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. ;)

Sous Vide French Onion Soup - Say What??

Total soup-aholics. Anything soup, we are down. So this week's request is another batch of broccoli cheese and a batch of french onion.

Soup is so easy. We do lots of salads, too. So when we are having a busy week, and we've had nothing but those kind lately, we do lots of soup and salad.

I got a huge head of broccoli at the grocery store for $1. Hawaiians take their produce pretty seriously so the local grocery stores go through things daily and if it isn't perfect, it gets discounted. I am flabbergasted by this practice but can't complain for a second because I will pick this up for soup almost every time. I mean, for a buck, why the heck not? I've posted that recipe before and it never fails me.

But since I have the sous vide going, why not make the most of it? I'm prepping the onions for french onion soup at the same time. We will eat the broccoli cheese soup tonight and do the french onion later this week. How quick and easy will it be when all I have to do is add a beautiful buttered french bread crouton, top it generously with gruyere and melted to perfection? Done and done! Freaking awesome.

Here's what you need for the make ahead caramelized onions, which is the base of my upcoming soup:
4-5 large onions (I used the big Maui sweet from Costco), sliced
2 sprigs of fresh thyme
1 tbsp Better than Bouillon Roast Beef, optional
pepper
~ 1 cup of white wine

1. Pile all of your onions in a large stock pot or Creuset, lid on and heat on medium. This will get your onions to start to sweat and release their moisture, which is what we want. Stir every once in a while.
2. When the onions have released some liquid, take the lid off and add a sprig of thyme, stirring. 
3. Once the onions start to dry a bit and turn translucent, add your white wine and better than bouillon and allow them to cook down a bit more. Do you need the btb? Um, yes. I mean it will probably be delicious even if you must forego it but trust me that it adds so much depth and a jar of this stuff can last a loooong time. It's worth every penny just to keep it around for when you need it.
4. Remove from heat and allow to cool before adding the onions and second fresh sprig of thyme to a ziplock bag. 
5. Remove as much air out of the bag as you can, then drop it like it's hot. Sous vide time.

Sous vide at 185 degrees F for however long it takes to get your onions dark enough for your tastes. I did mine overnight. This picture shows my starting point but it did darken up significantly overnight.

To make the French Onion soup:

1. Ladle out some of your caramelized onions into a soup crock.
2. Top with a toasted slice of your favorite bread, baguette or puff pastry if you're feeling fancy.
3. Sprinkle with grated gruyere or provolone. Gruyere is traditional and my favorite but Asiago, Jack, Swiss, any good melter will do.
4. Broil if you can give it attention, otherwise, bake at 450 F until brown and bubbly.

Nothing but shock and awe, baby. I will probably do this at least once or twice a month now. Tsunami was in love with it and said it was THE BEST french onion soup he'd ever had. A high compliment indeed. I was pretty impressed with it myself!

Probiotics What?! - Sous Vide Yogurt

Super cool way to make yogurt!  If you have a sous vide device, of course... 

I mean, who needs probiotics if you actually know what they are? If you eat yogurt at all, or naturally fermented pickles or sauerkraut or any cultured foods, you are getting probiotics in a totally natural way. And yes, that includes yogurt!

I love making homemade yogurt and as you may have guessed from some of my previous posts, I am especially fond of gadgets and cooking tools.

I've used several yogurt making tools in the past but when I moved to Florida, the bottom heating element of my favorite yogurt maker got lost somehow in the move.

No big deal, I thought. As I have my YoLife non electric thermos yogurt maker, I knew I wouldn't really have to do without. My Euro Cuisine yogurt maker was great, but still... just couldn't quite find it justifiable to buy another uni-purpose kitchen tool. Getting more practical in my culinary old age and even more particular when it comes to storing bulky tools in my limited kitchen space. Let's face it, no matter how big your kitchen is, if you love to cook, your space is always limited.

When it comes to making good quality yogurt, it is as simple as this: you must start with good quality yogurt and good quality whole milk. No way around it. And therein lies it's most rewarding feature. You can use virtually ANY good quality yogurt you like as long as it has active yogurt cultures. In fact, reading a label should be quick because it should really only have one ingredient: cultured dairy. Cultured dairy is actually comprised of two ingredients. Dairy (milk or cream) and live active cultures. Often, the active cultures will be explicitly labeled as well.

When choosing yogurt as a starter, I'm a purist in this regard. Not to mention, I'm not a fan of artificial anything... not a fan of preservatives, additives to alter coloring or artificial flavorings of any kind. But that is a personal preference to be sure. I suppose it bears mentioning though, that if you want the benefits of probiotics you need to dispense with the artificial sugars, additives and preservatives, etc. Defeats the purposes of probiotics in the diet, which is to course correct the over indulgence all of us have for processed foods containing sugars and all the bad juju associated with today's modern illnesses, including obesity. Do your gut a favor and go as natural as you can, from time to time.

