I was back in Singapore over the weekend to attend my big brother’s wedding (congrats again to the happy couple!), and I made a pit stop (or two….) at a new store in town, Tools of the Trade. It’s a retail kitchen megastore opened by Sia Huat (those of you in Singapore might be familiar with the restaurant supply store located on Temple Street in Chinatown) and they sell the same hysteria-inducing variety of kitchenware, only in an (even more) ginormous space that’s nowhere near as cluttered/claustrophobic, and – simply put – feels completely magical.

The biggest draw for me to ToTT was that they’re the local distributors for the Sous Vide Supreme – a water oven designed or home cooks as a much more compact and affordable alternative to immersion circulators. Cooking sous vide (literally translated: under vacuum) involves sealing food in bags and immersing the food in a bath of water maintained at a certain temperature, which enables you to cook your food with much more precision, and at lower temperatures, than traditional ovens would allow. I’ve long been interested in this method, and have previously experimented with a rather ghetto set-up: a large pot of water set over a very low/intermittent flame, with a thermometer to check the temperature, and yours truly armed with a spatula functioning as circulator. As much as that works, to a certain extent, I’ve been chomping at the bit, waiting for the SVS to become available in Asia, ever since it was released in the US.

For my first meal, I decided to keep things pretty simple. The best illustration of how sous vide cookery can benefit a cook is with steak – instead of dropping a piece of meat into a pan or oven that’s a couple hundred degrees hotter than the internal temperature you want your steaks to end up, and having to watch it diligently so you can whisk it out of the pan before it’s done, so it’ll hit the correct temperature once the meat has rested, it makes so much more sense to hold it at said temperature so it is uniformly cooked throughout, only needing a 30-second sear to quickly char the outside a la minute. I especially love how I can now prepare dinner in advance, and keep the food hot without worrying that it’ll dry out or overcook while waiting for my poor overworked girlfriend to come home. All that remains, once she’s in the door, is for the meal to be plated up (7 minutes including searing exactly, tonight!) while she gets changed before we can eat.

I’m really excited to continue getting to know the newest addition to my arsenal of kitchen toys, and hopefully this also means that I’ll have more interesting things to post up here in the coming months. :D

Sous Vide Steaks & Potatoes

2 striploin steaks, or whatever cut you prefer (~1 inch thick, approx 250g each)
salt & pepper
canola oil

4 small red-skinned potatoes, sliced about 3mm thick
1 tbsp olive oil
salt & pepper
2 tbsp fresh, plucked, rosemary leaves in herb sachet*

Rinse the potato slices and pat dry. In a medium mixing bowl, stir a large pinch of salt and few twists of freshly ground black pepper into the olive oil, then toss the potatoes in the seasoned oil. Lay the potatoes in a single layer in your bag (dividing between two bags if necessary), and add the herb sachet to the bag. Vacuum seal, then cook at 85ºC (185ºF) for 15-20 minutes, until the potatoes are tender.

Pat the steaks dry with paper towels, then season well with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Place, in a single layer, in a bag, and vacuum seal. Cook at 57ºC (135ºF) for 45 minutes (it can be held for up to 5 hours). This temperature will give you medium-rare steaks – adjust accordingly for your preference in doneness.

To finish, preheat a cast iron or stainless steel skillet until it’s screaming hot. Add a film of canola oil, then sear the meat very quickly (20-30 seconds per side) until well-browned and crusty. If, like me, you’re using strip steaks, I’d also recommend starting out by searing the steaks on the strip of fat to melt it down a little and give the fat a little bit of colour. Transfer the steaks to a warm plate and cover loosely with foil to rest for 5 minutes.

While the steaks are resting, sear the potato slices in the same pan (beef fat FTW!) until just to brown lightly. Drain on paper towels, and serve the beef and potatoes with a simple green salad for a delicious meal. :)

*Herb sachets: According to Under Pressure by Thomas Keller, if your aromats are placed directly in the bag against whatever you’re cooking, certain parts of your food will have a stronger flavour than others. As such, he recommends rolling the aromats up tightly in food-safe clingfilm, then snipping the ends off, so that they are not in direct contact with the food.

