917 replies to this topic

[mgaretz]

Yesterday I tried making corned beef sous vide. After reading a ton of suggestions across the web, I decided on 180F for 10 hours. I usually make it in the slow cooker.

I always start by first rinsing it well, trimming the majority of the fat off, followed by an overnight soak in cold water in the fridge to reduce the salt. I did the same here, then I patted the meat dry and put it in the vacuum bag. I sprinkled the spice packet into the bag, trying to get it evenly spread on both sides of the meat, then vacuumed and sealed.

After 10 hours the meat had produced a lot of liquid, which I saved. The meat itself was tender, but also more dense than when I make it in the slow cooker. My family and I prefered this texture over the slow cooker method. Another benefit was that it was much easier to slice without it shredding. It was also just a tad spicier, also a good thing.

When I make it in the slow cooker I add carrots at the start and cabbage for the last hour. This time I took the reserved liquid from the bag and put it in a large bowl. I added about a quarter of a cabbage to the bowl and microwaved it for three minutes. The cabbage was slightly crisp and the broth gave it the perfect flavor. A success. There was a lot of leftover meat and since I didn't make much cabbage it was all gone, but I saved the broth and will repeat making more cabbage with the leftovers, but this time I will add carrots and see how that goes.

My family and I agree that this is our new corned beef method!

[nickrey]

Looks like sous vide is ripe to take off in the Australian market.

Breville, which is an Australian home kitchen electrical supplier similar to Cuisinart appears to be rebadging the sous vide supreme for the Australian domestic user. By putting it out under their own label, they should achieve a reasonable market penetration using their existing distribution channels. Report here.

[rotuts]

in the ref above there is an 'integrated' KitchenAid' system. any infor on that one?

[KennethT]

Just an update on my quest for Hainanese Chicken Rice in NYC... made a fast dinner last night (with some prep over the weekend) using chicken thighs. Bagged 2 skin-on thighs per bag with about a half cup of previously made broth (see older posts for method). 147F for 1.5 hours, then chilled and stored in the refrigerator until last night. Dropped the bags in a 140F bath to retherm.... results - the chicken skin was very silky and tender, although there was some unrendered fat in some pockets, most of which may have been able to be removed before cooking. The meat itself was super tender and juicy, and there was no trace of pink which can weird some people out. All in all another hit, especially useful on a busy weekday night...

[jmolinari]

Just an update on my quest for Hainanese Chicken Rice in NYC... made a fast dinner last night (with some prep over the weekend) using chicken thighs. Bagged 2 skin-on thighs per bag with about a half cup of previously made broth (see older posts for method). 147F for 1.5 hours, then chilled and stored in the refrigerator until last night. Dropped the bags in a 140F bath to retherm.... results - the chicken skin was very silky and tender, although there was some unrendered fat in some pockets, most of which may have been able to be removed before cooking. The meat itself was super tender and juicy, and there was no trace of pink which can weird some people out. All in all another hit, especially useful on a busy weekday night...

I used your method last week. Everything came out delicious. Thanks again. I decided that in the future i'll do either all thighs or all breasts...doing both from a whole chicken was just too much of a pain because of different temp requirements.

Do you use bone in thighs or boneless?

[KennethT]

Just an update on my quest for Hainanese Chicken Rice in NYC... made a fast dinner last night (with some prep over the weekend) using chicken thighs. Bagged 2 skin-on thighs per bag with about a half cup of previously made broth (see older posts for method). 147F for 1.5 hours, then chilled and stored in the refrigerator until last night. Dropped the bags in a 140F bath to retherm.... results - the chicken skin was very silky and tender, although there was some unrendered fat in some pockets, most of which may have been able to be removed before cooking. The meat itself was super tender and juicy, and there was no trace of pink which can weird some people out. All in all another hit, especially useful on a busy weekday night...

I used your method last week. Everything came out delicious. Thanks again. I decided that in the future i'll do either all thighs or all breasts...doing both from a whole chicken was just too much of a pain because of different temp requirements.

Do you use bone in thighs or boneless?

Bone-in

[PedroG]

Looks like sous vide is ripe to take off in the Australian market.

Breville, which is an Australian home kitchen electrical supplier similar to Cuisinart appears to be rebadging the sous vide supreme for the Australian domestic user. By putting it out under their own label, they should achieve a reasonable market penetration using their existing distribution channels. Report here.

in the ref above there is an 'integrated' KitchenAid' system. any infor on that one?

Must be the New chef touch cooking system from Kitchen Aid including the KitchenAid KOCV3610 Vacuum Machine, a combi steamer oven and a shock freezer.
See also http://blog.medellit...em-pricing.html and http://www.sousvidec...rom-kitchenaid/. Seems to have been marketed at about USD 17'500 two years ago (that's one hundred SideKICs!).
Cooking SV in a steam oven is never as reliable as in a water bath, but to my knowledge some restaurants do so.

