sous vide chicken breast

In too many places on the internet and the instructions I received from the maker of my sous vide cooker, Instant Pot, the temperature for cooking chicken breast to juicy and soft is 145 F/63 C. I've been using the Celsius scale lately because of I can dial in the temperature much more precisely 0.1 degrees, than the 1.0 degrees on the Fahrenheit mode.

When I first got the cooker, 63 degrees seemed like it cook the chicken breast to juicy and soft, but lately, the chicken seemed more firm than soft. Before I even Googled "sous vide chicken breast", I cooked a breast at 62 C for an hour. I didn't see much difference. Google results showed 60 C for 1.5 hours for soft, juicy. Yes, 60 C @ 1.5 hours was better, but today, 59.5 C for 1.5 hr was really good.

Wow. Should I push the envelope? 59? Gotta check Google to see if anyone has done 59.
Peace
Out

Chinese Egg Custard

This Chinese egg custard is my all-time #2 dish. (I'd never say #1, because for a different time and event something's always better) 

It is amazingly simple to make, with only two ingredients for the star of the show. The toppings are only oil, soy sauce and cilantro (green onions, for those who dislike cilantro)

,

As for the equipment needed, I use a glass pie dish, a wok large enough for the dish to fit inside, a cover for the wok and a metal stand to raise the dish within the wok. If you don't have a stand, you can stack enough small plates on the bottom of the pan to keep the pie plate above the inch of water that you'll have in the pan. The cover for the wok needs to fit well enough to keep steam inside the pan. Link for a stand sold at Amazon. (doesn't open a new window--I don't get any bling) 

Placing a plate onto a stand over boiling water or removing it from the same can be tricky without a lifter.  Click on this sentence to link to an Amazon list of lifters.

For this dish, I break four or five eggs into a large measuring cup, noting the volume and add the same volume of water to the cup. Stir briskly and pour into the pie plate. Put an inch of water into the cooking pot. The stand/stack of plates goes into the water. Cover the pot and heat the water to boiling. When the water begins to boil. lower heat to medium and lower the plate onto the stand. Cover and set a timer for 9 minutes. At the end of that time, lift the lid and check the custard to see whether it has reached the consistency you want.  If still a liquid, cover and continue to cook another minute, opening and checking again. Repeat until you like what you see.  If it's overcooked, the custard will have holes and be stiff, which isn't the goal for most.

Lift the plate out. Pour a thin layer of olive oil (sesame oil if you're into that). Spritz lightly with soy sauce. Garnish with the greens of your choice and love your food. 

Addendum:  you can do this with smaller vessels, but you'll have to work out the details of how long to cook, as I haven't.

Sous vide coffee 1

Yeah. Ok. People have made coffee using a sous vide cooker. I looked it up because I didn't like the coffee I made using really hot water from 160 to 200 degrees F and an Aeropress. Those temperatures produced coffee that had very little flavor, because the extraction time was too short at the lower end or the flavor was burned off at the high end. I've read, 2 hours at 150 F--tried it and it wasn't as bad as before. Another account related that one hour at 180 F made  more bitter coffee, but with the flavor that 2:00\150 made. Maybe dark roasts require different numbers than medium or light roasts.
Today's trial involved a medium roast Seattle Coffee brand cooked for three hours\140 F. Following filtration through the Aeropress, it gets my vote for flavor without bitterness--the taste did justice to the smell of the ground coffee in the bag.

Thanksgiving dinner, last night

We set off the smoke alarms last pm while searing the turkey! 😎 At the table: Grandma, Uncle Tom, Aunt Jennifer and her friend Sharon, Kam Yoon, Arley et moi. I made a turkey and bone-in rib steaks (all sous vide), chia seed bread and a baked tray of delicata squash, beets and onions. Sure the expensive beef was tender and moist, but the turkey was.
Un. Believable. I'd cooked steaks for everyone, minus myself, and offered turkey morsels to everyone at the table. Shockingly, almost everyone asked for another, larger slice!
Sharon had adopted Aunt Jennifer's meal plan (we didn't know she had one) and claimed to have lost 50 lb--wow. She raved over my chia seed bread (of course, it's not on her schedule!). Uncle Tom brought a burnt loaf of bread--a result of baking while distracted--he ate a slice, but thankfully broke no teeth. Sharon brought Brussels sprouts. Aunt Jennifer made a salad. In a musical mood, I'd bought (parsley) sage Rosemary and thyme, but only used the sage and Rosemary.  Instead of thyme I should've bought time 😎--I'd use that. I used sage to season the turkey and rosemary to season a tray of roasted squash, onions and beets.

Much credit goes to daughter Phoebe for mentioning sous vide this year!

A new bread just came to my life

Yesterday, I started a new batch of dough at 9:30 in the morning. I wanted it to be ready to bake by 4:30, so I preheated the oven to 170 degrees and turned off the oven. I mixed the dough as follows:

3/8 teaspoon yeast, more than the usual 1/8 to 1/4 tsp.
1.5 teaspoon salt
300 grams of Trader Joe's all purpose flour
150 grams of Trader Joe's white whole wheat flour
405 grams of water (90% water weight:flour weight ratio)

I preheated the oven to 170 degrees and placed the mixed dough into a covered three quart saucepan big enough for it to expand to triple its size. I turned the oven off and put the dough inside.
At about 3 p.m. I took the dough out of the still warm oven, wet my hands and stretched it out and folded it. I covered it for 30 minutes.

