Business took me to Santa Barbara Monday and Tuesday of this week. I ended up flying into LAX and driving up because of flight times. Turned out to be a good choice because the drive was beautiful. Santa Barbara was a pretty little tourist trap of a town, with great views, lovely old Art Deco and Victorian buildings, and a mission church build on the site of the old one. Both ways the fog was in, misting everything in gray and making it almost pretty enough to make me want to live here.

        

I spent the last week in Chicago for the National Plastics Exposition, the Annual SPE technical conference, and running some switch grass on the TG-MS st our local office. If you haven't ever been to the NPE, it is amazing. The entire McCormick Convention center is filled with polymer manufacturing and processing equipment. Add to that beautiful days, a decent if disorganized conference, good friends and hot jazz and it almost made up for the horror of Chicago pizza. For those spared the experience, think of tomato sauce and cheese on toast. And that was what they called thin crust.

Looking out my window across the lake at Canada



Downtown at dusk



and after dark, ice cream trucks! Who knew?

        

We decided to try a sous vide approach to both beef ribs and buffalo brisket this time.

4 beef ribs
1 slice onion
1/4 tsp garlic

1/2 buffalo brisket (about 5 pounds)
1 slice onion
1/4 tsp cumin
1/8 tsp garlic
1/4 pepper
2 tbsp duck fat

We first smoked the ribs and the brisket for 2 hours over a cool (200-250) smokey fire using cedar and mesquite for the wood. At this point they had a nice surface color and a strong smokey odor. We then vacuum bagged the separately with the spices shown above (adding the duck fat frozen because the brisket was very very lean). We then load them into a Sous Vide Magic cooker at 172 F and cooked them for 20 hours. Since it was not close to dinner time then, we quick cooled them in a sink filled with ice/water 2:1. Removing them from the bags let us defat them and collect the juices for future us. When dinner time came around, we heated them back to 150 F on the grill and then blasted them with our chili forge burner to get a nice crust. You could cut the ribs with a fork and we served them with dumplings and salad. Bioth they and the brisket had distinct red lines from the smoke and the contrast between the crispy crust and the tender inside was perfect.


Update on 6/17: The brisket was cut very very thin and reheated in the jus from the bags from yesterday. We made snadwiches on french bread with slices of brisket, tomato, brie, aged english cheddar, lettuce and mango slices. Yum.

        

We occasionally test recipes for a cooking rag and don't publish here. However, the last one we received was so bad it was pretty much an ingredients list. We kind of felt our way through it and the result was amazingly good. So here is our attempt to make sense of half a recipe. Normally I add a dash of fish sauce to slow cooking dishes like this, a trick I got from Gerry, to add complexity to the flavor so the odd part of this really makes sense.

1 celery rib, cut in half and slit length wise
2 bay leaves
4 sprigs of fresh thyme
2 minced garlic cloves
4 anchovies
1 Tbsp tomato paste
5 pounds boneless chuck roast, cut into 2" chunks
2 tbsp oil
1 large onion, cut into eight sections
1/4 cup flour
4 large carrots sliced
2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into 1" pieces
2 cups Pinot Noir
2 cups chicken stock
4 oz salt pork, rinsed
14 oz can of diced tomatoes, drained
1 envelope gelatin
2 cups green peas
1 cup pearl onions
2 tbsp minced parlsey
Black pepper to taste

Tie the celery, bay, and thyme into a bundle. Add the oil to dutch oven and heat until it shimmers. Add the meat and brown on all sides, peppering to taste. When the meat is all browned, Add the onion and cook until softened. Combine the garlic, anchovy, and tomato paste and blend into a fine paste. Add to the pot and stir in for about 1 minute. Add the flour and mix well. Cook until the flour is absorbed.

Add the carrots and potatoes. Mix well and add the wine, scrapping up the fond. Add the stock, the celery bundle, the drained tomatoes, and the salt pork. Place in a 300 F oven and let cook 1 hour. Add the gelatin and mix well. Add the peas, pearl onions, and parlsey. Mix well and return to oven for another hour. Cool overnight, defat, reheat and serve with fresh bread.

        

Enough said...

