Holy Guacamole - Sous Vide Eggs Benny on Toast

I'm sure I've written about this before but I can't help but make a note of how easy this is to do for serving brunch or breakfast or heck, as a super posh dinner, for that matter. Especially if feeding a crowd. 

Sous vide poached eggs are so dope! So easy and impressive all at the same time that I don't know why having this device isn't more popular. It's the perfect foodie kitchen tool. Seriously, a favorite; even for a lazy girl. And yet, even in a lazy girl’s hands sous vide cooking can be ever so chic... 

For one thing, if most people knew just how quick and uber productive it is to put a bunch of eggs in a water bath, right in their little shells, along with a jar of all your beautiful hollandaise ingredients and just walk away until you are ready to serve... they'd probably think you were on crack. But once you have the correct temperature for your ingredients, it really is a walk away sorta deal. 

And the really cool bit is that even if every single guest needs to be served at a different time, you've still got it covered. For like hours... Perfect temp. Every time. Talk about completely stabilizing, what to me, is the hardest part of cooking really. 

Tsu can time food much better than I can but with Tsu Vide (lol ah autocorrect), I get a fair shake. Sous vide truly streamlines and perfects the whole timeline of food delivery; where I struggle when meal prepping on my own. Perfectly cooked ingredients, kept to temp and served according to that perfect temp at the perfect time, is a real art form. And probably where I fall down the most. I mean, it's hard people. 

Not anymore. 

Sous vide allows you to extend your meal service over hours, and at times, even overnight. What we have done, quite unintentionally, is test this extended dinner service planning with smoked ribs or other cooked ahead meals we want to reheat without recooking. 

Wanting to eat at random times is par for the course in a household that on occasion, has 3 grown man-boys who eat and sleep randomly and can be hungry pretty much 24/7. Same with my family who can descend like a large pack and eat like one, too. 

When the family is here, sous vide baths are used to keep dinner warm in case it’s a beach day or even just for overnight munch-outs or now, all day mimosa brunches. Sounds fun, huh? Trust me, it‘s magic. 

It’s the secret weapon of world renown chefs all over the world. And it’s our secret weapon, too. 

Inspiration for this dish is really guac on toast with sous vide poached eggs, hollandaise and lobster because Covid quarantine ain’t no joke, live large. The idea for me, is to basically have everything sous vide for this meal except for the guacamole and/or toast. Lobster is totally rockstar but use the most decadent topper you can think of or afford. Because we eating a lot at home, people...

Breakfast Prep: 

This is a general guideline for how I prep my breakfast or brunch basics.

1. Poach eggs. Place whole fresh eggs in a sous vide bath set to 145 F f or 45-60 minutes, turning down the sous vide to 130 F if wanting to keep warm indefinitely or over an extended meal service. Because ‘doneness’ means something different to everyone, it’s a good idea to test one at the 45 minute mark. Personally, I like a medium set white which might mean something different to you but for me that is closer to the 1 hr mark than not... I have also put fresh eggs in a stretchy, silicone strainer meant for steaming veggies, air removed, which works perfectly. This keeps eggs within reach and from rolling around in the water bath but it won’t hurt them one bit if that’s what you choose to do.
2. Make hollandaise (see my recipe here) and yes, guess what, you can just add all ingredients to your jar and use your immersion blender later when ready to serve, to emulsify it. You can also make it proper in your bullet then transfer that to your glass jar. I’ve done it successfully both ways just to test prepping all at once and it was awesome. 
3. Make guacamole or serve with sliced or mashed avocados. If you don’t care for or have avocado, no biggie. Make what you love or use what ya got. Because guess what goes with eggs and hollandaise? Everything.
4. Make toast, croissants, English muffins, cloud bread, Hawaiian bread, sourdough, baguette...  whatever you like to eat with your eggs. Waffles, pancakes, aebelskiver. Yup and yup.

The beauty of this breakfast is that you can control the temp for a perfectly poached egg, perfectly warmed hollandaise and all you have to do is prep toast, muffins or buns for your breakfast service magic. 

My new easy breezy sous vide hollandaise sauce:

• 3 egg yolks
• 1 stick salted sweet cream butter
• 1 tbsp of lemon juice (I had Hawaiian lemon aka Rangpur)
• Dash salt, pepper to taste
• 3 tbsp half n half (optional)

1. Put all ingredients in a mason jar with tight fitting lid. Don’t even have to stir, nothing.
2. Drop it like it’s hot into your water bath, along with your eggies. That’s 145 F, good buddy.
3. When ready to serve, blend with an immersion blender. Drop back into the sous vide bath yo keep warm as you serve. Bad ass way to keep hollandaise warm. 

**By the way, the ‘optional’ half n half, to me, is critical. It isn’t in traditional hollandaise but I won’t do it differently now because it keeps the sauce supple and perfectly thick but pourable. Do it just once, please, because you will see just what I mean.

