Keller in the Caf - Making The French Laundry's Lobster Macaroni and Cheese at Work

So, I promised a colleague at work a homemade lunch something like a year ago. But between the busyness of work and home, I kept putting it off. As the months (and months, and months...) passed by, I grew tired of getting "the look" every time I ran into this guy, so I decided to finally make due on my promise. I was on the hook big time, so I wanted to blow him away. I needed to come up with something extraordinary - maybe even, something French Laundry-esque.

Chances are that you, like me, probably haven't had the chance to eat at The French Laundry (for those of you living in a cave somewhere, I'll simply say that TFL, under the helm of celebrated chef Thomas Keller, is considered the best restaurant in the US, if not the entire world). For "regular people" like me, missing out on this experience is probably best for the wallet, but yet incredibly disappointing. But all is not lost.

I recently picked up Keller's French Laundry Cookbook, which was published almost 10 years ago (I know, I'm a bit late to the party). The book is an unquestionable masterpiece, a treatise on modern culinary technique and thought. Keller describes and details the food as prepared in the restaurant - no shortcuts. He offers advice to help guide the home chef when things get complicated, but never are things dumbed down. Of course, this means that unless you have a contingent of sous chefs working for you, cooking from the book is generally time consuming and meticulous. And sourcing raw ingredients of the level of quality that these dishes demand can be quite expensive. But in my brief experience with the book, it is absolutely worth it.

Don't just take my word for it, though. One of my favorite reads these days is Carol Blymire's abmitious French Laundry at Home blog, where the self-described "nutjob" (hey, she said it) is blogging her way through this book with the goal of executing and chronicling every single recipe contained within. The impressive thing is that she's not a trained chef - she's just a regular Joe, er, Jane. Recreating French Laundry food at home is something to aspire to, but why stop there? Why not take it all the way to the office cafeteria? I intended to do just that.

This presented quite a logistical challenge. I wanted my food to be first quality - that is, it would have to taste like it was just made, not like leftovers or reheated slop. The thing is, there is limited equipment in my office cafeteria (that I have access to, anyways) for actually making real food. Here's what I had to work with:

1. Microwave
2. Fridge
3. Butter knives
4. Running water

Well, that rules out quite a bit right off the bat. I suppose I could have made something cold, or a sandwich, but that just didn't sound that exciting. Hmmmm... And then I remembered coffee time. Huh? I keep an 8 cup french press in the office for making coffee... with boiling water that I get from the cafeteria! So that means...

5. French press
6. Boiling water

My thoughts kept drifting back to 3 magic words from Keller's book - butter poached lobster - which is featured in several French Laundry preparations. Because it's not exposed to high heat during the poaching process, the muscle fibers do not tighten and sieze up, making the lobster uncommonly tender and soft. With a French press and some hot water, I can essentially poach the lobster on site in the cafeteria. No, not directly in the french press, as you might be thinking. Sous vide, of course! Now which dish to choose...

The most amenable to cafeteria cooking (and, I have to say, most appealing to me in general) was the "Macaroni and Cheese" or, (deep breath now) Butter-Poached Lobster with Creamy Lobster Broth and Mascarpone-Enriched Orzo (exhale - ahhhh). Just kind of, um, rolls off the tongue. Anyways, I figured that the lobster cream and the orzo would nuke just fine, and besides the lobster, there were no other elements that would require heating.

Before we start, let's be realistic about this - there's needs to be substantial prep work done at home to make this possible. But it was indeed assembled and plated in the office cafeteria, much like what would be done in a restaurant. I should point out for all of you book owners and Keller afficionados there are a couple of minor liberties with the dish I chose to take. For one, I wanted to include some type of vegetation, and I happened to find some nice pea sprouts in the grocery store, so I adapted that element from the "Peas and Carrots" dish a couple of pages away. I also left out the Parmigiano crisp. Sue me.

Steep the Lobster, Before - Hello little guy. No animals were hurt in the making of this ... Ah, screw it. Who am I kidding? Nice knowing you! Pour vinegar seasoned boiling water over your lobster off of the heat.

Steep the Lobster, After - The lobster has now been submerged for 2 minutes. This par-cooks the flesh just enough to allow it to release from the shell. Time to get this thing out of there and pull the meat before it cooks too much. Make sure to save the bodies for the stock.

Harvest and Vacuum Pack the Meat - The meat has been removed from the shell, cooled, and vacuum bagged with some butter. It's only partially cooked at this point, so it can be more or less treated like raw meat. Must be kept in the refrigerator.

