Control your temper...ature. Embrace the sous vide.

As you may have seen from the past few posts, I've been spending some time on a site called ChefSteps.  Basically it's a web destination for anyone and everyone who's interested in modern cooking techniques.  They are developing an online class for sous vide cooking which I've been working my way through.  There's also an active forum to ask questions, discuss knives, compete in weekly challenges, exchange recipes and ideas, or just contemplate the differences between various grades of methylcellulose, if you're into that sort of thing.  Anyway, I've been enjoying the site, and picking up plenty of tips and tricks along the way.  I thought I'd do a menu based on several of the recipes, ideas, or discussions from the site.

So I started off with Caramelized Carrot Soup.  This was a recipe featured in Modernist Cuisine, then adapted for the @Home version of the book.  I'd been wanting to try it.  Since many of the ChefSteps crew worked on the Modernist Cuisine books, it seemed like a fit.  So, I pressure cooked some carrots.  I have an old canning cooker that I use (not sure of the vintage, but the manual includes directions for use on your coal fired stove so I assume it's been around longer than the 2 years I've owned it). I adapted the recipe slightly to cook the carrots in jars, because the cooker is just huge otherwise.  After cooking, they went into the blender, through the sieve, and combined with carrot juice.  Then I added some butter, and emulsified with a stick blender until it was silky smooth.  The finished soup was topped with Creme Fraiche and Roasted Pepitos.  It was pretty damn tasty, and perfect for wintertime.

Caramelized Carrot Soup

Look at that texture.

Next up was the Salmon Mi-Cuit.  That's French for half cooked or lightly cooked.  I had some fresh Ora King Salmon that came in to my local fishmonger this week.  Early that morning, I brined it for an hour, then cooked at 40 degrees Celsius (that's 104 Fahrenheit) for an hour.  It went immediately into an ice bath to rest until dinner about 10 hours later.  It was plated with a vibrant green watercress puree, pickled onions and horseradish cream.  The salmon was awesome.  It had a texture that just melted in your mouth.  Not like sashimi, definitely not flaky, but something altogether different.  This recipe was part of the class, and looked beautiful on the plate.  The top pic is mine, followed by the ChefSteps version on the bottom.  Mine's not quite as elegant, but not half bad.  You can check out the recipe here: Salmon 104 Degrees.  I highly recommend it.    

My Salmon Mi-Cuit

The original ChefSteps Version

The entree was Beef Short Ribs.  These had been cooked for 48 hours at 64C (147F).  The long cook time allows the collagen to break down so that the ribs are tender, but only cooks the meat to medium doneness.  Contrast this with a typical slow and low braise, crock pot or smoking process which functions similarly to break down the collagen, but cooks the meat to well done.    The ribs were paired with a Chimichurri sauce (parsley, oregano, garlic, olive oil, white wine vinegar, crushed red pepper, black pepper).

I served the Short Rib with a Potato Pave that I believe originated from Chef Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc, and had been getting rave reviews on the forum.  Those reviews were well deserved.  Essentially this is a Potato Gratin, but the potatoes are sliced thin, dipped in cream, layered, and cooked until tender.  Then they are pressed together and cooled.  After refrigerating overnight, I sliced into cubes and fried the side of each.  This way, every individual potato slice was crispy on the edge.  I think I had about 25 layers of potato in these.  You should search this recipe out, because it is phenomenal.

Also with the beef, was some Brocollini that I cooked sous vide at 90C for about 9 minutes, then charred with a blowtorch and sprinkled with sherry vinegar.

48 hour Short Rib, Chimichurri, Potato Pave, Brocollini

Final Sear on the Short Rib

Potato Pave, ready to go

Creating the crust on the Potato Pave

The final dish of the night was a Lemongrass Cardamom Creme Brulee, which ended up without a picture.  These also got cooked sous vide, though somewhat less successfully.  Although they didn't fully set, they were still quite delicious, and a nice way to end the meal.  

All in all, quite a successful dinner, though it really put my single circulator through the paces trying to complete everything. Several times I put the ribs into hold mode while I borrowed the circulator to cook other items in a separate bath.  Maybe I need to get another.

