Quack & Vac

We didn't wait very long to break the vacuum sealer and immersion circulator out of their packaging to give them a whirl.  It was just too hard to resist!

We picked up a couple duck breasts for our initial test drive.  This was perfect for our test run because we've made this dish pretty successfully in the past (despite the occasional duck fat spill from substandard bags breaking).  We started by scoring the skin, and seasoning them with salt and pepper.  We also threw a couple sprigs of thyme and rosemary into the bag for additional flavor.  

Once everything was in the bag, we sealed it up.  I don't know why we waited so long to get a vacuum sealer, because this little machine is so magical.  Just slide the bag's open end into the machine, close and lock the lid, press a button, and in less than 10 seconds, you have a vacuum sealed pouch.  It couldn't be simpler! Not only will it come in handy for sous vide cooking, but it will help us better preserve our various ingredients.

We clamped out immersion circulator to the side of our stock pot, which was filled with water, and placed our ducks into the pot.  Several sources online recommended cooking duck breasts at 135 degrees for 2 hours, so that's what we went with.  We programmed our circulator, and within 5 minutes, it was up to temperature.  We popped in our duck and covered it with some aluminium foil and we were good to go.

After 2 hours, the alarm sounded, and it was time to pull out our duck breasts.  We wanted to crisp up the skins, so we took them out of the pouch, and placed them skin-side down in a hot pan.  The fat rendered out even more, and the skin was perfectly crisp.

We pulled them out of the pan, and let them rest for about 5 minutes.  You don't want to lose all those juices when you slice into it!

Cherries are a popular compliment to duck, but we didn't have any on hand.  What we did have was some extra cranberry sauce.  We just added a little butter and brown sugar, and we had a slightly tart and slightly sweet sauce!  As a side dish, we whipped up one of our favorites, the kale-sunchoke farro hash.

Sous vide is such an easy technique that leaves you with perfectly cooked meat every time.  With our new toys, it's going to be so much easier to play around with different meats, root veggies, and even eggs.

Kapnos

With all the delicious restaurants in DC, it's rare that we go back to the same place multiple times.  Mike Isabella has done something special at his first restaurant, Graffiato, and it's one of our all-time favorites, so when he opened a Greek spot, Kapnos, we knew we had to try it.  We've always wanted to try the tasting menu at Graffiato, and since this was a special occasion, we decided to splurge and try it at Kapnos.  We turned over control to the kitchen, and let them make all the decisions for us.  We just sat back, relaxed, and waited for dishes to roll in!

Let's start with drinks.  They have a trio of kegged lemonades, each with a different liquor.  Justin started with the gin lemonade, which also had a slice of grilled lemon, batavia arrack, honey, thyme, and soda.  It had a slight sweetness to balance out the tartness of the lemon, and was quite refreshing.  I started with the mustachio, pisco-based drink with house made ginger beer, maraschino, angostura bitters, and lime.  It came in a copper mug with pellet ice (I have a thing for pellet ice), and was quite tasty.  Maraschino can sometimes be too sweet, but the ginger beer and lime cut the sweetness.

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For our first course, we were presented with a bowl of marinated olives, and two spreads, the tyrokaftarl and the melitzanosalata, served with warm flatbread.  The tyrokaftarl was the clear favorite.  The feta, smoked manori (greek sheeps mil cheese), and yogurt combined for a rich and creamy spread.  It was topped with thin slices of serrano pepper and grains of paradise, which gave it the perfect amount of heat.  The melitzanosalata, a spread of smoky eggplant, roasted red peppers, walnuts and feta, had a nice sweetness to it, and was a great counterbalance to the cheese spread.

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The second course consisted of a couple salads.  The first, and our favorite, was the spicy watermelon salad.  Slices of compressed watermelon were lined up and topped with pickled watermelon rind, and shaved fennel.  The watermelon was super sweet with just the right amount of spiciness.  The other salad consisted of roasted fennel, arugula, dates, and almonds.  The fennel was rather sweet, from being roasted, and not the usual anise flavor you get with fresh fennel.

