Alex Hopmann’s Blog

Last Sunday I wanted to make some great wings for a marathon football day. I’ve been a big fan of wings for a long time but its one of those foods that can be done so poorly the result is horrifying. The ideal wing for me needs to be really crispy on the outside so that it stays crispy when drenched in nuclear sauce, but still have nice juicy (but not under-cooked) meat. I can also be a bit of a purist when it comes to the hot-sauce, although I have to say the Pok Pok wings are amazing & live up to the hype (but have no relationship to Buffalo wings).

So, I decided to try to sous vide the wings. Its one of those perfect situations for sous vide since you want to be able to cook the wing in as hot as possible oil so that it gets really crispy on the outside, but you don’t want to over cook the inside or leave it in the oil so long it gets greasy. Many traditional recipes accomplish this by double-frying but sous vide ends up being much easier and probably healthier.

I basically followed This recipe from The Zen Kitchen. It was pretty straight-forward but I did want to add a couple of notes. First of all, I asked the butcher to cut the wings in half but forgot to get the “tips” cut off too, and didn’t remember that until after I did the sous vide step. The tips were pretty easy to cut then, but ended up coming off with some of the meat since the already cooked wing was pretty tender.

Next time I’d also be more careful to try to get the wings in one layer in the vacuum bag, and after I took them out I’d probably open the vacuum bag and drain them before refrigerating. Because I left them in the bags and refrigerated them overnight I had a ton of chicken fat and gelatin to scrape off them before frying. The volume of the stuff was amazing- certainly part of what probably makes this approach somewhat more healthy, given that 4 hours at 170F is going to render a ton of the fat. Would probably make a great base for a soup but we didn’t have anything we wanted to do with it.

The frying went off without a hitch and then we tossed them in store-bought Franks Red Hot sauce. The resulting wings were so crispy they could be drenched in the sauce and still be crispy. As you bit in, they were still amazingly juicy too. Our friends had some nuclear hot sauce that you could apply to for the extra-hot ones, and the result was just about perfect!

Again, this is a perfect example of one of the misconceptions of sous vide. If you have decent equipment (doesn’t need to be thousands of dollars, but a nice home vacuum sealer & temp regulator), sous vide can actually be quite a bit easier than other approaches and can have amazing results. The only extra complexity is that you often need to plan ahead a bit (I had to sous vide the night before) but if you can manage that, its really not at all difficult.

On our way back from a long bike ride (we are kicking off training for the STP this year), Kat and I were looking for a good place to grab some brunch. Seattle Magazine had just done a round-up of best breakfast spots and mentioned brunch at The Corson Building. We have been meaning to go there so it seems like a great idea.

Their format is a bit different from normal- its tiny inside, and its prix-fixe, with a buffet with a bunch of miscellaneous stuff and a choice from two hot entrees. We enjoyed the buffee a lot- a citrus salad with orange, grapefruit and blood-orange, a great beet salad, some radicchio, home-made yogurt with some great jam and nuts to mix in, and a couple of other things. We got both entrees, a quiche with pork belly (bacon!) and sturgeon. Everything was great, and the overall experience was a really nice departure from the standard brunch experience all over town. At $23 its not inexpensive and I’m sure that will deter many people, but for a special experience with top local ingredients, its well worth it.

The NY Times has a write up about Sriracha. I had no idea it wasn’t actually Asian, although in retrospect its not surprising that its another American invention based on a blend of other cultures. In the end I don’t care where it comes from, I’m a fan…

Dana wrote a great piece on Perfecting Panna Cotta over on Tastingmenu.com. I think some people had a bit of a tough time initially figuring out what to make of the “new” tasting menu, but with pieces like this Dana is really putting it over the top- this article I’m sure will be one of the primary resources on the Internet for how to make Panna Cotta. And I don’t mean just for a couple of years- its really cool to see new content that will be useful for decades.

One note- she mentions that its hard for the home chef to find gelatin sheets and I’ve found that to be very true. Last time I needed some I managed to borrow them from a pro kitchen. But today we found some gelatin sheets at Delaurenti’s down in the Seattle Pike Market.

