wolvesmouth

egg...

i decided to approach the sous vide egg today. yes i know everyone has done it, i have made tons of them but realized i dont really like them as much as a soft boiled egg,  for this post i am concentrating on one temp, different methods. for me personally i am not too fond of the barely quivering egg white, maybe i am old fashioned, but the texture of a soft boiled egg is rad. so i set out to marry the two together. i took 5 eggs, all are cooked for different times. 3 of which were boiled before being plunged into the circulator at 63.5 c.

so the eggs are labeled except one, all of these eggs cooked for 45 min. although the ones labeled with the minutes were boiled for that amount of time before being cooked for 45 min @ 63.5c. the one with no label was cooked for an hour at 63.5c NO pre-boil.

eggs cooking. pretty basic. moving on.

the eggs after 45 min of cooking. notice the 3 min pre-boil pretty much rules. i was happy with the outcome, it was firm enough to peel and handle but you could feel how delicate the inside was. this was the clear winner for my personal preference.

this is with applying barely any pressure, you can see the egg giving quite a bit. this would also be a good way to prep, "blanch" your eggs, then cook peel and set aside to heat to order. its like a poached egg wrapped in a thin layer of egg that has been cooked a little further giving you 2 textures in the same egg white then a 3rd texture in the yolk.

the one to the left was the one minute pre-boil, the one in the middle was the 2 min pre-boil, and the last one was the straight 63.5c for 45 min. personally i didnt like the results with any of these.

here is the 63.5 after 1 hour of cooking, this is the egg that is the standard to this technique. it turned out well, but i still personally love the other 3 min pre-boil egg.

3 min pre-boiled (temp before cooking was cooler to room temp. size large egg. grade a) then transferred to 63.5c for 45 min.

eggs and toast. with blis of course.

creamiest yolk ever. just on the verge of wanting to solidify .5c more and it will start to solidify. notice the inside texture as opposed to the outside texture,t he outside is the firmer texture while the inside white is a lot softer.

you choose. the one on the left or the one on the right? for me the right one is my clear choice, yes it does require a little more in the labor department since you cant just crack them open, strain on a paper towel then plate, and call it done while not peeling a thing then so be it. but if this is the texture you are looking for, its totally worth it.

michael jackson dead 1958-2009...

grew up listening to michael jackson, one of the biggest entertainers of all time. amazing musician. rip. l.a. is nuts right now, cant drive anywhere!

kumquat...

kumquat filled with kumquat. go figure. so i took some kumquats i had laying around and decided to fill them with well more kumquats, this goes to part of a lamb dish i want to put together. i took my kumquats and blanched them in cold water, bringing the temp to boiling straining then again, then again, then filling with spring water and sugar then cooking slowly to somewhat candy them, then while still hot just a quick rinse under cold water then poke a little hole and let it spew out then straining through a sieve and adjust seasoning. then fill it up again with the puree. if i had more i would take the extra skins and cook them down even more then puree them with the insides that had been strained then maybe add some vanilla. the directions you could go are pretty insane with the types of spices or flavors you can also blend, from curry to ginger to yogurt to mint or black pepper, long pepper, etc etc etc.... anyways glad it worked out and still just looks like a random kumquat that would be sitting on the plate. some of the dishes i have written down are supposed to look beyond minimal on the plate but be supercharged in flavor.

as few as possible...

i can definitely say that my main way of cooking is to take as few ingredients as possible and try to hit multiple flavor profiles, salty bitter sweet sour with this well essentially a garnish that would be a set up for a nice light fish dish i took tomato, squash blossom, red onion, and italian peppers. its not the most creative dish by any means, but the flavor balance is pretty epic. i took and sweated some onion and added my italian peppers and cooked them down til they were sweeter but still had the bitter edge, the onions were sweet and salty, once they were cooked i added some sherry vinegar and olive oil then let them sit a while, i filled the squash blossom with the mixture then basted them in a small por with butter water and salt, i took my tomatoes and blanched to remove the skin, marinated then threw down some more of the pickled pepper relish, tomato, squash blossoms filled with italian pepper relish, and tarragon. so although pretty basic there is a lot of flavors going on here, sweet salty bitter sour refreshing. like i said this would be a nice set up for a light fish dish or anything else coming up in summer. can't wait til i have some real time off which i think will be in august, haha damn, well til then i can at least maybe do things that only take a few minutes to do while at home.

