Sous vide

Gene L

For about a month now, I've been sous vide-ing meat.  It apparently a french word, I think it literally means "under vacuum."  You can look it up to get more details, but basically, you need a sous vide machine, which maintains a steady temperature, you need a plastic bag you put the meat in and expel all the air, (either by hand or by a Food Saver vacuum machine).  You put water in a pot, clamp the machine to the pot, set the final temperature you want, and the time you want to cook it.  The longer, the better....I did a flank steak at 135 degrees for 8 hours. The water temperature cannot excel your setting, which should be the final internal temp of the meat...135 gives a med rare.  Once it's done, you take it out of the bag and sear it with a cast iron pan to cause a crust.  Excellent.

Jermanator

I got a rump roast that will be going for around 26 hours at 132 degrees when we have it for dinner tomorrow evening. I will let you know how it goes.

bullsi1911

Been doing it a while with one of the early Dorkfood controllers. Works great on venison

Gene L

I did a rump roast for 24 hrs. at 135...too high.  It was tender enough, not fork tender, but the rump roast has so little fat in it, the taste wasn't as great as I had expected.  Did a pork tenderloin yesterday, again I went too high on the temp (141) and while it was tasty and tender, it needed some spice.  Next time, I'm going with a cut of meat with a little more fat....fat is flavor.

N454casull

We Sous Vide a lot probably 3 times a week. We have chicken breast that we seasoned and then vacuum sealed and frozen. Take them out of the freezer put them in the water and walk away come back in X number of hours take them out cut them as desired put them in pasta or what have you, perfect. We also do that with beef. It’s hard to beat Sous Vide beef in your French dip sandwich or beef broccoli stir fry. 

Smoke ribs for 4hrs the Sous Vide for 20-24hrs best ribs ever. Also the best beef stew I have ever had we Sous Vide. 

We will smoke a turkey for Thanksgiving cause it’s tradition but the star of the meal will be Sous Vide prime rib. 

Jermanator

So a rump roast @ 132 degrees for 26.6 hours turns out pretty damn good! Just make sure to slice across the grain.

Jermanator

Just a heads up on this you guys... when you are doing those long sous vide cooks, you need to make sure you stay at 130 degrees or higher to keep the food safe. If you are doing a steak or something for an hour or two, you are ok going rare (125 degrees). I double checked the water with my calibrated instant read thermometer and the water was always within a half degree of what my controller stated. I would double check that too if you are getting close to that 130 degree line.

Jermanator

When I have some free time this winter, I am going to try making this. I love salmon and salmon "mi-cuit" (means half cooked) sounds awesome! It is partially cured, cooked sous vide for about an hour at 104 degrees, then chilled.

https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/salmon-mi-cuit

Jayhawker

We messed with it for a bit...frankly, it just takes up way too much time to cook something I can prepare just as well in a pressure cooker or on the grill...ended up givi,g the whole shooting match away to folks who wanted to mess with it.

Linefinder

Jayhawker said:

We messed with it for a bit...frankly, it just takes up way too much time to cook something I can prepare just as well in a pressure cooker or on the grill...ended up givi,g the whole shooting match away to folks who wanted to mess with it.

I mentioned this method to my wife a few months ago when I first became aware of it. Her immediate response was "26 hour boil-in-bag? Have you lost your mind?".

I know she knew what she was talking about, because she pronounced the term correctly before she even completed her eye roll.

Mike

Gene L

Did a rib roast today.  It was excellent, Medium, but could have been a bit rarer.  134 degree for 7 hours.  It was excellent.  Should have doe it at 131 degrees.

Jermanator

I will be doing prime rib tonight then a pork loin on New Year Day.

Jermanator

They had standing rib roasts on sale last week so I picked one of those up, trimmed off the excess fat and bones then vacuum sealed and froze those for making beef stock later. For the trimmed rib roast, I added about a half cup of ZIP sauce, vacuum sealed it, and let that marinate overnight.

On New Year's Eve, I set the sous vide controller for 131 degrees, and let it go 7 hours. From there, I strained off the juices from the bag into a sauce pan, added a bit more ZIP sauce and some butter and turned that into sort of an au jus. The roast? I got the oven going to 550 degrees, seasoned it with Lawreys, onion powder, and pepper, then blasted it in the hot oven until I had a nice crust on the outside. No photos of that, but it was tender and juicy and a very nice medium rare.

I also served it with horseradish sauce (sour cream with horseradish mixed in), a garden salad with smoked blue cheese dressing, California blend vegetables, and baked Yukon potatoes with sour cream, chives, broccoli, and smoked Gouda, homemade root beer, and cheesecake for dessert.

Jermanator

For New Year's Day... when I pulled out the prime rib the night before, I threw in a half a boneless pork loin-- right in the package, and bumped the temp up to 136 degrees. I let that go for 24 hours, drained the juice into my black eyed peas then blasted in a 550 degree oven with Lawreys, onion powder, and pepper for about 15 minutes.

It turned out excellent. The problem with pork loins is that they are so lean and dry out easily and can be tough. I would not go less than 24 hours with one of these and I would definately not cook one any higher. In the future, I think I would prefer to take it 36 hours. This one was pretty tender and still was juicy.

On Christmas, I made a boiled ham (cheap bone in ham+water+simmer for 8 hours). The liquid left from that ham was a beautiful ham stock so I saved that to cook my collared greens and black eyed peas in. Everything turned out great!