Sous Vide Beef Cheeks - this one took me 72 hours.

Yes, you saw right, 72 hours. Three days to make one dish. My Sous Vide culinary adventure continues and I'm starting to wonder if I can somehow find a way to make a living out of this. No, I don't want to start a restaurant.

Ingredients? ONLY SALT AND PEPPER! HALLELUJAH!

So here's the venture in photos.

Ben's Food is the place to go for affordable cuts perfect for such experiments.

Vacuum-seal after trimming excess fats.

Pre-heat Sous Vide Supreme to 55 degrees C (130F) for medium-rare or 60C (140F) for medium. Results guaranteed with a sous-vide since over-cooking is impossible with a set temperature.

Plonk them into the SV for 72 hours. You can do it in one day at 80C, two days at 72C, etc... longer time, lower temperature...you get the drift.

 3 moons later, I was the proud owner of a kilogram of sous vide beef cheek. At this point, I can freeze them for months or put them in the chiller for a day or 2 until ready to serve.

When ready to serve, heat up a pan till it's very hot. Remove meat from pouch. Mine came with a bonus - see these red gelatins I've placed on top of the meat for you to see? Psst...the flavours are all in the gelatin - don't throw them away!

Generously season with salt and pepper (put more than you think) and sear both sides until it's mahogany brown. Mine took about 3 minutes. I saw all that beautiful jus left behind and made an impromptu decision to make a sauce with chicken stock. This step definitely added to the overall palate sensation.

 My fussy eater daughter who is always wary of my food and ever the reluctant food taster actually came back for a second round after the first round of force-feeding. It's moist and succulent - never dry with a sous vide. Medium-rare is guaranteed - how many things in this world can be guaranteed??

Sous Vide is 'da bomb!

And heere's what I made out of the second batch - Beef Cheek Salad on a Lemongrass Skewer. Thai food with French cooking technique. Kids loved it and said, Thanks, mom, for the duck!

Salt-crusted whole fish - Certified 100% authentic Thai

The entire piece of skin opens up like a door to moist, succulent meat.

I arranged for a weekend in Bangkok, Thailand just for us to spend time together as a family. Of course, I was also sniffing around for authentic Thai food. I was truly excited to see one of the recipes I've shared in this blog come to life in a floating market.

Here's the salt-crusted whole fish recipe I previously shared. It's become a regular dish for our famly now. Look at this sight - a young Thai woman grilling them and selling them off her boat.

Her supply is easily within arm's reach!

I have my Thai chef in the culinary school to thank for!

Fusion dinner

Take a look at the fusion dinner I put on the table tonight.  It's my first try on every dish here and with no recipe.

Western salad: Pan-seared tuna salad crusted with roast black sesame seeds. It took me 2 minutes to cook and assemble this dish, faster than instant noodles and by far more nutritious. One ingredient food. Power food with minimum mise en place. I apply some oil on the tuna so the seeds stick. Sesame seeds from my friend TS who doesn't read my blog - THANKS!

 Fast food, upscaled! Picture looks impressive?

Next: Brown Olive Rice with Minced Pork. I apply the "wok-hei" technique that I learned in at-Sunrice and was rather pleased with the result. Husband is not big on carbo so I reduce the portion here. My skinny son went for a refill, he liked it. It's always rewarding when a fussy eater approves of your dish. Everyone complimented on this dish.

Thai or Chinese?
A new angle for the reluctant photographer.

Gorgeous olives soaked in brine from my friend - thanks, Joyce!

And finally, Monkfish en papillote with julienned vegetables. I made this up myself. Using foil, I made a bag, dumped the fish, veggies and mushrooms in, poured some white wine and seasoning, and steamed for 25 minutes. It was ok, but not as flavorful as I imagined it in my head. Looks like I need to better understand flavours and how they come together. Did you notice my beautifully julienned carrots?

Monkfish fresh from the market today

Overall a good day in the office. I cooked myself happy.

Minced chicken and tofu wrapped in cabbage leaves

Rather pleased that I did this all by myself without any chef or mom supervision or assistance. It's a miracle the thing didn't disintegrate but remained faithfully intact throughout the cooking process. Taste is decent too. Here's the recipe for those who are interested.

Verdict: It's easier than it looks. Nutritious and healthy too. Truly Asia.

and try it out at your next cook-out!

The day the chickens ruled

Lemongrass chicken satay

I made 3 chicken dishes today, all experimental. The first was steamed chicken and I didn't get a chance to take a picture 'cos my foodie son wiped it out in less than 60 seconds! I didn't quite get this dish right and I will have to practise it again for my practical exams on Tuesday which is also the last day of my course. 

