My brother visited last weekend and took some photos with my camera. Well, I neglected to check the camera setting after he used it. I always keep it on automatic shutter and aperture. He had it on manual. So, I've now photographed a couple dishes before realizing that my settings were all wrong. The first dish was great (pork belly, mojo de ajo, Valencia-saffron rice, and I can't remember the rest of it), and the photos didn't come out at all. This dish was good, and I managed to wrangle the photos into something visible.

• Butter-poached lobster tail: In order to get the lobster tail meat out, pour boiling water over the lobster tails and steep for 2 minutes. Then remove from the water and remove the tails from their shells, keeping them intact. I find it easiest the cut the underside of the shells with scissors, then pry them open and remove the shells section by section. Vacuum seal the tail meat with some butter. Poaching in salted butter, plus the brinyness of the lobsters, ends up seasoning with very nicely-seasoned lobsters tails. Cook tails sous vide for at least fifteen minutes @ 59.5C (139F).
• Curried, glazed carrots: I order to peel some nice little carrots, I blanched them in for just about a minute, then shocked them in ice water, then the skin rubs off easily. Then I toasted some spices and made a sweet curry powder, which I put in sous vide bags along with the carrots, some butter, and some agave nectar. If you've cut carrots in multiple colors, and some are purple, do the purple carrots in a separate bag or else the color will bleed to all the others. Yellows and orange can go together. Then I cooked the carrots sous vide at 85C (182F) for about forty minutes, then tossed the bags in the fridge until I wanted to use them. When I was ready to use them, I put them in the pot of warm water I was sous-viding the lobster in (for just a minute or so), in order to turn the curried butter juices liquid. Then I dumped the bags out (juices and carrots) into a pan and let the juices reduce into a lightly curried glaze over medium heat for a few minutes.
• Roasted peanut powder: Roasted, salted peanuts, ground very finely in a coffee/spice grinder, then whisked with some tapioca maltodextrin and pushed through a fine mesh sieve.
• Coconut milk foam: 175g warm coconut milk, 1.75g soy lecithin, foamed with an immersion blender.

This was a stellar combination of flavors. The curried glaze brought out the sweetness of the lobster, while the coconut milk foam brought out the richness. I plated the carrots and drizzled the glaze over, then spooned the peanut powder over the carrots, then put the curled lobster tails over the carrots and spooned on a bit of the lobster butter from the bags. Finally I put some of the coconut milk foam on top of the lobster. It was great. The only thing I'd change is that I'd adjust the spices in the curry a bit. I'd do more cardamom, less cumin. Otherwise, this was delicious, I just wish the photos would have come out. Oh well.

Posted by Barzelay on 2009/02/14 @ 22:28 | Comments (3) | Seafood, Veggies, Fruit, Grain, Cheese

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