Playing around again with sous vide cooking. This time I decided to copy a recipe I had enjoyed at a kosher restaurant in London (Brasserie 103 in Golders Green). I had ordered a steak, which was good, but it came with carrots which were simply tantalising! It took a while to work out what they had done. They must have been cooked sous vide as they were sliced very thinly but were still quite firm although completely cooked. They definitely had saffron, but what else? The waiter whispered in my ear that the chef had put in cider vinegar. Usually our sous vide cooker is in use from Wednesday afternoon until shabbos cooking beef short ribs, but this week we were away from home for shabbos so I was free to use it on my weekly cooking evening, Thursday night (when my wife is too busy preparing for shabbos to have time to cook the supper!).
So here goes: I took a few strands of saffron and crushed them in a pestle and mortar with cider vinegar until they were completely dissolved. Poured the liquid into a sous vide bag, rinsed out the remaining juices from the pestle and mortar with some hot water and then put the bag in the freezer. This proved to be very important, as the first time I forgot this step and almost all the liquid got sucked into the vacuum machine
Took a large carrot, sliced it across into thin slices. Put the slices into the bag with the now frozen liquid, vacuumed out the air and cooked them in the sous vide for 45 minutes at 185 Fahrenheit. The results, we felt, were quite amazing! Went well with garam masala seasoned denise fish (or whatever they call in outside Israel) cooked in a griddle pan.
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