Bacalao Pil Pil sous vide: streamlined without oil in the bag

We've been making Bacalao Pil Pil in the US for years, and now that we're living in Barcelona, we have easy access to quality Bacalao. We hit upon a couple YouTube videos that streamline our sous vide technique by eliminating the oil from the sous vide bag when cooking the fish so we don't need to separate it from the fish liquid. We've made two variations that are very promising; we're zeroing in on a streamlined technique with terrific results.

There are multiple attempts in this post, scan down to find the latest findings and techniques. Sadly, I didn't take photos for most of these.

Streamlining: no oil in the sous vide bag

This first video (predating my sous vide technique) was done in 2015 and is cooked at 65C for 30 minutes, using the same strainer-in-skillet technique I used to create an emulsion from the exuded fish liquid. In the next, from 2020, the chef cooks at 48C for 20-30 minutes without oil, then drains off the fish elixir and emulsifies it quickly with a stick blender, then adds the oil. He cooks the garlic in oil in a jar in the same bath as the fish, so he doesn't even need a sauté pan. The last, from 2021, cooks at 60C for 20 minutes, again without oil. She too drains off the elixir into a cup and creates the emulsion with a stick blender, adding in the garlic-oil to build the sauce.

The temperatures above are 48C, 60C, and 65C; I think 48C (118F) is too low for "cooked" fish, but want to avoid overcooking it, so we'll pick a middling 55C (131F). Times ranged from 20 to 30 minutes, and we'll go with the higher end to make sure our relatively thick loin cuts are cooked through.

Both are portions for two, but the first is a bit meager since you lose some weight to the fish liquid.

First Try: too garlicky

250 g      Bacalao lomo, cut into 2 pieces for serving
  2 clove  Garlic, sliced thin
 80 ml     Extra Virgin Olive Oil

De-salt the Bacalao by washing the salt off, and putting in a bowl of water. Change it twice a day for two days, then once again the morning you're going to cook.

I bagged the Bacalao (without the frozen olive oil I used to use) and cooked sous vide 30 minutes at 55C / 131F. I put the Garlic and Oil in a ziptop bag and put it in the bath as well to infuse the oil and cook the garlic (or not!).

As expected, the fish liquid was easy to pour into the cup of a stick blender; I kept the fish warm in its bag in the bath.

I added the Garlic from the Oil bag and blitzed with with a stick blender. After it turned creamy white, I drizzled in the Oil. I think I added some Salt and that was too much. It didn't thicken as much as I'd like but had a light cream texture like I'd seen in the videos.

Plate the fish, top with the sauce.

Oh, my! That garlic was pretty raw, way too hot and unpleasant even for me; it was also too salty. Clearly, the garlic cannot cook enough in a 55C bag in 30 minutes, let alone the 48C bath the chef used. I would have preferred the sauce a bit thicker, but not as thick as the mayonnaise consistency I'd been making in the US. 

I kept the excess sauce in a baggie in the fridge for a few days for another attempt.

Second Try: tamed garlic, bacalao al punto de sal

I used some frozen Bacalao al Punto de Sal; this is fresh cod that's been brined with "just enough salt", then frozen. It's handy if you haven't planned ahead for the real thing.

360 g  Bacalao al punto de sal, frozen
       Leftover sauce from previous batch with too much garlic and salt

I divided the Bacalao between two bags, sealed, and cooked them sous vide -- again at 55C for 30 minutes. 

The pil pil sauce from the previous batch had gelled in the fridge, probably from the protein or collagen in the fish elixir. To tame the garlic, I cooked it in a small sauce pan on low, whisking occasionally; the texture seemed to stay the same. After a while, I turned up the heat to medium and let it bubble just a bit, and whisked again -- wow, it quickly developed a delightful light mousse-y texture.

I plated and sauced. As expected, this fresh-frozen cod did not have the intriguing funk of salt-cured Bacalao, and the texture seemed a little mushy compared to the real thing.

The sauce was a terrific texture, light and fluffy, not like thin cream nor thick mayonnaise: really great. The garlic had been tamed as desired: still assertive but very edible. It was still too salty but we can fix that next time.

We didn't use the liquid that was exuded from this fish because we didn't need it. I noticed it didn't seem to be a cloudy suspension like salt-cured bacalao provides, but more a separate clear liquid with flecks of white protein mixed through. It also did not turn to gel in the fridge like the salt-cured elixir. I suspect it will not make a creamy emulsion when blended, but it's worth a try.

What we learned, improvements for next time

Garlic cannot be cooked sufficiently in our sous vide temperatures and times. Next time, cook the garlic in oil in a sauce pan on low while the bacalao is in the bath; when cooked (but not browned), remove the garlic and save it to build the emulsion with the fish liquid. Keep the oil warm for the pil pil sauce.

