Turkey Tamales

This is one of my preferred uses for leftover turkey. How your turkey was seasoned and cooked is not a huge factor in the result but latin flavors in the first cooking of the turkey are a nice touch too. Turkey is worth cooking all year, not just at the holidays so you can experiment with different flavors and preparations.

Tamales include a few sub-recipes unless you can find some of it pre-made for you. You need to make a chile sauce to flavor the filling, and you need to make masa. If you have a preferred Mexican style chile sauce, use it.

Red Chile Sauce

1 tablespoon each ground California Chile, ground New Mexico Chile, Guajillo Chile. You can use other combinations of chiles to your taste preference of course.  I have to make my own ground guajillo chile from whole dried guajillos. You can see it's not as finely ground as the commercially ground chiles.
1 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds

Grind these seasonings together. It's OK to use preground cumin and coriander though the flavor is more distinct if you grind them yourself. Mortar and pestle the whole seeds is a fine technique. I've taken to using a cheap propeller coffee grinder for grinding whole spices and making such blends as this.

Spices in my grinder:

Spices after grinding:

4 medium onions chopped
10 cloves garlic sliced thinly
2 tablespoons bacon drippings or olive oil or a combination
2 1/2 cups turkey or chicken stock.

Melt the bacon fat over medium high heat in a large pan. Yes, you can use most any fat for this.

Add the chile spice mixture and stir to bloom its flavors in the hot fat, about 60 seconds.

When it's fully aromatic and blended with  the fat,

then add the onion and garlic.

Saute for a few minutes, to soften the onion.

Then add the turkey stock to cover the solids. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer.

Simmer 20 minutes.

 Scoop out the solids and puree. I use a hand blender.

Return the puree to the pan. I didn't puree in the pan because it would have splattered badly and the contents weren't deep enough to puree well and evenly. You can use a food processor or blender for this step too, whatever is most convenient for you.

Add 28 oz canned crushed tomatoes.

Combine, simmer another 20-30 minutes stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, soak a package of corn husks in hot water. And cut/pull your turkey into shreds. 

 Simmering away, be sure to stir it so you don't scorch your solids.

 It should be a nicely thickened sauce at the end.

For this batch, i was able to pick up a bag of tamale masa at a latin grocer. While convenient, when you purchase your masa pre-made, you don't have control over things like how much fat they used. Commercial masa has all been very fatty in my experience compared to when I make my own.

Husks on the left, masa in back, chile sauce up front, shredded turkey on the right.

I like to work on a dish towel or paper towel to absorb the water from the corn husk. Lay the husk out flat. The husk should be at least 6 inches wide on the trimmed end. Pick off any corn silk adhering to the husk.

Pull out about a 1/4 cup of masa.

Press it out into a square about 4 inches on a side and about 1/8 of an inch thick. I had some extra masa leftover which you can see at the bottom. I'll use that on the next tamale. Leave about 1/2 inch of space at the trimmed end of the husk. Certainly, you can make longer tamales if you have a longer wrapper.

Spoon on a generous tablespoon or so of chile sauce. More sauce is better than less and provides the moisture for this dish.  Darn the flash on my camera!

Top evenly with a layer of turkey.

Add on a little more chile sauce. Tamales tend to be on the dry side so plenty of sauce makes a better tamale.

 
Fold the edges of the masa together.

Continue rolling to cover the edge. A little sauce leaking out is not a problem.

Fold the bottom up against the tamale filling.  Yes, I prefer to make these with gloves on. Dries out my skin otherwise. You can tie the fold to hold it with string or a strip of corn husk, but it's not really needed.

Simply load the tamale into your steamer insert so that the tamale holds the fold in place. I have the steamer resting on its side so that gravity holds everything in place.

Repeat. You'll have some husks that aren't quite big enough for a tamale by themselves. Simply overlap the husks somewhat and 'glue' it in place when you spread out your masa.

Here is my pasta insert being filled with tamales to steam.  Lay it on its side as it gets filled up.  This way the tamales don't tip over and you can arrange them to hold themselves closed. You don't want to pack it tightly. You want some gaps for steam to move around the tamales.

And up right now that it's full and the tamales won't tip over.

Masa is just about gone as is the chile sauce. Turkey is all used up.

Add water to your pots to come up close to but not touching the steamer insert. You may need to add water to your pot during cooking if you can't hold at least 1 1/2 inches of water in the bottom.

