1176 replies to this topic

[Chris Amirault]

Hrm. Still curious. I feel like there must be a way to make tamales work....

Meanwhile, pulled the pork belly strips after 48 hours. One's been iced down and is in the fridge. Here's what I did with the other.

Reserved the liquid in the bag. Cut off the skin and cut it into julienne. Cut the rest of the strip into 1"x1"x1/2" tiles. After sautéing the skin and removing it from the skillet, did the same to some ginger, black beans, and onions, added the liquid, and then added the belly tiles. Served with rice and an assortment of pickles.

It needed more salt -- I'm clearly too wary of salt in those bags -- and I might have pulled it a bit earlier than 48 hours or cooked it at 59C or 58C. But I'm niggling: I'm astonished at the porky power of these SV proteins. The ginger, shaoxing, and dark soy sauce were excellent both for the low-temp cooking and for the sauce, which was infused with the pork and the collagen from the skin.

There are dozens of Chinese, Thai, and Cambodian braises that will benefit mightily from this technique. The mind swims.

[umami5]

Hi Lesliec,
I am using a trial and error method at the moment. Does anybody know what is the optimum temperature to infuse flavours into oil. I am using oil and flavours in a vac pac bag, but will they infuse better at a certain temperature and in a certain time frame? Does anyone know if this might be covered in Modernist Cuisine?

[umami5]

Hi Badrabbit,
I am vac packing the oil and infusions before placing them into the water bath. Oil in the bath would be alot more messy and wasteful. i am just trying to see there is a certain temperature or time window for maximum infusion and quality?

[Chris Amirault]

It depends on what you're infusing, as different compounds release at different temperatures, and different ingredients will cook in different ways. You get a very different chile oil, for example, if you infuse the garlic and chiles at room temp than you do if you infuse at 250F/120C or 350F/175C. If you say a bit more about ingredients, I'm sure we can all weigh in.

Following Baldwin's instructions and using this spice rub, I brined for 12h then cooked St. Louis pork ribs at 155F/68C for 28 hours. (I went a bit over the 24 recommended because of cooking logistics.) Finished them on a hot grill with no sauce.

They were excellent if a bit salty, as I usually don't brine and then rub with this particular rub. More "best ribs ever" around the dinner table.

[lesliec]

Re: infused oil ...

I have no experience with it in bags, but a big pot of oil with sage, rosemary or bay leaves works very well at 90°C. Bring it up to temperature (with the herbs already in it), let it stay there for a few (ie 2-5) minutes then let it cool down again before bottling. And - can't rememebr whether I've said this in a previous post - the stuff keeps well. I recently finished off a bottle of rosemary oil I'd made maybe eight months ago, and it was fantastic.

[umami5]

Perfect, i'll see how i get on and post results

[DouglasBaldwin]

You might be interested in the two YouTube videos I made this week on sous vide cooking:
Sous Vide Chuck Roast
Sous Vide Chicken Breasts
I've never made or posted a YouTube video before, so they're pretty rough. Do you think I should make more YouTube videos on sous vide cooking? If so, what topics/recipes do you think I should demonstrate?

[eac]

I subscribed to your channel, and plan to use it to explain to people how their ribs can be like my ribs. For that purpose, you may wish to mention the more ghetto forms of sous vide, like plugging a PID into a rice cooker.

The glucose bath was news to me, and I am very encouraged that it may allow me to both *not* burn my face with projectile oil *and* have my meat browned evenly *despite* having stupidly tilted heating elements on my very crappy stove, where before I had to choose one or the other.

It also was a good sales pitch for the book; I may end up buying it if the videos become sufficiently appealing.

Edit: Isn't this thread big enough that a sous vide forum is needed?

Edited by eac, 01 August 2010 - 02:07 PM.

[IndyRob]

I've never made or posted a YouTube video before, so they're pretty rough.

I've just watched the chicken one so far, but thought that it was quite well done. The only problem I had was that the sound level was quite low. With both my computer and video player's volume controls set to the max, I had still had some problems hearing it until I silenced everything in the room.

You might end your videos with a closeup of your book cover. I see it there on the counter, but wouldn't know what it was - if I didn't know what it was.

By all means make more. The possibilities are endless. But don't give away the store. Occasionally utter the phrase "I go a little more deeply into this in my book..."