If blitzing the elixir with garlic and drizzling in the oil doesn't make as thick a pil pil sauce as you'd like, heat it in a pan on medium and fluff with a manual whisk. Hold the fish in the bath its bag so it stays warm for service.  Don't add salt to the pil pil sauce, it'll have plenty from the fish.

2024-01-23 Pil Pil Espuma

This version learns from the above and is the simplest yet. However, I used an electric whisk to create the Pil Pil and it fluffed up into an espuma (foam) that was almost identical to whipped egg whites in texture; it was fun and unusual, but too fluffy to be a proper sauce. I think there may other interesting applications, but this veers too far from tradition -- Basque grandmothers would be spinning in their graves if they saw it.  

Pil Pil was an espuma rather than a sauce; served with fried polenta

300 g      Bacalao loin, cut in two pieces

 80 ml     Olive Oil

  2 clove  Garlic, lightly smashed, peeled

Hydrate the Bacalao and desalt over 2-3 days in water, changed daily.

Put the fish in a sous vide bag and seal on "wet" setting so it doesn't squeeze the fish.

Cook sous vide 30 minutes at 55C.

Meanwhile, heat the Garlic in the Oil on very low to extract flavor without browning garlic much.

When the time is up, drain the fish liquid into a stick blender jar; hold the fish in the bag in the hot sous vide bath for service.

Add the Garlic to the blender jar and whip with an electric whisk: it will froth up like a meringue; while whipping, drizzle in the infused Oil -- ours turned became a fluffy espuma rather than a sauce.

Plate the fish and top with the espuma sauce.

Next time, try using the regular stick blender blade rather than the whisk to discourage rabid foaming.

Use a larger weight of fish, this was a bit meager. 

2024-03-25 Blend instead of whisk

I buy a large high-quality Bacalao loin when they're on sale: they keep a long time in the fridge. I cut a 640 g piece in half for this, and the resulting 325 g piece was enough for two people with a large side dish. The pil pil was not an espuma this time, it was creamy after I thickened it a bit over heat.

Bacalao Pil Pil and Black Garlic, with sautéed Artichokes

325 g      Bacalao loin, cut into two serving pieces

 80 ml     Olive Oil

  2 clove  Garlic, peeled, sliced

  2 clove  Black Garlic, sliced, for garnish (optional)

Rehydrate the bacalao, bag and seal it, and cook 30 minutes at 55C.

Meanwhile, heat the Garlic in Oil on very low.

Pour the liquid from the sous vide bag into a stick blender jar with the Garlic and blend.

Drizzle in the Oil while stick blending.

If it's too thin, add it to the pot used for the Oil and whip with a hand whisk until it thicken.

Plate the Bacalao, top with the Pil Pil, garnish with Black Garlic.

I had extra Pil Pil which I put in the fridge. The next day, it firmed up like a mousse and was quite tasty. It made for a fine topping on earthy bread topped with smoked salmon, and I'll use it on Arroz Negro tonight.

Bacallà a 65 amb crema de pequillos (Perelló)

We had this for lunch  at Perelló, a bacalao vendor and excellent cafe in Mercat Ninot. I assumed the bacalao was cooked sous vide at 65C, and then served on a smooth puree of pequillo peppers. My attempt to recreate it at home was disappointing: the pequillo sauce was fine but the fish was too salty, and not at all tender and flaking. I may have under-desalted it (causing the centers to stay stiff), or I may have overcooked it (the fish exuded a lot more white liquid than I expected).  I need to try it again and adjust my technique, because I've done similar sous vide preps for Bacalao Pil Pil and they've come out very well.

For the sauce, I would normally use garlic and oil, but I had left over oil from my super garlicky Toum sauce that I wanted to use up.

A light serving for 2.

250 g Bacalao loin, skin on

225 g drained Pequillo Peppers from a jar

 10 g Extra Virgin Olive Oil

 25 g Toum Oil

  5 g Salt

Cut the Bacalao loin into 2 pieces for serving and de-salt it in a bowl of water for two nights, changing every day.

Dry and put in a sous vide bag and seal.

Cook sous vide for 45 minutes at 65C.

While that's cooking, combine Pequillo Peppers, Oils, and Salt in a vessel and blitz with a stick blender until smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning.

Drain and reserve the white liquid from the Bacalao bag; this should contain protein sufficient to make a Pil Pil sauce when blended with oil.

I seared the skin of the Bacalao portions with a Searzall torch, but don't think this added much; it's not something Perelló did.

Spread some Pequillo sauce on a plate, top with Bacalao.

We served with pan fried potatoes.

Garnish with parsley.

Seaweed Pasta #1

I've been wanting to try adding seaweed to my fresh pasta for a while -- I hoped it would give it a flavor of the ocean and be an interesting color, even if not as intense as my squid ink pasta. This wasn't a big success, and I'll explain why, but I'll try again with a variation.

