![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Cooking Experiments: Sous Vide Char Siu Pork Loin, Stuffed Bell Peppers
Don't worry, I haven't stopped trying new things!
Here's an experiment with trying to make char siu pork loin using sous vide.
This wasn't bad but the pork loin came out a bit crumbly, i.e. you need to cut this with a really sharp knife or else the meat will fall apart rather than be easily cut. Real char siu should hold together better than that. I suspect that I need to try making it with well-trimmed pork belly or something like that. Still, it was a good experiment.
The baby bok choy was also an experiment. I steamed them, pretty much. Not bad, but not jumping-up-and-down exciting.
I made these for breakfast this morning! Originally, I was going to make those cute egg-filled bell pepper slices, with spinach on the side, but after I sautee'd 12 oz. of spinach, I had a really small pile of greens... I decided to try making spinach-and-egg-filled bell pepper slices instead, using the oven.
Note to future Tufty should I revisit this: don't. The problem is that the egg will leak out under the side of the bell pepper slices, where they don't evenly sit on the foil. So I wound up baking them twice. The first time formed an egg seal at the bottom of the pepper, then I added more eggbeater and baked that to get the 'real' egg. This left me with a considerable amount of 'wasted' eggbeater that had leaked out onto the foil and been charred black by the double baking time.
So, if I did this again, I would probably either need to make sure to get bell peppers that would sit nicely -- I couldn't do it with this particular bell pepper because its bottom was sloped-- or slice them sideways, giving me cup-shaped bell pepper sections instead of the rings I was trying this time. Oh well, live and learn!
The peppers were pretty tasty anyway, I had bacon mixed in with the spinach. Mm, bacon.
Here's an experiment with trying to make char siu pork loin using sous vide.
This wasn't bad but the pork loin came out a bit crumbly, i.e. you need to cut this with a really sharp knife or else the meat will fall apart rather than be easily cut. Real char siu should hold together better than that. I suspect that I need to try making it with well-trimmed pork belly or something like that. Still, it was a good experiment.
The baby bok choy was also an experiment. I steamed them, pretty much. Not bad, but not jumping-up-and-down exciting.
I made these for breakfast this morning! Originally, I was going to make those cute egg-filled bell pepper slices, with spinach on the side, but after I sautee'd 12 oz. of spinach, I had a really small pile of greens... I decided to try making spinach-and-egg-filled bell pepper slices instead, using the oven.
Note to future Tufty should I revisit this: don't. The problem is that the egg will leak out under the side of the bell pepper slices, where they don't evenly sit on the foil. So I wound up baking them twice. The first time formed an egg seal at the bottom of the pepper, then I added more eggbeater and baked that to get the 'real' egg. This left me with a considerable amount of 'wasted' eggbeater that had leaked out onto the foil and been charred black by the double baking time.
So, if I did this again, I would probably either need to make sure to get bell peppers that would sit nicely -- I couldn't do it with this particular bell pepper because its bottom was sloped-- or slice them sideways, giving me cup-shaped bell pepper sections instead of the rings I was trying this time. Oh well, live and learn!
The peppers were pretty tasty anyway, I had bacon mixed in with the spinach. Mm, bacon.