Quickened Moroccan chicken

One of the reasons I love the multi-cooker is preparing a dish with multiple cooking techniques and having only one vessel to clean up. This Moroccan-style chicken is a recent example, at least the way I modified it.

Our last entry went into some detail on Maillard reactions, and you may have noticed this recipe specifies just putting the chicken and onions in the slow cooker. That means no browning, no Maillard reactions, and if not no, much less, flavor! We can't have that. So after seasoning the chicken almost according to the recipe (I substituted smoked paprika for cayenne, as my family doesn't like hot spicy, and added sumac because it's awesome), I browned the chicken and onions in the cooker on the sauté setting. Then I sort of proceeded with the recipe, after two hours adding the chickpeas, substituting dried mango for apricots and capers for olives, as those were what I had available in the house, and adding an extra cup of stock and a half bag of Trader Joe's Harvest Grains blend to slow cook with everything else.

One pot, minimal fuss, easy cleanup, and seriously delicious. It's even better the next day when all the flavors have melded more.

Easy, mostly healthy fish

My wife and I love fish, and it's a healthy protein, but I struggle greatly to find ways to get my 12-year-old to enjoy it. She briefly was into pan-seared steelhead trout with udon, but it didn't last, so I keep trying new preparations.

My latest attempt was a riff on roasting it in foil with butter, garlic, and lemon. For once I mostly followed this, with the exception of leaving the skin on (my wife and I love crispy skin on top, but the kid? Not here for it.), grating the zest of that half a lemon on top in addition to the juice, using jarred, not fresh, herbs (I use Fairway's Herbs for Fish blend, but I'm not sure they still sell it, as it's not on Instacart), and opening the foil and broiling it for a few minutes at the end. (Crispy skin! Plus the zest caramelizes. Yum.) In future I'd broil it a few minutes sooner, as the juice prevents the skin from crisping quickly. This is one instance when I really could have used a torch or Searzall.

I served it with greens sautéed in olive oil with garlic and lemon (no pine nuts or raisins this time) for one of the healthier dinners we've had while isolating. Sadly, my daughter wasn't a big fan of this one either, but the grownups both thought it was delicious. Wine recs here? You can basically never go wrong with NZ Sauv Blanc or South African Chenin Blanc with fish, butter, and lemon, and there are lots of good values there. I could also go with Finger Lakes or Alsatian Gewürztraminer, which is just fun to say. In the Finger Lakes Hermann Wiemer, Sheldrake Point, Glenora, and Dr. Konstantin Frank are all good bets. Grüner Veltliner would be another great choice, either again from Wiemer or Dr. Frank or from its native Austria. (Also, try Slope Cellars.)

 

Finally, since I realized I used to talk about the science of food, and my recent posts have not, I'll make a brief discourse on the browning and crisping of food. Food browns in two ways, enzymatically, which is generally undesirable, and is what happens to apples and pears for example once they're cut and exposed to the air. Yuck.

The browning we like is heat-related, and in the case of proteins like meat and fish, goes by the specific name of "Maillard" reactions, for a French (duh!) chemist of that name. Maillard reaction occur between proteins and sugars, as opposed to caramelization, which involves only sugars. Maillard reactions are what make for such culinary delights as the seared crust on meat and fish, brown butter, créme caramel, and, maybe less obviously, toasted bread. I also learned recently that toasting flour is a thing, not just for roux, but also for baking, adding nuttiness and making raw dough safer to eat! Maillard reactions are a gift that keeps giving.

Important things to note: Maillard reactions only occur above 285ºF, meaning reasonably high heat and less in hydrous (water) and less yet in acidic (see lemon juice above) solutions. Chemistry 101 lesson: if a reaction's product, in this case water, is already in abundance, equilibrium tends away from the reaction happening  Conversely, if the reactant concentration is high, which here are alkaline amino groups in an alkaline environment, the equilibrium direction is more reaction, hence more browning. This is why you want your proteins dry before searing them.

Don't be that person, tip generously!

I read anecdotal accounts on Twitter yesterday of customers hiding behind contactless delivery to not tip delivery people. According to these stories, it's true even of regular customers who'd tipped in the past.

This should go without saying, but apparently it needs to be said. If you don't tip delivery people, who are risking their lives so you can preserve yours staying inside, for not very much money, you are, to put it succinctly, a Very. Bad. Person. It's also worth reminding people that in most places (Seattle is an exception), the legal minimum wage is lower for tipped workers, as the tips are assumed. Making customers subsidize businesses' costs is pernicious, but until political consensus shifts away from this practice, tip. Tip as generously as you are able.

