This is mostly tech notes. No pics, sorry. Allow me to set the table, as it were. "Sous-vide" is a French cooking tecnhique that amounts to "boil in the bag". Unlike an old-school boil in the bag dinner, though, sous-vide is typically done nowhere boiling temp. Sous-vide is used as a means of controlling the cooking process of meats where you want a low temp for a long time. Unlike braising or other "low and slow" techniques, sous-vide keeps all the juices in the meat. My first sous-vide was a pig head. This time around, I'm doing a 7-bone roast, much more "family-friendly" one might say.

My plan was to sous-vide the roast, then grill it on the barbecue. I got a nice piece of roast from Carr's (i.e. Safeway), it's probably 1-1/8" thick, was what, 3 or so pounds, and was reasonably priced at a tad over $12. I had the 7-bone roast marinating in some Goya brand Mojo Crillio sauce for a day, so that took care of any need for salting or seasoning the roast. Just prior to church today, I vacuum-sealed the roast in a FoodSaver bag, and put it a stainless steel stock pot filled with hot water. I got the stove set to it's lowest setting, 170° f. In went the whole thing, pot and all. After getting home from church at 4 p.m., I got the grill going and it was time to put some fire on that roast.

Now here's the deal: That roast was done, and actually overdone. 170° f. was just too warm for a sous-vide-then-grill. I had that roast done on the grill along with a single chicken breast, and both went on and came off at the same time, about 10 minutes maybe. Eight minutes? Ahh, I don't know, but it was pretty fast. Mind you, this is indirect grill, but that thing was going hot. I have a closed grill and it was rockin' at over 325° f. So yeah, in a few minutes I had a seared roast and a chicken breast for my daughter who was for sure gonna pull the "I don't like meat" thing on me.

"So how was it" you ask? Ehhh, well, it was a bit tough, actually. I think the time spent in the tank was right, but the temp should have been 150°, not 170. Sous-vide is a tricky technique to master, and getting the time/temp formula right is the challenge. I think next time I'll attempt it on the stovetop instead, where I can get a lower temp going. I'm for sure going to give it another whack, as there were some occasionally great bits to that roast. There was promise in there, unrealized promise, but promise nonetheless. I'll be back.

I found a recipe for red bean buns over at reicpezaar.com. Having a bunch of red bean paste left over from my previous mochi experiment, I gave it a whack. Well, I suppose I should have read the recipe first. I think I might have found more concise directions on the back of a box, or maybe the side of a Jell-O box. Ahh, you know, looking at the recipe, I don't think the person is trying to make Chinese red bean buns in the 'bao' sense at all. Just a bunch of beans mixed up in a bun.

Okay, fine. I improvised. Forget adding a can of beans into the flour, that's crazy talk. I added in warm milk to get the dough mixed, hit it with the ol' KitchenAid dough hook, parked it for a half-hour. Oh yeah, I didn't have proper bread yeast so I used champagne yeast, the stuff you use for brewing instead. Worked fine. So, after the half-hour, another spin with the dough hook and off to the gym I went while the dough rose. Figure I needed to hit the elliptical for an hour to burn off what I was about to take in.

The recipe calls for 12 buns, but I'll tell you what, the eight I managed were dinky. Probably should have made four decent sized one. Ahh, whatever. I was wondering if I should have steamed some, too.

Well, the pic looks okay, but there really isn't enough bread on 'em. Also, I forgot to add any sugar, but that seemed to not be too big an issue as the red bean paste is plenty sweet enough. Baked 'em for 30 minutes at 350°f. Probably should have gone for 20 minutes, as they were a bit too hard. Overall, much like a biscuit actually. Not bad, but certainly not the sort of fantastic-but-taken-for-granted buns I'd have picked up at Charlies Bakery, or any decent dim sum house for that matter. But for home? Using up what I had on hand? Yeah, the're not bad actually. Not bad at all. Next time, though, I'll dig up a closer recipe, though.

It was the best of mochi, and the worst of mochi. First off, no photos. Sorry. I know, it would be better if I had pics, but hey, the camera didn't want to work. Anyhow, on with the story. Earlier in the week or maybe a couple weeks back, I found this YouTube video showing a lady making red bean mochi. That got my mochi senses tingling, and started me down a path that will probably add an additional 5 pounds to my already overweight (according to Wii Fit Plus) frame.

Mochi 1: Butter Mochi

First off, this is the winner. Here is the recipe I used. I had made this a couple years back, and it's great stuff. Came out pretty good this time, too, except it was a tad bland. My fault, not enough butter. I ended tossing the cut pieces in powered sugar. They were very good thereafter, I took a mostly full pan to church (you can guess how it went from full to mostly full) and it got wolfed. This is a good mochi. Can't go wrong with butter mochi.

