Adobo Lab - Part II: Experiments

Not a complete set - just a baseline.

Not being Heston Blumenthal or Alton Brown, much less Dr. Nathan Myhrvold, there's just no way I can explore all the ins and outs of Adobo like they would, or whatever they are pursuing.  They do that for a living.  I do it to relax.  And their graphics staffs are clearly more awesome than mine (me).

Your basic chicken wing adobo.
YUM!

That being said - I've put a bit of study into the Adobo thing (books, internet, and a lucky connection to a real live Adobo cook.  Even luckier - who was willing to share.)  And now it was time to try.

This particular project got started with a whole mess o' extra chicken wings.  See, last time we ordered wings from our butcher, they came pre-split.  So we got half as many as we thought.  This year, expecting that, we ordered accordingly.  And got unsplit wings, so had twice as many.  Next year - we're ordering by the pound.  3rd time, and all that.

4 vessels for experimentation

I decided to attack a few of the main elements: 

Vinegar type - cane or rice - and lots or less?

Salt source - soy sauce or regular salt

Marinate - 1-3 hours or overnight

Coconut milk - yes or no

Spicy or not?

Notice - I didn't even get into the sugar thing.

Lots of garlic.  I don't understand skimping on garlic.
Especially when it gets cooked to mellow and sweet.

Each had about 1.25 lb (0.55kg) of chicken wings  (sorry no pork - but this was more of a sauce challenge)

The basic recipe I started with was
Batch A:
Marinate the chicken for 2 hours in
1/4 C rice vinegar
1 tsp salt
1 bay leaf
1 tsp whole pepper corns
4 cloves garlic smashed and peeled
and I wanted to make this one of my spicy ones, so I also threw in
2 small crushed del arbol chiles (sort of seranno hot, not Thai birdseye hot.)

Pour this all into a cooking vessel of your choice.  Add a little water so you can snuggle you meat mostly into the liquid.

Bring to a boil.

Return to a simmer for 30 min, flip the wings half way through to make sure they get plenty of sauce time.

At the end, I put the chicken wings under the broiler for about 4 min on each side to crisp up the skin, while I boiled the sauce to reduce it down to a back-of-a-spoon-coating thickness.  You can smash up some of the softened garlic cloves into the sauce.

Dueling Sauces
first round
Cocoanut Milk or Not

Return the chicken wings to the thickened sauce to coat them.

Almost there -
Just one more step!

And then bat away the grabby fingers as you try to get a picture.  Or just give up, go with the flow and eat.

Verdict:

Yeah.  Uh, I have spent MUCH longer cooking food that was nowhere near as good.  And this was great.  Getting the family to taste test this, and the next three versions was really easy.  The crushed chile only added a pleasant background of spiciness.  If you want “hot, spicy” Adobo, you’ll need to add a whole bunch more chile pepper.  This was a nice subtle amount.

To get a little more baseline data, I did another 2hr marinade with coconut milk -
Batch B:
Marinate the chicken for 2 hours in
1/3 C cane vinegar
2 Tbs soy sauce
1 bay leaf
1 tsp whole pepper corns
4 cloves garlic smashed and peeled

Follow the same cooking instructions as above

And following one version of coconut milk lore, in the last 10 minutes of simmering I added 
about 1/3 C coconut milk (I eyeballed)

Then I did the broil-flip-broil while I reduced the sauce.

Verdict:

I liked this one better because I LOVE cocoanut milk.  The rest of family could have done without the coconut milk (quote, "Didn't ruin it, I just like it plain better.") but all liked the MORE vinegar version.

So onto the overnight marinades.

Batch C:

Marinate the chicken overnight in
1/3 C cane vinegar
2 Tbs soy sauce
1 bay leaf
1 tsp whole pepper corns
4 cloves garlic smashed and peeled

Follow the same cooking instructions as above,
and the broil-flip-broil while I reduced the sauce.

Verdict:

The soy flavor really came through in the overnight marinade, maybe a bit too much.  But the vinegary bite and all the rest of the flavors were amazing.  I can see why this has been captured by enterprising crock-pot cookers.  (To crock-pot adobo recipes, just pop them in for about 6 hours on low - maybe with a little extra liquid to cover everything).  There were no leftovers.  I wish there had been.  So I could have some more.

And this one... I warn you.  I went all crazy and unorthodox, the way I do sometimes.  (Green Curry Crab Chowder, Savory Aebleskivers, Canning jars in a sous vide - OK, that one's becoming normal)

I used some the "suggested additions" to adobo.  The ones where you might end up hearing, "Well that's really not adobo anymore."

