Lamb Shank Sous-Vide

19 May Lamb Shanks

The amount of flavor in meat is determined to a large extent upon the amount of work that muscle had to do, and so shanks are very flavorful. Unfortunately muscles that do a lot of work also become tough, so there is often a choice between tender meat with a light flavor (such as tenderloin) or tough with meat lots of flavor (such as shanks). With traditional preparation, tough meat is often braised or stewed which makes it tender and flaky. The drawback of braising is that braised meat is often a bit dry. With sous-vide, you can have the best of both worlds: tough cuts can be cooked at a temperature that is just high enough to break down the toughness, but also low enough to allow the meat to stay succulent. The meat will be fork tender, succulent, and very flavorful.

The only drawback of the low temperature is that it takes a long time, between 24 and 72 hours. It is not a big problem because sous-vide cooking does not require any attention at all while it’s going on. So you can start up the cooking process on Sunday afternoon and serve outstanding meat on Tuesday night.

Spring is the time for lamb and the toughest cut of lamb that is packed with flavor is the lamb shank. Braised lamb shanks are good, lamb shanks cooked sous-vide for 48 hours at 62C/144F are simply amazing. Lamb shanks are not a prized cut, so please don’t buy sous-vide equipment so it will stay that way ;-) Continue reading 

Orecchiette con le Cime di Rapa

18 May DSC05828

The typical pasta dish from the South-Italian region of Puglia is orecchiette with cime di rapa. Cime di rapa is a vegetable that is also known as broccoletti or rapini. It is not the same as broccoli, although the green buds in the center certainly resemble small heads of broccoli. If you can’t find cime di rapa, you can make orecchietti with broccoli instead using the same recipe. It’s not the same dish, but good all the same. This time I used dry orecchiette, but this is even better if you use home-made orecchiette instead. Orecchiette with Cime di rapa is another example of a very simple but delicious regional Italian dish. Continue reading 

Fennel Sous-Vide Fondant

17 May DSC04143

After the success of parsnip sous-vide fondant, I decided to prepare more vegetables this way. My next experiment was with fennel, and it turned out great. The recipe is very simple and very tasty. The nice thing about parcooking the fennel sous-vide is that the fennel becomes tender but stays firm at the same time, which gives it a pleasant bite. You can make a vegetarian version by using vegetable stock instead of chicken stock. If you don’t have a sous-vide water bath but you do have a vacuum sealer, you could probably still make this by cooking the sealed fennel in a pot of simmering water. I haven’t tried this myself, but I’m pretty sure it will work if you can keep the temperature of the water in the pot between 85C/185F and 95C/200F. Continue reading 

Veal Scaloppine al Marsala

16 May DSC05875

Some dishes are so simple you don’t really need a recipe to make them. But that doesn’t mean they’re not delicious. Italian cuisine is full of such recipes. This one takes less than five minutes to prepare and is a classic recipe that you can find in restaurants all over Italy (and in fact, in Italian restaurants all over the world). Continue reading 

Test – Scheduled Post

14 May

Dear readers,

Recently I have noticed a decreased number of visits, likes, and comments on my blog. I have also noticed that some of my posts (and some of others) do not show up in the WordPress.com reader. My theory is that these two phenomena are connected.

Could you please like this post or leave a comment when you see it in the WordPress.com reader?

As a test, I will publish a post “live” and I will schedule one to see if that makes any difference. This is the scheduled post.

Thanks for your co-operation!

Stefan

Test – Unscheduled post

14 May

Dear readers,

Recently I have noticed a decreased number of visits, likes, and comments on my blog. I have also noticed that some of my posts (and some of others) do not show up in the WordPress.com reader. My theory is that these two phenomena are connected.

Could you please like this post or leave a comment when you see it in the WordPress.com reader?

As a test, I will publish a post “live” and I will schedule one to see if that makes any difference.

Thanks for your co-operation!

Stefan

Burgundy is all about Terroir

14 May DSC06114

Burgundy (Bourgogne) is a region in France that is famous for its wine and its food. Three years ago we went there for a few days to discover the wine region and purchased some nice wines. Most Burgundian wines are at their best between 5 and 10 years from the harvest, and since the wines we purchased were mostly from the vintages 2007 and 2008 it is time to start drinking them. And that’s all the excuse I needed to organize some Burgundian evenings to share the wines with our friends and enjoy them with some good Burgundian food. Continue reading 

Jambon Persillé (Ham Hock Terrine)

12 May DSC05986

Burgundy (Bourgogne) is a region in France that is famous for its wine and its food. Three years ago we went there for a few days to discover the wine region and purchased some nice wines. When tasting white wines, often a appetizer called jambon persillé was served with it and I remember it was a good pairing. And so it was not hard to decide what kind of appetizer from Burgundy I was going to make for the Burgundian evenings I organised. Continue reading 

Duck Leg a l’Orange Sous-Vide

11 May DSC05042

Sous-vide confit of duck leg is great, but I thought it should also be possible to do a more juicy less flaky texture. Some experimenting with times and temperatures showed me right: 24 hours at 64.5C/148F yielded tender juicy duck legs. Duck with orange is a classic combination from French cuisine, known as Canard à l’Orange. And so a very simple but very stylish and tasty dish was born. Ingredients? Duck legs, an orange, salt and pepper, and a teaspoon of honey. That’s it! The duck is cooked in its own fat. Perfect simplicity or simple perfection? Continue reading 

Pressure-Cooked Boeuf Bourguignon

8 May DSC05041

Although I purchased my pressure cooker for making stocks, I thought it would be nice to try making a pressure-cooked stew as well. Pressure cookers are known as “fast cookers” (or actually “fast cooking pan”, “snelkookpan”) in Dutch, and in this case it is true because stewing beef in a pressure cooker only takes 20 minutes instead of 3 hours. Stating it like that is cheating a bit, because after those 20 minutes you need to wait for about half an hour for the pressure to go down. But still, it still means that you only have to start cooking 75 minutes or so before you’re having boeuf bourguignon and that is kind of nice. Continue reading 

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