Seasoning a carbon steel skillet

As a proper cooking geek I have gravitated towards carbon steel skillets. For a long time I was not even aware of that option, and was muscling my cast-iron pans around after ditching teflon, and after never warming up to stainless steel. After experiencing carbon steel, I gave away a number of my excellent-but-heavy cast iron pans, making space for carbon steel. The generated happiness was a nice bonus.

TLDR:

• Remove wax with boiling water, hot water and mild soap
• Dry the pan and heat it up
• Wipe the pan with an oiled rag to create a thin film of oil.
• Wipe the pan with a cleaner rag to remove any excess oil.
• Heat the pan on high heat, with a fan running, until all surfaces turn deep brown.
• If the pan is large, moving it around may speed up the process.
• Alternatively, bake the pan, upside down, in a preheated 500F oven for an hour and let the pan cool in the oven.

What is seasoning?

No, it has nothing to do with spices! It s a process of converting a raw steel or iron surface into a practically non-stick cooking surface that is also rust-proof.

The process of seasoning is what may keep a number of people away from carbon steel, or cast iron. I, too, was at first unsure how all of that will work out. I am happy to report that the feat has long been gone and that seasoning really should not be a reason for avoiding this superb, non-stick, ultra durable, and inexpensive cookware.

Basically, one coats a porous cooking surface with a very thin film of oil, and then applies high heat to essentially burn the oil. The oil dries and polymerizes and sticks onto the surface and in the pores, forming a protective surface that is practically non-stick. The beauty is that this surface is very sturdy, so one doesn't need to worry obsessively about protecting it.

Sheryl Canter's blog post is often referred as an authoritative source of science behind pan seasoning. Having a research background, I read the post, found it interesting, but I will admit that I prefer to keep things in life a bit simpler.

If the seasoning does get damaged or if you didn't season the pan properly, there is nothing to worry about. You simply season the pan again, as many times as you want. And of things go really badly, one can use steel wool to strip the old seasoning away and start again.

It is quite refreshing that these days carbon steel and cast iron are making such a comeback. Rarely does one come across items that are practically indestructible. I wonder what the business model of producers is - once you buy a carbon steel or a cast iron pan, it will last you for your life time, and it will outlive future generations as well.

Which oil to use?

Which oil should one use when seasoning a pan? This is a much debated question, and everyone seems to have their opinion. Sheryl Canter in her blog argues that flax seed oil is the way to achieve the hardest and the slickest seasoning possible. She also acknowledges that one can get a usable pan with other kinds of oil. When one purchases seasoned pans, manufacturers tend to disclose what oil they use - I have seen mentions of canola oil, bran oil, coconut oil and who knows what else.

The one consistent message I have seen is not to use extra virgin olive oil, or any other oil that contains impurities. Even Sheryl Cantor states that for flax seed oil, one needs to read the label and make sure that it contains no additives.

So what should one do? I don't claim deep expertise in chemistry of oil, and I have tried a number of options: canola, grape seed, corn, walnut, coconut, flax seed come to mind. I managed to get a usable seasoning with all of them, and frankly, I find it hard to tell the difference. I think it boils down to what you have at home. For example, flax seed oil is finicky - it is rather pricey, and one needs to store in the fridge. If you don't use it in smoothies or in some other way, do you really want to keep a bottle of oil in an already packed fridge just for occasional seasoning? Likely not.

What do I use? If I use straight oil, I go with either grape seed or walnut, or flax if I have it. But I like to play, and I read that adding beeswax to the seasoning helps with the process - but I have not seen a good explanation why. So I made myself a few seasoning pucks which I have been using lately.

Making a seasoning puck is, of course, trivial. One takes a clean tin can, and adds in there 1 part of beeswax, and two parts of oil. The proportions are by weight. The can goes in a hot water bath to melt the wax, then into silicone molds for the mixture to cool down. In a couple of hours, the pucks slide easily from the molds and are ready to use. 

For oil, I have used grape seed and flax seed, or walnut and flax seed. I find these pucks easy to use, the seasoning appears strong, and I find it easier to control how much seasoning I use - a quick touch of a hot surface melts just the right amount of the puck away.

Procedure

Carbon steel pans come coated with beeswax! How retro and how amazing! The wax is applied to protect the pan against rusting. Here is a brand new, still waxed Matfer pajella 14 inch carbon steel pan that I have been eyeing for a while - for the large cooking surface, and for its use as a roaster.

It looks nice and new, does it not? First we have to remove the wax. That is SUPER easy. Simply boil water in a kettle and pour boiling water in the pan, then swirl the hot water around. Then wash the pan with hot water and mild detergent - both the cooking surface and the bottom. If you are still not sure you removed all the wax, pour some water in the pan, bring the water to boil, and swirl it around.

