Baked Curry flavored wings カレー味手羽のオーブン焼き

Although this is the most common way we cook chicken wings, I was surprised to find that I never posted this particular dish. This is my answer to Buffalo wings. It is baked instead of deep fried and seasoned with curry powder instead of hot sauce. My secrets are:  1) the use of a high temperature convection oven (most of the time we use our trusty toaster oven in convection mode at 450F), 2) the addition of flour to the seasoning and 3) the thorough coating of the wings with the seasoning.

Here is today's batch. This is not one of my best efforts but it is good enough with crispy skin and juicy meat.



We especially like wings as oppose to drumetts.



Ingredients:

Chicken wings: I used 6 wings, wing tips removed and wing and drumetts separated.
Dry rub*: This is a mixture of flour (AP) 1/2 cup, curry powder 1 tbs (this one is called "sweet" curry powder from Whole Foods, you can add more or use spicier curry powder), salt (1 tsp) and black pepper (1 tsp). I mixed the spices and placed the mixture in a Ziploc bag large enough to hold the wings. I then placed the wings and drumetts in the bag to coat them well (my version of "shake-and-bake").



* I usually just "eye ball" the ingredients for the spice mixture and place them directly in the Ziploc bag.

I placed these seasoned wings and drumetts on a baking sheet. (I cover the sheet with aluminum foil and either olive oil or Pam spray to prevent sticking). I placed it in a preheated 450F (highest setting) toaster oven in convection mode for 30 minutes turning after 15 minutes. The idea here is that the wings oven fry in their own fat. The flour helps make a nice crust on the surface. The only caution is that the smell of curry powder may permeate the house. My wife insists that I move the toaster oven under the hood vent for the stove while we cook this dish.

The result is very satisfactory. We eat it like Buffalo wings with a blue cheese dip made of blue cheese dressing and greek yogurt. This evening we had this with potato salad and coleslaw that I had made the previous weekend. We definitely like this better than the ones I made using sous vide. The results are very similar but this is much more simple to prepare.

Sous Vide Buffalo wings スービィ バッファローウイング

Buffalo wings must be the quintessential American bar food. I have posted my (a bit anemic) baked version in the past. We love chicken wings and cook them many different ways. When I saw a recipe for sous vide Buffalo wings, I felt I owed it to myself  to try it (at least once). The idea is instead of par-frying in low temperature and then re-frying it in high temperature, the wings are first first sous vide and then deep fried at a high temperature. They can also be made by first sous vide and then baked. I tried both methods as an experiment.

My sous vide and deep fried version is shown here.



The sous vide then broiled-in-toaster-oven version is shown here (I only did two wings and two drumets as a trial). These were not as good as the deep dried ones (not surprising).



First of all, I got an addition to my sous vide apparatus. I bought my Anova sous vide circulator through Amazon and they have an uncanny way (via cookie, I am sure) to show other items which may be of interest to you based on your previous purchases.  This plastic storage container (for restaurants) was one of them. (I ended up not buying from Amazon since I found a much better price even with additional shipping cost) elsewhere. As you can see you can also get a clear plastic lid with a sliding door and my Anova fits (on the longer end not the shorter end). Of course you can not close the door all the way but the gap can be easily covered by aluminum foil.



When the Anova is installed, the bottom of the machine is about 2 inches off the bottom of the container. When I first tested it, the water level was between the min and max marks of the Anova, it made noise and bubbles came out of the circulator. For the circulator to work properly, I had to fill the container to just a few inches from the upper rim or close to the max mark on the Anova. The container holds up to 4 and 3/4 gallons which is within the capacity of Anova (22 litters or 5.8 gallons). With the container almost full, my Anova had no difficulty circulating water and maintaining  temperature. The advantage of having this container is its larger capacity, the better water evaporation control (for long sous vide cooking), and easier insulation (cover it in a blanket or towel). You can also see your submerged vacuum sealed bags while cooking since the the container is clear. I will be using either my deep pot or this container depending on what and how much I am cooking.



Back to sous vide Buffalo wings;

Wings preparation: I used whole wings. I removed and discarded the wings tips and separated the wings and drumets, seasoned them with salt and pepper and vacuum sealed in two separate pouches (see upper images below).

Sous vide: I cooked at 160F for about 6 hours (The aforementioned recipe calls for 170F but I determined 160F is high enough. My guess of cooking time is a minimum of  2 hours and up to 6-7 hours.)  I could have removed the chicken sooner but I held it until we were ready to eat it in the evening. The lower left images show when both packages were submerged in the water which you can see well from the side wall of the clear plastic container. After 6 hours, I removed the chicken wings and blotted them dry on a paper towel. The bags contained a small amount of liquid which congealed as it cooled (indicating lots of collagen melted and came out into the liquid).



