Octopus sous vide and grilled

We've had some excellent octopus at Dino's and Zaytinya in DC -- tender and charred. When we enquired, both said they were first slow cooked, then charred over open flame; Dino said he then sautés his quickly for service. We wanted to replicate that at home and figured sous vide would be the way to cook until tender, and the barbecue would give it a good char.

We found 1.160 Kg (2.5 Lb) frozen Spanish octopus for $10/pound at Mediterrafish. We defrosted it overnight, then cut off the legs and head (already cleaned), tossing the middle containing beak and eyes.

We bagged it with some frozen olive oil, then chilled in the freezer an hour before vacuum sealing to prevent sucking out all the water.

Typical tenderization methods include smashing the octopus on rocks, beating with a mallet or even a daikon. Cooking techniques usually are to bake in a covered pot (to collect liquid and self-braise) at a very low temperature for a long time, or to boil (with the old wives tale addition of a wine cork, debunked by Harold McGee).  Boiling would lose any liquid that would be released from the octopus, so we used sous vide to keep the beast immersed in its own liquid while slowly cooking at a low temperature.

Different folks seem to sous vide octopus for 3-8 hours between 74-83c (165-180F), some reporting chewiness at lower times and temperatures. We went with 75c (167F) for 5 hours.

We'd read that octopus releases a lot of liquid when it cooks, and it sure did. Our long fat legs seemed to lose half their length and girth, and the vacuum bag was full of a reddish liquid.  We let the bag cool slowly on the counter in hopes the legs might reabsorb some of the liquid, before chilling overnight in the fridge.

The next night, we drained the liquid and weighed the octopus: 315 g.  We'd ended up with 27% of the weight we'd started out with -- that jacks up the price for the meal quite a bit!  What we figured might feed four or more would not be barely enough for two for dinner.  We strained the liquid and will make risotto from it: at least it's not going to waste.

At the barbecue, we brushed the legs and head with olive oil and dusted generously with pimenton, like a pulpo a la gallega presentation. I used skewers to keep the octopus parts from falling through the grates, and grilled for a few minutes a side.

What worked, what didn't

The octopus turned out tender enough, with a slight mucilaginous-ness which may be due to not rinsing off loose skin after cooking.  We didn't get the crisp char we wanted at all, and the octopus stuck a bit to the grill: these may be connected, as I didn't scrub and oil the grates.

The skewers worked well at holding things together and removing them to plates quickly.

It's also disappointing that $25 worth of octopus barely fed two people. I'll look around the Asian markets, and our local Brazilian/Portuguese store says they carry it.

Next Time

If I could determine a way to reduce loss to liquid I would, even if I sacrificed a bit of tenderness.

Thoroughly rinse off the loose skin after cooking so we don't have any mushiness on the outside.

Get the coals really hot and close to the grill grates, then clean and oil them before adding the octopus. Use the skewers for cooking again.

Mahi Mahi al Pil Pil

I think we may have broken new ground here: the classic Basque Pil Pil sauce is always made with bacalao -- salt cod. We repeated the modern poaching-in-olive-oil technique that we used recently, but this time for mahi mahi. It rendered a lower quantity of the gelatin required to make this wonderful emulsified sauce than bacalao, but it was plenty to sauce the fish: like bacalao, the fish -- along with good olive oil -- produced its own hollandaise/mayonnaise-like sauce, super rich. In tonight's experiment, we also tried a sea trout because it had a thick subcutaneous layer of fat, but it didn't render the gelatin like bacalao does, so it could not make its own sauce.

Mahi Mahi and Sea Trout with Pil Pil sauce, shishito peppers, potatoes

We reasoned that a cold-water fish with a layer of fat would work like cod, from which bacalao is made, so we got sea trout (150g); it looks very much like salmon.  We also wanted to try a warm-water fish like we find when we visit Florida, so we got mahi mahi (270g). The quantities don't really matter here, the technique does.

We put each fish in its own small pan, skin side up (the skin sticks if it's touching the bottom), and covered with tasty extra virgin oil; we added a couple cloves of garlic to each. Heat up each to poach the fish, and hopefully release some precious gelatin which will act as an emulsifier.  Keep the oil well below boiling of water so you don't evaporate off any rendered gelatin. The trout released no gelatin, but the mahi mahi seemed to release a little.  The oil was about 90C/194F.

We pulled the trout out after about 15 minutes, but the mahi mahi is a more dense fish so we left it for about 30 minutes. Our theory is that the gelatin comes from just under the skin, so we pulled off the skin and added it back to the hot oil to cook another 10 minutes. We strained the oil into a measuring cup and let it settle, and after another 10 minutes or so were delighted to see oil on top and something that looked like heavier, water-based gelatin on the bottom. I separated most of the oil off and poured the gelatin portion into a tall narrow glass to separate further.

Oil on the top, gelatin on the bottom

I slurped the bottom layer of what we optimistically assumed was gelatin with a turkey baster and transferred it into a cool skillet. I then whipped this a few minutes with a fine mesh strainer to beat air into it and was very happy to see a foam form, the precursor to an emulsion. I added some of the now-cooled oil little by little to establish the emulsified sauce.

Whipping the gelatin until a white foam is established

It seemed more thin than the bacalao-based emulsion but I kept adding oil and it built up nicely. I had the heat on as low as it can go on my cooktop, but I'm not sure I needed any heat at all -- I think too much heat would cause the sauce to break.

Add the fishy oil little by little at first, more aggressively when the sauce is established

Once well-established I could add more oil with impunity. This 19 second video should show the sauce coming together.

The sauce was rich with olive oil flavor, a fine quality oil pays off here since it's really the only ingredient.   It wasn't seasoned with anything, so when we plated, we added some salt and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice.