[eac]

By all means make more. The possibilities are endless. But don't give away the store. Occasionally utter the phrase "I go a little more deeply into this in my book..."

I doubt that's necessary. Obviously it's up to Doug, but for potential buyer X to decide not to buy because there's so much free video, there would have to be, I think, more than half the value/content in the book available via video. And that (I assume, not yet owning the book) would be a lot of video. It's really common when publishing on the web to be several times more stingy than is optimal because of the frightening-to-publishers nature of the medium, and I think it's important to fight that impulse. The target market is an enthusiastic, well-off bunch of home cooks who to reasonably use the book have to have already dropped at least $150 and probably more like $450+ on brand-new equipment.

[Amida0616]

You might be interested in the two YouTube videos I made this week on sous vide cooking:
Sous Vide Chuck Roast
Sous Vide Chicken Breasts
I've never made or posted a YouTube video before, so they're pretty rough. Do you think I should make more YouTube videos on sous vide cooking? If so, what topics/recipes do you think I should demonstrate?

Pretty good videos overall. I agree with the volume problem, the videos are very quiet. I would love to see more.

If you could get better close ups that would be nice as well.

I hate to encourage someone to be phony but maybe a touch more enthusiasm would help?

I agree with EAC as well. More content means a lot more people finding your videos and more people buying your book.

There are not a lot of good sous vide videos out there now so you could create a lot of interest.

Edited by Amida0616, 01 August 2010 - 05:07 PM.

[lesliec]

Hi Douglas. Congratulations on the videos - I think the level/tone/content was just right. As others have mentioned, they may be a little quiet, but I didn't have too much trouble hearing them. By all means make more - maybe one of the more obscure SV topics, like preparing the custard for ice cream, might be a good one.

I'm looking forward to your book being more generally available to us foreigners. I see Amazon US is now listing it, but they're not selling it directly; it comes from the SV Supreme people. Any word on when Amazon will be selling it 'properly'?

[dougal]

...
I'm looking forward to your book being more generally available to us foreigners. I see Amazon US is now listing it, but they're not selling it directly; it comes from the SV Supreme people. Any word on when Amazon will be selling it 'properly'?

... and this morning, sadly still not even available for pre-order on amazon dot co dot UK.

[DouglasBaldwin]

Thank you for your constructive criticism: I'll make sure the volume level is higher next time and that you can see what I'm doing. I'm generally a cheerful and outgoing guy, but I'm not used to being videotaped and it showed --- I'm sure the more I do, the more myself I'll be. Since I used my cousin's video equipment (who was visiting last week on vacation), I'll order a video camera and will plan to make a new video every week or two. [I still plan to do a major revision of my guide, but working in the office 60 hr/wk on my doctorate is keeping me from making much progress on it.]

As for my book's availability, I'm afraid I don't have any control over it. I'll keep sending them emails voicing your complaints and hope they make it available to you soon.

Thank you again for all your comments and support.

[Merridith]

Thank you for your constructive criticism: I'll make sure the volume level is higher next time and that you can see what I'm doing. I'm generally a cheerful and outgoing guy, but I'm not used to being videotaped and it showed --- I'm sure the more I do, the more myself I'll be. Since I used my cousin's video equipment (who was visiting last week on vacation), I'll order a video camera and will plan to make a new video every week or two. [I still plan to do a major revision of my guide, but working in the office 60 hr/wk on my doctorate is keeping me from making much progress on it.]

I enjoyed the videos and once I figured out how to turn up the volume on my own speakers, I could hear perfectly well. I would like it, though, if you would give a little more information about the basic principles of sous vide which apply to a particular lesson. Thanks for your wonderful contributions, research, etc. in this area.

[RDaneel]

Thank you for posting the videos, Doug. I really appreciate all the effort you've made in this thread and your book. To celebrate (!?!) my new Polyscience (hopefully shipping soon!), I ordered a copy of your book via Amazon, even though I was hoping to save on shipping by buying it directly. I'm sure it will be well worth the $30. Can't wait to try it out.

I look forward to more videos, I'll be very impressed if you can do one every week or two, that's a lot of work for a busy man!

Maybe one thing to do would be to make a dish from your book - showing the SV cooking and the various sauces/preparations you can do with the protein. One thing that really drew me to SV was the idea of being able to SV one meat and serve it with different finishing - allowing me to mix up the menu without having to make totally separate dishes every evening. Your book seems to help in that area, and it would be a cool thing to highlight in a video.