I decide to experiment and I deep fried most of them at 400F (hot!) peanuts oil for few minutes until skin was  golden and crispy (about 2 minutes turning once). Since the chicken was fully cooked, the only thing needed was to crisp up the skin (below). Despite my carefully blotting of excess moisture, it spitted and splattered quite a bit.



I broiled two each of wings and drumets in my toaster oven for few minutes until the skin browned for comparison.

My wife made a mixture of melted butter and hot sauce ( She used Sriracha) and tossed the fried and broiled wings in a bowl. My wife also made mixture of blue cheese dressing (from the bottle) and Greek yogurt as a cool dipping sauce.

Verdict: We are not sure it is worthwhile to sous vide and deep dry wings. Do not take us wrong, they were good. The meat was tender and came off the bone so easily and the skin was crispy. The broiled ones were not as good since the skin did not get uniformly crispy (which was expected). But even my baked Buffalo wings are pretty good and they take a fraction of the time and effort to get a similar result. I also realized that I have not posted our favorite baked wings with curry flavor. We will stick to our "baked" wings (to be posted soon).

Chicken and Greek yogurt egg rolls 鶏肉とヨーグルトソースの春巻き

When we barbecue chicken on weekends, we usually cook two chickens at a time in our Weber grill—not because we eat a chicken each but to assure we have leftovers to use in other dishes. The leftovers are always very good to have for the following week. The wings can be just heated up in a toaster oven for a quick snack, the breast meat is used to make salads, sandwiches and other dishes. The dark meat including some of the skin is used in chicken noodle or Minestrone-style  soup. The barbecued flavors make these dishes better than using raw chicken meat.  This time, I had a portion of breast meat left after one week and needed to finish it before it went bad. I saw an unusual recipe for a spring roll using yogurt and chicken breast (the original recipe calls for chicken tenderloin). I decide to try it in one weekday evening.

This was the second small dish we had that evening. I should have rolled them a bit tighter but it tasted very good. I served it with spicy mayonnaise.



The original recipe calls for green pea sprouts "tou-myou" 豆苗 but they are not available here (among the many sprouts we can get here, I have never seen green pea sprouts. The closest we can come may be pea shoots unless you grow green pea sprouts yourself).  I substituted this with water cress (just because I had an open bag).

Water cress: I just used a a big hand full but I could have used more. I cut into short segments and quickly sautéed it in olive oil until wilted ( a few minutes). I seasoned it with salt and pepper. I set it aside to cool in a metal bowl.

Chicken: The original recipe calls for chicken tenderloins but I used  chicken breast meat left over from the previous weekend’s barbecue. I hand shredded it along the grain of the meat (I probably had 1/4 of a whole breast).

Perilla: Perilla is going strong in our herb garden. I cut it into thin strips (4 medium leaves).

I mixed everything with mustard (1tsp), mayonnaise (2 tbs) and greek yogurt (2 tsp). I seasoned with salt and pepper.



Using a paste of flour as a glue, I assembled 6 small egg rolls (I should have rolled them more tightly).



Instead of deep frying, I shallow fried them in 1/4 inch of peanut oil turning once until the skin became brown and crispy.



This is a bit unusual spring roll but it tasted good. As long as it is encased in crispy egg roll skin anything can be made into egg rolls, it seems.

Sous vide Halibut スービィオヒョウ

This is another sous vide dish. In our regular grocery store, I spotted halibut which looked good and I bought about 1 1/3 lb fillet. I usually do not bother with halibut since it is a rather boring white meat fish but this time I wanted to cook it sous vide.

I served sous vide halibut with salsa I made the day before and shiitake asparagus risotto.



I removed the skin and cooked crisp and brown separately and served it on the top.



Halibut: From the 1 1/3 lb fillet, I removed the skin and made two equal sized portions. I seasoned them with salt and pepper, zest of lemon (micro-graded) and finely chopped fresh dill (we now have a forest of dill plants in our herb garden and have to use it).

I placed two thin pats of cold butter (unsalted) on either side of the fillets and vacuum sealed (left upper in the picture below). An appropriate sous vide temperature is a bit difficult to determine but I wanted to be safe and chose 135F which is above the pasteurization temperature (130F). In retrospect, I could have gone a bit lower (may be 132F). I cooked sous vide for 30 minutes. You could see that the butter has melted and the meat has become opaque just over 10 minutes into cooking (left lower). After 30 minutes were up the fish meat was totally opaque (Please compare the semitransparent appearance in the left upper picture)



When I took the fish out of the pouch, the surface had a thin smooth shiny layer of congealed protein and the markings of the vacuum sealed plastic bag on it. This looked like it was made out of plastic and didn’t make it look particularly appetizing; one of the problems of sous vide cooked fish. So, I decided to quickly sear both sides so that the congealed protein would melt during the searing (I was not aiming to make it brown or crispy).