Seaweed pasta, reduced fish/cream sauce, caviar

The beautiful Mercat de Sant Antoni is a short walk from our place, and vendor Giro sells exotic fruits and vegetables including fresh seaweed. We got a package of mixed seaweeds in light and dark green and an attractive burgundy color.

I soaked it for a bit to remove the salt, then squeezed out all the moisture I could, and blotted with a dish towel (just like you would for spinach), giving me about 125 g of damp seaweed. This wouldn't mix into the pasta as is, so I blended it; it needed some liquid for the blender, so I added the eggs from my normal pasta dough recipe and blended as best as I could.  Then I made the pasta as normal, but had to incorporate a lot more flour to accommodate the additional mass and liquid of the seaweed -- it was a bit of a fuss, actually, to get it to come together. 

125 g Seaweed that's been rinsed and squeezed dried

125 g Eggs (2 XL eggs out of their shells)

100 g Flour

100 g Semolina

 25 g Flour to knead in for consistency

Blend the Seaweed with the Eggs until it's as smooth as possible; I feared that large chunks will break the structure of the pasta so wanted to break it down.

Put the 100 g Flour and Semolina in a bowl and add the blended Seaweed.

Stir and combine with a spatula, then move to a floured counter to knead; I had to add the additional 25 g Flour because the dough was too wet. Knead until fairly smooth, then cover in plastic wrap and let hydrate in the fridge for a few hours. 

This much pasta was enough for two 2-person servings so I cut it in half for our dinner.

Roll and cut into fettuccini with a pasta roller. I usually go down to a size 7 for fettuccini, but stopped at 6 for this because I was concerned about the seaweed breaking the structure of the pasta.

Bring salted water to boil and cook until barely done.

We made a sauce with Irene's fish stock, reduced down to concentrate, then added cream, and reduced further. This didn't thicken quite as much as we wanted, but it tasted great -- rich and full of fishy flavor. We plated the pasta, drizzled the sauce, then topped with a bit of caviar.

The sauce was tasty but the pasta didn't have the flavor of the sea we hoped to get from the seaweed; it certainly wasn't as dramatic -- or rewarding -- as my squid ink pasta.

I froze half the pasta for another night, as I usually do, and this damaged the texture of the pasta when rolling and cooking. I think the freezing broke the cells of the seaweed and caused it to break down, so my pasta turned out ragged. Many vegetables break down when their internal moisture freezes, expands, and explodes the cell walls, so this isn't too surprising -- just disappointing. I've made pasta with chlorophyll and it did not have this structural problem, but that's a lot more difficult to make.

Working with the fresh seaweed was difficult, but I'd try this again with dried seaweed. The only post I found that incorporated seaweed into pasta used dried wakame, kombu, and sea palm, and cautioned that "nori is not the right color and texture". I really like wakame but know that it expands greatly when hydrated, so I'm concerned it might break the pasta.  I plan to pulverize the dried seaweeds in a blender and mix with the flours and eggs. I'm hoping this won't require the addition of so much extra flour, and provide a more intense flavor.

Vitello Tonnato sous vide #1

Vitello Tonnato is an Italian dish: veal served with a tuna-based sauce. I usually find it uninspired but at Bar Eixample in Barcelona we had a fantastic rendition that we wanted to re-create. The uniform pink of the meat suggested sous vide cooking, with the slight brown around the edge indicating a quick sear. We knew we'd have to cook, chill, sear, chill hard, then slice thinly. It came out pretty well, and we have thoughts on improvement and variations at the end. 

Our rendition

Bar Eixample's archetype

We started with an "Estalvi!" (sale!) cut of Vedella. In our grocery in Barcelona, "Vedella" is younger cow (under 18 months?) than "Bou" which is older than 18 months; neither is as pale as the "veal" you can find in the US.  I trimmed out the cut, removing fat and gristle, but I don't know what cut it was -- it was on sale, and we're just experimenting. We don't have our usual vacuum sealer and Searzall torch, so we improvised. 

This served two for a very pleasant lunch.

250 g Vedella, trimmed of fat, sinew, etc

1 Egg Yolk, room temperature

Lemon Juice

Tarragon Mustard

Sunflower Oil

52g Tuna, canned in olive oil

1 Anchovy

Capers

2 Endives, sliced in rounds (you could use Arugula or anything else)

Tomato, peeled, sliced in cubes

Capers

Parsley, chopped

Lemon zest

Cornichon

Pickled White Onion

Olives, black and green

Black Pepper

Vitello:

Cook the Vedella sous vide at 57.2C / 135F for 1 hour: you want it pink inside.

Let cool on the counter to absorb the juices, then chill over night in the fridge.

Heat 2 cast iron pans until smoking.

Thoroughly dry the Vedealla, then put it on one pan and put the other on top to sear both surfaces at once.

Sear for about a minute: you don't want to overcook the inside, just brown and maybe give a crust.

Let cool a bit, bag, then put in the freezer for 30 minutes to firm up for slicing.

