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.

That's What Its All A-Trout!

And we're back from out little weekend hiatus.  So tonight we bring you some cornmeal crusted trout and farro with kale and sunchokes.  We weren't really sure what to do with the sunchokes when we got them in our share.  Neither of us had cooked with them before, so we turned to the interwebs for some assistance.  We came across this recipe that not only used the sunchokes, but also put our kale to good use as well.

If you're not familiar with farro, its a delicious little grain.  You cook it like rice until it gets tender.  It has a nice nutty flavor too.  So while the farro was cooking, we started on the other components of the dish.

We sliced the sunchokes and boiled them for about 10 minutes in some salted water until they were fork tender.  Then the kale was boiled for a few minutes, followed by sauteeing the onions in some butter and oil.

Then it was time to slice the sunchokes into smaller pieces, and pan fry them in a little olive oil and vegetable oil.  It didn't take long for them to become golden brown...maybe a few minutes on each side.  Then we tossed in the oyster mushrooms for a few minutes.

Then we tossed the other components back into the pan, including the cooked farro, and gave it a good toss, so everything was coated in the remaining oil in the pan.  All the flavors melded together, and we just added a little salt and pepper to season everything.  We did put our own spin on the recipe by adding a little bit of our porchetta.  It gave our side dish a nice savory, salty component.

While the finished the farro, Justin got to work on the trout.  He pulled out the few pin bones in the filets, then did a simple coating of salt, pepper, cornmeal, and secret hobo spices.

They went into a pan of melted butter, skin-side down, for about 4 minutes while the skin got nice and crusty.  With a quick little flip, it only took another 4 minutes for the other side to cook through.

It was a light, rustic meal.  I felt like I should've been sitting in a log cabin, in front of a roaring fire eating this meal.  With a little squeeze of lemon over the fish, the meal was complete!