mgaretz

Last night I made tri-tip. Been a while! I cooked it SV for 8 hours at 128F then seared. Before bagging I added salt, pepper and some dill seeds. I also added 1 tsp of Sansaire Steak Aging sauce, which I haven't used in a while. But my wife wanted thin sliced leftovers to take to work in sandwiches for lunch, and that sauce adds that deli-carved roast beef taste. Served with a baked sweet potato (red yam) and butter, and salad. Cherry pie for dessert.

Salmon, cooked SV, no sear. I tried putting some maple syrup in with salmon while cooking as opposed to putting it on after. Didn't have much effect or flavor, except on the edges. Won't be doing that again. Served with steamed Brussels sprouts and salad.

Top sirloin, cooked SV then seared, served with baked potato and salad.

A couple of meals. Tamales (pork, from Costco). They were a bit too spicy for my taste so to tone them down I made a tomato sauce and melted some mozzarella on top. Used some of the sauce to make Spanish rice. Served with snap peas. (This was from a week ago, but had to head out of town with no time to post the pic.) Last night I made lentil soup, this time using brown lentils, ham and carrots. Made in the electric pressure cooker. Served with salad.

Have you tried IPing it first then frying?

Most rubs have sugar in them. If applied just before the sear it might work out, but if applied early I imagine most of the surface sugar is dissipated by the time you sear. As as I mentioned way up thread, I just use straight dextrose without the baking soda.

I found a pan, actually more of a cake pan, that was 13x9 at Target that just fits. What I did was to take a piece of string and cut it to the length that would fit in the oven then used it to measure pans at the store. Of course now I have the Smart Oven Air which is much bigger and fits a 13x9 with handles without issue.

Hash made with leftover prime rib, potato, peas and onion.

Thanks!

New Year's Eve dinner: Prime Rib was on sale at Smart and Final for $4.99/lb. I'd never cooked one before, but the price was right and the meat looked good. It was about 5.8 pounds, bone in, and didn't require me to trim any fat off. The day before I cut the bones away, salted it and gave it a light dusting with herbs, tied the bones back and vacuum packed it. I cooked it sous vide for 6 hours at 130F, patted dry, applied more herb rub and then browned it in the Breville Smart Oven Air on the super convection (airfry) mode at 480F for about 12 minutes, then sliced. Served with roasted carrots in EVO and honey, salad and a few glasses of 2012 Moss Roxx Lodi Zinfandel.

140F for about 90 minutes, depending on thickness and fresh vs frozen. I use the Chefsteps app as a guide. Then I usually pat dry then baste with a mixture of maple syrup and bourbon (just a bit of bourbon), then sear side one, repeat for side two. Then baste again and serve. I also use the same temp but for longer times with pork loin roast. I get the full loins and will cut some as chops and some as small roasts, vacuum pack and freeze. I usually get them at Costco in the cryovac packaging, but if you are getting them at a store, I'd have the butcher cut them down to fit in the backpack.

Soup with shrimp, chicken stock, celery, carrots, snap peas, yu choy and rice noodles.

My daughter and her boyfriend are in for the holidays and she requested my Drunken Noodles (Pad Kee Mao) with shrimp. Served with stir-fried yu choy and mushrooms in a soy/sugar/sherry sauce. Dessert was homemade, non-dairy, salted caramel ice cream with hand-cut chocolate chips.

Didn't take any pictures but tonight we had a New York Steak, cooked SV and seared, baked jewel yam, snap peas and salad.

Thanks. The way I make pasta dough is based on Marcella Hazan's recipe: 50 grams of durham wheat, 50 grams of AP flour, a pinch of salt and 1 extra large egg. The eggs they used to have at Coscto provided enough moisture, but they have switched to one size smaller, so now I have to add 1 tsp of water. Put the dry ingredients in the bowl of the KA and mix with the standard beater, not the dough hook. Then add the egg and water. Mix with the standard beater on low until the dough forms large clumps and the mixer starts to bog down some times. It will be a fairly dry, crumbly dough. Dump all the bits out on a cutting board and push together and roll into a log. I cut into four equal pieces and then feed through the pasta rollers. It does not need any added flour for dusting. Easy-peasy and I can make pasta from start to finish in under 20 minutes if I start boiling the water in parallel. It cooks in 3 minutes for normal thickness noodles. You can, of course, scale the recipe to make more.

What did the vacuum sealer do for and in the process?

From what I understand, meat, even beef, will take up a salt solution (brining) because the size of the salt molecules can penetrate the meat. But for all the other stuff in a typical marinade (sugar, spices, oils, etc.) the molecules are too large to do anything but stay on the surface. See here https://amazingribs.com/tested-recipes/marinades-and-brinerades/secrets-and-myths-marinades-brinerades-and-how-gashing-can As to vacuum marinating, as @btbyrd mentions, vacuum pickling happens almost instantaneously but it does not happen when the vacuum is being held. The effect happens when the vacuum is released. From what I understand the vacuum bursts the cells due to the boiling action, then when it is released the pickling solution rushes back in to fill the voids. Whether this happens with a dense thing like beef to any extent is unlikely as even dense fruits and vegetables don’t take to vacuum pickling. In any case, do we want this to happen with meat? And it would be vacuum and release cycles that did the trick. In fact my chamber sealer has just such a marinating mode. I’ve tried it, I don’t think it did anything.

I have friends that absolutely love it, but I am not giving up my All Clad. I did get one piece because it was on sale for $11.99 at Fry's: Gotham Steel Nonstick Copper Crisper Tray. I have used it twice in the Breville Smart Oven Air and so far it has performed well. The non-stick coating worked extremely well but time will tell if it holds up.

Lasagna, made with homemade noodles, spinach, mozzarella with a simple meat sauce. Served with salad.

I use a torch (part of the Sansaire searing kit) and I put it on my stovetop so I can run the extractor fan. But the secret is to dust the steak (after patting dry) with dextrose. Some use a dextrose/baking soda mix to create a more alkaline environment for the browning reaction. But I can taste the baking soda and it is gritty so I just use dextrose. I haven’t found any difference in the browning. The cheapest place to get dextrose will be a local home brew supply shop. I have mine in a screen top shaker.

Lentil soup (my first) made with red lentils (which to my surprise came out yellow, not red), chicken, carrots, celery and a touch of cumin. Made in the electric pressure cooker. Served with my usual salad and also carrot salad. The carrot salad was a way to use the result of my test of my newest KA mixer attachment: the new slicer shredder. It is much improved over the older version. Made it with mayo, craisins and a touch of sugar.

Made some frozen shoestrings in the BSOA. Tried 15 minutes at 450F and they were a bit over done. Next time I will try 425F. FYI I timed the pre-heat cycle for 450F and it was 5 minutes.

NY Steak, cooked SV then seared. Served with salad and fries. Accompanied by a glass (or three) of Zin.

Double-thick pork chop, cooked SV then seared with a maple-bourbon glaze, served with snap peas in butter cooked ALV and salad.

I wouldn’t say they are better, but as good. For made from scratch fries, see the post above.