Seafood poaching

[Suzanne]

Okay, kids, play nicely.

I have only been cooking "professionally" for 10 years -- but from what I've seen (including at a four-star restaurant in NYC and for a chef who got 3 stars), everyone here is right. Timing, temperatures, and science should make for consistent food. Unfortunately, though, the food itself works against that science. One cook making the same dish 10 times will end up with 10 dishes, too, because the food has its own variations that cannot be offset completely by timing and temperature.

It's great to quantify, but there will always be natural variations in the ingredients (even in the water, for goodness sake!). So you're all right. Now, please, no more !@#$%^&* at each other.

[kuan]

Well let's put it this way. It can be done, but you have to control for a lot of things. Like the temperature of the fish when you put it in the liquid for example. You gotta make sure your lobsters aren't running a fever. If they are, you gotta cut down the cooking time.

The only time I've seen people use stopwatches for cooking is in competition and in practicing for competition. Even then, the final call is made via touchy-feely methods. But then everything else is very tightly controlled. I've seen teams bring their own bottled water for their aspics.

Anyway, in the end you always test the product, that applies to everything. Not just cooking. It's like being a doctor. You treat the patient, not the test results.

[Suzanne]

Your question has been preying on my mind, so I went back and looked at what you actually posted to start the thread:

Originally Posted by shahar

I've been trying lately to quantify most of my recipes, temperatures and quantities. I'm looking for consistent equations that deal well with chenging conditions and products. My question is about poaching seafood.

For calamari the recipe usualy calls for bringing water to a boil throwing in the sliced calamari, cooking for about ten seconds and icing in a water batch.
Far from consistent. What temperature the water should be for best results? For how long? Is it the same for all cuts of calamari, for all sizes? Icing or not? Maybe slow chilling? Maybe chilling in the liquid? etc?

My reaction is the same as when I first read that: Seems like a reasonably detailed recipe to me:
- temperature: boiling
- quantity: as much as you need to cook
- timing: 10 seconds from the time you add the calamari to the water, or else from the time the water returns to a boil (okay, I'll grant you a bit of uncertainty here, but this is where it only takes 2 tries to come up with an answer)
- cooling: in an ice-water bath.

Anything more is understood, as far as I'm concerned:
- starting temperature of the water: doesn't matter; it will be at 212F/100C when you add the calamari (yes, assuming sea level )
- starting temperature of the calamari: less than or equal to 40F/4C, because that's the SAFE temperature; if it had been assumed that the calamari were still frozen, wouldn't it say so? And if it should be thawed -- which it should, for even cooking -- then it will be at or below the same 40F/4C
- knowing when it is done: AHA! that's where your skill as a cook comes in: you have to take a piece out and test it. If it feels done, it is done. No timers and thermometers can tell you that; you have to know what to look, feel, smell, etc. for. Specifically because some factor will always be different (as you seem to have acknowledged)
- why to cool as instructed, in an ice-bath: again, for safety and to stop the calamari from cooking. Keep it in the boiling water, and carryover will keep it cooking far too long for its own (and your customers') good, turning it to rubber bands. Let it take too long to cool down, and it could be unsafe.

Surely you know all that. So again, what is the problem you have?

But I've seen your approach with some of my cooks. Thinking they're above timers, thermostats and scales. Then they're surprised why their herb oil loses color after a few days, why their bread is sometimes crusty and sometimes spongy, why their yogurt is sometimes thick and sometimes watery.

So THAT's it! You want to impose science on a bunch of artistes! What you need, my friend (and I do feel you are my friend ) is not physical science, but social science! And the science of being a good leader and a good teacher. Have you not taught your cooks their recipes, by *****stration, coaching, and then by monitoring how they make them? If you have taught them properly, they be less likely to have those wide swings. (Although yogurt and yeast are living organisms, as willful as any child, and sometimes what made them behave one time only brings disaster the next.)

My point is: the fault, dear Brutus, is not in your recipes, nor necessarily in your underlings; look at how you lead, and you might find the answers you're looking for.

[Pete]

Sharhar, I totally understand where you are coming from. It seems only natural to want to be able to objectively quantify a recipe. That way there is no room for error. Unfortunately, the kitchen is not a lab. There are way too many variables that we have to account for everyday. Just to use poaching a fish, since that is what we are talking about, as an example, here are just a number of the variables that make complete quantification (is that a word) impossible:
-temp of poaching liquid (yes even the temp of boiling water can change depending on what you put into and how long it has reduced-think sugar water)
-temp of fish when placing in poaching liquid
-density of fish (even same kind of fish can have different densities depending on where the fillet was cut, what time of year the fish was caught and where it was caught
-the BTU's of your burners - it will affect how quickly your liquid comes back to temp.
-the exact thickness of the fish - never seen a piece of fish, or meat, exactly 1, 1 1/2, or 2 inches thick and most recipes tell you to poach (cook) for X minutes per inch of thickness so unless all your cooks keep a set of calipers and a calculator around you won't discover the exact timing, just by that variable alone.

I agree, there has to be some sort of guidelines, but you can't allow these guidelines to rule you. Allowing them to do so is almost as bad as not using any guidelines at all. I hope this helps to shed some light on the subject.

[shahar]

Surely you know all that. So again, what is the problem you have?

The problem I have is that I've been realizing that any liquid has more states than "boil", "simmer", "room temperature" and "ice bath". I've been finding those terms to be inadaquate. Many things in proffesional kitchen have become more precise.

Again, as I iterated and reiterated, I'm not looking or expecting recipes to exclude common sense and experience. What I'm looking for is recipe that has a more precise measurement of temperature with timing as a consequence. I don't buy the "been always done like that" approach. Yes I know how to throw calamari into a boiling liquid and test it for doneness. But, the temp. a liquid is in when it's considered "boiling" can vary. The temperature can drop after the calamari was added. All this things have tangible phisical effects on the particular biochemical makeup of calamari.