[nickrey]

I bought some nice looking brisket the other day and cooked it for around 30 hours at 57C.

Not sure what to do with it, I searched my cookbooks using the new eat your books library bookshelf and found that beef brisket was recommended for David Thompson's Beef Penaeng Curry. On consulting the curry recipe in the Thai Food cookbook, it is one where you cook the beef separately, cook the sauce, then add the beef to heat through.

So I made up the sauce from scratch, simmered it until cooked and then added sliced, already sous vide cooked, beef brisket along with some of the bag juices to increase the beefy taste. Instead of simply reheating, I left it sitting for an hour for the flavour to infuse the beef and then reheated. The result was absolutely delicious.

Am looking forward to trying leftovers as the curry taste is likely to have further penetrated the beef.

[ScottyBoy]

When I did a 36 hour brisket I ended up slicing it and making bánh mì sandwiches!

On my never ending quest for great chicken, sous vide has taken it to the next level.

My most recent effort,

After cooking for 2 hours in butter at 60c, I pressed it to get the flat skin surface, trimmed and breaded with sumac powder, flour and salt.


Fried on the breaded skin side and basted with the chicken fat/butter from the bag.



Very good.


First post, very excited to get in on this forum. Always looking to brainstorm with other food crazy people!

Edited by ScottyBoy, 05 August 2010 - 09:59 AM.

[nickrey]

This post continues the theme of what to do once you've cooked some meat sous vide. In this case, I used chicken breasts.

The sous-vide cooked chicken was coated with a home-made bang bang sauce and tea-smoked for around five minutes.

The resulting chicken was sliced and served on a salad.

A photo of the dish can be seen at this thread on the eGullet Dinner! thread.

[Doc-G]

Hi there,

Its been such a long time such I've been to egullet and at least a few years since I've seen this thread. I kind of lost my mojo with food writing whilst doing my Gastronomy MA. But now that I finished and had a break, my mojo is back and so am I.

So, anyway, when I first saw this thread, I got really excited and during this time, I've been able to try some lovely food cooked sous vide in some great restaurants but is was only recently when I was able to purchase an immersion circulator that I've been able to try my own. Not having seen most of this thread, for a few years, I assume that the whole egg thing is old hat here but just wanted to share my first experiment of eggs cooked for 75 minutes at 64 degrees centigrade.






As far as flavour goes, they taste like eggs. Where they came into their own however was with regards to texture. They are creamy and rich like custard and have a similar texture all the way through with a velvety, soft and unctuous mouthfeel unlike any other egg dish and quite unlike standard poached eggs.

Anyway, regards to all. Its great to see this thread still going and I'm really excited about Nathan's upcoming book. I remember being very impressed with his posts in the earlier parts of this thread and its great to see that his knowledge will be available to a much wider audience. I look forward to learning more and trying out some of the recipes and techniques from this thread.

Doc-G
'The Foodologist'

Edited by Doc-G, 10 August 2010 - 12:06 AM.

[e_monster]

Hi Doc,

Thanks for the post. Did all of the whites come out as custardy as they look in the picture, or did you remove the more watery part. Your time/temp is one that I have used quite a bit but I always find that some of the white is too watery to serve. So, not everything that was in the shell ends up going on the plate.

[Doc-G]

Hi e_monster,

Yes, I have found what you have found too. David Chang's book, 'Momofuku' gives the recommendation to crack the eggs on to a saucer and then slide the egg on to the serving plate. He recommends poaching for 45 minutes at 60 degrees which seems short and cold but anyway I found that the plate thing helps to separate some of the watery stuff out. My concern is that cooking to temperatures too high will harden the yolk too.

What about longer cooking times at say 62 or 63 for 3 or 4 hours? Does this cook more of the white without hardening the yolk?

Regards,

G

[ScottyBoy]

I do mine at 65c for 60 minutes. Easier to handle and the thin albumin is easy to separate from the main egg. The yolk is still totally soft and running with a custardy white. I haven't tried cooking them for 3-4 hours, maybe I can try it out when I make some on thursday for a party. Here are a couple examples of the final product using japanese Jidori eggs.

Edited by ScottyBoy, 10 August 2010 - 09:46 AM.