At this point, it was time for round 2 of drinks.  I took our server's suggestion and tried the papadapolous, made with skinos, a Greek liquer made from from the Mastiha tree.  She described it as piney and nutty, and since I like gin, I figured I'd give it a try.  She did not steer me wrong!  It had a nice tartness from the grapefruit, but was balanced out by some honey.  If you're not careful, you could drink it in one big gulp.  Justin went with the gonzo, a drink made with genever, aquavit, spiced honey, and lemon.  He likened it to a lemon gin martini.

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Course three consisted primarily of seafood.  We were really excited to try out the charred octopus, since it's one of our favorite dishes at both Graffiato and Zaytinya (Isabella's former kitchen).  The octopus was served with green harissa and eggplant.  The octopus was cooked perfectly, with a nice char, and the harissa added a subtle spiciness.  We were also served the clams, a mix of razor clams, geoduck clams, and salt cod.  The sauce was citrusy and fresh, but we could've used more clams, and less cod.  The halibut made up for it though, sitting atop a bed of sauteed garlic and leeks, in an avgolemono sauce.  The halibut was moist and flaky with a golden crust.  The garlic, and leeks were confited but didn't become overly mushy, and lemon sauce were the perfect compliment to the protein.

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For the fourth course, we finally got to try one of the spit-roasted meats that were taunting us as they rotated before our eyes through the evening.  We had the lamb, served with some ancient grains, tzatziki, and harissa.  The lamb was perfectly tender.  Because of the charring and slow roasting didn't have the expected gamey, lamb taste.  The ancient grains didn't add much for me.  I would've preferred no grains, and more meat!  We were also served the duck phyllo pie with cherries and pureed pistachios.  The phyllo was only a couple layers thick, golden brown, and crispy.  The duck was extremely flavorful, though a bit on the salty side, so the cherries helped balance out the salt.  It was served with a pistachio puree, which had a bit too much heat and detracted from the dish.  Along with the lamb and duck, we had the gigandes, or giant beans.  They were tasty, but I would've preferred a different vegetable--we will have to go back and try the hen of the woods mushrooms and/or Greek Fries.

And if all that weren't enough, we still had dessert to come!  We dug our forks into the chocolate mousse

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cake with mastic ice cream, and the apple baklava with apple ginger ice cream.  Let's start with the mousse.  It wasn't a cake at all.  Instead, the mousse was formed into a long rectangle, like a candy bar, and had a thin, chocolate coating covering it with a crunchy bottom, reminiscent of a Nestle Crunch bar.  It was quite rich and decadent, though the mousse was extremely light and fluffy, and the cherry sauce added some sweetness to the dish.  There were also a few cherry jelly cubes, which I wasn't a huge fan of.  However, the mastic ice cream was a hit.  Mastic is made from the sap of the same tree that skinos is made from, and it had a piney nutmeg taste.  It was delicious!  The apple baklava was my favorite though.  I tend to prefer fruit desserts over chocolates, and this was no exception.  Baklava tends to be cloyingly sweet, so the apples added a nice tartness to balance it out.  The apple ginger ice cream had a nice spice to it as well, adding another layer of flavor to the dish.

Overall, it was a great meal.  The service was wonderful, and the food was great.  If you have a big appetite, and aren't sure what to order, I highly recommend the tasting menu.  We were able to try a variety of dishes, many of which were dishes we probably would've chosen on our own.  We can't wait to go back to try the suckling pig and roasted goat!

Our 100th Post!

What better way to celebrate our 100th post, than to go all out with some molecular gastronomy?  I F#*%king love science, almost as much as I do food, so why not combine the two?

Justin has been chomping at the bit to try some molecular gastronomy ever since we got our hands on some sodium alginate and calcium chloride for Christmas.  These may sound like something you'd find in a chemistry lab, but when mixed together in the right proportions, it allows you to sphere-ify liquids.  But that wasn't the only technique we tried.

On the menu, we have some sous vide duck breast with a cherry-port relish and cherry "caviar", roasted asparagus with grapefruit "snow", and some coconut ice cream with Thai tea pearls.

Let's start with the duck.  Start by scoring the skin of the duck, making sure you only cut into the skin and fat.  We then seasoned it with salt, pepper, and some chopped rosemary.  Place the duck in a vacuum-sealed bag, and place in a pot of water at about 135 degrees.  If you don't have a vacuum-sealer, like us, you can use a straw to suck the air out of a ziplock bag (just don't suck up any raw duck juices!).

