Writing With My Mouth Full

SousVide Supreme

I’ve been M.I.A. for the last seven and a half weeks so it’s great to be writing again. I’m now moved in to my new apartment–all boxes have been unpacked and the contents reorganized. I’m extra proud of my kitchen because I’ve made it my own even though I had to work with a lot of limitations (co-op rules and, not to mention, my dwindled budget). After sixteen years in New York City, I’m glad to finally call something my own.

When the SousVide Supreme was delivered to my door, I was afraid to open up yet another box of something. It sat in the kitchen with all my other stuff until I was finally comfortable enough to cook amid the chaos. It was honestly the perfect machine for someone as busy and scattered as I was. All I had to do was fill it with enough water to submerge the vacuumed-sealed meat I was about to cook, set the recommended temperature and wait for it to be ready. The whole time I was “waiting”, I was finishing tasks I had to do, cleaning up around me and living my usual routine of work and sleep. The only heavy lifting involved is vacuum-sealing and setting aside the time to submerge the meat and remember to remove and eat it.

If you watch Top Chef, you’ve seen enough sous-vide cooking in the last year. It’s French for “under vacuum” and it’s cooking vacuum-sealed anything in a water bath set to a very low temperature. The cooking time is longer, but the temperature is consistent which may give you the impression that you really can’t mess anything up. You still can, as evidence to my duck breast story below, but with enough practice, you too can impress Thomas Keller with how evenly-cooked sous-vided meats are. (There’s your new word of the year: sous-vided!) For those who love their grill marks and roast smell–and don’t we all?–you can finish cooking by searing the meats before serving. It’s an extra step but could be worth it for presentation purposes and peace of mind.

My main concern is how much vacuum-seal bags you need to purchase when you get into this whole sous-vide craze. You’d have to buy yet another gadget for your kitchen to seal whatever you want to sous-vide, and with every piece of meat or vegetable you have to make sure that you have a bag in stock. One just has to weigh the costs of vacuum-seal bags for sous-vide against the energy spent cooking if you do it the regular way. It may be worth it if you don’t ever want to worry about correctly roasting a whole chicken ever again.

For our first try, the Dr. picked up a whole duck (I didn’t have the free time!) and we invited two of our favorite people over for dinner. The night before, we minced and mixed all the marinade ingredients together and put them all in the bag with the duck breast and the legs. Fresh thyme, bay leaves, onions and garlic with some salt and pepper were all we need. Our mistake was putting all the duck pieces in one bag. I don’t know what came over us; we’ve cooked many ducks before and it still baffles me why we didn’t think of separating the pieces so that we could remove the duck breast from the water bath hours earlier than the legs. The legs came out nicely, like confit, but the breast was tasteless and dry because we had overcooked it. Alas, there is still such a thing as overcooking even with the SousVide Supreme.

With the duck, we also sous-vided fennel, Brussels sprouts, parsnips and roasted beets. I don’t think we would have noticed the difference if we just roasted the vegetables like we usually do, but it certainly didn’t hurt that we added them in the mix.

If it ruined our duck breast, I wondered what it would do to chicken breast. I mixed some of the herbs and spices I already had in my cupboard and sous-vided four boneless chicken breasts for almost five hours. The result was very moist meat that stayed moist even after two days in the fridge. We ate the chicken as they were that night, but ate the leftovers the day after and the next and I couldn’t believe how moist they still were. Just for that, I would love to own my own SousVide Supreme so I can begin to love chicken again.

If there is one thing I need to correct when I sous-vide chicken however, it would be to make small incisions all over the meat before I seal them in a bag. Although cooked for several hours, there was still a watery bloodbath as soon as we sliced the meat the first time. This was no big deal to me but it could turn off a lot of diners.

I’ve also had sous-vide eggs before and I wanted to recreate how full and yellow the yolks were while the whites stayed delicately soft. Sure it’s easier and quicker to just soft-boil them, but with the SousVide Supreme, there is no need to worry that your soft-boiled eggs will become hard-boiled eggs. They were perfectly custardy and set beautifully against frisée and mixed greens. Is it worth spending an hour cooking eggs? Probably not, but you’d have to be a super geek about your food to appreciate how pretty soft-boiled eggs could be.

We unfortunately didn’t have enough time to try it with beef, lamb or pork which was inexcusable because I actually already had Korean beef ribs marinating in the fridge. I had to return the SousVide Supreme back to its rightful owners. Clean-up was almost non-existent. I poured out the water and wiped the inside of the machine dry with a kitchen towel. It as fun as long as it lasted.

