Chicken Pot Pies

Nostalgia Alert!

We recently made a Chicken Pot Pie Casserole and it turned out bad.  The filling stayed watery and loose which made it difficult to serve.  The taste was good and it introduced me to a product called Better Than Bouillon which is great.  

So as a result of that miscue I dug up my old standby Chicken Pot Pie recipe and tweaked it a bit.  You'll need:

• 2-3 chicken breasts (cooked) cubed into 1/2 in pieces. (I sous vided mine at 145F)
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1/4 cup each chopped onion, celery, carrots, frozen corn and frozen peas
• 1 clove garlic (or 1in from the squeeze tube)
• 5 Tbsp butter
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1.5 cups milk
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 2 tsp Better Than Bouillon (chicken flavor) (or 2 chix bouillon cubes)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1 tsp fresh thyme (picked off the stems) (or 1/2 tsp dried)
• 1 pop-open can of croissants

Put the olive oil in a big skillet and set to med  to med high heat.  Add the onions and garlic and cook for 4 min.

Add the garlic, celery and carrots.  Cook another 3 min.

While that is cooking melt the 5 Tbsp of butter in another pan.  We will make a roux for thickening.

Once the butter melts, add the flour and stir to remove lumps and cook at least 3 min to get rid of the raw flour taste.

Add the chicken to the skillet and heat through gently.

Now add the milk products, corn, peas, bouillon, and seasonings.  Bring to a simmer.

Add the roux. Stir to combine.  Simmer 5 min at least.

After 5 minutes it should have thickened enough that a spoon leaves a clear area behind.

Turn off the heat, preheat your oven to 400F and ready your bowls.  This recipe features dough over the tops of the bowls only. If you are a fan of the totally encased, frozen pot pie you might be disappointed.  The difficulty of pre-baking the shells is totally not worth it.

On another note, keep the salt on the low side for this mix.  The dough has a surprising amount of salt in it and could push the sodium into the red once you smash the dough and mix it with the filling. 

Now cut the dough into equal portions and roll it out into thin sheets that just cover your bowls.

Fill the bowls and place a dough sheet over each one.

Notice that my bowls are on a sheet pan.  Trust me, this is the way to handle them.

Bake these in the 400F oven for 15 or until the pastry browns.

This is what they look like when they come out.  Let 'em rest for 5 minutes at least.

Smash the pastry into the bowl, stir and eat!

Holiday Recipes/Techniques to Come!

This has been an awesome Christmas season in the kitchen around here, but I haven't been taking pictures...

...so no new blogs.  But there will be soon.  Here's what I have in store:

• Snickerdoodle cookies.
• Rumchata/bourbon fireside sipper.
• Sous Vide Shrimp Cocktail.
• Chicken Pot Pie Casserole/filling.
• Esspresso Martini.
• Gulliver's Creamed Corn.

See ya soon...

Cheladas

Not just for breakfast anymore!

Sorry for the long dark period. I started my school year and got super busy for awhile.  Time to rejoin the living.  And what better way than with a quick recipe for my latest favorite cocktail -- the Chelada.

This beverage goes by the name Chelada, Michelada, Cahavela, and Bloody Beer -- among others.  I don't really respect the differences, I just want to show you how to make mine.

If you know me you'd know that I don't like recipes that are overly complicated and/or have too many ingredients.  If you read other sites about Bloody Marys and Cheladas you will see that most people put 20 ingredients in there.  Also, I don't like regular Clamato.  I thought that it was the clam juice I didn't like, but it turns out that it is just too thin for my tastes.  This Clamato Preparado is just what the doctor ordered. 

You'll need;

• 12 pack of cold mexican beer (I use Pacifico)
• 4 bottles of Clamato Preparado 
• 3 limes
• Ice
• 1 tsp regular sea salt (or kosher salt)
• 1/2 tsp smoked salt (not optional)
• Worcestershire (optional)
• Cholula Sauce (optional)

Cut the limes into quarters.

In a saucer mix the 2 types of salt.