Mochi 2: Red bean mochi

To be fair, I have never made red bean mochi. I have never made mochi in a microwave oven. Here is a link to the YouTube vid I went by for instructions. I should have known this would go badly, as I was unable to locate red bean paste at my favorite haunt, Red Apple. I ended up finding some at New Sagaya, although I really didn't like that the metal can showed an expiration date of May 2010. Whatever. I went by the instructions in the YouTube video, but did leave out the salt. I wonder if that mattered? But anyhow, forget the salt. Well, if you watch the YT vid, you'll see the woman roll out the cooked mochi on a cutting board dusted with cornstarch. Let me tell you what, that cooked mochi dough ends up being a gooey stickey glob. Difficult to work with. The red bean paste was almost too dried out, it had pulled away from the walls of the can, what with being so old and all. Tasted fine, though. The YT vid shows making eight mochi, but I think it could have made 10. Either that or increase the amount of red bean paste used from 3/4 cup to 1 cup. Well, here's the deal: I got 'em made, but the cornstarch ended up clumping on the outside in big unattractive lumps. I have no idea now folks manage to get that perfect dusting of cornstarch on the outside of the mochi. I guess practice it is. Now as to the taste, well, the stuff was so gooey it was coming apart in my hand and getting stuck to each fingertip. Gooey. And bland. Needed more sugar maybe. The red bean filling was fine. But that cornstarch, oh, biting into a dry wad of cornstarch is about as appealing as eating raw dry flour. It ain't. So this is not a mochi I'd be taking to church, unless folks were going to pray for it to be healed. I'll see if it's better tomorrow, but it was not the "hot fresh mochi" experience I was hoping for.

So that's the tale of two mochis.

http://www.wowgrinds.com

Meet Porky. He's glad to see you. Anyhow, I was reading offalgood.com and was inspired. Being something of a foodie, I decided to finally take a try at preparing pig head. Rather than do a boiled head as in souse meat, I'm going to give a shot at doing a sous-vide here, like the offalgood.com guy did.

But I know what you want, you want pictures! Here are the pictures of the pig head prep.

Oh, and if you are wondering, no the kids will not be forced to give Porky a taste. Purely voluntary.

I meant to post this like over a year ago, but finally got 'round to it. This lady Clara, I love her videos! Clara is this lady in her 90's who cooks food from the Great Depression era, while describing life at that time.

I figure, hey, the way things are going these days, we might find ourselves with no choice but to survive on hot dogs and water. I tossed her cookbook into my amazon.com cart, so once I rack up $25 of orders, I'll do the free shipping thing and get the cookbook, too. But yeah, do check out her YouTube videos. Classic stuff.

Here it is, at long last. Our inaugural dining experience at the recently opened L&L Hawaiian Barbecue was so worth it. I had curry katsu, as shown here. My loving family chose to partake of the chicken katsu instead. The food was perfect. Perfect. I told the owner as much, too.

The katsu was done just right, with a crispy outside and moist chicken within. The curry? Well, my family will claim it stunk, but then, doesn't good curry smell that way? It was just as one would expect, a classic Hawaiian-style curry plate lunch.

The rice was just as one would wish it to be, two scoop rice. And the mac salad - oh the mac salad - they nailed it. This for me has been the litmus test of so many plate lunch places. Potato salad is not mac salad. Mac-potato salad is not mac salad. Costco mac salad is not mac salad. These folks took the time to prepare a classic Island mac salad.

My only disappointment is that they do not have manapua or malasadas on the menu. The owner told me they only have the "core" menu. I hope they get enough interest to expand and offer up more. I wouldn't have minded a piece of haupia to top off the whole dining experience. Oh, and they serve Pepsi. Bleh. But other than that, it was a dining dream come true.

This is a very slight rework of this pancake recipe over at recipezaar.com.

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 4 tablespoons butter, room temp
• 2 cups flour
• 6 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. Beat eggs. They won't get fluffy, but beat 'em anyway.
2. Add milk and room temp butter. You can cut in cold butter if you want, too. During this stage, the mix will get foamy. Excellent!
3. Add dry ingredients and mix well. The resulting mix will not look like typical pancake batter. It will look foamier, and will be a bit stickier.
4. Get your electric griddle up to, oh, 325° or so. I use a nonstick griddle and apply no oil or spray to it.
5. Pour a small ladle of batter on there and start making pancakes.
6. When bubbles appear on surface and begin to break, turn over and cook the other side.

I found the above quantities yield nine nice-sized pancakes. If you visit the pancake recipe at recipezaar.com, you'll note they show this as being "18 small pancakes". They must mean those "dollar pancakes". Oh, as for taste, these are the best pancakes I've ever had. Note, in the original recipe there is some sugar. I left it out and nobody noticed.