[e_monster]

I do mine at 65c for 60 minutes. Easier to handle and the thin albumin is easy to separate from the main egg. The yolk is still totally soft and running with a custardy white. I haven't tried cooking them for 3-4 hours, maybe I can try it out when I make some on thursday for a party. Here are a couple examples of the final product using japanese Jidori eggs.

Looks beautiful. So, you too are seperating off the runny part?

I have often done eggs for 8 to 12 hours at temps from 143F to 147F. Even at 147F for 10 hours, there is still some runny white. I have read that there is a component of the whites that just doesn't set at all until some temperature over 160F (don't remember the exact temp).

It is worth noting that the difference in texture of the white changes only subtly at 145F whether cooked for 80 minutes or 8 hours. But there is a quite noticeable difference in the texture of the yolk. So, yolk setting can happen at lower temps when left for a long enough time. 145F overnight is a really nice breakfast. The yolk is just barely set.

And, for me, the source of the eggs makes a big difference.

I have also dabbles with Wylie Dufresne's 158F for 17 minutes. At that temp, the difference between overcooking and undercooking the eggs is a matter of only a minute or so -- and also a matter of whether you let the eggs get to room temperature before starting. When they come out right, they are incredible, the yolk is translucent but very lightly set and has this amazingly rich texture that some call 'fudgy'. I generally do 147 for 80 minutes because the result for me is more reproducible.

[FoodMan]

I recently attempted to make pastrami sous vide figuring it might be more ideal than steaming the brisket. A pastrami is a piece of brisket that is cured, spiced and smoked for a while to develop a smoky flavor but certainly not anywhere near cooked. The meat is then finished by steaming for a few hours until tender. So what I did is instead of the last steaming part, I CSV for about 20 hours at 65C.

The result was definitly not as good as a traditionally steamed pastrami. The meat was a bit tougher than I like but not much. It was closer to a good steak in texture than a nice deli pastrami. That is easily fixable obviously. The main problem was the flavor. The smoky flavor intensified in the pouch and gave the meat a slighlty acrid taste as opposed to nicely smoky. It also did not seem as juicy as I would've hoped but that could be due to the first problem of not cooking it long enough. I took a couple of pictures but have not uploaded them yet. I can if anyone is interested.

[ScottyBoy]

Good to know, I love pastrami. After buying my setup I started making turkey for sandwiches right away. A long low salt brine then CSV produces the same texture and quality of deli turkey. The final chapter of making my favorite meal, baking the bread, making the mayo-mustard, growing the lettuce-tomato and constructing a great turkey sandwich!

[Chris Amirault]

I've got two kids who love their turkey. Can you give the recipe for this?

[DouglasBaldwin]

I've got two kids who love their turkey. Can you give the recipe for this?

I have a recipe for turkey breasts in my guide along with pasteurization times. As a special treat for yourself, remove the skin and crisp it between parchment covered sheet pans in the oven until golden brown --- yum.

[DouglasBaldwin]

As for eggs, I'll quote my cookbook:

The important temperatures and proteins when cooking an egg in its shell are:

• 143°F (61.5°C): the protein conalbumin denatures and causes the egg white to form a loose gel;
• 148°F (64.5°C): the protein livetin denatures and causes the egg yolk to form a tender gel;
• 158°F (70°C): the protein ovomucoid denatures and causes the egg white to form a firm gel (the egg yolk also coagulates around this temperature); and
• 184°F (84.5°C): the protein ovalbumin denatures and causes the
  egg white to become rubbery.

If you like your egg white firmer than it is in the “perfect” egg, heat the water bath to 167°F (75°C) and cook the egg for the time listed in Table 1 on page 162.

I may have the times from Table 1 of my book somewhere up thread, but I can't remember.

[slkinsey]

I've got two kids who love their turkey. Can you give the recipe for this?

Fairway sells gigantic turkey breasts tied up as "roasts" and we do this all the time. My general practice is simple:

(1) put various seasonings, salt and some liquid into the bag (even though my machine makes a strong vacuum, I find that adding the liquid to the bag produces better results -- don't know why)

(2) seal and cook to pasteurize at 62C

(3) chill the bag in an ice bath, chuck it in the refrigerator overnight

(4) take it out and rinse off the accumulated "bag goo"

(5) slice as needed for sandwiches, etc.


We do similar "lunchmeat" preparations (albeit at different temperatures depending on the protein) with thick seared "London broil" steaks, pork loins, chicken breasts, leg of lamb, etc.