paulraphael

Strange that it's not available. I don't understand him saying lambda is "low quality," unless he means he doesn't have a high quality source. It's just a slightly different carrageenan molecule, and it does have somewhat different characteristics. Lambda solutions are clear vs. cloudy, they hydrate cold vs. >70C, and they don't form gels (kappa forms brittle gels). Heston and Ferran have to get it from somewhere!

Also, some people use fluid gels for this kind of application. I haven't tried because I don't like the workflow, but you may find them worth playing with.

I've been experimenting with this a lot, and hoping to have enough information for a blog post on it soon. For a demiglace equivalent, which will presumably have a healthy concentration of natural gelatin already, I'm using 0.2% lambda carrageenan 0.1% xanthan gum These both hydrate cold, with shear from any blender. It's important that you don't thicken until you've thoroughly defatted. Both these hydrocolloids are powerful emulsion stabilizers, and you will get a cloudy, oily emulsion that will never separate if you don't defat first. Also important that you don't use this in a sauce that contains dairy. Calcium ions with cause it to form a gel. I'm also experimenting with: 1:1 guar : LBG 3:1 lambda carrageenan : xanthan propylene glycol alginate For adjusting thickness of final sauces, the most popular choices are modified starches that are pre-hydrated, like ultrasperse and ultratex. These dissolve easily and don't need cooking to hydrate. I prefer the clarity and texture of a starch / gum blend, typically 1:10 xanthan : arrowroot If you mix them together thoroughly as powders, you'll be able to make a slurry without the xanthan turning to clumps. This can be whisked into a sauce, and only needs to be simmered briefly to hydrate the arrowroot. This starch / gum blend has the advantage over the previous gum blend that it doesn't need blending, so you can adjust by feel right on the stovetop.

The longer you cook, the more juices will be pushed out of the meat. It's just one of those factors you have to take into account. You might want to try cooking for a shorter time. I do thighs for just a couple of hours and like them fine ... probably less tender this way, but juicier. Agree on avoiding pre-salting. Especially with a long cook, which risks the meat curing. It will also put salt into those bag juices, which makes reducing for use in a sauce problematic.

Interesting! I didn't know you could liberate collagen from hard bone. Does this suggest mean that bones of any type will eventually break down in a pressure cooker? What's left from that matrix if you render all the collagen? P.S. when I see $1.99/lb at whole foods, I worry that those are the neck bones of employees who asked for time off.

I very much like SV for tender cuts. I think these cuts have to be cooked with precision, to avoid over softening and drying out, but I like the perfection of the cook, and the lack of overcooked meat around the edges. It's also the only way I have of serving a lot of people simultaneously. Takes all the guesswork and panic out of the equation. I agree with gfweb that a higher temperature will help. I used to think of myself as a rare meat guy, but SV experiments have shown me that I like medium rare beef much more. Part of this is that when you conventionally cook a steak to rare (say 127) only the center will be cooked that low. Everything out to the edge will be progressively more done. The part of that steak you like the most is probably in the 130s. I generally set my circulator to 55C / 131F, in order to cook the meat to 54C / 129F. A few degrees higher is still plenty pink. Yes to what everyone else said about searing. Your last two steaks had trouble because the first two cooled the pan. Cleaning the pan and taking more time to reheat would fix this. A big fat griddle also works great.

Also worth considering that grain, by definition, is from grass. We're making a distinction between the seeds and the leaves, but cattle living in the wild would be eating a certain amount of both. There is some truth that cattle have health problems when they eat too much of the wrong types of grains. This happens, but is universally considered bad farming practice. Good farmers can raise very healthy cattle, whether they're finished on greens, silage, dried grass, grain, or on combinations. The best beef I've had has been finished on a combination of green grass and grains.

I use a combination of methods like the ones mentioned here, depending on how refined a sauce I'm going for and how much time I want to spend. The simplest / most rustic is just to deglaze the searing pan with the bag juices, and reduce all the way, until the goopy proteins dehydrate and turn a dark mahogany color. Then just deglaze with wine or stock (or even water), season however you like, and strain. The disadvantage to this method is you'll lose all the lighter aromatic flavors from the juices while you amplify the savory and roasted flavors.

Sorry, I haven't re-read that thread in a long time. The other stovetop methods mentioned in the thread are less dependent on a hugely thick piece of meat (but I find that at least 1.25" is helpful). I'm still curious about your SV results. They're not typical.

What are the advantages of SV over a pressure cooker for this kind of intense maillard effect?