Here is the steamer basket for my pressure cooker filled with tamales. Notice that the tamales are right up near the rim of my pressure cooker. The first time I steamed tamales in this pressure cooker, the masa rose up and blew through the steam release valve. I pack this steamer more carefully now and with a greater clearance near the pressure release.

Bring the pot to a boil, then reduce the heat to just hold the boil. Or with  a pressure cooker, bring it up to pressure, then reduce heat to just hold the pressure.

Cook in a standard pot for 45-60 minutes. 30 minutes in a pressure is sufficient. Other types of fillings and masa may have different cooking times. 

 All done. You can see how the masa expands as it cooks.

 Same for the pressure cooker.

Ready to eat. Hmm, I need better lighting.

 Unwrap the tamale and discard the husk.

Yummy.

Jacques and Julia do a Turkey

I saw this episode for the first time on PBS last year. Nicko Sahlas of Cheftalk had talked about the technique and when I saw it done, it resonated with me.

For now at least, it happens to be on Youtube and you should watch it.

Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afdh_i3Kmy0

Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDHiS5ivkN8

But if you just watch the video, you don't really get much information about time and temperature and so forth. Because the bird is disassembled, it cooks in about half the time which is very convenient.

The Washington Post has the recipe and some good backstory as well.  The first page is about the episode, the second page has the recipe. J & J had only talked about cooking the bird in parts. They had no recipe, they hadn't even done it before. This is being done just on straight technique and understanding of cooking on camera without a net.

I've not followed their specific recipe. The last few times I've cooked a turkey, I did it in parts this way with the legs stuffed and the stuffing under the breast. But I used my own preferred recipes for stuffing and such.

One thing I do particularly like about this technique is that you have enough parts (back, wing tips, thigh bones, neck) to make a small batch of turkey stock the day before you cook the bird. This is helpful for gravy, stuffing, basting and so on. And you still have the main carcass for making turkey soup after the holiday meal.

It's a little more work up front, but it pays dividends at meal time and lessens the hectic cooking on the main day.

Fish Sauces Compared

After encountering the Red Boat fish sauce I did some more reading to learn what I could about fish sauce. Vietworldkitchen is probably the single best source and I've linked her more useful posts below.

• Sodium Benzoate in Fish Sauce
• Fish Sauce Buying Guide
• 3 Crabs Tasting
• Megachef Premium Fish Sauce
• Red Boat, IHA and Megachef

Viet Huong makes 3 crabs, 5 crabs and some other fish sauces. They have a different take on protein and what makes a fish sauce premium. 

• http://www.viethuong.com.hk/qanda.html 

Of course it's geared to reflect their fish sauce as best, but even still, it's a counterpoint to consider.

As °N  (dam according to Veitworldkitchen) is supposed to relate to the protein content of the fish sauce, it was revealing to look at the listed protein grams per tablespoon in the nutritional analysis panel.  Red Boat 40 ° showed 4g/tablespoon. The IHA & Megachef 3g/tablespoon, 3 crabs 2g/tablespoon and the unknown brand 60°N 1g/tablespoon. Pricing follows similarly. The higher the protein/tablespoon, the higher the price generally with 60°N not conforming. But I suspect its label is wrong.  I would expect a linear relationship between the protein/tablespoon and the dam number. Rounding rules for the nutritional panel might be to blame, as well as incorrect panel info.

Visiting a number of the Asian grocers I assembled 5 fish sauces to compare against each other, mostly based on recommendations from Vietworldkitchen. Every store carried 3 Crabs, and Red Boat. The IHA was only at Hong Phat, and Tay Do had the Megachef and the 60°N sauce.

The recipe for fish sauce is pretty simple. 3 parts fresh anchovies, 1 part salt. Some fish sauces have other ingredients, often a little sugar for example.


3 Crabs 

Ingredients: Anchovy Extract, Water, Salt Fructose and Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein
Sodium per Tablespoon: 1800 mg
Protein per Tablespoon: 2 grams

Tasted Straight
Strong, harsh a little fishy, has a forward strong flavor impact and a hint of old fish to the aroma and taste. It's a few flavor notes played loudly. My son loves the strength of this straight.

Nuoc cham
Punchy,  with the a sort of fish breath finish.  Disliked by my son on goi cuon. Liked best by second son and my wife. They liked the punch and strength. Wife commented this would be the fish sauce she'd like for pho.

Among my friends, the one who cooks with fish sauce the most and uses 3 Crabs, he picked this and the IHA as his favorite.  The others placed this in the middle of the pack.

Pho
Only tested with my family. My family zeroed in quickly on 3 Crabs sample as their preferred flavor. It's certainly the flavor they're most familiar with which I think was what made this popular.

