Sauerkraut

Yes, I do eat vegetables, too.

pay no attention to the salami and cheese

I recently got myself a Gärtopf -- simple, old design, but very clever & effective -- and started turning 2.7kg of cabbage into sauerkraut. I love it. It seems too simple to work but it is just so good. I used up to 2.5% salt by weight, including top-up brine as needed. It was really nice after a few days. It's two weeks in and getting even better.

precision-engineered German crockery

The biggest problem with making your own sauerkraut is feeling like a complete idiot for paying 100x too much for inferior grocery store stuff for so many years.

small jar, did not last long

Sous Vide Beefathon: Silverside, Pickled Brisket, and Shortrib Rendang

This arrived Saturday at 6:01am

A very weak observational study just came out that says people who claim to eat lots of animal protein who are between 50 and 65 years old die more than people of that age who say they eat low protein, but that people who are older than 65 who say they eat more protein actually die less. Naturally the press took this with a bit of perspective in their usual calm and reasoned way...

Telegraph: High-protein diet 'as bad for health as smoking'
Guardian: Diets high in meat, eggs and dairy could be as harmful to health as smoking
Independent: Eating too much meat and eggs is ‘just as bad as smoking’, claim scientists
Fox News: Eating large amounts of meat, cheese may be as deadly as smoking, study shows 

Sigh. [The only semi-reasonable writeup I've seen is here.]

I must have had a premonition because this weekend I kicked off three different beef dishes, all of which have now been completed and tried. All meat came from Turner & George.

(1) shortrib rendang
I based it on this recipe. It was very tasty, but I wasn't thrilled with it. It turned out well, but needs quite a bit of work. Next time: less aromatics, more coconut, will use dried chilies, and maybe a few other changes. I cooked it 48 hours at 62C, which worked beautifully for the shortrib meat, which I'd cut off the bone into cubes. I did reduce the sauce after it was done cooking, might be no way around that. Definitely will try again.

(2) silverside
This one I brined based on this. Meh. The brine I can live without. Cinnamon with beef? Maybe in Cincinnati. Not my favourite. Next time just a salt brine. The cooking, though, was spot-on: 8 hours at 55.5C. Turned out perfectly cooked. Thoroughly chilled in the bag, then thinly sliced.

(3) pickled brisket
Normally I would brine the brisket myself but I didn't want to wait a week so got pre-pickled brisket and simply cooked it for 24 hours @62C. This was for sandwiches. If it had been meant to eat hot as a roast I would have left it in for 48 hours. Thoroughly chilled this and then sliced it thinly. This was really good. Definitely an easy way to get high quality corned beef (aka salt beef) for sandwiches. Next time I should really do my own brining though. Could have used a touch of juniper and pepper.

Salt, Smoke, Sear: Seven Months of Sous Vide, Part 2

Sous vide usually ends up as one step of several. There are exceptions: salmon is a nice single step. Chicken breast for chicken salad needs no finishing. Chicken breast for the plate could use some searing. Much sous videry involves both pre and post work. Post is often quick, and sous vide in the middle usually removes worry about timings.

brine for goose and duck

Beef shortribs: my favourite method is to smoke them for a couple hours then sous vide for 48hrs @62C then finish under the broiler, either sauced or not. Turkey breast: an herb brine, then sous vide, then finish under the broiler. Poached eggs: sous vide then crack into simmering water for a quick dip.

Much of this is all very simple. Sometimes, like with the chili, it becomes part of more steps. Over the next 7 months I'll likely try some more complex dishes with it.

Sous Vide Seven Months In

I've had my sous vide setup since July. I use it frequently. It's been a good purchase so far. So what have I learned?

• Vegetables: why bother? I've done some veggies in it but more trouble than they are worth. There are quicker and better ways to cook vegetables.
• Meat: yes. Usually great results on everything from pork tenderloin to turkey breast to beef shortribs to ribeyes. Excellent use case, but...
• The time needs to match the cut: At 55C, 72 hours turns Beef shortribs into a tender steak-like consistency, but 24 hours can dry-aged rump into mush (7 hours probably would have been about right).
• Temperature! Well, duh. This is the reason for investing in something precise in the first place. But this means you get a fun science experiment every time you decide to cook some eggs. It means if you want to turn shortribs into filet mignon you cook them at 55C, but if you want to turn them into pull-off-the-bone ribs, 62C gives them a completely different texture.
• Fish: also great. Salmon is so easy, and quick, and perfectly cooked every time. And has even worked fine straight from the freezer.
• Vacuum packing is fun: This still hasn't gotten old. I might still have a 7-month old slice of bread somewhere. I will soon be sealing up an iPad and trying it in the shower.

How To Dress For -27F

Recently went skiing and at the start of the week it was shockingly cold. Before it warmed up and dumped a bunch of lovely fresh snow on us the second half of the week, we had to adjust to being outside in temps as low as -33C. That's properly cold.

