Almost as hot as having a chemistry set in the kitchen these days is cooking sous vide - and Kevin has been practicing this method lately for one of our most classic lunch dishes: The Tidewater Sandwich. Isn't it amazing that he would use this seemingly avant-garde cooking method simply to improve the quality of a lunch time standard? That's how he is: always learning, always trying to make a good thing better, never standing still and accepting the status quo.
Simply put, sous-vide is boil-in-a-bag cooking. Okay, that's very simply put...don't tell Thomas Keller that. Professionals use specialized equipment, like a cryovac machine and immersion circulators. Holy expense account! This is not the French Laundry. Kevin's method may be a little low tech, but it meets the standards, and produces a very satisfactory result. He takes a fresh Locust Point Farm turkey, quarters the breast, and "cryovacs" them individually, using his handy-dandy FoodSaver machine. As needed, he places the packaged breast quarter into the appropriate amount of water, poaching it gently at 165 degrees for about 2 hours. The benefits? Moist turkey breast meat for the turkey salad that is the centerpiece of the sandwich. This small detail helps make The Tidewater Sandwich - a holdover from the days of the Ironstone Cafe - the popular lunch choice that it remains today. (Funny thing about Googling "ironstone cafe" - there are sites that still have it registered as an existing business. Why? Because the phone listing was not removed from the Verizon white pages until 10 years after it was sold...we are just so naive...got a bridge you wanna unload?) That FoodSaver machine is not a new piece of equipment - in fact, Kevin started using it at the Kennedyville Inn - but using it for poaching sure increases its job security!
Simply put, sous-vide is boil-in-a-bag cooking. Okay, that's very simply put...don't tell Thomas Keller that. Professionals use specialized equipment, like a cryovac machine and immersion circulators. Holy expense account! This is not the French Laundry. Kevin's method may be a little low tech, but it meets the standards, and produces a very satisfactory result. He takes a fresh Locust Point Farm turkey, quarters the breast, and "cryovacs" them individually, using his handy-dandy FoodSaver machine. As needed, he places the packaged breast quarter into the appropriate amount of water, poaching it gently at 165 degrees for about 2 hours. The benefits? Moist turkey breast meat for the turkey salad that is the centerpiece of the sandwich. This small detail helps make The Tidewater Sandwich - a holdover from the days of the Ironstone Cafe - the popular lunch choice that it remains today. (Funny thing about Googling "ironstone cafe" - there are sites that still have it registered as an existing business. Why? Because the phone listing was not removed from the Verizon white pages until 10 years after it was sold...we are just so naive...got a bridge you wanna unload?) That FoodSaver machine is not a new piece of equipment - in fact, Kevin started using it at the Kennedyville Inn - but using it for poaching sure increases its job security!
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