Prepare the Lobster Cream - This photo is skipping waaaayyyy to the end of this process. Let's see, make a stock out of the chopped up lobster bodies, strain it, reduce it by half, add cream, reduce it by half again, and strain again. Cool and pack in a microwaveable (is that a word?) cotainer. This is about a 2 hour process, but the taste was, well, I can't think of a superlative that is strong enough to convey how good it really was. Just incredible.

Par-Cook the Orzo - Boil orzo in salted water, but remove while still crunchy. Rinse under cold water and drain. Pack in a microwaveable container. Keeping the orzo crunchy here will ensure that it does not turn to mush when reheated later.

Pack the Supply Kit - Lobster meat in vac bag, lobster cream, orzo, mascarpone cheese, pea shoots, meyer lemon zest, salt, and olive oil. Bring to office and place in refrigerator until service time.

When the time comes, find a space to set up your meez. This may be tough, especially in the middle of the lunch rush.

French Press Sous Vide Lobster - Since the lobster meat is already partially cooked, it only needs to be warmed through. I mixed boiling and tap water until I thought it felt right (about 120-130F, if I had to guess), dropped the vacuum bag in, and lowered the plunger to keep it submerged. I refreshed the water mix after the butter had melted and let it sit for a few minutes while prepping the other components.

Final Prep - Make the pea shoot salad. Combine the pea shoot greens (cut off excessively long stems), some salt, and the lemon zest. Dress with olive oil. Next, microwave the lobster cream and orzo to heat up. Stir together and add in the mascarpone. By the time this is done, the lobster should be heated through.

Plate Dish - Place a mound of the orzo mixture in the center of a the plate. Remove lobster from bag and place on top of orzo, tail first, then claw on top. Top with pea shoot salad.

At the risk of blowing my own horn, this was a spectacular success. The lobster was beautifully tender and flavorful, and that orzo... Makes me want to cry just thinking about it. Happy tears, of course. Not only did I win rave compliments from my colleague (actual quote "this might be the best meal I've ever eaten"), but I also managed to create quite the scene in the bustling cafeteria. No doubt people will be talking about this day for some time!

Now for some dessert. How about, ho hum... French Laundry donuts?

These better be good, since the dough takes a couple of days to make. The moisture in the dough is primarily egg yolks, so it has a nice richness to it.

These look fantastic, and they tasted even better. This is really bordering on ridiculous now. Just incredible. The beauty of these is that they freeze well, and taste freshly made after reheating in a toaster. Just use the bagel toaster in your cafeteria, if you have one.

Just ask yourself - why should you settle for cafeteria slop any longer? With a little know how and some pre-planning, (and the proper motivation, I suppose), you can eat incredibly any day of the week.

Duck Sous Vide - A Cooking Experiment

Sous Vide is not exactly a new cooking technique, but it is almost completely unknown in the home kitchen. It's scientific nature, not to mention the high startup cost for equipment, has largely relegated it's use to high end restaurant kitchens. But after watching this season of Top Chef where the winner, Hung, made liberal use of this technique, I was determined to give it a try.

In sous vide cooking, the raw items (usually some sort of protein) are placed in a plastic bag which is then vacuum sealed to remove all air and create a watertight seal. The bag is then placed in a water bath, heated to some precise temperature, and left for an amount of time chosen specifically to acheive some particular effect. Sounds complicated, but check out this example and you'll see how simple it really is.

Suppose you would like to cook a steak to a perfect medium rare (135 deg F internal temperature). Using traditional cooking methods, it can be tricky to know just when to take the meat off the heat. Too soon, and the steak will still be speaking to you. Too long, and you will be enjoying(?) a nice plate of sawdust. Even if you monitor the internal temperature, there is still carryover to worry about. Now instead, if you placed the steak in a vacuum sealed bag, heated a water bath to exactly 135 degrees, and placed the steak bag inside, in about 30 minutes, the steak will reach equilibrium with the water - that is to say that the entire piece of steak will be at 135 degrees. What's more, is that if you were to leave the steak in the water bath for an additional 30 minutes, the temperature would not increase at all! Thus, you will have a perfectly uniform piece of steak, cooked perfectly to medium rare throughout. And since the steak has not been subjected to harsh heat, the protein fibers will not tighten up and expel their moisture - meaning a more tender and juicy piece of meat. This is but one basic application of sous vide.

The tricky part is to keep the water bath at precisely the desired temperature. In some advanced sous vide techniques, a difference of even 1 degree could completely change the outcome. This is largely where the expensive startup costs come from. Some companies are now making dedicated equipment to manage the water temp (like Cuisine Technology's Thermal Immersion Circulators). At over $900, they are out of reach for the average home cook, but are fantastic gadgets nonetheless.

