Sous Vide Steaks

Just enjoyed reading the Serious Eats blog posting about steak. Steak is one of the reasons I bought the sous vide equipment in the first place yet it's been the least satisfying experience to date. So far everything I've done sous vide style was not as good as what could have come off the grill. Here's a quick summary of what I learned from this great article!

1) Get cheaper cuts of steak with more flavor that are harder to cook. Hanger steak vs porterhouse.
2) Add aromatics to the bag before sealing it. Add some thyme or garlic without butter in the bag and the flavor will be picked up by the steak.
3) 135 seems to be the right temp to try
4) Sear the meat afterwards in as hot of a pan as I can get... Don't bother with the pre-sear.

Worth reading if you are a steak lover!

http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/03/how-to-sous-vide-steak.html?ref=obinsite

In search of the perfect soft boiled egg

I'm told that there is nothing like a sous vide egg. It's time to find out!

I'm fortunate enough to have a friend with a chicken coop. I get green and brown eggs on a semi regular basis. (Thanks Alec!)

As a kid I spent a year in Sweden and will never forget the overflowing baskets of 4 min and 5 min eggs at the hotel where we lived. Since then I've had a warm spot for soft boiled eggs.

Let's see if Sous Vide can improve on them.

First off given my recent difficulty with the the vacuum packing machine, sous vide eggs are awesome since they don't actually need to be sealed. Gently lower them into the water and wait.

I cooked my first four eggs at 147.2° for an hour. They came out somewhat more runny than I would like for a soft boiled egg. I've heard that people boil them for a few minutes once they are out of the water bath to firm up the whites and leave the yolks soft and slightly runny. (I haven't tried that yet.) But the texture was amazing. It was like custard. Perfectly silky smooth. They worked better as poached eggs (as shown on the plate) rather than being eaten straight from the shell.

So now I'm trying another batch at 155 degrees for an hour to see if we can get harder whites while keeping the yolk soft. Turns out you can't. Here's how that egg turned out.

Yolk was too hard and the white was still too soft.

So I cooked two more eggs at 150 degrees for an hour. Cracked one (on the right) and as expected got runny whites. The one on the left I boiled in a different pot for 30 seconds to firm the whites. Here's how that turned out in comparison. Thinking 30 seconds was too long but definitely an improvement.

I tested the 150 degree plus post boil version with a Swedish friend who gave it two thumbs up. (After mocking me for the long process I've been going through!)

Still too hard for my taste. So the last attempt is 147 degrees for an hour with a 15 second quick boil at the end to firm the whites.  Here's the result.

It's absolutely perfect. The yolk is silky smooth. The whites aren't stuck to the shell and are just as perfectly done as I could imagine. This egg is divine.

I should have checked the ultimate source first. From the beginning sous vide cookbook. "Most people feel the temperature for the perfect egg is 148°F and an equivalent of a poached egg is 142°F." Have a look at the photos and judge for yourself...

Help!

OK it's barely 3 hours into my first meat experience. And it's already gone wrong.

I looked at the bags in the bath before going to bed and they were floating. Pockets of air were in the meat bags.

Not good. What to do? I removed the bags and inspected. Had they leaked? It didn't seem so since I could rotate them and they didn't appear to be leaking. Was this normal behavior? What do I do now?!

I took them out of the bath and dropped them into the fridge. We'll see if that was the right call.

Where to turn to for tech support for this? Is it a sous vide question? Is it a cryovac question? Time to put the manufacturers of these devices to the test and see how their support is. It's 2:00am so it'll have to wait until tomorrow. I need a sous vide hotline!

.....

So I'm at the website of the manufacturer of the sous vide machine where they explain how to cook sous vide style. It's not looking good. The meat doesn't seem to be floating at all. And no air pockets. So this is definitely not normal.

So it seems that the cryovac machine settings might be off. Wondering if there wasn't enought vacuum to begin with or whether the seal was somehow weak. Guess we will have to make a few calls tomorrow. Meanwhile, here's hoping that my meat isn't growing a nice culture of botulism in the bags in the fridge. Where to find out more??

......

So here's the word from Jason Logsdon of www.CookingSousVide.com

"I saw you had a post about your bags floating? There's two normal causes for that. The first is that the vacuum isn't strong enough. The second is that things cooked for extended times release gases stored in the food, these tend to puff the bags out. As long as the meat is still underwater it will be fine or you can use a plate or bowl to weigh down the food to hold it underwater. I've found that using larger bags helps since it gives the air more room to move up without pulling the bag out of the water."