Cornbread, comfort food for body and soul

Stress baking. It's a thing that actually helps, and in the realm of comfort food, few things do it for me like cornbread. One of my stockpile items is cornmeal, which I use for breading fish and thickening chili among many other uses. I typically buy polenta (or grits in Americanese), which generically means coarse ground cornmeal. (We Americans often use the word for a specific dish.) I like Bob's Red Mill (employee-owned, B-Corp, does the right thing), although you can only buy a 25-pound bag at the moment, or support local New York farmers and the post office.
So how do you make cornbread? I started with this as a base, with a couple of modifications: I use 1-1/4 c. polenta to 3/4 c. wheat flour, added a can of white corn kernels for some added chew and moistness. Depending on how grainy or smooth you like it, you can vary the polenta/flour ratio between 1:1 and 5:3 either way, and from no kernels to the full can.
As for baking it, I first heated a cast iron skillet over high heat and greased it with pork fat. I poured the batter in, cooked it on the stovetop for a few minutes to brown the edges and bottom, then transferred to a 450ºF oven for 20 minutes. This is with the caveat that I like the bottom browned and crispy, even slightly charred. If you don't, skip the stovetop and bake at 400ºF. If you want to kick it up, add some shredded cheese on top and broil for a couple of minutes.
For this morning's breakfast I drizzled it with hot honey-- the heat from Lola's Trinidad Scorpion Sauce. Damn, that's good.
For those looking to make this vegan or gluten-free (I'm neither so can't directly vouch for it), I can suggest the following. Vegans, obviously skip the butter and pork fat, with coconut or avocado oil being good substitutes, or some form of vegetable oil spread or margarine or make your own? Vegan egg substitutes, based on advice from a vegan friend who bakes a lot of bread, include the water from canned chickpeas or flax meal dissolved in water. To make it gluten-free, others probably know better, but King Arthur and Bob's both offer gluten-free 1-1 baking flour. If you have more experience with this, please leave your advice in the comments.

Keeping It Simple

I realized most of my posts are about a fairly complicated or time-consuming meal, whether it's smoking meat for half a day or sous vide for two. While I do geek out like that in the kitchen fairly often, it's not really the rule, and I recognize not everyone has the time or equipment to make it happen.

The good news is you can get a delicious, home-cooked meal on the table with minimal effort if you learn some simple tricks and hacks about ingredients and seasonings. The first step is go read Eater's guide to stocking a pantry. Then, beyond "whatever spices you cook or bake with," branch out a little. Recently I've become a fan of sumac (main component of za'atar) and smoked paprika in particular, and turmeric is supposed to be anti-inflammatory and adds zip to almost anything.

With that as a base, I'll share a quick comfort food hack that goes from fridge to table in under a half hour. It's a pasta sauté with some extra protein from tuna and beans, flavored with pesto.

• 1 package small or filled pasta, such as tortellini, rotini, or fusilli
• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 can pinto, kidney, or garbanzo beans (if using dried, soak and cook first)
• 1/2 tsp. za'atar (or pinch each of sumac, oregano, basil)
• 1 tbsp. grated parmesan or pecorino cheese
• 1 can or jar of tuna, preferably in olive oil
• 1/4 c. pesto

Boil pasta for 2 minutes less than directions. Drain and cool with water.

Heat a skillet on medium-high and add a tablespoon of olive oil until shimmering.

Sauté garlic for two minutes until fragrant, add beans and sauté two minutes for pintos or kidneys or five for garbanzos.

Stir in tuna and drained pasta.

Reduce heat to medium-low, add cheese and pesto and simmer an additional minute.

Serve with a medium-dry white or rosé. Since we're in the Mediterranean flavor family, I'd maybe go Greek like this, go a little bigger in Italy (I love all things Sicilian), or a little farther afield to Lebanon, either Ixsir white or Domaine des Tourelles rosé (the last by the case, but sounds like a deal to me). (I'm a big fan of Lebanese wine as well-- those specific recs came from The Independent.)

Buon appetito!

Sous vide chuck roast, as promised

My last post mentioned my first attempt at doing a roast sous vide and promised the recipe, which is adapted from Anova's. Chuck is extremely flavorful but often chewy, so often ground in burgers, and that's especially true for grass-fed, which for health and environmental reasons I buy almost exclusively. (If you're in the NYC metro area, the Lewis Waite Farm CSA normally does monthly delivery for locally, humanely raised meat and dairy.) This makes it ideal for long sous vide, which renders the tough collagen effectively into gelatin. That process requires temperatures of at least 130ºF (54.5ºC), and at least 24 hours of cooking, and longer is better.