Slice as thinly as possible, I was able to get 1-2mm slices.

Seared both sides on cast iron, leaving center rare

Tonnato:

With a stick blender, whisk the Egg Yolk up until frothy, with some Lemon Juice.

Add a dollop of Mustard, continue frothing with the stick blender.

Drizzle in the Oil to form a mayonnaise.

Separately, whiz up the Tuna, Anchovy, Capers then fold into the Mayonnaise; if you want it smooth, whiz them again together.

Plating:

Lay out the Endive rounds on a plate.

Top with some Tonnato.

Slice the now firm Vedalla thinly and arrange gracefully on the Endive bed.

Top with more Tonnato.

Garnish with the Tomato, Capers, Parsley, lemon Zest, Cornichon, Pickled White Onion, Olives.

Add a good grind of Black papper.

Serve with white wine and some good bread or crackers.

This turned out well, a very elegant lunch, without a lot of fuss.

It could easily be scaled up, and almost all of it can be prepared ahead of time.

Next time...

Add some Salt to the Vedella to help the flavor; I understand this is usually contra-indicated for sous vide, but figure the moisture it draws out from the meat will have time to migrate back in, like it does with a dry brine.

Freeze a bit longer, maybe 45-60 minutes, to firm up and make thin slicing easier.

Add another Anchovy and maybe a bit more Tuna to boost flavor.

The presentation at Bar Eixample indicated a cylindrical muscle like a loin; we should seek out other cuts.  Ours, cooked, had a taste and texture like properly cooked American Roast Beef; the Bar's was more lightly colored and less pronounced flavor, as if from a younger animal.

We could try other meats: pork loin would be the right shape, we can find lamb here easily, even turkey could work; we'd have to experiment to see what temperatures give us a good color and texture.

Samfaina amb Bacalao: Easter dish of salt cod with stewed vegetable sauce

Samfaina is a classic Catalan dish of stewed eggplant with a sofrito of onion, garlic, and grated tomato; it's frequently a side dish to meats, or used as a sauce, as we do here. Ratatouille is a more famous French version, but Claudia Roden and makes the case that this preparation of vegetables originated in Spain, since the Arabs introduced the eggplant to the Iberian peninsula long ago; both she and Coleman Andrews point out that peppers and tomatoes came from Spain's conquest of the "new world" and were widely used here before they appeared in French cooking. 

I'm drawing from Coleman Andrews book "Catalan Cuisine" for both Samfaina and a chef's take on Bacalao amb Samfaina. Claudia Roden's recipe in "The Food of Spain" is similar, but she adds the vegetables in stages. Directo al Paladar has a recipe including bacalao that is detailed with pictures. Many recipes include zucchini, but Roden doesn't like that version, and I don't think it adds much.

The red bell peppers we get in Barcelona are huge, compared to the green/red bells we got in the US. The eggplant I got here looks like a smaller version of the "globe" version in the US, but I think any variety (including slender Japanese) would work fine. Proportions are approximate, below is the weight of the veggies I had on hand. 

Bacalao on Samfaina, with white beans and crunchy breadcrumbs

This serves 2 but you'll probably have extra samfaina; keep it to serve with other dishes.

 50 ml     Extra Virgin Olive Oil, as needed

150 g      Onion (1 medium), chopped

  4 cloves Garlic, minced

330 g      Eggplant (1 medium), skin on, 1-2 cm dice

240 g      Tomatoes (4 medium), grated or chopped

300 g      Red Bell Pepper (1 large), skin on, seeded, 1-22 cm dice

250 g      Bacalao, hydrated 2 days to desalinate, skinned

           Flour

           Olive Oil

Heat the Oil on medium with some Salt, add Onions, cook covered for a few minutes.

Add Garlic.

When onions are soft, add Peppers and Eggplant; add Oil if needed.

Cook covered on medium for 30-40 minutes.

Uncover, increase heat a bit, cook until liquid has evaporated, stirring occasionally.

Add Tomatoes, continue cooking uncovered, until liquid evaporates again and vegetables are very soft, probably another 20 minutes. 

Season with Salt and Pepper.

Dry Bacalao thoroughly, cut into 2 serving size pieces; dust each with flour then sauté in a small amount of Oil on all sides until golden-brown. 

Add on top of the Samfaina, cover, cook on low until fish is cooked through.

Serve by spooning out some Samfaina onto plates and top with Bacalao.

Potaje de Vigilia: Easter stew of chickpeas, spinach, bacalao

We've been immersing ourselves in the seasonal foods in Barcelona, and Easter Week (semana santa) is a big deal here with its own foods.  Despite being a food of abstinence (vigilia), this is rich and the flavor is well more than the sum of ingredients. It's not hard to make, and you could substitute ham for the bacalao to provide the salty umami, or omit the egg and bacalao if you wanted a vegan version.  Claudia Rodan's recipe doesn't use the bacalao in her recipe; I'm basing mine on Emma Garcia's which uses a "majado" of breadcrumbs, egg, and oil to provide body and flavor.

