Chocolate Ice Cream using Cocoa, Assured Nut-Free

I wanted to make a nice chocolate dessert for one of our Thanksgiving guests who is highly nut-allergic but I could not find any brand of chocolate bar that was willing to put a stake in the ground about being nut-free. I did find that Bournville [a Cadbury brand] cocoa is assuredly nut-free, so went with that.

I really wanted to try a chocolate ice cream but I lost patience about 90 seconds into googling. Every chocolate ice cream recipe with cocoa also had chocolate in it. So I invented my own. It was really good, and very well received. Here it is:

125g cocoa
400ml whole milk, used in 2 portions, 220ml + 180ml
400ml double cream
200g sugar
5 egg yolks, beaten
1t vanilla
pinch salt

(1) in large bowl, mix 125g cocoa & 220ml cold whole milk together into a smooth paste
(2) it's hard to resist tasting it at this point, so go ahead
(3) immediately regret tasting it
(4) heat the remaining 180ml of milk + the double cream, off heat at or before it reaches boil
(5) whisk hot milk/cream into the cocoa/milk mix (if this doesn't combine well for any reason, it should be fine to return it to low heat and stir until smooth consistency)
(6) whisk in the sugar & a pinch of salt
(6) whisk in the egg yolks & vanilla
(7) strain into a clean bowl, thoroughly chill, then put it into your ice cream maker

Opera Mission

In for a penny, in for a pound: went to Covent Garden last night to see our first opera and pulled out all the stops. We aimed for maximum accessibility, Mozart's Marriage of Figaro.

It was lovely. The Royal Opera House is just a fantastic venue. We didn't know quite what to expect but overall it was much more relaxed and engaging and flat-out pleasant an experience than I would have guessed. Everything was nice, starting with the welcoming staff at the doors, followed by some friendly assistance inside as we took a moment to get oriented, then settling gently into the evening with  pre-show charcuterie and cheddar & chutney sandwiches in the grand, airy, and buzzing Paul Hamlyn Hall Champagne Bar.

First question in the ROH FAQ is on dress code. There is none. There were some folks dressed extremely nicely, and others in jeans. The crowd was excited, enthusiastic, and expressive. Quite a while ago I'd been to see the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and while the performance was outstanding, the experience was overwhelmingly stuffy and uptight, which was the fault of the audience entirely and not  the musicians. Maybe it's changed in recent years. Or was an aberration. I hope so. (Chicagoans normally bring to bear a refreshing midwestern groundedness.) Or maybe it's cultural. I've gone for a bit of the symphonic at Royal Albert Hall and found it to be a pleasantly joyful occasion. (Maybe Londoners are just that awesome.)

The performance was wonderful. More engaging, to the point of engrossing, than I'd expected. Moments of comedy, a bit of tension, and quite a lot of sadness. Figaro's taunting of Cherubino in Act 1 for getting commissioned into the military was done with such gleeful mocking that it was downright mean. The song, "Non più andrai", is a crowd pleaser, and was given a whimsical translation in the supertitles ("no more buzzing about, bothering the ladies").

Supertitles! Yeah, they were easy to read, unobtrusive, and the whole thing was really easy to follow. While quite a lot of the music was familiar for a variety of reasons (seen Trading Places?), I didn't bother listening to anything or reading up on the story beforehand. Not necessary.

The confusion at the end of Act II was delightful. The supertitled "(everyone is confused)" was well received at a very specific moment. I think it's only a matter of time before someone projects "(WTF?)" there.

The Countess is the character in the saddest role. Even the "forgiveness" at the end is more resignation to her lot than reconciliation. The Act III "Dove sono" by Maria Bengtsson, in which the Countess wonders where all the love and joy has gone and why, if the good has gone, the memories of happiness still remain, was beautifully sung and just heartbreaking.