Skin: I removed the skin and cooked it separately.  I patted try dry and salted it. I placed it in a non-stick frying pan with a small amount of olive oil on low flame, skin side down. I covered it by nesting an identical frying pan with its bottom covered with an aluminum foil to prevent the skin to curl up and also splattering. After 7-10 minutes, I flipped the skin over and cooked another 5 minutes and placed it on a paper towel lined plate. I cut it into two strips and served them over each of the fillets of cooked halibut.

Salsa: I skinned and cut  two small tomatoes into small cubes. I finely chopped Vidalia onion (1/2 medium), jalapeño pepper (1, seeded and veined) and mixed in. Since I did not have fresh cilantro, I used dried (1/2 tsp). I seasoned it with salt and pepper. I then added lemon juice (from one lemon) and olive oil (1 tbs). I mixed and let it stand (at least for several hours).

Risotto: This was an quick risotto from previously cooked and frozen rice (1/2 cup). I used another half of Vidalia onion from making salsa, (1/2 medium, finely chopped) and fresh shiitake mushrooms (4-5, stem removed and finely chopped) and green asparagus (4 stalks, peeled and blanched) with stalk finely chopped and the spear heads set aside. I did mise en place and my wife cooked the risotto.

She first sautéed the onion, mushroom and asparagus (except for the spear heads), seasoned with salt and pepper. After few minutes, she added the defrosted rice and kept stirring until the rice kernels were well coated. She added Japanese sake (or white wine, 5 tbs) and let it evaporate as you stir to almost all incorporated. She then added chicken broth (low-salt, non-fat Swanson chicken broth) in increments as she stirred until it attained creamy consistency (3-4 increments, probably close to 1 cup total). When no more free fluid was present, she added a few pats of butter. After the butter incorporated, she added grated Parmesan cheese and the spear heads of asparagus.

The halibut was nicely flakey and completely cooked. Although the fish itself is rather boring, the dill and lemon scented butter flavors came through and the texture was very nice. The addition of the salsa (this one came out rather spicy due to the jalapeño I used) spiked up the flavor. Of course, you cannot go wrong with crispy skin which we picked up with our fingers and enjoyed. The risotto was, of course,  not al-dente (actually we do not like undercooked risotto) but very creamy with nice flavors (I garnished with thin strips of fresh basil).

Compared to salmon, halibut does not have a strong flavor or oily texture. It does have a nice subtle flavor which can be enhanced by other seasonings and flakey texture. This was probably the best halibut we ever tasted. Compared to oily fish like salmon, I could go with a slightly lower temperature to make it a bit less dry. I’ll try that next time.

White (brown?) almond gazpacho 白い (茶色？）アーモンドガスパッチョ

Some days, in cooking, things just don’t go right, even with items you’ve made many times before. That happened to me one recent weekend when I set out to make baguette. Everything went wrong. First the dough refused to rise sufficiently (even though I had proofed the yeast). I decided to cook it anyway. Somehow I got the wrong temperature and the bread came out “high done” i.e. burnt. So there we were with two skinny burnt baguettes (one shown below).

Surprisingly it still tasted pretty good. I was ready to throw it out and make like the whole thing never happened. But my wife stayed my hand. She came up with this dish based on a recipe from "Cooks illustrated".  This is a gazpacho using bread as the base. It is also supposed to be white (crusts removed) but my wife used my botched bread, dark brown crust, included so the the color is rather tan than white.  The brown (burned) crust added a nice nutty taste to the soup.

Ingredients:
Baguette sliced, enough water to cover the baguette slices
1 1/2 cup toasted sliced almonds
2 garlic cloves
5 tbs. rice vinegar
1 1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Seedless grapes cut thin and more toasted almonds for garnish

Soak the sliced bread in the water for several minutes. Process the toasted almonds in a blender until finely ground. Remove the bread from the water and gently squeeze out most of the water. (save the water). Add the bread to the blender with the almonds. Add enough of the soaking water that the bread can be pureed. After the bread mixture has reached the consistency of cake batter, add the garlic, vinegar, salt, and cayenne and continue processing (add more soaking liquid if necessary). Then add the olive oil in a thin steady stream. If the mixture is processed long enough it should be very smooth and creamy. Serve with the sliced grapes and toasted almonds as garnish.

Although the gazpacho was not white, the tan color was very pleasing. It was very creamy with a nice nutty flavor (from the burnt crust). The cayenne gave it a pleasant zing. It was a very filling and refreshing soup for a hot summer day. I took the remaining botched baguette, cut it up and put it in the freezer ready for the next batch of white/brown gazpacho. BTW the next morning, I redeemed myself, by successfully baking 2 baguettes. Next my wife will be asking me to botch a loaf because she wants to make gazpacho.

