Tag: sous vide

Categories
food product review reviews

codlo review

codlo review

Sous vide is the process where food is vacuum sealed and cooked in a water bath. It’s used by professional chefs, mass caterers and is  gradually making it’s way into the domestic kitchen. I’m no stranger to sous vide. I’ve been writing about it for many years, and have been lucky enough to own a full size sous vide machine for a while. But the size and cost of these gadgets can be prohibitive. This is where the Codlo sous vide gadget comes in.

Really, what do you need for sous vide? Water at a constant temperature. Not inordinately difficult with a thermometer and an insulated container (such as a cool box) but plenty of faff. Codlo us essentially a thermometer, timer and resistor all in one. By using a kitchen appliance you possibly already have, such as a slow cooker or rice cooker, the Codlo converts it into a sous vide machine.

How does it work?

Plug your gadget into the Codlo, then plug this into your socket. Then drape the probe into the water. Set your temperature and timer, and press go. Off it goes! The probe measures the temperature of the water, cuts off power to your slow cooker if it’s too hot, and lets it back on to warm it up again. It merrily ticks away like this and the timer bleeps when it’s done. Simple.

It’s a very, very pretty device. The smooth curves, smart LCD screen and cool packaging scream of a well-designed product. It’s immaculate. And because all you’re doing is dipping the probe into water there’s no cleaning up to do.

I tried a bunch of things in it to give it a proper road test. The first thing the instructions ask you to try are eggs, so I did exactly that – but scotch eggs. I’m not a huge fan of the super runny egg, so 45 minutes at 66C, followed by a brisk deep frying and a gentle bake brings them out just the way I like them – set like jelly!

Triple cooked scotch eggs. Sous vide, deep fried then baked.

A photo posted by Gary Fenn (@thebigspud) on

Chicken on the BBQ can be hit and miss between anaemic raw meat and leathery charcoal. Pre-cooking avoids this and sous vide is the perfect way to ensure your meat is fully cooked before finishing them on the BBQ for that smoky edge. I tried some chicken kebabs, and then flamed them on the barbecue.

Tandoori chicken on the BBQ. That’s Monday night food.   A photo posted by Gary Fenn (@thebigspud) on

It comes out gloriously juicy as it hasn’t spent ages drying out over the coals. I also cooked a bunch of mixed fish for a Heston fish pie. It was pretty epic.

Sous vide fish ready for a pie A photo posted by Gary Fenn (@thebigspud) on

Top tip: fill the cooker with slightly hotter water than you think you need and let it come down to temperature rather than come up. It takes much longer to warm the water than it does to cool it down (you can leave the lid open or add an ice cube to chivvy things along). I find about two thirds boiling water from a kettle and a third water straight from the cold tap is a good starting point.

The Verdict

The results are identical to cooking in a more expensive machine. I cannot tell any difference. With that in mind I give it my strongest recommendation. If you have a water cooking gadget already such as a slow cooker and would like to try sous vide then you must give it a go.

One thing is that you will need a vacuum sealer – such as such as this one. But whether you buy a Codlo or larger unit, you’ll have to buy this anyway. The Codlo unit itself is £119, versus ~£350 for a SousVide Supreme.

And why should you sous vide? For me it’s the perfect medium for cooking many things – once you’ve tried a steak in a sous vide you won’t want it any other way. The melting middle is just what you’re after. Chicken wings and thighs also go perfectly in it. And while some may sneer at boiling an egg for 45 minutes, the margin of error in the traditional method is so narrow – I’m sure we’ve all left eggs 30 seconds too long when soft boiling – sous vide is no extra effort. And sous vide is great at cooking larger quantities too.

Want another view? Check out Kavey’s post, featuring some great steak cooking!

And here’s A Glug of Oil’s review

I was sent a Codlo to review. You can buy one from this link, and I’ll get a kickback for doing so (the price is the same to you).

Categories
chicory food salmon

curry salmon with confit chicory

It’s not an everyday pairing this one: lightly spiced salmon paired with bitter-yet-buttery confit chicory. And it needs a bit of kit too, namely a sous-vide machine and a blowtorch. But the results really are worth it.

Read more “curry salmon with confit chicory”
Categories
food lamb pork rosemary stock thyme tomato

slow cooked pork and lamb ragu

I had a great big clear out of the freezer and unearthed heaps of lamb and pork. Great big lamb shanks and chunks of pork all solid as rock and crying to be used up. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to make a slow cooked pork and lamb ragu. Kinda traditional style, but I used a few Knorr flavour pots to kick things along. If you don’t have stock pots, add about 6 cloves of crushed garlic and a tablespoon of dried Italian herbs such as oregano, basil, or parsley. I didn’t even have an onion in the house so I didn’t bother.

After a brief sear I pretty much chucked everything in a pot and left it to cook on a low oven for 14 hours. I would’ve used my slow cooker but it wasn’t big enough! Step forward my largest Le Creuset casserole dish to house the meat mound.

The rich meaty smell filled the house, the kind of smell that drives everyone mad with hunger, the kind of smell that brings people in off the street to investigate.

Happily there was some cheese and broccoli bake in the freezer too to make a mean topping. A bit like a shapeless lasagne al forno.