Garbanzos, Spinach, Bacalao, garnished with chopped Egg Whites

Measurements are approximate, I'm aiming for a something thicker than a soup, almost a stew. 

This makes 4 dinner portions.

240 g      Bacalao, hydrated over two nights, changing water

240 g      Garbanzo beans, dried; rehydrate overnight

  2 whole  Cloves

  2        Bay Leaves

           Olive Oil, for frying

  2 clove  Garlic, sliced

  2 slices Bread

  2        Eggs

           Extra Virgin Olive Oil, for majado

200 g      Onion (or Leek), chopped

130 g      Tomato, chopped

300 ml     Fish Stock

big pinch  Pimentón Dulce

300 g      Spinach, fresh

Soak the salted, dried Bacalao in water overnight; change the water, soak again overnight, drain. If it's still stiff and too salty, soak bit more, but you'll be cooking it and don't want to leach all the salt funk from the fish.

Soak the dried Garbanzo beans overnight in plenty of water. Drain and leave in the fridge until you're ready. You could use cooked canned or jarred garbanzos too: use about 450 g pre-cooked garbanzos.

Cook the Garbanzos covered in water with the Cloves and Bay Leaf, some Salt and Pepper, and with any aromatics you have around -- a carrot, celery stalk, onion, etc. This should take about 90-120 minutes, covered, on a lazy simmer.

Add some Olive Oil to a skillet and sauté the Garlic; reserve.
Add the bread and toast in the Olive Oil on both sides until a bit crunchy and toasted; you might want to weight it down to make good contact; reserve. Don't clean the skillet, you'll use it again in a minute.

Boil the eggs: add to cold water, bring to boil, turn off, cover, and let sit 10 minutes. Peel and separate yolks from whites, keep both. 

In a blender or food processor, blitz the toasted bread with two egg yolks and some nice Extra Virgin Olive Oil. This makes a "majado" -- kinda like a panade -- which will thicken the sauce and add depth of flavor. Reserve.

The blitzed majado

Add some more Olive Oil to the skillet and sauté the Onions until soft and a bit golden, add then the Tomato, and cook until soft. Blitz in blender or food processor with the Fish Stock and Pimentón to get a smooth texture. 

When cooked, drain the Garbanzos and collect the cooking liquid; toss the aromatics.

Add the Garbanzos and Garlic back to the pot with the smooth Onion Tomato Stock. 

Add the Majado for body and flavor.

Add the Spinach and stir to cook, and let it reduce down.

If it's too thick for your liking, add the bean cooking liquid until you get the texture you prefer; you could thin it with more Fish Stock too, if needed.

Cut up the rehydrated Bacalao and add to the potage, and let it cook through a few minutes.

Check seasoning for Salt and Pepper.

Serve in bowls, garnished with chopped Egg Whites.

Lamb and Potato Moussaka

Greek Moussaka is usually made with eggplant, sometimes with potatoes; we didn't have eggplants so we went with this potato-only version from The Spruce Eats. It turned out really well: rich, tasty, a little exotic, but ultimately a comfort food. We're adapting it slightly here, all proportions are approximate -- it's not a fussy dish. It does take some time as there are several steps. We used lamb, but you could use beef or a mix. This dish serves four and fit snugly in a small lasagna pan, 11x7x1.5 inches, 1 quart/liter, or two loaf pans. 

I stuck the end bits of the potato in the top just for fun

We had some extra stock, and we didn't want to fry the potatoes, so we took the unusual step of cooking the potatoes in stock topped up with a bit of wine. We then reused the liquid to make a flavored béchamel. Totally unconventional, but tasty. You can just simmer the potatoes in water, and make a plain béchamel with milk, of course. 

We originally made this while away from home where we had no scale, but now we've converted it to metric.

You can swap half of the Potatoes for an equal amount of Eggplant.

Potatoes (and Eggplant):
700 g     1 1/2 pound  Yukon Gold Potatoes (about 5 medium)
500 ml        2 C      Chicken Stock (or Water)

Meat Sauce:

500 g         1 pound  Ground Lamb

  1 large              Onion, chopped

  3 clove              Garlic, minced

  2 medium             Tomatoes, chopped

2.5 cm        1 inch   Cinnamon stick

  2 whole              Bay Leaves

  1 g       1/8 tsp    Allspice (5 pimienta de olor), ground

  3 whole   1/8 tsp    Cloves, ground

  2 g       1/2 tsp    Salt

  1 g       1/2 tsp    Black Pepper

 70 ml      1/4 C      Dry White Wine

 20 g         1 Tbs    Tomato Paste

    1 bunch            Thyme leaves

Béchamel (typically: 1:1 fat:flour, 5:1 milk:flour)

See notes at end about doubling the amount.