Use the lime to moisten the rim of your glasses. Run half of each rim in the salt mix.

Squeeze the lime into the glass and toss away.  Fill the glass halfway with ice.

Add equal parts beer and Clamato.  I usually subtract a couple of ounces from the overall volume of the glass and then cut that in half to figure out how much of each to put in.  After the first one you can eyeball it.

Stir once and serve.  If you think it needs to be hotter you can add a drop or two of Cholula or Tapatio (don't use Tabasco, please).  If you think it needs more earthiness you can add a drop of Worchetershire.

The ice is actually optional, but it will slow you down.

When I am feeling lazy I just add equal parts beer and Preparado, but I really feel that the smoky salt and the hint of lime help out a lot.

Another satisfied customer.

More Rambling on Sous-Vide

Learn from my experiences.

I have some more observations about cooking proteins using the sous vide method.  Here they are in no particular order.

1. You really ought to own a vacuum sealer.

   
   Since Sous-Vide means "under vacuum" this type of cooking is more about the bag than the bath.  The zip-lock/displacement method works well, but the added advantage of a vacuum sealer is totally worth the $80 you'll spend on it.  Having a food saver allows you to buy in bulk or at a better quality and store it in your fridge/freezer for longer without spoilage.  Costco sells a large pork loin (not the tenderloin) for less than $20.  From this I can cut two 1# roasts and 11 pork chops.  Bag in various quantities and I can cook pork for weeks.  Salmon fillets, especially the farm raised ones, run large and I can get at least 10 portions from that.  Preseason and bag.  The thicker ones are for main dishes and the thin ones for punching up a salad.
   
   
   

2. Seasonings in the bag should be light.

   
   
   When seasoning food before the vacuum you should use a light hand.  The reason is that if cooked in the bag the seasoning (particularly salt) has nowhere to go and so it goes into your food.  I recently seasoned a whole fillet of salmon as I would for oven or stove-top cooking and bagged it up.  When I used the water bath to cook 'em they were much saltier than I thought they should be.  Why? Well, on the stove-top or oven some of the seasoning comes off as fat is melted out of the food.  In the bag the fat may still come out but the solution of fat and salt come to equilibrium with your food due to the magic of osmosis.

3. There isn't a reason not to buy the latest immersion pumps.

   
   I have tried all of the SV techniques listed in my first SV article.  The cooler and stove-top methods are good but require you to keep monitoring temperature.  The external thermostat is OK, but if anything goes wrong with the placement of its probe you can easily exceed the preset temperature for awhile and the food will be overcooked. Plus you have to move the bags around on long cooks so the water can circulate.
   
   Once I got my Anova Sous Vide Immersion Circulator I was in heaven.  Efficient heating, water circulation, cool looks, and precision control led to total confidence.  Recently Amazon.com had a "Prime Sale" and was selling the latest Anova Culinary Precision Cooker for $139.  I bought one just 'cuz. Although it has an 800W heating element (1000W in the previous model) it is more adjustable and has better electronics -- including Bluetooth so you can control it with your phone or tablet.  Please wait for a sale and buy one.

4. Chill unused food quickly and reheat with the water bath.

   If you cook food SV that you are not going to sear and eat right away, please use an ice water bath to quickly get your food through the danger zone (45F-140F) before storing in the fridge or freezer.  One of the downsides to vacuum bagging is that any bacteria on the surface of the meat can become distributed throughout.  This is why knowing your safe combination of time/temp is so important.  But if you didn't succeed in killing all of the bacteria it can multiply while your food is cooling off in the fridge.  Take the extra time to give your food a quick trip below 45F and be sure to reheat completely following the time/temp guidelines.

5. Salting at the right level helps meat retain juice.

   Everyone from the guys at ChefSteps to Alton Brown celebrate the brining process.   Adding the correct amount of salt to the bag can actually help food retain some of its natural moisture.  Use the weights/amounts suggested by the "equilibrium brining" technique.