Long before Act IV was in full swing I was well and truly hooked. The whole spectacle was pretty astonishing. Yeah, I kind of knew it wouldn't be people just standing around bellowing out arias, but that's not the half of it. Opera again? Oh yeah!

Management Skills

I've identified a key management skill: Tactical Forgetting. There are some things a manager doesn't need to know, and if a team accidentally provides too much transparency, their manager can benefit from tactical forgetting.

Which leads me to a corollary observation: any sufficiently advanced management technique is indistinguishable from senility.

Wrens!

In honor of JustJoeP, some wildlife photography.

(1) Get tasty caterpillar for youngsters. (2) Test voltage.

Why yes, we DO want to eat that.

Observationally, Are We Getting Dumber?

http://xkcd.com/1252/

Two problems. XKCD perfectly describes one, which is that a relative risk increase is just about useless if you don't know the absolute risk. The other side of the problem: where do these risk values come from?

In 2001, Oxford Journals' International Journal of Epidemiology published "Epidemiology--is it time to call it a day?". Six years prior to that Science published "Epidemiology Faces Its Limits". So, 12-18 years later, have we gotten smarter about epidemiology?

Nope.

Maybe it's the amount of data or accessibility or ease of publishing or the disappearence of professional editing, but bad or trivial or meaningless stats and probabilities seem more common than ever. Our risk assessment skills seem just as bad as ever.

Two helpful guidelines for understanding any risk metric you see:

1. assume it's not from a controlled trial (in other words, assume it's low quality)
2. remember guidance from actual epidemiologists, from the 1995 article [emphasis mine, and keep in mind that, say, a "20% higher risk" is a relative risk of only 1.2]:

As a general rule of thumb," says Angell of the New England Journal, "we are looking for a relative risk of three or more [before accepting a paper for publication], particularly if it is biologically implausible or if it's a brand new finding." Robert Temple, director of drug evaluation at the Food and Drug Administration, puts it bluntly: "My basic rule is if the relative risk isn't at least three or four, forget it." But as John Bailar, an epidemiologist at McGill University and former statistical consultant for the NEJM, points out, there is no reliable way of identifying the dividing line. "If you see a 10-fold relative risk and it's replicated and it's a good study with biological backup, like we have with cigarettes and lung cancer, you can draw a strong inference," he says. "If it's a 1.5 relative risk, and it's only one study and even a very good one, you scratch your chin and say maybe.

Sous Vide Chili, Shortribs, and Chicken Breasts

Next post will not be about cooking, I promise.


Beef Short Ribs, Again
After the highly successful 72 hr, 55C shortrib trial, I decided to go for a more traditional braise texture. I smoked a slab of shortribs for a couple hours until they were near or at 50C, then cut them into individual ribs, bagged each, and put them into the water bath at 62C. I tried the first after 24 hours. It was tender and very good. The rest I left in for 48 hours. Even better! Very much a traditional braise texture -- flaking nicely, tender, moist -- quite different than the tender steak-like texture of the 55C version. They were not falling off the bone, but easy to eat without knife and fork. Rib meat should require a bit of pull to get off the bone anyway. To serve: coated with bbq sauce and popped under the broiler until browned and crispy.

Chili
While I had the aquarium going, I made a few bags of chili. Old-school Texas style chili: no onions, no tomatoes, no beans. Just brisket, beef fat, dried chilies, and salt. I picked up five bags of whole dried chili peppers from borough market and came up with a method for turning them into a chili paste:

1. stem, seed, and roughly chop the peppers
2. steep them in hot water from a kettle for 15 minutes or so, then drain
3. poach them in rendered beef fat over low heat for a while, then puree the whole thing

The result was very chili-y but pretty bitter. No worries.

For the meat I used a brisket flat, which went into the smoker for a couple hours, then I pulled it out and cubed it. Had to trim quite a bit but still ended up with plenty of beef. I coated the smoked, cubed beef with the chili paste and added salt, then divided between three bags. In they went -- 62C for 48 hours.