The dough after the first stretch and fold

I stretched and folded the dough again, covering it again for 30 minutes.

The dough after the second stretch and fold

I stretched and folded it one last time and put the dough on a large sheet of parchment paper. I put the dough back in the saucepan. I didn't want to bake it just yet. Since we were going out to dinner, I put the covered saucepan in the cold garage { 50 degrees F)

At about 8:15 p.m. (now almost 9 hours after mixing the dough) I uncovered the dough to see it almost pushing up past the rim. I lifted the dough and lowered it into a preheated Dutch oven, covered it and set it into the 450 degree oven. After 30 minutes I removed the cover and baked it for 15 more minutes. I set it out to cool. We cut it in the morning to enjoy the fluffiest bread I've ever made with whole wheat flour.

This also works with 360 gm of water (an 80% water weight:flour weight ratio). Read on:

 I baked a loaf of half Trader Joe's white whole wheat and half all purpose flours. Same amount of yeast and salt. 360 gm of water. Same fermenting conditions. Mixed at 7:30 a.m. covered and put into a 170 degree oven, turned off.

5.5 hours later, at 1255 I laid the dough into a wetted baking pan

 Where I pushed it out to the edges with wetted hands

 and stretched and folded each short edge 2/3 of the way to the opposite edge. I then stretched and folded the top edge down. Back out went into a covered saucepan

 At 1400, another stretch and fold. Back into the saucepan. At 1510 another stretch and fold, then back into the saucepan. At 1540, a final stretch and fold after which it went onto a piece of parchment paper and into a shallow bowl, the purpose of which was to keep the dough from sticking to the paper in a deeper container.

At 1745, I put my 5-quart cast iron Dutch oven into the oven, set the temperature at 450 degrees and let it preheat. At 1815 I picked up the dough using the parchment paper and laid it into the hot Dutch oven, covered it and let it bake for 35 minutes. I removed the cover reduced the heat to 400 degrees and let it bake for 10 + 2 plus one minutes looking into the oven in between to prevent the bread from getting too dark.

Here is the bread above.

Pizza

Pizza-making challenges me. The complexity of the crust, the toppings, baking it, cutting it, eating it. I don't bake pizza frequently enough to remember how much flour I use for a cracker crust, a thick bread crust or something in between. NNo do I remember how much water I mix with the flour. I'd like to think I'd recorded this information somewhere, but I don't remember where for this round of pizza construction.

Yesterday's event was based on 700 gm of flour and about 75% water. I just didn't recall how many 10" pies I'd make from that nor if they'd be thin or thick crusted. I thought that I'd make 5 or 6 pies but it didn't look good for even 5 after the first three came to life from Half the dough. I made the 4th and 5th from the remaining dough--they  have me two medium crust 10" pies.

Today, I mixed 400 gm flour for two pizzas, fat crust requested by my mom. 70% nearly hot water, 0.5 teaspoons of instant yeast, 1 teaspoon salt. It sat atop the warm fridge for 4 hours. I kneaded it for 5 minutes, but I can't recall why, as I've made so many pies using a no-knead philosophy. Let it rest 20 some minutes, then rolled them out to about 10" on parchment paper. Toppings went on. And the pies went into the 450 degree oven for 15 minutes.

I strive to achieve an airy crumb with thick crust.

Sourdough per King Arthur

I'm talking about King Arthur flour.  Here is the link to the recipe:  http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/sourdough-starter-recipe

Whoa, this worked! Only, I didn't like throwing out perfectly good starter.  Next time, I start with two tablespoons of whole wheat flour and 1 Tbsp of water then adding the same on day 2, then on day 3 add four Tbsp flour with two Tbsp water. day 4, I'll add 1/2 cup flour and 1/4 cup water. day 5, I add one cup flour and 3/4 cup water (you can't go wrong with this) by which time the yeasts and lactobacillus will have gone to town if their living space is warm enough (68F/20C or higher).   

The bread I made was a no knead sourdough.  How it's done:  Take 50-150 gm* of sourdough starter (1/4 cup to a full cup), & mix it with 360 gm of water (1.5 cups), then add 450 gm of flour (3 cups), and 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt.  Mix well and place it in a warm place about 70-80 deg F.  In 12-15  hours, use a large ladle and turn the dough on itself.  Preheat the oven with a Dutch oven inside to 450 F.  In 2-4 hours, you can use the same ladle to scrape the dough into the preheated Dutch oven.  Cover and place into the oven.  After 30 minutes, remove the cover and bake for 15 min more.  
Don't fret if the dough hasn't doubled before baking.  

* The difference between 50 and 150 gm of starter isn't much in the big picture over 12 hours.  Don't fret this detail.

When feeding the starter after removing some to bake with, I try to feed in the same proportion of water to flour as I use in my breads, which is usually about 75-85%.  Example:  80 gm of water plus 100 gm flour.  This is more likely to affect your dough and bread if you draw out 150 gm of starter to bake vs. 50 gm.  You'll figure out which is best for the type of bread you make.  The example of bread I give above, water 360 g and flour 450 g, is an 80% dough.