You'll want to cook the duck for about an hour.  Once it's cooked through, we placed it in a hot pan, skin-side down, to render out the fat, and get the skin nice and crispy.

Meanwhile, we got to work on the cherry-port relish and roasted asparagus.

We used about 2tbsp of the rendered duck fat to saute our shallots, and then added some chicken broth, the halved and pitted cherries, port, and some honey.  Then you just let it simmer and reduce.

Because we were going to sphere-ify our sauce, we didn't want it to reduce too much.  We pulled about 1/4c of the liquid out of the pot, and set it in the freezer to cool.

While it was cooling, we mixed up the sodium alginate with some water.  This is the solution we'd mix with the cherry-port sauce to make spheres.  We also mixed the calcium chloride with water, which served as the water bath that we'd be dropping our cherry mixture into.  We followed the ratios found here.

Once our cherry sauce had cooled to room temperature, we added it to the sodium alginate mixture.  Then we loaded it up into a plastic syringe, making sure to get out any air bubbles.  Then just drop your sauce into the calcium chloride water bath, letting them hang out for a few minutes to really congeal.  Justin figured out a good technique for creating larger spheres; place the tip of the syringe close to the surface of the water bath, and as you push down on the syringe, move it in a circular motion.  This left us with big beads of cherry sauce.

Once they've congealed, scoop them out of the water bath and place into a plain water bath to rinse off.  Then carefully dry them on a paper towel, making sure not to puncture your spheres.

As for the asparagus, it doesn't require any chemistry equipment or strange powders.  All you need is a freezer.  You can do this step well in advance since the grapefruit needs time to freeze.  You'll need to cut the grapefruit into supremes (segments), which sounds like a really fancy technique, but it's actually quite easy to do.

Start by slicing off each end of your grapefruit.  Then, with it standing on one of the flat ends, start slicing off the rind, following the curve of the grapefruit, and doing your best to take off only the rind and pith.  You'll be left with a rind-less grapefruit.  Holding the grapefruit in one hand, start slicing out the segments.  If you're more of a visual learner, here's a quick video.  Once you have enough, just place them on some parchment or wax paper, and place in the freezer.

Rather than steam the asparagus, we decided to roast them.  So once they're cleaned, just toss them on a sheet tray with some olive oil and pepper, and pop 'em in the oven.  When they're roasted to your liking, pull them out, and place them on a plate or platter to cool.  While they're cooling, you can chop and toast up your almonds.  We also finished the asparagus with a little lemon salt, for some added citrus.  Just before you sit down to eat, grab your frozen grapefruit segments from the freezer, and using a microplane, grate them over your asparagus.

Voila! -- it looks super sophisticated, but it is really simple.  If you want to impress someone, whether it's your in-laws, a special someone, or friends, try this recipe.  It's becoming one of our signature dishes.

Now, onto dessert!

We started with the ice cream base; heavy cream, coconut milk, and some vanilla bean went into a pot to boil.  At the same time, we whisked together the egg yolks and sugar.

Once the cream/milk mixture had thickened, we tempered in the eggs.  Make sure you go slowly so you don't end up with scrambled eggs.  Once the mixture comes to temperature you can add more in all at once.  We also toasted up some shredded coconut, to be added at the end.  Next, throw your base back on the stove and let it thicken a little more, until it will stick to the back of your spoon.

Now your base should be all set.  Go ahead and let it continue to cool.  Once it will no longer create condensation go ahead and throw it in the fridge.  This basic recipe will work for regular churned ice cream, creme brulee, etc.  But we had something much more interesting in mind for 100th post.  Dry ice!  It's perfect for our purposes because it is cheaper, and colder than an anti-griddle.  Ok, we can't really say don't try this at home...but be careful if you do.  We consulted this webpage for some tips.  Honestly, it was a lot of trial and error.  Similar to the spheres, it took some experimentation to get into the groove with the technique.


First we tried sandwiching the dry ice between 2 cookie sheets, and pouring the ice cream base on top of the top tray to let it freeze.  The tray wasn't cold enough/our base was too warm, so it didn't freeze.

Next we tried placing a metal spatula on the dry ice and pouring the base onto the spatula.  Purportedly, this is how Grant Achatz experimented with it prior to opening his restaurant.  This method worked a little better, but the ice cream disc stuck to the spatula.