 60 g         4 Tbs    Butter

 60 g       1/4 C      Flour

500 ml        2 C      Chicken Stock reserved from cooking Potatoes (or additional 250 ml / 1 C Milk)

250 ml        1 C      Milk

  2 g       1/2 tsp    Kosher Salt

  1 g       1/4 tsp    White Pepper, ground

0.5 g       1/8 tsp    Nutmeg, ground

  1 Egg                Yolk, beaten (optional)

Assembly, Topping:
 as needed             Butter

 15 g       1/4 C      Breadcrumbs, toasted

 40 g       1/4 C      Feta Cheese, crumbled

Slice the Potatoes into 2 mm (1/8 inch) slices and boil until cooked and flexible but not falling apart. We used Chicken Stock and a bit of White Wine instead of Water, just because we had it. Drain and reserve the stock (if using). If you're using Eggplant, slice a bit thicker: I cooked them briefly in the Stock this time but think that was unnecessary. 

Brown the Lamb, and remove meat to plate, leaving fat in the pan.

Cook the Onions (add some Oil if needed) until barely soft, then add Garlic and cook a few minutes more.

Add the remaining ingredients and cook to merge flavors.

Add the reserved browned Meat.

Continue cooking to reduce moisture, until you have a dry meat sauce.

If you used Stock or Stock and Wine, reduce the reserved liquid to 300 ml (1 C).

Melt the Butter and cook the Flour a bit.

Add the Milk and reduced Stock, and continue to cook and stir until you get a smooth thick white sauce.

Remove from heat and stir in Egg Yolk.

Film the lasagne pan with butter to lubricate it a bit.

Layer the half of the cooked Potatoes like shingles, slightly overlapping, to cover the bottom of the pan.

Add half the meat sauce then smooth gently.

Add half the Béchamel and smooth.

Add another layer of shingled potatoes, meat sauce, and Béchamel.

Top with Bread Crumbs and Feta.

Bake about an hour at 180C (350F) until everything's cooked through and a fork or knife can pierce the potatoes fairly easily.

Let cool 20 minutes to let it set.

Cut and serve.

2024-09-04 With Eggplant

I didn't have Lamb, so I made this with a 50/50 Beef/Pork mix. I used about half Potato and half Eggplant. I cooked each separately in a mixed stock I had on hand, but the Eggplant got too soft. 

Next time: 

Consider searing them sans oil in a cast iron skillet, as several Serious Eats comments suggested. 

The Feta we used didn't melt well, consider mixing into the hot Béchamel instead.

2025-02-21 With Eggplant and Potato

We used proportions we had on hand, below, and it made 3x bread loaf pans, each of which comfortably fed 2 people for dinner.

We used 400 g Pork/Beef mix, and about 500 g Potatoes sliced 2mm, and 500 g long Eggplant sliced into 4mm (2mm was too fragile). We cooked the potatoes in the 500 ml Milk with a Bay Leaf (no wine/stock this time), which we then used for the Béchamel; I didn't use the Yolk, and it was fine. We dry-fried the Eggplant on a plancha with a bit of oil to prevent sticking and it gave them an attractive pancake-like brown surface. I had to make a more Béchamel (400 ml Milk) to have enough for the top layer,.

Next time, use 1 liter of Milk to cook the Potatoes; this will require more Butter and Flour, probably double. found it much quicker to assemble when I mixed the Meat Sauce with the Béchamel, but reserve about 1/4 for the final topping.

2025-12-20 Eggplant, Potato, Beef: 2 pans, too soft

This time we had 500 g Ground Beef, 330 g Eggplant (4mm), 330 g Potatoes (2mm), and it was the right amount for 2 loaf pans. I simmered the Potatoes in 500 ml Milk, and dry fried the Eggplant.

Both both lost most of their texture in the finished dish. The potatoes were Patatas para hervir (boil) which seem to cook much more quickly than we'd expect, so next time perhaps skip the pre-cook or use a different kind of potato. Maybe the Eggplant could also have done without the pre-cook. I had to add another 250 ml or so of Milk to give me enough Béchamel with the 60 g Butter and Flour.

Mini Chocoflanes

These chocolate flan desserts are also called "pastelitos imposibles" because the cake portion magically rises to the top of the dish as it cooks (due to expansion making it lighter than the flan above). In fact, it's relatively easy to make. This is an intensely chocolate-y version from Cooks Country February/March 2023. They claim that you must use Cajete instead of the easier-to-find Dulce de Leche due to the latter's density, but that doesn't make sense due to the layering, and is empirically untrue. The hardest part is combining the ingredients for the cake as it's quite dense; the flan is trivial in a blender.

Dulce de Leche on top, then flan, and cake on bottom

This makes six 8-ounce ramekins, or four 12-ounce oven-safe ceramic bowls that are large enough to split between two people; eight 6-ounce ramekins would be a fine size for a single person.

