Initial attempt at chicken ballotine

Not bad for a first try, I think. Was pretty good even - succulent and very tasty with a good almost papery skin. Can be improved. I had to improvise a little coz I originally wanted to do it over 3 days, but ended up just cooking it right there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfY0lrdXar8

https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-roast-chicken

http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/07/the-food-lab-complete-guide-to-sous-vide-chicken-breast.html

I combined 3 references above. First Jacques Pepin showed the way in deboning the chicken, so that you can stuff the resultant meat (when you roast this, it's called a ballotine). Then I honoured chefsteps in their crispy roast chicken technique where you slooowly bring the chicken meat to serving temp (to get good texture and juicyness), then blasting it with a super hot oven at the last step to get the crispy brown skin. Then, because I ran short of time, I did the initial low temp roast of the chicken at a higher temp, and consulted serious eats for the optimal time to hold at temp.

First the deboning. Turns out to be not too hairy, though the chicken skin turned out a but more fragile than I expected. I had to do a little creative covering when I packaged it later. I then brined the chicken by injection with 5% salt solution.

The stuffing is worth documenting. The lap cheong was outstanding in the stuffing.
1. slowly saute 1/2 a lap cheong to render the fat out.
2. Then saute chopped onions till translucent.
3. Then add rice and coat in oil. Add sliced garlic and mushrooms.
4. Add in chicken stock and cook the rice. I used slightly more water to make the rice moist for the stuffing.

I trussed the chicken with the stuffing and tied the string. Dried the top as much as possible with paper towels. Thankfully, not much incident with spilled stuffing. The chicken was unevenly thick with some spots just having bare skin and other spots having thick meat - I solved it by thinly slicing some of the thick meat and placing the sliced meat in the thin spots.

Because I ran out of time, instead of cooking at 74C for a few hours, I raised the low temp roasting to 95C. I then monitored the meat temp to 63C and held it there for 10 minutes (as per serious eats for pastuerization) by turning off the oven, opening the door to let some heat out, closing it again (a "human" temperature regulator). The internal temp went to 66C max during this time.

Took the chicken out. Raised the temp to 300C. Brushed a little oil on the chicken. Then put it back into the very hot oven. After a few minutes, the chicken skin is bubbling and starting to brown. I turned on the forced fan in the oven and lowered to 275C. I stood there and monitored still the skin looked right (actually turns out it could have browned a bit more). Rest the chicken before eating.

Ang Mo Hae Mee

The star attraction was the prawn stock.

I bought pretty fresh large prawns, peeled the shells and used it to make prawn stock as follows
1. heat oil in a pot and then fry fennel seeds for a few minutes at medium heat
2. Add the prawn shells, turn the heat up and fry until fragrant.
3. Add vegetables (diced one small onion, 2 stalks celery and a little leek) and saute until translucent.
4. Add garlic and saute a bit more.
5. Add water to just barely cover ingredients. Add some thyme and dried kelp and then bring to a boil.
6. Lower the heat to a bare simmer and simmer for 40 mins.
7. filter out the resultant stock.

To cook pasta,
1. Cook the prawns in the prawn stock till just barely cooked.
2. saute garlic in pan with olive oil.
2. add cooked pasta and stir around for a while.
3. Add the prawn stock with the prawns and simmer for a minute.
4. serve with fish roe, sliced sun dried tomatoes and seeweed.

Braised Beef short ribs

Braised the short ribs SV style (as an experiment) for 48hrs at 62C. Not bad... Not bad at all - only thing is : is it worth it to do it for 2 even though it's little effort other than waiting. The braise fluid was my new fangled tomato sauce.... And nothing else.

Served simply with.

1. Puréed steamed pumpkin with a spoonful of Philadelphia cream cheese, dash of maple syrup, some Greek yoghurt and a healthy dollop of black pepper.

2. Grated Parmesan on mini portobello mushrooms and grilled.

3. Steamed mini corn with Japanese sesame dressing and steamed snow peas.

The puréed pumpkin was pretty nice aside from the main attraction.

An improvised Friday night dinner

The squash and the chicken can be repeated. Hence recording for future purpose. The basic braising method for the chicken can probably be reused for other meats.

