• Crème Anglaise

    Posted by PolyScience Staff

     

    Makes approximately 20 lollipops or 2 servings of Crème Anglaise

    Ingredients:
    5 egg yolks
    1 cup milk
    1 cup heavy cream
    3/8 cup sugar
    1 vanilla bean, split, seeds scraped, and seeds and pod reserved
    Pinch of salt

    For more information on food safety, please click here.

    Step 1:
    Set the Sous Vide Professional™ to 179°F / 82°C, with the rear pump flow switch closed and the front flow switch set to fully open. Make sure your cooking tank has approximately a 3-gallon capacity and is covered.

    Step 2:
    In a blender, combine the egg yolks, milk, cream, sugar, vanilla bean seeds and salt (do not blend the vanilla pods). Blend on high speed for 15 to 30 seconds (this breaks up the chalazae on the egg yolks so you don’t need to strain the finished sauce).

    Step 3:
    Pour the mixture into a vacuum bag, add the vanilla bean pod and vacuum seal the bag, removing as much air as you can.

    Step 4:
    Once the target temperature of 179°F / 82°C is reached, place the bag in the circulating water bath.

    Step 5:
    Cook for 15 to 20 minutes. Crème anglaise cooked for 15 minutes will be thin and will just coat a spoon; it will be thicker if cooked for 20 minutes. Avoid cooking longer than 25 minutes, as the crème anglaise can take on an “eggy” aroma, although it will not curdle.

    Step 6:
    Remove the bag from the circulating water, wrap it in a kitchen towel and massage it for 2 to 3 minutes. If you omit this step, the crème anglaise will look lumpy. Place the bag in a cold water or ice bath to chill. For best results refrigerate overnight. Serve the crème anglaise with fresh fruit or freeze on the Anti-Griddle™.

    Step 7: Optional
    Prepare your Anti-Griddle™ by spraying a thin coat of olive oil or cooking spray onto the stainless cooktop. Wipe spray evenly with paper towel. Turn Anti-Griddle™ on.

    Step 8: Optional
    When Anti-Griddle™ surface has reached it’s coldest point, pipe or spoon crème anglaise onto the cooktop. Place a paper lollipop stick halfway across dollop. Allow bottow to freeze before attempting to flip, using a small, stainless offset spatula. Flip, if desired.

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  • Smoked Pineapple with Ginger, Mango and Vanilla

    Posted by PolyScience Staff

    Prep time: 30 minutes
    Serves: 1

    Ingredients:
    2-3 pieces Fresh Pineapple, sliced 1″/ 2.5cm batons
    Basil, Cilantro and Mint Leaves, to garnish
    1 Tablespoon Crystallized Ginger, minced
    1 Quenelle Vanilla Ice Cream
    1 Quenelle Mango Ice Cream
    1 oz. Graham Cracker Crumbs

    1 oz. Turbinado Sugar
    Bamboo Skewers

    PolyScience Apple Wood Smoking Gun™ Chips

    Step 1:
    Set the rear flow adjustment slider of the Sous Vide Professional™ to fully closed and the front flow adjustment slider to the maximum flow to ensure proper circulation. Set the temperature of the Sous Vide Professional™ to 160°F / 71°C.

    Step 2:
    Place sliced pineapple into vacuum bag.

    Step 3:
    Place vacuum bag into chamber vacuum sealer and pull a full, 100% vacuum on the pineapple.

    Step 4:
    Once water bath has reached 160°F / 71°C, place vacuum sealed pineapple in water bath and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from bag and let drain on a paper towel.

    Step 5:
    Place skewers through the pineapple, lengthwise, creating a lollipop.

    Step 6:
    Spread turbinado sugar onto a plate. Press one side of each skewer of pineapple into the sugar, coating evenly.

    Step 7:
    Brûlée the sugar evenly with sugar torch. Set aside to cool.

    Step 8:
    Place graham cracker crumbs on bottom of mason jar or plate.

    Step 9:
    Scoop 1 quenelle vanilla ice cream and 1 quenelle mango ice cream and place atop graham cracker crumbs.

    Step 10:
    Place brûléed pineapple skewers inside jar or on plate and garnish with crystallized ginger, mint, basil and cilantro.

    Step 11:
    Fill jar (or cover plate with salad bowl) with dense apple wood smoke from the PolyScience Smoking Gun™. Seal until presentation.

    Step 12:
    Serve immediately.

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  • Sous Vide Smoked Fingerling Potatoes

    Posted by PolyScience Staff

    Smoked butter has always been one of our favorite things to produce with the PolyScience Smoking Gun™, but now we’re taking it to the next level.