I like to live dangerously.  Or eat well.  Or something.

Batch D:

Marinate the chicken overnight in

1/3 C rice vinegar

1 Tbs soy sauce

1 tsp fish sauce

1 bay leaf

1 tsp whole pepper corns

4 cloves garlic smashed and peeled 

1 whole anise “star”

1 crushed medium hot pepper (red-jalapeño hotness)

1/3 C coconut milk

Follow the same cooking instructions as above,

and the broil-flip-broil while I reduced the sauce.

Verdict:

Well, maybe they’re right, the not-quite-Adobo people.  It was more Thai curry-ish. 

Good Thai curry – the kind with the sour bite of tamarind and deep, complex, enviably mysterious flavors, and lusciously creamy. 

That overnight soak in all those spices created something more than what went in.  And for the life of me I could barely taste any heat.  I think the chile-ness simple added to the magic.   It was very good, but not Adobo.

What have I learned?

1) Cook Adobo again and more. 

2) Even my household is already subject to division on the coconut-milk-or-not front.  That didn’t take long.

3) Which vinegar is not as important as how much.  A bit more is better than less, just like with the other spices.

4) Marinate overnight if you have time, but still make Adobo even if you don’t. 

5) Use a little more soy sauce for a short marinade, less, or just salt for overnight.

6) I have no input on the sugar debate, except to say I didn’t miss it.

7) A little dried chile is nice.  And it won’t make things hot – just more interesting. (The vinegar does that.)

8) Use meat with some fat on/in it (chicken thighs, legs and wings, pork, stew beef? or stew lamb?) and never ever “boneless skinless chicken breasts.”  I know enough to know that those cooked in this heedless, low maintenance way would be awful.  (Can you imagine putting BSCB’s under a broiler for 4 min on a side after they were already cooked?!!  (choke, cough, so dry)

Check Out Adobo Lab – Part III: Results  for a nice starter recipe.

and in a bit (but not yet)-

Adobo Lab - Part IV: Hacking the Conclusions  for Adobo-Style Crispy Chicken Wings.
(yes, we have lots of frozen wings - yay! food saver vacuum bags.)

Yogurt results - Sous Vide style

How do you like your yogurt? 

I'm a thick, slightly tangy yogurt lover.  Like the kind I met in Greece, and is (for me) best replicated by the Fage brand.  They are one of the few companies that actually strains their yogurt of enough of the excess whey to give it the right consistency.

Plenty of other people like theirs softer, more liquid or tangier. These are also completely in your reach even without adding gelatin, seaweed extracts, starch, or other odd bits added to the grocery store stuff that keeps it dependable and more shelf stable as it travels about.

Tangy?

The tanginess has to do with the length of fermentation.  The longer the little milk digesting bacteria are left to do their work the more acid they produce.  

Lactose, the main sugar in milk is digested and turned into lactic acid.  This is why "lactose intolerant" individuals can eat yogurt.  The lactose is eaten up, gone!  Turned into lactic acid.

This is also why coconut milk yogurt works - there are sugars and proteins in there.  The bacteria eat the sugar, and produce acid.  These acids will then coagulate (turn solid) the dissolved proteins.  But there are  fewer proteins in coconut milk, so you get a thinner yogurt.

Soy milk can be made into yogurt only if there is some sugar added to it.  The bacteria need something to eat and and turn to acid if the soy proteins are going to coagulate.  (Most soy milk you buy at the store has some sort of sugar, so it is all set to go.)

Thick or Thin?
So what mediates the thickness?  How hot you get your milk.  The warmer the milk gets, the more the protein strands unravel, so they can recombine tighter, and in larger groups resulting in a thicker yogurt when hit with the lactic acid.  If you heat up your milk to a lower temperature, the resulting yogurt will be looser.

Creamy?
This is all down to fat content.  If you have non-fat milk, there will be no fat.  The yogurt will be good, but it won't have the creamy richness of the fat.  It's not a problem, just understand there is no way to simulate the particular mouth feel of fat.
Straining the yogurt to concentrate the solids will give it a richer texture, but it is still not the same as the creaminess you'd get with whole milk.

So what milks work?
For dairy milk - all of them. The stuff in the cartons, raw milk, box milk, powdered milk.  I've seen claims that ultra-pasturized or UHT milks won't work.  Not so.  Milk turns to yogurt because you introduce particular bacteria into a liquid full of nutrients and relatively empty of other bacteria.
The bacteria are individual cells on the hunt for sugar, and when they find it, they eat it.  Well fed, warm bacteria multiply, sending out more copies of themselves to find and digest the rest of the sugar.

