Sous-vide Halibut with Scallions, Coriander, and Lemon

Fish cooked sous-vide is moist and custardy.  Too bad it’s a bit... dare I say it… boring. Fancy vocabulary aside, it’s poached fish, and that’s one cooking technique I am ambivalent about. Not that I don’t love the creamy sauces it produces, but the fish itself seems nothing more than a vehicle for sauce.  But I don’t give up on an idea that fast. I’ve been experimenting with sous-vide fish on and off for a few years and finally have a dish that’s too good not to share. Here is what makes this work:

Fish type
Halibut is extremely easy to dry out with conventional methods, so if you got your hands on a thick snowy white sparkling piece of halibut, this method shows off its texture like no other. Of course, there are other fish good choices, like striped bass or red snapper

Temperature
I’ve seen temperatures for sous-vide fish from 104F to 140F and have tried almost all of them. For halibut, the magic number (for my taste) is 128F. Of course, at this temperature you are not killing either bacteria or parasites, so your halibut needs to be fresh (to deal with bacteria risk) and you need to be willing to take a tiny risk that it might contain parasites. Of course, even if it does, the odds of them making you sick are tiny.

The timing is crucial. No, you can’t keep things indefinitely in the water bath without changing the texture, and it is particularly true of fish. 15 minutes per inch at 128F works well.

Cooking medium
I’ve tried cooking fish in zip lock bags with no additions, and with oil. Oil turned out to be very beneficial. It’s not just the temperature that counts, but heat capacity of the cooking medium. Oil transfers heat a lot slower than water and produces more supple results. Normally, you’d need a lot of oil to poach fish, but zip lock bags pack the oil very efficiently and let you get away with very little.

Flavor
Since we’ll be cooking fish in oil, why not flavor it? I love a mixture of scallions, lemon zest and coriander seeds. Not only do I infuse the oil with them, but save them, crisp them up, and use as a topping. For the finishing touch, I broil halibut for just a minute with Dijon mustard butter. It was wasabi/sushi combination that inspired me to try it, and this topping was a definite keeper.

If you want to try this dish, here are the details.

2/3 cup (150g) grapeseed oil
2/3 cup (40g) scallions (green and pale green parts) cut into ½ inch lengths
1/2 tsp (1g) coriander seeds, crushed with a skillet
zest of 1 lemon removed with a coarse zester or peeled with a veg peeler and julienned.

Put oil, scallions, coriander seeds, and lemon zest into a small pan, bring to a gentle simmer, reduce heat to low and let cook for 5 minutes swirling the pan occasionally. No color should develop. Cool.

Strain and reserve both the oil and the solids. Don’t wash the pan yet.

Salt 4 halibut pieces (about 6 oz each) 1-24 hours before cooking and refrigerate.

Set up a waterbath to 128F.

Dry halibut, put into zip lock bags (1-2 pieces per bag), separating by thickness. Divide oil between bags. Submerge into a bowl of water to push out the air and seal. Cook at 128F for 15 min per inch.

Put the scallions and other reserved solids back into the skillet and cook over medium-high heat stirring occasionally until brown.

1 Tbsp (14g) melted butter
2 tsp (10g) dijon mustard

Mix melted butter and mustard together with a fork. It will want to separate at first, but will come together after about a minute of mixing.

Eventually, it should look completely smooth.

Turn on the gas broiler or use a plumber’s torch to finish the fish.

Remove halibut from bags and place on a paper towel to catch the drips (do NOT dry the fish all over). Place in a broiler safe dish, top with a thin layer of mustard butter and pop very close to the broiler (about 2 inches away) to make it golden as fast as possible, 1 min tops. Or torch the top if you don’t have a gas broiler.

Divide the scallions / zest / coriander topping equally between fish pieces and serve.

Thin Crust Pizza: Baking in the Oven (Video)

YouTube Link: Thin Crust Pizza: baked in the oven
More Videos: Helen's Kitchen Channel

If you are in need of a pizza stone, here is one on amazon.

All-purpose tomato sauce
This recipe makes enough sauce for about three 10-inch pizzas.  The leftovers taste great on top of pasta, fish, etc.  You can make this with either crushed or diced tomatoes.  If using diced, you’ll have to puree the sauce in the end with a food processor or blender.

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 yellow onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp fresh rosemary, minced (optional)
14.5 oz can of crushed tomatoes with juice (preferably Muir Glen)
A pinch of chili flakes
1/2 bay leaf (optional)
Salt

1. Set a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Add olive oil, onions, and a generous pinch of salt. Cook stirring occasionally until completely translucent, very tender, and golden brown, about 15 minutes.
2. Stir in garlic and rosemary and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute.
3. Add tomatoes with their juice, chili flakes, and bay leaf. Simmer until most of the liquid evaporates and the sauce thickens, stirring every 10-15 minutes or as often as necessary to make sure the sauce doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan. This will take anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour depending on your pan.  Remove bay leaf. 
4. If you used diced instead of crushed tomatoes, puree with a food processor or blender (I use immersion blender) until slightly chunky. Cool completely and use as needed. The sauce will keep in the fridge for up to 3 days.