I think it took me under 10 minutes to remove the wax from this large pan. So please, fear not, it really is easy. The washed pan looks like this.

No real visible differences!

The next step is fun. You need two old cotton or linen rags - I use old dish cloths. It really best to use these, but you can get away with paper towels. The lint free variety is best, but I have done this successfully with regular paper towels as well.

Dab some a little bit of cooking oil on one of the rags, or rub a rag with a seasoning puck.

This rag will be used to apply the oil on the pan. I keep such a rag in the kitchen under the sink. Sometimes I use it after cleaning a pan to wipe it with just a bit of oil. That is often recommended and it is really not required. You seasoning will protect the surface, and if you don't use the pan frequently enough, the oil will simply go rancid.

So now we have a rag with a bit of oil or seasoning wax, and a rag that is clean, or at least has much less oil in it.

Put the pan on the stove and heat in on medium for a few minutes. The goal is to open pores in the metal a bit more. Once the pan is nice and warm, or even really hot if you lose track of time, wipe the whole pan with the oily rag. leaving as thin a film on the pan as you can possibly imagine.

Then take the clean rag and wipe the pan some more. This is a most important step - the pan will look practically dry. Excess oil will simply pool in the pan into sticky spots. You can remove those of course, but why give yourself additional work.

Then set the heat to medium high or high and let the pan heat up and smoke of 5-10 minutes. Run your fan and open the windows if the fan cannot handle the smoke. This is what starts to happening:

You see that a part of the pan was starting to turn brown. This is a good thing, that is the oil starting to polymerize.

After a bit longer, the pan continues to transform, and the polymerization is starting to happen on the side walls as well.

Notice that this pan is very large and even though I used a large and powerful burner at full heat, I still had to move the pan around to get the heat distributed enough. If I waited longer, I think I would not need to move the pan, but my approach worked just fine.

At the end, the entire pan got a really deep patina and it looked like it was 100 years old! Well, almost. A well-used pan does darken with time. 

The pan was ready for cooking. I think this patina looks great, and I prefer it over the clean stainless steel look as carbon steel does not nag me to keep the pan shiny and new looking.

Because I am who I am, I did the seasoning twice, even though it was not needed. I pre-heated my oven to 500F and I wiped the cooking surface and walls with the oily rag again. The pan was super hot and started to smoke right away, Then I wiped the pan with the clean(er) rag to remove the excess of oil. I baked the pan in the oven for almost an hour and let it cool. There was no visible difference, but I felt good about being diligent. But I admit that I almost never do the seasoning in the oven as it takes more time, energy, and I don't think it is any better than stove-top seasoning.

The moment of truth

The same day, I used the newly seasoned pan to make pancakes. To my great satisfaction, I needed to use only a little bit of cooking oil - about as much as I would have used anyway on a non-stick pan. Cooking on medium heat, pancakes seared nicely and the pan required only a wipe to be clean and ready to be used again.

Cooking on medium heat is one adjustment one needs to make when switching to carbon steel or cast iron - these materials conduct the heat so much better than teflon of ceramics that one needs to cook at a lower heat.

Because these pans are so much more substantial than teflon or ceramic coated pans, one needs to preheat them for a bit longer. My carbon steel pans need about a minute or two on medium heat to preheat. It is much better to preheat on medium, because this gives the heat an opportunity to distribute more evenly and one avoids possible hot spots. 

Gluten free pizza

For the last two years we have been advised to avoid gluten. We found gluten-free life surprisingly easy to adjust to. We do miss the sourdough bread that we used to make regularly we I have no idea how to replicate, convincingly, the magic crust. We replace the bread with gluten-free muffins, which are equally amazing, so there is no looking back now that our restrictions are less strict.

Another dish that is impossible to replicate is pizza. Good dough requires gluten, it is as simple as that, I do not know how to replicate the texture. I did discover, however, that one can make a very tasty pizza from chickpea flour. No, the dough will not look the same, but the flavor will defeat wheat-based dough any day.

The trick is to make a pancake-like thick batter from chickpea flour. Fry the pancake at a medium heat on the stove, on both sides. A carbon steel skillet, or a cast iron skillet work very well. This is what the done base looks like.

Once the pancake is cooked but not burned, I add the toppings, and stick the pan into a preheated 400F oven for about 10 minutes for the toppings to heat through and for the cheese to melt. Here is a recent result  - I used our home-made tomato sauce, sauteed peppers and shiitake mushrooms, goat cheese, and a touch of red pepper flakes. Along with a salad, this was a fabulous meal for two.

