Think Like A Chef - Pan Roasted Fish

The next cooking adventure in Thinking Like A Chef was Pan Roasted Fish.  This was going to be interesting, being that Cathy does not like fish. 

The ingredients are pretty simple.  The original recipe called for red snapper, but I could not find that.  The book said any firm white fish would do, so I went with haddock.  The skin was to be left on.  Other ingredients included peanut oil, thyme, salt, pepper, and butter.

Now, after my last entry, there were quite a few comments about butter and the butter product I used.  All the comments, by the way, were greatly appreciated.  I decided to do more research, and I came across a website called DietToGo.com.  There was an article about the best and worst butter substitutes.  I will give you one guess what they felt the worst one was.  EXACTLY!  I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.  To quote from the website, “They all claim "zero trans fats" on the front label, yet their ingredients lists (sic) contain Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil - that's a code term for trans fats. What a scam!”  Hmmmm……..

Ok, what shall I use then?  After giving it much thought, and listening to everyone’s advice, I decided that, at least for this recipe, I would go with a butter product, but something that was more butter than product.  One of the products they recommended was Olivio spreadable butter.  It contains Sweet Cream, Canola Oil, Light Olive Oil, Salt, Flaxseed Oil and Natural Flavoring.  To quote the website, “This spread combines the best of both worlds - sweet cream plus healthy oils. It's also low in saturated fats and cholesterol - and contains no trans-fat!”

Of course, I went to the store and they didn’t have this.  Land O’Lakes makes something similar that had Sweet Cream, Olive Oil, and Salt.  Being that not much is going to be absorbed, this is what I decided to go with.  

Now, I made a major mistake.  I was to cook the fish skin side down to crisp up the skin.  I used the wrong pan.  I used a non-stick pan as you can see. 

They just don’t work for browning or crisping.  I made the decision to do this because I live in a condo and the fire alarms frequently go off.  The configuration of my stove is such that the regular burners are in the back, and there isn’t much room between the burner and the back of the stove.  On top of that, the vent we have is the bottom of the microwave so it doesn't exactly work very good.  That being said, I should have checked to see if the right pan would have fit back there, but I did not.  So I went with the non-stick, which I knew would fit.  Basically, I need a smaller fry pan and a better vent!

So in the peanut oil went, and heated up under medium heat.  When it was hot, I put in the fish.  One of the great lessons I learned in this chapter was heat control.  Colicchi says that as you hear the oil start to sputter, to turn down the heat so you only hear a sizzle.  So heat control was very important here.

About three minutes on each side, though a bit longer on the skin side. 

Then the better butter product (say that three times fast!) went in…I used two tablespoons, I could have cut that down by ½. Then cook for two more minutes on each side, occasionally basting the fish with the browning butter, all the while readjusting the heat as necessary.  When done, put the thyme on top of the fish, plate and drizzle the browned butter onto the fish.

I must say, the fish looked beautiful to me, and it tasted fantastic!  Not overcooked, juicy on the inside, firm, but not tough.  It must have been good, because Cathy ate the entire 6-oz piece!  A first!

As for the nutrition:  Again, figuring absorption of the peanut oil and the better butter product, I figure for a 6-oz fillet of haddock, 169 calories, 4.3 grams of total fat, 0 trans-fat.

 

So I learned a lot this time around.  I can’t wait to see what’s next!

Think Like A Chef - Roast Chicken

I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have tried to do something as simple as roasting a chicken.  It comes out over cooked, or worse yet, not cooked.  Roasting happens to be the first technique in Tom Colicchio’s book “Think Like A Chef”.  Of course, the first recipe is Roast Chicken. 

The recipe is simple enough.  One chicken 3 to 3/12 pounds, 2 sprigs of rosemary, two sprigs of thyme, a tablespoon of peanut oil, kosher salt, sea salt, pepper and 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter.

BUTTER????

Remember, part of my challenge is to make this food as fat free as possible.  So, the question becomes, do I use “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” instead?  The pros and cons are pretty obvious.  Butter is all natural, the “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” is definitely not.  I’m not a huge fan of putting chemicals in my body.  On the other hand, I’m also not a big proponent of putting fat in my body.  The butter is used for basting the bird.  According to a blog that I found called, “An American Chef in London”, most of the basting liquid is not absorbed.  It is used to slow down the drying out process.  So less chemicals or less fat?