Rich writes about Dim Sum in Seattle. Overall I’ve found this one of the very frustrating parts of living in Seattle because I love Dim Sum and the overall quality doesn’t seem nearly up to Vancouver or San Francisco. In general I find his observations to be good, although I’d also recommend a new discovery- the appropriately named “Dim Sum House” on 4860 Beacon (not in the middle of any of the usual restaurant clusters). I haven’t found any especially interesting or new Dim Sum here, but the stuff I’ve had (I’ve been 3 times in the last few weeks) has been fresh (order from the menu, no carts going around with stale stuff), and just simply good. Its no Hakkasan but I can’t head to London (or even Vancouver or San Francisco) every day for lunch. Not to mention that my favorite place in Vancouver, Sun Sui Wah has been disappointing the last couple of visits.

Brett posts a detailed recipe for Massaman Curry. I can’t wait to try it out.

This weekend on our way back from the Grand Canyon we stopped in Vegas for two nights. Saturday night we had dinner at Robuchon’s “The Mansion” at the MGM. I’ve been to L’atelier de Joel Robuchon several times and its been pretty much my favorite dining experience in the country (or at least up in the top couple), so trying out Robuchon’s high-end place was pretty exciting.

Overall the meal was fantastic. From the excellent service, to the selection of 10 kinds of breads (including one with bacon! Bacon goes with everything…), to the candy selection at the end with like 40 different choices of little bites, it was a great, over the top experience. I wasn’t in the mood to take pictures of everything or take notes, but there were a number of highlights including some great caviar, a great combo of sea-food dishes, and a veal in herb-jus.

There are two other notes worth mentioning. The first is that I was surprised by what felt like a bit of kitsch with the meal. Maybe its an attempt to fit in with the general kitsch-nature of Vegas, or maybe it was just trying to be fancy somehow in a slightly clumsy way. One of the seafood dishes came out on a little net, with some shells. Many of the plates were beautiful, but some were just a bit over-done and distracting. Plus the music was pretty cheesy- again, we aren’t sure if it was a plan or an accident but during some of the main seafood dishes they were playing a musak version of one of the songs from the Little Mermaid.

Its kind of funny, but it makes a difference whether it was an intentional “Vegas” joke or just clumsy. When I first went to Vegas I pretty much hated it and it was years later that I came to appreciate it for all the cheese and neon and fake other-parts-of-the-world. Done in that context stuff can be really fun that would be just lame somewhere else like Seattle, Paris or New York. I’m hoping that is what was going on.

The other note is that I’m feeling pretty jaded/burned out on over the top meals. I suppose its not surprising, but a 16-course thing like this doesn’t have the same wonder that it used to. It certainly isn’t something I could do that often and 95% of the time I’d probably enjoy the Atelier more for its cool and more approachable style. We also went to Craft Steak the previous night which with its focused, more simple preparations seemed more in tune with my mood lately. Having said that the meal at the Mansion was great and I’m really glad that I finally got to experience it.

Kat and I are planning on making a Clafoutis tonight- here is a recipe from Williams Sonoma.

Cherry Clafoutis
4 eggs, separated
2/3 cup sugar
6 Tbs all-purpose flour
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 lb fresh cherries, pitted or 1/2 lb frozen cherries, thawed and drained.
1/2 tsp. lemon zest
Pistachio ice cream for serving

Preheat oven to 375F. Butter large rectangular baking dish.

In large bowl, combine egg yokes and 1/3 cup sugar; beat with handheld mixer on medium-high speed untill ribbons form, about 8 minutes. Add four, vanilla and cream. Reduce speed to low; beat until completely blended, stopping mixer occasionally to scrape down sides of bowl.

In small bowl, using handheld whisk, beat egg whites and salt about 30 seconds. Add whites to batter; beat with mixer on low speed until incorporated, 1-2 minutes.

Preheat, prepared baking dish in oven for 4-5 minutes. In bowl, stir together cherries, 1/3 cup sugar and zest. Remove pan from oven. Pour in cherries; top with batter. Bake until clafoutis is set in middle, 30-35 minutes. Serve warm with pistachio ice cream. Serves 6-8.