Confit Salmon - Sous Vide

Had confit salmon in a fancy restaurant and fancy having a go yourself?

Well, it's disgracefully easy, so get on in there and have a go! The usual disclaimers apply as do for consuming raw salmon (fresh, sush-grade fish etc.) if you want to make this at home.

I'd recommend that this is most appropriate served as a starter rather than a main - it's rather rich! Also because in this case, the confit method and temperature doesn't actually 'cook' the salmon, but more 'changes its texture' slightly; it is quite a soft consistency, so you will want contrasting textures with it (i.e. vegetables with a bit of a crunch, whether fresh, or cooked until crisp), and because of its richness, maybe something with a bit of acidity, i.e. lemon juice, or fresh, lightly 'pickled' vegetables to counteract this. For the record, we had it with Anya potatoes, and a mixture of sliced baby courgettes, petit pois and a little samphire tossed in a pan with some butter and a squeeze of lemon juice... it was a nice combination, but as I said, best in starter portions!

Feel free to throw in your own fresh herbs and spices with the dry brine, I'll be interested to hear whether you think you can taste them after cooking!

Serves four as a starter (or two as a main, if you think you can take it on!).

Pork with Marsala and Fig Sauce and a Blue Cheese Cream

This is inspired by a delicious, yet simple dish I ate in France many years ago, of pork escalopes pan-fried with a splash of Marsala wine and fresh figs.

The figs I had were green figs, and luscious red inside and full of flavour. If you can get really delicious tasting figs (I suggest you slice off a small sliver and taste it - you'll know!) then you could just pan-fry them for a minute or two with the pork and add to the sauce just to warm through.

*Photos to follow shortly*

Good, fresh figs are pretty hard to get hold of sometimes, and this recipe enhances their flavour in the sauce with the sweet yet sour hint of pomegranate molasses (but don't worry, there's an alternative if you can't get hold of any).

If you have a water bath, I've given instructions to cook this sous vide. If not, don't worry, there are conventional instructions, or you can either serve a couple of pork escalopes per person, maybe pan-fried in butter (you could even skewer a slice of parma ham to one side of each escalope), or cook a tasty pork chop each, to your liking, and serve with the sauce.

Easy Butter Poached Sous Vide Lobster Tails (includes Thermomix method)

The most succulent and tender lobster tails cooked to perfection...

Cooking at a precise temperature means you will get the very best out of your lobster - and with this method, inspired by Thomas Keller's way of poaching lobster (à la French Laundry Restaurant) there's no chance of over-cooking it and ending up with rubbery or dry lobster.

          

This is best made using either a sous vide machine (or equivalent) or a Thermomix, to control the temperature - however, if you're patient, you can make it by heating up a very large pot of water until it reaches the correct temperature, and then stand and monitor it for 15 minutes while your lobster is in there and maintaining the temperature by turning the heat underneath off and on! (I've done this in the past with salmon and steak, when I didn't have so many gadgets in my kitchen!).

This will serve two people as a starter or light lunch - however you can easily increase the number of lobster tails and butter as appropriate (just keep them two to a bag - if cooking in a Thermomix, you may only be able to fit in three as a maximum). See my blog here for serving suggestion of lobster mayonnaise, buttered asparagus, watercress and grapefruit salad and crostini.

The Perfect Steak - Cooked Sous Vide (including Thermomix Instructions for TM5 and T31)

Whether you enjoy your steak rare, medium-rare, or medium cooking it 'Sous Vide' is the way to get perfect results every single time...

When I met my partner years ago, I cooked him steak 'sous vide' in the early days, and it was the first time he'd ever had it cooked that way. In those days, I didn't have any high end kitchen gadgetry - no vacuum sealer, no sous vide machine and no Thermomix. It was just a couple of steaks in re-sealable sandwich bags with the air pushed out (via water displacement - sink them in a bowl of water almost to the top before sealing) pegged over a stock pot full of water which I'd heated to 55 degrees celcius, and carefully monitored with a sugar thermometer for an hour, while I did other things in the kitchen, then seared in a pan once it was ready. A little labour of love, but worth it for such tender and juicy steaks (well, they do say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach!).

He's pretty much had steak cooked sous vide ever since that night, he was so bowled over by it - so I'm very glad I don't have to hover over a stock pot any more, and I'm lucky enough to be able to have the technology in my kitchen to do it other, easier ways now (including him cooking it)!

And there are really only four things you need to do, to cook your 'perfect' steak...

Sous Vide Salmon in the Thermomix

Simply the most delicious way of cooking salmon I've encountered...

The thing about cooking things 'sous vide' (which translates to 'under vacuum' - although don't worry, you don't need a vacuum sealer for this dish) is that by keeping the temperature of the water you're cooking in constant, the internal temperature of the food is controlled, and you can cook it through at the perfect temperature all the way through without the outside being over-cooked, or the inside being raw or cold.

This salmon is cooked 'a la Heston Blumenthal' - the flesh is going to be of a soft and yielding nature; heated all the way through, but rare. This is the time and temperature for the perfect textured salmon, according to Heston Blumenthal's tastes and I love it, but it's not for everyone, so if it doesn't appeal then cook it at a higher temperature for longer (e.g. 55-60C for medium rare to medium - although if you want it well done, then it's not really worth cooking it this way, there are plenty of other methods - steaming in a parcel is a good one, to retain the best moisture in well done salmon while you cook rice or potatoes in the internal bowl, and vegetables in the Varoma tray).

I love to serve it with a warm new potato, green bean, caper and lemon salad with flat leaf parsley - once the sous vide cooking is done, you could add any herbs or spices you liked, before the quick pan sear (which is optional, but highly recommended). For my instructions for how to cook the perfect steak sous vide in the Thermomix (TM5 or TM31) have a look here - you won't go back! And to *safely* cook chicken breasts sous vide, look here.

Sous Vide Chicken (with Thermomix method)

If you've never eaten chicken breast cooked sous vide, then this will be a complete revelation.

This may even 'spoil' you for eating chicken breasts cooked by other people, or at restaurants and pubs (unless they've cooked them perfectly, of course!), so be warned, you can't un-taste this! It is quite simply the most perfectly moist and tender chicken breast you will ever eat.

And there are really only four things you need to do, to get perfectly cooked chicken (oh, there's an optional extra too, but I'll leave that one until the end!).

The Perfect Sous Vide Turkey (and a brine to make your oven-baked turkey more succulent)

It's so unbelievably good, it's DEFINITELY not just for Christmas, or Easter, or Thanksgiving...

Aside from a turkey afficionado's dream for cooking the perfect turkey, this is also perfect for making the most extraordinary use of those frozen (single) turkey breasts marketed for family roast dinners, which come in 800g frozen packs in the supermarket - not my usual choice, but when you're initially experimenting, you don't want to be going out buying enormous, organic, rare-breed turkeys and butchering them into appropriate portions at great cost to yourself - so this is where I started off to perfect the brine and cooking.

And, with the brine and cooking time perfected, it was literally the best turkey breast I'd ever tasted in my life! So, you can stick with the frozen, more economical version, knowing it's going to turn out sublimely, or ramp it up to something more upmarket in the turkey arena, knowing you'll have a rapturous experience when you bite into that first mouthful of moist, tender, free-range, slow-growing, individually plucked and hung turkey, delicately flavoured with subtle herbs and spices, perfectly browned at the end, in a pan, to bring out those rich caramelised flavours... oh, sorry, did I make your mouth get a bit excited?!