“B” Dinner: Buffalo Wings, Blue Cheese Dip, Broccoli Soup

I recently purchased

Modernist Cuisine at Home: Nathan Myhrvold,Maxime Bilet: 9780982761014: Books

and finally gave in and bought a pressure cooker.

Fagor Duo Combi 5-Piece Pressure Cooker Set: Kitchen & Dining ASIN: B00023D9S0

I love this set since I couldn’t decide which size to buy. This comes with a 4 and 8 quart pot, trivet and steamer basket, a glass lid in addition to the pressure lid so it’s not a single purpose item, two pressure settings, and it works on my induction burner.

 

Tried the much lauded (from Modernist Cuisine) @ Home version of the Caramelized Carrot Soup and brown chicken stock last weekend to christen the pressure cooker.

I strained the stock first through a colander, and then through a 100 micron mesh bag.

 

Very tasty and wonderful body. I used it 50:50 with water in the carrot soup because I didn’t want to search for carrot juice.

 

I see what all the fuss is about. The soup was wonderful.  And I wish I’d bought that pressure cooker set last year when I got MC.

 

Yesterday I was indulging in my usual Saturday morning food blog surfing and followed a link on egullet.org to a Food Lab article on Korean Fried Chicken by Kenji. I had been tempted by the crispy wings in MC@H, but I don’t have the sous vide capacity to make very many at once, and if I make wings (and have to share with my husband), I want a lot.

The Korean Wings post lead me to Kenji’s Food Lab article on The Ultimate Extra-Crispy Double Fried Confit Buffalo Wings. This recipe uses four pounds of wings – now that’s more like it.

 

I used the oven method to confit the wings; I like the unattended cooking aspect of it. Even though it’s not from MC@H, it does have the same spirit.

 

With all this impromptu cooking, conceived that morning, I didn’t want to burden my husband who was shopping for me on his way home by adding all the ingredients needed for the MC@H Buffalo sauce. I went with my standard sauce of half butter and half Crystal Hot Sauce.

 

I did feel I could impose on him enough to find some blue cheese and milk so I could make the Blue Cheese Sauce. He brought home some lovely Stilton.

 

The Caramelized Carrot Soup was so good, I was anxious to try the Broccoli-Gruyere Soup (especially since I had broccoli, gruyere, and the MC@H brown chicken stock  in the fridge already).

I didn’t have hazelnuts for the garnish, so I used roasted-salted pumpkin seeds with the thyme. My husband and I loved it. It’s more olive toned than Gordon Ramsey’s bright green broccoli soup. I may cut down on the pressure cooking time next try to see if I can keep a better color.

 

Since the MC@H Blue Cheese Sauce is heat stable with the sodium citrate, I warmed a portion of the sauce to use in my whipper and try it in addition to the chilled sauce. I think I prefer the contrast of the cold sauce with the hot wings.

(Sorry about the messy plating, by this time my husband and I were so hungry, we just put the food on the plate and I took one quick photo.)

Either way, the Blue Cheese Sauce is great. Well worth making rather than using store-bought or standard home-made dressing. Intense blue cheese flavor. The wings were as Kenji promised; ultra-crispy and kept their crispiness even with standard Buffalo sauce.

I will be making all of these again, and hopefully frequently.

Sous Vide Supreme

Technorati Tags: Sous Vide,beef,chicken,eggs

I convinced my husband that if I got a Sous Vide Supreme for Christmas, it would be a great excuse to use our blowtorch more often.

 

First, I made creamy scrambled eggs with thyme cooked at 158 F for 1 hour. Served with my bacon.

 

Then, beef short ribs at 135 F for 48 hours.

 

My husband torching the short ribs.

 

Served with cauliflower pureed with horseradish and cheddar cheese. As I’ve learned from further reading, large bits of fat might not render out at this low temperature. The ribs were fork tender, but a bit “blubbery”.  I’ll try a higher temperature next time.

 

Next up, chicken breasts with herb sachets: sage, thyme, and oregano.  Cooked at 140 F for 3 hours.

 

In   it is recommended to wrap herbs in plastic wrap to make sachets so the herbs don’t come in direct contact with the food and create sites of overpowering flavor. The juices from the meat seep in the cut ends of the plastic wrap and steep the herbs to extract the flavor.

 

I quick-chilled 4 of them to freeze for later.

 

Rather than sear the two chicken breasts with oregano that I was serving for dinner, I made a sauce with sundried tomatoes, goat cheese, lemon juice, garlic and basil.

 

Very tender, juicy, and tasty (except for too much lemon juice in the sauce).  I wish I had thought to take a photo of a cut surface of the chicken breast.

 

Prime rib eye steaks.