Grilling Thin Crust Pizza (Video)

YouTube Link: Grilling Thin Crust Pizza
More Videos: Helen's Kitchen Channel

If only you knew what I'd been through for this video, you'd drop everything and fire up your grill right now.  I am a bit rusty with filming on the grill, and my first try came out so overexposed, you couldn't tell if I was grilling a pizza or a paper plate.  The second try was better, except that I forgot to record one of the steps.  The third try was finally good and I was patting myself on the back for finally getting this pesky video done.  I downloaded the files to my computer, almost finished editing them and was happy as a clam until all the files disappeared the next day.  I have only two explanations for this supernatural phenomenon.  Either my computer crashed at night while the video software was in some bad state or the video was jinxed by He Who Must Not Be Named.  Luckily, I was able to find out how to recover the previous day's version of my files (thanks to YouTube of course) and finish editing.

Well, at least my kids and neighbors were happy.  There was no shortage of pizza in our house last week.

No-knead Thin Crust Pizza Dough (Video)

I first wrote about this dough 6 years ago and this treasure of a recipe from Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Bread Bible is still the best thin crust pizza I've ever had.

YouTube Link: No-Knead Pizza Dough (Thin Crust)
More Videos: Helen's Kitchen Channel

I've scaled this recipe for 1-4 pizzas so that you can easily look up the amounts of ingredients.

1 pizza (by hand only -- too small for a stand mixer)

113 grams (4 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp SAF instant yeast
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp table salt (or 1 tsp Diamond Crystal Kosher salt)
79 grams (1/3 liquid cup) water at 70-90F

2 pizzas (by hand or with a stand mixer)
226 grams (8 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp SAF instant yeast
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp table salt (or 2 tsp Diamond Crystal Kosher salt)
158 grams (2/3 liquid cup) water at 70-90F

3 pizzas (with a mixer only)
339 grams (12 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour
1.5 tsp SAF instant yeast
1.5 tsp sugar
1.5 tsp table salt (or 3 tsp Diamond Crystal Kosher salt)

237 grams (1 liquid cup) water at 70-90F

4 pizzas (with a mixer only)
452 grams (16 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tsp SAF instant yeast
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp table salt (or 4 tsp Diamond Crystal Kosher salt)
316 grams (1 and 1/3 liquid cup) water at 70-90F

How to store the dough:

If you have enough 2 cup containers, it's most convenient to divide the dough into balls (1 ball per pizza) and store each dough in a container with 14 g (1 Tbsp) of oil. 

If you don't have enough 2 cup containers, don't divide your dough into balls.  Lightly oil a large bowl (it should be at least 3 times as large as the dough) and place the dough into it.  Cover with plastic and proceed with rising.  When ready to bake, lightly oil the top of the dough and gently dislodge it from the sides of the bowl.  Turn the bowl upside down over a cutting board (or piece of foil) and let the dough drop.  Don't pull -- try to keep the shape of the dough.  Cut the dough into pieces and shape each one into a pizza.  You'll need to add 14 g (1 Tbsp) oil onto the parchment paper for each pizza when shaping.

Rising schedule:

The goal is to double your dough in volume and to let it sit in the fridge overnight to develop flavor.  How you accomplish this depends on the temperature of your kitchen and your personal schedule.  I find that the easiest thing to do is to make this dough at night a few hours before I am going to bed.  Within 1-2 hours it should start to rise and can be put in the fridge overnight and up to 5 days.  But sometimes life intervenes and you won't be around in 1-2 hours after making the dough.  In that case, put it in the fridge right away.  At some point before baking, get it out of the fridge and allow it to double at room temperature.  This might take a while as the dough won't start to rise until it warms back up, so plan on 3-4 hours.

Shaping and baking:
Pizza in the oven
Pizza on the grill

Soft Boiled Egg (Video)

This Mother's day, surprise your Mom with the most stunning soft boiled eggs.  As any mother will tell you, it's not how much time you spend in the kitchen that counts, it's how wisely you'll spend it.  The eggs take 5 minutes, during this time you can hollow out a few brioche rolls and load them with smoked salmon, pea shoots, or whatever goodies you have on hand.  It takes another 5 minutes to peel the eggs and plop them into these nests.  Voila -- Mother's Day brunch in 10 minutes!

YouTube Link: Soft Boiled Eggs
More Videos: Helen's Kitchen Channel

It's not wrong color balance (though I am guilty of that at times) -- the eggs in the video are indeed blue.  In the Boston area, they are available at Whole Foods.  They peel like a charm and have huge, delightfully rich yolks.