Instant Pot jumps the shark with sous vide function

Posted on December 31, 2019 by Burnt My Fingers
Sous Vide Instant Pot

Sous Vide in the Instant Pot Viva. Set for 140 degrees; water is 134.2 after two hours.

Can you do sous vide in the Instant Pot? Instant Pot, the company, is now making its own immersion circulator, with a design similar to the best-selling Anova. (Warning! Affiliate links!) You can purchase the giant Aura Pro Multicooker, whose 11 functions include a sous vide setting but not the smart pressure cooker technology that made the brand. But that’s not what we’re talking about. Question is, can you do sous vide in the original IP, the pressure cooker shaped like C3PO which has a sous vide button on some newer models?

We were skeptical but willing to find out, and Best Buy had a Black Friday sale on the Viva, a model with the sous vide function. (To give ourselves credit, that was not the only reason we purchased; our early edition Duo was getting long in the tooth and we wanted access to any upgraded functionality.) And we decided to give Instant Pot sous vide a shot using a boneless pork loin roast, a cut that is very forgiving of temperature variations.

Temperature variations, indeed! We set the Viva to 140 degrees for medium/medium rare but after a couple of hours the water bath was just under 135 degrees. A variation like that would be fatal for a more delicate dish, like soft boiled or coddled eggs. We then cranked the setting up to 145 for the rest of the cook time and got the delicious, tender, almost-white slices we were looking for. A related problem is that the IP doesn’t have any kind of a circulation system which, of course, is going to exacerbate those temperature variations because water next to the product you’re cooking, the wall of the pot or the weight you might need to hold down the sous vide bag is going to be a different temperature than the open water in the pot.

Instant Pot Pork Roast

Here’s the finished product, after searing in a skillet and slicing to serve.

Our conclusion: technically, you can sous vide in the Instant Pot, but you shouldn’t. It’s a good way to ruin an expensive piece of meat and maybe create a health risk. About the only thing sillier is the commenter in the thread on this post who uses the IP’s inner pot by itself as a receptacle when sous viding with a Joule circulator. Well, maybe that’s not fair (although there wouldn’t be much room for the food product after you mount the circulator on the side), but it shows the lengths to which IP fanatics will go to use their device for every meal.

By the way, our roast was delicious. Here is the recipe.

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Food for Thought: The Food of Sichuan by Fuchsia Dunlop

Posted on December 26, 2019 by Burnt My Fingers

 

Fuchsia Dunlop at WBUR

Food of Sichuan: Fuchsia Dunlop with her fish-fragrant eggplant. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

We received The Food of Sichuan for Christmas and discovered that, rather than an entirely new book, it is “a new updated version of the classic Land of Plenty”.  If you didn’t get the older book on our recommendation, you should almost certainly purchase the new one instead. It has excellent pictures of almost every dish, and the author says there are 70 new recipes plus 12 reworks of old recipes. (That’s according to the Fuchsia Dunlop page on Facebook, which is well worth following.)

We were heartened by the change to fu qi fei pian/man-and-wife meat slices (p 178 in the old book, 97 in the new one). Flank steak has been replaced by a beef shank/tripe combo (two meats in harmony, echoing the relationship of the partners who came up with the original version in Chengdu) which is a huge upgrade and makes us realize this is the basis of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, a similar dish at one of our favorite local Sichuan places. Hopefully there are similar improvements throughout.

However, we did find tweaks that we’re not sure we agree with and Dunlop does not include all of them in her short list of reworks. Si chuan pao cai/pickled vegetables (p 71 in the old book, 420 in the new one) has lost its star anise and “strong rice wine or vodka” has given way to “strong Chinese baiju grain liquor” which may be difficult to find stateside. There are likely other variations like this and it would be nearly impossible to identify all of them because the organization of the books is completely different and the index for Food of Sichuan is very non-intuitive. (There is no table of contents.)

If you have taken a deep dive into Land of Plenty and fallen in love with the flavor profiles, then you are one of the few who maybe shouldn’t upgrade. Otherwise, get the new book. It’s a better value with more recipes plus the photos, and the revised recipes are almost certain to be delicious. Check it out.

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Recipe: Conch Fritters

Posted on December 24, 2019 by Burnt My Fingers
Conch Fritters

Conch Fritters with dipping sauce

Conch Fritters made it onto our bucket list during a long-ago visit to Key West. They were on the menus everywhere, and we couldn’t afford them. So when we recently found (probably frozen and defrosted) conch (pronounced “konk”) meat at our local Asian market, we had to try making conch fritters at home. Do take the extra trouble to prepare the tangy dipping sauce, which comes from this site. Makes 2 entrée or 4 appetizer portions.