 

After cooking 4 hours at 135 F.  I had planned to take them out after 2 hours but my husband had to work late unexpectedly – not a problem with Sous Vide.

 

Seared in an enameled cast-iron skillet.

 

I think we might have seared them a touch too long.  Almost have a grey ring at the very edge, but not too bad.  Certainly not a regular bull's-eye you’d get from grilling. Nearly perfect medium-rare throughout.

Chopped Liver

When I was in college, I was invited to a Jewish friend’s home for dinner.  His mother had made chopped liver for an appetizer.  It was a revelation – I had to tear myself away to save room for dinner.  I’ve been thinking of trying to recreate it for nearly 30 years and thanks to the Chicken & Dumplings I made recently, I actually had some schmaltz (rendered chicken fat) in the refrigerator!  I’m so glad I saved it.  I found what sounded like a good recipe from Ina Garten (Chopped Liver) on foodnetwork.

 

Schmaltz, onions, trimmed chicken livers.

 

Madeira and thyme.

 

Sautéing the livers in chicken fat!

 

The livers with the onions sautéed in chicken fat!

 

Added the Kosher salt, pepper, cayenne, and 4 hard-cooked organic free-range eggs (plus – not shown – more chicken fat!).  I wish I’d had the proper bowl and chopper to coarse chop the mixture as it’s hard not to over-do it in the food processor.

 

I wanted to give the chopped liver every chance to live up to my memory of it so I made some seeded rye bread (from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day) to serve it on.

 

Free-form loaf.

 

And Dutch Oven-method boule in the oven after 15 minutes with the lid on to steam.

 

Cooling.

 

I love the smell of caraway seeds.

 

It was every bit as good as I remembered. Yes, with all that cholesterol, it may be “artery putty”; but as a very rare treat I think it’s worth it.

Chicken & Dumplings

I saw this on America’s Test Kitchen (Chicken and Dumplings). I had the ingredients for Brown Poultry Stock in the freezer and thought it would be nice to make homemade stock to use in it instead of store-bought chicken stock.

 

Golden-browned chicken thighs.

 

Parsley, thyme, onions, celery, and carrots. (I forgot to photograph the homemade stock, sherry, milk and bay leaves and the mise en place for the dumplings – I was getting really hungry about now).

 

Sweating the mirepoix.

 

Simmering the chicken.

 

I added some finely chopped parsley to the dumpling dough. I don’t have a photo of the plating; it smelled so wonderful, my husband and I devoured it before I thought to take a picture.

Brown Poultry Stock

I adapted this from Jacques Pépin’s Fast Food My Way, Michael Ruhlman’s Ratio, and Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition. It’s a great way to use the bones from a few rotisserie chickens.

 

Celery, carrots, and some leek tops and corn cobs I had saved in the freezer.

 

A few rotisserie chicken carcasses, a duck carcass, some turkey and duck “bits” (neck, gizzards).

 

Part way through roasting at 425 degrees F for about an hour. You don’t even need to peel the onions.

 

Bouquet garni of celery tops, parsley, thyme and bay leaves; plus a few peppercorns thrown in the pot.

 

Extracting the flavors with a bare simmer.

 

I strained it through a chinoise, refrigerated it, skimmed off the fat and froze what was left after reserving 4 1/2 cups to make Chicken & Dumplings.  I was able to freeze two quart jars, four pint jars and two ice cube trays (nice for roughly 2 tablespoons worth to add to sauces) of stock for very little effort. 

Savory Chicken Salad

I wanted to make some chicken salad from the leftover rosemary-garlic paste roasted chicken my husband cooked the other night. I’m not a big fan of the fruit-laced chicken salads (apples, grapes?!) so I headed straight for the umami.

 

This is from my prior batch of pancetta flavored bacon. (My husband suggested the name, but I’m too embarrassed to call it that anymore.) This section was so fatty I didn’t want to eat it as bacon, so I saved it for pseudo lardons.

 

This is about 8 slices cut into 1/4 “ strips and fried.

 

I’ll chop and “toast” these pecans in the bacon fat.

 

Smells real good about now.

 

Minced shallot and garlic.

 

The shallots have been “sweated” and I’m adding the garlic for the last 30 seconds.

 

Draining the lardons and the pecan-shallot-garlic mix.

 

Shredded rosemary-garlic roasted chicken.

 

It was too late after work to make my own mayo.

 

Love this Louisiana Cajun seasoning.

 

Gotta have some of this.

 

About 1/2 cup of mayo, 2/3 cup of sour cream, 1 tablespoon of Cajun seasoning, 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, plus Maldon sea salt and freshly ground pepper (not shown).

 

I over-toasted the bun in the broiler, but it was still delicious.