@ForkReport- Technique of the Week- Lesser-Known Cooking Techniques

 Lesser-known cooking techniques is what Neil is getting into today. Do you know what you need to make thee perfect steak? Neil does!! Take a listen!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I wanted to talk about a couple of methods of
cooking that are less known. There are methods that if
you're like a big time home cook and you're always
behind the stovetop or the oven, that you might know these,
but maybe you haven't worked on them before. Maybe they

(00:21):
aren't something that you've done yourself. So when you are
cooking with souv'd, which has become much more known than
it was in the past. When I first got into it,
these souvd immersion circulators were twelve hundred and fifteen hundred dollars.

(00:42):
Now you can get them for one hundred bucks. And
the technology is probably more advanced in a lot of ways.
But for those of you have heard about it but
haven't used it, or maybe got one as a gift
and han't haven't really used it, don't know what to
use it for. Souvied simply means under pressure. NIQUE involves
vacuum cealing food in a plastic bag and then you

(01:06):
cook it in a water bath, but at a precise temperature.
So basically you're poaching, but it's in a bag very
very highly controlled temperature. In this case, you're looking within
a I don't know a tenth of a degree or
something very precise. It's known for producing incredibly tender and
evenly cooked results, especially with proteins like meats, fish, chicken

(01:30):
can be fantastic, but there's techniques otherwise, don't you don't
do it right, or you do it for too long,
or the wrong temperature. Chicken could come out rubbery or
mushe It's kind of weird, but essentially it's this way.
When we cook with heat, dry heat, we're pushing that
heat into the food. And that's why when you cook

(01:52):
a steak and you say medium, rather they say okay,
that's going to be a warm pink center or a
warm red center, and you go, oh ok. And that
means that the whole steak is not medium rare. The
center is because the heat has to push from the
outside to the inside, right, So five hundred degrees whatever

(02:12):
you have the ofn on or if you're grilling, whatever
it is, is pushing that heat into the center because
the center has is the last thing to cook. And
that's really the temperature that you're getting in the center,
not around. It's stradations of you know, strata of different temperatures.
That way well with souv It stays at a low

(02:35):
temperature for longer periods of time, and that way kills
the bacteria, but isn't overcooking. Now it comes out like
a brand new baby. It's not pretty once you take
it out of that package because it's been vacuum sealed
it and it doesn't have any browning. And then you
take it out of that and then you seer it
off to finish it off. You get the mayard reaction

(02:57):
there and all that brown goodness. Brown food is good food,
and then it's sweet perfection and it's a magical thing.
But it does take some learning. There's a bit of
a learning curve learning the temperatures and the times properly.
But a lot of restaurants use this because you can
hold a steak that means you can keep it in

(03:19):
there all day at rare or medium rare, and if
somebody says, you know, I'd like one medium, you just
grill it a little longer, or if they want it
medium rare, you just sear it off very quickly. And
so when your steak comes quickly at a restaurant off

(03:41):
it's times it's because they're prepping them souv and they
won't overcook because the temperature is low. It will never
go above the temperature that you have it in. So
if you have it in a one hundred and thirty
five degree bath, it's never going to go above medium rare.
It can't physically, so it's kind of crazy. It's a
really neat process. Alrighty, So we're talking for the Technique

(04:05):
of the Week about a couple of techniques that maybe
you're not aware of or don't use as much. One,
and I hope I pronounce this properly, is in puppy,
in poppilote. That's what I'm going with. I think it's
franche like quasthle, like if you're having a quaffle. But

(04:27):
it basically means, you know, like envelope, and so you're
putting it in a pouch. It's a pouch and you
can do it with foil, you can do it with
parchment paper. And basically it's part dry heat in a
way because you're putting it into the oven, and then
it's part wet cooking because it's gonna steam itself as well.

(04:50):
I do chicken like this, a chicken breast. One of
the easy ways to do this for me Gosh is
a single man. I did this all the time. I
I'd come home, I'd throw a chicken breast in parchment.
I'd throw in gosh. I think Kraft has them a
bunch of different you know, they have these dressings like garlic,

(05:12):
herb or something. I'd dump some of that in there.
I'd fold it up into a pouch or into an
envelope of sorts, throw it in three hundred and fifty
degrees for like thirty five minutes or something, and pull
it out and it'd be perfectly tender, and it'd be
sitting cooking in that and it's about as easy as
you can get. You can throw it on you know,

(05:33):
rice peelf, You can throw it on anything and you're
good to go. Put a side of of veggies there,
and that's one of my favorite ways to cook. But
I always just call it packet cooking or envelope cooking.
So the real term is in belote. Somebody's gonna scream

(05:53):
at me for that. P A P I L L
O T E. Sorry, you talk prettier than I do,
Bain Marie, or you call a double boiler is one
of those things. It's a technique where food is cooked
in a water bath, ensuring even heat distribution, but it's
done in a container. This's how you melt chocolate as well.

(06:15):
This is when you don't want to do heavy damage.
It's also a way to keep something warm. When you
have those chafing dishes, they use that similar the warm
water below, which keeps actual flames from touching and putting
hot spots. It even keeps things even. And lastly, red cooking,

(06:35):
which is a strange name for Chinese doing because you
think communism red. That's not what it is. It's a
slow brazing technique where where the food's braised in a
red colored sauce and creates this very tender and lovely,
low and slow type cooking to it. So these are
just some things I want to share with you that
we're a little different, that maybe you're not doing right now,

(06:57):
but can up your game a little bit or something
to your to your palate. There for cooking