I have to say I'm disappointed in the ingredients list as well representing more of a fabricated product rather than a simply fermented one. 3 Crabs is a product of Thailand and Hong Kong.


Red Boat 

Ingredients: Anchovy, Sea Salt
Sodium per Tablespoon: 1490 mg
Protein per Tablespoon: 4 grams

Tasted straight
Better, fuller, richer, parmesan cheese notes in the finish. Has a more mouth filling flavor with greater complexity. It's more of a harmony of flavors.  Son likes this too straight but prefers 3 crabs for the salt and strength impact.

Nuoc Cham
Subtle, but again mouth filling, lime finish. May need a little more fish sauce to balance better, but it's pretty close as it is.  Was OK to my second sone and wife. Wife commented on the fuller flavor but liked punch more from 3 Crabs.  This was my favorite

Among my friends, this was selected as best by most of them. And as second/third by the 3 Crabs fan depending how you score his tie for first.

Pho
My son who loves fish sauce picked this as his second favorite. I liked it best. The other three of my family scored it in fourth place. It is a different sort of fish sauce if you've been using one brand faithfully for years.

And it's one actually made in Phu Quoc in the traditional fashion as shown by the simple ingredients.

IHA

Ingredients:  Anchovy Fish, Salt, Water
Sodium per Tablespoon: 1730 mg
Protein per Tablespoon: 3 grams

IHA was liked pretty well.

Tasted Straight
IHA is very similar to Megachef, but preferred to the Megachef. Balanced, pleasing. Of all of them, this is the only one I could call light and delicate as Vietworldkitchen did of 3 Crabs brand.

Nuoc Cham
It's not assertive as 3 Crabs or 60N but more so than Megachef. Subtle, pleasant notes were observed in general, but it was just high-middle rated.

Pho
Generally scoring second among the family, it lacked the impact of 3 crabs or Red Boat, or certainly the  60°.

IHA has the ingredients right and is alleged to be from Phu Quoc, but I haven't been able to back up that claim.

MegaChef

Ingredients: Anchovy, Sea Salt, Sugar, Fructose
Sodium per Tablespoon: 1520 mg
Protein per Tablespoon: 3 grams

Tasted straight
Much like the IHA, it's well balanced. Perhaps a little fishier.

Nuoc Cham
Innocuous, certainly  enjoyable, but doesn't stand out in any way. Even less distinctive than the IHA.

Pho,
Megachef struggled here against the richer flavors and variety of flavors. it wasn't disliked, it just didn't stand out again.

I'm thinking the added sugars with the slightly lower sodium didn't help here. It cut the impact too much. Megachef is a Thai brand.


T&T 60°N

I don't know the brand of this sauce, the label isn't clear that way. I bought it for the label of 60° N. It's made by T&T Co., LTD.

Ingredients: Fish Sauce, Water, Salt
Sodium per Tablespoon: 490 mg (I don't believe this, it's probably more like 1490)
Protein per Tablespoon: 1 gram

Tasted Straight
VERY STRONG, balance is off, strong aged cheese notes in the finish, a little fishy

Nuoc Cham
Darker than the others, stronger impact. Not disliked, but tended towards the bottom of every one's ranking except one, who scored it second. She liked the strength.

Pho
Again, not really disliked but scored at the bottom of everyone's rankings. It's just overly assertive.

This was the most expensive of the Fish Sauces I bought. The labeling is odd and the Nutritional Analysis is a typo or fiction. The ingredients list is similarly odd. Still, I'm inclined to believe it has a high °N based on the the intensity and similarities with Red Boat in the cheesy finish. But if it does have the high °N, then why is the Protein so low? The labeling is questionable and the overall flavor balance isn't there for me. Purported to be a product of Veit Nam.


Conclusion

3 Crabs was preferred by my family. Outside of my family, but including myself, the testers liked Red Boat. The testing seemed to show that if you've been using a particular brand for while, you'll have some tendency to prefer that in the testing.

I think the Red Boat is certainly worth trying. It has good flavor, is distinctive and of good quality.  I plan to keep it on hand and use it myself and in cooking because I like it best.  I'll need to keep 3 Crabs around for a while too to keep my family happy.

As always, you should try comparing some different brands and finding one you like best.

Other reading of some interest to the topic.