Result: really good! The bitterness went away, the chilies rounded out and mellowed out and blended beautifully with the beef. The beef got tender and the whole thing turned into a lovely, slightly fiery, smokey chili stew. Worth doing again. And I had extra chili paste I later used to make a more common pot of chili (with ground beef and tomatoes and onions).


Chicken Breasts
Well this was easy. I cut up a couple chickens, smoked the legs and wings, saved the carcasses for stock, and bagged the boneless breasts for a first sous vide chicken trial. (Incidentally, the smoked wings made fantastic buffalo wings later: crisped them in a smoking hot pan with butter, then coated and sauteed in a mix of equal parts butter and frank's hot sauce.) The chicken breasts went into the aquarium for 2 1/2 hours at 60C and turned out just about perfectly. One of them I just browned skin-side in a hot pan with butter. The other I didn't even bother, just cut it up for another dish. It's odd in that it goes against expectations. I normally do a perfectly good job of cooking chicken no matter what method I use, but here I still expected the thin end to be overdone. It wasn't of course. It was just as perfectly tender and done as the thickest part. Brilliant.

Cooking Broccoli: High Heat, No Water

with chicken and cheddar

I found this here: http://www.thewednesdaychef.com/the_wednesday_chef/2008/08/heston-blumenth.html
and it's my new favourite way to cook broccoli. Quick, easy, great results.

I use a cast iron frying pan. Basically:
v high heat, add some olive oil [smokin' hot]
broccoli in, lid on, don't touch it for 2 minutes
after two minutes: salt & pepper, some butter, shake it all about, lid back on, still high heat, don't touch it for 2 minutes
is it done? if not, leave it on another minute or two, otherwise it's ready to eat

Chocolate Ice Cream

Trying to get a suitably chocolatey ice cream is like doing titration quickly. You want to worry yourself that you've gone too far in order to hit the point that's just perfect. This is my modified version of "Ben's Chocolate" from the classic Ben & Jerry Ice Cream book from 1987 -- richer, less sugar, more choc (more egg, heavier cream, slightly different ratios, different instructions). I love it, but this will be too much for many people.

140g 90% dark chocolate [I use Lindt]
240g whole milk [I used a rich jersey & guernsey milk]
2 eggs + 1 add'l egg yolk
120g sugar
240g double cream
1t vanilla extract
pinch salt

method
chop chocolate and put in bowl
heat milk in microwave until almost boiling
pour hot milk over chocolate and let sit for a couple minutes
stir milk & chocolate together, should be smooth and melty now [if it is not smooth and melty, you should either panic or cry, or panic then cry, or threaten it with the microwave until it complies]

in separate bowl, which eggs&yolk
whisk in sugar
add dbl cream, vanilla, a hearty pinch of salt and whisk together to mix

mix chocolate into egg&cream mixture
chill before using
after chilling, whisk a bit before adding to ice cream maker

Short Ribs Cooked For A Very Long Time

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bought some beef short ribs from Elsco. 2 slabs. Both left on bone. Trimmed one.

 

 

 

Then smoked the trimmed one. Smoked using mostly hickory and a little bit of oak. Lowest temp for the (hot) smoker, on an elevated rack to keep it even cooler and maximize the smoke. Left it in the smoker for 2 hours 20 minutes. Pulled it out when the hottest sub-surface temp was around 51C, and core temp was in the 40s.

Double-bagged both the smoked and the unsmoked, untrimmed control slab of short ribs and cooked them at 55C for 72 hours.

Finished with salt, pepper, butter, and a really hot cast iron pan.

Got excessive with some short ribs and cooked them sous vide for 72 hours @ 55C, after smoking one set. Result: fantastic! Was not going for a typical braise texture (flakey, falling apart), but rather was aiming for very tender but still a bit steak-like. Was really excellent. The unsmoked version was like a super-tender roast beef. The smoked one, though, was just perfect.

