A Journal of Urban Living

Our family has an odd tradition of eating celebratory “picnic” dinners of tapas-like, quick prep foods. It’s a festive meal at the coffee table in the living room while sitting on the floor. Aunt Joanna was in town again this week, detoured during a business trip to NorCal because of Hurricane Irene. She’s the keeper/enforcer of the family traditions. So for all you Dillons out there, here’s Simon’s first.

• Oysters
• Limes
• Figs
• Peaches
• Grapes
• Shallots
• Frisee
• Salad Greens

What should I see in the Times today but this:

ONCE you sous vide, you never go back.

That, at least, is the chant of a global pantheon of chefs — like Heston Blumenthal, Joël Robuchon, Ferran Adrià, and Tetsuya Wakuda — who have made this low, slow cooking method the standard in the last decade.

The Cuisinart is dead.  The motor sounds but doesn’t turn.

I discovered this unhappy fact while attempting to make crusts for an apple pie.  I still have a pumpkin pie crust to go.  The Kitchen Aid produced the former.  I may go all old school and make the latter by hand.

Having not been without a food processor this decade, save for the odd weekend ski trip or backwoods camping adventure I’m not really sure how this will impact things.  I’d say it’s  my most used small appliance after maybe the toaster oven and the citrus press.  We’ll have updates on our Cuisinart-lessness, I’m sure.  Happy Thanksgiving.

Here’s what happened to those tomatoes:

Others became confit, caprese salad, sorbet and tomato water soup a la Keller.

Figures that we leave town for 10 days, just as the first tomato is beginning to blush. Not that I’m complaining about a vacation!

Well, now we’re back and there are more tomatoes than I know what to do with.

basket of goodness

In the hat, Ramapo. In the basket, start at the Gypsy pepper and go clockwise: Ramapo, Black from Tula, Costoluto Genevese, Jaune Flame. Also Swiss chard (Neon variety) and radishes.

ripe

You can’t tell, but the plants are so heavy with fruit and branches that they’re toppling over their sturdy cages. That’s the Jaune Flame on the left with the orange orbs of goodness. The best producer is definitely the Ramapo. The prettiest are the wrinkly Black from Tulas that go from burgundy at the bottom to dark greet at the neck.

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My first experiments in sous vide yesterday went okay but not spectacular. Carrots for 35 minutes at 85°C were a little tough. Added some salt and frozen stock to the bag as well as some tarragon wrapped in plastic wrap. The flavors permeated nicely but the texture was still a little on the crunchy side. Perhaps 40 or 45 minutes or baby carrots would have worked better. Also, I forgot to add any butter in the final glaze. Perhaps that too should go in the bag

Salmon was done at 50.1°C for 20 minutes. Also added green onion and spring garlic into the bag as well as lemon slices. The salmon was brined briefly, dried and then placed in the bag with another herb sachet (tarragon and parsley) as well as the onions. The salmon was moist. A fresh sockeye or king might have had slightly more flavor but it wasn’t horrible. Next time I might go up another half degree and I’d probably sweat the garlic and onions in some olive oil first.

For our next experiment with hydro-colloids we’ll gel strawberries with, uh, pectin and sugar and place in Ball canning jars.