Did I mention that I just moved in to a new apartment and could use a housewarming present? I have the perfect counter space for it.

Chicken with Black Wild Rice

This dish may seem like a meal for spring but if you use a hardy green like kale, then it fits any blustery winter day. I used Lacinato kale, also known as black kale, because it barely needs some cooking. Toss it with snow peas and carrots, or any other vegetable you can eat raw, and you’re good to go. I used peanut oil to cook the chicken but you can certainly substitute it with whatever oil you use to cook your meats especially if you have an allergy. The key here is to keep your sauté pan hot while you continuously toss and mix the ingredients.

Ingredients:
2 cups of black wild rice
2 chicken breast fillets, cubed
1 bunch of Lacinato kale, chiffonade
a handful of snow peas
a handful of baby carrots, roughly chopped
1 small red onion, chopped
a splash of soy sauce
a splash of sherry vinegar
a splash of sesame oil
peanut oil
salt

1. In a large frying pan, heat some oil and cook chicken until no longer pink inside. Set aside in the pan and sauté onions until soft. Mix chicken and onions together and toss in the rest of the vegetables.
2. In the meantime, cook black wild rice per package instructions. Boil three cups of water per cup of rice. Simmer for 45 minutes. Drain rice and fluff.
3. Add the rice to the vegetables and keep sautéing to complete cooking the vegetables. Add a few splashes of sherry vinegar, soy sauce and sesame oil and mix well. Season with salt.

Day 2: Hiking El Cocuy, to Laguna Pintada

I don’t know how it ended up that we both don’t have a watch. Since none of our phones were working in El Cocuy, we had to leave the TV on while we slept to help us wake up at 5:30am in order to catch the lechero at 6am.

After a sleepless night, I woke up and checked the clock on the news channel that was on and immediately jumped off bed as soon as I saw that it was 5:45am. We hurriedly changed and packed our remaining items and tried to step out of La Posada Del Molino but the doors were all locked. We had no choice but to knock on every door to try and wake up the manager so he can let us out. He wearily stepped out of his room, checked his phone clock and grumbly told us that we were an hour early. He said we were probably watching the news from a different country. We embarrassingly and apologetically went back to our room and waited for the right time we can bother him again. One of us really needs to start wearing a watch.

Hikers in El Cocuy hitch a ride with the lechero, or the milk truck, up to the fork on the road and decide whether to go along the Rio Lagunillas to Pulpito de Diablo or trek up north via Güicán. At exactly 6am, we were in the center of town where we informed the lechero driver that we will need to hitch a ride from him. The town was just waking up. Deliveries were being made and store owners were opening up their shops. The driver wasn’t hard to find at all. Besides the fact that his truck is the only one filled with blue vats in the back, he usually looks out for hikers to give them a ride. When the 6:30am bus pulled in from Bogotá–the same bus we were on just the previous day–he greeted the exiting passengers carrying large backpacks.

Off we sat on the floor with the milk vats. The ride was bumpy but it was very cool to witness a slice of Colombian life like that. The driver made several stops along the way to pick up small pails of milk from local farmers. His assistant transfered them from pail to vat at each stop. At one point, a young boy joined us and took over the job. The view up the mountain was beautiful, too. We saw how green our surroundings were; the morning mist slowly moving out of the way to reveal small plots of vegetables and herbs.

About an hour or so later, we were let off and we started our hike. I was very excited and distracted by the feeling of being in a new country again that I quickly forgot we were on high altitude. What should have taken less than two hours took us almost four because I was weakened by the shortage of oxygen. I felt like I could not lift my left leg up, and with a 30-pound pack on my back, walking was very challenging even with the help of two poles. I wasn’t dizzy per se, but my stomach definitely felt funny. The Dr. kept looking back to check up on me. He was very encouraging, but we both knew I wasn’t bringing my usual game. All those nights of swimming laps for naught. I was disappointed in myself and all I wanted was to get to camp and rest but the trail just kept going.

We stopped at the first cabin we saw which was the other Parque Nacional Natural office. We had already registered in El Cocuy, so we didn’t need to do anything there except to catch our breaths and confirm that we were going the right way. After a few more back-breaking minutes, we passed by Cabañas Herrera. We sat and watched other hikers prepare for their next move. We realized that if we had a few more days of hiking, we would have camped here too to acclimate before continuing on to Laguna Pintada. That is really the way to do it: split a few hours worth of day hike into two to get used to the high altitude.