Procedure:

• I make make chickpea flour with a grain mill. It goes much faster if I break down the beans in a coffee grinder and then transfer them to the grain mill. 
• About a cup or so of beans yields two pizza's made in a 10-inch carbon steel skillet with the cooking surface of 8-9 inches.
• To prepare the batter:
• Add a good pinch of salt to the flour
• Add 1 tsp of baking powder.
• Optionally, add some dry oregano and marjoram. 
• Mix the four and the seasonings well.
• Add a few TBS of olive oil
• Start adding water slowly, maybe 1/4 cup first, and stir well. The batter will be too dense to even mix.
• Keep adding water in small quantities and mix the batter until you reach a consistency of a thick pancake batter. One can still pour it, but it is pretty thick.
• To cook:
• Preheat a carbon steel skillet on medium to medium low.
• When the skillet is hot, add a TBS or two of cooking oil
• Add in enough batter to form a thick pancake - the thickness is your choice.
• Cook slowly until cooked on one side, about 4-5 minutes, but keep checking to avoid burning the base. It's important to keep the heat low enough.
• Flip with a large spatula, and cook on the other side.
• Flip again, top with the toppings, and cook for another 8-10 minutes in a preheated 400F oven.

Kitchen knives, a refreshed opinon

Many people ask about kitchen knives. Knives have a reputation of being expensive, there are  so many different kinds and brands that one can easily gets confused. Some years ago I hastily wrote a post on kitchen knives, and now is the time for a follow-up. The goal is to make the decision process easier, and a non-goal is to go anywhere close to debating which knives are the best of the best value.

TLDR

• All you need: a chef's knife, a paring knife, and a serrated knife if you cut bread. 
• Optional: kitchen shears and vegetable peeler
• Good kitchen knives do not need to be very expensive. 
• Sharp knives are safer than dull ones. Keeping them sharp can be easy if the steel is not too hard.

Steel

It is very easy to make a big deal out of what steel is used for the blade. I suggest not to waste much time on this. My preferences:

• I prefer stain resistant knives, otherwise the maintenance is more than what I would be willing to do.
• For a home cook, ease of maintenance and resistance to chipping trumps steel hardness. HRC 58 seems to be the sweet spot for steel hardness. 
• Steels that are not at the extreme end of hardness tend to be more cost effective.

Note that requirements for a home cook are fairly trivial: Any knife, even if one cooks every day, is rarely if ever used for more than 15 minutes per day. That means that it takes at least a month of home use to come close to the amount of use a knife can see in a commercial setting in a single day. That is at home use, any reasonable knife will stay sufficiently sharp for long enough.

If you are willing to develop knife sharpening skills - it really is not that hard - and if you are willing to put in enough elbow grease, then by all means, go with as hard a knife as you want. For example, my kitchen knives are on a harder end, but not extreme, HRC 60- 62. I got them because of their size, blade shape, and manageable weight. The price I pay is that it takes about 5 times longer to sharpen a 12-inch chef's knife at HRC 62 than a 10-inch chef's knife at HRC 58. I am willing to pay that price, but chances are you are not.

Technique

It is easy use a knife properly. It does not take all that much practice either. A small investment is worth making as the experience will be much more satisfying. You will be much faster, and your use of a knife will be much safer. In the days of YouTube, your free lesson is one click away. Here are a few for your amusement.

Chef's knives

These two chef's knives are the ones I reach for. Both are large 12 inch knives, and I use them for both large jobs, e.g. cutting a squash or a head of cabbage, and small jobs, e.g. mincing a garlic clove.

The Zhen is made in Taiwan. It cost me about $75. The knife has a nice curve to its blade allowing for easy chopping. It has been my goto knife for the last 5 years and I still like it very much. It is light, the weight is 9.9 oz, but it is not strong enough for chopping bones. Not an issue for me. The cutting core is VG10 steel at 60-62 HRC. I need to sharpen it twice a year and we use it daily. The finish is not perfect - one rivet was not perfectly flush, and after 5 years I still find the handle very comfortable.

The Dalstrong is manufactured in China, it cost me about $85. It is a recent addition as we wanted two large knives with curved blades so that Jasna and I both have similar tools available. The blade curve is quite pronounced, which makes chopping very easy. At 11.2 oz it is a bit heavier than the Zhen, but it is still surprisingly nimble. The steel is AUS10, reportedly very similar to VG10, with the similar Rockwell hardness of 62. The finish is perfect, and the Damascus pattern is quite pretty.

Dalstrong is a pretty new company with superb marketing and with reasonable prices. I gave it a shot recently: All the knives I got perform very well and appear well designed and well made. They are a bit heavier than many of the Japanese knives I have been using, but not too heavy at all.

The size of my chef knives seems to intimidate many people, they resemble small swords. Once my friends give it a try, everyone agrees that the size makes cutting so much easier. And safer: One can keep the tip of the blade on the board, which adds greatly to the stability and control of the blade. One does need a large cutting board, otherwise there is no way to keep the tip of the blade on the board. The picture below shows that mincing a garlic clove can be done really easily with a giant knife.

