Sous Vide Salmon with Crushed Potatoes

Sous Vide Salmon with Crushed Potatoes

A few good friends were coming over for dinner.  What does one cook?  Heston Blumenthal's Sous Vide Salmon with Crushed Potatoes from his book Heston Blumenthal at Home, of course!  My son has just purchased another sous vide-r, and has been cooking sous vide-d salmon.  Well, if he can cook, mary can cook too.

Ingredients:

4 salmon fillets, skin on

80 g olive oil

groundnut oil or grapeseed oil

salt

Preheat the water bath to 50 degrees Celcius.

Place the salmon fillets in individual sous-vide bags with 20 g olive oil in each bag.  Seal under full vacuum and place the bags in the water bath for 15 minutes.

Heat a thin layer of oil in a non-stick frying pan over a medium-high heat.  Remove the salmon fillets from the sous-vide bags and pat dry with kitchen paper.

Season the fillets with salt and place them, skin-side down, in the hot pan.  Cook for approximately 30 seconds until the skin turns golden and crisp.  Serve on top of crushed potatoes with 2 tablespoons of sauce per portion.

Crushed Potatoes

Potatoes are cooked until soft, then dressed with a shallot and oil mixture before being crushed with a fork.  It's a recipe with plenty of potential variations.  You can add rosemary, thyme, onions, shallots, garlic and even smoked bacon to the cooking water.

Ingredients:

750 g potatoes, washed and halved

4 cloves garlic, peeled, and bashed with the flat part of a knife or by hand

Salt

4 shallots, peeled and finely diced

150 g olive oil

2 tsp wholegrain mustard

15 g white wine vinegar

sea salt and black pepper

Put the halved potatoes and garlic in a saucepan, cover with water and add a teaspoon of salt.  Bring to the boil, reduce to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are soft.  (Approximately 20 mins).

In a frypan, cook the shallots gently in the olive oil for 5 minutes and set aside.

When the potatoes are done, drain them, discarding the garlic.  Place the potatoes in a bowl, and pour over the shallot and olive oil mixture.  Add the grain mustard and vinegar and crush with a fork until the potatoes are roughly broken up but not fully mashed.

Generously season with sea salt and freshly ground pepper.

Make a stock with the salmon bones together with a carrot and an onion.  Reduce and strain.  Add truffle salt to taste.

Serve salmon on top of crushed potatoes, boiled beans, with 2 tablespoons of salmon stock.

Enjoy!

Heston Blumenthal's Carbonara

Carbonara

I really enjoy Heston Blumenthal's recipes especially from his book Heston Blumenthal at home.  You don't have to use the full amounts of oil, but we don't really eat this way all the time.  We indulged.  Onions, chilli and peas were added for flavour, colour and texture.

Ingredients:

40 g salt

75 g olive oil

2 medium onions, peeled and finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped

1 red chilli, deveined, deseeded and finely chopped

250 g lean bacon

400 g spaghetti or pasta

6 medium egg yolks

100 g parmesan cheese, grated, plus extra for serving

250 g frozen peas

black pepper

Fill a large saucepan with 4 kg cold tap water and add the salt.  Cover with a lid and place over a medium-high heat to bring to the boil.

In the meantime, put the olive oil, onions, garlic and chilli into a large frying pan and place it over a medium-low heat for 5 minutes before adding the bacon.  Cook for a further 5 minutes or until the onion has lightly caramelized.

Once the water comes to the boil, add the spaghetti/pasta and stir it every few minutes to prevent it from sticking together.  

After approximately 7 minutes, whisk the egg yolks and parmesan together in a bowl and add a ladle of the pasta water.

 
A minute or so before the spaghetti/pasta is cooked, take the bacon and onions off the heat and add the frozen peas.

Drain the pasta and return it to the pan.  Add the contents of the frying pan along with the egg and cheese mixture, and mix together.  Allow to sit for 2 minutes.  Season with freshly ground pepper to taste.

Stir thoroughly to incorporate everything, then serve with more parmesan sprinkled on top.

Yum!

Enjoy!

Steak Tartare

 Steak Tartare

from Guillaume Brahimi's Food for Friends

 Steak Tartare is my daughter's absolute favourite meal.  Thankfully my son and his fiancee just bought me Food for Friends and there was the recipe, on page 206! 

Ingredients

320 g beef tenderloin, cut into 5 mm dice

5 cornichons, diced

3 golden shallots, diced

2 teaspoon capers, diced

2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley

3 egg yolks

sea salt and freshly ground white pepper

 Tartare dressing

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon Cognac

3 tablespoons tomato sauce

3 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

dash of Tabasco

60 ml vegetable oil

 

 

Whisk together all of the ingredients for the tartare dressing until well combined.

Place the beef, cornichon, shallot, capers, parsley and egg yolks in a large bowl. add the dressing and mix with a spatula until the beef is coated.  Season with salt and pepper.  

Enjoy!

 

 

Simple Ipoh Fried Kway Teow

 

Simple Ipoh Fried Kway Teow

 

1 packet Kway Teow/ flat rice noodles

1 packet bean sprouts

2 chinese sausages/ lap cheong, cut diagonally finely

2 eggs

Chopped Garlic

 

Oil

Oyster Sauce

Black sauce (Molasses thick black sauce)

Soy Sauce (Premium Kikoman)

Sambal if required

 

Heat oil in a hot wok.  Fry garlic and chinese sausage till fragrant. 

Add Kway Teow and fry to break up the noodles.  Add oyster sauce, soy sauce and black sauce.  Add sambal, if chilli is required.  Make sure that you fry the noodles through, so that the sauce coats each strand of noodle.

Make a hole in the middle of the noodles.  Break the eggs in the middle, and allow the eggs to slightly cook.  Allow the eggs to be a bit runny.  Using the stirrer, or 'wok chan', mix the eggs through the noodles.

Add bean sprouts.  Mix and remove from heat.  The heat of the noodles will continue cooking the bean sprouts.

 

Enjoy!