The second dish is chicken satay. I like the ingredients used in this recipe - lemongrass, cumin powder, coriander powder and turmeric. But at 1tsp per 200g chicken thigh, the satay tasted way too salty. I will have to remember to adjust downwards. Otherwise, I was happy with how I skewered the meat and how the satay looked. It's a relatively healthy recipe since I don't add chicken fats and the ingredients are all natural spices. Pity the salt content was too high. Will have to try this again.

Thai cuisine - chicken wrapped in pandan leaves

 The third dish is the most successful - the whole family complimented on it. AThai dish of chicken wrapped in pandan leaves. I got the hang of securing the chicken piece in the leaves and was pleased with myself about that. Personally, I felt my marinade today of soya sauce (dark and light), sesame oil, garlic and oyster sauce tasted a little too heavy but the rest of the family seemed fine with it. I omitted the evaporated milk because I didn't have any today.

Also, instead of deep frying it, I roasted the chicken in the oven for 10 min at 150C, then wrapped and steamed it for another 15 min to get the pandan flavour onto the chicken. Turned out to be a healthy and wise choice. 

Easy to wrap chicken pieces securely. Much easier than it looks.

Overall, I had a happy chicky Sunday. September Eleventh - the day the chickens ruled. (Any political undertones is totally and unequivocally intended.)

What about you? Did you try to cook anything or you ate out all day?

Moist heat on Thai cuisine - cabbage wraps

Minced chicken with beancurd wrapped in cabbage leaves.
Notice Chef's beautifully turned carrots vs mine!

Feels like I could open a little Thai restaurant now! I've learned about 10 dishes or more in Thai cuisine and next week, we will also learn to do Phad Thai in the Main Kitchen. 

Tourned (or turned) carrots is another basic cut every culinary student needs to learn, besides julienne, batonnet and brunoise. I have always wanted to learn this but horrific images of severed thumbs come to mind when I come near this. Today, with Chef by my side, I ventured to attempt it. My heart was thumping away expecting to slice off my fingers anytime. I survived but the carrot looked terrible, plus you should see the amount of wastage I had. You could make carrot soup out of them!

A traditional tourned carrot has 7 sides. 

Here's a video on how to tourne a potato, typical in French cuisine. You'll see what I mean about severed thumbs! Need about 2 years of practice to perfect it, but I have only 2 thumbs.

We learned to wrap the fillings using blanched cabbage leaves tied with stem of Chinese celery

Simmered in rich, flavorful chicken stock. Loved it! Again, what Chef calls "food tasting" is difficult for this class.
We gobbled everything up!

The second dish we learned is this Thai dessert called Khanom Fug Thong (Steamed Pumpkin Pudding). Popular with the whole class!

The Thai village girl in me was reincarnated again!

Easy recovery if you get a hole in the middle. Just cut another small piece of pandan leaf and lay it on top. 

Making it smaller will ensure it's all covered. We also tried with banana leaves. You need to blanch the leaves
so they are not brittle. 

Old World vs New World. Those wrapped in leaves definitely tasted much better.

They expand when steamed so you should fill up to only two-thirds or you get spillage like I did here.

250g steamed pumpkin, half cup rice flour, 1 cup tapioca flour, 2 cups coconut milk, 200g white sugar, 2 Tbsp grated coconut, half tsp salt. Blend them together in a blender, then spoon into individual portions.
Sprinkle some grated coconut on top before steaming. Very yum.

We also steamed seabass with crispy ginger. Similar to Chinese style. 

The fun part about this dish is heating one Tbs of vegetable oil at the end to a high smoking point and drizzling it directly over the vegetables and fish at the serving table. If it sizzles, you got it right. 

Thai cuisine - whole fish baked in salt and herbs

Tilapia stuffed with oyster sauce, sesame oil, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, then coated with coarse sea salt on both sides. Grilled in the oven at 180C for about 20 mins. 

Instead of dry and flaky as you sometimes get with baked or grilled fish, this baby came out massively moist as if it was steamed. We finished it before the rice was boiled!

I talked about this last week in a post on using Western cooking method for Asian cuisine.

You can use high end Atlantic sea salt like the one I used when I cured salmon or just any coarse salt which is inexpensive. I bought 3kg coarse sea salt from the market this morning for a mere $2.

Match this fish with a typical Basic Thai salad dressing. You can also use this dressing for glass noodle salad, beef salad or steam crab and fish, so it's worth learning and doing.

Oh, the best part of this dish is the washing up, or the lack of it. Just wrap the mess up and junk it!

Basic Thai salad dressing:
4 fresh red chilli
2 garlic cloves
1 pickle garlic (garlic marinated in vinegar, sugar, salt)
2 coriander root
3 Tbsp lime juice
3 Tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp sugar (I used honey instead)
3 Tbsp water or white vinegar (water to dilute spiciness but will shorten shelf life of your dressing. Vinegar will extend shelf life for longer usage.)