The large size makes sharpening these knives a bit more work because one has a long blade to work on. Having a large sharpening stone helps. If one uses a cheap pull through sharpener, then the sharpening effort is much lesser, but it has to be done more often.

Important points: Neither knife required me to take a loan, yet they are very well designed, easy to maintain, and are a pleasure to use. Note that cooking just a few meals at home pays easily for a good knife. If the large size is too much for you, there are shorter versions.

If you are on a super tight budget, or if you barely ever cook, consider stamped knives - the best known company there may be Victorinox.

Paring knives

I find myself paying way more attention to ergonomics of paring knives than any other knife. I think this is because they are intended for small jobs, one needs to be able to hold them in many different ways.

The two paring knives I reach for all the time are made by Global, a 3.5-inch one and a 4-inch one. If I had to pick only one, I would probably go with the smaller one - it's much more nimble.

The Global knives are made of a bit of a softer steel than my favorite chef's knives, the hardness number is reportedly 56-58, and that shows. They lose sharpness sooner, but I still sharpen them only when I sharpen the much harder chef's knives.

Shape wise, I like my paring knives to have a rather narrow and pointy blade - that seems to suit most applications best. The handle should be small and light, otherwise one needs to be too careful how to hold them.

Serrated knives

The standard application for a serrated knife is slicing bread, especially the crusty one. We don't bake much bread these days, but I still find a good use for serrated knives: Cutting up a pineapple - it's fibrous enough that a serrated knife helps. Quartering a bucket of tomatoes when I make tomato sauce would dull almost any knife, so I use a serrated one. When I need to cut hot food, I reach for an inexpensive Victorinox serrated knife and not worry whether the heat will alter the steel of fancier knives. That knife is one of the most used in our kitchen because of its thin blade. It works well on cheese, boiled eggs, pastry and so on. 

For slicing bread, my favorite shape is an offset serrated knive as it allows nice slices without my hand hitting the cutting board. For all other application, I use a a chef's/utility knife shape.

It can matter how rough the serrated blade is. For example, my Global serrated knife is amazing when it comes to slicing bread. Side remark: After discovering offset serrated knives, I am not the biggest fan of the shape of that knife, but the blade has no competition. However, the "teeth" are so rough that they seem to really tear more delicate food, so I use that knife only for bread. The Victorinox knives are better for general applications, but they have a harder time dealing with European style bread crust. I recently acquired a Dalstrong serrated knife which strikes a decent balance, though it is still on a rougher side.

Honing steel

The sole job of a honing steel is to align the edge of your blade. The blade appears sharper - because it is, but no metal is removed, so one can hone and hone and hone and will not damage the blade.

I use a honing steel every time when I store the knife, frequently when I pick the knife up, and occasionally during cooking, when I am doing a long prep. The technique is easy - simply pull the blade over the steel at a shallow angle. I pull the blade towards me - many videos of YouTube show that, here is a good one.

I treated myself with F. Dick Multicut steel that is considered the king of honing steels - the honing is faster, because you drag the blade over several mini steels. I do admit that almost any honing steel I have used has done the job.

Some honing steels really are sharpeners: The ones made from ceramics or those covered with diamond dust remove metal and they will reshape the edge. For home use that likely does not matter at all. I do use a diamond sharpening steel for sharpening my serrated knives. This is why all of them have a scalloped serration.

Sharpening tools

YouTube is packed with videos that tell one how to use whetstones to sharpen knives - here is a pretty informative one. At the end of the video, there is obligatory paper slicing, and often an arm gets a bit of a shave, illustrating the sharpness. The videos are correct - making your knife razor sharp is not that hard.

I believe that someone who uses their knife once a week or so can get away with a handy pull-through sharpener. The knife may not stay sharp very long but that hardly matters - a few pulls and the blade is OK.  You can also have you knives "professionally sharpened" - there are many services that do that, one can usually find one on a decent size farmer's market. 

If you are a bit more serious, get whetstones. I use the ones by Shapton, but there are many good ones, and YouTube can quickly provide more information than one may be able to digest. 

Two stones, or one combination stone is all one needs. To shape the edge, one needs a 1000 grit stone, unless the blade is damaged so badly that it requires a rough stone to literally reshape the blade - I would probably get a new affordable knife in such a situation. After restoring the edge, one needs to polish it. That increases how long the blade stays sharp, and it also make the cut smoother. A 4000 to 6000 grit stone is great for that. You can also polish in several steps - 2000 grit, 5000 grit, 8000 grit and even higher if you so desire. Practically, that is not needed, but if it makes you happy, there is nothing wrong with going above and beyond. Here is a video with an overview of the grits.