What did we learn?

I've not seen recipes for pil pil using anything than bacalao. There are "shrimp pil pil" or "gambas al pil pil" but these are really shrimp in oil with garlic and hot chili pepper: "gambas al ajillo" and not an emulsified sauce at all.

Bacalao isn't the only fish from which gelatin can be extracted to use as an emulsifier for pil pil sauce. but not all fish will release gelatin. We have no idea which will and which won't, but mahi mahi definitely will. 

Next Steps

We'd like to repeat the experiment with the easier-to-find dried bacalao, the kind that's as hard as a sheet of plywood, and encrusted in salt. This is the classic form, and has to be hydrated with fresh water for a couple days. It has skin, and usually has bones which we're hope will be easy to remove once poached.  This is the baseline that all other work should really start from, and we're quite certain that will work fine.

Can we cook the bacalao with a minimum amount of olive oil using a sous vide technique? Use only the amount of oil you'd need for the sauce, maybe 200 ml, not the pots full we need for poaching. Freeze the olive oil solid (so it doesn't squirt out) and place in a vacuum bag with the hydrated bacalao and a couple cloves of garlic. Cook at the same 90C/195F for 30 minutes or so and check for rendered gelatin.

If sous vide works, can we use a lower, fish-friendly temperature, e.g., 50C/125F instead of the 90C/195F we used today?  We could hold the fish almost indefinitely without fear of over cooking, as long as we need to render gelatin.

Can we get gelatin from skinless, boneless bacalao that's now showing up in regular gringo grocery stores? This would make it much more accessible.

Can we season the sauce as we're building the emulsion? Salt seems easy, since salt cod's full of it. Can we add some lemon juice or white wine, or would those denature the gelatin and ruin the sauce?

Is the garlic important? In old school Catalan and Provençal aioli, garlic is the emulsifier. It's a very difficult sauce to make as it's a weak emulsifier and it breaks in the blink of an eye. Once we've established above what works with garlic, does the quality suffer without the garlic?

Stuffed Squid with Pepper/Pimenton Sauce

I really enjoy squid: it's quick to prepare, and stuffing them takes 'em to another level. We threw this together with things we had around the house and it came out rich, earthy, and intensely flavored. No recipe this time, just improvising.

Irene cooked the tentacles then we ground them in a food processor with some salami for flavor, some sautéed onions for sweetness and liquid, and an egg to bind it all. We wanted a smooth stuffing about the consistency of a pate. We used a pastry bag to stuff each of the squid -- so much easier than trying to force-feed them with a spoon. Then I sealed them shut by running a toothpick through the opening of each sock-shaped squid. It's a little tedious but not horrible for a work-day dinner.

We had some oil I'd infused with half a barrel of mint leaves harvested from the garden: we'd had squid stuffed with mint once in Sorrento and found it a surprisingly harmonious combination. So we shallow fried the stuffed squid in the minty oil until done. The squid don't take long and the filling was cooked except for the egg so it didn't need much time. Some of the filling squeezed out of the squid as they shrank while cooking; it looked like a flavorful fond so I strained off the oil and crisped up the shards in the skillet a bit.

Irene had meanwhile cooked up a zesty sauce of roasted red peppers, sautéed onions and garlic, and a healthy dose of pimentón -- Spanish smoked paprika. When the pimentón hit the oil left from the sauté, it filled the kitchen with such a powerful aroma I almost got whiplash as I spun around to inhale the fragrance. Great stuff.  She whizzed this all together with a stick blender until mostly smooth, resulting in a sauce that's more rich and thick than a tomato sauce, and much more interesting.

She sauced the plates and I burned the tips of my fingers yanking the toothpicks out of the squid socks before nestling them in their sauce.  A generous garnishing with the crunchy bits brought a further intensity and new texture to round it out.

Fun meal, and definitely worth doing again, perhaps next time with ground, spiced, pork belly.

Bacalao al Pil Pil

Bacalao is salted, dried cod; pil pil is the amazing Basque sauce that is created by the addition of olive oil, which is whipped into a Hollandaise to Mayonnaise-like creamy texture.  In this post, I'll share a modernist technique we learned at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival's Basque food demonstrations: it's much more reliable than older procedures we've tried. This will be a fairly detailed post because I want you to be successful when you make it -- it was a revelation to us.

Background

I've written about my love for Bacalao elsewhere in this blog. While popular in the Nordic countries, Portugal and Italy, I've mostly had Spanish bacalao dishes -- specifically from Catalunya and the Basque country. It's got a firm texture and slight funk that I like.

But what I'm really excited about is the pil pil sauce, and how it's different from it's more famous emulsified cousins. What's cool about pil pil is that it needs no added emulsifier to make it thick and stable.

Emulsions

An "emulsion" is a mixture of two or more liquids that normally won't stay together as one. An oil and vinegar salad dressing is one example: it's unstable -- you have to shake it to get them to mix, and if you let it sit, the oil and vinegar will separate.

An "emulsifier" is an ingredient that will help the separable liquids combine in a stable way. In a Hollandaise sauce, the egg yolk keeps the water and fat in the butter together in a sauce. In Mayonnaise, egg yolk does the same for the oil, vinegar and lemon juice. In the Mediterranean, Aioli sauce uses just garlic as an emulsifier to make a sauce from of olive oil; this is a more difficult sauce to make as garlic has less emulsifying power than yolks. Less commonly, paprika can be used as an emulsifier. The food industry has developed plenty of concoctions used as emulsifiers.

In pil pil sauce, there is no egg yolk, no garlic, no other emulsifier. Everything needed to thicken the sauce comes from the fish itself -- pretty cool!  My understanding is that there are proteins between the skin and flesh of bacalao that act as emulsifiers when leached out as part of the cooking process: every recipe for pil pil I've seen says you must use skin-on bacalao, presumably for this reason.