Serve grilled fish with this sauce, smile and say Korp Kunp Karp. Or  so you can do it together! Remember to write back to me and tell me all about it.

See also how my mom makes a 10-minute whole fish dish.

Eating my homework - Thai pineapple fried rice

Here's the recipe for Thai pineapple fried rice (serves 4):

Ingredients:

5 Tbs vegetable oil

1/2 small onion, chopped finely

150g chicken thighs, deboned and skinless, cut into 1cm cubes

3 cups steamed rice, chilled (overnight rice preferred. Cold rice is less sticky to the wok.)

2 tsp tumeric powder (healthy way to colour the rice)

50g raisins

50g roasted cashew nuts (mine went soft on me today, so make sure you keep it air tight after roasting and cooling)

1 Tbs light soya sauce

1 tsp white pepper

100g pineapple cut into 1/2 cm cubes

2 tsp fish sauce

4 sprigs coriander leaves chopped roughly

1 sprig for garnishing

Pork floss and pineapple shell for serving (optional)

Method:

1. Heat up wok and add oil. Heat oil in wok over medium heat. Saute the chopped onions until fragrant and light brown.

2. Add in chicken, sprinkle with a pinch of salt and pepper, then saute till chicken is well cooked.

3. Add rice and tumeric powder, reduce to low heat, stir until well mixed. Add cashew nuts and raisins.

4. Season with light soya sauce, sugar, salt and pepper. Stir gently until well mixed.

5. Add pineapples, increase to high heat, stir-fry quickly. Add fish sauce and coriander leaves, stir well for 2 minutes, then remove from heat.

6. Transfer to serving plate. Garnish with coriander leaves. Serve hot.

Tip: Use non-stick pan if possible. If you don't have a non-stick, here's what you can do - after heating oil, scramble an egg - this will protect the rice from sticking.

Verdict: Husband and a friend were neutral to it but I personally enjoyed eating it so much I had my whole week of carbo load from just today!

Cooking Asian food using Western method

I hope I didn't shock you too much with this opening photo. Look what we did to the poor tilapia. After cleaning it out, we stuffed coriander and bay leaves into the fish. Then, we shoved 2 long lemongrass down its throat. Literally. You can guess by now we are doing Thai cuisine. Then we poured some light soy sauce and oyster sauce through its open mouth. Sorry, fish. We used coarse rock salt on its skin - scales on - and put it to grill for 30 minutes. We are learning and applying dry cooking methods on Asian food.

We learned how to check for freshness - the fish must have clear eyes, not cloudy ones; its skin must be firm and slimy, pink gills and there must of course be no stale smell. 

RIP FISH

Mine's the middle one. Papa fish, mama fish and baby fish.

This is how it looks out of the grill oven. 

All 15 of us grabbed our forks and went at the 6 tilapias we were given. It was savage and wild.  We peeled off the layer of skin easily to remove all that salt. The meat was soft, juicy, tender. 

I didn't linger around the fish for too long. I had 2 other distractions - chicken wrapped in pandan leaves and Thai pineapple fried rice. Thai Chef demonstrated how to wrap a 4-cm piece of marinated chicken using pandan leaves. It sounded and looked difficult to me, but an hour later, I got the hang of it and at one stage seriously thought, maybe, just maybe, I used to be a Thai village girl married to a snake charmer. Our pet was an elephant.

Steamed version

Deep fried version

I'm not a deep-fried person but I found this version tastier, especially with the caramelisation of the dark soya sauce. And maybe because my culinary senses are stimulated and I am more open to the idea of fried food after yesterday.

Oh, I also made this Thai pineapple fried rice (recipe here) all by myself (can you see my smug look). I was very pleased with this one too. Like,.. seriously pleased in a deep way. Got it?

Thai pineapple fried rice

So, I was heading out together with Eli, so pleased with myself and with every dish I learned to make today, and thinking what a great day in the kitchen, and I would die happy now...when I walked into this!

The pastry class was making Jewish Callah bread! I grabbed Eli and said, You have to go in there and tell them about Callah. What do they know?? So, we went in and chatted with the pastry chef. Callah bread is baked every Friday in Israel in time for Sabbath and a day of cooking, feasting, singing and dancing all through Saturday. To keep strictly kosher, there should be no milk or butter in them when eating on Fridays.

Jewish Callah bread

Chef gave me a piece - it was warm to touch and very soft on the palate.

Just a really great day today. I whispered thanks to God above - the true Bread - then rushed out to meet my dear sister for lunch. Food again!

Click here to see how my mom makes a 10-minute whole fish dish.