Regular milk, the stuff we think of when we think of milk, has a pretty low concentration of bacteria.  Since we keep it cold, what bacteria that is still in there has little chance to grow and ferment the milk.  But as we all know, given long enough this milk will go bad.

Raw milk has more bacteria, but it is largely person friendly since its source is an animal that lives closely with humans.  What's good for the cow gut is good for ours as well.

Powdered milk in its powdered form is free from any active bacteria since there is no water for the bacteria to live in.  Once you rehydrate it (add water), it is just as open a canvas for the bacteria to move in.  So populate it with your yogurt culture, and you'll get what you want.  The down side?  It'll still taste like powdered milk.

Ultra-pasturized and UHT (Ultra High Temperature) dairy products are super squeaky clean, (neither is sterile - that's a whole different ball game), but are so barren of bacteria they will keep extra long before going sour.  And if that's what you have to work with they will do just fine, providing the materials your yogurt culture needs to live and grow.

'Nuff Biology.  How Do I Make Yogurt? 


Get your milk. 2-4 C is a nice amount to start with.
Not too much yogurt results, but enough to make it worth all the fiddling about.

Choose your fermentation container of choice, it needs to come with a lid.
Heavy glass jars are nice since they are reusable and easy to get super squeaky clean.  I like 1 C canning jars (but only fill them about 3/4 full or a little more) so I end up with individual servings.  And the canning lid rests on top nicely.  No need for the screw on part.
There are special yogurt jars, but - ehh?
Glazed pottery works fine too, but you need to find a lid.  In China they rubber-banded wax paper over the top - so it need not be high tech.

Get some (plain) yogurt with live active cultures.
These days most yogurts have the live cultures, but read the label just to be sure.  Plain yogurt just simplifies things.  (Dairy free people - get coconut or soy - still works!)

Get a cooking thermometer
I LOVE my Thermapen, a digital instant read

but a candy thermometer will serve as well.

A small bowl, a fork/whisk and a ladle
These are for mixing warm milk with the yogurt and moving hot milk about with the least injury to people.

Heat the milk to:  Stir over medium to medium-high heat.  Watch the temp with the thermometer.

120F - 160F super loose.  In fact if you want "yogurt" like you are used to you'll need to add some powdered milk, gelatin or tapioca starch.

165F - 175F for loose yogurt.  This can be drinkable after it is stirred.

175F - 180F for firmer yogurt

180F - 185F the thickest yogurt, but not yet grainy (185 is my sweet spot)

190F - boiling (212F) - starts to get a grainy texture.  You are entering fresh cheese territory here.  It will make a quick and dirty firm yogurt, but the texture won't be smooth.  (How do I know?  I tried.  Not my fave, but I will be straining it to make yogurt cheese.  No reason to waste those tasty coagulated proteins).

Let it cool:  Either set it over an ice bath, or do other stuff in the kitchen and check on it until it hits

110F - 100F  If it gets below 90F, you'll need to go through the heating part all over again.  I got super paranoid my first time, worried it wasn't exactly 112F.  Yeah, not such a big deal.  Just keep it over 90F.

Ladle some of the warm milk into the small bowl.  Use the fork/whisk to stir the still warm milk with 1Tbs plain yogurt for each cup you are making (more or less).  Pour this back into the big batch of milk.
Ladle this into your fermenting jars.

Ferment!
Sous vide style - Pop your jars into a warm water bath somewhere between 100 - 115 (108 is the nice middle where I like to hang out).  Cover the jars so condensation doesn't drip in.  Let it go for 4-8 hours.  (Depending on temperature, culture and how tangy you like it, 3-12 hours is a realistic range.)

Higher temps mean faster fermentation - thus faster coagulation and more whey, and sometimes a grainier texture.
Lower temps mean slower fermentation - so the curd forms more slowly, and typically incorporates more whey, and a generally creamier texture.

Cooler & a bowl of boiling water - 
Line a cooler with a towel/towels.  Place a large (8-12 C) bowl in one side, and the yogurt jars in the other. Use the towel to wrap and prop everybody up sturdily.  Fill the bowl about 2/3 with boiling water, close the lid and let it sit about 6 hours.

Blanket and a heating pad - 
This was the first way I made yogurt, and I didn't love the result.  But it was definitely yogurt.  It was a high temperature ferment of a mix that had powdered milk and honey added.