Science vs. Grandmothers

Teresa Barrenechea's book, The Basque Table, describes the classic technique. After rehydrating and desalting the bacalao, it is simmered in water, then placed skin-side up in a earthenware casserole. A small amount of olive oil is added and the fish is swirled around in a circular motion through the oil until an emulsion forms. Oil is slowly added to the existing emulsion to build the sauce. As she says in the book, "Bacalao al pil pil is technically difficult to make, but not too hard for the home cook to master."

In my experience, it's exceptionally hard to get the emulsion to start; and there are many variables including the amount of heat to apply, whether to add a touch of water, when to add the oil, etc. We've left a lot of the clay from the bottom of our cazuela on our gas cooktop ring in the process of swirling for what seemed like an eternity. This technique, handed down from grandmother to grandmother, may be classic but there must be a better way -- we need to understand why the emulsion forms.

The Basque cooking demonstrations at the 2016 Smithsonian Folklife Festival finally revealed the secret: science!

Chefs Igor and Igor from Escuela Superior de Hosteleria Bilbao gave a great demonstration of this sauce.  After hydrating bacalao, they poached it skin-side up in olive oil for 10 minutes to cook it. They kept the temperature low so that they didn't boil off the precious juices that the cod exuded, which they called "gelatin"; I interpreted this to mean the liquid should never reach the boiling point of water. They also held the microphone to the pot and explained that the noise the small bubbles made was the origin of the name "pil pil"; there is some debate on this matter, but it seems as reasonable as any other explanation. They set the cooked cod aside and poured out the oil containing the gelatin and allowed it to settle out; they then separated the oil from the magical cod juice.

Chef Igor holds the separated cod gelatin with a layer of oil on the top. This is precious, "you can't buy it."

They then poured some of the white liquid into a pan on a very low heat and agitated it to start the emulsion by whipping some air into it. Instead of the grandmotherly technique using the fish itself, they used a small strainer, something that is great at whipping air into the liquid.  When the liquid started to set up a bit into a thicker consistency, they dribbled oil into it -- slowly at first then more rapidly once the sauce was well established. It worked beautifully.

Procedure

We got bacalao, skin on and without bones from a local Portuguese/Spanish shop. They have the dried bacalao but one kind had no skin and the other had bones; the skin-on boneless one was kept in the fridge, and had already been rehydrated so it was basically ready to use.  The 1.6 Kg was $28 so it's not cheap, but neither is fresh cod.

We defrosted it then put it in a pot, skin side up, and covered with good olive oil. We added some garlic cloves and a dried spicy chili, and set it on very low heat.

Because of the thickness of these cod loin sections, it required quite a bit of oil. We heated it very gently, ensuring the oil never came near the boiling point of water, which would evaporate the fish juice. Below, there are 4 cloves of garlic, but you can also see little globules of the gelatin coming out of the fish and falling to the bottom of the pot -- we knew we'd got it right at this point, science to the rescue!

Our cod loin was about 7cm/2.5in thick, about double that of the cuts the chefs used, so we cooked it 30 minutes to ensure the fish was thoroughly cooked through.  Fish is done when it's 50-54C/122-130F, so cooking it low is fine. We kept it below about 80C/182F and just watched in amazement as the fish continued to release more gelatin; check this 7-second video:

(In books, blogs and such we've read, chefs say that when fish exudes white protein it's just at the point of being overcooked. Brining, they say, helps prevent this.  We wonder if the "cod juice" we're obsessing over here is the very same protein liquid that others are trying desperately to prevent.)

We pulled the fish out of the oil and set it aside; it was cooked throughly enough that it threatened to break apart along the muscle fibers, perhaps a bit too long or hot.

We poured out the oil and liquid and let them separate, then extracted the gelatin; we weren't worried that it had some oil left on it -- the pil pil needs it.

We added all the cod gelatin to a pan that was barely heated -- again, we didn't want to evaporate the elixir.  We used a small, fine-mesh strainer to whip air into it. Miraculously, it started thickening a bit after just a couple minutes of agitation.

 

We drizzled a tiny bit of the fishy olive oil into the emerging sauce and watched it get absorbed and expand the sauce.

And then more oil, a little faster now:

Then more oil, without worrying much about how much we were adding:

It thickened to a Mayonnaise-like consistency. The color comes exclusively from the good olive oil we used, not eggs or other additives.

This may have been too thick for a classic pil pil, but it tasted intensely of olive oil -- including the slight cough-inducing bitterness -- and fish. A thick, stable sauce using only olive oil, in addition to liquid from the fish itself. Rather amazing.

We used some of the left over olive oil to poach baby potatoes, and sautéed home-grown shishito peppers with coarse salt and a bit more of the oil like we'd prepare Catalan Padrón peppers, and sliced and fried the cooked garlic cloves as a garnish.  There's quite a bit of thick pil pil sauce here:

It tasted intense, and worked miraculously -- no magic, no granny's secrets, just a great cooking technique.

What worked, what didn't

Poaching the cod in oil to extract the gelatin worked so much better than protracted pot-shaking. The strainer helped aerate the emerging emulsion.

The taste of the good oil really came through.

Our pil pil was probably too thick for the classic standard, more a Mayonnaise than a Hollandaise consistency.  We had used all the exuded cod gelatin, but probably could have used at most half, reserving the rest for our next adventure.

We had 2 cups olive oil left over. It's not going to waste, we can keep it from oxidizing by freezing it, and use it little by little.

Next Time...

We'd like to find a thinner cut of fish: it would require less oil to cover and cook more quickly.