My Wednesday Night Dinner version: 

-Bed of organic Frisse, arugula or radicchio mix
-Hollandaise or lemon vinaigrette or homemade caesar dressing and wait for it...
-Poached sous vide lobster

Some cool keto-friendly variations for poached egg goodness:

• On a chorizo slider
• Hangover burger or locomoco style on a beef patty (without the bun, of course)
• Served with cloud bread made savory like italian garlic bread
• Over a slice of fried char siu with bacon marmalade
• In a shallow bowl of roasted tomato sauce,  shakshuka-style
• On a bed of poached shrimp and cucumber salad
• Fried rice with fried eggs is the norm in our house but next time, I may just suggest poached eggs just to have on hand for the midnight snack attacks.

Endless possibilities with sous vide poached eggs, she gushes on and on enthusiastically. ;)

Wicked Good - Smoked Tuna Roe Shrimp Alfredo

Holy hell. Iron Chef Hawaii just threw down tonight. Tsu has been working on the components for this dish the last few days and oh my lord, the magic that he put before me tonight for dinner was so wicked-good, it blew my wicked mind.

Fruit Ninja dropped by earlier this week, Monday, I think. Although, this time, Fruit Ninja didn’t come bearing fruit.

This time, she brought something kinda rare, even though that is very much her game. Normally she is bringing special fruit or an abundance of seasonal fruit or on occasion, a Japanese dish she has made herself and wants to introduce to us.

But this time... she brings a hefty 2 lb hunk of beautiful, dark red tuna and the entire roe sack from the same fish, fresh caught that morning from the neighbor next door to her, two doors down the street. 

The stack of empty organic egg cartons she leaves behind tells the story of what I can return for the bounty she just shared with me. My gorgeous free range eggs makes a perfect barter even though she shares with me so frequently, I could never repay her kindness with eggs alone. But I sure do like the fact that I can provide something in return that she will enjoy, too.  I package up a dozen for Tsunami to take to her right away. 

After tonight’s meal, I package up another dozen for good measure.

Now, I know you may not have access to this type of thing so I won’t act like you do. I mean, I don’t. This was a gift. And up until now, I honestly never gave a thought to tuna roe. I’ve had salmon roe on sushi, even a Russian or Bulgarian caviar, but tuna roe? Nope. This was one of those things that just falls into your... um, smoker?

Well, that is just what Tsu did with it, being the mastermind he is. He smoked that package of yum. But he brined it first.

Yep this star of this particular food-gasm had 3 preparations before being blended into the smoked silkiness that would become THE BEST ALFREDO I’VE EVER EATEN. Yes, I know... All caps! Hands down this is drop the mic out of this world something you must try. You must.

So pretense, be damned. You may not get your hands on it, but IF YOU DO, you may come back looking for this here recipe, y’all. Mark my aloha.

In case you are lucky enough to purvey such a delicacy and want to try or are just plain curious, here is what Tsu did:

Prep the roe for the Alfredo “base” sauce:

1. Brine the roe For 24 hours in 2 tbsp sugar, enough water to completely cover roe, dash of salt.
2. Smoke the roe on low smoke hour and a half, mesquite chips.
3. Remove the roe from the sack. You can scrape it out with a spoon or just remove it like a casing on a sausage.
4. Sim simma the roe in garlic, butter, on low heat, whisking to break up roe so it doesn’t form lumps like you’d expect with ground beef. 
5. Gradually and gently whisk in half n half or heavy cream.
6. Purée this in a blender when the sauce has cooled. Blending hot liquids can be a disaster so I caution you to let this sufficiently cool before you do so or it will end up all over you and your kitchen ceiling.

Prep your Alfredo fixings (optional):
Tsu and I both love mushrooms so our Alfredo sauce adds sautéed mushrooms in white wine and butter, probably garlic and fresh thyme. This is entirely up to you but it is how we eat or Alfredo normally and I think the richness of flavor is important.

Serve:
When ready to serve, Tsu warmed up the smoked roe “base”, added roughly a cup of store bought Alfredo sauce to loosen the sauce and then gently added the sautéed mushrooms.

We served it over penne pasta which was cooked al dente, then warmed and finished in the pan with the sauce. You could use virtually any pasta you desire but penne was a good choice because it can grab the sauce, which trust me, you will love.

Garnish with sliced scallions, fresh parsley and fresh black pepper. Oh, and copious amounts of fresh grated parmesan cheese, naturally.

Suggestions:
We served ours with local peeled, deveined shrimp that were dusted with Cajun seasonings then lightly seared for a minute on each side but not cooked through. The shrimp finish their cook in the sauce, along with the penne, just before serving so they warm through but don’t end up over-cooked.

The next night we served it with gorgeous seared scallops.

The last night, I made zoodles with my spiralizer and a summer zucchini which I served with the remaining sauce. I’m obsessed with zoodles because I love zucchini and summer squash. It’s keto-friendly, too if you are avoiding or watching carbs. And by night 3, if you are so lucky, zoodles might be the way to go!

Sadly, there was no night 4... ;)