Chocolate Panna Cotta, Banana, Many Textures of Peanut Butter

This week's challenge from Chefsteps was a sous vide dessert.  I thought about banana cream pie, but got beat to the punch when someone else made a killer rendition first.  I wasn't really sure what to do, but Jamie suggested Peanut Butter Cups.  Seemed like a good enough idea: chocolate, peanut butter, pretty delicious combination.

I played around with the idea.  I thought I'd flip it, and surround the chocolate with peanut butter.  Also, throw some bananas into the mix as an homage to the banana cream pie that wasn't.  And bananas go well with chocolate and peanut butter.

I started with chocolate panna cotta.  Panna cotta is my new go to because it's easy and works as well sweet as it does savory.  This time, I wanted it to be intensely chocolate.  I cooked the cream and blended in enough chocolate to get the nice rich chocolate look I was going for.  Then, I blended in about that much chocolate again.  300 g total chocolate, to about 600 g of cream / half and half.  It seemed about right, so I added gelatin, and poured into plastic cups to set.  It was amazingly chocolately.  I licked the warm remnants from the pan. 

Next I started on the peanut butter.  Rather than run of the mill creamy, stick to the roof of your mouth PB, I wanted to play around with texture.  I thought many different textures all based on peanut butter would be interesting.  I came up with 9 different possibilities but that seemed like a lot, so I whittled those down to 5.  I'd made Powdered Peanut Butter before so that was easy.  I also figured I'd do a microwave Peanut Butter Sponge Cake a la Ferran.  Then Peanut Butter Ice Cream seemed like a good idea.  I used one of Jeni's splendid recipes and it was ultra creamy and delicious.  Then I found Thomas Keller's recipe for a Peanut Sablé, which without the accent is a type of weasel, but with the proper accent becomes shortbread.  The biscuit was good with rich buttery, salty, peanut flavor.  I should've rolled it a little thinner, but it worked pretty well.  And finally, I figured I'd do a Peanut Butter Sabayon.  Which is the French version of the Italian whipped custard dessert Zabaione, only with peanut butter.  As far as I could tell, no recipe exists for a peanut butter sabayon.  I adapted the Modernist Cuisine at Home recipe with a big scoop of peanut butter.  It was rich and delicious, yet airy and light and still warm when served.  Even with three N2O charges though, the foam didn't quite hold.    

I thought I'd caramelize the bananas, then decided I wanted a little more fruit, so I also poached some bananas in a bit of honey and cinnamon.  That's a good combination.  Banana, honey, cinnamon.  Put it in a ziploc bag, squeeze out the air, and throw in a 60C bath for about 20 minutes.  Yum.

Chocolate Panna Cotta, Banana, Many Textures of Peanut Butter

Chocolate Panna Cotta is in the center topped with Peanut Sablé.

12:00: Powdered Peanut Butter
02:00: Peanut Butter Ice Cream on a bed of shaved Chocolate
04:00: Cinnamon Honey Sous Vide Poached Banana
05:00: Peanut Butter Sponge Cake
07:00: Caramelized Banana
10:00: Peanut Butter Sabayon (sous vide)

The plating ended up a little messy, but I think the overall effect worked out ok.

Oh yeah, and I was picked as one of the winner's of the challenge!  Check it out.  And look at Chris Koller's Raspberry Chocolate Gateau.  It is absolutely gorgeous.  Obviously I need to work on my presentation skills.

Neo-Retro Caprese Salad

Tomato season is drawing to a close here in Wisconsin.  But it's not over quite yet.  There is still time, so take advantage!

We picked up some fresh mozzarella and basil at the farmer's market yesterday.  And I picked a couple of tomatoes this afternoon while the rest of the family was out on a walk around the block.  We always like Caprese salads in the summer, but with a couple of new toys, I thought I'd try to dress it up a little this time.  Sliced tomatoes, salt, pepper, basil, olive oil powder, and a mozzarella balloon filled with garlic air.  I almost lost the mozzarella, but once I figured it out, it worked pretty well.  They stayed inflated too.  Just one more awesome way to use my whip.

I hear this is the way Thomas Keller serves a Caprese at the French Laundry.  Though I've not been there to say for sure. 

Caprese Salad: Heirloom Tomatoes, Basil, Olive Oil Powder, Mozzarella Balloon, Balsamic

Olive Oil Powder

Plating: Pre-Balloon

Plating: Post-Balloon

Alternate Plating