (tilapia is what I had) at the end. Of course, I was out of potatoes, but had a bunch of left over potato/turnip gratin that was sitting in the fridge. That took care of the starch.
I decided that I wanted a spicy stew, so I started seasoning the peppers and onions, adding chili powder, onion, garlic, red pepper flakes, and ground red pepper, in addition to salt and black pepper. I deglazed the pan with some red wine, and added everything to the pot. As I was tasting, the dish was OK, but not great. I looked up in my cabinet and saw a bunch of yellow curry powder that was sitting there, untouched for the last 8 months or so. Bingo.
A bunch of curry powder, and some chunks of fish got added to the pot. The result? An incredibly addicting curried fish, with onions, peppers, and potatoes. Served over rice, this was a nice, rich, but not overpowering or overindulgent dish. Can't argue with that.
-foodgeek
So, where to start? The base of the stew is a nice pureed, vegetable soup, based primarily on tomatoes and mirepoix (the standard onion, celery, carrot base in French cooking). Cook it down, season to taste, puree, and strain coarsely. Basically, you want to get the seeds and the long fibers out, but leave some texture to the soup. This is good on it's own. I happened to have a quart left over in the fridge.
I was originally planning on making cioppino, an Italian fish stew, so I sautéed some large cuts of green peppers and onions, while the base started to warm up in a pot. The plan was to add some potatoes, some fresh herbs, and let everything simmer for a while, before adding some fish (tilapia is what I had) at the end. Of course, I was out of potatoes, but had a bunch of left over potato/turnip gratin that was sitting in the fridge. That took care of the starch.
I decided that I wanted a spicy stew, so I started seasoning the peppers and onions, adding chili powder, onion, garlic, red pepper flakes, and ground red pepper, in addition to salt and black pepper. I deglazed the pan with some red wine, and added everything to the pot. As I was tasting, the dish was OK, but not great. I looked up in my cabinet and saw a bunch of yellow curry powder that was sitting there, untouched for the last 8 months or so. Bingo.
A bunch of curry powder, and some chunks of fish got added to the pot. The result? An incredibly addicting curried fish, with onions, peppers, and potatoes. Served over rice, this was a nice, rich, but not overpowering or overindulgent dish. Can't argue with that.
-foodgeek
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