Squash cooked salad.
1. Cut butternut squash into 3-4cm chunks. Then roast in 150C oven with olive oil and salt till tender.
2. cook quinoa in salted chicken stock (used 1/3 cup for about 300g of butternut).
3. toast pumpkin seeds in dry non stick pan till brown and fragrant.
4. Mix.

Braised chicken. Used a dutch oven.
1. 2 thighs and 2 half chicken breasts. I dry brined the chicken a bit for 1 hour. No other salt added later.
2. Moderately cook some chopped bacon until fat renders out and bacon browns. Set bacon aside.
3. Brown chicken. Put aside also.
4. saute some oregano until fragrant.
5. pour in 1 can of tomato (whole tomato, crushed by hand).
6. cook for a few minutes at boiling.
7. Add in 2-3 table spoons of heavy cream.
8. cook for a few minutes more, mixing in the cream. Add a healthy dollop of pepper. Out in several sprigs of thyme.
9. put back the bacon. Then lay the chicken on top. Make sure sauce just covers the chicken. Add a little water if necessary. Add a few pats of butter on top.
10. boil the lot.
11. put the pot into a 150C oven. Cook for 20 minutes covered, then take out the cover and cook for a further 40-50 minutes uncovered.
12. Take out chicken. Boil the remaining sauce if necessary to thicken.
13. To serve, put chicken on plates and spoon over sauce.

Savory Onion custard

Not sure what to call this really. It's sort of a cross between a Frittata and a crustless Quiche. Kind of made it up using a bit of kitchen science.

It tastes quite nice, is inexpensive, and is very moist inside, but browned outside.

1. For this size dish, I used 6 eggs + 3 tablespoons greek yoghurt. Mix it together with a bit of milk, salt and pepper.

2. Slice one medium onion. On fry pan, saute the onions slowly in a butter/oil mix till they are soft, but not browned.

3. Butter the round pan.

4. When onions are done, pour into the pan and spread everything out evenly. Then pour the egg mixture over it.

5. Place into an oven with steam injection at 70-80C (alternative : use water bath) and slowly bring the egg mixture temperature up to about 65C. This is so that the entire mixture is just short of curdling.

6. Remove pan, and spread a generous amount of grated Parmesan cheese on the top.

7. Re-insert pan into a 190C oven with broiler turned on and bake till the top is brown and egg mix is no longer bubbling up.

8. Take out and cool before cutting.

Cha Siu with Lee Kum Kee

Tried a char Siu done with Lee Kum Kee char Siu sauce.

Result is decent. Though I would have cut the meat differently - against the grain instead of with the grain. That made slicing the meat a bit iffy when cutting through the char. 

1. Cut pork shoulder into manageable pieces. 

2. Dry brine the pork for several hours using salt, Apple cider vinegar and a little maple syrup.

3. Wash the brine off. Then insert into baggies and coat with Lee Kum Kee sauce.

4. Cook at 61.5C for 18 hours. 

5. Take out meat, clean it of sauce and pat dry. Reserve sauce in bag. Reduce the sauce on stove top to a thick consistency.

6. Char the meat in a very hot oven with a broiler turned on (260C). 

7. Take out, and apply the sauce as a glaze and put back into oven (reduce heat to 160C) until the glaze becomes a sticky coat on the meat.

Note: The char siu goes well with mw's home made bean sprouts (below the char siu in the pic). 

Crab meat pasta and a good home made tomato sauce

Made a tomato sauce, following almost faithfully the recipe in this link : http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2014/09/the-best-slow-cooked-italian-american-tomato-sauce-red-sauce-recipe.html

I made about 6 two person portions using 4x800g of canned tomatoes (the tomatoes really reduce down in the long cook).

The pictured pasta was made using the basic sauce and it was pretty good. Went well with a Bordeaux. 

1. Fry some sliced bacon in a non stick pan with no added oil to render the bacon fat at medium heat.

2. Take out the bacon and then put in a healthy dollop of crab meat at high heat. 

3. Stir briefly then add in the tomato sauce. 

4. Stir to mix, then add a dollop of heavy cream. Add back the bacon.

5. Add pepper to taste.
6. Toss with pasta.