• http://wastemang.blogspot.com/2011/01/fish-sauce.html
• http://www.thaiscience.info/Article%20for%20ThaiScience/Article/1/Ts-1%20characteristics%20of%20fish%20sauce%20made%20from%20pacific%20whiting%20%26%20surimi%20by-products%20during%20fermentation%20stage.pdf
• http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2010/04/20/ST2010042002063.html
• http://shesimmers.com/2012/07/thai-fish-sauce-taste-test.html
• http://www.thanhniennews.com/2010/pages/20121015-phu-quoc-fish-sauce-wins-vietnam-first-origin-recognition-from-eu.aspx
• Technical, but somewhat interesting is the comparisons to soy sauce http://www.academia.edu/358619/Chemical_Components_of_Fermented_Fish_Products
• Another link to a blog with some talking with the man behind Red Boat fish sauce. http://www.theravenouscouple.com/2011/05/red-boat-fish-sauce-nuoc-mam-nhi.html

Premium Fish Sauce

As long as I was finding benefits in higher grade and more expensive soy sauce, this Red Boat Fish Sauce caught my eye, especially the high price.
The price at Amazon is outrageous. At my local asian grocer it was $7.49 which is still pretty steep for fish sauce.

Notice it says Nuoc Mam Nhi on the label. Nuoc Mam is the Vietnamese term for fish sauce. In Thai, it's Nam Pla. The "nhi" means first pressing for fish sauce.

The labeling is following the same ideas as high grade olive oil, though extra virgin has no defined meaning for Fish Sauce.

The 40 degree N doesn't make sense as latitude because they're much closer to the Equator. Turns out it's a reference to degrees of nitrogen, a reflection of protein content. Most other fish sauces are said to be about 20 degrees. This leads me to think that it would have a greater nucleotide impact as well as discussed in the Marinades part II post.

As an aside, proteins and carbs have the same calorie content per gram consumed. The difference is that the body has to strip nitrogen from the protein before it is used as a carbohydrate.


I've been a 3 Crabs user for most of my Fish Sauce needs. It's also a nhi grade fish sauce.  I've heard good things about Squid and Tiparos brands as well. Squid is more of a Vietnamese style, and 3 Crabs is Thai in origin.

I am interested in giving this a try. And they do have a catchy website, Red Boat Fish Sauce.

See my follow up post http://itsallabouttohappen.blogspot.com/2013/11/fish-sauces-compared.html

Soy Sauce Choices 2013

As I've mentioned before, I'm changing my preferred soy sauce. Or at least using this as a reason to look at the market afresh and see what's good in the market.

The Contenders (in left to right order)

Lee Kum Kee Less Sodium Soy Sauce
Lee Kum Kee Double Fermented Soy Sauce
Pearl River Bridge Superior Light Soy Sauce
Koon Chun Thin Soy Sauce
Ve Wong Anka XO Soy Sauce with monacolin K
Amoy First Extract Light Soy Sauce

Just to get it out of the way, the LKK Less Sodium Soy Sauce was pretty poor. I won't be talking about it much. The others are all pretty good, but the differences do stand out.

One of my goals was to find a good soy sauce with a lower sodium content. Except for the Ve Wong Anka  XO and the purposely reduced LKK green labeled soy, these are all as salty or more so than the Pearl River Bridge I was hoping to replace. Just keep an eye on the VE Wong Anka. Most are right around 1000 mg sodium per tablespoon. The Koon Chun was the highest sodium with 1400 and the Ve Wong Anka XO the lowest with 235.

If you click on the image below, you can read the nutritional analysis for the different brands. The Anka XO bottle was too fine of print and not quite in focus, so sorry about that.

There were a couple of phases of use this time. There was some side by side tasting and testing and then just using the different soy sauces as I cooked. The more critical tasting tests were three things:

1. Tasted straight up  
2. Tasted as a salad dressing recipe
3. tasted in a potsticker style dip recipe

Tasting straight has the most range of responses. Used in dressings and dips, the differences become much more subtle, the exception being intentionally lowered sodium soy sauce. Taking the lesson from the first testing I did as linked at the top of this post, that you need to rebalance recipes to really let the soy sauce shine in the dish, I did increase the amount of soy or dip base to create a dressing/dip that I felt was good.

Lee Kum Kee Less Sodium 

Tasted Straight

Off, sweet sour thing going on

Salad Dressing

Still seems sweet and won't balance right. Off, yuck.

Dip

Fruity, sweet, wrong, strongly disfavored. I added extra 

soy to try to balance it. While extra soy helped, it just 

wouldn't balance. 