For the sake of this blog post, I am referring to dairy yogurts made from milk.  I have made other types of non-dairy yogurt for the paleos out there, but really, my heart always comes back to whole milk yogurts.

If your yogurt contains additives or preservatives or flavorings or gelatins or thickening agents like guar gum, etc. just leave it on the shelf... It won't produce a clone of the original product no matter what you do and you may be inclined to think it is harder than it really is or that you've done something wrong.  Trust me on this, you haven't done anything wrong. But for the sake of replicating your favorite yogurt, your yogurt choice matters. After all, who can replicate unnatural manufactured yogurt with an indefinite shelf life? Yogurt is a fresh product and the fewer, natural ingredients involved, the more likely you are to replicate it to perfection... Yogurt is alive. You know you have the right one if it contains 2-3 natural dairy ingredients and ACTIVE or LIVE cultures.

In order to replicate yogurt indefinitely, you need to think of it the same way as you think of other cultured and fermented products. Cultured products need to be fed. Like sourdough... If you've ever worked with sourdough starters, the concept is exactly the same. The culture or starter needs to be fed regularly in order to multiply and culture the newly added fresh ingredients. You add more flour and water to a sourdough starter and the starter feeds on the fresh ingredients, culturing the new ingredients to make more sourdough. If done well, the cultures can live almost indefinitely.

The way this works in yogurt is much the same way.  You take a starter yogurt, such as Dannon whole fat plain yogurt, add fresh whole milk to this and leave it for 12-24 hours to culture the new milk.  That's it.

Well, almost.  The reason there is no finite time is that everyone's environment and kitchen temperature is different. In days of old, yogurt was made by heating yogurt in a thick vessel designed to retain the heat and then left overnight or up to a day to culture.

The reason for this, and I won't go into extraordinary detail (or I guess I already have :) is because yogurt is a mesophilic culture. What does that mean??? Well, it means it cultures at a medium temperature range, which means a yogurt culture must be kept at 110 degrees during the culturing process.

That is what these high priced and lower end yogurt makers do... they maintain a constant temperature for the culturing yogurt. Nothing more or less. If you want to make a lot of yogurt, you need a big vessel or large yogurt making appliance. If you do just a pint at a time, a smaller tool will do the trick or you can do it the old fashioned way as well.

BUT... if you have a sous vide device, you can do so much more than just make yogurt!! Not only can you make incredible steaks, soups, eggs, sauces, fish, etc... but you can make as little or as much yogurt as you want!

Here's what you need:
Fresh cultured whole fat plain yogurt
Fresh whole fat milk
Sous vide device (110 degrees F, 12 hours)
Jar or glass container with a fitted lid

There is no special ratio of yogurt to milk, or maybe there is, but in my experience it is very forgiving. What is important is to have active live cultures in your yogurt and fresh whole milk. You can absolutely use percent or low fat or skim milk, but to make your new starter, I recommend whole milk. It makes a thicker, luscious product that sets up so nicely. But do what you must.... I'm never one to stick with the rules either. :)

As a guide:
1-2 tbsp yogurt to 1 cup of milk

Or for someone that doesn't mess around:
1-2 cups yogurt to 1 half gallon (64 oz) of milk

Now if those ratios don't quite equal each other, I send love and apologies as the Pioneer woman likes to say. I send love and apologies to her for stealing that line because I love it so much.

I use whatever vessel I'm going to use to store it in to finish the process. To me, that is absolutely a large 1/2 gallon mason jar from Amazon. (These work beautifully for the broccoli and cauliflower soups as well as the Oyster stew my Florida boy loves to make.) I also have a vacuum sealer with the jar attachment that I use to seal the jars prior to putting in the sous vide water bath. But hey, if you know you will be eating it right away, why bother vacuum sealing it, right? Me, I will make a couple of these at a time.

Method:
Add your yogurt culture to the jar, followed by the milk and shake with the lid on or stir very well to incorporate the yogurt with the milk. If you see yogurt settling on the bottom of the jar, keep going. You want it well distributed.

Sous-viding (yep just made that up!):
Start your large sous vide bath and set the timer for 12 hours with a temp of 110 degrees F. At a constant, precision controlled temperature, you can almost certainly reproduce consistent results in a consistent time frame if you ensure that you started with enough cultured yogurt for the amount of milk you use. In this case, overachieving is better than underachieving and by that I mean, when in doubt, use more yogurt in your ratio than using less. You won't hurt it by using too much but it may take longer to culture if you use too little. How do you know? Well, it will set up and look fairly solid, not liquid-y. And you will see it jiggle in the jar. So scientific, huh? Haha.

