Simon Lewinson

Cakelets?

RECIPE: SLOWLY BRAISED BEEF CHEEKS Serves 6 6 beef cheeks 80ml olive oil 3 carrots, roughly chopped 2teaspoons garlic, crushed 1 brown onion, sliced 500 ml medium sherry 500 ml red wine 3 bay leaves 3 tablespoons thyme leaves 3 small sprigs rosemary 1 teaspoon fine sea salt 1. Trim the beef cheeks to neaten them up and remove any sinew and silver skin. Season well. 2. Heat half the olive oil in a large heavy-based saucepan over high heat. Brown the beef cheeks for 1 -2 minutes on each side then remove from the pan. 3. Add the remaining olive oil, then add the carrot, garlic and onion and sauté over high heat for 12-15 minutes, until well browned. Stir in the sherry, wine, bay leaves, thyme, rosemary and sea salt, reduce sauce to approx 150-200ml. 4. Bag the beef cheeks in pairs, add sauce and herbs divided evenly and seal. Cook for 9 hours at 81 degrees. 5. Unbag and reserve beef cheeks. Reduce sauce until glaze-like. Strain the sauce through a fine sieve and return to the pan; gently reheat the cheeks in the sauce if necessary. Serve the cheeks and their sauce on a bed of mashed potato.

Nina, do you roast them first?Simon

Hi all, I am in the position of having a number of chestnut trees that are about to shower me with their bountiful fruit. I am after some ideas on what to do with the fresh chestnuts apart from the standard roasting and eating. Thanks in advance Simon

Keith, I brined with a 10% solution for 10 minutes, bagged with EVOO and pepper, lightly vacuumed and cooked at 50 degrees C fr 20 minutes.Turned out soooo juicy, tender and delicate. Simon

Hi Elsie and Leslie, I have been cooking beef cheeks for a few woks with spectacular results. 9 hours at 81 degrees C eliminates the long wait and I reduce the bag juices to a glaze type consistency and serve on a bed of mash. Look here for a photo ... http://forums.egullet.org/topic/144603-dinner-2013-part-2/?p=1911678 Let me know if you want the entire recipe. Simon

Attempt 2 at pasta - found the pasta machine and made some fettucini. Added some home made basil, roasted garlic and cashew pesto. Topped with sous vide salmon. Needed to add a bit more salt to the pasta and polish up on the plating skills.

My best results have been from cuts of meat that have lots of collagen and some fat such as beef cheeks and pork belly. These cuts work brilliantly at around 80 degrees C for 9-10 hours. I have also cooked extremely lean venison at 54 degrees C for up to 72 hours and also tried at 80 degrees C for 10 hours. Both times the flavour was great but the meat was as dry as anything that I have seen cooked conventionally. My take is that the conversion of collagen to gelatin is the holy grail for sous vide cooking of red meats. We can add fat to some extent, but the cut needs to be marbled with fat and collagen to be fantastic. Hope this helps. Simon

Decided to have pasta for dinner tonight and after collecting fresh, still warm eggs from the chicken pen and making the pasta dough I discovered that the pasta machine was nowhere to be found! First time making fresh pasta and I was determined to continue, so out came the rolling pin and rustic papardelle was the outcome. Topped with a sous vide wagyu beef cheek ragu and shaved Parmesan. My only criticism was that the pasta was a bit too thick and not as consistent as I would have liked.

WOW!! Would love some more info on the system design as I am considering building a smoker. Simon

Chris, I made up about 100ml of 4% brine blended with 3 grams of fresh herbs and 0.5 grams of ground pepper, then injected each thigh with about 5ml. Bagged them 4 at a time with 6 tablespoons of fat, 2 fresh sage leaves and 1 fresh bay leaf and left them to marinate for 2 hours before giving them a nice warm swim. I am considering upping the salt to 5% and allowing to marinate for nearer 6 hours. Simon

Downunder all things thermal are in degrees celcius :-)

My first try at sous vide confit chicken thighs. Injection brined the chicken with a 4% solution including puréed fresh bay leaf, sage and oregano. Vacuum bagged really hard with fresh sage and bay leaves, schmaltz and butter. Cooked for 6 hours at 80 degrees, patted dry and into the deep fryer at 180 for 3 minutes to crisp up the skin. Served on a bed of sautéed cabbage. Texture was fantastic, nearly falling apart but just hanging onto the bone. Skin was so crispy and really delicate, almost dissolving on the tongue. Next time I will increase the amount of herbs and salt in the brine and also increase the amount of resting time before cooking to improve the flavour.