Cold simmered vegetables 冷製野菜の煮付け

The last time when I was at the Japanese grocery store, I bought a whole daikon 大根. When I came home I found 1/3 of the daikon I previously purchased in the refrigerator. So, I decided to make something from this left over daikon. Although I was not sure what I was going to make, I decided to just prep it. I peeled and cut the daikon into half circles (about 1 inch thick) and boiled them with a small amount of raw rice. After 30-40 minutes, I removed the daikon pieces and put them in a sealable container and placed it in the refrigerator. The next day, I made dashi broth from dried kelp and bonito flakes. I seasoned the broth with mirin and light colored "usukuchi" soy sauce 薄口醤油 and simmered the precooked daikon and carrot (this was not precooked). Although the dish was ready-to-go the weather was extremely hot and humid so the idea of eating a hot dish was not appealing so I placed it in the refrigerator. The next day, I served these vegetable cold. I added a bit more light colored soy sauce since the seasoning gets muted when served cold. Since we had a small amount of left over sou vide salmon, I also served that cold with a dab of Japanese hot mustard.



We were pleasantly surprised at how good and refreshing these cold simmered vegetables were. The dashi broth was very good since I made it without taking shortcuts.



We will make this dish as a regular "teiban" 定番 dish during the summer. We have more left, so we will be enjoying this a few more times.

Kelp cured Hamachi はまちの昆布締め

Generally the sashimi-grade fish from Catalina is good but sometimes it can be a bit of a disappointment. The current batch had excellent toro tuna but mediocre hamachi (wild caught) and the premium uni was not particularly great for sashimi (from which I made "Uni and water cress cooked in butter and soy sauce"). After tasting the hamachi as sashimi on the first day, I made this "kelp-cured" hamachi for the next day.



The hamachi shown in the left back arranged to look like a flower and the hamachi between the cucumber and perilla leaves are kelp-cured. The toro shown on the left front was absolutely excellent and "toro aburi"トロの炙り next to it was also great.



The kelp-curing helped the hamachi lose its slight gaminess (gamey because it was not quite fresh enough), firmed up the texture and added a nice additional "umami" from the kelp. This is exactly the same as kelp-cured "amber jack" ヒラマサの昆布締め I posted before.

I sliced the hamachi on the bias relatively thin ("Sogi-Giri" そぎ切り) and placed it in one layer between two sheets of dried kelp. I had previously wiped the surface of the kelp with a moist paper towel. I then wrapped the kelp with hamachi sandwiched between the two layers in plastic wrap and placed it in the refrigerator for several hours.

Although the main reason for kelp-curing is to add more flavor to white meat fish like flounder, it worked to make a somewhat marginal sashimi palatable—good save, team..

Soft tofu with miso-butter shimeji 掬い豆腐のシメジ味噌バター乗せ

I had a combination of white and brown shimeji mushrooms in the fridge. When we fired up the Weber grill the other day for barbecued  chicken, I also made Miso butter flavored shimeji mushrooms (in an aluminum foil packet on the grill). Because the barbeque that day included other dishes including fish, we only ate a little of the shimeji. Several days later, I made this "otoshi" drinking snack from the left over barbecued chicken (I used the tenderloins) and the shimeji dish. The left below is cold "spooned" tofu (or "Sukui-dofu" 掬い豆腐) topped with miso butter flavored shimeji mushrooms and the right is shredded chicken tenderloin dressed in sesame dressing 鶏肉の胡麻和え.



Chicken: I used two tenderloins from the barbecued chicken which was very moist. I hand shredded the chicken along the grain of the meat.

Sesame dressing: I mixed white sesame past or shiro-neri goma 白練り胡麻 (1 tbs), sugar (1 tsp), mirin (1 tsp), soy sauce (2 -3 tsp), rice vinegar (1 tsp). Tasted and adjusted the consistency by adding more liquid (if seasoned enough, add "dashi"broth or one of the liquid ingredients). As the chicken meat tends to absorb the moisture from the dressing, it is better to have the dressing somewhat liquid and loose. I got lazy and used roasted white sesame as a garnish (you could have added dry roasted and ground sesame in the dressing for a better result).



The sukui-dofu was from a package which I got at the Japanese grocery store. I spooned several spoonfuls on the plate and then placed the leftover shimeji mushroom on top followed by some, thinly chopped scallion, Japanese one flavored red pepper flakes and drizzled "mentsuyu" 麺つゆ noodle dipping sauce from the bottle.

Since I had cucumber asazuke 胡瓜の浅漬け with salted kelp 塩昆布, I added that as well on the side of the chicken. For leftover control, this is decent drinking snack to start.

Nattou and tuna chiai spring roll 鮪の血合いと納豆の春巻き

Whenever we get toro tuna from Catalina, it is a challenge to finish the dark red portion of meat called "chiai" 血合い. It is the most undesirable and gamey part of the tuna. In the past, I made chiai, nattou and egg yolk and chiai burger. This time, I made several long cigar-shaped spring rolls from marinated chiai and nattou. I was afraid of how strong this would taste but the end result turned out to be very pleasant and we enjoyed it as the first snack of the evening.