Then we tried pouring the base onto some freezer paper that was directly on top of the dry ice.  Again, it kind of worked, but the ice cream stuck to the paper.

Through our trial and error (and making a bit of a mess), we noticed that the drops of ice cream base that dripped directly onto the dry ice were forming nice little pearls, almost like dippin' dots.  So we resorted to pouring the base directly onto the ice.  This gave us a little more room to work with, and allowed us to get a little creative, and made various shapes and splatter designs.

We also experimented with different textures.  You may notice some brown specks in the picture above on the right.  That's the shredded coconut we'd toasted up.  As the ice cream solidified on the ice, we carefully lifted it off with a spatula, and placed it in the freezer.  If you want it to be frozen on the outside but creamy in the middle, don't bother putting it in the freezer...just eat it.  If you want it a little more frozen, stick it in the freezer while you make more.

To compliment our coconut ice cream, we made some Thai tea pearls.  We used the same method as we did for the cherry sauce, though we doubled the amount of tea for a more concentrated flavor.

The tea pearls were a welcome addition to the ice cream.  It took us awhile to get the shot for our final presentation so it didn't turn out the prettiest.  While we may not be ready to be chef de partie at Minibar or Alinea, we made food in our own kitchen that tasted nearly as delicious!  We hoped you enjoyed this as much as we had fun experimenting with some food science.  Thanks for following along for our first 100 posts, and here's to 100s more!

China Eats: Everything with Legs, but the chair...

As you know, we recently returned from a 2 week vacation in China.  We did as much sightseeing as we did eating, and we're going to share some of the deliciousness we enjoyed from across the world.  I'm typically not one to take pictures of food in restaurants, so I apologize for the limited number of pictures.

After landing in Beijing, and getting settled into our hotel, I quickly noticed the room service menu in our room, and the unusual offerings...

The first item listed is "Chinese Food".  I'm not really sure what that would entail since we were in China, and most food we'd be eating would be Chinese food.  If you keep moving down the menu, the next dish that caught my eye was the "Combine taste jellyfish head".  I'm not sure why they would just serve you the head, and not the entire jellyfish, nor am I really sure what "combine taste" is.  Next is "Sprinkle agaric".  Now, I have no idea what agaric is, but upon further investigation, it seems to be a Mario Bros.-esque mushroom of some sort.  Then we come to "Staple food".  I'm hoping this means rice or noodles, or some mainstay dish that you would have at every meal, but who knows.  But I think my favorite is the "Mountain bacteria soup".  I'm sure this was just some kind of mushroom soup, but I couldn't help but laugh at the idea of eating "mountain bacteria".  Though our room service menu offered tempting items, we met up with a family friend who treated us to a delicious meal at Metro Duck where we enjoyed course after course of delicious food.  This was our first taste of Peking duck in China, and it was served with thin, crepe-like pancakes, green onion, and cucumbers, as opposed to the steamed buns we're used to getting here in the States.  We also enjoyed some pork spare ribs, fried peanuts, and meatball dumplings.

From there, we flew to Xi'an to visit the terracotta warriors.  Within the city, there is a vibrant Muslim Quarter, bustling with various street vendors selling goods and food.  There were these fried quail eggs on a stick, which were cooked in quite an ingenious device.  Half-circles were carved into the block with a divot for the stick.  So they'd just crack the eggs into each circle, plop the stick in place, and once they'd cooked on one side, give it a flip.  Voila!  Eggs on a stick!  There were also these guys smashing peanuts into a chewy candy.

We didn't try either of those treats, but we did sit down for a bowl of their traditional lamb soup.

We had to work for it though.  Once we sat down, we were presented with a bowl and 2 pita-like pieces of bread.  This bread was hard though...it almost seemed stale.  We were instructed to tear the bread into tiny pieces and place them in the bowl.

Once we had enough bread bits, we clipped a number onto our bowl, and gave it to the server so they could make our soup.  We had a choice between lamb or beef, but since lamb is the traditional protein of choice for this dish, that's what Justin & I went with.  Minutes later, our bowls came back with piping hot soup.

