The rain and flooding yesterday made hiking a no-go, so I called my driver and headed out to Harbor Point Mall in Olongapo. It had been almost a month since I ordered my new eyeglasses and the promised message telling me when they were ready had still not come. So, I pulled out my receipt to call and inquire and noticed that they had written my phone number down wrong. I guess I should have checked their work.
Anyway, once I arrived at the eyeglass shop they dug through a cabinet of unclaimed lenses and eventually found mine. They also corrected my phone information in their customer database. I can definitely see a difference with the new prescription. Even so, when I’m reading off my laptop I find I still have to close my damaged right eye or the text is too blurry to read. Looks like I’m going to have to get that cataract removed soon.
Since I was at the mall anyway, I did a quick walk around to see what was what. I was very pleasantly surprised to see the Merrell shoe store had reopened. It has been closed since the beginning of the pandemic last year. Better yet, they were having a 50% off sale. And lo and behold, they even had some size 11 in stock!
With the money I saved on shoes, I went to the office supply store and bought a new printer. I rarely use a printer these days, but when I need one, I need one that works. My passport is expiring in December and I had completed the renewal form to send to the embassy in Manila. Except I couldn’t get my relatively new HP printer to feed paper and I didn’t want to hassle with trying to find someone who could fix it.
It being Wingsday night, I popped into The Pub for my weekly fix. While I was waiting for my order, owner John Kim asked me how I liked the steaks I had purchased Tuesday. I responded that I had them marinating in the fridge. He was incredulous, “Marinating? Why? Quality beef doesn’t require marinating.” I was a little taken aback and told him I had just gotten in the habit of marinating steaks prior to grilling, and I didn’t think it would hurt anything. He just shrugged and gave me an “up to you” look. I did tell him that it was probably the thickest ribeye I ever attempted to grill. I wasn’t worried about getting mine done to the medium-rare level I prefer but wasn’t sure I could do Filipina-style well-done without crispy crittering the outside.
John responded in French. Specifically, sous vide. Turns out that’s a method of cooking I’d never even heard of, but you can prepare food at varying temperatures to get the level of the desired doneness. I might have to consider that. I told John about my Ko-Am friend Kevin who is also a foodie and speaks French. I don’t recall him using this particular method though. I also mentioned I was going to try preparing some brisket and John confirmed he has some in stock.
But enough about food. Time to shower up and go find some Joy this afternoon. Lunch and a special dessert seem to be in order.
*A Hash song sung while the culprit is drinking from his new shoes:
His feet will feel the dampness of the clean footwear he has worn
His soul will sense the shame and wish that he had not been born
All of him will suffer pain like shiggy’s sharpest thorn
This Hasher’s worn new shoes!
Glory, Glory, Ale and Lager, Glory, Glory, Ale and Lager Glory, Glory, Ale and Lager, Glory, Glory, Ale and Lager
Drink it down, down, down, down
“Hash tradition requires drinking a beer from inside new shoes. Yuck!”
So it’s less yucky to drink from stinky, used shoes?
“Sous vide” literally means “under vacuum.” It’s an immersion method of cooking where you dunk your bagged proteins (meats) into a heated water bath for X amount of time. The meat comes out fully cooked, but looking gray and scary, so you finish it on your skillet or grill with a quick sear (skillet on gas range is arguably better than grill for this purpose). Perfectly cooked, and perfectly seared. It’s an excellent method for cooking your meat all the way through, but you have to start way in advance of when you plan to eat.
Buy yourself a Joule (I have yet to buy one, but I’m going to), preferably one set up for 220V or whatever they use in the Philippines, fill a deep tub or bucket with water, put the Joule in the water (usually clip the machine to the side of the tub), turn it on, let the water come up to temperature, then put your meat in for the recommended amount of time (Joule comes with a phone app that suggests times and temperatures for different types of meat).
Arguably more popular than Joule is the Anova sous-vide device. If you can’t find a Joule, get an Anova.
You might have to buy a vacuum-sealer machine and vacuum-seal bags to go with your sous-vide device, or you can just use Ziploc bags. To get a near-vacuum with a Ziploc bag, put your meat in the bag, then dunk the bag in the tub of water. The pressure from the water will close the bag until it hugs the meat pretty closely. Don’t let water from the tub get into the bag. Once the bag is almost fully dunked, close the zip-top. Voilà.
I’ve never done sous vide myself, but I’m impatient to try it. The Joule is probably something for my Christmas list. I think it’s close to $300. Is that worth it? I think that, if you’re a carnivore, it is. You already know the pleasure of slow-cooking meats and stews and chili, and sous vide is just as easy to use. The only extra thing is throwing away the used plastic bags. Recycle.
Look up “sous vide” on YouTube, and you’ll probably see plenty of ChefSteps videos featuring the Joule.
Yeah, but we don’t have to drink out of old shoes! Anyway, that’s one ritual I would honestly refuse to do. I think there are health implications. Now, one creative Hasher put a plastic cup inside his shoe then drank from that. Smart guy!
Thanks for the advice on the Joule. I’ll look into that. Honestly, cooking that way sounds like a pain in the ass. Then again, if I’m going to spend upwards of a hundred bucks on quality meats I want to be able to cook it to near perfection.
Man, I bet you and John Kim could sit around for hours talking about food. What’s your thinking on marinading quality meat?
I haven’t thought much about the topic. I don’t see many people marinating steaks in the videos I watch, but a lot of people these days are into dry-aging. To do that at home, though, you need to sacrifice a lot of fridge space, I think, and the meat requires constant checking. Talk about a pain in the ass! Joule, by contrast, is just fire-and-forget, like slow-cooking. The two methods have some things in common.
Meat that gets marinated (such as chicken or seafood) is usually bland when it starts out. Beef already has its own distinct flavor, high-quality beef even more so, so that’s probably what John Kim is reacting to. You can add flavor to a steak while it’s sizzling in the skillet: butter, thyme, garlic, etc. can be spooned over the meat as it’s cooking. Another type of beef that might get marinated would be some sort of tough cut (like beef eye round), but in my opinion, 9 times out of 10, you’re better off just slow-cooking tough meat to get it tender.
So John is probably right that you should hold off on marinating high-quality beef. Watch some Sam the Cooking Guy videos on how to deal with steaks, and you’ll learn how to gauge doneness and not ruin a good cut of beef. Here’s one on ribeye. Sam is often an off-the-cuff cook, but he has a really good eye for how to cook steaks, and he’s not an insufferable snob like Gordon Ramsay.
Two more steak videos on the basics of steak:
Ethan Chlebowski
Sam the Cooking Guy
Cool! I got in the habit of marinating with those tough Aussie steaks I think. Henceforth, I’ll skip that step with quality meat.
Thanks for the video links. I’ll give them a watch before I start cooking today.