Sous Vide Begins

or: "The Inevitability of the Middle Aged Modernist"

New Immersion Circulator: Friend or Foe? Undecided.

I got some new kit to play with. A relatively cheap vacuum packer to start. (The eventual upgrade will be a floorstanding chamber model.) It was only a matter of time before an immersion circulator found its way here.

Vacuum packing things is really quite fun. Here's some broccoli.

First thing: steaks! Got some ribeyes from the Ginger Pig, salted each and added a bit of rendered beef fat for no good reason, plus peppered 2 of them. Cooked @ 56C for 6 hours. Finished with a sear in the cast iron pan with butter after dredging in cracked black pepper. Then deglazed the pan with the liquid from the cooking bags and reduced for sauce.

Verdict: excellent! Great flavour as always but much more tender than normal for ribeyes. Big hit with all four of us. Definitely had the "edge to edge" consistency of doneness the method is praised for.

28l of 56C water and 4 ribeyes.

Thoughts: definitely worthwhile. Would use again for tougher cuts of thick steaks to get that lovely tenderness. Might nudge the temp down a little. Probably would not use on fillet mignon, unless using for timing purposes. Also not likely to use for skirt steak/onglet as the finishing sear is not much shorter than how I would normally cook one entirely, but possibly worth an experiment to fiddle with texture.

This is a repurposed aquarium. Looks like it's almost fulfilling intended use here.

Next up: eggs. Tried a few temperatures.  The well-documented problem with eggs cooked to a precise temperature is that the most people prefer the whites cooked more than the yolk. There are something like 4 main proteins involved in turning an egg into different stages of cookedness and they denature at different temps. Cooking the yolk to an optimal consistency in a water bath will leave the white too soft for most people. Here's what I've discovered so far.

Poached eggs: cook at 62C for 45-60 minutes, then crack into water on low simmer. At this temp, they still crack like raw eggs. Whites are cohesive enough to keep a nice full shape around the yolk. Does not take long to firm them up while leaving the yolk as-is.

Poachy.

Egg for eating as-is: I like 65C. The yolk firms up but still has a rich, satiny texture. The whites are custardy but solid enough to be nice rather than off-putting. Obviously high-quality fresh eggs are a must.

And let's vacuum pack a slice of bread.

Brisket Day

Last Saturday: Brisket Day.

After 11 months and at least a dozen smoker sessions -- spare ribs, loin ribs, beef ribs, sausages, chicken, pork, turkey, goose, and plenty of duck, plus one chocolate cheesecake -- the time had come for brisket.

I got a genuine packer cut brisket from The East London Steak Company, delivered to me at 6am on a Friday morning. Over 6 kg -- a proper brisket that would be at home in the US. I trimmed off a good bit of fat, so pre-cooking weight was probably around 5.5 kg or so. The trimmed fat was later rendered, strained and saved.

So on Saturday:

05:49 Smoker on. Yes, a very early start. I'd wheeled the smoker out and had it all setup and ready to go the night before. It's about 80kg of metal, not a big back garden theft worry. Trimmed the cut as mentioned, right down to the surface to expose the lovely beef. No rub to speak of, just a generous amount of salt and a little bit of black pepper.

06:25 Brisket on. Temp at grate was about 88C. My plan was to start at relatively low temp then up it over a few hours to a max of around 110C (230F). The wood was a mix of oak and hickory (pellets, cookshack).

08:20 Upped heat. Two hours in, turned the heat up.

09:20 Temp check. Three hours in, temp at grate is about 100C, brisket internal temp about 40C. I upped the controller another 5C and topped up the hopper with some cheaper pellets -- Lil Devils, a blend consisting of, I think, mostly alder and some oak. These are about half the price of the cookshack pellets. After a few hours, not much smoke is getting into the meat anymore. The smoker I have generates all heat by burning pellets so spending the next hours on cheaper but perfectly acceptable pellets is a cost play.