Other cutting tools

I find kitchen shears a highly underrated piece of kitchen equipment in the West. They are great for everything from opening packages to snipping herbs to cutting through chicken bones. I have a small one and a large one - either one would suffice on its own.

I also use my vegetable peelers quite a lot, and i especially take pleasure in using it for peeling butternut squash. Not sure why I find this so satisfying, but I do and that is OK.

Beyond that, it is easy to go crazy and get a special tool for any single thing. I would recommend to step back and see how often any such tool would be used. For example, I like buying a whole salmon when Copper River salmon is in season. For this reason I have a fillet knife, but I only got a $20 KastKing - a  knife that I have been beyond happy with and for which I do not feel bad when it does not see any action for a while.

Fig and walnut cake, gluten free

This is the the very best cake from my childhood. Combined with the creme anglaise type of icing, it has a unique flavor that etches in your brain. Because it is a soufflés like cake, it was very easy to adopt to be gluten free. Also note the lack of butter in the cake, and a limited amount of sugar used. I find it hard to believe how good this cake is despite of the lack of the usual taste enhancers.

Ingredients:

• 8 large eggs, separated
• 5 TBS sugar split into 2 TBS and 3 TBS
• 4 TBS potato starch
• 5 1/2 oz coarsely chopped walnuts (150g)
• 3.5 oz raisins soaked in rum or water (100g) 
• 3.5 oz chopped dry figs soaked in rum or water - use kitchen sheers (100g)
• 2 TBS vegetable oil or walnut oil, or melted butter

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 400F (200 C)
• Use kitchen sheers to chop figs into small bits
• In a small bowl, combine raisins and figs, add some rum and/or water so that the dried fruit plumps up
• Mix 2 TBS of sugar with vegetable oil. The sugar will dissolve.
• Make meringue from egg whites and 3 TBS sugar
• Optionally add a pinch of creme of tartar to the egg whites
• Beat egg whites until they are starting to stiffen
• Sprinkle the 3 TBS sugar over the egg whites
• Continue beating until stiff and shiny. 
• Prepare a spring baking pan. 10 inch works well, 8 inch will give you a taller cake but you have to be careful not to under-bake, because the batter will be thicker.
• Lightly oil the bottom and the sides of the pan
• Line the pan with parchment paper
• Sift the potato starch over the meringue and fold carefully.
• Drain the liquid from the dry fruit.
• Add dry fruit, nuts, and sugar-oil mixture to the meringue.
• Fold carefully.
• Transfer the batter to the baking pan.
• Bake at 400F for 5 minutes
• Reduce the temperature to 350F and bake for another 20-25 minutes. Check after 20 minutes - if the toothpick comes out clean, the cake is done.
• Cool on a rack, spread with icing of your choice, chill, and eat.

Icing suggestions

• Pastry cream
• Ingredients
• 3-6 egg yolks (use 5-6 for a richer pastry creme)
• 1 whole egg (optional if you use 5-6 egg yolks)
• 5-6 TBS sugar (3 TBS per cup of milk)
• a pinch of salt
• 2.5 - 3 TBS corn starch or potato starch. I prefer potato starch because it handles higher heat than corn starch.
• 1 tsp vanilla extract, 2-3 TBS lemon juice, and/or other flavoring agents
• 2 cups milk
• 2-3 TBS butter
• Method:
• Heat milk on medium heat in a pan - I use a ceramic wok, it works well for whisking needed later
• While the milk is heating, mix other ingredients except butter in a heat-safe bowl. Make sure there are no starch lumps left.
• When the milk starts to bubble, turn the heat off.
• Temper the egg mixture with half the milk - drizzle the hot milk into the bowl while whisking continuously.
• Add the egg mixture to the pan with the milk.
• While whisking continuously, bring the mixture to the boil.
• When the first bubbles show, turn the heat down and boil and whisk for another 2 minutes to cook the starch fully. It is important that the mixture is at or close to gentle boil, otherwise the starch will not do its job.
• Turn the heat off and mix in the butter and vanilla.
• Transfer the cream to a bowl and immediately cover the cream with plastic wrap so that the wrap touches the top of the cream. This is to prevent a film from forming.
• Let the cream cool down to the room temperature, then put it in the fridge for a few hours to cool down completely. 

• Creme anglaise and butter
• Use any recipe you like to make creme anglaise. Then keep stirring it until it cools to the room temperature. Whisk in cold unsalted butter - up to 2 sticks if you want the icing to nicely harden.
• You can also spoon creme anglaise over the cake.
• This is what I do:
• Whip 4 egg yolks with 1/3 cup sugar until pale and ribbons form.
• Slowly whisk in 3/4 cup of boiling milk
• Cook in a double boiler until it thickens - the back of a spoon will be coated
• Stir to cool to the room temperature. A cold water bath speeds this up. 
• If creme anglaise is too warm, the butter will melt and the icing will have a hard time to harden.
• Whisk in cold unsalted butter. A stick is enough, two will yield a very hardened icing.