I'm looking for alternatives that might be superior, or atleast more precise. When you say "boiling" what does that mean. Difference of 10 degrees might have a drastic effects on the cells that constitute calmari.

Maybe, we can get better results with lower temp. Let say, 150f, for one minutes or so(till done). Maybe cooling on it's own would be better than the tried and traditional icebath method. Maybe cooling in the the cooking liquid. Etc.

Yes this is considered a basic cooking technique. But I bet all of you would agree that when you claim to know exactly(scientificly?) what's the best method, it's the beginning of the end. Everytime I work with a new chef or cook, I compare recipes and technique for the most basic items. Mash, stock, rice. There's always room for learning, changing our minds or just refinment.

The best techniques may come from a novice cook who hasn't got locked into the official decree yet.

[Suzanne]

Originally Posted by shahar

The problem I have is that I've been realizing that any liquid has more states than "boil", "simmer", "room temperature" and "ice bath". I've been finding those terms to be inadaquate. Many things in proffesional kitchen have become more precise...

Well, you are certainly right there! Checking one of my favorite textbooks, On Cooking by Sarah Labensky and Alan Hause, I found:

Poaching: 160º - 180ºF Liquid moves slightly but no bubbles
Simmering: 185º - 205ºF Small bubbles break through the liquid's surface
Boiling: 212ºF Large bubbles and rapid movement
Steaming: 212ºF or higher Food is in contact only with the steam generated by a boiling liquid

The Professional Chef -- the CIA's text -- says:

poach: To cook gently in simmering liquid that is 160º to 185ºF
simmer: . . . to cook in a simmering liquid. The temperature range for simmering is 185º - 200ºF
boil: A cooking method in which items are immersed in liquid at or above the boiling point (212ºF)
[no definition for "steam"]

(it should be obvious why this one is NOT my favorite.

Wayne Gisslen, in Professional Cooking -- the text I had to use in school -- says:

1. To boil means to cook in a liquid that is bubbling rapidly and is greatly agitated. Water boils at 212ºF at sea level. No matter how hight the burner is turned, the temperature of the liquid will go no higher.
2. To simmer means to cook in a liquid that is bubbling very gently. Temperature is about 185º to 205ºF.
3. To poach means to cook in a liquid, usually a small amount, that is hot but not actually bubbling. Temperature is about 160º to 180ºF.

. . . To steam means to cook foods by exposing them directly to steam. . . . Steam at normal pressure is 212ºF, the same as boiling water. However, it carries much more heat than boiling water and cooks very rapidly. [Temperatures for pressure steaming range up to 250ºF, depending on the psi]

So what is it between 180 and 185 (Labensky and Gisslen), and between 205 and 212 (Labensky and Gisslen) and 200 and 212 (CIA)?

And if these "authorities" can't agree, why do you hope to find the one right way?

[cape chef]

Don't forget about sea level and elevation

[shahar]

Thamk you Suzanne, for the research. Again, unlike some posters haven't realized, I am not looking for the "one and only, definitive" recipe. But for a few good recipes. Ones that take the actual different effects of varied liquid temps into account.

Sort of the thing, Cook's Illustrated is so good at(have they done one for this already? Anybody knows?). What I'm looking for is a well done and meticulous research. One unconstrained by common assumptions and tradional techniques.

I'm just finding it annoying that everywhere I looked, everybody teaches the same boiling water-10 secs-ice bath way. Everybody takes it for granted, but maybe there's a better way. Nobody, including all the excellent posters who were challanging me here(no sarcasm, really), seems to know.

I hate taking the "always done like that, don't question it" route. Scientific methology and skepticism had helped me to improve many recipes before. I try to question evey method. Understand why it works or doesn't and improve on that. I see so many people do things that don't really make sense or help just because everybody been doing it like that for "ever".(Putting tomato paste on roasting bones, comes to mind. Tottaly wretched technique, yet almost everyone seems to use it.)

And NO, I do not believe this takes away from the artistry. Dutch painters from the flemish renaisence had great art. They were also great in the advancement the science of paint making, optic theory etc. And that is true of all artists.

Science is not a dirty word. It won't turn us into fast food drones, it won't depersonalize our disntictive style.

[cape chef]

Shahar,

Do you own Mcgee ?

[shahar]

Originally Posted by cape chef

Shahar,

Do you own Mcgee ?

Explain please =>

[cape chef]

Originally Posted by shahar

Explain please =>

Sorry,

Thought maybe you were familiar.

Harold McGee's book On food and cooking.

I think you would enjoy it.

[Suzanne]

Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking, Revised and Updated Edition on Amazon. And if you scroll down, you'll also find a link to Shirley Corriher's Cookwise, another excellent book on the science of cooking. These a great books to explain the whys of cooking as it is conventially done.

And one more set of books, but I don't have a single link to them: Ferran Adria, of El Bulli in Spain, has several volumes out of his work there. He's one of the best known proponents of what is now referred to as "molecular gastronomy" -- along with Heston Blumenthal in England, Herve This in France, and Grant Achatz here in the U.S. (Grant just opened Alinea, in Chicago, which was written up in the NY Times yesterday). These folks all look at the science of cooking and try to turn it on its ear. You'd probably be interested in the kinds of things they try. So you're not at all alone in trying to find out the science and using it to your advantage.

[shahar]

Come to think of it I believe I did own a Mcgee book before. Lent it to a cook who ended up quitting and dissapearing. **** my generous heart.

[shahar]

Hey, anybody tried lobster sous vide(vaccum seal)?