iphone 3.0 update unavailable problem fixed!!!

quick tip on how to get past the apple server to actually download the new software. once you start the extracting software procedure turn off your internet connection on your computer so it will not connect to apples server and use at&t which will in turn update your software, should take about 10 min. for ex: once my extraction software procedure started i turned my airport off, then let it download just using the phone while leaving the phone plugged in.

the making of graham elliot...

graham elliot put out a clip of how "their" restaurant was put together, for some real insider info follow this link...

cleaning...

today i have the day off so its time to rearrange my traveling "cooking kit" which is bursting at the seams, not to mention the stuff i cant fit in like my bigger knives like my slicer and yanagi. i am constantly rearranging everytime i buy something new. i think michael ruhlman would not approve of the over kill that has consumed my house from immersion circulators, blenders, pots and pans, speed racks, a prep table, dehydrators, mixers, and a hotel sized cryovac machine that takes too much power for me to even use right now without starting my place on fire (hoping to get a space to use it unless someone wants to buy it, its the vacmaster svp20 220v, 900$ its yours).anyways back to my kit, here are a few photos that i somehow fit into my small travel kit.

 hopefully i will be able to find a space someday to put it all. if anyone knows of a cheap space in l.a. where i wont get shot at let me know!!!

canele...

 here are the caneles out of the oven and out of the molds. of course you can see that the metal mold made a darker canele which by the picture it almost looks burnt but if you were seeing it here in my place or i took a better picture with better color you would see its right on, i opened it up to try and show the color contrast from outside and inside. the other 2 lighter versions are less intensely flavored although they still have a lot of flavor they just arent as intense as the darker version as well as texture wise they have that really chewy exterior with soft tender almost eggy interior with a burst of vanilla which comes from infusing the vanilla bean in the milk for two days and letting the batter sit another day. then baking at 400f for about 45 min but the times usually vary by the oven and where you place the canele in that oven. the other 2 could have cooked longer but i wanted to take them out at the same time as the metal to see how different they would turn out, i can definitely say the metal molds are the winner in my opinion for this test batch.

ideas in the works...gotta leave again though...

back to NYC for work and food.

a few dishes i have been working on but need to shoot and post photos of will be up which now has to wait which means i need to buy more smoked steelhead roe from steve at blis. 

cornbread ice cream. smoked steelhead roe. crispy peach meringue. lightly pickled jalapeno. lime.

canele. steelhead roe.whipped maple creme fraiche. celery.

lobster. pimento cheese. fried green tomato. brioche. 

crispy beet glass. concentrated beet. dill coated black cod. dill and creme fraiche filled gougeres. 

til then heres my test batch for my canele, i am using a metal mold as well as silicon to see what i like better, i have used the copper in the past but i am not ballin' enough to spend 25$ per mold so i got these for 8$ per mold and bought 8 as well was the silicon molds which cost about 20$. keep you posted with the aftermath if my oven is actually 400F, we will find out in about an hour. hopefully i am not posting a burnt ass canele. crossing my fingers that my oven isnt a liar.

carrot and orange...crispy...

sorry for the shitty photo, had to snap this in a hurry. just a quick little something since i havent really been home enough to post but i wanted use my dehydrator so i made crispy meringue, i whipped the egg whites, 2 whites added my sugar slowly about 4 tbs (about 60g) then added 50g freeze dried carrot and orange powder. this was whipped to more of a softer but not to soft peak spread out and dried for 3 hours at 150f on the excalibur 3900 dehydrator. psyched i finally sucked it up and got it.

it leads you to think, why not cook fish/meat/etc... in it, wrap the fish and throw it in, you can control the temp to 155f, just make sure its wrapped, could this be an alternative to these expensive ass ovens for cooking a larger amount of things, i doubt it but maybe at home or in a small restaurant it could even be used to hold things at certain temperatures like fish that already been sealed and sous vide or maybe even sous vide in the dehydrator if there is enough time and space since the contact with water or steam would not be present (although you have the moving air) it may take longer but it beats spending 900 on an immersion circulator if you can't afford it and will not be using it alot. eh just an idea.