Lee Kum Kee Double Fermented Premium Soy Sauce

Tasted Straight

 Most balanced, full, rich, high complexity

 

Salad Dressing

Winner for it's good flavor

Dip

Comments were very close between this and the Amoy 

First Pressing.  LKK probably just edges out the Amoy 

in flavor both from the extra ferment and the slightly 

higher salt. This needed no extra tweaks to balance. 

Pearl River Bridge Superior Light Soy Sauce

Tasted Straight

SALTY!!!  Slight delay, then impact. Good balance between 

salty and sweet, hint of malty even

Salad dressing

Good, some sweet sourness in play that was not 

appreciated even though that is a an aspect of this 

recipe. So it didn't balance as well as some of the other

 soy sauces. 

Dip

In this testing, my baseline sauce struggled to stand out. 

There were dips people were liking better or worse. This 

has been my baseline sauce and so I think with the 

experience my family has with this, it just played up the 

middle in testing. 

Amoy First Extract Light Soy Sauce

Tasted Straight

more balanced, a bit sweet, greater complexity than PRB

Salad dressing

 Was liked, with a comment on being a bit sweet.

 

Dip

Comments were very close between this and the LKK 

Double Ferment. The claim of extra flavors present in the 

first extraction seem to be upheld. It took a little extra 

soy to balance out.

Ve Wong Anka XO Soy Sauce

Tasted Straight

Smooth, good flavor, close to pleasant even. Stronger 

bean impact sort of tamari like 

Salad Dressing

They were very close. When this was salted, it was as 

good as any of them and still well liked even without the 

extra salt. Some commenters couldn't decide between 

this and the double fermented. 

Dip

The first to try this commented on it being salty which 

surprised me. Comments were positive but salty notes 

continued to be recorded. I suspect  the first comment 

biased the other tasters who confused the stronger bean 

impact with saltiness.  It took extra soy to bring balance 

to the dip, likely because of the low salt in my opinion. 

Koon Chun Thin Soy Sauce

Tasted Straight

SALTY, Highest complexity, more flavor notes

Salad Dressing

Was liked but perceived as different. Koon Chun is a 

distinctive soy sauce. It was liked the best in the 

original tests, but it really isn't how I cook.  High salt is 

probably sensed but not directly percieved. 

Dip

Struggled in this testing this time. My family has 

become more used to my style of cooking and I think 

that hindered it's performance. Comments noted it 

saltiness and just different. I had to add more dip base

base to bring this dip into balance and even then it's 

saltiness was noted. I still like this soy sauce a lot, 

but my cooking would need adapting to really use this 

sauce to its potential. 

As with the Reduced Sodium Kikkoman in the first test, the Less Sodium Lee Kum Kee was obviously off. It really can't be balanced well in my opinion.

The Salad Dressing test was very close, with the power of the rice vinegar, sugar and sesame oil balancing well with all the soys except Less Sodium from LKK. Even the Ve Wong with its very low sodium did well. Note that Ve Wong is not marketed as low sodium.  Towards the end of the sample salad testing, I added a little bit of salt to the Ve Wong sample and it became indistinguishable to the blind tasters. I still thought it had a more pronounced bean flavor, but 1, I knew the difference which is a bias and 2, I'm a more discriminating taster in general than the rest of my family who I used as tasters. 

Some of these soy sauces are considered premium. The Amoy for being a first extraction, comparable to an extra virgin olive oil in concept. The minimal processing preserves some of the more subtle flavors. As with the olive oil, this commands a higher price. 

The Lee Kum Kee Double Fermented soy also is a premium process. The soy from a single ferment process is used as the liquid for a fresh set of beans and wheat and fermented again intensifying the flavors. But at added cost. 

And the Ve Wong Anka XO Soy Sauce is playing to a premium market. XO refers to Extra Old, a reference to XO sauce which itself is a reference to high grade brandy. I've seen two different XO Soy from Ve Wong. A tan label, that's a little cheaper and just as low in sodium. The red labeled variety I used here uses a higher grade of yeast, called out on the label as Monacolin K. There are claims that it reduces cholesterol and other health claims. 

I want to compare the tan label XO to the red label XO and see what the differences are. 

Ve Wong, also makes soy sauce under the Kim Ve Wong label. They make a wide range of things so check labels carefully to be sure you know what you're getting. 

Those steps to produce quality do actually work. But you'll pay for them.  The Amoy, LKK Double Ferment and Ve Wong are more expensive soy sauce than the rest.  The finer nuances are most evident in uncooked accents and dishes. And many would keep these more expensive sauces just for that purpose, just as they would with their best extra virgin olive oils. 