For every tablespoon, Land O'Lakes unsalted butter has 100 calories, 99 from fat.  That’s 17% daily allowance of fat and 35% daily allowance of saturated fat.  The butter “product” shows 100 calories, 17% daily fat allowance, but only 11% daily allowance of saturated fat.  That’s a huge difference, especially since I am using two tablespoons.  Even though most of it would not be absorbed, I finally chose to go with the “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.”

The first thing I had to do was stuff the cavity of the bird with the thyme and rosemary.  Yes…I took out the bag holding the giblets.  Then I had to season the bird with kosher salt and pepper.  One mistake I made was that I should have seasoned the bird underneath the skin.  A lot of the fat from poultry comes from eating the skin, which we were not planning on eating, so I will need to remember that for next time.

Then came the trussing of the bird.

Ok, I have a confession to make.  I am the least mechanically inclined man living on this planet.  Oh, all right.  You caught me in a lie.  Truth be told, I am the least mechanically inclined HUMAN BEING on earth.  Really.  If it goes beyond hammering a nail, I’m pretty useless.  So despite watching 15 videos on YouTube, showing how to beautifully truss a bird, mine came out like this:

Funny, huh?

Despite being possibly the worst trussing job in the history of mankind, it did the trick.

Now the recipe calls for the oven to be preset to 375.  While the oven is coming up to temp, I am supposed to heat up a pan with the peanut oil and brown the sides of the bird with the peanut oil for about 7 minutes a side.  I did some research and read that the higher the temperature of the oil, the less oil is absorbed.  This calls for a medium high heat, so I don’t think that much oil will be absorbed into the bird.

Also, this is the first recipe I have seen for roast chicken where you brown the sides of the bird.  But if you think about it, it makes sense.  The breast tends to dry out faster so by the time the legs and thighs are done, the breast is like a desert.  This technique will give the legs a head start.

After 7 minutes a side, the bird goes in the pan breast side up, and cooks for 20 minutes.  My bird was 3.82 pounds, so I increased the cooking time to 22 minutes.  After that, add the butter to the pan and cook for another 30 minutes or so, basting occasionally.  I increased the time to 34 minutes.

You’ll notice from the picture that the skin on the breast was not really browned.  As anyone who has read my restaurant reviews, that is a big no no.  But, I am not going to eat the skin. I imagine this happened because there is a high water content in the butter product I used.  If it was my “Eat Anything You Want” day, I would have used regular butter, and it would have browned better, I’m sure.

We saved the legs and thighs for an “Eat Anything You Want” day, and concentrated on the breast.  Once the breast is on the plate, you sprinkle it with a tiny bit of sea salt.

I have to tell you, the bird was a success!  The breast meat was super juicy and I tore apart the leg and it too was cooked perfectly.  The breast meat was ever so slightly under seasoned due to me seasoning the skin which we were not going to eat, but it was still delicious.

As for the calories:  I tend to overestimate these things, but I think it is pretty close.  The breasts on chickens these days are huge.  You know how when you see a wild turkey, the breasts are not as big as they are when you see them at a farm?  Same thing.  So we are getting two meals – or four portions - out of the breasts.  With no skin, if I use Perdue Perfect Portions as a guide, the calories are 150 calories, 13 fat calories or 1.5 grams.  That’s constant.  In trying to estimate the calories and the fat content from the peanut oil and the butter product, since it seems that most of this isn’t absorbed, I will go overboard and say 1/2 of each is absorbed.  Then those numbers will be divided by 4 since we are getting four portions.  So the butter product is 100 per tablespoon.  Two tablespoons = 200 calories.  ½ is absorbed so we are back to 100 calories.  We got 4 portions, so 100 divided by 4 = 25 calories, or 2.75 grams of fat.  (Follow that?)  The peanut oil is 120 calories from fat.  We only used 1 tablespoon, so ½ absorption = 60 calories.  Divide that into the four portions and we have 15 calories from fat or 1.5 grams of fat.

So the way I figure it, the total calories for Tom Colicchio’s Roast Chicken - breast meat only -  is 190 calories, with 53 calories from fat - or 28%.  Generally, Cathy and I try to keep our fat content to 30% and under, so this turned out really well.  We finished it with a nice side of corn.

Next up:  Pan roasted fish.

Thinking Like A Chef - My Journey Starts Today

I’ve decided to learn how to cook.

I know, I know, I’m always sharing recipes and I talk about how I love to cook.  But I’m a recipe cook.  Give me a recipe, and I can make the dish with the best of them.  I know all the techniques, I know about knife skills, and so on.

But give me 6 ingredients and no recipe?  Nope, can’t think of thing to make.  Time to do takeout.