This works best if you have all your milk in a cylindrical container.  Wrap a heating pad around the container, then insulate it in blankets.  Set your heating pad to medium to start, and keep an eye on the temp.  Adjust to low or high to keep the temperature at the range you want for 4-8 hours.
(For me - if I'm going with a hack, I want a low maintenance one.  This one wasn't.)

In all cases - take out your jars.  Does the yogurt look solid-ish?  If so, pop them in the fridge, let them cool down the rest of the way.

Ta-Da! you have yogurt.

Then add honey, fruit whatever.  And use it in place of sour cream.  It has the same tang and it won't break apart when heated.  I tried adding honey before I fermented. Not worth it.  Just top your yogurt with what you want when you want to eat it.  Again, it makes the whole thing simpler.

So many options!!!!!
The thing that struck me are the ridiculous range of options out there when making yogurt - how high or low to heat your milk, fermentation temperature, additions (powdered milk, honey, gelatin, starch...).  But what it comes down to, yogurt is the kind of thing that happens even when you aren't trying.  So the recipe is very forgiving, and all that really matters is what you prefer.

And if you made yogurt, but want it thicker, wrap it in a tea-towel or plop it in a coffee filter.  Put in in a colander over a bowl for a few hours.  Ta-da thicker yogurt.  Or yogurt cheese. depending on how long you left it.

Like I said... so many options.

If you are not a fan of the thermometer, and have a crock pot, check out this recipe:
Crockpot Yogurt
and then the add-on
Coconut Milk Crockpot Yogurt (will most likely work for all sorts of other non-dairy milks)

Green Curry Summer Squash (including ZUCCHINI!)

After the last post... ramble-y  and unhelpful, it did contain worthwhile info for zucchini consumption.

So to make plain to those of you with a life and a job, and less love for poking around the kitchen, grocery store, asian food centers, farmers market & garden... Here are the high points:

Get your hands on:
*green curry paste (1-2 Tbs)
*some broth (chix or veg - your choice) (about 1 C)
*cocoanut milk (12 - 14 oz can - cans vary, an ounce or 2 won't sink the ship)
*ginger (something about the size of 2 of your thumbs) grated or minced small [can add in chunks, just fish it out]
*something salty (soy sauce, salt, or fish sauce) - to taste
*onion (shallots or classic onions, sweet onions don't fly here) 1 large shallot or half a small onion
* zucchini or other summer squash (yellow, patty pan, bi-color, ball, ANY sort) Use about the volume your forearm takes up.  If you have more, make more curry soup.
*Slice the zucchini/summer squash either into half-moons about 1/2 the width of a pinky finger, or if you are feeling ambitious - or have a mandolin/V-slicer into "noodles."  If the zucchini is very large, scoop out the foamy pith. [I learned the hard way, this just makes things bitter and odd textured].
*something sour  - lemons, limes, tamarind, or in a pinch vinegar. 2 lemons or limes.  If you know tamarind, just go by taste.
* a little vegetable oil
*Rice - ready to spoon curry over - you choose what and how (for those in a hurry - instant microwave rice is not to be sneezed at) or noodles.

Heat about 1 tsp oil + any of the very thick cocoanut milk at the top of the can in a med - large sauce pan over medium-high heat for 2-3 minutes.

Add sliced onion or scallion.  Stir to sizzle and soften, but before you get more than a few brown edges.

Add 1 - 2 Tbs curry paste.

Stir that in into soften and cook down a bit.

Add the rest of the cocoanut milk.

Stir in ginger and the salt.

Taste for, well, tastiness.  If it seems too creamy, start to add the broth.  It may need more than the 1 Cup.
If too flat, add the salt (salty stuff) carefully.
If it is not sour enough add a little vinegar (rice vinegar if you have it).  This should make it almost sour enough but not quite (a hard thing to pin down, but a goal worthy of seeking).

Add the the sliced zucchini/summer squash.  Simmer for a moment to warm though, and cook to tender, but still a bit crunchy.  A taste worth finding for yourself.  stand over the stove a fuss with it for 10 minutes or so.  You'll get the hang of it.

When the zucchini is suddenly really tasty, take the curry off the stove, and add lemon or lime or  tamarind or vinegar to make it "just right sour."

Serve over rice.  Garnish with cilantro or basil or parsley or cucumber.... Farm Bags are that way!

Enjoy!

PS I bet this is good with corn!

Wish I Could Remember How I did That!