I got this idea after seeing a recipe for red meat of tuna with nattou wrapped in eggroll skin (which is in the first book of the  Japanese Izakaya cookbooks section of this blog).

Tuna chiai: When I prepared the toro, I removed the chiai and cut it into small cubes (1/2-1/3 inch cubes) and marinated in in straight "mentsuyu" 麺つゆ noodle sauce and kept it in the refrigerator for a few days.

Nattou: This was one small package of  frozen nattou which I thawed. I added chopped scallion, mustard (1/2 tsp) and mayonnaise (1 tsp) and the sauce that came with the package. I then combined the marinated chiai tuna and nattou (almost all the marinade was absorbed in the chiai).

Spring roll skin: I cut the square egg roll skin in half to make a long rectangle. I placed the the above mixture along the near end of the spring roll skin and rolled into a cigar shape using a mixture of flour and water as a glue at the three edges. With the amount of the stuffing I had, I could make 5 rolls.

Instead of deep frying, I shallow fried the rolls. I used less than 1/4 inch  of peanut oil in the frying pan. After the oil heated up on medium flame, I placed the rolls seam side down into the oil. I  fried them for several minutes and then turned them over (see below). I fried the other side for another two minutes or so until the spring skins were nicely browned and crispy. I drained the excess oil on a paper towel line plate and served the rolls  in a small wine grass as seen in the first picture.



I did not make any dipping sauce since everything was well seasoned especially the chiai. Despite the combination of two very strong tasting items (chiai and nattou), the frying seems to have brought the flavors under control—this actually tasted rather tame. The nattou was not too smelly or sticky. The marination and cooking also made the chiai rather palatable and, of course, the crispy fried egg roll skin was just great. So this is another good way to consume the chiai of tuna.

Fiddlehead fern in sesame dressing こごみの胡麻和え

Fiddlehead fern is the young furled tip of the Ostrich fern (or it could be some other fern species) harvested in North America (probably in Maine or New England states). I have posted  another dish of fiddlehead fern in the past. In that post, I said this was similar to "zenmai" ゼンマイ in Japan but Jon mentioned "Kogomi"こごみ in his comment. I learned this time that fiddlehead fern (Ostrich fern or "Kusasotetsu" 草ソテツ)  is indeed called "Kogomi*" in Japanese. Although some varieties of ferns being eaten in Japan such as "zenmai" and "warabi" 蕨 do have small amount of carcinogens, sliminess and astringent flavors which require a special preparation, I learned that fiddlehead fern or "kogomi" does not have any significant toxins and could be eaten without special preparations. I did see fiddlehead fern previously in the spring and early summer  in the near-by gourmet grocery store. This is the first time I saw pre-packaged fiddleheads (see below) and could not resist getting a package.

*Kogomi" こごみ is so named since the fiddlehead fern looks like somebody is bending forward ("kogomu" こごむ or "kagamu" かがむ).



On the package, it said "tastes like asparagus and young spinach". Fiddlehead fern must be getting popular since it is being sold this way. Most of the Western recipes are for stir fry and salads. I decided to make "goma-ae" 胡麻和え or with sesame dressing.



This was quite good but the sesame dressing appears to overwhelm the subtle taste of fiddlehead fern.



This time I just simply cooked it since I did not have to worry about "toxins". I washed and removed the discolored ends with a paring knife and boiled it for 5 minutes in salted boiling water and then shocked it in ice cold water.  I then soaked it in water (I used filtered water) in a sealable container and kept it in the refrigerator (see below).



Sesame  dressing: I first dry roasted white sesame seeds (1 tbs) on a frying pan until fragrant (2-3 minutes) and coarsely ground it in a Japanese suribachi すり鉢 mortar (leave a little whole for a garnish). I then added white sesame paste or "shiro-neri-goma" 白練り胡麻 (1 tbs). I seasoned with sugar (1/2 tsp), rice vinegar (optional, 1/2 tsp) and soy sauce (about 1 tbs, but I added incrementally until the taste and consistency. You could add water if the seasoning is OK but the consistency is too thick).

I just removed the fiddlehead fern from the water, dried on a paper towel and dressed. I garnished it with more white roasted sesame.

This is such a seasonal vegetable and it was nice to have this. As I mentioned, my sesame dressing was a bit too assertive. I should have omitted the vinegar.

English Izakaya cookbook updates 英語の居酒屋料理の本アップデート

It was sometime ago that I posted an Izakaya cookbooks page for this blog. At that time the only Izakaya cookbook written in English was Mark Robinson’s “The Japanese pub cookbook”. That book was my inspiration to re-start this blog to share our love of Izakaya. During subsequent years, other Izakaya cookbooks and cookbooks which feature some Izakaya-style dishes written in English have emerged. Apparently, Izakaya and Izakaya food have become a bit more popular among English speakers. Also, many Izakaya-style places have appeared especially in New York and San Francisco.

