Aubergine and sous vide chicken laksa

Posted by Gary

Tonight I cooked a relatively low carb aubergine and sous vide chicken laksa replacing the usual noodles with thin strips of eggplant.

Last week I bought a packet of five chicken thigh pieces and cooked some of them under vacuum (sous vide). I had two pieces leftover and thought I’d add them to a soup of some kind.

Sous vide chicken laksa

Aubergine chicken laksa soup
Aubergine chicken laksa soup

The perfect soup on the last weekend of winter is a laksa. Comforting and spicy and full of flavour. Now, I know what you’re thinking, the thing I cooked looks nothing like a laksa but I used laksa paste so in my mind it’s a laksa soup.

Yummy Lummy is not sponsored by anyone.

Recipe

It’s important to read the recipe before cooking because the timing of processes needs to be understood.

Safety glove
Safety glove

Aubergine and sous vide chicken laksa. Soup for the last weekend of winter.

Aubergine and sous vide chicken laksa. A low carb and comforting soup for the last weekend of winter.

  • Aubergine (Eggplant)
  • Leftover sous vide chicken thigh
  • Coconut cream
  • Laksa paste
  • Red onion (finely diced)
  • Fennel (finely diced)
  • Red cabbage (finely shredded)
  • Coriander leaves (stems and roots (chopped))
  • Fried shallots
  • Lime juice
  • Black whole peppercorns (ground in a mortar with a pestle)
  1. Combine the laksa paste, coconut cream, and the fluid from the vacuum bag into a large saucepan and bring to the boil and simmer.
  2. Cut the aubergine into thin strips and add into the simmering coconut cream.
  3. Add slices of chicken thigh and stir through until the chicken has warmed through.
  4. Add in juice from one lime and stir through.
  5. Turn off the heat and then add in the red onion, fennel, red cabbage, coriander, and pepper.

  6. Transfer everything to a bowl and then garnish with fried shallots.

Disclaimer I have no culinary training nor qualifications. This post is not intended to convey any health or medical advice. If you have any health concerns about anything you read, please contact your registered medical practitioner. The quantities are indicative. Feel free to vary the quantities to suit your taste. I deliberately do not calculate the energy for dishes. I deliberately default to 500 Calories or 500,000 calories because I do not make these calculations.

Aubergine sous vide chicken laksa soup
Aubergine chicken laksa soup

Questions and answers

How was the aubergine and sous vide chicken laksa?

It was pretty good. It had a good amount of spice and it’s made me feel very content.

Would it have been better with traditional ingredients like tofu and sprouts?

I’m not a fan of tofu, too much œstrogen for my liking. Sprouts also run a risk of bacterial contamination and gastroenteritis. I don’t think it would have added anything to the chicken laksa.

What else would have work apart from the chicken?

I reckon sous vide salmon would be fabulous.

Final thoughts

  • Do you like laksa flavourings?
  • Would you ever replace noodles with aubergine?
  • What’s your favourite curry soup?
  • Would you try sous vide chicken laksa?

Garlic butter steak and chips

Posted by Gary

Garlic butter sous vide steak, scallops and hot chips

Last week I made steak pizzaiola and used eye fillet steak which I cooked sous vide. I was impressed with how tender the meat was. I went and bought some more. Because butter makes everything better, I thought I’d add a pat of butter when I served it. To extend the butter theme a little more, I’d seen someone added melted garlic butter to hot chips and I thought I’d give that a try too.

Dedicated to all the dairy farmers who bring joy to our lives through cream and butter.

Tonight I used Lurpak butter
Garlic butter steak and chips with scallops
Garlic butter steak and chips with scallops

I wondered what could enhance garlic butter steak and chips? Why not a little surf and turf, or should that be reef and beef? I bought some scallops and you know that scallops and butter are a match made in heaven. Well, at least I hope heaven has butter, bacon, steak, pasta, noodles, and pizza.

The garlic butter chips are not low carb I know. They do taste good though and I don’t care that I bought frozen chips and cooked them in the oven. After all, I am all about convenience eating.

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Recipe

It’s important to read the recipe before cooking because the timing of processes needs to be understood.

Garlic butter steak and chips

Garlic butter steak and chips with scallops on a cold night in Canberra. It’s been snowing. I hate the snow.

Steak and scallops

  • Eye fillet steak
  • Iodised rock salt
  • Black whole peppercorns
  • Garlic powder
  • Butter
  • Garlic
  • Dried oregano
  • Scallops
  • Hot chips

McCain frozen chips

  • Butter
  • Garlic

Garlic butter

  1. Get the butter to room temperature.
  2. With a fork mix in the crushed garlic and dried oregano.
  3. Form a disc in the bottom of a bowl and refrigerate until it’s time to plate up.