 90 ml          6 Tbs     Cajeta or Dulce de Leche

Cake:

  70 g          6 Tbs     Sugar

  45 g          5 Tbs     AP Flour

 0.6 g        1/8 tsp     Baking Soda

 0.8 g        1/8 tsp     Table Salt

  57 g        1/3 C       Bittersweet Chocolate Chips

  60 ml       1/4 C       Whole Milk

  22 g        1/4 C       Dutch-processed cocoa powder

  37 ml     2 1/2 Tbs     Vegetable Oil

   1 large      1 large   Egg

1.25 ml       1/4 tsp     Vanilla Extract

Flan:

 235 ml         1 C       Evaporated Milk

 235 ml         1 C       Sweetened Condensed Milk

  85 g          3 ounce   Cream Cheese

   2 large      2 large   Eggs

  10 ml         2 tsp     Vanilla Extract

   1 g        1/8 tsp     Table Salt

Heat oven to 160C/325F (convection is fine, too).

Spray ramekins with oil or paint with butter.

Find a lasagna pan or similar, big enough to hold your ramekins in a water bath.

If necessary, heat Cajeta or Dulce de Leche gently in a microwave until spoonable, then add a Tablespoon to each of the ramekins.

Cake:

Whisk Sugar, Flour, Baking Soda, and Salt.

Heat Chocolate, Milk, and Cocoa in a small sauce pan over low heat until melted and smooth, 3-5 minutes; let cool slightly, about 5 minutes.

Whisk Oil, Egg, and Vanilla into chocolate mixture until smooth.

Whisk in sugar mixture and combine thoroughly; this is pretty stiff but it will come together.

Divide the thick batter between the ramekins, trying not to mix into the Cajeta/Dulce too much.

Flan:

Bring 1 quart/liter of Water to boil for the bain marie.

Process all ingredients in a blender until smooth.

Divide flan mixture between the ramekins; this loose liquid probably won't disturb the thick cake batter much.

Add the ramekins to the lasagne pan then fill this pan with boiling water to make a bain marie.

Spray oil or smear butter over a piece of foil and cover the bain marie.

Bake 50 minutes for small ramekins, or 70 minutes for larger ones; you want enough time for the egg to set the flan.

Test that a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Remove ramekins from water and let cool, at least an hour.

Invert the ramekins onto serving plates, and top with remaining sauce from the ramekins.

You can eat these barely cool, and they'll be pretty soft, but they're quite good after being chilled in a fridge where they will firm up a bit.

Bacalao Pil Pil Sous Vide -- in our Barcelona apartment

In our last episode with Bacalao, we found that we could get the "elixir" -- the emulsifier for the pil pil sauce -- efficiently using minimal oil using a sous vide technique, and subsequent experiments showed we could even do this with Mahi Mahi, at lower temperature.

We recently moved to Barcelona, where Bacalao is everywhere, and  restaurants have special machines to agitate the fish in oil to create the emulsion. We brought our first-generation sous vide machine by Sansaire -- even though it only ran on US-style 115VAC 60Hz: we got a step-down transformer to convert Spain's 230VAC to 115VAC, and hoped the 50Hz frequency wouldn't bother the motor too much. 

Tonight's dinner proved a success, using local bacalao and the hacked sous vide setup. We also discovered that using a even lower temperature works, and have suggestions for improvement.

Bacalao with emulsived sauce, served with potatoes and bulbing onions from the plancha

For a previous dinner here, we got some salted, dried bacalao from our local supermarket. The person in front of us got all coveted loins ("Estalvi!",  "saving!"), so we picked up a couple filets. We rehydrated them over a couple nights in the fridge and used half of it for one dinner, and froze the rest which we used tonight. The proportions below are what we had, and what we did; in the epilog, we suggest adjustments.

280 g      Bacalao filets, skin on, hydrated
pinch      Cayenne pepper flakes
2 cloves Garlic, sliced
120 ml    Olive Oil and Corn Oil mix (we ran out of Olive Oil)

Bag everything in a zip-top and place in a sous vide bath at 55C/130F for 30 minutes. I turned and agitated the bag every 5 minutes or so to make sure everything was distributed well.

How embarrassing: 135F, not 55C

Pour the oil and the critical milky white liquid that collected in the bag, the "elixir" (which I believe is a weak gelatin from under the skin of the fish, or at least in its flesh) into a tall glass and let it settle out. Use a turkey baster to pull the milky liquid from under the oil and put in a pan on medium heat.

Keep the bacalao in its bag in the still-hot water bath, with the power turned off, so it stays warm for service.

Use a stock skimmer or similar to whip air into the elixer. This time, mine was quite thin, so I had the heat on our induction cooker high enough to barely simmer the liquid to reduce it a bit. Bubbles begin to form as I whisked air into it, and after a while, I bravely added some of the reserved oil: it started to combine into an emulsion -- success! I continued whisking and adding oil to build the emulsion and developed one as thick as mayonnaise, so I added a bit of lemon juice and wine, and a dash of salt, and finished when I'd used all the oil. 

