The joy of cooking in plastic bags? - Sous-Vide

[Sanny]

GG - the process to which Deej refers, I think, is the whole sous vide process. How long to "cook" your meat?

And if that's not Deej's question, it is mine!

[gadgetgeek]

GG - the process to which Deej refers, I think, is the whole sous vide process. How long to "cook" your meat?

And if that's not Deej's question, it is mine!

This one was 35 hours at 140 degrees F. I have done several other dinners but for this tough, sinewy chunk of lamb I chose that time and temp.. same thing for beef cheek or beef shank.

Fish is way less and 118 degrees is what I use (maybe 30 minutes)

Chicken is strange, I use a higher temp than fish but a long time... like 130 degrees and 24 hours.

Vegetables (if you think they are worth sous vide), are fairly short.. the best Brussels sprouts I have ever made were done sous vide. I don't see the benefit for potatoes (unless you have a empty water bath and you are doing lamb shanks), I love to do pork, cheek, or any good tasting piece of pork.. Usually around 135-140 for 18 to 24 hours. depending on how tough it is to start.

I am NOT, NOT, NOT, a sous vide maven... I re-read every time I do it...

.

[ThreeDJ16]

GG - the process to which Deej refers, I think, is the whole sous vide process. How long to "cook" your meat?

And if that's not Deej's question, it is mine!

Hehe, yup. Had a brain fart and missed that. I think he mentioned 36 hours on the Guru forum....argh????

-=Jasen=-

[Amphoran]

Deej,

Your original post with the misspelling is still there - at the end of page 1, while the corrected post is at the top of page 2.

Perhaps that explains the 45 minutes?

Mike

[ThreeDJ16]

Deej,

Your original post with the misspelling is still there - at the end of page 1, while the corrected post is at the top of page 2.

Perhaps that explains the 45 minutes?

Mike

Dude.....thanks. Thought I was going crazy there for a minute wondering how that happened. Oh well, guess I double posted to begin with and edited the second. Too much drinkin' I guess - hehe.

At least now I can delete the first post.

-=Jasen=-

[scouterpf]

I refer everyone to Cook's Illustrated January to February 2008 and the Sunday Roast Beef article. I have done somewhat the same except that in my new KK I slow (~200F) roasted to 120 F then remove and heat KK to ~600, return said beef to lowest grill and sear on all sides. Turns out yummy and rare to medium rare and very tender. Now if I can only figure out the image posting business and how to post an avatar image.

[Greg_R]

I always vacuum seal my BBQ leftovers. When I'm ready to eat them I toss the bag in hot water and let it heat the meat up. It's as good as fresh off the KK! You don't need to worry about water temp... boiling water works fine.

It would be fun to experiment with actually cooking in the bag...

[Conodo12]

Sous Vide now on your Countertop

Hmmmmm..... (and a bit more affordable than some of the devices I have seen)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/dinin ... .html?_r=2

[Syzygies]

So years ago I had this idea that the same PID circuit used in the BBQ Guru, that anyone could pick up for $50 on eBay, could be used to control, say, a soup warmer. I bought a soup cooker at a restaurant supply store, never got around to wiring it, saw that NYTimes article last month, and ordered the controller shown on the right from http://freshmealssolutions.com/. Very straightforward, power in, power out, a probe, and a set point. (There's also a timer I ignore.)

It was trivial to take apart the soup warmer, screw both power leads onto the same side of the thermostat (rather than passing power through the thermostat, which in my case was by now broken) and have an always-on heated water bath. Plug it into the controller, and voila, easily holds any temp I want to within a degree.

Of course, I was "right church, wrong pew" as that site's idea of a "found object" water bath is a restaurant rice cooker. Not a fancy "slippery logic" electronic control, rather a basic on/off that the sous vide controller can take over for. Their idea is better.

As the picture shows, I also have a good quality hot plate, and the sous vide controller does a great job of controlling that, also.

As it happens, right now I have a couple of duck legs vacuum packed with goose fat and simmering at 180 for 8 hours (following my zombie master's confit recipe in "Under Pressure"). I'm using the hot plate and a soapstone pot, which was already the slow cooker of the gods, before the PID controller showed up.

Nevertheless, this whole sous vide thing is way overhyped, when it's really just a simple tool that's spectacularly helpful at improving accuracy of one's technique inside. Sort of like the guru, outside.

For me, true maturity is being neutral (a good approximation is D.G.A.F.) about what other people think. As in, if I ever say to you I don't like the Beatles because they're too popular, just, please, club me with a 2x4?

So we all have to get past the idea that sous vide is cooking at 141 F while speaking with a Belgian accent. It's also getting home late from work, throwing bangers straight from the freezer into a 180 F controlled water bath, getting really distracted, coming back 40 minutes later and not finding the water at a rolling boil, with the pouch puffed up nearly to bursting like the first Soviet space walk. Instead, find beautifully simmered 180 F bangers, fry them thirty seconds a side violently while the mash goes through the microwave, and sit down to a great quick dinner.