Ingredients:
Peanut or other oil for deep-frying
1 c conch meat (about half a pound), chopped into ½ cubes*
¾ c all-purpose flour
1 egg, lightly beaten
½ cup milk
½ t baking powder
¼ t ground cayenne pepper
¾ t Kosher salt
¼ ground black pepper
½ c onion, chopped
¾ c mixed green and red bell pepper (or all of one or the other), diced
½ c celery (about 1 big stalk), diced
2 or more garlic cloves, chopped fine

For the dipping sauce:
2 T ketchup
2 T fresh lime juice
2 T mayonnaise
1 t Tabasco sauce
Kosher salt, to taste
ground black pepper, to taste

Conch Meat

The “necks” of conch meat tend to be a bit chewy, so be sure to chop in small cubes.

Method: Heat oil to 375 degrees. Combine milk and egg then add baking powder, cayenne, black pepper and salt. Mix thoroughly then add flour and stir till well-blended. Add conch, bell pepper, onion, celery and garlic and stir till evenly distributed in the batter.

Using a tablespoon or small scoop, drop spoonfuls of batter into the hot oil, taking care not to crowd them and using the spoon to keep them from sticking together. Cook about 4 minutes until the fritters are nicely browned but not dark. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. Repeat until all the batter is used up.

Mix the dipping sauce ingredients and serve with the fritters immediately, or after leftover fritters have been reheated in a 350 degree oven for 10 minutes. Do not microwave leftovers.

*Conch has a pleasant but mild flavor, so you could substitute chopped shrimp, clams or scallops and come out with an equally tasty product.

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Food for Thought: The Chef Show

Posted on December 20, 2019 by Burnt My Fingers
Guerrilla Seafood Taco

Guerrilla Seafood Taco made with hamachi crudo and uni on The Chef Show (screenshot; play arrow will not work)

Chef friend Brady Duhame suggested we watch The Chef Show. After dumpster-diving half a dozen episodes, we can see why. The interactions of Roy Choi, Jon Favreau and guest chefs are packed with good kitchen technique and preparation tips we can learn from, and the celebrity guests are a bonus (and sometimes a distraction) rather than the main event.

The show is a spinoff of the 2014 movie Chef, in which Favreau plays a guess-what who quits his restaurant job because of a conflict with his boss, has a personal crisis, then finds happiness operating a food truck. Roy Choi was an advisor on that show and now is the active driver of The Chef Show, but Faveau turns out to have quite a few kitchen chops as well. (All puns intended.) The fact is, not all great chefs are great philosophers we want to hear pontificating onscreen and not all celebrities are amusing when playing with food. If you are going to do a serious cooking show with personalities, this is the way to go.

Chef Show Interaction

In the kitchen at Guerrilla Tacos with chef Wes Avila, Rob Choi and Jon Favreau

We’d recommend you start with the three-episode sequence Pizzana/Guerilla Tacos/Hog Island in Season 1/Volume 2 then, for comic relief, watch Episode 1 of Volume 2 in which Roy Choi appears to be putting us on. He demonstrates perhaps the worst veg prep skills you’re likely to see from a CIA grad, and berates the others for using “big” chef’s knives rather than the little tiny knife he’s holding. (The guest this episode is Seth Rogen, which may explain the general atmosphere of befuddlement.)

The show has a website which offers recipes from the episodes but there are tantalizingly few of them. However, there’s a frame in each show where all the ingredients appear as part of an annoying animation, so you can screenshot it, copy the ingredients, then make the recipe using the very good in-show demonstration. The Chef Show is well worth your time. Check it out.

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Recipe: Cake Cookies

Posted on December 17, 2019 by Burnt My Fingers
Cake Cookies

Cake cookies, front left, made with corn cookie batter; corn cookies upper right

Our cake cookies are not made from cake mix like this appealing recipe, but actual leftover cake of the type that is often found around the holidays. It’s best to use a cake with some body to it or else a cake that has been sitting around and dried out. Not sure what to do if it has frosting: scrape it off, or leave it and see what happens. Makes 20-24 cake cookies.

Ingredients:
1 recipe Cristina Tosi’s Corn Cookies batter or equivalent containing egg and a good amount of butterfat
1 to 1 1/2 c leftover cake (we used a walnut cinnamon coffee cake)

Method: prepare cookie batter according to directions in a rotary mixer. (If you’re using the corn cookie recipe you could substitute regular cornmeal for the ground-up freeze dried corn). Crumble cake into the bowl of batter and mix on first speed until well combined, a minute or two. You can add as much cake as you point up to the point where the dough is about to pull apart because it can’t absorb any more crumbs.

Use a quarter cup measure (or guesswork) to form finished batter into balls. Place these on a half sheet pan lined with silicone pad or parchment paper, then press down to flatten tops (we use a second sheet pan for this). Wrap well with plastic wrap and refrigerate until stiff, ideally overnight.

To bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a second lined half sheet pan and distribute the cookie balls over the two sheets with good separation between then. Bake for 22 minutes, checking to make sure they don’t burn. When done the cookies should be crisp around the edges and slightly soft in the middle. Rest on the pans until they firm up, then transfer to wire rack and cool completely. Will keep up to 5 days covered at room temperature, or a month or two in the freezer.

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Amazon thinks we love Durkee’s a bit TOO much

Posted on December 12, 2019 by Burnt My Fingers

Do we love Durkee’s Sauce a bit more than is appropriate? Amazon.com seems to think so. It’s true that we ordered a three-pack of Durkee’s on Thanksgiving Eve when we discovered we were in danger of running out, and it did indeed arrive in time for sandwiches Friday morning. We were then invited (by the third-party seller) to submit a review, which we did as follows:

Durkee’s to the rescue for post-thanksgiving turkey sandwiches!
 
Durkee’s Famous Sauce is essential for day-after-Thanksgiving sandwiches in my house, and we panicked on Wednesday on discovering our jar was almost empty and the local stores have discontinued it. Amazon to the rescue. Package was delivered before lunchtime on Friday and the individual jar were carefully wrapped to prevent breakage.

Sure, it’s more expensive than buying a jar off the grocery shelf if you can find it. But you get what you pay for, and in this case it was worth every penny.

Controversial? We didn’t think so, but here’s what Amazon told us:

Thank you for submitting a customer review on Amazon. After carefully reviewing your submission, your review could not be posted to the website. While we appreciate your time and comments, reviews must adhere to the following guidelines:

A few common issues to keep in mind:

    • Your review should focus on specific features of the product and your experience with it. Feedback on the seller or your shipment experience should be provided at www.amazon.com/feedback.
    • We do not allow profane or obscene content. This applies to adult products too.
    • Advertisements, promotional material or repeated posts that make the same point excessively are considered spam.
    • Please do not include URLs external to Amazon or personally identifiable content in your review.
    • Any attempt to manipulate Community content or features, including contributing false, misleading, or inauthentic content, is strictly prohibited.

I think we satisfied the first bullet by explaining that Durkee’s is an essential post-Thanksgiving component of our diet. Did we need to say why? Should we have gone into detail about its lubricating qualities, or how it’s a perfect compromise between mustard and mayonnaise?

We used to be a Vine reviewer, which gets you occasional free products in return for a promise to review them, but were kicked out of that program because we weren’t active enough. In Vine days any review we wrote was published instantly. Now there’s a lag of a couple days while they consider it. But this is the first one that’s been flat out rejected.

Amazon has lately gotten some bad press for the large proportion of fake reviews. Good for them if they’re cleaning up their act. But really, we do love Durkee’s that much. Guess we will just need to be a bit quieter about it to avoid those adult content triggers.

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Recipe: Spicy Cajun Shrimp

Posted on December 10, 2019 by Burnt My Fingers
Spicy Cajun Shrimp

Spicy Cajun Shrimp, ready to serve and devour

Spicy Cajun Shrimp is a light modification of a recipe called Barbecue Shrimp in the wonderful Jubilee cookbook. It’s a great way to use the one-pound bags of frozen shrimp which have been deveined but still have the shells on. Makes 4 appetizer servings or 2 entrée servings though a hungry seafood lover will be able to eat the whole thing.

Ingredients:
1 lb shell-on shrimp, deveined preferred
4 T butter
¼ t cayenne*
¼ t crushed red pepper flakes
½ t paprika
¼ t ground black pepper
½ t Kosher salt
½ t dried thyme
½ t dried oregano
2 garlic cloves, chopped
¾ c dry white wine
2 T fresh lemon juice
2 T chopped parsley leaves, for garnish
Crusty French bread

Method: combine the spices in a bowl. Melt butter in a cast iron skillet and sauté garlic 1-2 minutes until fragrant. Add mixed spices and let them toast just a bit, then pour in wine and lemon juice. Simmer 5-7 minutes, stirring frequently, till the sauce has reduced to a thick gravy. Add shrimp in a single layer and cook 7 minutes or until pink, turning once. Sprinkle on parsley and bring to the table in the cast iron skillet for serving with plenty of crusty bread to sop up the sauce and a bowl into which diners can toss the shells as they peel the shrimp with their hands.

*Jubilee uses ½ t cayenne which I think is too spicy for most folks. Start with ¼ t, taste, then add more if you dare.

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Food for Thought: Texas BBQ Posse

Posted on December 5, 2019 by Burnt My Fingers

 

Snows BBQ Posse

Snow’s BBQ Tootsie Tomanetz (left).
Texas BBQ Posse’s 10th Anniversary trip to Snow’s BBQ in Lexington, Texas, Texas, Saturday, November 16, 2019.