Yogurt styles:
Do it a few times and you will get the hang of it.  And guess what? If you like Greek yogurt, start with Greek yogurt. Just follow the guideline I provided: whole fat plain Greek yogurt, no additives or preservatives of any kind, including sugars or sweeteners. Greek yogurts are a different culture than say, American style yogurts. If you like Lebanese yogurt, use that. Indian yogurt? Use that. Use what you love as long as it fits the bill.

Yogurt Flavoring:
And if you want a Greek honey yogurt or flavoring of any kind, just wait until you make the yogurt and it is refrigerated.  This is the finished product. You can flavor the finished product with whatever in the world floats your boat. Fruit or berries, sweeteners like honey or agave or organic sugars or you can even do savory flavorings.... Can you say Tzatziki? Neither can I but I sure do love Tzatziki.

**And just in case you weren't sure, yes, you do need to refrigerate your yogurt once you are done.

Sous Vide Broccoli Cheese Soup

Got some gorgeous broccoli raab for pennies today at Maria's Market. I love going there, especially into their cool room where they've converted a large walk in fridge into a cold storage "greens" room. Fresh, locally grown herbs, green leafy vegetables, peppers, cucumbers, mushrooms, leeks, you name it. Last few times I've been there, I've taken home a case of Kirby cucumbers for pickling and a case of red jalapeños for hot sauce.

This time, I scored about 4 lbs of broccoli raab that was on sale for $1.89 and it just screamed "Broccoli Cheese Soup!".  Well, who can argue with broccoli cheese soup?

I've also been marinating some chicken in a dry rub which I will also sous vide at the same time for crispy Chinese BBQ chicken. Doesn't matter that these two won't get married into the same meal. That's the best part of sous vide: if you are cooking, might as well cook a few things at once. The ingredients all get vacuum sealed anyway so once they are finished cooking in the sous vide bath, you either complete the recipe or pop it into the freezer or fridge for a later meal. Easy peasy and oh, so convenient.

So my broccoli raab soup has the following components vacuum sealed for sous vide (145F/2 hours):

• 4 lbs of fresh broccoli raab or broccoli, washed and chopped
• 1 small yellow onion, chopped
• 4 cloves of garlic, smashed
• 1 quart of organic chicken stock
• 16 oz of sour cream
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
• 1/2 tbsp Rustic Tuscan Italian seasoning
• 1/4 tsp of mustard powder
• 1/2 c heavy cream (or milk)
• 2 c mild or sharp white cheddar, grated

You can certainly use a pot to cook this dish. Sous vide isn't necessary but I love the convenience of putting it on the stove and forgetting about it for a couple of hours. Can't do that with a pot. But you can do that with a crockpot!

Combine all of the above ingredients except the cheese. That comes later.  I use a long-ish vacuum seal bag and stuff all of my ingredients in except the white cheddar and seal it airtight. If you are cooking on a stovetop or using a crockpot, you shouldn't let the pot get hotter than a simmer. You really want to cook the soup slow and low, regardless of which method you choose.

Once the broccoli is pretty tender, you emulsify or blend all of the ingredients in a blender. I empty the contents of my sous vide into a large pot and use the hand blender to emulsify the ingredients in the pot over low heat. I will also fish out about a cup of the broccoli heads which I cook and then add back to the pureed soup for a little texture. But this is entirely optional and just a matter of preference.

Once the soup is warmed, slowly add your grated cheddar to the soup and stir gently to melt all ingredients.

I serve it with a little more shredded cheese and crusty homemade bread. I also have some delicious crispy pork belly bits that I sprinkle on top. Bacon would be nice, too. Or chives. Whatever floats your cheesy little boat!

Living Sous Vide Loca - Perfectly Poached Eggs

Food. Obsession. Pretty much covers how I feel about sous vide cooking, which I've been doing for a couple of months now. Got an early Christmas present just before Thanksgiving and I haven't been the same since.

Sous vide has been around for quite a while and I've been longing for a sous vide device for years after seeing it done on the original Iron Chef. Sous vide is a French technique of cooking using vacuum sealed bags of ingredients in a temperature controlled water bath. Pure precision without all the fuss.

It controls the speed, texture and moisture of your ingredients. It's a rather low maintenance, slow cooking process that makes a crock pot look outdated and clumsy, although don't get me wrong, I love crock pot cooking.