    Serves 2-3

    Prep time: 20 minutes
    Cook time: 60 minutes

    Ingredients
    1/2 Cup of Smoked Butter (Recipe)
    1 lb Fingerling Potatoes
    2 Sprigs of Fresh Marjoram, leaves removed
    Kosher Salt, to taste
    Coarse Ground Black Pepper, to taste

    The Smoking Gun Pro Wood Chips

    For more information on food safety, please click here.

    Step 1:
    Prepare smoked butter with PolyScience Smoking Gun. (Recipe)

    Step 2:
    Set the Sous Vide Professsional™ to 194°F/90°C, with the rear port closed and front port fully open.

    Step 3:
    Slice fingerling potatoes in half and vacuum seal with smoked butter.

    Step 4:
    Place sealed vacuum bag in circulating water bath and cook at 194°F/90°C  for 60 minutes.

    Step 5:
    Carefully open vacuum bag and drain potatoes into a colander, set inside a bowl. Let potatoes drain very well. Reserve butter for next step.

    Step 6:
    Using a hot sauté pan, lightly sear the potatoes in a small amount of the reserved smoked butter. Once golden, add remaining butter, fresh marjoram leaves and season with salt and pepper. Gently toss and serve.

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  • Ideas in Food Sous Vide Workshop at El Ideas

    Posted by PolyScience Staff

    Our good friend Alex Talbot of Ideas in Food was recently in town doing some workshops and a collaboration dinner with Phillip Foss of El Ideas. One of the classes was focused entirely on sous vide. Alex and Phillip were kind enough to let me drop by to snap some pictures and take a few notes.

    I was fortunate enough to arrive just as some delicious gluten-free cookies and chocolate cake were emerging from the oven as part of the morning’s gluten-free baking class. After some intensive “taste testing”, it was time to get the 300 series vacuum chamber set up. This was the first one to ever have left PolyScience and we wanted to make sure that all of the settings were ready for class. The guests started to trickle in and we began.

    Alex said that when he and his wife Aki first started cooking sous vide, he refused to sear the exterior of the meat, not wanting to compromise doneness. As they pressed on, they explored numerous techniques including pre and post sears, blow torches, frying, pre and post seasoning and brining. As of late, I’ve become a big fan of cryo-frying myself. This is where meat that has been cooking sous vide takes a short dip in a bath of liquid nitrogen, followed by a slightly longer dip in a deep fryer. The result is a uniform sear with virtually no over cook. I shared my thoughts on this with the class and Alex had a great idea that produces a comparable result. He and Aki have had great success with frying chilled-sous vide meat until they’ve developed a nice crust, and then warming it through in a low temperature oven or C-Vap.

    One of the things that they’ve taken a stance on is salting prior to sous vide cooking; they’ve found that salting meat prior to cooking tends to cure the meat as it cooks which can dry the meat out and lead to unpleasant textures. In lieu of seasoning meat directly with salt prior to cooking, Aki and Alex have turned to brining. It serves as not only as an opportunity to season, but also to add flavor and moisture. A quick brine is also beneficial for fish and seafood as it rinses the exterior and denatures albumen. Personally, if I am going to cook an serve, I don’t mind seasoning before cooking. If I’m going to cook, chill, and reheat, then I won’t season in advance unless I’m brining.

    As a result of their trials, Alex and Aki have come to approach sous vide with a “low, medium, high” setup. 55°-57°C (131°-134°F) works well for meats and fish. It is also a great temperature for breaking down collagen over day-long cooks. 72°C (161.6°F) works well for eggs and 83°-84°C (181.4°-183.2°F) for most fruits and vegetables. This approach sounded incredibly strange to me at first, but after some thought it makes quite a bit of sense, especially in terms of efficiency. Also, this approach lends itself well as a benchmark to use when you aren’t exactly sure what time and temperature you want to cook at.

    I’ve always cooked my vegetables and fruit at 85°C (185°F) or higher because pectin breaks down at 85°C (185°F).  In the workshop, 84°C (183.2°F) was a revelation. To illustrate this, Pink Lady apples were cooked whole at 84°C for about an hour. The result was a smooth, supple, and purely flavored apple that all the while maintained the crispness of a fresh apple. I was floored.

    Sous vide is an empowering tool when combined with other techniques. Once you understand the fundamentals of cooking such as temperature, seasoning, tasting, and how to sear, sous vide will take your cooking to the next level. Alex and Aki take a very unique approach to sous vide cooking – definitely one worth exploring. I’ve been cooking sous vide since 2006 and I can tell you that I walked out of El Ideas brimming with new ideas…

    Make sure to follow Alex and Aki along through their website www.ideasinfood.com and pick up their books: Great Recipes and Why They Work and Maximum Flavor.

    You can visit Phillip’s Michelin starred restaurant, El Ideas, here: http://elideas.com.

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  • PSCmytools

    Posted by PolyScience Staff

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