Wontonamera

There’s something to be said for making a delectable and deliriously delightful set of dishes for your date and you to devour. It’s romantic and all that other bs. As of late I’ve had two experiences I wanted to remind myself about that were not quite such intimate experiences.

My former roommate was having a goodbye-school-hello-summer party, and requested that I make pizza for said event. No problem, I readily agreed, blissfully unaware of what she had in mind. “How many should I cook for?”

Note: never agree, then ask. Ask, then agree.

“Twenty-five or Thirty.”

(insert sound of my mouth hitting the floor in shock and awe) After I recovered from my initial shock, I went about menu planning for that number of people and homemade pizza. In my house’s kitchen. With one oven. When the initial shock wore off, I started to worry. Making one or two pizzas isn’t a big deal…stir, swab, top, cook. Eight different pizzas in short order is a little bit of a different story. Like “War and Peace” vs. “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” sort of difference.

As it turned out, it was more like 18 folks, so I ended up making 6 pizzas*.

-I cheated and bought dough for them all. Oopsie. No one cared, it was good dough and the rest of the pizza more than made up for it.
-Good cheese and good graters make a huge difference on the end result and in the making of.
-The sauce recipe from below was scaled up three-fold. Also planned on taking a bit longer to simmer as a result, during which time I went all “mise en place” on the rest of the toppings, and also made pesto.
-The oven was ramped up early, and a pizza stone in on the bottom rack, to try and help the temp fluctuations that would inevitably result.
-Don’t plan on having a break while you do this, as you’ll be topping, cooking, checking, slicing, and serving in short order once you get going.
-Make small square slices of a few pies so everyone can get a bite. When they’re coming out in stages, it helps to keep folks happy so they can return to mingling and rocking out while they nibble each round.

Don’t forget, cleanup is also scaled up. Woo.

The second meal was going to be a small dinner for three that soon changed into a six person, multi-course extravaganza expo. Most dinners I do are generally timed to coincide with a sitting down and eating all at once, but this one’s going to end up with its own post (and hopefully, pics) tomorrow. Timing, of course, is everything. Being able to accurately guesstimate your cooking and prep times, and pacing of the courses, makes a huge difference in serving them right!

1. Get in the car.

2. Drive to the store.

3. Buy bacon.

4. Drive home.

5. Cook bacon.

6. Eat….Oh, you meant how to make-make it? That’s a slight bit more complex. Not much, though. Like you can be in 4th grade. Seriously. Maybe Kindergarten. The hardest part about it is convincing your parents to buy the raw materials you need.

1. Wake up. Go to the farmer’s market. Talk to the rancher who has the pork. He’ll give you the pork belly (3-5 pounds) that you reserved earlier in the week.

Pre-Bacon

2. Upon returning home, bust out the curing salt (#1) that you bought earlier and mixed up to be the recipe from Charcuterie (by Ruhlman, et al) for the curing salt. Pierce but DO NOT REMOVE THE SKIN. Rub 50g or so on the belly, and if you’d like to spice it up with either pepper, maple syrup, brown sugar, chipotles, etc., add about 1/2c or so of that to the belly, ziploc it and throw in the fridge. Grab a drink and party! You’ve done half the work at this point, so celebrating is mandatory.

3. Over the next week, flip it every other day so the cure is on both sides. After the belly firms up quite a bit, ie, after a week to 8 days, you’re done curing. SCHWEET!!!

4. Wash the cure off the belly, let it soak for 30 minutes in water. Repeat for an hour with new water. During this time you’ll want to go crank up your smoker to about 200F. I use pecan and apple wood for smoking, you can use pretty much any wood you like. Smoke at 200f for about 4 hours. Remove from smoker. Trim the skin from the bacon. Take pics. Pop champagne. Cheers yourself, because you’re awesome and you’ve now completed makin’ bacon. Vegans everywhere will weep at your passing!!

References:
Charcuterie, The art of curing, salting, smoking and making meat awesome-er.