• Whipped cream
• Whip some heavy cream and a little sugar, 1 TBS suffices.
• Add a splash of grand mariner, or a coffee liquer, or rum for extra flavor

• Bavarian
• Make creme anglaise (see the recipe above)
• Add 1 pouch of gelatine mixed into 1Tbs of boiling water.  
• Add 1/2-1 cup of heavy cream whipped with 1Tbs of sugar. If desired, add additional flavoring such  as 1 tsp of rum extract, reduction of 1 cup of wine (reduce to about 2Tbs), vanilla extract,... 
• Mix well and refrigerate until set. 
• Spread on the cake. 
• The more cream you use, the lighter and softer the icing is. Because of gelatine, Bavarian does not melt down if the cake is left in a warm place for a while.

• Coffee icing
• 4 oz softened unsalted butter
• 4 oz icing sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 TB instant coffe
• 2 TB boiling water
• Cream  the butter, sugar, and egg yolk. Dissolve the instant coffee in the boiling water.
• Mix together. Chill for a while if needed, but watch that it does not harden. 
• Spread over the cake and let cool.

• Chocolate mousse:
• 1 cup whipping cream (250 ml)
• 2oz dark chocolate (40-50g)
• Sugar to taste - 1 TBS for me
• Whip the cream and the sugar, melt the chocolate. 
• Temper the chocolate with a spoon or two of cream, fold melted chocolate into the cream. Spread over cake, cool.

Zucchini peanut burgers, gluten free version

Once upon a time I was a gopher for someone famous. That person had a very interesting eating belief - the word they used for zucchini was a dreaded Z vegetables. That was enough for me to make a zucchini dish when we had a supper together, and much to my delight, the dreaded Z dish was a major hit. Of course it was only after we have eaten that I shared what I cooked. Despite, or because of the mischief, all continued to be good on the work front.

I found the recipe for zucchini peanut burgers in one of the "Australian Women's Weekly" cookbooks that we purchased in Canada, and now it is clearly available online! Looking at the title of that organization now, it seems so outdated and so gender biased. Please, do not hold that against me.

The recipe became one of our favorites, but we did not make it often, because we almost never eat rice. So I started to experiment with the ratios, that is, using more zucchini and peanuts, and also using grains other than rice. I discovered quickly that a combination of zucchini, chopped peanuts, some grain and eggs was very flexible and forgiving, and that there was no need to coat the patties with bread crumbs.

Here is what I made today:

Ingredients

• 2 medium zucchini, grated
• 1 cup of chopped unsalted peanuts
• 1 cup of cooked quinoa
• two eggs
• two heaping tablespoons of potato starch
• two tablespoons of brown rice flour
• salt and pepper to taste

Method

Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Let stand for a few minutes. If the mixture is runny, add more potato starch or brown rice flour. It should look roughly like this:

Add two TBS of cooking oil (avocado is my favorite) to a skillet. I used both a carbon steel skillet and a cast iron griddle to be able to cook more patties at once.

Add a heaping soup spoon of the mixture to a hot pan, flatten it with the spoon, and repeat until tyhe pan is full. Cook on medium heat until it is nicely brown on one side, Then flip, and cook on the other side until the patties are cooked through. It is important not to cook on too high heat so that the patty does not burn.

This is what the patties look like wen cooking on a cast-iron griddle:

We eat these with a small serving of our tomato sauce. If you have access to fresh okra, you can make okra in tomato sauce and have a killer combo.

Peanut sauce, addictively simple

Peanut sauce is not something I grew up with of even had before we moved to Canada. I still remember the first time we experienced it. It was in a small restaurant in Toronto, and our friends ordered sticky rice with peanut sauce. I still remember rolling balls of rice and dipping them in the super tasty sauce.

Little did I know how simple it was to make the goodness. With the invention of electric pressure cooker, AKA Instant Pot, making sticky rice amounts to a 2-minute job.

Peanut sauce, on the other hand, is a 5-minute stove-top job. While this may not be a fully traditional recipe, it produces an outstanding result, reliably.

Template for making peanut sauce

• Sauté the base: finely chopped onion, minced ginger, minced garlic - any subset will do. Salt and pepper to speed up the cooking.
• Add 2 cups of liquid: coconut milk, chicken stock, bean-cooking liquid, water - any of those will do
• Optionally add a bit of miso to up the umami factor
• Optionally, if you are not using coconut milk, add a bit of coconut oil.
• Add two heaping soup spoons of smooth unsalted peanut butter. If you use the salted variety, you'll need to be more careful about controlling saltiness
• Add some heat and flavor: 1 TBS of thai curry paste, any kind, 1/2 TBS harissa, sriracha or another hot sauce
• Add 1 TBS soy sauce, 1 TBS fish sauce
• Optionally add 1 TBS sesame oil
• Bring to boil while stirring over medium to medium high heat. 
• If it is too thick, add more liquid. If it is too thin, add a bit more of peanut sauce.
• Taste, adjust the seasoning if you wish.
• Eat, and try to control yourself. 