As we were reminiscing about good times with Vencil Mares, the latest newsletter from Texas BBQ Posse popped into our inbox. These are Dallas-based folks (many work for the Dallas Morning News) and since there is not all that much good BBQ to be had there (Lockhart Smokehouse and Pecan Lodge being the notable exceptions), they are required to constantly hit the trail in search of smoked meat experiences. And, fortunately, write about and photograph them.

Texas BBQ Posse just celebrated their tenth year on the trail with a best hits tour and found, once again, that Snow’s in Lexington stands above all others. But that shouldn’t keep you from reading about (and possibly visiting) many of the other places they cover, enjoying their photos and meeting the colorful characters manning and wo-manning the pits. (Speaking of which, did you know that Tootsie Tomanetz’ first name is pronounced “Tootie”? You read it here first.) In addition to the website, you can sign up for their newsletter and get the latest articles delivered via email. Check it out.

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R.I.P. to BBQ giant Vencil Mares

Posted on December 3, 2019 by Burnt My Fingers
Vencil Mares

Your correspondent with Vencil Mares at the Taylor Cafe, c. 2013.

Texas barbecue giant Vencil Mares, proprietor and pit boss at the Taylor Cafe in Taylor TX, passed away on November 24, 2019. He had just celebrated his 96th birthday.

You can find several references to Vencil Mares on Burnt My Fingers by doing a search for his name. In a long conversation back in 2013, he shared his secret for getting brisket past the “smoke stall” (he wraps it in butcher paper and puts it in a Coleman cooler overnight; we wrap in aluminum foil and put in oven at low heat for a few hours), advised on the importance of feeling the “give” when you hand-test brisket for doneness, and pointed out how important it is to distribute your seasonings so the customer gets some in every bite.

According to his obituary, “Vencil served bravely as a medic in the 102nd EVAC unit that landed in Normandy in the Rhineland, Ardennes, and Central Europe. He also fought in the Battle of the Bulge. He earned the Bronze Star, an award for meritorious action, for serving in five battles. He never forgot those that were lost in combat. He was so very proud of his oldest great grandson that followed in his footsteps and is an Army medic, SPC Kyle Mares.

“He opened Taylor Café in 1948 and was an icon in the barbeque world. He has been featured in numerous publications, including Texas Monthly and was once featured in a Super Bowl Chevrolet truck commercial. Vencil was proud and honored to have recently received the Key to the City of Taylor along with the mayor’s proclamation of declaring November 10th, “Vencil Mares Day”.

“Vencil will be missed by all he has left behind, but all those that have gone before him – get ready, because the pits will be fired up in Heaven!”

If you’d like to share your thoughts or make a memorial contribution, the directions are in the obituary. RIP Vencil Mares.

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Recipe: Grilled Romaine Salad

Posted on November 28, 2019 by Burnt My Fingers
Grilled Romaine Salad

Grilled Romaine Salad

I had a delicious grilled romaine salad in the wonderful Casola Dining Room at Schenectady County Community College’s culinary arts program, so I’m borrowing it. Makes about 4 servings, though you can stretch it to serve 6. With assertive flavor, this would be a great salad to serve at Thanksgiving.

Ingredients:
4 heads romaine lettuce, cleaned
Half a fennel bulb, sliced into rings
Half a large sweet onion, peeled and sliced into rings
Medium tomato, cut into eights with the pith removed
1/4 c balsamic vinegar
1/4 c olive oil
1/2 t Kosher salt
1/4 t ground pepper
1 t dijon mustard
4 T grated Pecorino Romano or Parmesan cheese, optional

 

Grilled Romaine Mise En Place

Mise en place for Grilled Romaine Salad. Chop the leafy tops off the romaine heads and add them to the salad later on.

Method: cut the bottom off the romaine heads, but preserve the stem so the leaves stay together. Chop off the frilly leaves at the top; reserve. Grill over a hot fire until each side of each lettuce head picks up some char, turning frequently.

Meanwhile heat a cast iron skillet and add onion and fennel. Toss the tomato pieces in a bit of olive oil, so they won’t stick. Cook until the vegetables pick up a big of char. Reserve and, if using cheese crisps, add one tablespoon per season to the empty pan. Cook until the cheese melts and bubbles, then turn off the heat.

Make the dressing by mixing salt, pepper, balsamic vinaigrette and olive oil.

Parmesan Wafer

To make your parmesan crisp, spoon a mound of grated or shredded parm into your hot cast iron skillet and heat til it melts and bubbles up. Let it cool and remove with a spatula.

To serve, chop the romaine and add to a bowl along with reserved tops, onion, fennel and tomatoes. Drizzle over a bit of balsamic dressing then add the parmesan crisp, if using, and serve.

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