In any case, there are several more Izakaya cookbooks written in English and I finally updated the Izakaya cookbook page of this blog. I divided the pages into “English” and “Japanese” Izakaya cookbooks. Hope this will be of some help to individuals interested in Izakaya cookbooks in English.

Sea Urchin and watercress in butter ウニクレソン

We had a variation of this dish at Yuzuki in San Francisco and also learned that the original dish was supposedly invented by a small “Teppanyaki” 鉄板焼き place in Hiroshima 広島  called “Naka-chan” 中ちゃん. I decided to try this dish since I got  “Premium” uni from Catalina for the weekend: they did not have “Gold” uni (it is getting nearly impossible to get gold uni).  The “premium” uni could be OK but this batch was very soft and disintegrating when we received it. The first day, I selected the most well-shaped ones for sashimi which tasted OK but the remaining uni did not fare that well. I thought about  making pasta with uni sauce.  I then remembered this dish and decided to make it. Initially, I was going to make the one similar to we had at Yuzuki but, after looking at the original dish, which is served with baguette and I happened to have baked baguette in the morning, I made this dish as it is served at Naka-chan (we have never gone there or had the dish in this variation but I based this dish on the description and pictures).



As you can see, we initially served only two thin slices (toasted) baguette rounds so that we would not fill up on this opening dish of the evening.



But we needed more baguette to mop up the wonderful sauce.



Since there is no "recipe", I just “winged it”. In the picture, the original dish appears to use whole water cress with thick stalks attached but I removed thick stalks (the amount is arbitrary, I could have used more watercress). I added about 1tbs of unsalted butter in a frying pan on medium heat. When butter bubbled and started browning, I added the watercress and sautéed until it wilted. Then I added a whole tray of premium uni (120grams) (Picture above). I added about 1 tsp of soy sauce and a squeeze of lemon juice and cut the fire.

This was sublime! It tasted wonderful on top of toasted baguette. We actually had to go get some more baguette because we were not going to leave a single drop of the wonderful sauce behind. The only alteration I would make is to cut up the watercress—the whole watercress became rather stringy. Next time, I may use the thicker stalks but I will chop up the water cress into much smaller pieces. We had this with cold sake but it may also go well with sparkling wine or a crisp acidic white.

Sous vide salmon poached in olive oil サーモンのオリーブオイル スービィ

This is our continuing exploration of sous vide cooking. We love salmon which I usually brown in a frying pan and finish in the oven. (I usually cook the skin separately to make it very crispy). But when I saw this  olive oil poached sous vide salmon recipe, I had to try it.



The above is the final product. I prepared and vacuum sealed the salmon over the weekend and cooked this on Monday after coming back from work. For fish, sous vide cooking does not take that long and having vacuum sealed packages ready makes it very easy even when you do not have much time.



The salmon is fully cooked but very moist. This was cooked at 135F for 30 minutes.

I looked at several recipes and decided to take the best of two recipes to come up with this cooking method. Unless you have a chamber type vacuum sealer, it is difficult or nearly impossible to vacuum seal items that include liquid. So, if you want to "oil poach", either you have to use "water-replacing-air- method" or make the olive oil "solid" before vacuum sealing. I used the latter method by freezing the olive oil.

Olive oil: I first added 1/2 cup of light olive oil to the vacuum pouch and placed it (vertically) in the freezer. After a few hours, the olive oil was totally solid.

Salmon: One pound of salmon fillet, skin removed (I also removed the fatty belly portion for another dish.) I made two equal sized fillets and seasoned with salt and pepper, lemon zest (micro-grated) and chopped fresh dill (from our herb garden). I took out the vacuum pouch with solidified olive oil in the bottom and placed sprigs of fresh dill and the seasoned salmon inside with the frozen olive oil. I vacuum sealed (While it was being sealed one of the fillets rotated as you can see in the picture below.)  I placed the package in the refrigerator.



Sous Vide: The temperature of sous vide was the next decision  I had to make. One recipe called for 109F but, at this temperature no pasteurization would occur (It would be the equivalent of eating raw salmon or sashimi). Another recipe called for 116F for rare, 126F for medium rare and 140F for medium. I decided on 135F which is above the pasteurization temperature. I cooked it in my sous vide for 30 minutes (see below).



Both fillets were nicely contained within the olive oil accomplishing oil poaching. I took them out, blotted the moisture and excess oil from the surface and browned in a frying pan with butter on a medium flame, 30 seconds on each sides. The salmon was very soft and difficult to flip over.