Cook the fish less, ours was just barely holding together.

Use less cod gelatin, we'd like a less thick sauce and we'd like to use the extra fish juice to make pil pil for other dishes.

We could thin the sauce by adding a dash of lemon juice or white wine, but we wonder whether the ghosts of Basque grandmothers would haunt us to our graves.

Is it true that only bacalao can be used? That it has to be skin-on? In the pot, we saw bubbles of the liquid coming out of the core of the body of the fish, not just from under the skin; try it with:

• skin-on fresh cod.
• skinless cod, fresh or rehydrated bacalao
• skin-on sea trout which also has a thick layer of subcutaneous fat

Gray Pride

This cocktail's based on The Last Word, introduced to us by our "Beach Bartender, Bill" it was my favourite of his week of prohibition-era happy hour cocktails during our annual early summer week on the ocean.  It's equal parts Green Chartreuse, Luxardo Maraschino liqueur, lemon juice and gin. We'd run out of Luxardo, so cast around in the cocktail cabinet for something else sweet and perfumed as a substitute. The Crème de violette seemed like it would do the trick.

Instead of the light green color of The Last Word, or the purple sunset tones of the Aviation, this one came out a rather unusual, perhaps even unappealing shade of grey.  It tastes a lot like an Aviation, sweet and perfumed from the Crème de violette: smelling like your granny's dressing table or a roll of Parma violets.

Its name came to me on the spur of the moment, no doubt influenced by the fact we'd just attended our friends Aaron and Charles' wedding at the tail end of LGBT Pride month and of course it reflects my last name, handily compounding the pun.

For two cocktails:

2 ounces Green Chartreuse
2 ounces Crème de Violette
2 ounces Lemon Juice, fresh squeezed, strained
2 ounces Gin

Shake on ice, then pour into martini glasses.   garnish with a twist of lemon peel, extra points if it looks like one of the awareness ribbons that proliferate these days!

Given how pricey the Chartreuse is -- about double the cost of other amaros, $65/750ml or so -- we'll reserve that for The Last Word, which is fabulous.  what this cocktail lacks in attractiveness is more than made up for in the flavour.

Did you know that chartreuse is the only color named after a liquor? True fact.

Heavy Metal: Darto Carbon Steel Pans

After Cook's Illustrated wrote a positive article on carbon steel pans, I wanted to give them a try. Old school like cast iron, induction compatible, virtually nonstick -- what's not to like? These Darto pans from Argentina are beefy, and after seasoning, nearly as slick as nonstick.

The Cook's article caused a run on the highest-rated Matfer Bourgeat skillet, and opportunistic vendors jacked up the price exorbitantly. Some reviews complained about quality control in the fabrication. I started looking for other brands.

We've got a well-stocked kitchen with plenty of skillets, but wanted to try carbon steel. Most of ours are aluminum: Calphalon I bought when I first started kitting out my kitchen, and big nonstick ones from restaurant supply stores. But we'll be moving to Barcelona some time in the future, and our kitchen will have an induction cooktop which won't work with aluminum; we'll need something ferrous, something with steel. Cast iron's super heavy, and our favorite All Clad pans -- a sandwich of steel and aluminum -- will work, but they're really pricey. Carbon steel should do the trick.

The Cook's article claimed carbon steel heated evenly, had enough mass to be able to sear beautifully, weighed substantially less than cast iron, and -- once seasoned -- would be as nonstick as grandma's old Lodge or Griswald cast iron. Like cast iron, the steel isn't intimidated by metal spatulae and other tools -- we wouldn't have to pamper the pans like Teflon and its clones. Cook's has a video review which is informative (especially since the original article is hidden behind a paywall).

We went out to a local restaurant supply store, and after prodding, they found a carbon steel skillet. It was dirt cheap, maybe $10 or so. But it was also super cheap feeling, thin and light, and felt like it would warp with serious heat. We gave it a try and were surprised that it performed quite well, and was fairly slick without any seasoning at all.  This certainly wasn't a pan I'd want to depend upon, but it made me more committed to looking for a good carbon steel manufacturer.

While watching one of the food-nerd videos on Chef Steps, I saw they were using an induction cooktop and they mentioned the pan was from Darto. I notice the handle wasn't attached with rivets, but was one continuous piece of steel -- I loved the aesthetics, but more importantly, it meant it would be a lot easier to keep clean. The community forum in Chef Steps seemed quite positive as well. So was the forum in another food-nerd site, Serious Eats.

Good, I'd found my manufacturer. All Darto pans are made of 3mm thick carbon steel: really substantial. Prices on the US portion of their website were quite reasonable. Problem is, Darto is in Argentina: these pans are heavy, and shipping is big addition to the price.  

Some of the comments in fora indicated that Darto had been able to reduce shipping costs, but they were still high. I ran some numbers for a couple larger skillets to get some advantage on shipping. When I checked back a few weeks later, I noticed they had a set of 5 pans for a combined price of $199. This was less than 2 or 3 pans with the required shipping.  "Such a deal!" as my parents say.

Coincidentally, it was nearly my birthday and my folks were looking for something to get me. What do you get for the cooking-obsessed couple that has everything? A nice set of Darto pans with free shipping would be fantastic. Thanks so much, M&P!!!  (I noticed while writing this that they've dropped the price of the set to $169; even better for you, gentle reader.)

After the PayPal payment went through, the pans arrived in just a couple of days, via DHL. Great service. 