Edited by PedroG, 06 September 2012 - 01:53 AM.

[rotuts]

always nice to hear from PedroG!

[ScottyBoy]

Any thought on time and temp for a mako shark steak?

[ScottyBoy]

130 for 1 hour, meaty, juicy and delicious.

[ChrisTaylor]

Some observations

- 56C vs 60C/48 hr short ribs. No contest. 56C wins. Amazing.
- a tiny tiny tiny (etc) dab of Vegemite in the bag (with more than one tiny rib, obviously--I just bagged all the ribs together given I was cooking for my self) is amazing, too.

[ChrisTaylor]

Rack of lamb. 56C/4 hours is vastly superior to the 60C/1 hour method in Blumenthal at Home.

[chefmd]

Sous vide is going mainstream. Got an email from Bed Bath and Beyond few days ago offering SousVide Supreme for sale. Good news: you can use 20% off coupon. Bad news: Sous Vide is not exclusive, mysterious, and cool any longer. Just kidding on the latter one.

[mgaretz]

I am cooking two large corned beef briskets today in my SVS and the combined water vapor of the two overcomes the ability of the rack to hold them under the water (and they won't fully submerge if I position them vertically due to their size). But I found a new use for this BBQ weight: http://www.williams-...ill-accessories

I slid it into the top slot of the rack and it works like a charm. (Also a half-way decent tool for what it's intended, but I never would have bought it if it wasn't on 25% off sale and I had a gift certificate.)

[PedroG]

Rack of lamb. 56C/4 hours is vastly superior to the 60C/1 hour method in Blumenthal at Home.

I agree. Rack of lamb is one of my favorite cuts. 3-4h/55°C according to thickness, searing the whole 8-bone-rack in smoking hot rice bran oil, then cutting into 2-bone-chops and searing the cutting surfaces. Cuts of less than about 450g are best, heavier cuts may be from older animals and slightly less tender.

[ScottyBoy]

Rillette pork or duck anyone? I have a French themed dinner Thursday and would love to have a little toast and rillette course.

[rotuts]

advice on chicken thighs: skinless bone in. i about to 'process' a ton, OK sl less, in various ways: Thai,Indian,Chinese, etc even USA Ck&dumplings flavors.

for turkey thighs Ive enjoyed 160 x 24.

similar for CkThighs?

they are 0.79 cents lbs this week so I might be eating as many varieties as I can think of for some time!

Edited by rotuts, 18 September 2012 - 09:34 AM.

[philie]

Rillette pork or duck anyone? I have a French themed dinner Thursday and would love to have a little toast and rillette course.

Cant help sous vide themed with that but have you tried heston blumenthals pottet duck from heston at home?
would be more than interested how it works, should work perfect in a sous vide!

[philie]

hey guys,
i have a small question concerning cooking large numbers of chicken:

i am cooking for a hug crew and want to make sous vide chicken breast salad.
i prefer to cook with frozen chicken breasts due to the price ( is this a problem sous vide? )

also, my greatest concern is:
i need to prepare the food one day in advance, how can i cook the chicken and work with it without creating a threat due to bacteria?
also, is anyone having some advice about cooking times?

just to make it sure: the chicken the next day is supposed to be cold.

thanks in advance for you infos!

[paulpegg]

hey guys,
i have a small question concerning cooking large numbers of chicken:

i am cooking for a hug crew and want to make sous vide chicken breast salad.
i prefer to cook with frozen chicken breasts due to the price ( is this a problem sous vide? )

also, my greatest concern is:
i need to prepare the food one day in advance, how can i cook the chicken and work with it without creating a threat due to bacteria?
also, is anyone having some advice about cooking times?

just to make it sure: the chicken the next day is supposed to be cold.

thanks in advance for you infos!

I suggest that you separate the breasts, sprinkle them with salt & pepper plus whatever other seasoning you wish to use and put 4 to 6 in a single layer in each bag while still frozen. Put them in a 63.8C (147F) bath for 4 hours. Remove the bags and put them in a prepared ice bath for an hour to chill them down and refrigerate overnight. you will not have any bacterial action and your chicken will be ready for finishing the salad in the morning. You can sear them for a minute on each side in the morning for a little extra flavor if you wish.

[philie]

great!
thank you very much for the advice!
will follow it precisely!


one more question: if i had the idea of brining or marinating the chicken it would not work if they are still frozen right?
thanks!

[paulpegg]

great!
thank you very much for the advice!
will follow it precisely!


one more question: if i had the idea of brining or marinating the chicken it would not work if they are still frozen right?
thanks!

You answered your own question. I would hold off on marinating chicken until you have a good grasp of what you get with just salt, pepper and whatever other seasonings you put on the surface. I personally don't find that brining or marinating chicken breast does much for them.