Then I read about a cookbook by Tom Colicchio called “Think Life A Chef.”  Basically, while he does give you recipes, he attempts in this book to teach you not to find a recipe, and then find the ingredients for it, but to go to the store, see fresh ingredients and think, “oh, I can take that and make that, and make it with this because that looks really good today, and I’ll make it by…”

Perfect!  Just what I want to learn.

So this is going to be my “Julie and Julia” moment.  I am going to make as many of these dishes as I can and learn to think like a chef.  Or at least learn to cook…

Now I have some added challenges.  First, I have lost 23 pounds this year.  And, maybe even more important, I have kept it off for four months now.  I have lost weight before, but have never been able to keep it off.  And I don’t want to start gaining it back.  As I looked through the book, Colicchio uses ingredients that sometimes aren’t considered particularly healthy.  So I will need to adapt his recipes to continue the healthy way I have been eating.

And of course the second challenge is keeping everything gluten free.  I don’t think this will be as hard as it may have been a few years ago, but still…it will be a challenge.

My goal is to cook something every weekend and work my way though the book.  Of course, life will get in the way, so I don’t expect to be able to make something every weekend, but I will try.

And I hope you will join me on this adventure.  Should be fun!

Restaurant Review - Myers and Chang

Last night, Cathy and I went to Myers and Chang, an Asian Fusion restaurant.  It is well known in the Boston area for a couple of reasons.  Maybe the first is that Joanne Chang of Flour Bakery owns it.  Flour Bakery has been seen on many cooking shows, including “Throwdown with Bobby Flay” when they had a “Sticky Bun Throwdown.”  (Which she won, by the way.)

But it is also known for being very conscious of people with food issues.  So, they created not only a gluten free menu, but also a vegetarian menu, a nut free menu and a shellfish free menu.

As usual, I checked various reviews and I have to tell you:  There are tons of gluten free reviews on them already.  So…what could I tell you that hasn’t already been written?

I could tell you that, because all they have is on street parking, I couldn’t find a parking spot because I absolutely STINK at parallel parking.  But that would be a lie.  Not the part about my parallel parking skills…that’s very true.  But there was plenty of on street parking available.

I could tell you that the service was bad.  No one there to seat us, no one to take our orders, no one to fill out water glasses...but that would also be a lie.  The fact is, the service was outstanding!  We had reservations, we were seated right away, they let us linger over our Dim Sum (more on that later) so we could stay for the dinner menu, and our waitress checked on us without being over bearing.

I could tell you that the Dim Sum that Cathy and I shared was awful.  I could tell you that.  But I can’t.  Because it was fantastic.  We decided to share the gluten free Thai Ginger Chicken Salad, prepared with cilantro, mint, rice vermicelli, and lemongrass among other ingredients.  It seemed to have a broth made from lime juice, and it had a bit of heat to it, and a slight crunch.  It was a perfect starter.

On to the entrée’s.  I could tell you…. ok, I’m beating this joke to death.  The gluten free entrée’s were also amazing.  I had one to myself and Cathy and I shared one.  The one I had to myself was something called Nasi Goreng.  This is Indonesian Fried Rice.  It had rice (duh), pork, shrimp, pineapple, and a fried egg.  It also had a very spicy sauce.  It comes in a bowl with each ingredient separate.  The idea is to mix all of the ingredients together.  The egg yolk adds richness to the dish, while the pineapple cuts through the heat.  The pork was kind of crispy while the shrimp was perfectly cooked, not the least bit rubbery.

The entrée Cathy and I shared was Chicken and Broccoli Chow Fun.  It had thick rice noodles, gailan (which comes from the broccoli kale family) and tellicherry pepper, which did not add heat, just a lot of flavor.  The best way to describe this dish?  Imagine the best Chinese Chicken and Broccoli dish you’ve ever had.  Now multiply it by 100.

As for desert, all of their deserts can be modified to be gluten free except for their coconut cream pie.  Cathy and I decided to share the chocolate and cocoa nib terrine with Vietnamese coffee sauce.  To make it gluten free, they left off the cocoa nibs.  Didn’t miss them.  The desert was rich with dark chocolate flavor, with the coffee sauce giving a nice contrast.

As for the bill?  Wow, what a deal!  We had four cocktails, one dim sum salad, three entrée’s (Cathy also got one herself), desert and two French press coffees for $101 before tax and tip.

Rather than add pictures, here is a link to a video from a TV show that has an interview with Joanne Chang talking about her gluten free menu, and actually shows some of the dishes I had.

I could tell you that this was the best meal I have had in a long, long time.  And that would be the truth!