Our usual peanut sauce

• Sauté onion and garlic, sometimes ginger with salt and pepper
• 2 cups of kelp water or regular water or bean liquid, whatever we have
• A small dollop of miso
• 2 heaping soup spoons of smooth unsalted peanut sauce
• Curry paste (or harissa and sriracha when we are out of curry paste)
• Soy sauce and sesame oil

No-mess chocolate truffles

I still find sous vide circulator to be an amazing part of one's cooking arsenal. In particular, nothing touches short ribs or pork belly cooked for 3 days or so. It is also beyond amazing to be able to make perfect onsen eggs right at home, definitely much more convenient than to travel to Japan.

Recently I discovered another use of sous vide circulator: Making chocolate truffles. I used to make them regularly and it was always a messy affair, with tasty results. Using sous vide to melt and temper chocolate adds precision to the process while reducing the effort significantly. Furthermore, piping truffles from a plastic bag really speeds up the preparation and eliminates lots of mess.

These truffles were likely the best I have ever made. I used sour cream instead of the more standard heavy cream, and for flavoring I used a splash of Kahlua. Options of course, are unlimited. For chocolate, I opted for 54% Hageland chocolate, not going for my usual go-to 70% chocolate.

Ingredients:

• 300g chocolate. I prefer dark to extra dark - 54% to 70%.
• Chop the chocolate roughly so that it melts more easily.
• 1/2 cup sour cream. Heavy whipping cream is a more standard option and one could certainly use it.
• A pinch of salt.
• 1/4 cup, approximately, Kahlua. 
• It is good to add additional flavorings. Other options are rum, strong coffee, Grand Mariner, Bailey's, any liquer really.
• One can also experiment with a pinch or two of chilly powder.
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup of unsweetened cocoa for coating the truffles
• One can also use finely chopped nuts. 

Method:

• Prepare a water bath and a sous vide circulator, set it to 115F.
• Add all of the wet ingredients into a ziplock bag. Save cocoa powder or nuts for later. 
• Using water displacement method, submerge the ziplock bag into the water and secure the bag to the pot.
• After the water comes to the temperature, keep the bag at the temperature for about 15 minutes, mixing it up at least once in between. Feel that all the chocolate has melted, otherwise wait some more time.
• When the chocolate is melted, make sure all the ingredients are mixed well.
• Set the sous-vide circulator to 81F and add ice to the water bath to drop the water temperature.
• Wait for another 15 minutes, mixing in the middle, so that the ganache cools down. 
• If ganache is too liquid for piping, wait a bit longer, or cool sous vide down for another few degrees.
• You can put the bag in the fridge for a minute or so, but be careful that it does not develop solid bits. I prefer waiting.
• On a counter or baking sheet, lay down a sheet or parchment, or use a silicone liner.
• Dust the parchment paper well with cocoa powder, using a fine sieve.
• Push all the ganache towards the bottom of the bag to prepare for piping.
• Snip a corner of the bag.
• Pipe ganache into small mounds on the parchment. Do not worry about the shape, it will be corrected when you roll the truffles. 
• Dust truffles with some more cocoa powder. This is what it looked like for me.

• Roll the truffles in the extra cocoa powder to get the desired shape.
• Store the truffles in a container in a fridge.

• Share!!!

Onsen egg sous vide

I wish I had a picture that could capture the flavor. A perfect custardy egg in a dashi-mirin-soy sauce. Made at home, consistently. What else can one desire?

A sous vide circulator is in my opinion a perfect device for two things. One is slow cooking meat at low temperature for a long time. Short ribs, pork belly, shanks, any meat cut where gelatine comes in play. A pressure cooker does an amazing job in a fraction of time, but if one has the time and can plan ahead, nothing beats sous vide. The second amazing application is cooking eggs as described in the amazing record of an egg-cooking experiment done by the one and only J. Kenji López-Alt. I shamelessly use that article as my definite reference when it comes to eggs and sous-vide, and overall, his sous-vide explorations are a source of inspiration. If you have an Instant Pot with a sous vide setting, you can have onsen eggs for breakfast - set it up in the evening, on a timer, and enjoy in the morning. 

