Poached Lettuce Wrapped Leg and Knuckle Meat Pea Sauce

serves 1

75g Rocklobster leg and knuckle meat, lightly seasoned with salt and pepper
2 large outer Iceberg lettuce leaves
EV olive oil
salt
ice bath
10–15g salmon roe
chervil sprigs

essential equipment
clean dry towels

prepared portion SHELF LIFE

clean spoons, tongs and food service gloves must be use to achieve this shelf life
Live and just killed — shelf life at a consistent 2 °C/35 °F 5 days.
Commercially frozen and thawed at 2 °C/35 °F for 24 hours — shelf life at a consistent 2 °C/35 °F 4 days.

note — it is a general rule that vegetable wrapped lessens the shelf life slightly usually 20%.

Method
Set up a water bath with plenty of salt and a generous amount of EV olive oil. Add a good splash of EV olive oil to the ice bath (are the ice bath and the water bath the same thing? If so you can delete the sentence ’Add a good splash…’). Spread a clean cloth on the bench. Drop the lettuce into the boiling water and blanche for about 1 minute or until the lettuce goes limp. Immediately drain it and drop it into the ice bath to arrest the cooking. Working carefully so as not to tear the lettuce, remove it from the ice bath and spread it out on a dry towel. Cover with another dry towel and apply gentle pressure to dry it as much as possible.
Leaving it attached to the roll, pull out a generous amount of plastic food wrap and fold it back on itself before detaching it from the roll. Spread the blanched lettuce onto the plastic. Roll the meat up in the lettuce, making a tight roll with the plastic food wrap. Vac and date, then shrink the vac pack by dropping it into boiling water for 3–4 seconds and then immediately dropping the pack into an ice bath.

to cook
preheat sous–vide bath to 80 °C/176 °F
Cook for 15 minutes, and allow to rest under heat lamps for 10 minutes.

to serve
Remove the roll from the vac bag and without removing the plastic food wrap, carefully trim the ends and then cut the roll into three. Garnish the top of the roll with the chervil and salmon roe and serve with the pea sauce (recipe follows).

Pea Sauce
500g fresh peas, shelled
125ml spring water
2 pinches of Maldon sea salt
freshly ground white pepper
125g unsalted butter, cut into cubes
5 large mint leaves

This sauce can be made entirely in a Thermomix or MyCook
Put all of the ingredients into a pan, Thermomix or MyCook and place on high heat. As soon as it comes to a simmer, control the heat and simmer gently for three minutes, puree then pass through a medium sieve. The pea skins need not be wasted and are delicious mixed through mashed potato.
In a service situation, if it is a popular dish we thermos the sauce. Prolonged reheating dulls the sauce colour, so if we are using small amounts we vac in individual portions and re–warm them in the water bath.

tip — Frozen peas do not cut it for this sauce, or for that matter any pea dish, as there is a noticeable taste difference between fresh and frozen product.

images right top pre–shrink, below shrunk.