Chippy, the best explanation about absolute pressure that I can give is: Absolute pressure is the pressure measured relative to an absolute vacuum - ie the absence of any gas molecules. The absolute pressure outside the PC is the current atmospheric pressure and the absolute pressure inside the PC is the sum of the atmospheric pressure and the pressure generated against the relief valve spring. The spring resistance is constant, hence the maximum pressure across it will be limited to the same set value. The important thing to remember is that water's boiling point is related to absolute pressure. Hope that makes it a bit clearer. Simon

Chippy The pressure relief valve will open at a preset pressure across it - if the ambient pressure drops, then so does the absolute pressure inside the PC. The temperature that water boils at depends upon absolute pressure, and thus, at higher altitudes a PC will lheat to a lower temperature than at sea level when the relief valve vents. The temperature difference should be nearly the same as the difference in the boiling point of water at the same altitude. Aircraft generally do not run the cabin pressure at sea level equivalent due to the stress on the fuselage. The norm for commercial aircraft is to pressurise to 8000 feet above sea level. The critical thing to remember is that water boiling depends upon absolute pressure whereas relief valves and gauges generally work on "Gauge" pressure which is the difference between the pressure being measured and ambient atmospheric pressure.. Simon

Tonight's dinner was an Asian rice noodle and herb salad topped with rare sous vide wagyu beef. The locally grown, grass fed wagyu beef was marinated in sesame oil, garlic, ginger, soy sauce and palm sugar then cooked sous vide at 53.5 for 2 hours and seared with the blowtorch. Salad had finely julienned Roma tomato, coriander, rocket, mint, spring onions and cabbage dressed with lime juice, rice vinegar, sesame oil, palm sugar, lemongrass and chili.

Tonight's dinner - sous vide beef cheeks on mashed potato. Sorry for the messy plating. Recipe was adapted from http://movida.com.au/slowly-braised-beef-cheeks-in-pedro-ximenez-with-cauliflower-puree-carillera-de-buey/ Also added some rosemary sprigs and substituted normal sherry for the Pedro Ximenez. Seared the beef cheeks, prepared the sauce and then reduced it to approximately 300ml. Bagged the cheeks in pairs with the sauce and cooked for 9 hours at 81 degrees. Strained the bag juices and reduced it till glossy and thick. Texture was fantastic, all of the collagen had melted and the meat was on the verge of falling apart and was wonderfully moist. Simon.

ChrisZ, I would love some of these ingredients to try out. Could you please let me know contact details and I will post a satchel to you. Thanks for the generosity. Simon

Banh Mi in the boondocks... living out in the middle of nowhere has its advantages, but not when getting the ingredients for Banh Mi! I read this thread, and it reminded me of the lunchtime Banh Mi pilgrimage when I worked in Springvale about 16 years ago. After driving for an hour to go shopping, the ingredients that I managed to rustle up were: sous vide pork belly from my freezer, home made mayo, liverwurst from Aldi (Heathen I hear you all screaming!), parbake dinner rolls, fresh carrot, cucumber and coriander. Out with the Thai cookbook and I plagiarized the quick pickle recipe to steep the carrot and cucumber for an hour or so. After baking the rolls, smearing on the mayo and ersatz pâté, i piled in the carrot, pork belly, cucumber and coriander with a splash of dark soy sauce. Sorry for the lack of photos, but the wife and kids devoured the lot faster than I could assemble them. I doubt that they could compare with the real thing, but they tasted great.

Agree totally about sous-vide and vacuum packing. Needs a little planning but you cannot beat the results. Real quick meals can also be sous vide - chicken is only 45-60 minutes at 60C, garlic prawns take 20-30 mins at 55C. For when I am really busy I do a big batch of individual portions and freeze them. Reheat and voila - 72 hour venison is on the table. Luckily one of my friends is an avid hunter and supplies me with venison whenever he has good hunting. Simon

I have a really lazy Mexican bean dip. 2 chorizo, diced finely 1 tin Refried beans (Old El Paso in Australia) 150ml water 1 cup grated cheddar cheese fry the diced chorizo until well browned, add refried beans and water, simmer for 5 minutes then fold in cheese. Serve warm with sour cream, salsa and corn chips Simon

Fantastic! Thanks for the info - cannot wait to get to PV. Seroiusly doubt that I have the stomach capacity to try all of these but I will give it a go. Simon

Hi all, I will be in PV later this month and would love some pointers on where to go for the real mexican foodie experience. Willing to give almost anything non letal a try Thanks Simon

Hi all, I will be visiting Idaho Falls in late April for work and would live some advice on where to eat and what is great. This is my first trip to the US and I am looking forward to looking and eating my way around. I will also be visiting LA and possibly Tijuana on the return journey and would welcome some suggestions for these areas as well Thanks.

Unbelievable - this sounds like my place. With a wife that works longer hours than myself and two children that have hectic social calendars, I am often confronted with additional mouths to feed with short notice. I am a fan of sous vide and this has made my life so much easier. I buy meat at the right price in reasonable quantity and vacuum bag it with sauce, give it a nice warm swim and then put into the fridge or freezer as appropriate. When visitors appear, hey presto a bag is defrosted and either reheated in the sous vide bath or charred on the BBQ. Did this yesterday with some rolled pork loin. Sous vide at 56C for 6 hours and into the fridge. Unbagged, dried it off, seasoned and onto the grill for a couple of minutes per side. Garlic butter over some boiled new potatoes, steamed veggies and all done in short order. My chamber vacuum sealer and sous vide bath are in almost full time use now. Another oldie is pasta with homemade bolognese sauce. I make one batch per year - grind up an entire rump, one kilo of onions etc and cook for the rest of ther day. When complete I bag it up and freeze into approximately 20 meal size bricks. Add garlic bread and a salad.