10:45 Temp check. Brisket about 51C internal after nearly 4 1/2 hours. Upped the controller another 5C to yield a cooking temp of around 110C. The slow ramp-up seems like a good tactic. Now waiting for the stall. This is the point at which the brisket gets to around 65C. Surface evaporation can keep it at the same temperature for hours, which can cause panic and heat up-turning. This is to be avoided. Either leave it in the smoke and wait it out, or crutch it. We're going to crutch it.

12:45 The stall. The brisket parked itself at 64.7 for a while. So 6 1/2 hours in, time for the crutch. We cut maybe 14th (by weight) off the end -- the thinnest third, the exposed part of the flat -- for two reasons: (1) we wanted to experiment with not crutching, and (b) the thing wouldn't fit into the pan without cutting that off. So with the thin part of the flat still in the smoker, the rest of it, big hunk of meat, went onto a rack in a deep pan, with water under the rack. The whole thing was closely and tightly covered with a few layers of foil then put into the oven, set at 110C.

16:55 Done! 10.5 hours of cooking, with crutch. Aiming for 95C internal. at 65C all the water abandons ship and you get a big piece of shoe-leather, but then the collagen melts and it becomes tender, moist, and delicious again. Ostensibly. We'll see. This was kept wrapped up and left in the oven, cooled down to warm/hold temp. At the same time the much smaller piece in the smoker was still not quite done, although it was past the stall and getting there -- 88C.

17:30 Done (pt 2). The flat remnant in the smoker now 95C. This was covered and put into the warm oven to rest, crammed in below the bigger piece. Now the smoker was upped to 150C to cook a whole mess of sausages and hot dogs.

18:30 Served! First sliced the all-smoker flat. Really nice smoke ring. Kind of dry. Good flavor, and not tough -- fairly tender, but still kind of dry. Then... the big piece. Oh, man. Unbelievable. Incredible flavor, meltingly tender and moist. Was almost hard to slice it was so tender. The whole of the big piece was great, but especially the point (the point!). Wow.


So yes, it was worth it. We declared victory. Brisket Day was a big success and there will be a brisket #2 in the smoker's future.



P.S. I'm having a hard time remembering what I served with it, aside from more meat. Oh yeah, a big pot of pinto beans. And some crisps. And some tomatoes, sliced or chopped or something. And a homemade thousand-island-ish dressing with loads of fresh horseradish I'd prepared while the brisket was smoking. Rolls and tortillas as well, maybe? I didn't want any wheat to get in the way of the meat, so gave that a miss.

P.P.S. There were almost no leftovers. I was expecting a lot. So much that I was going to slice and freeze the leftovers. There was enough for me later to chop it up, fry it in the rendered beef drippings with cracked black pepper and crushed red pepper (mit scharf!) until the edges were dark brown and crispy, then melted cheddar over the top and horseradish/thousand-island dressing and diced tomatoes underneath. Yes.

P.P.P.S. You'd think with an elapsed cooking/prep time of nearly 13 hours I would have had time to take more photos, but no. Next time?

Pre-Brisket Meat Marshalling: East London Steak Co.

I love my local butcher, but I really liked the looks of ELSco. The perfect excuse for an order came when I picked a Brisket Day: the day I finally put a full brisket into the smoker. It's very difficult to get packer cut brisket from butchers here. Mostly you get rolled brisket. It's either a different cut or just the flat of the same cut, I can't quite tell which, but in either case, it's wrong.

But The East London Steak Co. offer a genuine packer-cut brisket. As I always say, anything worth doing is worth overdoing, so I also ordered some beef sausages, some mahoosive hot dogs, and a few big hunks of short ribs. Deliver was next morning around 6am.

The hot dogs were great. I grilled those on brisket day (anything worth doing, etc.) Not just "good for London" -- hot dogs here are mostly awful, the only passable ones I've found in a grocery store have been Gilbert's Kosher -- but good even for the US. And the brisket? More on that later.

beautifully marbled shortrib