Each pan came wrapped in a burlap bag, very attractive

Three larger skillets and two smaller ones; the 2-handled "paella" is really cute and seems perfect for making the provoleta we'd enjoyed in Buenos Aires

They came with no care and feeding instructions. I knew they might be coated with manufacturing oil or some other lubricant to keep them from rusting during storage and transit, so I washed them thoroughly.  But more importantly, I knew they'd have to be "seasoned" like cast iron, but there were so many conflicting guides on how to do this on the interwebs.  I finally stumbled upon a Spanish-language video from Darto that I followed; it was a bit unusual compared to anything else I'd seen. Heat the pan just until hot, turn off heat. Add a tiny amount of oil to a paper or cloth towel and apply the thinnest possible coat to the warm pan, wiping out any residual oil. Then heat until smoking and hold on highest heat for a full 10 minutes. Let cool. Repeat this process 10 more times. Seemed like overkill, but I wasn't going to argue with the manufacturer.

Seasoning 5 Darto skillets, an older cast iron pan is on the back left for comparison

The process did take a while but I spread it out over a couple days. I just left the pans on the cooktop so I could do them next time it was convenient. It's good we have a vent hood that really does suck: this process makes a lot of smoke. The burners and pans generate a lot of heat, and keep generating heat since their thermal mass holds on to the heat and radiates it out slowly.  Don't even think about touching them, even the handles, while this is going on.  During this process the carbon steel took on an attractive blue-black, almost iridescent color in the base.

Irene was the first to use them and messaged me at work that they were in fact quite nonstick -- great news (I was so jealous). This morning, I gave the biggest skillet a try, making a French omelette. My technique is not as good as Julia Child's or Jacques Pepin's, but I was delighted the omelette didn't stick, even though it included cheese: success!

Check out this other video from Darto where they're cooking fish and getting gorgeous sear, looks yummy.

I think we're really going to enjoy these Darto pans, here on our gas cooktop, and in Barcelona on induction. They're a good investment.

Ginger Beer #1

I really like a spicy ginger beer, not the alcoholic one, the soda. Most are insipid or sickly sweet or both; some fake the spice with chili! The best I've come across is DG from Jamaica but Goslings (of the Rum fame) makes one now that's good. We made one years ago but it was difficult and messy. Bartender Jeffrey Morganthaler has a good write up on how he does it, including an instant one using an iSi soda siphon, which we just happen to have. It turned out well but we'll tweak it for the next batch. Here's our first take on his recipe, using the iSi.

1 ounce Ginger juice (see below)
2 ounces Lemon Juice, finely strained
3 ounces Mint Simple Syrup
10 ounces Ice Water

I took a "hand" of fresh ginger, scraped most of the skin off with the edge of a spoon, cut it up, and juiced it with a juice extractor we got from FreeCycle -- much easier than using a MicroPlane!  Juice a lemon and strain with a fine strainer to remove pulp. At this point, the liquid changed from a slightly green-brown from the ginger to a light salmony pink from the acid. Irene pointed out it was the color of sushi ginger -- exactly.

We had made mint simple syrup for cocktails so added that rather than plain simple syrup. For force carbonation, the liquid needs to be cold so we used ice water.

Add all the ingredients to the iSi, straining once more since lemon juice can foam up and bits of skin can clog the siphon's dispenser. For our 1.0L siphon (0.5L liquid volume) we used one CO2 charger, shook well, and let chill in the fridge for a half hour.

To serve, invert and dispense into iced glasses, and enjoy. After our initial taste test, we added some rum -- white for Irene, white with a touch of molasses-y black for me -- and had a variation on a Dark and Stormy.

What Worked, What Didn't

This wasn't as fiery-gingery as we'd like. Next time, bump up the ginger to 1.5 ounces. 

We might try freezing the ginger hand before extracting: some vegetables and fruits break down when their cells freeze and exude their juices when they thaw -- this might make the extraction more efficient.

For 2-4 drinks, this was a fair amount of work. Just setting up and cleaning the juice extractor was a lot of overhead. Next time, we'd use Morganthaler's preferred method of force carbonating a large batch with a CO2 cylinder and a clever Liquid Bread soda bottle adapter -- which we also happen to have. 

Monkfish sous vide with mint and basil

Our garden's overflowing with mint and a friend gave us a bunch of farmers' market basil, so we went with a Thai flavor to cook some monkfish. Since this fish takes a long time to cook, we used sous vide to keep it tender, poaching it in flavored oil in the water bath.

We stemmed the basil and mint, washed and dried, sliced fine, then poached it in some (fairly neutral) coconut oil to push the Thai flavor. We chilled that, with the herbs and the portioned monkfish so it would be solid when we vacuum bagged it: this worked well since the coconut oil sets just below room temperature.

A blog post tried a number of different temperatures and found 48C/118F to be the best so we heated the water bath and dropped the bagged fish and oil into it. Once the oil melted, we timed the cooking for 30 minutes. We use a Igloo Playmate cooler to minimize heat loss.

Meanwhile, Irene made a salad out of Malabar Spinach we'd gotten at the farmers' market. It's a more toothsome green so she dressed it early to allow the leaves to soften a bit. The dressing included lime juice, fish sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, salt, hot chili and sesame oil.

Once the fish was cooked, I strained the oil and seared the fish in cast iron with a bit of the oil.

We'd also gotten the season's first corn on the cob. We've made the grilled corn in the Pok Pok cookbook so we did a riff on that -- first cooking it in its husk in the microwave (our standard approach), then heating a bit more of the oil in a pan with some salt and chile flakes, giving it a little browning, then a lashing of fresh lemon juice.

What Worked, What Didn't

The sous vide was great for the monkfish. Cooking conventionally can dry out and toughen the outer area of the fish during the long cooking it needs, or leave the interior undercooked. This cooked it all the way through without overcooking. The time and temperature seemed fine.   The searing didn't add much texture, and that may be because my oil had a bit of the liquid from the herbs or fish so didn't produce a hard sear.