While google has basically made itself the ultimate cookbook and one of my most frequently referenced items, there’s still quite a bit of knowledge that’s not so easily codified and readily available as you can find in those archaic tomes known as “Cookbooks”.

Here’s some I really liked, with some blurbs about why.

Ad Hoc at Home

Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc may be one of the better ones, and the most approachable of his series of cookbooks (followed by Bouchon, then French Laundry). Ad Hoc includes things like cutting and tying whole chickens, which is something I hadn’t seen done as nicely ever. Also, lots of good recipes and techniques are covered through the rest of the book that you can pick up and use to your benefit in every day cooking. Keller and Co. even went to a home kitchen to test every recipe in the book(!) to ensure they could be done at home. The pictures are well done, the text as well. Large enough to read and see, unlike many smaller format books. Expensive (relatively speaking) but I think most folks should flip through it and see, you might be convinced.

Joy of Cooking

The Joy of Cooking, venerable and stoic though it may be, is a dense encyclopedia of recipes and information. Not much isn’t covered in this, and can be handy for making a pie to whipping up hummus. Revised several times over the years, it’s fairly up to date on temps and times and the like. Consider this the google of cookbooks, with its index and appendices. You can make every bit of a four course easter dinner from its pages and end up looking like a real champ if you please.

As I was im’ing with a friend she mentioned that she has a fun time in the kitchen, but I, oh I am all serious ‘n’ s#!t.

I mean, sorry, I am COMPLETELY serious when I cook. Totally.

This interchange from The Mummy should emulate the sort of fun I have…

Evelyn: Now, what exactly is this man in prison for?
Warden Gad Hassan: Well, this I did not know. But when I heard you
were coming, I asked him that myself.
Evelyn: And what did he say?
Warden Gad Hassan: He said he was just looking for a good time.

(a few minutes later)

Evelyn: Where are they taking him?
Warden Gad Hassan: To be hanged. Apparently, he had a VERY good time.

It’s sort of like that.

For Christmas and his birthday i bought my brother a Sous Vide Supreme. I figured it was something he wouldn’t have (he didn’t) and would be geeky enough he’d like it (he did). He likes to cook, joined me at the French Laundry, and has a girlfriend he should occasionally try and impress to boot, so that never hurts.

Back to me, though, since I’m who you should be focusing your attention on here. I got all jealous at how nice I’d been and decided that I wanted to join the geeky science project kitchen fun crowd somehow. Lots of research and curious googling later, I think I’ve managed to do just that.

See?

Just waiting to be used...

Just mush all that into a box, add electricity and water, and SHAZAM, b!tches, it’s sous vide cooking.

Or not quite.

If you take a moment to read and bookmark this hugely useful page, you’ll note there’s a crapload more that you’ll need to consider about this. Not to mention general food safety, which needs to be first on your mind when you do this crap, even more than normal. Yeah, paralytic somethingorothers as a result of mishandling lobster don’t sound quite as pleasing as gettin’ some after dinner for that butter deliciousness you just made. Just sayin’. Be careful.

The first article I’d read that made it seem quite doable was the Popular Science article that talked about DIY, followed soon after by my roommate sending me Make version of the same after a discussion while watching “Top Chef”. Granted I’ll never be on that show, but it’s fun to talk about. That and chef groupies.

The main part of what you’ll need is a device to accurately control temperatures. Some people consider a crock pot a good way to do this. It is, for the “high” and “low” temps that it maintains. If you want a bit more than that (you do), you’ll need to get a PID controller and a method to heat your desired cooking bath. My PID is from Auber, it’s the smoker/sous vide model ($200), but I also have a smoker I can use it with. I’m good like that. For heating, the Norpro 559 immersion heaters are cheap ($6-8 shipped) and can be made to work in a wide variety of containers–not just a crock pot or a rice cooker. REI, conveniently, sells a knock off of the norpro (rebadge, even, who knows) that does the same functions but for twice the price and immediately available. At least when I went and bought them.