Sous vide steak

  1. Remove the steak from the packaging.
  2. Trim the fillet and bind the muscle fibres with some cooking twine.

  3. Grind some rock salt and whole peppercorns in a mortar with a pestle. Once the salt and pepper have been coarsely ground add in some garlic powder and mix.
  4. Season the steak with the salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

  5. Seal the steak in a vacuum bag.
  6. Cook in a water bath at 57 °C for 2 hours.
  7. Remove the bagged steak from the water bath and then remove the steak from the bag.
  8. Dry the surface of the steak with absorbent paper.
  9. Sear the steak in a cast-iron skillet.

Scallops

  1. Dry the surface of the scallops and sear in a hot skillet.

McCain SuperFries

  1. Cook according to the instructions on the packaging.
  2. Once the chips are cooked put them into a large metal mixing bowl.
  3. Using microwave radiation melt the butter an mix in some crushed garlic.
  4. Pour the melted garlic butter over the hot chips a little bit at a time and toss the chips at the same time.

Plating up bit

  1. Place the steak on a dinner plate along with the scallops and chips.

  2. Get the cold disc of garlic and herb butter and put it on the steak so that it melts as you eat.

Disclaimer I have no culinary training nor qualifications. This post is not intended to convey any health or medical advice. If you have any health concerns about anything you read, please contact your registered medical practitioner. The quantities are indicative. Feel free to vary the quantities to suit your taste. I deliberately do not calculate the energy for dishes. I deliberately default to 500 Calories or 500,000 calories because I do not make these calculations.

Photographs

This is a gallery of photographs. Click on one image and then scroll through the photographs. I’ve been told the gallery doesn’t always work on older versions of Windows Internet Explorer. I suggest Google Chrome or using a Mac.

  • Eye fillet steak
  • Eye fillet steak
  • Eye fillet steak Salt Pepper Garlic powder
  • Eye fillet steak Salt Pepper Garlic powder
  • Eye fillet steak Salt Pepper Garlic powder
  • Garlic butter steak and chips with scallops
  • Garlic butter steak and chips with scallops
    Garlic butter steak and chips with scallops
  • Garlic butter steak and chips with scallops
  • Garlic butter steak and chips with scallops
    Garlic butter steak and chips with scallops

Questions and answers

What’s with eye fillet steak two weekends in a row?

Normally I like to cook scotch fillet steak because it has the eye fillet and the cap or deckle meat. The deckle meat is the best because it has seams of fat running through it and when cut against the grain it is so tender, tasty, and juicy.

The eye fillet is more lean but it is supremely tender. With the butter the natural beef flavour is augmented.

Why not cook the scallops sous vide too?

I’d like to cook scallops by sous vide but I only have one precision cooker and the timing would be out of whack. That said, I could have cooked the steak first and then refrigerated it and after the scallops were cooked I could have reheated the steak quickly in the water bath as the scallops were finishing. Maybe next time.

Would garlic butter steak and chips have made for a nice fancy pub meal?

Yep, I mean steak and chips is classic pub fare. I expect though in a pub, gravy would replace the butter. Maybe I should have served some tomato sauce too.

Final thoughts

  • Do you like garlic butter steak and chips?
  • Are you a fan of scallops and butter?
  • How do you like your hot chips?

Steak pizzaiola

Posted by Gary

This is the first time I’ve cooked steak pizzaiola. Before this week, I had no idea what steak pizzaiola is. I first heard about it when watching Guga on Sous Vide Everything.

Dedicated to Guga from Sous Vide Everything and my dear friend GC

Two sources of impeccable information

Pronouncing steak pizzaiola

I asked GC how is pizzaiola pronounced. “It’s basically pizza-yoh-lah or pizza-your-la if you want more of an Aussie twang to it 😉

“It means steak ‘pizza-style’ pretty much. So a pizzaiolo is someone who is trained in the art of proper pizza making and I presume it’s used as an adjective here to describe the steak due to its thin flat nature and that the sauce is akin to a pizza.”

Steak Pizzaiola with sous vide eye fillet and fresh linguine
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Beef rump roast

Posted by Gary

Beef rump roast may not sound terribly exciting and that’s because it isn’t. I’ve sort of lost motivation and enthusiasm for blogging lately. Not because I’m feeling low or down, it’s mainly because I’ve been focussed on other pursuits.

Dedicated to all the cattle who die so that I may enjoy their muscle and fat.

Beef rump roast ready to be sliced with a Dick butchers knife
Beef rump roast ready to be sliced with a Dick butchers knife
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Bundaberg sarsaparilla beef short ribs

Posted by Gary

Bundaberg sarsaparilla is really nice tasting sarsaparilla. Some people assume sarsaparilla is the same as American root beer. Apparently it’s not exactly the same. I usually giggle when I hear someone say root beer. I’m just a big kid and Australians all know why but for non-Australian readers, the word root is a vulgar slang word here. I find it hilarious when I hear North Americans saying their rooting for their team.

Dedicated to Lorraine Elliott, also known as Not Quite Nigella who shared a beef short ribs recipe this week and she used sarsaparilla.

Beef short ribs and my Dick boning knife
Beef short ribs and my Dick boning knife
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