Fish Roulade

After using Transglutaminase over and over again for beef and lamb I decided to give it a try for fish. Overall it worked out pretty good. The fish idea was a food epiphany that emerged during my trip to costco. While walking through costco I saw these Fresh Sockeye Salmons in the fish case so a thought crossed my mind....why not roulade? But did I want to take a risk on a new food concept using Fresh Sockeye? So I made Sockeye for for dinner and I purchased farmed salmon for this experiment. 

Nice large piece of Fish for this experiment!!!

Breaking it down by removing all the bones and trimming it down for the next step. I planned on stacking them and using TG to bind them together. Its important that they were roughly the same shape. 

I decided to brine the fish for two reasons.  It keeps the fish moist during the cook and it will remove the unsightly patches of white albumin which I hate!! Albumin is a protein that oozes out of the muscle as it cooks coagulating on the surface. How do you brine? I use a 10% brine (5% sugar) for about 25 minutes. Simple.....do the math.  I used 1600 grams of boiling water and to that I added 320 grams of kosher salt and 160 grams of sugar. After the salt and sugar were dissolved I added 1600 grams of ice to cool it off. I added the fish once the brine was cold. I did a lot of fish that day but you can use less brine if you want. Just do the math.  I.E 800 grams of boiling water 160 grams of salt and 80 grams of sugar. Toss in 800 grams of ice and you got the same brine but just less.

Coated the first piece of salmon with TG. I know the picture is skewed but the fish pieces are about the same size and shape.

Stacked and ready to be rolled tightly in plastic wrap. Instructions on how to wrap can be found HERE.

Here are the pics out lining everything I did. Stacked, rolled and vacuumed sealed. 

Some steps that are essential to this process. After rolling up Fish and applying Transglutaminase (TG or Meat Gloo) it needs to be refrigerated for 24 hours for all the proteins to bind. After rolling up fish and tying it off with string to secure shape I vacuumed sealed it to get it ready for the Sous-Vide. 

I Sous-vide fish at 113°ƒ for 30 min. I  shocked fish in cold water which is not necessary for SV but I wanted to bring down temp because I knew I was going to sauté at a high temp. I wanted to keep interior fish rare and this is one way to prevent over cooking. Fish was very tender. I wish is was a little firmer. I am gonna try this again on a different fish.

Sliced into medallions.

The next set of pictures are gratuitous at best. I decided to go a little asian on the fish. Very simple. Some spices, black and white sesame seed coating and a quick sauté in some fat. I made orzo with some veggies and a ginger garlic and sesame oil sauce. 

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Chicken Breast Roulade

Chicken Breast Roulade. Easy to do and all it takes is a little TG (Transglutaminase). I have done this before so I will spare you all the details. If you would like details to click HERE. 

I started out with large organic chicken breasts and trimmed off all the undesirables. 

I laid out some plastic wrap and coated the breasts with TG. Note the positioning of the breasts...Big side on the small side etc. One extra step if you want to guarantee tasty moist breasts. Before I applied the TG I sprinkled just a bit (approx 1/2 tsp) of salt all over the breasts. This technique is called a dry brine. 

Tightly wrapped in plastic wrap to keep and maintain their cylinder shape. I will stand them vertically in the refrigerator to maintain the shape for 24 hours. 

  All Vacuumed sealed and ready for the Sous-Vide bath. If you want to Sous-Vide to pasteurization I suggest using this GUIDE. Now that being said you do not have to SV them. Cook them any way you want!!!!

What to do with them? It's limitless!!!! The only limit is your imagination. 

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(SEE UPDATE)

TGIFI- SV-What? Flat-Iron Steaks

Transglutaminase-Innovative-Flat-Iron-Sous-Vide
Say this three times fast

What can I say I work for Government and it's all about the acronyms. If you work for the government you know what I am talking about. So with that in mind I decided to use an acronym to describe yet another innovative idea. And of course the title of this post was too big for Google.

I think this is important to point out; when you use Transglutaminase to bind proteins you're only limited to your imagination and I have been told I have a big one. The idea of using TG on Flat-Irons came to me while eating a filet and realizing once again that it's really a tasteless tender piece of meat. I love Flat-Irons so what if ? Hmmmm.... Would'nt it be nice to have the best of both worlds? With Flat-Irons and Sous-Vide you certainly can. 

In the recent past I experimented with TG and Flat-Iron Steaks and it came out very well so I decided to do it bigger and better. Essentially I took one very large Flat-Iron steak, cut it in half, stacked it, trimmed it and shaped it into a cylinder. It came out great and it was worth doing it again but on a much larger scale this time. Bigger is always better in my world. This time I'm gonna take three large FI-Steaks and replicate the technique. 

2055 grams (4.53 lbs) of Beautiful Flat-Iron Steaks.

You first have to figure out the best way to stack the FI. The goal of course is to have the best symmetrical shape. And if they are close to the same weight and size this shouldn't be much of a problem. Sprinkle the TG thoroughly on to the FI getting it into every nook and cranny. Once you're satisfied with the coating stack them on each other and sprinkle the TG on the outside getting it everywhere. Doing this will ensure a cylinder shape that will hold.

Start rolling it up in plastic wrap. Make it sure it's very very tight. Tie off the ends and pop any air-holes that may be present. 

All done. The meat will stand vertically in my refrigerator (to keep its shape) for 24 hours. 24 hours is an optimum time for the TG to bind with the meat. This creates the best bond in my opinion. 

It's been exactly 24 hours and the Flat-Irons have formed one piece of meat. I took off the plastic wrap and salted (Dry-Brine) the Flat-Irons and vacuumed sealed for another 24 hours. After the 24 hours have elapsed I may add some fresh herbs to the bag to enhance and perfume the meat. A great technique I learned from the book Under Pressure by Thomas Keller is if I am going to add herbs to the bag prior to the SV process I want to first put them in plastic wrap and not directly on the food. Putting them directly on the food will over power it. 

After the 24 hour Dry Brine it was time for the SV. The thermal Jacuzzi was set at 133 degrees. I cooked the FI's for 9 hours which also coincided with the pasteurization time. After the cook I shocked the meat in an ice-bath for several hours to rapidly bring down temp. I refrigerated the meat overnight. This was not needed but I work for a living and sometimes our schedules interfere with our hobbies. 

This is a picture of what the meat looks like after I re-Submerged the meat into the SV to bring the temp up. Note: I did not want to serve cold meat so I had to warm it up prior to the next step. What better place then the SV to warm up the meat. 

This is a picture of everything that I was going to serve for dinner. BTW- I learned how to cook these veggies on Chefsteps.com. This is a great site for everyone to learn from. More on this later. 

After the meat rose to an appropriate temp I took it out of the vacuumed sealed bags, dried off the meat thoroughly and coated it with my favorite rub for this application. I like using 1 part Peppercorns, 1 part Grains of Paradise and 1 part coriander. I sprayed the meat down with Canola oil so the rub would adhere. Note: I did not add salt because of the previous dry brine. 

I tossed meat into a 500 degree oven for 9 minutes. That's it!! Nothing more to do.

See Review at the botom. 

My Review

Absolutely amazing I will not change a thing.

The sauce that accompanied the meat was a Bearnaise. Simple to make just Google it.  

Veggies

I cooked them at 194 degrees. I also added Fat and a little salt to the bag. I added Lemon thyme to the potatoes. 

Carrots 33 minutes (served warm)
Potatoes 45 minutes (sliced in half and browned)
Leeks 8 minutes (browned in butter)

How can I be so precise with my times. I ran an experiment that morning. 

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