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I either need coffee or a nap.
Sep. 26th, 2019 03:22 pmAs I carried my lunch dish out to the kitchen to wash it, I mulled on whether I wanted to make some more coffee, or have a quick 20-minute power nap. As I was washing the dish, I glanced at the coffee grinder and a vague memory materialized of me walking in the back door and hitting the button on the grinder as I walked by. Oh. Right. Coffee it is, then. I'd met a friend to do a run by Costco, and our plan had been to grab some coffee while we were out as well. We ended up doing a couple of my own chores while we were out, and the coffee got forgotten along the way. I'd purposely drunk less than normal this morning in anticipation of having some on the road. When that didn't happen, I casually hit the button on the grinder the moment I got home and promptly forgot about it.
I made a happy discovery with this last cup of coffee. I set it up and then came back to the computer room with the timer while I let it do its 4-minute extraction in the Aeropress. I was in the middle of something when the timer went off, so I hit stop and finished what I was doing. By the time I got out to the kitchen, I think it had been brewing for closer to 5 1/2 minutes. I finished the press and braced myself for a mediocre cup of coffee. To my surprise, this was the best cup I'd had today. I think that starting tomorrow (for this roast anyway) I am going to just start adding an extra minute to my normal extract time and see how it goes.
I did some other (more intentional) experimenting in the kitchen this week with good results. Yesterday I tossed an eggplant into toaster oven and roasted it, cut-side up, for about 40 minutes, then poured a garlic/lemon tahini sauce over it, sprinkled it with toasted pine nuts, and finished with a drizzle of date syrup. The final result was very good, but I made mental notes for the next time I make this.
- More salt
- less tahini
I grumbled about that recipe here the other day, but in the end I followed some simple instructions on how to make my own date syrup.
The other thing that I made came out of a curious thread I saw on Reddit yesterday. A post showed up in r/sousvide asking if it was worth the effort to cook eggs by that method. When they posted the question, they accompanied it with a picture of some of those marinaded eggs that you will often get in ramen. What made the thread curious was that a good percent of the discussion was actually on how to cook eggs in the Instant Pot. That's, like, pretty much the exact opposite of sous vide. I've been meaning to try doing some of those marinaded eggs, and the idea of cooking eggs in the Instant Pot had never occurred to me.
I tossed the small rack in the Instant Pot, added a cup of water and put three eggs on to cook. I let them go for 4 minutes at full pressure, did a fast release, and then immediately transferred them to a cold water bath. While they did not peel as readily as I'd have hoped, I still managed to get off the shells without mangling them. Once they were peeled, I put them in a zip-lock bag with equal parts soy sauce, water and Sweet Vermouth (which I used because we had no mirin. It worked well, but I picked up mirin today for the next try.)
The final result, and notes for next time:
-The yolks were nearly perfect, but I might go 5 minutes next time.
-Definitely needs mirin rather than Vermouth. The latter added a bit too much flavour.
I made a happy discovery with this last cup of coffee. I set it up and then came back to the computer room with the timer while I let it do its 4-minute extraction in the Aeropress. I was in the middle of something when the timer went off, so I hit stop and finished what I was doing. By the time I got out to the kitchen, I think it had been brewing for closer to 5 1/2 minutes. I finished the press and braced myself for a mediocre cup of coffee. To my surprise, this was the best cup I'd had today. I think that starting tomorrow (for this roast anyway) I am going to just start adding an extra minute to my normal extract time and see how it goes.
I did some other (more intentional) experimenting in the kitchen this week with good results. Yesterday I tossed an eggplant into toaster oven and roasted it, cut-side up, for about 40 minutes, then poured a garlic/lemon tahini sauce over it, sprinkled it with toasted pine nuts, and finished with a drizzle of date syrup. The final result was very good, but I made mental notes for the next time I make this.
- More salt
- less tahini
I grumbled about that recipe here the other day, but in the end I followed some simple instructions on how to make my own date syrup.
The other thing that I made came out of a curious thread I saw on Reddit yesterday. A post showed up in r/sousvide asking if it was worth the effort to cook eggs by that method. When they posted the question, they accompanied it with a picture of some of those marinaded eggs that you will often get in ramen. What made the thread curious was that a good percent of the discussion was actually on how to cook eggs in the Instant Pot. That's, like, pretty much the exact opposite of sous vide. I've been meaning to try doing some of those marinaded eggs, and the idea of cooking eggs in the Instant Pot had never occurred to me.
I tossed the small rack in the Instant Pot, added a cup of water and put three eggs on to cook. I let them go for 4 minutes at full pressure, did a fast release, and then immediately transferred them to a cold water bath. While they did not peel as readily as I'd have hoped, I still managed to get off the shells without mangling them. Once they were peeled, I put them in a zip-lock bag with equal parts soy sauce, water and Sweet Vermouth (which I used because we had no mirin. It worked well, but I picked up mirin today for the next try.)
The final result, and notes for next time:
-The yolks were nearly perfect, but I might go 5 minutes next time.
-Definitely needs mirin rather than Vermouth. The latter added a bit too much flavour.
