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After we purchased Heston Blumenthal at home we made his roasted potatoes several times with great success. His method is to first run water over the potatoes for 15 minutes to remove the starch and then boil the potatoes until they are nearly falling apart. Next you dry the spuds and roast them for 1½ hours. True, it sounds like a lot of work for roasted potatoes, but these really were the best we’ve ever had — very crisp on the outside and deliciously tender on the inside.
Not long afterward, we read an article about how Michelin-starred, Dublin-based chef Kevin Thornton makes chips (as they call fries in Ireland). He vacuum seals the potatoes in salted water and steams them before frying them twice. The result is that the salt penetrates the potatoes perfectly and there’s no need to add salt to the finished dish.
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The London Sugar Club was a very popular restaurant in the mid-1990s. Its doors have since closed but chef Peter Gordon’s recipes live on. One of my all-time favorites is from his The Sugar Club Cookbook, Grilled Scallops with Sweet Chili Sauce and Crème Fraîche. I’ve served this dish for years to consistently rave reviews.
Although the original recipe doesn’t call for cooking the shellfish sous vide–style, it is now my preference. I love the utterly moist, creamy texture of scallops cooked in the water oven. They are never rubbery and always emerge melt-in-your-mouth tender.
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Jerk cooking, which originated in Jamaica, was traditionally used with chicken and pork. These days you also see this cooking style used with shrimp, fish, beef, lamb, or goat, even vegetables. The ingredients in jerk include typically Jamaican flavors such as allspice, Scotch bonnet peppers, and limes. But there are as many different versions of jerk as there are cooks.
I’ve spent years trying to perfect a jerk recipe. Last summer, after a few more tweaks, I finally came up with one that I was very happy with. We served it several times to guests and it got rave reviews. In my conventional version, the chicken was marinated for 24 hours and then cooked on the barbeque for another hour. The trick was to cook it long enough so that it was done but not so long as to dry it out.
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Sous vide is a great method for cooking eggplant and other vegetables because it brings out the natural sweetness often lost during baking, steaming, or braising with high heat. And eggplant is such a versatile vegetable — it lends itself well to spices, herbs, and strongly flavored oils or vinegars because it tends to absorb the flavors of whatever ingredients you choose to add.
This eggplant caponata is a variation on a Mario Batali recipe. It’s basically savory chutney, with just a hint of sweetness and heat, and makes a wonderful topping for grilled crostini.
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These Mexican–style short ribs get their flavor from fresh, dried, and canned chiles and some surprising ingredients like coffee and cinnamon. Served with creamy polenta and queso fresco, they taste a bit like a fabulous deconstructed tamale. Or go classic with mashed potatoes or tortillas.
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With less than 10 ingredients, about 5 minutes prep, 6 hours in the water bath, you have a fabulous meal suitable for dinner guests. The combination of flavors is sweet, spicy, complex, and satisfying.
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Sous Vide News Sweet Sous Vide. Our friends at Cooking Sous Vide are featuring dessert recipes from SVKitchen in a section they call Sweet Sous Vide. They’ll spotlight a different recipe every two weeks. In addition to advice, guides, and many sous vide recipes, the site also hosts active sous vide discussions.
In the Test Kitchen. America’s Test Kitchen likes the SousVide Supreme. See the video review by Adam Ried, in which he praises the results and convenience of cooking meats and vegetables sous vide.
19-Minute Egg. The SousVide Dash Blog offers a video demonstration of how to quickly cook a perfect egg, using the iPhone/iPad SousVide Dash application to calculate rising temperature with great precision.
Music Pairings. SVKitchen now suggests a playlist with each new recipe, music that we think pairs well with the dish both during prep and service. |
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