Ah, Yes!

The wages of cooking by the seat of your pants... when you hit a winner, you do wonder just what you did.

This time it was fish curry.

A trip the other day for Alec to pick up sushi supplies got it all started, as I passed by the Galanga (Thai ginger or "lesser ginger"). Galanga is one of those mysterious ingredients like bitter melon, palm sugar, palm oil, lemon grass, tamarind... something that is so present in the very authentic cook books, and yet in my youth, was nearly impossible to find in even this most Asian-infiltrated west coast city. Many of them fell under the heading of, "if you cannot find, just replace with..." And so I did. But I always wondered. And if anyone else is wondering, of the ones I have tracked down;

Tamarind Is Worth The Trouble. (It keeps as a pantry staple... this is good)

The rest... ehhh. I discovered with the Galanga, it does add a decidedly subtle flavor, and I appreciated it enough that I will buy it again (unlike palm oil... unless I decide to make soap again... OK cut the tangent!), but won't make a special trip for it. Ginger will do. Palm sugar and brown sugar are interchangeable. And until I start growing lemon grass I official quit caring, since lemon or lime zest plus lemon verbena (which I AM growing) fill in very well.

So there was the Galanga... and at the Farmer's Market, It Is Pepper Time!

So I bought up a big handful of peppers: A mix of 5 serranos, 3 padrons and 3 fresnos. The green curry recipe called for 20 green bird's eye chilis. A masochists, nor a computer geek of a certain stripe, I AM NOT. So I came down the Scoville Scale a few notches, and went for a little more fruit, and a lot less, "AAAaaaaaahhhhhh!" Oh, yeah, and I cut off the tops, and sliced out about 1/2 of the main pith in the top, though left plenty of this heat containing portion down the sides of the pepper.

*Then added some oniony stuff - a shallot & some left over Japanese Scallions.

*The Galanga went in peeled and chunked, about 3 good thumb sizes.

*and about 4 garlic cloves.

*about 2 tsp each of coriander, cumin and 1 tsp of tumeric.

*For that uniquely funky Thai factor, 1 large tsp of shrimp paste went in as well. (another thing to NEVER taste on its own, only when well combined with other things.)

*And either the tender root end of a piece of lemongrass OR the rind of 2 lemons/limes (it can be pared off, or use a carrot peeler, no need to daintily grate it off with a microplane or such) and a nice handful of lemon verbena.

*I also scored cilantro with the roots on at the Market, and cilantro root was called for. Another ingredient I won't go after special. I tasted it... it is mildly "cilantro-" But I feel the stems pack a bigger punch for simmering/grinding. (added some stems to the paste too)

And I turned it all into mush in my food processor. I was made VERY glad I did not seek out the hotter peppers. Even grinding these only moderately hot beauties made me turn on my kitchen blower.

So far I had used a green curry recipe for guidance... Here I went totally off the rails.

I still used the thick portion of my can of coconut milk to soften the 2 Tbs of my new curry paste, cook it down a little.

I sliced a shallot thin and used a little more oil to soften it, and the chunked up cutest, tiniest little baby egg plants I had ever seen. (Squeaky eggplant skin in a curry is not a turn on. Unless they have very thin skin, cook 'em down.)

Then added the rest of the coconut milk, and started tasting. It needed salt like nobody's business. About 2 Tbs fish sauce got things going in the right direction. But it still needed more acid. So rice vinegar to the rescue. I added 2 capfuls, I think the cap is about a tsp?

Some chicken broth went in since it always does, and this was richer than butter & cream mushroom at this point. Adjusted for salt with soy sauce, it tasted almost acid-y enough, was waiting to the very end to add lime juice (so as not to cook away the sour. I could have used Tamarind water, but had none).

I let this cook until the flavors blended, and the eggplant was lovely. I then added thin strips of a summer squash that was staring at me from the fridge - a CSA bag leftover, I had yet to give a good home to. In the thin strips went.

And this time I WOULD NOT overcook the fish.

I had a nice Ling Cod fillet, from Sunday's Market as well. I boned it, chunked it, and as soon as the squash was cooked but still a little crunchy, I put in the fish chunks. As soon as they were mostly cooked through, I turned off the heat and made sure the table was set, and started setting up the bowls with rice and cilantro.

By the time I added the juice of 2 limes and spooned it over the rice and cilantro it was some of the best curry I had ever made. And the above is as close as I can remember.

I suppose I shall have to stumble around in a similar way to do that again.

SIGH!