The bread bits absorbed the oily broth, and became little dumplings in the soup, along with the rice noodles and lamb.  To cut the grease, they served it with sweet (pickled) garlic, and some chili sauce.  The garlic definitely helped cut the oily feel in my mouth, and I probably could've eaten an entire head of that sweet garlic.  We'll try to recreate it here, and share the recipe with you once we've mastered it.  It was quite a filling meal, and I only used 1.5 pieces of bread!  Since we had such a late lunch, and the bread really stuck to our ribs, we didn't even eat dinner!

The only street food we tried in Xi'an was some fried tofu, seasoned with cumin, five spice, and secret hobo spices.  The vendor gave it a quick sear on their flat top, sprinkled it with the seasonings, and presented it to us with a bunch of toothpicks.  It was a great little snack!

The next day, we had lunch at the museum where the terra cotta warriors are housed.  They had chefs preparing freshly shaved, and freshly pulled noodles.  I didn't get a picture of either, but for the shaved noodles, the chef held a block of dough over a pot of boiling water, and using a sharp knife, sliced off thin strips of dough right into the pot.  These were topped with a pork sauce, that kind of reminded me of an Asian-style bolognese.  The pulled noodles were exactly that...pulled and stretched, until they formed thin noodles.  This was served more as a noodle soup.  What I did get a picture of was this bottle of "Seahorses tokay wine".  Now, I'm no biologist, but I'm pretty sure the creature in the jar is some type of lizard, and not a seahorse.  But as you may have noticed, there were some hilarious/entertaining translations.

For dinner, we had 16 courses of dumplings at Defachang Dumpling Restaurant.  Dumplings came in all shapes and sizes, with a variety of fillings.  I think our overall favorite was the spicy chicken, and the duck.  But there was also a tomato-filled dumpling and a pumpkin dumpling that were quite delicious.  The fun part was seeing how each dumpling was wrapped, especially the ones that were filled with meat, since they were in the shape of the animal that was stuffed inside.

 This is what we looked like after eating all the dumplings!

From Xi'an, we traveled to Lhasa, Tibet, where we ate our fair share of naan and yak.  Considering Tibet's location, it's no surprise that there is a heavy Indian influence when it comes to the food.  Most menus included curries and naans, along with some Chinese, Nepalese, and Western dishes.  We at yak at just about every meal.  Similar to beef, the yak is leaner and a bit more tender.  We had it in momo (dumplings), stir fry, curry, noodle soup, and burgers, along with some of the best garlic naan I've ever tasted.  If you are ever in Lhasa, be sure to check out Namaste Restuarant and get the spicy naan.  Another traditional Tibetan staple is yak butter tea.  It was fairly rich from the butter, but also a bit salty.  We also sampled the sweet tea, which was more of a sweet, milk-based tea, which I preferred over the butter tea.  Since we were in Tibet for five days, we had a chance to try some other staples, such as thukpa (Tibetan for noodle), served with, of course...yak! Not to be confused with shomday, which is a traditional breakfast food consisting of fried rice with raisins and mixed with a yak milk-curd yogurt.  It was on the sweet side, but the yogurt offered a nice tang.  We didn't get a chance to try tsampa, which we saw many of the religious pilgrims consuming.  Tsampa is roasted barley flour mixed with butter tea to make a porridge.  However, we did try out the local beers, Lhasa Beer and Hans.  They left much to be desired.
 

We did come across a little bakery called Bread Talk, where they were baking fresh breads and pastries.  Despite items being listed in Chinese and English, no one spoke a lick of English, which made ordering coffee a bit difficult.  Luckily, the pastries were self-serve.  Mom & Dad tried their raisin bread, while Justin & I tried a pastry filled with a chocolate mousse.  They were both really tasty, and we were hoping to pick up some goodies for the train, but they didn't open early enough.  The one item Justin really wanted to try was the Yam Tornado...mostly because it came with a warning (see photo).

Once we were back in Beijing, we made our way to the Nanluoguxiang hutong.  It's a cool little neighborhood with an eclectic mix of old buildings, filled with new hip bars and shops.  The streets were bustling with locals, and there were plenty of walk-up windows dishing out a variety of hand-held snacks and drinks.  Since we hadn't really had lunch, we were ready for a snack, so we decided to try churros with chocolate sauce and soft serve.  That's right...that's not whipped cream on those churros, it's soft serve.  I was expecting it to just be vanilla, but it had a slight coconut flavor to it.  The churros were warm and crisp, and tasted great with the soft serve.

