I have been living in a hotel a state away from my home for the past seven weeks with access to just a small kitchenette. I have a microwave, a two burner electric stove and little else with which to cook save for a few kitchen tools that brought from home.
I haven't been starving by any means, but hot food in my room is rare.
My dinners have been very good, but I haven't cooked much in the room. How can people live with electric stoves?
The burners take too long to heat, and once hot take forever to adjust. I used to have electric stoves in apartments that I rented in San Francisco and swore at one time to never rent again a property that had one.
About twenty years ago I was one of a group of three renting an apartment in the Richmond District of SF and we were splitting up. On of the women with whom I lived was getting a studio, I was going with the other and as I was working two jobs and she was a student and working about 15 hours a week, she took on the lions share of apartment hunting.
She knew of my desire that I don't return to an electric only existence. It really was just about all that I cared about except that I didn't want to live in an unsafe neighborhood. She wanted a safe place too, but was more flexible about the kitchen as I think she didn't cook at all. So the electric thing was not her priority. In fact, now that I think of it, I don't really remember her cooking at all.
One day I came home after working a lunch shift and she told me that she had found a perfect place. She was so excited. We were close to the end of our notice on the current place and time was getting tight.
She started to tell me about the apartment: "It's got two bedrooms (great), it was in our price range (although at the upper limit, still good), a big living room that would easily hold my three aquariums (fantastic), a little back yard like space that we could use for the my Weber grill and to just hang out (awesome, I thought), and the best thing about it is that it had floor to ceiling windows in the living room with views of downtown, the Castro and the bay (WOW!).
We were to see it in an hour.
I looked at her. "The kitchen is electric isn't it?" I asked.
Very sheepishly she looked at the ground and said it was. I said if it is that great, maybe I can overlook my kitchen demand.
The apartment was great. We moved in.
The day after moving in I made eggs benedict for breakfast on the electric stove. It turned out well, but for most of the year that we lived there, I did little cooking in the apartment. For once in my life, the kitchen was not my favorite room in the apartment.
It is difficult to make hollandaise on an electric stove and I learned a great deal about how to make a good sauce that morning.
A few weeks ago I had the good fortune to return to San Francisco for a long weekend and was to stay with my friend, Leslie, who has a fabulous kitchen. I was very excited to cook on her beautiful stove, a Viking I think.
For dinner on Saturday night I made Seared Salmon on Broccolini with a Meyer Lemon Hollandaise.
Here is how it went.
Leslie went to one of my favorite fish markets while I was at a baseball game and bought the most beautiful sides of king salmon that I have seen in many years. She asked me if it should be scaled and I said no. It is easier to remove the skin if the scales are intact.
First I needed to remove the skin of the salmon.
I removed the pin bones by grabbing them with a pair of needle nose pliers at about a 30 degree angle toward the head end and pulling gently. If the filet is very fresh they give up a bit of a fight. If they come out very easily, your filet is not as fresh. This filet was very fresh.
The removal of the pin bones is not necessary, but makes for a more enjoyable final product as there will be no bones.
The next step to skinning a salmon is that you need to make a little cut through the meat of the filet but be careful not to cut through the skin. This will be your "handle".
Now grip the filet by the handle you just created and hold your sharp chef knife at a 20 degree angle and pull on the skin while moving the "handle" in a back and forth fashion until you have removed the skin. Check out the video below:
Cut the fish into the portions that you want and set aside.
Here is the recipe for my hollandaise:
1/2 pound butter
juice of one Meyer lemon
1 egg yolk
Kosher salt
a pinch of paprika
a couple Tablespoons of hot water
In order to make Hollandaise you will need clarified butter. This is also called "drawn butter". Think about the butter you are served when you order lobster. That's the stuff.
Place the butter in a very small sauce pan and melt very slowly. Be careful that the butter does not boil.
when the butter is melted, there will be three parts, the foam at the top (these are the solids in the butter), the fat (this is what you want), and water at the bottom.
Remove the foam from the top with a spoon.
With a small batch like this, you don't need to remove the water at the bottom. If you are to clarify a larger batch, say two pounds or more, pull the fat from the pot with a ladle.
Place a medium sized sauce pan on the stove with water in it and bring it to a boil.
In a glass or metal bowl that will nestle into the sauce pan, place an egg yolk and a little but of the lemon juice. Whip the yolk and juice with a wire whip.
Reduce the heat to a simmer and place the bowl onto the sauce pan while continuing to whip vigorously.
Slowly add the butter while continuing to whip the sauce. It is important that this sauce does not get too hot (140F is too much). If it gets too hot, you'll have greasy scrambled eggs and all is lost.
Here is what I learned about making this sauce on that electric stove: remove the bowl from the pot from time to time to regulate the temp. I do this on gas stoves now as it gives me even greater control.
Whipping the emulsion continuously even when off the heat.
This sauce is a hot emulsion, for cold emulsions see my post on Caesar salad:
When the sauce begins to get too thick add some more of the Meyer lemon juice or hot water from the simmering pot. It only takes an ounce or so each time you do this.
Once all of the fat has been incorporated, taste the sauce and season with paprika and kosher salt to taste.
Remove the pot from the burner and rest the bowl on it to hold it hot. Remember to check it from time to time to regulate the temp.
Set up your plate with the sautéed veggies and seared salmon and spoon the sauce onto you meal.
As Julia would have said, "Bon appetite".
Soon I will return home and have all of my cooking stuff available to me. I never thought I would miss my kitchen as much as I do now.
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