Sous Vide: Spiced Lamb Tenderloin

Once in a long while, I make the bold move to conceptualize some ideas in my mind and bring them to fruition. The long festive weekend gave me a chance to try out two ideas. First, the lamb. About a week back, I chanced upon lamb tenderloin at my favourite butcher, and bought it without exactly knowing how I would prepare it. And that kicked off some planning to think of flavours in my mind and carefully consider how I would combine various elements together to create a beautiful and tasty dish.

Spiced lamb tenderloin, serve with lemon and mint yoghurt sauce

Spiced Lamb Tenderloin
I have never tried cooking anything Moroccan style before, even though I roughly know the flavours and have eaten it before.

For the spice rub:
1. A handful each of cumin seeds and coriander seeds
2. Black peppercorns
3. Nutmeg
4. Cinnamon
5. Coarse salt

For the lamb:
1. 400g of lamb tenderloin, trimmed
2. Fresh thyme
3. Salt and pepper
4. Olive oil

For the sauce:
1. 150g Greek yoghurt
2. 1 Lemon
3. Fresh mint leaves
4. Salt and pepper

Steps:
1. Set the water bath to 55degC. Pull out your food saver bags, or ziploc freezer bags. Place 3 strips of tenderloin in each bag, add a dash of salt and pepper, a sprig of fresh thyme, and a lug of olive oil. Seal, and place in preheated water bath for 1 hour.
2. Heat up a dry pan over medium heat. Put in all the dry spices, except for the nutmeg, and toast till fragrant. Combine the toasted spices, nutmeg, and coarse salt and grind it using a food processor or pestle and mortar. You want a medium-fine coarseness. Set aside.
3. Combine the yoghurt and lemon juice together. Add a handful of chopped up mint leaves and lemon zest of 1 lemon. Salt and pepper to taste. Chill.
4. When the lamb tenderloin is done, place the bags in an ice bath to quickly cool it down for 5min. Remove the lamb from the bags, pat dry and coat with the spice rub.
5. Heat up a frying pan and add a good amount of cooking oil. It would be fantastic if you have beef tallow! Add the lamb, and do a quick sear till the sides lightly brown.  
6. Slice the tenderloin into neat equal-sized portions. Serve warm with the chilled yoghurt sauce.

清汤牛腩 (Beef brisket in clear broth)

One of my best memories from my trip to Hong Kong last year was the 清汤牛腩. It has left me curious on how can a clear broth look so deceptively bland, but bursts with complex flavours of a beef stock mixed with a few sweet spices. I've been dreaming about waking up to a bowl of hot soup in the morning before going off to work, or coming back to it after a long day out. It's something that I can't really find in Singapore, so I have to think of ways to cook it myself.

With access to a crock pot or slow cooker on campus, I realize that I had just the right tools needed to execute this dish. It's actually not that difficult because you do not really have to check the pot, unless you're incredibly impatient. The beef brisket should turn out tender but not dry, and the tendons should be gelatinous and soft.

Beef brisket in clear broth for breakfast.
A warm and hearty soup to start the day.

Prep time: 30min
Cooking time: 8h

Ingredients:
1 slab of beef brisket (700g)
1 pack of beef tendon (500g)
1 daikon
1l of chicken broth
5 whole star anise
1 stick of Cassia cinnamon (the ones used in a Chinese braise)
1 thumb of old ginger
5 cloves of garlic

Steps:
1. Bring a pot of water to boil, lightly salt it. Put the whole slab of beef brisket in, along with the tendons, depending on how big your pot is. Boil for about 3min, drain and run the beef and tendons under cold water. Wash the ingredients properly to get rid of scum.

2. Clean up the pot, and put it on high heat. Add a lug of oil and fry the ginger, star anise, cinnamon and garlic till fragrant. Put the beef back into the pot to brown it. Add the tendons, and fill up with chicken stock. Make sure that the beef is fully covered in liquid. If it is not, add water. Note: If you are using a crock pot, you might want to do the frying in a frying pan, then transfer the ingredients to the pot.

3. Set the slow cooker on low, and let it sleep away for the next few hours while you busy yourself at work, or sleep the night away.

4. About an hour before the intended serving time, skin and slice the daikon into large chunks. Add all the daikon into the soup and let it sit for the hour, till ready to serve.

5. If you fancy, serve the soup with some blanched rice noodles, and some sliced beef.

6. Enjoy!

Secondary Cut: Flank Steak

Flank steak and egg.