I could eat this sort of stew all day. Thankfully it made buckets of the stuff so much of it returned to the freezer for another day! You don’t have to make the absurd quantities I have. Scale it down to sensible proportions as required and you’ll have all the pork and lamb ragu you need. Make sure that pasta’s al dente and you add back to the sauce to combine for the last minute or so.

Print

slow cooked pork and lamb ragu

Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 4 lamb shanks
  • 8 pork osso buco
  • 1 sprig rosemary
  • 1 sprig thyme
  • 4 tins tomatoes
  • 1 litre beef stock
  • 1 Knorr garlic flavour pot
  • 1 Knorr mixed herbs flavour pot
  • 2 tablespoons good quality balsamic vinegar

Instructions

  • Set the oven to 100C. Get a (very) large casserole dish over a high heat. Season the meat on all sides and brown in batches, removing to one side. When all the meat has been seared, return the meat to the pan with all the other ingredients. Bring to the boil and then transfer to the oven. Cook for 14 hours, or until the meats can be pushed apart with a spoon. Shred the meat and serve with pasta.

Want more slow-cooked lamb? Check out Nazima’s pulled lamb. Mouthwatering!

Or maybe Jeanne’s oxtail ragu. Immense!

Perhaps Helen’s more traditional beef ragu is up your street? Delicious!

Leftover ragu? Try Kavey’s recipe for stuffed courgettes. Brilliant!

Categories
asparagus beef food garlic rice steak

teriyaki ribeye steak with garlic fried rice

I’ve been a mild Japanophile since I was a teenager. The best games of the time came from Japan; you had to import them at extortionate prices. As such we pored over every detail and absorbed a lot of Japanese along the way. I took a Japanese module at university to bolster this further, reading James Clavell’s Asian Saga along the way. I’ve always dreamed of going to Japan some day.

It’s against this backdrop I gleefully accepted an invitation to Matsuri St James in the heart of London’s Mayfair. Established in 1993 as a joint venture between the Kikkoman soy sauce manufacturer and a Japanese rail company, Matsuri was among the first restaurant in the country offering tableside teppan-yaki, food freshly cooked on a hotplate.

With a glut of other food writers we were treated to an excellent four course meal. We sampled sushi first, as the sushi chef prepared identical nigiri at astonishing speed. He told me the first month of his training was entirely spent measuring out 15g portions of rice repeatedly, so he is now blindingly accurate. The sushi itself was just as you expect, subtle, refined and clean-tasting.   This was followed by crisp and light Tempura vegetables, with an umami-rich dipping sauce flavoured with daikon.

And then the teppan-yaki mains. And what mains they were. The ginger-scented black cod was delicate in texture but dynamite in flavour, packing an awful lot into the innocent looking portion. If you go, make sure you try this one.

An enormous steak arrived next, angry dark meat picked out by creamy yellow fat. After searing on one side the chef flipped it and CAKED it in sea salt. After a few minutes more he scraped the salt off having done it’s job, and sliced the now rare-cooked meat and served it immediately. This is where teppan-yaki works; if you’d simply been served some slices of meat you would’ve missed the spectacle of an enormous hunk of beef being served. The steak itself was excellent, served with a garlic fried rice.

The meal finished with a bafflingly underthought ice cream, crepes and pineapple, flambéed for no other reason than to make people go “ooooh” when the Grand Marnier flames licked the ceiling.

The meal was sensational. Really good ingredients treated with respect. I’d love to return but the pricing is so far out of my bracket a visit would have to be very special indeed.

As a tribute, I cooked a Japanese meal for some friends. We started with sushi…

Followed by tempura veg…

But the recipe I really wanted to share with you is my interpretation of the steak ‘n’ rice dish. A humble piece of ribeye steak (my favourite cut) cooked sous-vide (not essential but the way I like it; if you don’t have one of these contraptions you can cook your steak the way you prefer) in Kikkoman’s teriyaki sauce and egg fried rice cooked with plenty of garlic and vegetables. It’s not quite the same as a visit to Matsuri St James… but it’s a darn fine dinner.

Print

teriyaki ribeye steak with garlic fried rice

Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 250 g ribeye steak
  • 100 ml Kikkoman's teriyaki sauce
  • 4 cloves garlic crushed
  • 1/2 teaspoon sugar
  • 1 onion diced
  • 1 bundle asparagus sliced
  • 2 carrots peeled and diced
  • 1 mugful cooked rice cooled
  • 2 eggs beaten
  • Sea salt

Instructions

  • Sous-vide the steak with 70ml teriyaki sauce at 60C for 1 hour. Put aside until ready to cook.
  • Get a wok and a frying pan over a very high heat. Put a splash of oil in the wok and add the garlic and sugar. After just a few seconds add the onion, carrot and asparagus and stir fry for 3 - 4 minutes until starting to go tender. Add the rice and continue to stir fry until warmed through.
  • In the other frying pan sear the steak for 60 seconds on each side, adding half the remaining teriyaki sauce to the pan at the end to glaze. Remove to a board then slice into thick fingers.
  • Add the egg and last of the teriyaki to the rice and stir for another 60 seconds. Spoon into bowls and serve with the steak slices on top. Sprinkle a little sea salt on the exposed flesh of the beef.
Exit mobile version