Author Archives: frankson

Sous Vide Shrimp

It hadn’t occurred to me that shrimp would make a good sous vide food.

I got some nice big ones from Costco. They were bagged and tossed with salt and a bit too much baking soda. Then left with the baking soda for 30 minutes.

In the bath for 20 minutes at 135F they went.

Very big and plump and very juicy. This is the one time I think I might want a few more degrees. Maybe 138F next time.

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Sous Vide Leg of Lamb

I wound up not finding the black mustard seeds in time and used just cumin. I heated 1.5 tablespoons (I think) of cumin in a good bit of vegetable oil. I did not do a good job tying the leg of lamb up. The vacuum bags I had were too small for the roast but it worked out. I would do a longer sear on the fat the next time. I don’t think the fat was properly melted. The flavor was very good. Lots of cumin and good saltiness. It pervaded the meat. It was quite chewy and it didn’t help we didn’t have even plastic knives. But it was medium rare through and through and the flavor was very nice.

I want to try this again when I have a chance. I would also pick a smaller roast unless I find larger bags.

http://www.seriouseats.com/2016/10/the-food-lab-sous-vide-leg-of-lamb-mint-cumin-black-mustard.html

3 hours @ 132°F

  • 3 tablespoons (45ml) vegetable or canola oil, divided
  • 1 tablespoon (12g) whole black mustard seeds
  • 2 teaspoons (8g) whole cumin seeds
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/2 butterflied boneless leg of lamb (4 to 5 pounds; 1.8 to 2.2kg) (see note above)
  • 1 ounce (30g) picked fresh mint leaves (about 1 cup), finely chopped
  • 1 ounce (30g) picked fresh cilantro leaves and tender stems (about 1 cup), finely chopped
  • 1 small shallot, finely minced
  • 1 medium clove garlic, finely minced
  • 1 red jalapeño or Fresno chili, finely minced
  • 1 tablespoon (15ml) red wine vinegar
  • 3 tablespoons (45ml) extra-virgin olive oil

  1. Heat 2 tablespoons (30ml) vegetable oil in a small skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add mustard and cumin and cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Immediately transfer to an empty skillet or heatproof bowl and let rest until cool enough to handle. Season mixture generously with salt and pepper.

  2. Spread half of spice mixture evenly over inside of lamb leg, then carefully roll it back up.

  3. Secure lamb leg with butcher’s twine at 1- to 1 1/2–inch intervals, starting from both ends and working toward the center. Season exterior generously with salt and pepper.

  4. Preheat a sous vide water bath to desired temperature according to chart above. Seal lamb inside a vacuum bag, or a zipper-lock bag using the water displacement method, then submerge and cook for desired time according to chart above.

  5. Meanwhile, make the chimichurri by combining remaining cumin and mustard mixture with mint, cilantro, shallot, garlic, chili, red wine vinegar, and olive oil in a medium bowl. Stir vigorously with a fork and season to taste with salt and pepper. Set aside.

  6. When ready to serve, remove lamb from bag and carefully pat dry with paper towels. In a cast iron, carbon steel, or nonstick skillet, heat remaining 1 tablespoon (15ml) vegetable or canola oil over high heat until lightly smoking, then add lamb and cook, turning occasionally, until well browned on all sides, about 4 minutes total.

  7. Remove twine, slice lamb, and serve immediately with chimichurri.

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Canon in D, MIDI and MOD Trackers

My son has this toy that he doesn’t get to play with very often. It is actually one of those things that gets strapped to his crib and plays music and lights up. By the time he was old enough to enjoy it, we did 2 things. We no longer stayed in the house where it was kept often. And we took it out of his crib and strapped it to the full sized bed in the room with his crib. He sometimes got to play on the bed and really enjoyed playing with this thing.

One thing I noticed about this toy was that it played this song in a loop. It had a very nice melody and I really liked it. Then one day I wanted to figure out what song it was by trying to find someone who could name it as I was trying to describe the toy to Google. That sort of didn’t work because I either had the bring of the toy wrong or it was too old or unpopular. Still, the song came up in the results for similar toys. I wanted to put this song in the minivan to play for my son.