This is probably my second time venturing into the area of secondary cuts, with the first being boneless short ribs. The flank cut, though cheap, has left me very satisfied. In between, I've been enjoying thick cuts of primary cuts when I have more time to travel out to a wholesaler to get them at very reasonable prices. The flank steak this time was a result of wanting to reward myself a little, yet lazy to travel and spend a lot on a little piece of meat.

Secondary cuts such as the flank and skirt are muscles that have worked a lot while the cattle was still alive. As a result, they tend to be a lot tougher (if not well prepared) but more flavourful. And because expensive steaks are prized for their tenderness, secondary cuts are usually a lot more affordable. If done well, it can satisfy your cravings and not burn a hole in your pocket.

For this particular piece that I bought, it was only 200g and the shape was odd. The side cut against the grain was the long side. I wanted my meat to cook properly and evenly, so I divided the chunk of beef into two equal portions, right down along the grain. To add, it was not a thick piece of meat.

After dividing into two pieces, it was just simple salt and pepper and into a hot pan. I was lazy enough to not time the cooking duration, but I am guessing it's about 2.5 minutes per side. The key here is to watch the browning of the meat carefully, making sure that it does not burn. You're aiming for a nice brown crust. Remove from the pan, and let it rest before slicing thinly.

I was pretty amazed how well things turned out, and the way the meat has remained moist, even without sous vide. It's something worth trying, and relatively cheaper than a top quality strip.

Spaghetti al Nero di Seppia (Spaghetti with squid ink)

This one is a little more special than the usual home cooked pasta dish. Apart from sourcing the key ingredient, squid ink, preparation and final assembly is straightforward.  Squid ink is fairly hard to find here in Singapore because most people do not use it in their cooking. You can actually find them in small sachets at the gourmet foods stores at Dempsey, going for about a dollar a sachet. You'll need one sachet for one serving to get the dark glossy colour. Otherwise, you can harvest them yourself when you buy a fresh cuttlefish!

Pan sear some scallops, prawns or squid if desired.

Spaghetti with squid ink, served with pan-seared scallops

Here are the steps for the basics of my version of squid ink spaghetti. It's a variant of the cacio e pepe recipe I posted quite early on.

Ingredients (for one, scale up proportionally for more servings):
1 handful of Barilla Spaghetti or Spaghettini
1 sachet of squid ink
Good freshly grated Pecorino Romano (you can use Parmesan as a substitute)
Olive oil
Salt
Black pepper, freshly ground

Steps:
1. Bring a pot of water to a rolling boil, gently salt it. Add the pasta to the boiling water, and keep the heat up. Do not cover and stir every now and then to prevent clumping. Cook till al dente.
2. While the pasta is cooking, heat up a pan over medium heat. Dry toast the whole black peppercorns for three minutes and pour them into a mortar and grind it up with a pestle. Aim for a medium-fine grind. Return the ground pepper into the hot pan and add a splash of olive oil.
3. Add a ladle of the cooking liquid to the oil and pepper mix.
4. Cut open the sachet of squid ink and add everything into the pan. Loosen the ink and give it a good stir. Add more water if necessary, you want a sauce that is just sufficient to coat the amount of pasta you have.
5. Drain the spaghetti and put it right into the pan. Turn off the heat and give it a good toss, make sure that all the spaghetti is coated with the glossy black sauce.
6. Add in a handful of the grated cheese and stir it in.
7. Serve the pasta on a warmed dish. Grate a bit more cheese on top for garnish.

If serving with seared seafood:
1. Sear the seafood after toasting the black peppercorns.
2. Deglaze the pan with some whisky or other liquor after the seafood is seared. It will add a different flavour dimension to the seafood and the whole dish.
3. Continue with the pepper and oil mix after removing the seafood from the pan
4. Serve the seared seafood on top of the black pasta

Sous Vide: Eggs

63ºC, 45min.
Use the freshest eggs you can get for the best results.
Dunk the eggs in cold water right after removing them from the water bath.
Serve immediately.

The soft boiled egg is a quintessential element of the traditional Singaporean kaya toast breakfast. Most Singaporeans would be familiar with the perfectly cooked eggs served by Ya Kun, and in recent years, Toast Box. Most places are able to serve up decent soft boiled eggs, but it is just hard to get it done right at home. Try sous vide, and you'll be able to make the perfect eggs at home every time.