We really liked the end result. The meat was opaque and fully cooked but very tender, moist and flavorful. It encapsulated all the goodness of the salmon and the lemon zest gave a nice lemony flavor. We really like the fact that I can prepared the pouch ahead of time and it is a cinch to just plunge it in the sous vide. I suppose I can prepare these vacuum sealed packages and freeze them. It may take only 5 additional minutes to thaw in the sous vide.

Chicken skin crackling and “jako” cucumber 鶏皮のクラックリングと胡瓜の酢の物雑魚乗せ

This was what I served one weekday evening; chicken skin crackling カリカリ雛皮, cucumber, daikon and carrot asazuke with shio konbu 塩昆布入り胡瓜の浅漬け,  cucumber in vinegar dressing with crispy jako 胡瓜の酢の物カリカリ雑魚乗せ.  I previously posted all items or similar ones. These are perfect appetizers for sake and also take care of the suggested “daily requirement” of eating a serving of  vegetables, (although the chicken skin crackling may nullify the benefit of the fresh vegetables).



We like any crispy skin especially salmon or chicken skin (although we have to admit we are not “into” pork rinds). When I prepared 4 chickens thighs for my wife's chicken curry, I removed the skin and boiled it in salted water spiked with a dash of sake. This boiling serves multiple purposes, it renders some of the fat, reduces the gamey chicken flavor of the skin and kills any potential bacteria on the surface so the skin lasts longer before cooking. After 5-10 minutes of boiling, I washed them in cold running water, put them in a Ziploc bag and kept them in the meat compartment of the refrigerator. This preparation makes it relatively easy to prepare chicken skin crackling even on weekdays. I just place the skin on a non-stick frying pan without oil on medium low heat. I then nest an identical frying pan with the bottom covered in aluminum foil on top of the chicken skins (for flattening the skin as well as preventing splattering). Toward the end of cooking I sprinkled on some salt.



Since I had some previously frozen "jako" already thawed in the refrigerator, I also decided to use it. I cooked a small handful in a small amount of vegetable oil for several minutes until the jako became crispy. I then drained them on a paper towel. I thinly sliced some cucumber (American mini-cucu) salted it, wrung out the excess moisture and dressed it in sushi vinegar. The fried jako provided a nice little addition of crunchiness.


The only addition for this asazuke from the previous versions I posted is the inclusion of salted kelp or Shio konbu.

This was a good starter for sake. (I burned the edge of the crackling a bit but it was still ok—I guess it would take more than a light singeing to lessen the delightful combination of fat and crunch of both the jako and chicken skin in this dish).

Onsen egg with “Mozuku” in sweet vinegar 温泉卵とモズクの甘酢

This is a variation on the theme of “Onsen” egg 温泉卵. I put this dish together in a hurry on a weekday evening after work. I thawed a package of frozen “mozuku” もずく in sweet vinegar on the previous weekend but we did not eat it (we had other items and could not get to it). Since I also had a pair of "Onsen" eggs that  I had made using my Sous Vide machine, I decided to combine them into a starter dish.



I divided the mozuku into two bowls, cracked open and dropped an onsen egg into each bowl, garnished it with thinly sliced scallion, "real" wasabi and a drizzle of  "noodle" sauce or mentsuyu 麺つゆ from the bottle. That's it.



The egg yolk was nicely creamy and this combination worked very well. For this dish, we had to have cold sake.

Sous vide pork loin 豚ヒレ肉のスービィ

We like pork tenderloin and cook it regularly. Our most common way of cooking is to bake it slowly in a 350F oven (often the toaster oven in convection mode) for about 30 minutes or longer to an internal temperature of 140F. (The recommended USDA temperature has been modified and is now 140F). I often use a dry rub of cumin, smoked paprika, cinnamon, nutmeg, black pepper and salt with minor variations. This low temperature baking appears to make it moist and tender. Since we got a sous vide machine, I wanted to cook pork tenderloin in sous vide.

After  sous vide cooking at 140F (60F) for 3 hours (135 to140F for 2-3 hours according to the recipe I read). We need to consider food safety but at 135F-140F (maintained for some time) pathogenic bacteria such as salmonella should not be a problem. Cysticercus* also should not be a problem. After taking it out of the vacuum pouch, I grilled it briefly on a hot charcoal fire. I did this just because it was such a nice day, the mosquitoes are not out yet and we decided to grill using the Yakitori grill. Otherwise, I could have just briefly seared the surface using a frying pan.

* Cysticercus can be effectively eliminated by freezing. At -20C (-4F), the usual temperature of a household freezer, pork will be safe from cysticercus after one week, reportedly. (Madeleine Kamman used to say "not 20 days but after 21 days").  For heating, at 135F-140F (57-60C) maintained for 30 minutes or more, cysticercus should be also all deactivated (Reportedly 45-50C for 15-20 minutes is sufficient)



Since we had other food, we just tasted two slices each. It was quite moist and tender but the big question was "Is it better than our usual slow-baking method?" I am not sure. I may have to try it at 135F to see if that makes a significant difference.