Vacuum sealers can be another money pit. Professional quality units are in the 4-figure range. Many on various internet forums have reported good results using the Food Saver (for about $100). Although sous vide is French for "under vacuum," the term is a little misleading. Yes, the food is packed in a vacuum sealed bag. But, the cooking itself does not take place in a vacuum.

Fortunately, I don't believe that you don't need any of this equipment to give sous vide a try. We can get around the need for a sophisticad circulator by using a large stockpot full of water. Since water has a high thermal mass, once you've stabilized the temperature at your chosen set-point, it should hold pretty steady for the amount of cooking time needed. A variation of a few degrees up or down won't hurt us if we're doing some basic sous vide cookery. And zip locking freezer bags sound like a poor man's substitue for a vacuum sealer to me.

So here's what you will need:

- large stock pot (the bigger the better)
- thermometer, with range down to 100F
- zip locking freezer bags
- plastic wrap
- stove (in this case, electric is preferable to gas, but whatever)

Before we get started, there are a few things we should keep in mind.

1. The temperature of the water bath will drop a few degrees when the protein is first added, since it will be coming directly out of the refrigerator. Plan for this by starting with a slightly higher water bath temp than the desired finishing temp.
2. Since the protein will not be exposed to high heat, it will not have a tasty brown crust on the outside. This can be fixed by quickly searing the meat on high heat once the sous vide cooking process is finished. But be careful - you've invested all this time and effort to bring your protein to the perfect doneness, so don't leave it on the heat for too long and foil this effort. A little oil and 30 seconds max heat exposure should do just fine.
3. If the water temp goes up too high - add cold water to correct. Likewise, you could add hot water if you need to quickly raise the temp.
4. It's a good idea to wrap your protein tightly in plastic wrap before placing in the freezer bag. This way, when you suck the air out of the bag and seal it, the plastic wrap will prevent you from inhaling raw meat juices - yuck! It's important to get as much air out of the bag as possible. Any residual air will cause the bag to float, and will not allow the protein to be in continuous contact with the water.
5. Use freezer bags, or something thicker, otherwise the bag may not be able to stand up to the heat. Also, it's best to stay away from the bags with the sliding zippers. They may close easier, but they are also prone to leaking.
6. It's also a good idea to stir the water frequently to prevent hot or cold spots.
7. Adding aromatics to the bag will perfume the protein as it cooks. But be careful of adding liquids as it makes it difficult to seal the bag properly.
8. I have to add that using this technique can be a strange experience for the senses. There are no sounds, no smells, and you are cooking meat in a water bath that you can safely plunge your hand into. It's just an odd feeling.

Got all that? Okay, let's roll.

Duck Breast Sous Vide

1 duck breast, skin removed and reserved
3 slices orange peel, julienned (skin only, no white part)
Fresh ginger, several paper thin slices
Salt and pepper

For the sauce
2 T Grand Marnier
1 C orange juice
1 C duck or chicken stock
1 t finely grated orange zest
2 T butter

Prepare the water bath by filling stockpot and heating the water to 145F. Mount the thermometer on the inside of the stock pot, so that you can continuously monitor the water temperature. Adjust the burner power so that the water temp is stabilized (for my stove, it was on 25% power - about medium low).

Season the duck breast with salt and pepper. Place on a sheet of plastic wrap and sprinkle top and bottom with orange peel and ginger. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Place wrapped duck into a freezer bag. Suck out as much air as you possibly can and seal the bag.

Place bag in stockpot and let cook for 30 minutes, maintaining the water temp at 140F. Stir pot periodically to ensure that there are no hot spots. Also make sure that the protein is completely submerged.




While duck is cooking, score the reserved skin and bake in the oven at 375, until the fat is rendered out and the skin crisps up like bacon. Set crispy skin aside until ready to serve.

When duck is cooked, remove from bag and discard orange peel and ginger. Adding a little oil to a hot skillet, sear on high heat about 30 seconds per side to brown the outside of the meat. Remove meat from pan.

Out of the water bath and removed from the bag.

After searing and slicing. Notice the color of the meat is uniform throughout.

To make the sauce, deglaze pan with Grand Marnier and reduce till almost completely evaporated. Add orange juice and zest and reduce until it becomes thick and syrupy. Add stock and reduce by half. Remove from heat and whisk in butter.

Slice duck thinly on a bias and serve with the orange sauce and skin cracklin.

Now that's a beautiful piece of meat. Not only was the meat cooked perfectly medium (hence the pink color), but the texture was like beef tenderloin. It was the most tender piece of duck meat I have ever eaten. For this plate, I threw in some potatoes cooked in duck fat, as well as some twice-cooked green beans.