I managed to look around us and take note of the river along the way. The brown trouts would swim away whenever we approached. Cows, sheep, goats and rabbits were omnipresent. The land looked healthy, but as soon as the trail turned sandy and almost volcanic, the animals and the shrubs disappeared and the frailejónes started to pepper the landscape. Resembling hooded friars, or frailes, the plants are native to Colombia and live in high altitude. Their trunks are thick and because their leaves are marcescent (when dead plant organs remain intact versus shedding), they are protected from the cold weather. It was a little eerie to be walking among so many of them, but relief was soon visible when we saw their yellow daisy-like flowers.

Up a small hill, we asked if it was Cabaña Sisuma. After we received confirmation from the three small children running around the cabin, we climbed down the foot of the hill and began to camp. Señora Marta soon joined to welcome us. We told her about our stove problem which she solved by telling us we could come up to her kitchen and cook whenever we needed to. Camping was US$2 a day if you use the cabin’s kitchen and bathroom, but it’s otherwise free since El Cocuy is one of Colombia’s national parks. It was only 10:30am–one of Señora Marta’s kids told us–but we were already famished since we have been up since 4:30! Using our camping pots, we boiled water in the cabin’s kitchen and cooked the first cans of Korean tuna and white rice we brought with us.

After we ate, we took a quick walk around Laguna Pintada, only to retire back to our tent and sleep for three hours. For the rest of the afternoon, we hanged out in the cabin writing in my journal or reading our books. It wasn’t any warmer in there than in our tent, but it kept us from going stir-crazy because we were at least surrounded by other people. I still don’t know how those three kids survive day to day without the distraction of a television or a phone. Other hikers came in, but most of them only stopped for a home-cooked meal and then kept going. A group of four Germans actually stayed for the night on the bunk beds upstairs.

Unlike the cabins we stayed in in the Pyrenees, Sisuma was bare-bones. One long table was shared among the overnighters and the campers but because they paid more than we did, we basically had to wait until the kitchen was free to cook our meals. For the next two nights, we hanged out by the stairs since there were no more chairs in the dining room to sit on. Weirdly enough, Señora Marta had a washing machine but no heater. She herself slept in a small room in the other wing, while her three children slept in a tent in the living room. I liked hanging out with her in the kitchen while she prepared meals for the overnighters. We communicated just fine with my crooked Spanish, and a few times during our stay, she offered us this sweet hot drink made from a block of cane sugar.

What sticks in my head when I think of our trip to Colombia is how the people were so hospitable and helpful. From the bus agents in El Cocuy who tried to help us book our bus ticket backs to Bogotá to Señora Marta treating us like we were paying her to keep us warm and fed, the Colombians we met were always trying to make us feel like we belonged there. So many places we’ve been where we had to explain why the likes of us were in their country, but the Colombians just spoke to us in Spanish as if we’ve been living there for as long as they have. We never felt threatened, nor was there ever a time in the mountains we felt like we were lost and without care.

Hot Sauce Test

Ever since I started commuting to Connecticut for work, I started doing my grocery shopping at the Grand Central Market in Grand Central Terminal. I’m usually in and out, picking fresh produce for what I’m planning to cook for dinner, but one day I spent a leisurely time inside investigating the other specialty products the different purveyors sell. One thing that jumped at me was the number of hot sauces for sale. They caught my eye because they came in unique packaging and different shades of reds and oranges. With the help of Grand Central Market’s public relations firm, I was able to sample different hot sauces and compare them with what I already had at home.

Check these from left to right and buy your favorite just in time for the Super Bowl:

1. Ass Blaster hot sauce from Southwest Specialty Food
This came in the most amusing packaging. The bottle is inside a replica of the actual outhouse at the company’s Arizona headquarters. It reminded me of a coffin so tasting it actually made me nervous. The Ass Blaster is fierce on the front of your tongue and it stays there for a long time while you’re eating. I’m sure it would blast my aSs if I have plenty of it.

2. Chimay Salsa Habañero
I like Tabasco sauces because of their vinegary taste. This is a little smokier than the yellow kind I already have and love so even though it’s stingy, the spiciness is short-lived and very tolerable.

3. Kaiska bulls habañero in tequila sauce
This is very interesting because it’s chunky and comes with onions. Despite the name, it has no alcohol in it even though it comes from the agave azul plant, the base ingredient for tequila. I use Kaiska as a condiment because there’s a little bit of sweetness to it that’s great as a rice topper.