Ingredients:

• Eggs
• For kaeshi sauce:
• 4 parts of Soy sauce
• 1 part Mirin
• 1 part Sugar
• Dashi - remember a simple way to make dashi in a fridge
• Use between 10 to 3 parts of dashi per 1 part of kaeshi

Method:

• Cook eggs in a 145F degree water bath for 1.5 hours.
• Note: Use a mesh basket or a bowl to hold eggs in place. They may crack if they are pushed around by the flow of water. You can put eggs in the water immediately as you fill the pot, no need to wait for the water to come to temperature. You can also cook them for longer than 1.5h, I've definitely gone beyond 2h and it was OK.
• In a pot, mix mirin and soy sauce at the ratio of 4 parts of soy sauce to 1 part of mirin. Set aside one part of sugar.
• Note: Find a good soy sauce. It makes a big difference.
• Also measure dashi, you will need 10 parts of dashi to 1 part of soy-mirin mixture.
• Note, you can vary greatly how much dashi to use. It really depends on your mood an preferences. Serving eggs cold calls for a saltier mixture, I have heard of even 3:1 ration of dashi to kaeshi sauce, but that is too salty for me.
• Bring soy-mirin mixture to a boil to let alcohol evaporate.
• Dissolve sugar into soy-mirin mixture. You just made kaeshi sauce.
• Add dashi and warm up.
• One can debate whether you should boil the mixture. I sense no major difference in taste if I do, but purists or people with more sensitive palate may disagree.
• Crack an egg into a small helper bowl.
• Gently remove the egg with a spoon, leaving the non-solidified whites behind.
• Put the egg into a serving bowl, and carefully pour some sauce around the egg.
• Serve, eat, and be amazed.

These eggs are very versatile and don't have to be just served in dashi-soy sauce. One can use them in place of poached eggs, or for example in a shakshuka to avoid overcooking that can happen so easily.

Shakshuka with leafy greens, somewhat deconstructed

Shakshuka is an amazingly easy, tasty, and typically a healthy dish. It really is eggs poached in tomato sauce, spiced up with paprika, cumin, and chili peppers. 

When we started to make shakshuka, I found a recipe that included spinach, and we quickly expanded that to kale and later to beet greens, which is at the moment our favorite. We realized that it could be somewhat challenging to control cooking of the eggs as we often overcooked them. We still loved the sauce, so now we usually cook an egg separately - hence a somewhat deconstructed version of the dish. It remains one of our favorite breakfasts.

One can, of course cook eggs in the tomato sauce, which is the traditional approach. About 3 minutes tends to do the trick.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 onion, diced
• 1 TBS ground cumin
• 1 TBS smoked paprika
• 1 bunch leafy greens, washed and chopped: kale,  collard greens. chard, beet greens, spinach all work well
• 1/2 cup broth or water if using kale, collards, or beet greens
• 1 cup top quality tomato sauce
• 1/2-1 TBS harissa
• 1/2 TBS miso, optionally
• eggs - we find one per person suffices

Procedure:

• In a pan, saute onions until they are soft and translucent. Use a scant pinch of salt to speed up the process
• Add cumin and paprika, and fry them for up to a minute on medium heat. Add a bit of oil if necessary.
• Add leafy greens.
• If cooking spinach, sautee until the spinach wilts
• If cooking tougher greens, add 1/2 cup broth or water, cover the pan and cook for a couple of minutes so that the vegetables soften
• Add tomato sauce, harissa, and optionally miso. Mix well and bring to boil.
• Adjust usage of salt if using miso as it is quite salty on its own.
• Cover the pan, set heat to medium-low, and cook for up to 5 minutes.
• If you want to cook eggs in the sauce, then crack each egg separately in a small bowl, make an indentation in the sauce to hold the egg, put each egg in its own indentation, and optionally, add a touch of salt to the egg.
• While the sauce is cooking, add more liquid if the sauce feels dry. The sauce should not be watery either.
• If you did not cook eggs in the shakshuka, then fry or poach them separately.

Serve with savory grain porridge - quinoa, teff, oat, millet, etc., or brown rice, and an egg.

Variation

One can steer this recipe in various directions - I don't think the result would be still called shakshuka, but that question is not something I'd prefer to spend my time on. A simple variation that we almost always do is to add some beans - we usually add cooked beans to the plate and cover them with piping hot shakshuka. One can, of course add cooked beans to the pan with shakshuka and meld the flavors some more. Red lentils are another option - add them and enough water to the onion and spices mixture and cook the lentils with the spices and tomatoes or tomato sauce.

A more radical variation involves meat. One can add ground beef (or pork or lamb or a combination) to the onions and spices, brown the beef and then continue with the recipe - one can add some more salt and spices to season the beef properly. The result becomes surprisingly similar to chili - especially if one also adds some beans and skips the green vegetables. But I do prefer the vegetables, this dish is my go-to approach to use tougher greens such as beet greens. Of course, one can always replace beef with tofu...