I found the cause of the issue was actually my son. He changed the vacuum time from 45 seconds to 20 seconds when he was using the vac pac machine. It just didn't have enough time to suck all the air out. I bought a second brisket and tried cooking it without searing (to compare if it's worth the effort to pre-sear rather than post sear) and it's been fine.

Thanks for the help!

First Meat: Part 1

The 'holy grail' of sous vide cooking is the promise of being able to take an inexpensive cut of meat and cook it at just the right temperature to make it tender without making it dry. Fortunately the temp that meat gets tender is less than that which it releases its juices.

I hunkered off to Whole Foods to begin my 48 hour transformation process. I'm surprised at how few people have heard of this. I had never cooked brisket before and was asking the butcher about the cut of meat. He remarked that it can be tough and people usually slow cook it. I explained that I was going to cook it sous vide and he shrugged and asked what that was. After explaining the boil in baggy meets the crock pot concept he was intrigued. Apparently they have a cryo-vac machine at the store. (I'm seeing a new marketing opportunity. Pre sealed sous vide bags at butchers!)
2 lbs of brisket later and 2 short ribs later, I'm back at home testing out what meat cooked for 2 days tastes like.

I'm following one of the recipes in the intro guide. "Beef Brisket Steak"
To quote the cookbook. "..for beef brisket, another cut that requires long, slow cooking, we use only sous vide because the advantages of making the cut tender without bringing it above 150 deg exceed the advantages of poaching it in stock or braising it."

I'm sold.

It is becoming apparent that cooking meat sous vide is not for the casual cook. Planning ahead, investing in the equipment, browning food and cooling it then sealing it then browning it again is more work than conventionally cooking a roast. But given the visual of so many of the French Laundry dishes being cooked this way, I am going on faith that this yields a better product.

Abbreviated Recipe:
Preheat the water bath to 147.2°

Brown the meat in a hot pan of oil. Brown all sides, not just the top and bottom. Cool the meat optimally overnight or for a few hours in the refrigerator.

[Ok I put the meat into a true ice bath - defined as more than 50% ice with salt added to rapid cool the meat. It seems that sealing the warm meat is a bad idea. The book shares this wisdom in all caps. "FOOD TO BE COOKED SOUS VIDE MUST BE COLD WHEN IT'S SEALED AND THEN EITHER COOKED IMMEDIATELY OR STORED IN THE REFRIGERATOR..."]

Seal the meat and cook it in the hot water for 48 hours.

So here are the questions I have at this point?
1) How often will I need to add water?
2) Will there be steam that will cause the paint to mildew? Will my pantry placement be an issue?

If you look at the photo of the pan, you can see it's on a rack. Leaving the pot with moist heat on a wood floor for hours or days seems like a bad idea. Elevation seems like a better idea. Let's hope that's enough protection...

I browned and added some short ribs to the pot as well. The thought of serving short ribs (my favorite cut of all) and serving it medium rare seems impossible. We'll see!

......................

So it's now 2 days later. I added a second brisket to the mix. This one was not browned but instead it was added with just salt and pepper. Goal was to see if there was a significant difference.

Verdict. The meat from this recipe is intended to produce a more traditional pot roast style cut where the meat isn't medium rare. It was great. I sliced the roast into 1/2" slices, floured the sides and browned in a cast iron pan with olive oil then gave them a few minutes in a 375° oven.

Verdict. Amazing. Moist. Tender. Slightly red. Not at all chewy. The bag juices were reduced and were only ok. The lacked some of the depth of a truly roasted pan sauce.

The browned roast looked better (the one on theleft was pre-browned - and it was slightly better tasting with a richer flavor. But if time is pressed, by all means, just do the after browning.

.................

I had to fill the stock pot morning and night to keep the water level at a safe level. Not something you can leave in the garage for the 2 days of cooking as it does need to be monitored.

First Use

So friends are coming for dinner and I'm dying to use the machine. But at the same time would you have your very first use for the main course with guests? I didn't feel that brave nor did I have 48 hours to cook a brisket. So I cooked butternut squash, glazed chestnuts and brussels sprouts which is a recipe from the Keller intro guide.

The recipe essentially goes like this.
Peel 12 chestnuts. [They recommend scoring an x in the shell and cooking them in hot oil for a few seconds to get them to open up. This was the most painful part of the recipe and left my fingers with little bits of chestnuts lodged in them.] Cool the chestnuts [very important for food safety reasons] and them mix them in a bowl with some salt and sugar. Seal them in the cryo-bag with a pat of butter.

Cut the butternut squash into 1" cubes. Salt and sugar them like the chestnuts and seal in a different bag with another pat of butter. These two steps can be done ahead which is great since the prepped food is all sealed and ready for the next day.

