40 replies to this topic

[Paul Bacino]

Going to try artichokes: This time without trimming them.

Large Globe Artichoke
1/2C water
3 Slice lemon
2 Bay
Ground fennel and red pepper

I thinking this will bath 1 hr @185.. serve with a lemon garlic aoili

[Chris Amirault]

Will you look at that! No trimming at all? Vacuum setting? Are they at all squeezable, or did the vacuum get all of the perceivable air out of the chokes?

[Paul Bacino]

Yeah Chris.. no trimming for this batch. I have the VP-210 and I set the vacuum time @ 45 seconds, I got some nice compression on the globes, which are large and quite dense. I would say it appears that I don't have any air pockets after compression. This is a first for me. I did see a post that someone had trimmed the chokes first, saying that the outer green is a bit bitter. We'll see and I'll let you know how it goes. These will be sealed 18 hrs prior to cooking them tonight.

Cheers Paul

Edited by Paul Bacino, 06 April 2011 - 06:15 AM.

[Paul Bacino]

Whole Artichokes Sous vide:

1 hr @190 I use an auber-ws thermostat control in a roaster or crock pot.

Results were poor:

Not nearly enough time to cook these big globe chokes, the stems cooked way before anything else. One bag inflated, it was the less dense of the two artichokes.
I liked the flavor of the fennel, lemon and bay, that got infused in the lower heart thou.

I spec mass had something to do with cooking these thing, as the bottom of the choke, Heart, cooked way before any of the actual leaves cook.. possibly because air in/between the leaves insulates the heat transfer.

We like to pick the leaves off and eat the little meat on the ends before attacking the heart , that is what my wife likes. So I think I'll try to trim my next batch and cut them in half. Cheers

Paul

Oh one thing I did notice that the color of the chokes had not changed much.

Edited by Paul Bacino, 07 April 2011 - 04:47 AM.

[emannths]

I spec mass had something to do with cooking these thing, as the bottom of the choke, Heart, cooked way before any of the actual leaves cook.. possibly because air in/between the leaves insulates the heat transfer.

You might also try to add some water/broth/etc to the bags to fill the void spaces to help conduction throughout the artichoke.

[nickrey]

Finally after searching for a reasonably priced one, I bit the bullet and bought a chamber sealer.

The machine is a generic, Chinese, single seal, oil machine

So after doing the sealing thing, I decided to play.

This post contains my first experiment with compression pickling. All vegetables sliced, placed in bag with pickling juice (recipe courtesy of Momofuku cookbook). Each was vacuum sealed, opened and sealed up to a total of three times.

The results were extremely tasty.

The first, pickled watermelon will feature sometime in the future as mock sushi tuna.



The pickled radishes have a finely sliced scallop look that may also come in useful.



Also did carrots:



and cucumber (the best tasting in terms of texture and pickle).



The complete lot in a Mason jar:



Can't wait to play some more.

Edited by heidih, 13 May 2012 - 06:48 PM.

[lesliec]

Nick, those cucumbers look amazing!

Is your sealer this one? I'll be interested to hear your comments on how it performs - I haven't taken the plunge yet, but I wanna.

[nickrey]

Very similar but without the gas function. Will post a picture on my return home later this week.

Do it. :)

[Charcuterer]

One of my favorite things I've done with my chamber vac is quick pickled Jalapenos. I put thin slices of pepper in a bag with a bit of lime zest, lime juice, a tiny bit of tequila and some salt and sealed it up. I let them sit for an hour or so and served them with Carnitas tacos. Everyone loved them.

[Robert Jueneman]

So I was thinking about Chris' disappointment in not reaching "leather" density. I think this will be impossible using just a vacuum sealer. Here are a couple pieces of data to consider: Watermelon has a density of about 0.96 g/cm³. Watermelon juice is about 9 Brix, or 1.03 g/cm³. So assuming you're just getting rid of air, you can only compress watermelon about 10% by volume, which is only about 3% in any linear dimension if we assume isotropic compression. I think the only way to get "leather" is going to be by using a dehydrator to remove water.

ETA: Assumptions: watermelon is air + watermelon juice (ignore solid content). Watermelon juice is incompressible.

 

Emannths, I've been rereading some of these older posts, and I wonder whether you might be overlooking something. 

 

With almost any chamber vacuum, you can make room temperature water boil.  With a really good one, like my MVS-35X, you can make water boil at the triple-point -- under a layer of ice.  (Damnedest thing I've ever seen!)

 

So in addition to squeezing the water out of the vacuoles, you might in addition be boiling off the watermelon juice, whereupon it would be sucked out of the machine, before sealing the bag and applying the compression effect.  Doing that several times might both dehydrate and compress the watermelon.

 

I've done this before, but not recently.  Time to try it again.

 

And do see Unpopular Poet's wild and crazy fruit infusion, in the other chamber vacuum thread.

[Okanagancook]

I was making the Pho recipe from Heart of the Artichoke and after the meat which had simmered on the bone for 2 hours was tasted, it was dry. I packed the sliced meat in some of Pho broth and vac sealed it. Put in the fridge overnight. The result was a much more moist meat...I kept a couple of non-vacuumed pieces to compare.