The oil did provide an attractive perfume to the fish, but not nearly so pronounced as we'd expected.  Afterwards, we chilled the oil so we could separate any herb/fish liquid from it, and plan to use the oil to poach squid -- mint and squid is a surprisingly good combination. The oil was fairly neutral with almost no coconut flavor; this is a good thing in most preps, but here we could have used more Thai stylings.

The corn finished in fat with spices and citrus is something we've taken to recently, and it worked here as well. An assertive coconut-flavored oil would take it in a more Thai-flavored direction.

We've never had this spinach before, but it turned out well. The plants are also said to like hot weather so would grow well in our garden when the rest of our salad greens have bolted or withered.

Next Time...

I'd like a good sear so maybe we could use a little fresh oil to avoid any chance of water-based liquid and also since the heat might be driving off the herbal aromatics. Or finish under the broiler or with our Searzall.

I'd also pre-cut the monkfish into medallions before bagging them in the oil. This should allow better flavor penetration and more surface area to sear.

Tichi's Gazpacho

Jose Andres' book "Tapas: a Taste of Spain in America"
is fun, imaginative, and tasty -- authentic while
using ingredients available in America.  This gazpacho is excellent
and easy.  We halved the quantities to fit in our conventional home
blender, and reduced the oil because the original seemed a bit heavy.
Fresh garden or farmers market tomatoes are essential.

Serves 4, about 3 Cups



1 pound Tomatoes, cored, cut coarse (red, yellow, heirloom, cherry)
4 ounces Cucumber, peeled, cut coarse
1 1/2 ounces Green Bell Pepper, seeded, cut coarse (red, or spicy work too)
1/2 clove Garlic, peeled, cut coarse
1 Tbs Sherry Vinegar
1/4 cup Water (or 4 Ice Cubes to help it chill faster)
1/4 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 tsp Kosher Salt

Turn on the blender and add ingredients individually so they liquify
instead of sitting in a mass above the blade.
Add Tomatoes chunks, one at a time.
Add Cucumber chunks.
Add Pepper chunks.
Add Garlic, Vinegar, and Water (or Ice Cubes).
Add Olive Oil and Salt, blend thoroughly
Taste and adjust Vinegar and Salt for balance.
Run though strainer (not Chinois), chill for an hour.
Jose Andres then garnishes with more oil, "fillets" of tomato seeds,
cherry tomato halves, cucumber cubes, croutons, chives, and sea salt;
we rarely do.

Pastrami #5: for 12 at the beach

Some samples of Pastrami #4 were pretty good but slightly under-seasoned, so we increased the brine to 5% salt for this one, decreased the sugar again and increased the liquid smoke.  This one came out beautifully, fine aroma and flavor, good texture -- I think we've nailed it finally.

We removed most of the fat cap because it doesn't melt away and is a bit too gummy for service; we removed it before brining to allow better brine penetration. No salt or sugar in the rub since we believe this desiccates the surface and turns it ropy.

Brisket

3.9 Kg / 8.6 pound Brisket

Trim excess fat from the Brisket: we lost 350 g (12 ounce).
We cut ours in half so they would fit in our brining bucket and in the vacuum bags we'd later use for sous vide.

Brine

Make a 5% brine: for 4.5L water, we need 225g. We'll heat half the water then dilute with ice to cool.

The Pink Salt is a mixture of Sodium Nitrite and regular Sodium Chloride and preserves the attractive pink color you see in cured meats like bacon; it's not strictly necessary but helps the appearance. Given how many spices you'll be using, it's worth seeking out an ethnic grocer that sells spices in bulk: coriander seeds from the Pakistani store across the street were 1/10th the cost of our chain grocery store's.

2.25 L Water

225 g Salt, kosher

200 g Brown Sugar

30 g Pink Salt (Prague Powder #1, InstaCure)

50 g Black Peppercorns

50 g Coriander Seed

10 g Yellow Mustard Seed

10 g White Peppercorns

5 g Fennel Seed

2 g Cinnamon

0.5 g Chili Flakes (very spicy Korean)

0.5 g Clove

1.25 g Bay Leaf, fresh

10 g Garlic Powder

5 g Juniper Berries

40 ml Liquid Smoke

Add the Salts, Sugar, Liquid Smoke and Powdered Garlic to the pot with water, heat until dissolved.

Grind the spices and add to water, cover, turn off heat, and let steep 30 minutes.

Pour into an 8 L Cambro bucket and add ice to bring it to 4.5 L.

Add Brisket pieces.

Refrigerate for 4 days, rotating once a day to ensure all surfaces are submerged.

Rub

80 g Black Peppercorns

80 g Coriander Seeds

20 g Garlic Powder

15 g Juniper Berries

1 g Chili Flake (very spicy Korean chilis)

Grind all spices in coffee/spice grinder fairly fine so it coats easily: sawdust texture is about right.

Pat dry the brisket and rub all around.

Seal each in vacuum bag.

For sanity, mark brine percent (5%) and date with Sharpie marker.

Refrigerate overnight to let the dry rub penetrate.

If you're not going to cook it now, you can freeze it hard in the bags; you can cook directly from frozen. We took our brined, rubbed and frozen bags o' beef to the beach in a cooler and they stayed frozen during the long trip.

Cooking

Cook the sous vide bags in a water bath at 57C/135F for 72 hours (yup, 3 days): the low temperature keeps it from getting gray or developing a crumbly texture like some corned beef; the long time is necessary to develop tenderness at this low temperature, a trade-off of time vs. temperature. We use a Sans Aire immersion circulator in a beer cooler with a lid made of Styrofoam to reduce evaporation. Check the water level once a day and top up with hot water if necessary.