For a cooked dish, they'd reach for something less expensive, again as they do for their olive oil.   And were I not on a sodium restriction, I'd probably do the same, keeping the PRB or Koon Chun for cooking and the LKK for dipping. 

But I do have a sodium restriction. Ve Wong's performance was good enough that I'll be using it primarily, even with the added cost.  I may add some salt along the way to bring the full flavor up, but I'll have the control over the sodium, not the maker of the soy sauce. That's an important factor for me. 

I'll also keep LKK Double Ferment on hand and play with some mix ratios for that perfect soy for me and for use in uncooked dips and such.

My family is used to the reduced sodium flavors I cook with. This tends to mean stronger aromatics, herbs, and other seasonings. The soy sauces I used here are generally well regarded, but  you should do a similar test yourself and find what you like best. 

Related posts

• Revisiting my Soy Sauce Selection
• Soy Sauce

Revisiting my Soy Sauce Selection

I've discussed Soy Sauce before. In that post, I mentioned the difference between the plastic jug of Pearl River Bridge and the bottle with the same label. The jug soy was saltier.  Recently, those labels became consistent and the bottled soy is now rated at the higher sodium level.  

I had thought I was just using less than before or my taste was changing, but this is also an explanation. 

I don't like the low sodium Kikkoman soy sauce really, though its the easiest to find. My preferences run toward naturally brewed sauces over the forced fermentation sauces.  I do like the Amoy First Extract soy sauce and it's only 100 mg more sodium than Pearl River Bridge's old sodium rating. That might become my preference.   And I picked up some brewed  Lee Kum Kee reduced sodium soy sauce as well to try.

I'll let you know what I end up choosing.

Experiment: Oil Poaching in Sesame Oil

While the Chinese have used a sort of oil poaching technique for velveting and par cooking of meat and such for a long time, in the West, oil poaching has been more a specialty technique for cooking seafood. 

Use a flavorful fat like butter or olive oil, keep the temperature low and use a protein that will take on the best character of the fat. Thus the use of lobster or such as the most frequent protein poaching in butter. It's very good too. 

Ming Tsai has a recipe for tuna in blend of oils that include sesame oil. But I thought that a pork tenderloin would also be well suited to this technique and use only toasted sesame oil. Googling, I found a picture of a pork tenderloin a restaurant oil poaches, but not any real details on the method.

• I needed to find the right pot that would hold the tenderloin snugly and minimize the amount of oil needed. 
• I wanted to flavor the oil. 
• I wanted the meat to have a roasted look instead of the grayness of just poaching at a low temperature.

For pan fitting, I folded the thin end of the tenderloin and tied it in place, then cut the loin in half. I wrapped it in plastic  so I could do some test fitting and not have to wash a lot of dishes. 

 

For flavor, ginger, garlic, star anise, a little cinnamon stick and some Sichuan peppercorns.  In the end, this wasn't enough and I'll also change my technique a bit next time I try this. I was afraid the cinnamon would overpower it so I used only a tiny bit. I was wrong. For fish, this would have probably been too strongly flavored from the sesame oil.

For color on the roast, I painted it with a mixture of dark soy, soy and rice wine. This is after three coats, drying about 10 minutes in between. This too came out lighter than I wanted so I'd do more coats, and maybe add a some red food coloring to punch it up a bit. 

 

 

Here, I'm bringing the oil up to temperature. Note the temp is set to 180 degrees, I don't want to fry this roast, just poach it to about 140 internal temperature. Using an induction burner really made holding the right poaching temperature much easier.

Here it is after 50 minutes in the 180 degree oil. It's 145, so a bit higher than I wanted, but still just pink inside. I wasn't sure how long it would take to get to temp and it will vary with your equipment if you try this. Monitor it carefully. Let it rest 10 or 15 minutes before carving.

Carve it and then I dressed it with with a sauce like you would use on a steamed fish.  Sizzling hot sesame oil (from the poaching oil), scallion, some soy and rice wine. The outer edge color looks better after carving as you get the contrast with the pink interior.

A better knife and fork meal than a chopstick one.  Something I'll revisit and tweak on to build a recipe that you can follow some time in the future. 

The leftover sesame oil can be kept for a couple of weeks REFRIGERATED. As it's infused with garlic and ginger it's at risk of growing botulism. You can keep it only for a short time.  This is true of many of the flavored oils used in Chinese cooking that are home-made. Sadly, this is rarely discussed. I'll cover this in a post soon.