If you do go with the immersion heater method, you’ll need to figure out how much power you’ll need to heat your water. Remember, a larger amount of water can hold its temp steady easier, but requires more power to heat up. As I chose to DIY without a rice or slow cooker, I had to find a suitable container. Simple enough, I did what a lot of the pros do–steam table pans. My local ACEMart has them in a wide variety of sizes, and after some thought I bought two sizes, 25 and 12 qt ($15 and $10), aka 8″ deep full and half size pans. You can get them in stainless or plastics of varying types, and there’s always the Imusa tamale pot if you want a really big pot you can use for something else.

And there ya go. That’s the basic equipment you need to start making eggs in a water bath. Tada! I can stick all of my gear into the 12qt pan and take it with pretty easily as well. Handy.

Of course, Sous Vide means “Under Vacuum”, so there’s a tiny bit more if you want to really make it that extra special sort of toy to play with in your kitchen. The vacuum sealers you see all around can be used, though the pros make use of some seriously ridiculous chamber sealers which would shrink plastic over the face of a small baby if you wanted. They’re running on a budget you and I don’t have or want to spend on this stuff. Heck some people have been known to use ziplocs. Whatever. I procured a food saver ($60 with two rolls of bagging material). Basic, functional, and relatively foolproof. Heck I can use it, right?

Some other parts you’ll wish to consider for good measure:
Thermometer for calibrating/comparing
bubbler/circulator to ensure even heating (despite the rumor, water can have drastically different temps in a pan)
lid for your container you can cut and hack to make it hold all the heating and temp elements.
A good set of tongs
hot pads, etc…

Now the girlfriend to impress thing, that’s a whole nother story.

Yeah, I’ve been away for a bit, I know. Lots of crap and the holidays going on. Bite me. Or have a bite of these:

Scallops in Puff Pastry, with truffles and foie gras, aka, Scallop Wellingtons.

Here’s a towel for that mess you just made.

I was fairly scared to cook these. One of my friends was like “Whatever, just make it.” until I mentioned that two of the ingredients were $100+ per pound. Then I got the “Oh….yeah, be careful.” So….be very aware of what you’re getting into with this one! If you use diver/sea scallops, then you will need to use larger slices of puff pastry, but adjust to fit your needs as needed.

Ingredients:
Mushrooms (get good ones, cremini would be the bottom end of what I’d use for these)

Black Truffle
Foie Gras (Locally sourced as “Duck Liver”)
Scallops
Puff pastry
Chives
Salt
Pepper
Egg

Dice chives.
Dice mushrooms, sautee in a pan for a couple of minutes, set aside.
Wafer/paper thin slice the truffle into pieces about scallop size.

Leave the Foie Gras and puff pastry in fridge as long as possible!
Cut a piece of puff pastry big enough to wrap the scallop completely with a scooch of room to spare.
On the puff pastry, sprinkle a layer of mushrooms, then add a few pieces of chives.
Place a slice of truffle on top.
Slice a piece of foie gras about scallop sized and 1/8th inch thick, place on truffle. Season with a dash of salt/pepper.

Season scallop, place on top of foie gras.

Wrap one end of puff pastry over scallop, brush edge with egg wash. Wrap the rest of the way, and trim excessive pastry as needed.
Place on non-stick baking pan. Brush with Egg wash.
Repeat till done, place in fridge for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 400F.

Diver scallops may take 15 minutes, the small ones took 10-12. Do a test one first to see for yourself how long you want to bake. My oven and yours may be friends but bake different.

Plus these are fun to eat.

I Klassed it up big time with the baked brie in puff pastry I did with the extra pastry. Awww yeah. These might just get you laid.

Slap yo' momma good.

(Scallops were the cheapest item per pound when I bought these–chives were per bunch
puff pastry was $15
scallops: $8
Hen of the wood shrooms: $24
Foie Gras: $100
Black Truffle: $200
yeah…be very aware of what you’re making!)