Remove and let cool 30-60 minutes on the counter -- this helps the flesh reabsorb the exuded juices -- then place the sealed bags in the fridge overnight. This is contradictory to conventional wisdom and practice that demands immediate chilling in an ice bath to reduce chance of bacterial contamination, but if Bruno Goussault (the father of sous vide) recommends this, it's the thing to do. 

Serving

Cut open the bags and strain and save the liquid; toss the spent rub from the bags.

Wipe or quickly rinse off the rub that's stuck to the meat, it distracts from the texture.

Slice the meat very thinly, a millimeter is about right: a meat slicer is great for this, or use a long sharp slicing or chef's knife.

Divide the meat into two serving trays, lasagna pans are great for this.

Add the strained jus to the pans to keep the meat moist and flavorful.

You can hold this covered in the fridge if you like.

A half hour before service, add a stick of butter to each pan; we were thinking of making a sauce from the jus mounted with butter but this is a lot easier and provides a hit of richness without announcing itself.

Heat the pans covered in a low oven at serving temperature, about 57C/135F or just a bit warmer -- you do not want to dry it out after all this work -- until the butter is melted; toss gently to combine meat, juice and butter.

Serve on heated plates.

Results

This was our best yet: it smelled great, had an assertive enough flavor that was definitely pastrami, a good texture -- tender but not mushy. The salt level was fine, and the sugar this time was not at all intrusive. 

Oddly, there wasn't as much jus as last time, and it didn't gel to a good meat-stock consistency like our previous batch. The indulgent use of butter helped bump-up the mouth-feel but never tasted "buttery".

There was more than enough for the 12 of us, not twice what we needed but -- thankfully -- there was plenty to take home. 

It made for great sandwiches the next day, cool from the fridge or heated briefly in the microwave.

Next Time

Bring the goddamn meat slicer so we don't have to spend 2 hours shaving with knives and getting hands so cramped we had to wrap them around cocktail glasses.

Either bring up the the liquid smoke to a level we can smell/taste, or omit. We couldn't detect it.

If we get plenty of jus next time, we could use less butter, but we'd still use a bit for richness; just don't overdo it so it becomes detectable.

Irene's Salmon Bacon Burgers

Irene whipped these up with some provisions we had in an otherwise bare pantry from frozen salmon filet, bacon, and some burger buns I'd made. The smokey bacon worked really well with the salmon which is frequently smoke-cured too. A rustic salad of arugula from the garden rounded out the al fresco dinner.

Ingredients

6 ounces Salmon filet, frozen
6 ounces Bacon, smokey
1 whole Shallot, cut into a few pieces

Procedure

If you don't chill the Bacon first it will schmear so cut into cubes and freeze for about 30 minutes to firm up.
Process the Bacon until it looks like ground beef.
Cut the thawed Salmon into chunks and process it and the Shallot with the ground Bacon as little as possible, so it too looks like coarse burger meat.
Gently form into 2 patties pressing just enough that they come together.

Grill on ripping hot cast iron sizzle pans (fajita pans): these release a lot of fat from the bacon and you don't want that dripping onto the flames and incinerating your burgers. Flip when browned on the first side to brown the second. Repeat until it's cooked through. Lightly toast the split buns.

Results 

The texture was great, the smokey aroma immediately enticing, and texture quite good -- toothsome, burger-like with a slight crust. The proportions of salmon to bacon were good, nothing dominated. We were concerned that the fish would feel dried out, but the combined meat was moist. As it cooled, it felt a bit more dry and we thought it could use a garlic-tartar sauce or something.

Next time

I'd whip up an aioli tartar sauce to slather on the buns as soon as they came off the heat.

The buns I made were designed for big beef burgers and they may have been a bit substantial for the more delicate fish/bacon; somewhat more delicate buns would work, but certainly not something as insubstantial and nugatory as commercial burger buns.

Pastrami #4: four more curing variations

Our previous four variations of 4 and 8% brine for 3.5 and 7 days turned out too chewy and dry; we had also used a dry rub containing more salt and sugar. It was also a bit too ropey on the exterior from smoking or from desiccation by the rub's salt and sugar. This time we're going to dial down the brine and remove the salt and sugar from the rub to see if we can still get the pink cure but preserve moisture; we'll cheat and use liquid smoke to avoid drying the exterior. We'll use 2 and 4% brine for 2 and 4 days.

Brisket

2.1 Kg Brisket (4.64 pound), cut into quarters evenly

Brine

Make a full batch of 2% brine that will be divided between two buckets; we'll add more salt to the second bucket to bring it to 4%. For speed, we'll actually heat only half the water then top up with ice.

2.25 L Water
90 g Salt, kosher
250 g Brown Sugar
30 g Pink Salt
40 g Black Peppercorns
35 g Coriander Seed
5 g Yellow Mustard Seed
5 g Pink Peppercorns (didn't have, used White)
2.5 g Fennel Seed
2 g Cinnamon
4 g Chili Flakes (not too spicy, or omit: used 1g very spicy Korean)
0.35 g Clove
0.25 g Bay Leaf, fresh
5 g Garlic Powder
5 g Juniper Berries
20 ml Liquid Smoke

Heat everything but the Brisket until the Sugar and Salt have dissolved.
Divide into two 4-Liter Cambro buckets or other heat-proof containers.
Label one "2%".

Add additional 45 g Salt to the other and label it "4%"; stir to dissolve the Salt.

Add Ice to both buckets to bring the level to 2.25L in each.

When cool, add two brisket quarters to each bucket.
Brine for two days.
Remove a brisket quarter from each bucket, and label them "2 days" and with their brine percent; store in a ziplock bag in the fridge.
After another two days, remove the other two briskets, and label them "4 days" with their brine percent.