After I generously rubbed the tenderloin with my dry rub ( cumin, smoked paprika, cinnamon, nutmeg, black pepper and salt), I vacuum packed with thin pats of unsalted butter as you can see below.



I placed this in my sous vide machine at 140F and cooked it for 3 hours. After I removed it from the pouch, I seared/grilled it over hot charcoal fire. I poured au jus (with melted butter) over the slices.

This is certainly not bad but the time and effort it takes, we are not sure if this is worth it. We may stick to our low temperature oven method.
P.S We used this pork for sandwiches several days after we cooked it. My wife commented that she detected a slightly “off” flavor to the meat and didn’t want to finish the sandwich. I got out the plastic bag in which I stored the meat and asked her to give it a “sniff test”…my wife has an extremely keen sense of smell. She recoiled from the package and said the smell was terrible; almost like ammonia. I have to say it didn’t necessarily smell bad to me, but I have learned that she can detect smells long before I can. In general it was not a good endorsement. That was the end of that tenderloin. While the tenderloin was quite all right immediately after coming out of the sous vide, it appears that it may not last as long as when we use our usual slow cook method. With that method the meat is good for up to a week. I guess the vote is in; we won’t be using sous vide for pork tenderloin again. 

Sous vide chicken breast 鶏胸肉のスービィ

Chicken breast is popular especially since it is reported to be healthier for you than red meat. One problem with chicken breast meat is that it is very easy to over cook and become dried out. In addition it is not easy to cook chicken breast evenly without under or overcooking. We particularly like the ones from barbecued whole chicken in Weber grill and chicken paillard, since the breast meat is mostly moist and succulent.  But after reading about how sous vide chicken breast is moist with juices running down etc,  I wanted to try sous vide chicken breast. The below is chicken breast cooked in sous vide at 140F for 3 hours and then skin seared/browned. It is indeed moist and nice. I served it with white and green asparagus with kimisu sauce left over from our sake tasting. I also made a quick pan sauce.


The current USDA guide line for cooking chicken is 165F but if you maintain the temperature for a specified longer duration, you can safely cook chicken at much lower temperatures. The amount of fat in the meat is also another factor (meat with more fat requires more time or a higher temperature). This chart indicates that for chicken breast, at 165F-160F, salmonella is killed almost instantly (i.e. as soon as the meat reaches this temperature, it is safe to eat) and at 140F you have to maintain the temperature for more than 30 minutes but less than 40 minutes. So if you use sous vide and maintain the given temperature for the specified duration, you should be able to cook chicken (or other meats) safely at lower temperatures than indicated by the USDA guide line. (Again try at your own risk).

I prepared bone-in skin-on split chicken breasts by removing the bone and tenderloins (for other use), trimmed the excess skin and fat but left most of the skin covering the breast meat intact. After I blotted away any excess moisture using a paper towel, I generously seasoned with salt (I used Hawaiian red salt since I had it) and freshly cracked black pepper. I then vacuum sealed it (left) using my edge-type "Food Saver" vacuum sealer.

It sealed with a good vacuum. I preheated my Anova sous vide machine  at 140F which took only few minutes since I started with the hottest water out of our tap. I placed two vacuum sealed chicken breasts into the heated water and let it cook for 3 hours (as per the recipe, at least for 2 hours). I am estimating that the internal temperature of the center of the thickest part of the chicken would be at 140F after 30 minutes (or at the most, 1 hour. Actual "cooking" or coagulation/denaturing of proteins must take more time to occur at this temperature).

When the chicken breast came out, the meat was opaque and only a small amount of juice was seen in the pouch (left upper in the picture below).



I removed the chicken from the pouch. After blotting any moisture from the surface (upper right), I seared the skin side on high heat with a small amount of vegetable oil (lower left). After 1 minute, I flipped the pieces showing nice brown color (lower right) and set it aside on a plate. I then poured the juice accumulated in the pouches in the same frying pan and briefly reduced (since the pan was hot this took only 20-30 seconds). I finished the sauce with a few thin pats of cold non-salted butter. Since some salt and pepper came off the chicken into the sauce and the chicken was well seasoned, I did not add any more seasoning.


The cut surface was just very slightly pink and very moist (actually not as pink as shown in the picture). Again, we had other dishes and we just tasted a few slices with the pan juice I made. The result was better than my sakamushi 酒蒸し or sake-steamed chicken breast (especially when I use the  microwave to make it, In the microwave the chicken breast sometimes comes out stringy with over cooked areas). I was impressed by how quickly the skin browned. It must be because it had already cooked and was warm and I blotted any moisture before searing (evaporation of liquid cools the surface and make searing/browning slower). Although, this time, this was a test run of sous vide chicken breast, with this success, I will try this as a more complete chicken dish.