For dinner, we made our way to Hatsune, a great sushi restaurant.  The fish was so fresh that the spines on the uni shell were still moving when it was served.  Our favorite roll had spicy salmon and spicy tuna on the inside, and shaved bonito on top.  The smokiness of the bonito was a great complement to the spiciness of the fish.  I'm a sucker for a good salmon skin handroll, and Hatsune did not disappoint with their version in the form of a maki roll.  Inside was the crispy salmon skin along with some smoked salmon and cucumber, all rolled up and topped with with raw salmon.  Now if I can just find a sushi bar in DC that will make that for me...

The next night, we met up with mom & dad for a little complimentary happy hour at their hotel, followed by dinner at GL Cafe, a 24-hour "diner", serving up Cantonese-style food.  The stand-out dishes were the bbq pork, the spicy head-on shrimp, and the ma po tofu.

After our day trip out to the great wall, we ended our day by dining at Made in China.  Here we ordered hand-pulled noodles with pork belly, scallion pancakes with pork, and eggplant for our vegetable.  The noodles were great with the crispy bits of pork belly.  I could've done without the scallion pancakes though.  I had envisioned them as being topped with ground pork and a delicious sauce, but instead, they were essentially stuffed with a pork patty.  They were a bit heavy for me.  But the eggplant was delicious; cooked in a hot pot with a tasty sauce.

On our last full day in Beijing, we went out with a bang.  We started with lunch at Pass By Bar in the Nanluoguxiang hutong.  We'd passed by it before, and their variety of beers caught our eyes.  They have a nice little courtyard, and tons of entertaining posters hanging around the space.

My favorite is that one in the middle that says, " Work is for people that don't know how to enjoy drinking beer."  They had several refrigerator cases full of beer from all over the world.  We grabbed a couple, along with a lunch of tempura, spicy beef stir fry, and Thai curry.

To continue on our quest for tasty beer (after drinking all the local brews), we searched long and hard for Great Leap Brewery, a craft brewery tucked away in the hutong.  After seemingly walking in circles, Justin's internal GPS honed in on the hops, and got us there.  We were greeted by Liz, a Seattle native, that takes care of all their marketing.  We settled in at the bar, and opted for 2 samplers, so we could taste 8 of their 15 beers.

The hands-down favorite was the chai masala stout.  It had the malty, roasty taste of a stout that you would expect, but the distinct spiciness of the chai masala.  We each ordered a pint, and snacked on some ma la peanuts, the Chinese version of bar nuts.  These peanuts were toasted with some dried chilis and Sichuan peppercorns to give them some spice and tingly deliciousness.  This is another thing we're determined to recreate, so be on the lookout for a recipe.  They're getting ready to open a 2nd location, which will be a bigger brewpub that will also serve up food.

We couldn't leave Beijing without having more Peking duck.  We met Mom & Dad at Da Dong, which came highly recommended to us by several people.  As on our first night in Beijing, the duck was served with thin, crepe-like pancakes, along with plum sauce, green onions, and cucumber.  Considering Beijing is the birthplace of Peking duck, it pains me to say that I've had better here in the US.

But our trip really wouldn't be complete without a visit to the Wanfujing Night Market, where you can find an assortment of bugs on sticks, fried for your eating pleasure.  There isn't much to say about it, so I'll just let the photos speak for themselves...

That's right...centipedes, scorpions, seahorses, starfish, squid, snakes, lizards, tarantulas, and sparrows were all available to eat.  Now those were the more unusual offerings.  They did have more normal items, like candied fruits, tofu, and meats.

Justin couldn't resist the small scorpions on a stick though, and he was the only brave one in the bunch to indulge.  The 3 small scorpions were fried twice, and seasoned with secret hobo spices.  He said they tasted like fried chicken and over cooked shrimp.

Needless to say, he walked away from the night market without getting sick.

It was an exciting journey, eating our way across this huge nation.  We sampled yak on the roof of the world, ate fresh fish from the sea, and ended our adventures with appetizing arachnids.  In true Chinese fashion, we ate everything with tails except coins, everything with legs but tables and chairs, everything in the water but a boat, and everything that flies except a plane.