What eventually worked for me:

• three layers of wool: long-sleeve tops, each outer layer progressively thicker, outer two layers with zip-up necks
• wool head covering under helmet
• stretchy sleeve covering neck, chin, mouth
• helmet with padded ear pieces and vents closed
• goggles
• another stretchy bandana thing covering face, nose, ears
• ski shell
• wool leggings
• ski trousers
• wool ski socks
• ski boots [duh]
• silk glove liners
• insulated lobster claw ski glove/mittens (thumb, forefinger, then mitten for remaining 3 fingers on each hand)

top half

That was still kind of cold. Normally when moving I have no problem warming up, but even at moderate speeds through -30C air will wick the heat right out of your extremities. Some lessons learned: 

• snow gets really slow and grippy when it's that cold
• cover up all the skin in the car before getting out
• wool is wonderful stuff
• that said, silk glove liners seem to outperform wool ones at identical thickness
• thicker ski socks do not necessarily mean warmer feet -- good blood flow is key; some people double up on socks and that seems like a bad idea to me
• ski instructors recommend boot heaters and chemical packs for the toes
• heated seats and the heated steering wheel in the rental car were brilliant

Chicago Style Pizza

oven ready

John's Stewart's tantrum about Chicago style pizza was funny but really dumb. People seem to get hung up on the fact that it's called "pizza".  It's like being mad at enchiladas for not being tacos. But hey, there are a wide variety of pizzas, and I find it pretty easy to love all styles.

The biggest problem with loving Chicago style pizza is that it's nearly impossible to get outside of Chicago. Somehow pizza weekend was declared on Friday, so for Saturday I attempted the Chicago-style. It was actually a big success. Exceeded expectations. Made two 12" pizzas for 4 of us, one with sausage and pepperoni, one with sausage, spinach, and garlic.

I am wholeheartedly endorsing www.realdeepdish.com for DIY Chicago style. I've seen different recipes over the years, and even tried some out on my own back in the 90s. But after a very long break from making this kind of pizza, this site looked best to me, and the results speak for themselves. In particular, I used the basic recipe posted on this page.

More On Food Safety, Internal Temperature, and Pathogens

or possibly moron food safety:

I'm really not bothered. I have never gotten sick from my own cooking and very, very rarely from restaurant cooking. I use raw eggs all the time. You can pasteurise eggs by holding them at 57C  internal for two hours. The proteins haven't denatured so it still looks and works exactly like a raw egg. I never do that because I use good eggs and also don't care. YMMV.

I eat rare beef, pink pork, pink poultry. I love oysters. I've gotten violently ill from bad oysters but they are worth it. I've gotten sick a few times from restaurant food. This can be down to poor hygiene by the food handlers or it can be from bad ingredients improperly cooked or tainted raw veg.

If you are nervous about food pathogens for whatever reason -- and some people have very good reason to be --  but still don't want to overcook things, definitely study the pathogens, study the time vs. temp data, get a good thermometer, and be disciplined in your cooking.

Cooking to Internal Temperatures: Duration Matters

I don't remember where I found this chart [apologies, kudos, and thanks to the originator] but it illustrates a key concept in cooking that many home cooks are ignorant of: "safe" internal temperatures when cooking depend on duration.

Usually "official" recommendations for food cooking give just a temp at which most pathogens would perish instantly and at which the taste and texture of your food also perish instantly. The government doesn't care how your food tastes, they are optimizing for reduced illness. And companies don't want to get sued because you got sick. I don't want to get sick, either, but I'm honestly not that bothered. I do want my food to taste good and I don't want to go to the expense of sourcing really good meat to eat only to ruin it by cooking it too long.

The chart above is a simplification. The poultry curve is for salmonella. Certainly there are other pathogens that might be in poultry. And I've looked at the raw [heh heh] data from FSIS, and the other simplification is that the curve changes depending on factors such as %fat of the poultry in question. But the chart is perfect for illustrating the temperature and time aspect of cooking safely.

So the FDA says to cook your chicken or turkey to internal of 165F, which is horrible thing to do to a good breast. On the previous post, Joe mentioned he got much better results cooking to 160F (for 3min).  A few degrees can make a big difference. So can a few minutes.

What the chart tells me is that if, say, I'm smoking chicken at a relatively low temperature, and thus it is taking a long while to cook, and if the lowest internal temp is 62.5C at a given checkpoint, I can pull it off in 15 minutes regardless of what the internal temp is then. So if I wanted to take it off the heat at 65C, I would go with either 65C or 15 minutes elapsed, whichever comes first.

Cooking isn't always about the lowest temperature possible. For delicate items or ones that dry out easily -- poultry white meat, pork loin, good steak, most fish -- I err on the low side. For other items, I cook them to much higher temperatures not out of safety concerns but because I think they are better that way. Best examples: goose leg confit (all poultry legs, for that matter), pork shoulder (pulled pork), various braising cuts and such.

Bottom line: if you want to avoid overcooking a particular piece of meat, think of duration when it comes to internal temperatures.

There's plenty of good information on the web about food safety. Douglas Baldwin, for example, has a really nice introduction to it, written as part of a sous vide primer but of good general interest.

Sous Vide Turkey Breast

For Thanksgiving this year I cooked the turkey breasts sous vide, to rave reviews and enthusiastic overconsumption. For years I've been cooking the breasts and legs separately, usually roasting the breats on the bone. Last year for boxing day I also tried an herb-brined smoked turkey breast on the bone, which was excellent. This year for thanksgiving I broke down the turkeys, made stock out of the backs, breastbones, and wings, separated legs and thighs and roasted those, brined the boneless breasts, then cooked them sous vide before finishing under the broiler with plenty of butter.  I plan on doing the same next year.

I used boneless breasts from 2 turkeys.

brine overnight, about 15-16 hours

from Ruhlman & Polcyn's Charcuterie:4l water
350g salt
125g sugar
42g pink salt
2 bunches fresh tarragon
5 cloves garlic, crushed with flat of knife
a couple bay leaves
20g black peppercorns
(note for next year: some sage and/or rosemary might be nice)

rinse, dry, & bag each with a hunk of butter then cook sous vide @ 61C for 3.5 - 4 hours

To finish, coat with butter and put under broiler, skin side up, until skin is dark brown and crispy.

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.