This however, takes slow cooking to a whole other level... upscale, classy, perfection.

Now, we all know you do not need any fancy device to poach or scramble eggs. But if you want perfection, replicable perfection, every single time, while you do laundry, set the table, putz in the garden or finish watching your favorite marathon tv adventures, this is almost certainly a cooking technique you will appreciate.

I have an Anova digital sous vide device with a cool little app for android that connects my sous vide device to my phone via Wi-Fi. It also has a great user contributed recipe database where I can search (or upload) recipes and select them to set the sous vide temperature and timer for my device remotely. Geeky, I know.  I just love it; without any apology.  A perfect present for a gastro-geek like myself.

It is precise; so forgiving. It is divine. It is so low maintenance and beautiful, you will want to run it in your kitchen 24/7, just like a chef, so it's always ready when you are.

But, I don't do that, although it is almost a permanent fixture now in my kitchen.

Today, I had a craving for eggs. I get gorgeous free range eggs from the organic farm next door and what better way to do them justice? Plain and luscious and beautiful. I will likely serve mine with a tuna nicoise salad or maybe with a hollandaise.  The hollandaise I will make first because it cooks at a lower temperature than the eggs and the eggs will cook in 15 minutes giving me plenty of time to emulsify the sauce before serving with my eggs.

Sous Vide Hollandaise (149F/69C  45 minutes- 1hr):

• 1 tablespoon (15 ml) freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 stick (8 tablespoons/114 g) butter
• 3 egg yolks (large), well-beaten
• 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) salt
• 1 pinch (1 ml) dry mustard

I put everything in a mason jar, sealed it with a cap and put it in the water bath with everything else.  Once it's done, I will use my immersion blender to emulsify it into a beautiful sauce.

Wish... I.... Would... Have...Tightened...The...Lid.... lol! Next time, I will put it in a baggie and then transfer it to a bowl to emulsify. So needless to say my recipe didn't quite work this time, but there's always next time.

Today I am doing both poached eggs and scrambled at 167 degrees F, for 15 minutes.  The eggs are poached right in their shells.  My poached eggs will come out of the water bath and into a cup of ice water until cool to touch. Crack the shells and the poachies will come right out in a perfect little ball. 

The scrambled eggs are done in a ziplock bag with the air removed. That's it, no real skill to it just be sure to remove the air out of the bag when you seal it.  Some massage the bag every so often but I find that unnecessary. I push it around the water bath with a big wooden spoon and that works just fine. I also add a little heavy cream and a little milk to the beaten eggs, but that is entirely optional. A little salt and pepper and then just drop the sealed bag in the water bath and step away. 

If after 15 minutes, the scrambled eggs are still a little moist for you liking, just keep cooking in the water bath until you are pleased with the texture. Remember, it is really difficult to overcook or dry out your food when using sous vide, which makes it perfect if you happen to lose track of time on the scrambled eggs. And worse case with the poached eggs, you will simply get hard boiled eggs. But do try to remove the poached eggs at or before the 15 minute mark until you get the hang of what you like in a poached egg texture.

I have been saving my egg shells for the tomato garden as this adds calcium back to the soil (along with banana peels) which helps prevent blossom end rot in the rainy season. You may not care about that, but hey, if you check out RoofGrown, my gardening blog, then you'll know that it all matters to me! 

I am serving my poached eggs today over some gorgeous locally grown (as in 5 minutes from my house) beefsteak tomatoes that I will slice thickly in lieu of english muffins. Which I have on hand, but these tomatoes are the bomb, so I am craving those instead. Topped of course, with the hollandaise, it would have been even better. 

My breakfast buddy wanted a more traditional poached experience so I made his with a little homemade garlic hummus, fresh Florida avocado, arugula from the garden and one of our favorite condiments, garlic aioli. Since I messed up the hollandaise... lol! but oh jeez this version was so delicious, too! I will post a recipe for that next because it is truly delicious and Tsunami's mother absolutely adores it so next time we make it, we will make extra for her.

Alas, even without the hollandaise the eggs were so good that I ate them without anything but salt and pepper. The poached eggs, once out of their shells, were the perfect soft boiled poached egg. A couple of minutes shy of 15 and it would have been runny enough while still having a set white. I'll continue to update this post once I find my sous vide zen as I could write an entire post just on temps and timing.

The scrambled eggs, well, they had a fluffy custard-like texture that was so delicious. You can never get this out of a pan and with a little of your favorite cheese or fillings, it would make your regular omelette cry out in a jealous rage. Serious competition for pan scrambled eggs or an omelette. Just can't beat it. And if you happen to be entertaining for breakfast or just a big hungry family, this is the perfect way to make a large batch of scrambled eggs without letting them get too dry. Just in case you have sleepy monsters that wake at all hours of the morning or, as is sometimes the case in my house... well into the afternoon.