Cooking: Set the water temp to 185°. I still haven't figured out how long
'preheating' the 20qt pot takes but it seems like it's over an hour to get to this temp. Add chestnuts and cook for 1 hour 20 mins. Add the Squash and cook for 30 mins. It seems you can add the squash after 50 mins of cooking the chestnuts so they will come out at the same time.

I'm gathering that most sous vide cooking has some kind of finishing in a hot pan for some color and crunch as well as to reheat and add flavor. This is no exception. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a frying pan and crisp some sage and remove. Add the chestnuts and squash to the butter and turn as you heat and cover in the sauce.

Verdict: The squash was clean and fresh. It tasted more like pure squash rather than the roasted and caramelized version I usually serve from the oven. It took a back seat to the meat, but was wonderfully subtle. The brussels sprouts were cooked conventionally according to their recipe and were stellar.

Did anyone at the dinner notice anything different? Not really. My wife commented that cooking to preserve the essential flavor of the vegetable would require us to season more heavily once it's out of the bag to provide some richness and depth to the flavor. I'd make the squash again for its simplicity. The chestnuts were just too much work!

Getting Equipped

There's two things you need to get started with sous vide cooking. A vacuum sealer and a immersion circulator. Aka something to seal the food into an airtight plastic bag and something to keep a tub of water a constant temperature. But if you're reading this you either are a friend of mine wondering what the heck I'm up to or you're trying to decipher how this all works and if it's worth the expense and time.

To keep the water bath hot I bought the Polyscience Sous Vide Professional Immersion Circulator. I was hugely relieved to find that I didn't need to buy an large electrified tub but instead something that clips to the side of a stock pot and sticks into the water in the put. One storage worry put to rest. It's definitely expensive ($799 - go points!) but from my initial inspection, it seems well made and easy to use. It also was bundled with a 20qt stockpot and a plastic professional sous vide container - that are claimed to be worth $200. The pot is great though and a welcome addition to my kitchen.

To seal the food in the plastic bags I bought the Caso VC200 Vacuum food sealer. It was $199 with an assortment of bags. It was very simple to use and worked great. I liked it.

I settled in with the booklet that came with the PolyScience machine. To my surprise it was written by Thomas Keller! (French Laundry owner/chef among other things...) It was very well written and comes with 18 recipes that highlight the unique advantages of sous vide cooking. As I was reading the book, I noticed a pattern with about every third recipe. "Because this recipe contains liquid in the bag, a chamber machine is needed for vacuum packing."

What? $1000 into the process and I can't even cook a maine lobster curry or any of the recipes where you add the main ingredient AND a marinade or other liquid?! I hadn't even started yet and I was being told that I needed different equipment!

Food sealer #2. After discovering I could use the points on Amazon too I found the least expensive chamber sealer. Least expensive is still pretty damn expensive. The VacMaster VP210c had some great reviews but it rings in at $909 and is a beast of a machine. I packed up the Caso sealer and sent it back. I hear people are making the non chamber sealers work by freezing the before adding it to the bag, but I was looking to delve in fully and thought that getting the right equipment up front was the way to go.

The unit feels like it belongs in a commercial kitchen. It certainly doesn't have styling that cries our for counter space. So mine is tucked away in the pantry. It works great. There are dials on the front and it's programmable so you can set how much of a vacuum you desire. For the mostpart it seems you set it once and are done with it. And unlike the immersion circulator, it doesn't need to warm up. Just turn on the switch, put in the food to be sealed (in the bag) and then press down on the lid. It starts automatically. I will need to find an inexpensive source of bags since this seems like it will be replacing the ziplock bags I seem to go though so quickly.

Getting started

My interest in sous vide cooking started with my first (and so far only) visit to the French Laundry. I'd received the French Laundry cookbook as a gift many years ago and have had to content myself with cooking recipes from the cookbook since several years of calling for reservations had been fruitless. Waiting in the reception area with a cocktail in hand, I was excited to see a new French Laundry cookbook on the table. That excitement lasted long enough for me to read a few pages and realize it wasn't as much a new cookbook as it was a new way of cooking.

My wife and I were given a tour of the kitchen after lunch and the kitchen was eerily quiet. Mostly there seemed to be clear tubs of water with plastic bags with food floating in them. It all seemed so futuristic like the white robed men were there cloning life forms from dna samples.

After some research into what it would take to get started with sous vide cooking, I felt resigned. The equipment was out of my price point.

Fast forward 18 months... I've discovered some points in my credit card that I can redeem at William Sonoma. And so my sous vide adventure begins.