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.