Smoky Sous Vide Baby Back Ribs

Look Ma, no smoker!

Since getting into Sous Vide cooking I have tried a few times to do BBQ/smoking with this technique.  I figured the "low and slow" mantra of slow cooking was a natural match for the water bath.  None of my attempts worked.  The most notable failure was a whole brisket that I vacuum packed with seasoning and liquid smoke and water bathed for 40 hours.  There was almost no smoke flavor but the meat was fork tender.

Recently the ChefSteps people were featured for their "Apartment Ribs" on the "Tested" you tube page.  So I tried it and modified it.  Then again, and again. Lately I served this iteration of the ribs for a group of 10 at a party and they were well received.  The main problem with the apartment ribs was the short (6 to 8 hour) cook time. Wifey likes fall off the bone ribs and that takes longer. Lots longer.

There are three steps to this recipe; the preparation of the rub (which contains charred onion and garlic for smoky flavor), slow cooking of the ribs, and finishing in a hot oven or grill.  You can watch the source material but here are my variations.  I separate the racks into 3 or 4 rib portions and vacuum seal with .5 to .75% salt.  Sous vide at 145F for 48 hours. After unbagging and patting dry I brush the ribs with a mixture of molasses and liquid smoke.  Sprinkle with my modified seasoning mixture and bake on the grill for 4 to 5 minutes to make a bark.

One note.  This makes a lot of the rub.  Go ahead and bag it up and use it as needed.

Here we go!  You'll need;

• Some Baby Back Ribs (membrane removed)
• Vacuum sealer (or displacement method)
• Sous vide rig 
• salt (.5% to .75% of rib weight)
• 1 large onion sliced thin (mandolin)
• 1 head of garlic peeled and sliced super thin
• smoked paprika (not the regular kind)
• smoked salt (if you can get it)
• black pepper
• mustard seed
• celery seed
• cumin
• mace or fresh nutmeg
• molasses
• liquid smoke

Remove the membrane from the ribs if it hasn't already been removed.  Rinse the ribs and cut into 3 to 4 rib portions.

Salt the portions.  I used regular iodized salt, but you could use fancy salt if you'd like.

Bag them up and get them into the water bath.  Start the clock. 48 hours is plenty of time to do the rest of this.

Do the rest of this on the day you will serve your ribs.

Slice the onion and garlic exceedingly thin.  Lay out the onion on one parchment paper covered cookie sheet and  the garlic on another.  This is in case it takes one longer to char than the other.

Put them into a 300F to 350F oven for a few hours (3 for me) until they have browned and are brittle.

Let them cool and collect them together in the paper and pour into a bowl.  Crunch everything up into a coarse powder.

Weigh the coarse powder.  This is one unit of weight.  For me it was about 60 grams.

Now add the following spices to your charred onion/garlic;

• 1.5 units of smoked paprika 
• 2/3 unit each of smoked salt, black pepper, mustard seed
• 1/2 unit each of celery seed, cumin, and mace (or fresh ground nutmeg).

This makes a ton of rub that can be ground in small batches as you need.  This bag is what I have left after 5 racks of ribs (about 15 pounds of ribs).  I'm gonna try it on salmon next.

You must grind this up to distribute the mustard seed and to get the right mouth feel.  I use a coffee grinder and pulse it a few times to get a fine coffee-like consistency.

Now make a wash from 2 parts molasses and 1 part liquid smoke.  I put it in a squeeze bottle if I'm going to be making a lot of ribs.

When it comes time to serve, remove the ribs from the bath.

Then remove from the bag and pat dry with paper towels.  Sous Vide meats are totally unappetizing looking but majorly delicious.

Brush on the liquid to the bottom side.

Then apply the rub.

Flip, and do the same to the top.

Put them into a 400F oven or on a med grill (lid closed) for approx 5 min.

Look at the results!

Bones are falling out.  One of the reasons I like to portion the ribs ahead of time is that they are difficult to cut after cooking.  If you have to cut them, do so from below so that you can see the ribs and not ruin the top bark.