Sous vide chuck roast

The meat also benefits from a long seasoning prep in the fridge. I made my own seasoning rub, enough for a 2-1/2 lb. roast:

• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. thyme
• 1/4 tsp. smoked paprika
• 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp. onion powder
• 1/2 tsp. ground mustard

1. Combine, rub on the roast, and refrigerate uncovered overnight.
2. Heat a sous vide water bath to 131ºF for rare, 135ºF for medium-rare, or 140ºF for medium. (If you actually want your roast beef well-done, I don't know what to say to you. Also you're probably reading the wrong blog.)
3. Place the meat in a sufficiently sized Ziploc (or better yet reusable silicone bags from Target or Amazon, if you can find them in-stock), remove the air via water displacement, and seal the bag. (Also, if you're into food and aren't reading J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, you should.)
4. Immerse in the water bath, and cook for 24-36 hours. If you're using the Magic Chef, it has a handy timer.
5. After the timer ends remove from the bag, pat dry, and let rest for 10 minutes.
6. If using the Magic Chef, dump the water, dry the pot, and set to the "sauté" setting or heat a skillet very hot, add a tablespoon of neutral oil with a high smoke point such as grapeseed or avocado, and brown the roast on all sides to form a crust. If you have a torch (haven't gone there yet, but I've been considering a Searzall), you can use that too.
7. Transfer to a platter, let cool a little, slice thin, and... enjoy the f*#k out of it.

Sous vide for dummies

I will presume at least most readers of a food blog are at least aware of sous vide (under vacuum) cooking in a water bath. It's a go-to method for Modernist cooks, as it allows for long cooking at a consistent temperature, which particularly makes cheaper, tougher, but often more flavorful meat as tender as more expensive cuts. Also, as long, lower temperature cooking effectively sterilizes, if you like your meat in the rare zone (in other words, properly cooked), you can have it without worrying about food-borne illness. It's a win-win.
The biggest obstacle to home sous vide used to be the cost and need for additional equipment. Early sous vide pioneers repurposed water baths meant for use in biology labs, at a cost of hundreds or thousands of dollars. You can now purchase circulators for $100-200 at Target and the like, but they still require extra storage plus a big cooking vessel for the water. If, like me, you live in a city, but unlike me don't have a big kitchen you got to design yourself, space is at a premium, and you probably avoid single-use tools costing as much as a new set of cookware. For a long time, I'd sous vide steak on the stove top in a big pot of water with a instant read thermometer, and I'd flash the flame on and off periodically to keep it in the rare (~128ºF/54ºC) range. This was annoying, but as steaks take only 45-60 minutes to cook, it wasn't infeasible.

A perfectly rare burger

For larger, tougher cuts, such as short ribs, chuck roast, or pork shoulder, although the latter I'm more apt to smoke anyway, you want 24+ hours of cooking so all the tough connective tissue (collagen) can render down and soften. I don't know about you, but to paraphrase Rita Rudner, I don't want to do anything fun for 24 hours.
Since I'm also a fan of pressure and slow cooking, I considered the Instant Pot, but I already have a stovetop pressure cooker and an old slow cooker, and the Instant Pot multicookers don't themselves do sous vide. I considered building my own sous vide with a PLC controller (you can find plans in several places), but my current slow cooker is automatic, which wouldn't work. Then for a while I coveted Wolf's multicooker, but I couldn't justify $600 for primarily sous vide, especially when it only gets 3.5 stars.
Enter the Magic Chef, a Home Depot exclusive. At only $60 on sale, it's kind of a no-brainer, and it's also a pressure cooker, rice cooker, slow cooker, and gets hot enough to sauté in. You can set the sous vide cycle for 36+ hours, and I've already used it for steak, burgers (see right), and a 27-hour grass-fed chuck roast (recipe to follow).
There are a couple of caveats: some sous vide cooking, notably eggs, require quite precise temperature control, ±0.2ºF. I haven't tested the precision of this unit that closely, but I'm fairly sure it would be challenging to attain that precision. Aside from frittata, I don't really eat eggs as eggs so it's less relevant, and you'd be unlikely to find something better at this price. Also, it doesn't circulate the water as most immersion units do, but it's well insulated so stirring the water before cooking seems sufficient.
Feel free to purchase via any of the above links. Home Depot rejected my affiliate application so I won't benefit monetarily, but I recommend it nevertheless. Maybe if I get enough traffic, they'll reconsider.