Oh yeah, I took flak before for noting analogies with the Finney method for reverse searing. Laurie loves that approach to pork chops, without sous vide equipment. But it's standard sous vide 101. Set your steak to exactly the temp you want, then sear it. This happens to also be exactly the modern standard way to cook a good hamburger in a restaurant; if your burger is the same doneness all the way through, this is what they did. Hey, there's such a thing as independent discovery... I thought of sous vide in the 1980s reading Harold McGhee, and didn't follow through with the scientific immersion heater order because I didn't have the bucks. I'm thrilled to be finally playing with it now.

This controller would be worth it for the single purpose of reheating freezer packets of pork butt.

[Conodo12]

Syz - this post was great regarding a way to build our own Sous Vide cookers. @ $499. the solution I posted is much more cost effective than many of the cookers or even controllers with heating elements that I have found for Sous Vide cooking. That being said, your solution is even more cost-effective for those that want precise temperature control and have a cooker on hand that they can use.

Just out of curiosity, how much did the soup warmer run you? Also, my wife has been looking for a quality hot plate for keeping appetizers warm. What model do you have and do you like it?

Thanks!

[Syzygies]

It's clear to me (as I said in my post) that using a commercial rice cooker is a smarter idea than using a soup warmer. Go to the sous vide Magic link I gave to see what cookers he recommends, then find them much cheaper at Amazon, or in an Asian supermarket. It all comes down to capacity. My soup warmer holds maybe 7 liters, but for many purposes a 10 cup rice cooker (I like the stainless Tiger) would be much handier.

My hot plate is very old and I haven't seen it for sale in a while. It's a Tablecraft Products "Rangette". The key feature is a stainless sealed cover for the burner, rather than black coils that stink and make you feel like you're living in an SRO that's about to burn down. Buying again, I'd at least think about induction hot plates? Though I don't understand yet how they work, probably wouldn't work with e.g. my soapstone pot.

[bryan]

e.g. my soapstone pot.

What size is your pot?

[Syzygies]

I have each size somewhere, the largest goes in my KK. My source is

http://www.temperatureware.com/potspans.html. Pictured on the hot plate was the three quart. Duck confit looks yummy, I'll reheat for dinner tonight. When I'm sure I'm following a correct recipe I'll try aging the confit first.

[bryan]

Thanks for the info. Will be checking them out tomorrow.

Joe

[Jackie from Jersey]

...

[linuxwrangler]

While the devil is in all the details (coil construction, input frequency and so on), induction cookers basically just use a coil energized with alternating current to "induce" current flows in the pan causing the pan itself to heat up. As far as I know, all current models require that the use of ferrous metal in the cookware. So you are probably SOL on the soapstone.

[Saucier]

Sous vide

I got interested after having been served some great food prepared that way in a restaurant in Oregon and talking to the chef....

I popped for a thermo circulator and just put in in a stainless steam table pan deep enough for the water to circulate in...

I usually cook chicken breasts in it, after pasteurizing in the bath. It is the best chicken breast ever... It tastes like chicken through and through and if you want to add any flavors to it I have seen it recommended to add olive oil, spices, herbs or whatever to the bag before sealing.. I have had poor results with adding anything to the bags, as it concentrates the flavor only in the part of the meat that it contacts.. Better to add what sauce you want afterwards and if you are looking for browning, hit it with a butane torch at the end....

Here is a great explanation of the whole thing by a smarter guy then me, if you are interested in the science behind it.. This is a great resource for cooking times/thicknesses etc...

http://amath.colorado.edu/~baldwind/sous-vide.html

I talked to the chap that wrote it once, and he is a really cool guy and answered some questions for me.

We also cook potatoes in it.. Seal your spuds in a bag(s), I cooked at 180 untill they were at least squishy by hand (2 hours maybe)? The beauty of this is that the spuds will hold for ever in the bath, and unlike boiling them in water, you lose NONE of the vitamins or nutrients by cooking/holding the this way.

I was charges with making mashed potatoes for a dinner party of 25, and deduced I would need more capacity then my pan would hold, and also probably over powering my circulator. I bought a cheap electric roasting pan from wallyworld and put the circulator in it and turned on the roaster during the initial startup until the water & product were up to temp, then turned off the roaster and let the circulator do its thing.

Cool part is it can be cooking off to the side, not using up stove or oven space during the busy kitchen time, and unless you start too late, time is not a problem.. It will hold for ever in the bath.

Just take them out, put them in a pan and mash them up with butter/milk or whatever floats you. You can also put the bags after cooking in an ice chest or whatever you do your holding in, and transport them elsewhere.

Its a great technique..