Thickened emulstion 

Plate the fish, top with emulsified sauce and sliced garlic from the bag, and serve. Some parsley would have helped here.

Results

I was happy to see the milky white "elixir" in the bag after about 15 minutes, but when I poured it into the pan, it seemed really thin. It appeared to be the hydrating water from the bacalao, and I was worried it wouldn't turn into an emulsion. But after bumping up the heat to a bare simmer and continuing to whisk, it did thicken a bit and bound the oil just fine.

The fish was a bit salty, which was a result of under-hydrating the dried bacalao, not this process.

The flesh of the fish flaked, like you'd expect cod to do, but required just a bit more force than I'd like. It was still moist, so reducing the temperature from 60C/140F to 55C/135F was a good move -- and we still got the elixir. 

There was more emulsified sauce than we needed for the fish, and it was quite thick despite thinning with wine and lemon juice. It complemented the potatoes Irene cooked on the plancha quite well, so nothing was wasted.

Next Time

When hydrating dried bacalao, take a sample, cook it, check the saltiness, and hydrate longer if needed; don't over hydrate or it will become bland. Ours was too salty but by this point it was too late to adjust. Our fish mongers will helpfully hector us about the right duration to hydrate and the number of changes of water we need: listen to them, and test for taste!

Keep the cooking temperature at 55C to preserve the moistness, but increase the time from 30 to 45 or maybe 60 minutes to allow it to flake more easily.

Cut the oil for the emulsion in half, 50-60ml should do. The wine, lemon, and salt were fine additions, so keep them, but taste, taste, taste for balance.

Lentejas con Chorizo (Lentils with Chorizo)

This Spanish lentil and chorizo dish is simple, warming, and hearty -- a classic. Recipes range from soupy to stewy; I lean toward a thicker consistency for dinner but don't want to overcook the lentils to the point of being mushy. For this dish, I'm taking cues from Spanish Sabores and Spain on a Fork.

I used brown lentils, but you can use black or green. In this rendition, I had a string of little chorizo balls, so I cut them into attractive hemispheres. We had some vegetable stock in the freezer which Irene simmered with some pork bones that we'd collected to give it some body. We've got rosemary, thyme, and bay growing on the terrace so we've used all three, but you can use any combination of aromatics that you like. The pickled Guindilla chilis just a little spicy, their acidity adds balance to the richness; our Catalan supermarket calls the Bixtos and they're also known as Piparras. If you can't find the Ñora or Choricero, use some Pimenton (Spanish smoked Paprika); the Ñora has a richness of tomato paste combined with the rich tobacco/leather notes of Ancho or Poblano chilis.

Total time about 1 hour; serves two:

125 g       Lentils, dried
600 ml      Stock (pork, beef, chicken, or vegetable)
    taste   Black Pepper, fresh ground
  1 stalk   Celery, whole
  1 sprig   Rosemary, whole for removal later
  1 bunch   Thyme, leave on stem for removal later
  1 whole   Bay Leaf
150 g       Chorizo, sliced into rounds
 15 ml      Olive Oil (a generous glug to prevent fat from burning)
  1 large   Onion, diced
  2 large   Carrots, large slice or dice
1/2         Red Bell Pepper, medium, large dice (72 g here)
  4 clove   Garlic, sliced thin
  1 medium  Tomato, crushed
 20 g       Ñora Pepper paste
2-4         Guindilla Chilis packed in vinegar

I'd suggest doing a mise en place -- measuring your ingredients and chopping your vegetables ahead of time -- so you don't risk overcooking the Lentils.

Rinse the Lentils and check for debris.

Add the Lentils to a pot with the Black Pepper, Celery, and whole aromatic herbs, and cover with Stock, then bring to a low simmer. These take the longest time to cook so give them a head start while you prepare the sofrito.

In a skillet, sear the Chorizo on all sides to render a little fat; continuing to sauté so the sausage cooks through.

In the skillet with the Chorizo fat, add the Oil and sauté the Onions and Carrots until the onions start to brown, then add Garlic and Pepper for a couple minutes, then the Tomatoes. Cover and cook over medium heat until reduced to a paste -- a sofrito -- about 10 minutes.

Add the sofrito and Ñora paste to the Lentil pot and simmer on low until the flavors have combined. Don't let it cook so much that the Lentils get mushy; if there's too much liquid, boost the heat but stir constantly so the lentils at the bottom don't burn. If it starts drying out, add more Stock or water and lower the heat. Taste and adjust Salt. Remove Celery and aromatic herbs.

Serve with the seared Chorizo, and top with some pickled Guindilla Chili peppers; slicing them makes it easier to eat without a knife. A hearty red wine works well with this rich dish.