Apparantly, the song I was looking for is very famous and well known. It is a very popular song played at weddings. The song is Canon in D or Pachelbel’s Canon.

So I set about find a copy of the song similar to the rendition on the toy. Down a rabbit hole I go. I first look for mp3s from Amazon. I found something I bought with credits and it is fine but it isn’t what I was looking for.

Then I look for MIDI files. I find some and even found some I rather like. But they sound so bad. Then I remembered I used to listen to these files played back with samples of real instruments. I recalled it sounded pretty good. I did a bunch of reseach and wound up with this software stack.

The Windows stack plays stuff OK but it doesn’t seem up the the task of conversion. I use Fluidsynth with the soundfonts to convert the MIDI files to wav files. I then use my custom compiled versions of ffmpeg to convert the wav files to mp3s. None of this is convenient but it works. I’ve managed to find quite a few MIDI files.

fluidsynth -F output.wav -O s32 /home/file0500/music/midi/Musyng.sf2 midifile.mid

ffmpeg -i wavefile.wav -codec:a libmp3lame -qscale:a 0 output.mp3

There is this one arrangement I really like. One reason is that the volume changes in a dramatic way in places. It has lots of nice strings (which is how I like this song played) and lots of layered instruments. But it also has these weird volume ups and downs that don’t obviously add value to the song. It just makes it sound bad. I looked for MIDI software to try to fix it but discovered MIDI is pretty damn hard and while it works, it is awkward. I’d have to know a lot of MIDI and music to adjust my file.

I then remembered there is another type of music file that also played songs with sampled sounds. One that might or might not be older than MIDI but one that was easier to get good sounding results from back in the day in the 90s before things like soundfonts removed the need to buy very pricey hardware to get MIDI files to play OK. These were called MODs. And I recall one of the first I heard was of the Beverly Hills Cop tune Axel Foley. It sounded much better than pretty much any MIDI file back then on the computers we had. MODs were pretty amazing in that they sounded good with just 4 channels. Other trackers that used similar technology like s3m and 669  often had more channels but MODs were just fine. Blast from the past.

So I looked for some Canon in D MODs and found a whole bunch. I incidentally stumbled upon a Canon in D fan page with a huge collection of MIDIs.

For MODs I am using OpenMPT. It is modern and fantastic. It is currently being developed using the open source method. It supports all sorts of plugins and plays MIDIs and I saw mention of soundfonts. I will have to try it. If it sounds good, I can ditch that crappy MIDI software stack I am using now. It even outputs to lossless and lossy formats.

I expect that once I evaluate all of these songs or arrangements I might have 10 different Canon in D versions I like in the car.

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Vector Art

I’ve been interested in vector art for a long time now. I don’t use it very often but I do appreciate it.

I try to use it for the website I have when I can. But only in the use vectors then convert to low res raster way.

Recently, I have been using the GIMP 2 + Inkscape combination for creating favicons and website banners.

GIMP 2

Inkskape

I will also collect websites that have art for me to use.

https://www.vecteezy.com – eps

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Cinnamon Crasin Bread – 2nd Recipe

SD-YD250

1.5lb | 2lb | 2.5lb

2-Pound Loaf

  • 4 cups bread flour
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 tsp. ground cinnamon
  • 1 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1 1/4 tsp. bread machine yeast
  • 2 tbsp. butter, softened
  • 1 1/2 cups water (warm, to help melt butter)
  • 1 cup raisins (in with wet ingredients)
  • 1 cup crasins (before end of kneed cycle)

Bake Raisin, light crust, Large size (middle, 2lbs)

2017.01.22 – Left it in the machine after baking. The outside crust darker and harder than I would prefer. I would aim to take it out of the machine 10 to 15 minutes before bake cycle ends next time. It is better than last recipe. Not as moist. Chewier. Sweeter. Maybe I should try it with honey.

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