The stovetop-to-oven method works well, but can take a while to dial in (you can't see what's going on in an oven). I believe this method evolved to make best use of the limited burner space at restaurants. If you don't face those recommendations, there are ways to get results that are at least as good on the stove. Heston's method should work well. So does the Ducasse method (at the beginning of the thread I linked above). Easiest of all is to start in a blazing pan with high heat oil and sear both sides. Then pour off the oil, and turn the heat very low. Add butter. Flip the steak every minute or two, and keep basting it with the browning butter. The temperature gradient won't be as minute as with a sous-vide steak, but it should be pretty unintrusive.

T-bone is still a tender cut ... part strip and part fillet. It likewise doesn't need to be tenderized with long cooking times. I suspect you'd be happier if the cook times were under 4 hours.

And the punchline ... I got a WS gift certificate for Xmas. Anyone want to buy it at a discount? It's got $85 value on it. Yours for $65.

Has anyone done this kind of before / after weighing with a traditional braise? I have trouble believing you'd actually lose more moisture with SV than with a dutch oven. The differences should lie primarily in temperature control.

Even if it did, the price you'd pay in the texture of the meat wouldn't be worth it. Tender meat shouldn't be cooked longer than necessary. A half hour extra won't do any harm, but if you start adding hours, you'll get a texture that's both mushy and dry.

I use ziplocs and routinely keep stuff 2 weeks. I haven't encountered evidence that ziplocs are less safe for cook / store than vacuum bags, although they're not as good at preventing spoilage (ziploc bags are more oxygen-permeable, but they don't let pathogens sneak in). I kept some chicken once for 3 weeks and it spoiled. Which is to say, it smelled nasty when I opened the bag and we threw it out. Spoilage bacteria are much less well studied than pathogens. You're much more likely to have spoilage surprises with SV than pathogen surprises. It's a good idea to keep your fridge as close to 32F/0C as you can without stuff freezing. Most fridges have a pretty big gradient from the coldest to the warmest spots. It's helpful to figure these out and store your SVd food where it's really cold.

By the way, if you like a thermal gradient, you can accomplish this with sous-vide, also. I'd argue you can do a better job than with conventional cooking, because you can be more precise. You can have your gradient go from rare to medium (I don't believe anyone actually likes well-done steak). There will always be a minute well-done layer from the searing process, but you can make make it a fraction the thickness of what you'd get from high temperature cooking. You could try cooking SV at 53°C for 1 hour 50 minutes, removing the bags, turning up the circulator to 60°C, and putting the bags in for another 10 minutes.

For a ribeye, I set the circulator to 55°C. Target temperature for the meat is 54°C (129F). But meat temperatures up to 56C are quite good. 1.5" is the perfect thickness for SV ... thick enough to be easy to sear without overcooking, thin enough to cook quickly without drying out. 1.75 hours should be plenty if you start at fridge temperature. I agree with everyone that you should salt after unbagging. With these short cooking times you don't have to worry about the meat getting cured by salt, but I don't like salt getting into the bag juices. Salty bag juices are usually useless for incorporating into a pan sauce. You might consider pre-searing in addition to post-searing. It's unnecessary, and its utility is debated. However, blind tests by Dave Arnold's crew at cookingissues.com suggested that searing before and after gave the tastiest crust. A pre-sear also makes the final sear go a bit faster. If you sear on a grill, get it stupid hot. Ideally you want to brown each side in a minute or less. I'd skip the "char crust." A nice steak doesn't need a commercial seasoning product. Besides, the company claims their product "seals in the juices," which is a lie. So I wouldn't trust them on anything. If you want to aid the formation of a crust, you can try a very light dusting of baking soda and dextrose (as I've discussed elsewhere). If you get the grill insanely hot it's not necessary.

yes, baking soda. I got my dextrose on amazon. You might also find it at a baking supply store. Baking stores often also have a product called "atomized glucose," which for this purpose will be interchangeable—but it's not interchangeable in other more precise uses, including pastry and ice cream. Atomized glucose is glucose syrup that's been dehydrated, but it still has significant water content. Dextrose powder is just pure glucose. For goosing maillard reactions, precision is unimportant, and you can use any reducing sugar. Some other possibilities include glucose syrup, corn syrup, hfcs, fructose, trimoline, and honey. You just can't use table sugar (fructose).

How about just not overcooking them? Even broth isn't the same as jus.

Fish is just about the only thing I brine. Part of the reason that it keeps it from oozing slime in the s.v. bag. Oil in the bag looks like just another approach.

I would strongly advise against presalting, since the meat is in danger of curing on the surface with the long cooking times you're dealing with. You don't want to serve corned beef. There aren't any advantages to presalting a piece of long-cooked beef. You can do it before searing. But long cooking really isn't advisable for this cut in the first the place. I would cut it into 1.5" thick rib steaks. A whole rib roast will take a very long time to cook to the center. These long cooking times are no friend to tender cuts of beef. Very likely the meat near the surface will get both mushy and dried out. With moderately thick steaks, you can s.v. them at 55°C for just a couple of hours.