Ghetto Sous Vide Salmon on the tap, and reflecting on my poor wallet

It has been some time since I last updated. Finally I have landed in the UK. All looked distant and yet I felt I have been here before. The deja-vu was through one of my good habits: reading. I read from The GB Encyclopedia since young; Wikipedia when I grew older, and  living in THE moment for now. All felt so surreal to be close to what I have read, but yet, the reality of lacking $$$ comes cold and hard. Everything comes with a price.

Cooked food, rental, transport and coffee are really expensive here. But thank goodness raw material is dirt cheap (in a way, compare relatively to what I used to pay). FYI: 1 trip to uni via the tube cost me GBP4, which is SGD8. In retrospect every month I only top-up EZlink (equivalent to Oyster pay per go) 45SGD round trip between SP and bukit batok. You do the maths. 1 serving of yucky "chinese" fried rice with chicken from a stall cost GBP5, compared relatively to a serving of chicken rice that goes for only SGD2.8 from a regular stall in SG. Proper sit down lunch would cost around GBP25, excluding the tips or gratitude fee. Fast food joint such as KFC, almost the same price for a standard 2 piece meal: GBP3.99 vs SGD7.40 (SP is SGD6.40)

It has been hard on the wallet, surviving without monthly pay nor maintenance fee....I never bother to look at the price tag of the items I am buying prior to this. Nowadays, I would mentally sum up my purchases before committing. Stay hungry, stay foolish. Quoted ad verbtim SteveJ. Cold food is the cheapest. After eating cold healthy food (cereals, bread, oats) for the last few days and living like a HOBO, the lack of FIRE and malliard reacted protein have cost me my health dearly. the FORCE is weak in this one.

It is FIGHT or FLIGHT; yet still need to keep the pounds and penny within sensible range.

Here comes my GBP3 salmon dinner ala Ghetto Sous Vide on the tap!
I came across a tap that is spewing really hot water and this strucked me. I quickly whipped out my LM35 and arduino setup and presto! It registers 60+- deg C.

Brine the salmon in a 10% salt solution (salt courtesy of KFC) for 45min. Look for some sandwich bags (which is ziplock bag) to put the salmon and seasoning. I have used thyme (courtesy of a garden i passed by) and pepper (courtesy of BK) to season. Use water displacement technique to vacuum seal the salmon in a pouch. Due to the limit of 23KG luggage, i did not get to bring my vacuum setup :(

set up water bath for 55degC (by mixing hot and cold water), turn on the hot tap and let the hot water trickle into the cooking vessel (thermodynamics: loss heat must be replaced). Earthen ware is recommended for heat retention. Sous vide the salmon 55degC for 15-20min

close up of the cooking from a tap....


must resist the temptation.... the process is not completed yet.


un-bag the salmon and pat dry. heat up the skillet and ready for crispy-ing the salmon skin.


Since the budget for dinner is only GBP3, I used up for salmon. Hence, no greens, starch nor soup.


close-up


The salmon flesh practically just melted in my mouth. The crispy skin gave me a recollection of what proper hot food supposed to be. I felt HUMAN again, despite the lack in a standard British grub that made up of a meat and 2 vegetables.

BTW, i am available for HIRE. According to labour laws, I can only work for 20hours (officially). If you need a butler, cook, body guard, computer/IT technician, plumber, EE engineer, toilet cleaner, room cleaner, ping me.