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!

Easy Curry Puff

Easy Curry Puff

Curry puffs - a snack in Malaysia, and oh, so moorish, you have to eat more than one!  My mum makes a mean curry puff, and she is always asked to bring some for dinner parties!  They are great as an entree or a savory morning/afternoon tea.  They can be made bite size as finger food, or giant sized for a giant sized meal (think Cornish pasties).

If you want serious flavour, don't use gourmet mince.  But I am trying to keep the Man Of The House alive, so I feed him LEAN mince.  Make sure you cube the potatoes into 1 cm cubes or there abouts or else you might have sight difficulty in keeping the filling in!

4 tbsp oil

1 kg lean or gourmet mince

5 large potatoes (approx 1 kg), cut into 1 cm cubes

2 onions, chopped finely

2 cloves garlic, chopped finely

1 tbsp curry powder

salt

pepper

6 sheets puff pastry

water

milk wash

Method:

Heat up the oil in a wok or large based pot, and brown garlic and onion, on medium heat. 

Add mince.  Stir to break up up the meat, add in curry powder. Then add potatoes, stir till well mixed. 

Turn the heat to low. Keep stirring every few minutes to make sure that the mix does not stick at the bottom of the wok/pot. When the potatoes are soft (could take about 30 mins), add salt, pepper to taste. 

Leave to cool.

Separate the pastry sheets.  Using a sharp knife, cut each sheet into 3 equal parts horizontally and vertically.  (this gives you 9 squares).

Pick up one square and place in your left palm. Place a teaspoon of cooled curried mince and potato mixture into the square. Put a little water on the edges, and fold the square diagonally so that it forms a triangle.  Press edges together.  Place on an oven tray.  Repeat.

Brush with milk wash.

Bake at 220 degress Centigrate till browned.  (about 20 mins)

Enjoy!