Acheson - Hugh vide: sous vide cooking at home

Perfectlycooked fish is easy to describe: It ismoist and wonderful. Badly cooked fish is dry and sad. Fish is cookedwhen it becomes opaque; the collagen and connective tissue have melted away,allowing it to flake easily; and the flesh yields easily to the pressure of a fork.Once the sous vide fish is done, you can always add texture by searing or broilingit to get that wonderful golden crust. (In our age of searing obsession, poaching isunderrated, but its the closest traditional technique to sous vide.) The realbenefit of sous vide, though, as it always is, is the precise temperature forconsistency.

Finding truly great fish can take some searching, butrealize that fishmongers still exist in many cities and towns, and you are notsolely relegated to the frozen fish selection at the big box store. I do like frozenshrimp in five-pound blocks, though, but buy the domestic ones; other than shrimp,octopus, and squid, I dont buy seafood frozen. Learn the name of the person behindthe fish counter, and they will steer you in the right direction for the best inshow. Look for clarity of eyes, firmness of flesh, good bright-red bloodlines,translucency in white fish, and a good sheen to the flesh. Ask to smell the fish,and if youre at a place where the fishmonger looks at you strangely for making thatrequest, find another place to shop for your seafood.

Cooking fish sous vide is not a long process. Most fish willcook within an hour, or even just minutes. And the results are stunning. Once youget in the cadence of it, you will never overcook fish again.

COD

with Pimentn Broth and Parsley Gremolata

Cod is my fish. It has fed my people for five hundred years. Iam Canadian and cod fishing is the livelihood for many in the eastern provinces. Thestory of cod is a painful one, though. Vast overfishing caused depletion, and adifficult twenty years of moratoriums on fishing for cod was economically crushing.But that pause worked, and cod stocks have come back in relative abundance; combinedwith more sustainable fishing practices, like hand lines as opposed to bottomtrawlers, we can eat cod with pride again. Just know where your fish comes from, andchoose the line-caught stuff.

The Portuguese have long fished in those Canadian waters, too, and thoughthat has caused some disdain from the locals for centuries, it also has eloquentlyinfluenced the foodways of that region. This is a dish of classic flavors from theIberian larder.

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cook time: 30 minutes, plus 10 minutesfinishing

Circulator temperature setting: 51C /123.8F

SERVES 4

cod fillets (5 ounces each), about 1 inch thick

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

pound Portuguese chourio (or Spanish chorizo), diced

shallots, minced

teaspoon pimentn dulce (see Note)

cup canned diced tomatoes

garlic cloves, finely minced

2 cups fino sherry

red bell peppers, roasted, peeled, and seeded (see )

4 cups chicken stock ()

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for finishing

Parsley Gremolata (recipe follows)

Preheat the circulator water bath to 51C / 123.8F

Drythe cod fillets well with a paper towel and season them with teaspoon of thesalt. Place the fillets in a resealable gallon-size plastic bag and seal the bagusing the displacement method (see ). Submerge thebag in the circulator water bath and cook for 30 minutes; after that, you canhold it there hot until youre ready to finish.

Twenty minutes before serving, add the butter to a large skillet set over mediumheat. When the butter begins to froth and bubble, add the chourio and cookuntil it begins to brown and crisp, about 4 minutes. Remove a few slices andreserve for garnish. Add the shallots, pimentn, and diced tomatoes and cook for4 minutes, or until the mixture looks like a cooked-down sofrito and is redolentwith the aromas of shallot and paprika. Stir, add the garlic, and cook for 2minutes more. Deglaze the pan with the sherry and stir again. Add the roastedred peppers and the chicken stock and season with the remaining teaspoon salt.Bring to a simmer and cook until the flavors are well incorporated, about 10minutes.

Transfer the chourio mixture to a blenderand pure until it is just smooth. Strain the pure through a fine-mesh sieveset over a medium saucepan to reserve the broth, and discard any solids. Coverthe pan with a lid and keep the broth warm.

Remove the bag from the hot water bath and transfer the cod to a plate linedwith paper towels, discarding any cooking liquid. Pat the fillets dry with apaper towel.

Add the oil to a large skillet set overmedium-high heat. When the oil starts to shimmer, add the cod fillets. Cook for4 minutes on one side, without moving them too much, to get a nice golden-browncolor. Transfer the fillets, seared-side up, to a cooling rack or to a platelined with paper towels to rest for 2 to 3 minutes.

Toserve, place the fillets in separate wide bowls. Spoon the warm pimentn brothover the fillets and garnish each serving with a spoonful of the parsleygremolata, the reserved chourio, and a drizzle of olive oil.

Smoked paprika: Eastern European paprika isfamiliar to us all, but I want you to fall in love with the Spanish version: pimentn de la vera. Hungarian paprika is sweet and redolent, but it lacks theSpanish versions smoke, a result of drying the peppers very slowly over oak fires.There are three types of pimentn: picante (hot), agridulce (bittersweet), and dulce(sweet). Pimentn is the backbone of many classic Spanish culinary preparations likepaella, sofrito, and chorizo. You can buy great versions at good groceriesjust makesure you understand the difference between picante and dulce.