First off, my apologies for the issues with email updates, RSS and the site these past few days. My old host, mediatemple, was hacked and malware was injected into my blog. I’m now happily at Page.ly and thanks to Josh Strebel’s tireless customer service efforts I’m back up and clear of bugs.

Soft-Boiled Hen Egg with Green Asparagus, Créme Fraîche Aux Fines Herbs, and Butter-Fried Croutons.

I decided that I would start this project of mine, cooking through Thomas Keller’s fantastic Under Pressure, with a simple recipe.

Simple and Keller? It’s all relative I guess.

Take the croutons for this dish, for instance. There are basically three components to the meal: 1. A créme fraîche sauce 2. the egg, and 3. Croutons. Simple.

But making the croutons requires baking a brioche, and that takes a bit of time and effort. Well, more than a bit. First you have to let the dough rest for three hours, fold out the bubbles and then you have to let it rest overnight. Then you bake it, leave it out for another day to dry, and then cut into cubes and fry them in butter. For croutons. Yay, effort!

Working on Technique

The results were fantastic though. And really that’s what’s so much fun about sous vide cooking combined with Keller. Sous vide allows the home cook to know ahead of time that their proteins and veggies (where applicable) will be cooked perfectly. With that little detail out of the way, you can concentrate instead on technique, on perfecting the craft of cooking that is usually lost in the hustle and bustle of making sure that the centerpiece of a dish is cooked properly.

Check out the yolk on this egg, for instance:

There was zero skill involved in getting the egg perfect, other than knowing how to tune my sous vide controller to keep a tight temp range. You just drop the egg in the water bath, set the temp, and 45 minutes to an hour later you have a perfect egg. Genius. I predict that in the very near future sous vide water baths will be standard issue in most kitchens.

One note on the temp called for by Keller however. He says to cook the egg at 62.5 C (144.5 F) to achieve an egg where “the white is quivering and velvety and the yolk is neither runny nor hard, but rather soft, creamy, and bright colored”. 144.5 simply does not produce an egg with those characteristics. I thought perhaps my controller wasn’t calibrated correctly, but after reviewing Doug Baldwin’s egg photos I realized that 144.5 wasn’t hot enough to properly congeal the egg yolk (see photo below).

I settled on 147 F to get the texture described in the text.

The other technique used in this recipe is what Keller calls “big pot blanching”. It’s similar to standard blanching with a couple twists, and Keller provides an excellent description of “the why” in this technique.

First Keller recommends a big pot so that when the veggies are added they don’t bring the temp below boiling. The enzymes that dull the color of green vegetables are active only at temps below boiling, so keeping the temprature constant ensures a bright green color.

Keller also recommends using a ton of salt – 190 grams per 4 liters of water (a digital scale is a necessity when cooking Keller). He claims this helps prevent pigments in the asparagus from leeching out, and the brackish water also seasons them as they cook.

Dunk the asparagus in ice water (must be over half ice) and the cooked tips will be good for up to a day. Good times.

Pinot Pairing

While the recipe I chose to start out with was relatively simple, pairing eggs and asparagus with a pinot was a bit more difficult. I think a fantastic rose of pinot like the Rose de Diel from Scholssgut Diel in the Nahe would be a killer pairing, but I didn’t have any on hand. With that pairing in mind I decided to pour some Gloria Ferrer blanc de noir sparkling. The combo was rockin’. The egg was smooth and custardy, the asparagus were slightly crisp and tender and well seasoned, and the slightly sour, slightly sweet creme and herbs sauce balanced everything out perfectly.

Mrs. Pinotblogger ate everything I gave her, so I think she approved too. It was a great little Wednesday meal – even if my prep for it began the prior Saturday. Damn you Keller!

Sous Vide