My earliest experiment with sous vide was with eggs, but without the fancy circulator I have now. I used the stove top method, turning the gas on and off to keep the water at 63ºC and keeping the temperature in check with a thermometer. I had good results with that, and sort of perfected the method for stove top sous vide eggs. It took a little more effort and I could not really walk away for long periods of time. Now, with the Anova circulator, I can get the same results while I snooze in bed for another 45min while my breakfast cooks in the water bath. 

The concept of sous vide may sound intimidating, but it is actually incredibly simple and you'll get amazing results from it. There are plenty of recipes out there for sous vide <INSERT ANY FOOD>, and most are easy to follow and you will be able to get it right on the first try. 

The sous vide circulator might be pricey and hard to find, especially here in Singapore, but it is a good investment if you're serious about cooking. It is possibly the best piece of equipment that I have now, and has changed the way I cook and experiment with food. 

It will not be long before I consider getting a second Anova. One is not enough :)

Sous Vide: Pork Belly

I'm on yet another adventure with my Anova Sous Vide circulator. It's been great fun fiddling with this amazing machine. It has seen steaks, eggs, chicken breast, vegetables, short ribs. Now, it's time to  put one of my favourite foods to be cooked sous vide–pork belly.

I am a big fan of this particular cut of pork, largely for its flavour, but also for the crackling when roasted. I also like it braised, be it the ang-moh style with herbs, or the Chinese style with spices. For this particular one, I am going for the char siew flavour for that smokey taste.

Pork belly lathered with the sauce and in the bags, ready for sous vide.

Here's my method, for a quick and easy prep and just let it sit in the water bath overnight.

1. Preheat the water bath to 75ºC on the sous vide circulator. I'm using the app what connects to the device via bluetooth
2. To serve 8 people, I am using 1.2kg of pork belly. Cut the pork belly, rind on, into blocks of 10cm x 10cm each. I have 4 pieces in total
3. Rub a mix of char siew sauce (I am using Lee Kum Kee) and barbecue sauce (Heinz smokey) in a 2:1 ratio. I want more of the sweetness of the char siew sauce, and a hint of smokey flavour form the barbecue sauce
4. Vacuum seal the pork belly with the sauce rubbed all over. You may want to put a couple of slices of ginger in each bag
5. Chuck the bags into the water bath, and let it sleep away for 12 hours for fork tender pork belly
6. After it is done, remove from bags. Slice up and give it a quick sear, or till the surface chars slightly
7. Serve with more sauce in a bun, together with lettuce (for freshness) and pickles of your choice

Another optional item to go along is a few sprigs of fresh thyme in the bags with the pork for sous vide. It adds more fragrance and flavour to the meat. 

The Five Dollar Dinner

#FiveDollarWonder

It all started with a conversation in Starbucks one afternoon, and the idea became a reality. A college friend, Elliot, and I, decided to create a full dinner based on a five dollar per person budget. So, we invited a whole bunch of friends along and designed a full menu consisting of an appetiser, good load of carbs and fibre, perfectly cooked protein and a nutritious dessert to finish off the meal.

We designed a simple menu that was aimed at tying all dishes tie in together with a similar flavour that flows throughout all the different courses.

1. 62º egg
    sous vide egg served in a ginger soy reduction
2. hainanese style chicken breast
    sous vide chicken breast, served with a garlic chilli dip
3. kailan, with lup cheong and scallop sauce
    poached greens with a rich chinese sausage and dried scallop dressing
4. buckwheat noodles
    soba with home made ginger soy sauce
5. yoghurt with ginger oat crumble
    chilled plain yoghurt with brown sugar and ginger crumble

62ºC egg

Poached kailan, with Chinese sausage

All plated up, sous vide chicken breast on the right.

Yoghurt with ginger oat crumble

And the best thing is, we kept to the budget! Here's a total cost breakdown for 15 people :))

1. Buckwheat Noodles  $14.00
2. Kailan (market)         $4.00
3. Ginger (market)         $1.50
4. Brown sugar              $1.15
5. Chicken breast           $16.50
6. Kailan (Fairprice)      $3.20
7. Spring onion              $1.00
8. Garlic                         $0.90
9. Lime                          $0.30
10. Chilli                       $1.00
11. Chicken rice mix     $2.95
12. Oats                         $2.50
13. Yoghurt                   $10.25
14. Butter                      $3.95
15. Eggs                        $5.70
16. Scallop sauce          $2.90
17. Chinese sausage      $3.00

Total                              $74.80

Really happy with how it had turned out! :))


Photos courtesy of Edna :) @ednacpz on instagram