Everyone I know (from Singapore, at least) who loves visiting Hong Kong loves this place because of two reasons – the food and the shopping. I’m a fan of the former, obviously, given my current girth around my midsection it’s quite clear where my priorities lie. Also, I’ve never had a high tolerance for shopping – I get impatient and I hate crowds! This probably explains why most of the shopping I do is either done online, and whenever I do venture into malls, I’m either there when there are less than 10 other shoppers on the same floor as me, or I’m in and out within 10 minutes tops.

However, I must say I’ve been converted. Well, perhaps I was always a bit of a shopaholic, I just shop for different things! I mean, how else can one explain how within 18 months, the amount of stuff bunny and I own increased by 35 boxes, with 21 dedicated solely to kitchen ware (including cutlery, crockery, silverware, glassware etc)? TWENTY ONE BOXES. Of KITCHEN stuff. That’s a lot!!!

Evidently, I haven’t been cured of my shoppaholism. In fact, I’ve finally realised why Hong Kong is such a haven for shoppers – only I haven’t found my paradise in the aisles of fashionistas and designer shoes or bags. No, I’ve found my new escape somewhere quite unexpected (even for me): in city super, an upmarket supermarket. I mean, I was delighted enough when I saw their deli counters with pata negra, chorizo, truffle-flecked buffalo mozzarella, and more, but one day I found their non-food section. The first thing that stood out was the range of bottling products: stuff I could only find in speciality cookstores like Pantry Magic in Singapore. I swear I gasped audibly when I found a heat diffuser on the shelves – something I’d been searching for in Singapore for over a year!

Today, though, I really hit the jackpot. I was looking for some bottles in the Causeway Bay city super when I saw a little Le Creuset display stand. My eyes involuntarily wandered over to the price tag and back to my shelf of bottles when I did a double take. A Le Creuset cast iron skillet for under S$50? Suffice to say that I spent the next 25 minutes pacing back and forth in front of the display, and walked out with these two:

You can’t actually blame me, right? I mean, I’ve already written about how much I love my yellow Dutch oven. Oh well. I suppose I now have a happy family of primary colours.

The latest addition to the kitchen is going to be an ICE CREAM MAKER. I know, everyone, sing with joy! This officially means that everyone can please stop buying me ice cream whenever you guys come over to visit – we really appreciate it but now have about a week to finish all the stuff in the freezer (I’ve got 8 tubs at last count, only 2 bought by bunny or i) before the new toy comes in! Watch this space for more ways to get fat, and umm.. if anyone wants to help me clear out the freezer, buzz me! If I’m not wrong, these are the flavours we’ve got:

• Haagen Dazs – Vanilla
• Haagen Dazs – Green Tea
• Haagen Dazs – Coffee
• Haagen Dazs – Strawberry
• The Daily Scoop – Lychee Martini
• The Daily Scoop – Earl Grey Tea
• Ben & Jerry’s – Chocolate Fudge something
• Ben & Jerry’s – Chubby Hubby

I’m pretty free next week, so going to devote my time to finishing it all off (I really only like Vanilla, Coffee and Strawberry, ‘cos I’m very boring that way), and then I’ll be researching ice-cream recipes. I think I owe it to myself (and bunny) to find THE perfect Vanilla ice cream recipe (I’ll probably start in the vicinity of my favourite, tried-and-tested custard recipe), then the next one I’m really looking forward to will be a Masala Chai variation. After that – in the spirit of tea – I plan to crack the secret behind delicious matcha ice cream (and probably will bribe eyes with some of it in exchange for some of her delicious redbean paste thingiebob, then I would really, really love to a spicy chocolate one, much like those Mayan blends with cayenne pepper and what not, which is where hot chocolate really came from anyway. Maybe this way I’ll finally be able to create something chocolate that my dear anti-chocolate girlfriend will like. :)

I CANNOT WAIT.

Edit: w00t!! I don’t care if I’m just a lowly sheep following what seems to be a trend (I’ve wanted my own ice cream maker for at least 7 years now, so shall use poverty and age as my excuses for being so late to the game), I’m pretty pleased at this article about home made ice cream in SFGate.com today! -beam