Edited by paulpegg, 23 September 2012 - 07:41 AM.

[ChrisTaylor]

Not sous vide but I am using my PID controller and slow cooker: pork picadillo set to simmer at 94C. I put the probe inside an unsealed zip lock bag.

[pep.]

I think you are going to have to place them in increasingly concentrated sucrose solutions.

I don't think that's actually necessary, as long as there is enough sugar to reach the desired concentration for the total amount of liquid (initial syrup and nuts). It should be similar to equilibrium brining.

However, packing the nuts into jars will probably leave too little space for the syrup. Probably better to pack everything in a bag and fill the glass jars after the candying is done.

The question is, what should be the final sugar concentration in the nuts?

Most candied fruit are around 65 Brix.

To follow up on the candying nuts in the sous-vide bag, I've had mixed results. I packed the nuts with a syrup that had 65 percent sugar for the amount of nuts + water combined. I let the syrup cool to room temperature before vacuum packing.



I cooked the nuts for approximately 10 hours at 85 °C, then let them cool and put the bag into the fridge for a week or two. After that time, I compared them to the traditionally candied nuts from last years harvest. The dimpled (top-most) nut is the sous-vide one:



Inside they look pretty much the same (the sous-vide nut is on the bottom here):


Tastewise, the sous-vide nuts are not very interesting at the moment. However, I think I'll have to compare them again in a few months - some time to mature might help in that department.

The biggest surprise was what happened to my sous-vide bath. While I've long known that certain flavor compounds may leach through the bags, this is the first time I've seen an actual color leach. The bag was NOT damaged!



Edit: The whole writeup for the experiment can be found on my blog if you read German.

Edited by pep., 25 September 2012 - 02:12 PM.

[Todd in Chicago]

Folks....

This may seem silly, but has anyone done au gratin potato sousvide? I don't know.......I have "visions" of frozen pouches of au gratin servings for two in which I simply pop 'em in my SVS for 30 mins to warm and spoon them into two ramekins and finsih under the broiler for 3 mins....is that nuts? I really didn't find any info on sousvide scalloped or au gratin potatoes.

Interested in thoughts....

Cheers...

Todd in Chicago

[ChrisTaylor]

I decided to try cooking (farmed) pheasant sous vide. I guess I was lucky in that most of the recipes I found online were essentially the same. Either this reflects how incestuous the internet is, particularly when it comes to cooking blogs, or it suggests that multiple people in multiple places all arrived at pretty much the same place after experiments and/or happy accidents.

The breasts were bagged with a little bit of truffled salt, some black pepper and some olive oil. 30 minutes at 62C then chilled and seared. The legs were cooked at 75C for 5 hours with a 'fair bit' of olive oil in the bag. I guess I was shooting for a confit-like texture, although the goal was hazy. I didn't cure the legs like most pheasant confit recipes called for, though. The random off-cuts such as the neck (I gave the head to one of the cats) and wings, as well as the main body of the carcass, were given a short roast (20 minutes, 190C) and then bagged with a little bit of water. I also cooked these at 75C for 5 hours. The intent was to make a simple pan sauce. A sous vide gravy, if you will. What surprised me, opening the bag several hours later, was that there was very little liquid. Very little. If you tried to reduce it, which was my original plan, you'd end up with a dry pan. The pheasant was served with roasted vegetables (beetroot, sweet potato, carrot, onion and Jerusalem artichokes).



Thoughts:

• The skin on the breasts probably didn't crisp up enough. Next time I think I'd remove it, whether or not I intended to crisp it up some other way (deep-frying, et al). Was happy with the texture of the flesh, tho'.
• The legs were a little dry. Not overly so. But maybe needed a little more oil. Or, say, duck fat or lard. Either/or would be better than the ev olive oil I used.
• Instead of trying to make a 'pan' sauce in a bag I think I'd throw the pheasant carcass, along with some chicken wings, in the pressure cooker, make a stock and then reduce that. Maybe throw in a little white wine. Granted, the sauce did have a nice flavour to it. Too, if you happened to have an ice cube or two of frozen chicken (or, say, actual pheasant) stock on hand, you could throw that in the bag in place of water. Possibilities.

[Toufas]

Guys I still can't find a proper recipe for medium to medium rare tough cuts of animals. For example medium lamb shoulder, short ribs, pork etc.

[ChrisTaylor]

Short ribs. 56C for 48 hours. Altho' a friend tells me I need to try 54C/72 hours.

[PedroG]

Guys I still can't find a proper recipe for medium to medium rare tough cuts of animals. For example medium lamb shoulder, short ribs, pork etc.

See the sous vide index and the sous vide page in wikiGullet.
In my experience 55-56°C / 48h is fine for most tough cuts like brisket or short ribs.

[Toufas]

Thank you both.
I have a mangalitsa shoulder in my freezer and I would like to give it a try and treat it like a steak.