4. Mazi Piri Piri sauce
Most commonly known as sauce from Portugal, the chiles are actually used a lot in East African stews and is great as marinade. Piri piris, meaning “very yellow” in Gujarati (after the Portuguese colonies in India), look a lot like Thai chili peppers–small in size but very powerful in heat. It’s also very oily. I noticed that when setting up the photo below: its “legs” are longer on the plate. The packaging is quite a bitch to open because it’s sealed with wax. I had to use a bottle stopper to store it but if you use it as a marinade, you’d probably end up using all of it at once anyway.

5. Valentina hot sauce
I associate Valentina hot sauce with tacos especially here in East Harlem. It’s easily the condiment that’s always present on eat-in counters in taquerias. I once sent my friend Anna a bottle of this straight from Mexico City but didn’t pack it well enough that she basically received a glob of hot sauce on her doorstep. This is probably the most tolerable hot sauce for me in this batch because I’ve had enough of it.

6. Louisiana jalapeño hot sauce
This is also very tangy, though not as spiky as the Chimay. The heat goes in the back of your tongue which may seem nothing at first but begins to kick while you’re chewing your food. The good thing about Louisiana is that it never overpowers the food you’re eating.

7. Cholula chipotle sauce
Chipotle is a dried jalapeño pepper that’s also been smoked. It’s mostly used in Tex-Mex cuisines. Though that’s not at the top of my Mexican food list, I like using Cholula when I make Subanik, a Guatemalan stew I learned to make from Francis Ford Coppola’s resort, to mix with the ancho chiles.

Note that on the photo above, the third and fourth dollop have actually been switched. The chunkier and darker one is from Kaiska; the more orange is piri piri. You can buy #1, #4, #7 from Grand Central Market. My friend Corey brought back #2, #3 and #5 from his last business trip to Mexico, though #5 is available in bodegas in most neighborhoods with a large Mexican population. I bought #6 from the New Orleans School of Cooking.

Convivio

45 Tudor City Place off East 43rd Street
212/599.5045
$170 for two people, with drinks, without tip
♥ ♥ ♥

While in Colombia, we had a few unfortunate meals that involved pasta. Sure, Italy shares a lot of history with South America–the mass emigration of Italians was between 1876 to 1976 and brought a lot of them to countries like Argentina and then to Colombia–but the “Italian” meals we had didn’t quite involve a loving grandma in the kitchen. At the beach, vegetables were brought in from the nearest big city, about six hours away, so canned sauces were easier to come by. When there were fresh tomatoes, they were used with pasta that came in a box and because most of our meals weren’t cooked individually but in a big batch for the day’s guests, the concept of al dente was nonexistent.

Back in New York, I searched for that pasta lovingly massaged by big hands covered in flour and I found it at Convivio. We had no business spending any more money after our two-week trip, but I couldn’t resist Convivio’s $62 Sunday night prix fixe menu. Unlike most prix fixes in the city, their 4-course menu included a pasta and a dessert without skipping a separate main course. I opted to start with the yellow fin carpaccio drizzled in olive oil and sprinkled with finely chopped scallions and pistachios. I wanted to start light before my preferred pasta dish: saffron gnocchetti with crab and uni.

Did you just read that? Saffron gnocchetti with crab and sea urchin! I am not exaggerating here when I tell you that the combination made me roll my eyes back in ecstasy several times. Sea and earth have never smelled and tasted this heavenly together. The pasta was soft; full, yet springy at each bite. It was pasta at its best. At first, I thought the half portion would not be enough, but it was actually the right amount for such a rich dish. It left me wanting some more and yet I was completely satisfied. I think if I had a whole serving, I wouldn’t have cherished each spoonful as much as I did.

I could not say no to the duck breast. Duck is my new lamb. Done perfectly with Swiss chard alla Romana and spaghetti squash, it was the most beautiful wintery dish without being too heavy. Thankfully I was with someone who picked the lamb chops that tasted so carnivorously good with escarole and white beans. The last time I had lamb that tasted like it was just running an hour ago was at Per Se–that’s saying a lot for a most generous option on a prix fixe menu.

For dessert, it was a battle between the vanilla panna cotta with huckleberries and lemon sorbet or a trio of “freshly-spun” gelato (peach, mango, lemon the night of our visit). I am wont to order only one dessert and split it between me and my companions, if I order at all, but both were so irresistible that we shared them during our last few minutes in the restaurant.

If every homecoming meal was Convivio style, I would gladly suffer through a bad meal or two abroad just to remind me that sometimes you don’t have to go too far to enjoy a meal that’s full of heart–grandma or no grandma.