        

I flew over from London to Belfast to work with some folks at Queen's College on the testing of a DSC Raman system I have been involved with. My university's doesn't have quads like this.

  

I wandered down to the Botanical Garden and saw the statue of Lord Kelvin, who is called in our house "Badger Bane" after that last paper, and watched folks play on the green. I tried some marco shots on honey bees feeding but someone was playing with the setting dial and the camera thought it was shooting marcos at 1/4000 sec at F22...

  

Then I wandered down town to see the Crown, an old gin house owned by the National Trust. It has these snuggeries, little enclosed tables in tiny rooms with doors and peek holes where those who did not want to be seen drink could have a snort.  The tin ceiling was amazingly chassed and painted and the building was beautifully kept.

 

After a dinner of lamb stew and Irish bread, I walked down to the river and saw the old docks as well as the lady statue.

  

On the way back, I walked past Frair Bush's Graveyard. A mound in the middle with 2 carved stones is associated with Patrick. It sticks out into the road because the walls can't be moved due to the chlorea pits behind them. It was sadly closed.

 

I then wandered backing, stopping for lamb kebabs and a Guiness at one of the many kebab shops. (This was the one recommend by Melvin). Then catching up on emails and get ready for tommorrow.  Finally, the view from the top of the MPR Building on campus.

 

        

Tonight was the Spring Court of Honor and both of the boys received merit badges. Ben got Photography and Metalwork while Noah got Home Repair. Ben finally received his Second Class Scout

And Noah was given his Eagle Patch. His Eagle Court of Honor is yet to be held.

        

I had set up my flights before I realized that Monday was memorial Day and so ended up with some down time. I met Alan in NYC and we hit Chinatown for shopping, lunch and ice cream on one of the loveliest days I've seen in the NE. So I got some dried hawthron berries and a Monkey King bronze for Ben while Alan got a 8 foot wax-wood staff for Shing Yi.

Just a lovely day...

The quality of the product and seafood in China town always amazes me.

Lunch at a noodle house - roast duck soup and pork dumplings...

Caroline (the owner) of the Legendary Chinese Ice Cream Factory and Alan

        

Friday we went to Liberty's annual award ceremony and Ben got best in class in mathematics and also an award for a year long A average. Photos to follow...

        

This started as the recipe of Frank's Sous Vide Magic website and developed via an email exchange. I also scaled it back to reasonable quantities. It's not really a sous vide recipe but I think I could make a pressure tight metal canister like the plastic ones that come with the food saver. Instead it uses the controller plus a double lid pot immersed in a water bath.

3.5 pounds lamb* ribs, cut into 1" sections.
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup garlic, minced
1/4 cup ginger, minced
1 tbsp oil
1/2 a bunch of green onions2-3 star anise pieces
1-2 tbsp chili broad bean paste
1/2 - 1 tbsp Sichuan peppercorns (actually 2 Tbsp...)
1/4 cup shao shing wine (I used dry sherry as we were out)
1/4 cup soy sauce
4 cups water, boiling

1 pound Shanghai noodles, cooked and still hot
1/4 pound Bok choy, sliced (baby preferred)
chicken broth to dilute as needed

Heat sugar in a wok until dark brown. Add ginger, garlic, green onions, and oil. Cook to onions are soft and browning. Add the peppercorns, star anise, wine and soy sauce. Cook until fragrant. Add the bean paste and hot water. Bring to a boil and stir until everything is in mixed.

Put the sensor on the bottom of ceramic double lid pot and add ribs. Immerse in a water bath at 78 C/173 F.  Dump the liquid mixture on top of the ribs. Add both ceramic covers and then close the water bath. Let cook 10-16 hours depending on desired texture.

Remove the clay pot from the cooker and cool 4-5 hours to allow fat to rise. Remove fat, take meat out of broth, and filter broth though a colander to remove spices.  Heat broth to a boil and add the meat. Taste and adjust with chicken broth. Add bok choy and let wilt. Spoon meat and bok choy into bowls with noodles, add broth to coverm and dump a handful of bean sprousts on top. Serve.




* Frank uses beef but we had lamb in the freezer.