Tuna Nicoise, you'll just have to wait for another day... I guess all I can say about that is that if you want to serve your poachies a certain way, you should get everything else prepared ahead so they go right onto your dish once they're ready. Otherwise, they are just too good not to pop into your mouth and gobble up as they are. And I actually had my beautiful tomatoes all on the ready so I ended up serving those with the scrambled eggs instead. Divine.

***Update - Made the Hollandaise sauce today (Feb 3, 2016) and not only did the Hollandaise sauce turn out perfectly, but the poached eggs I did at the same time and they too were perfect. That means you don't need a higher temp/short cooking time when you do them together. That gives you perfect time to remove the eggs when the timer goes off, put them in an ice water bath while you emulsify the sauce so they can be served together warm. It was such a gorgeous sauce without any fuss! Talk about a great go to for company! Really doesn't get more luxurious or delicious with so little effort. I also added a dash of garlic powder, which turned out lovely but you could also do a dash of garlic oil. :)

Poached Garlic, Garlic Oil and Garlic Aioli

Wow is this ever so good... First of all, it's not just one thing or another. It's actually three awesome condiments in one shot.

1. Poached garlic
2. Garlic Oil
3. Garlic Aioli

We use the poached garlic in breads and pizza. We use the garlic oil on homemade French and Italian bread, whipped into homemade mayo and drizzled onto just about anything from quesadillas to soup to sandwiches. It has become such a staple that there is a near panic when the bottle runs low.

But the combination of the two, with a few other ingredients, makes a concoction altogether sublime: garlic aioli.

I've made this before with my ex husband and we enjoyed it very much. But I was recently inspired to make it again after seeing it used as a special ingredient to a monster hamburger on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. 

Our phenomenal burger was made with homemade bacon, homegrown onions, homemade dill pickle chips, homemade mayo, my favorite locally-grown beefsteak tomatoes and some of the best Stilton cheese you can get. Oh and of course, homemade hamburger buns. The super star condiment, though, as if there weren't many, was the garlic aioli. 

Poaching the Garlic (sous vide method = 131F/55C for 3 hours):

About a pound of peeled fresh garlic

A high quality extra virgin olive oil

I buy a 4 lb bag of fresh peeled garlic at Costco for about $4, I believe. It is a steal of a deal for this particular use.  I then freeze the rest in the bag as it comes in a resealable plastic bag that stores easily in the freezer.

**Garlic freezes well and I will usually keep this peeled garlic frozen for recipes that call for garlic but where garlic will be cooked and not necessarily used as fresh (uncooked) garlic. If you will be cooking it in soups or other recipe, frozen is just fine and it does not change the flavor in a negative way. In fact, frozen garlic seems to grate as well and is also easy to slice and chop.

Now, you can easily poach these in a skillet, pot or my new favorite method: in a jar using sous vide.

Whichever method you decide to use to poach the garlic, just be sure you don't get the oil too hot. It shouldn't boil, just gently simmer until the garlic starts to turn a light golden color similar to roasted garlic. Be careful not to let it burn as it will go fast once the coloring starts. This is easy to avoid if you happen to have a sous vide device, but if not just go slow and steady and you will be well rewarded.

If you do have a sous vide device, set your temp for 131 degrees F for 3 hours. When done transfer to a jar for storage or make the aioli and store the rest of the oil in a hot sauce bottle.

Garlic Aioli:

- 2 eggs
- 1/4 tsp of paprika
- 1/4 tsp of salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- Batch of poached garlic
- Garlic oil from poaching the garlic

In a food processor, add all of the ingredients except the garlic oil. Turn the processor on low or pulse and slowly drizzle in the olive oil.  You only need to add enough garlic oil until you get the desired consistency of aioli. Think of it like mayo... if you like a thicker mayo, add a little more oil but don't overdo it. Too much oil, added too quickly, could "break" your aioli and that usually happens once the mixture has reached it's maxed oil capacity and then gone over it's threshold. So go slow and stop and test it to see how you like it as it gets thicker.

If you want to hold off on the seasonings until you get the emulsification done, that's ok, too. Then you can season it to your taste. My measurements are just suggestions as I don't exactly measure my seasonings either. It's just my best guess-timate to help give you an idea of where to start.

I transfer the aioli to a jar and it will keep for several weeks. We spread the aioli on our burgers, on our sandwiches, use it as a dip with celery sticks as a snack, you name it.