Dry rub

40 g Black Peppercorns

30 g Coriander Seeds

5 g Garlic Powder

5 g Juniper Berries

3 g Chili Flake (mild, or omit)

Grind all the herbs in a spice/coffee grinder.
Pat the dry rub around the 4 Brisket quarters.

Seal each in a vacuum bag labelled with the brine percent and time; a Sharpie marker that will withstand the bath.

Freeze if you're not ready to cook.

Cook

Cook sous vide at 53C/135F for 72 hours.

You can do this directly from frozen.
When done, let cool on counter for an hour, then overnight in the fridge to reabsorb juices.

Taste Test

Texture of all batches is fine.

Not smelling any smoke :-(

Not enough pastrami pickle-y taste.

When cooled, the combined jus was a gelatinous texture like good meat stock -- that's a great sign; curious why we didn't get it from the previous batch.

2d @ 2%

Not overly salty.

I don't like the sweetness.

Not enough seasoning!

Needs salt.

Sufficiently cooked, a little dry.

Too mild, no flavor.

4d @ 2%

More flavorful than 2d@2%

Not enough flavor

A strange bitterness.

Rancidity in fat

Afterburn from chili.

Needs salt.

2d @ 4%

Better, decent amount of flavor.

I think this is good.

4d @ 4%

Not as flavorful as 2d@4% and a bit more chewy? 

A little grainer and tougher than 2d@4%

Eat

We took 4d@4% and made a dinner from it.

First we trimmed off the fat cap, it wasn't appealing and added nothing to the dish.

Reheat the gelatinous jus and mount with a bit of butter for richness.

Slice the meat thinly on a meat slicer; thinner was more elegant and attractive, perhaps because it held more just.

This was pretty good, good enough to serve to guests.

Next time: for guests

Cut most of the fat cap off the brisket before brining, it's not pleasant at service.

Bump up the salt to make a 5% brine to boost the flavor.

Back out the sugar some more

Either add more liquid smoke, or don't add any since we couldn't taste it.

Brine 4 days.

After cooking sous vide 3 days, let cool at room temp then overnight in the fridge to reabsorb juices.

Brush off rub before slicing before slicing.

Slice very thinly on a meat slicer for the nicest texture.

Strain and heat the gelatinized jus, add some butter for richness.

Reheat the sliced meat in the enriched jus.

Cacio e Pepe with Ramps

Cacio e Pepe is a very simple Roman dish, but it's a bitch to get right. It's just pasta, water, pecorino romano cheese, and black pepper: no oil, no cream, no egg, nothing else. But the cheese wants to glop up or stick to the pot/skillet. This is our second take and we're adding ramps  which we get at the farmers market during their short season.

Not the best lighting for the finished dish :-(

One of the better discussions I've seen on cacio e pepe is on Serious Eats; he blooms the pepper in oil to bring out flavor and uses a bit of butter. Since I have to sauté the ramps anyway, I'll do both in butter; we'll try and stay pure by not adding oil. We also use Serious Eats technique of low-water boiling to increase starch; you really don't need a giant pot of water!

I've tried this before with homemade pasta and it was too soft to withstand the physical beating necessary to emulsify the cheese, so use commercial dry pasta.

225 g Spaghetti pasta (1/2 pound, 1/2 box)
80 g Pecorino Romano cheese (3 ounces)
lots of Black Pepper, freshly ground
Ramps
Butter, unsalted

Ramps are in season at the farmers market

Boil the pasta in as little water as needed to cover, with a bit of salt, stirring to ensure the strands don't stick. Cook until a couple minutes away from done, very al dente.

Grate the Pecorino very fine on a microplane or rotary grater.
Grind the pepper coarsely.
Slice the ramp stems into smallish pieces that'll fit on a fork, and the leaves into larger slices that will wilt down a bit; keep them separate.

Mise en place is essential, this comes together quickly

Heat the butter in a nonstick skillet.
Add Ramp stems and pepper, cook until fragrant.
Add Ramp leaves and cook to wilt a bit.
Remove from pan and reserve in a bowl to add later.

Turn off the heat on the skillet so the surface can cool down, to prevent cheese sticking.
When pasta is about 2 minutes from done,
ladle some of the now starch-rich water into the skillet.
Add most of the grated Pecorino and stir into the water.
Use tongs to transfer the Spaghetti to the skillet and stir into the water/cheese;
it's fine if you have water dripping from the pasta.
Stir vigorously to turn the water, starch and cheese into an emulsion coating the pasta;
add more pasta water if it's too thick, and test the pasta for doneness.
Add the Ramps and a bunch more ground Pepper, combine.

Serve and top with the rest of the grated Pecorino.

Confession: my cheese glopped together as I stirred, and I stirred quite vigorously, shaking the pan with one hand and stirring with tongs in the other. The crappy quality of the photo and the garnish of pecorino hides the glops. I had turned the heat back on low, figuring I needed enough heat to melt, but that may have been a mistake.

The TalesOfAmbrosia blog has a very simple recipe that heats the serving bowl over the pasta pot, but then combines everything off heat in that bowl.  I really do think heat is the issue.

On Republica's Scienza in Cucina blog, the article Le ricette scientifiche: la cacio e pepe is very helpful; use Google Translate :-)

Lucky Peach has 3 recipes in the print edition, but this one online is quite explicit about excessive heat causing lumps; interestingly, he makes fresh pasta.

After some experimentation, keeping temperature low solves the glopping problem.
Before adding the cheese, keep the water between 55-65C (130-150F) so the cheese won't coagulate due to excessive heat; maintain this range as you add the other ingredients. You'll probably need to let the starchy pasta water cool a bit as it will be coming off the boil.