pbear

Yes, a crock-pot will work for this dish, but the PID will give you better results. The problem with a crock-pot is that it will boil eventually. With the PID, you can top out at whatever temp you like. For stuff like this, I put the probe in a ziploc, so it's not sitting directly in the sauce.

Seems to me it's a stodge or soft-with-soft-with-soft problem. In other words, the traditional accompaniments are too much like the main dish, especially in texture. So, what I'd do is mix that up. Say, brussels sprouts and roasted potatoes (rather than mashed).

Have you considered doing this in canning jars? Seems like the simplest solution to me.

Living in SF, it's easy to find most Mexican, Latin American and Asian ingredients. But, there are a number of items easily found on the East Coast (where I grew up) which I can't find here. light cream daisy roll (smoked picnic) premium sliced bread (like Peppridge Farm or Arnold’s) kluski noodles radiatori pasta spaetzle (Maggi, boxed) originario (Italian soup rice) hominy grits (slow, not quick) pasteurized eggs (occasionally but very rare) escarole and rapini (occasionally but very rare) Florida avocados (larger and lighter than Hass) cappicola (ham from the shoulder) lebanon bologna bruder basil (a smoked cheese) fontinella (Italian table cheese) sassafras tea extract (Pappy’s) hoagies worth having chickarina soup (Progresso, canned) chicken and dumplings (Sweet Sue, canned) Tastykake pies, etc. (nothing comparable here)

Oops. Make that 85% lean ground beef. Sadly, yes, English is my first language. ETA: Now fixed.

Recently, an older friend here in SF, who went to high school and college in Joplin, was jonesing for some Spaghetti Red. As a surprise, I did some research to see how close I could come. In the course of that research, I noticed this thread, plus an article in Wikipedia (Fred & Red's apparently has now closed), what purports to be the authentic recipe (close variations of which appear on several sites, but I never did find the original source), a few interviews with Red and several reviews. Taking the linked recipe as my starting point, I reconstructed the dish using real ingredients rather than a seasoning mix. This probably means it no longer counts as authentic, but my friend was very pleased with the results, so I thought I'd share. It's an interesting chili precisely because it's so simple. Saute 2 med chopped onions in 2 tbsp vegetable oil until golden, about 20 minutes; add 4 cl minced garlic and saute another minute. Add 3 lb ground beef (preferably chuck), 85% lean; saute until lightly browned. Add 4 c water, 4 oz crushed saltine crackers, 6 tbsp mild (and/or spicy) pulverized new mexico chile (and/or ancho, paprika, etc.), 2 tbsp cumin and 1 tsp each salt, black pepper and oregano. Simmer partially covered 1‑1/2 to 2 hours. Cook 1 lb spaghetti al dente in salted boiling water; drain; divide among plates or shallow bowls and spoon chili over. Traditionally served with dill pickle slices, chopped onion and saltine crackers, but I think bread-and-butter pickles work better (and don’t think the onion or crackers add much). Note: The source recipe, as reported on other sites, makes much of using regular fatty ground beef. I've reduced it to 85% mainly because I don't like the mouthfeel of overly unctuous dishes. You can make your own decision. The real key to the recipe, imho, is the long simmer, which reduces collagen in the beef to gelatin. With that, you don't need the fat. Those same version, btw, insists you shouldn't use chuck, though it doesn't explain why. I'm quite certain chuck is right (because of its collagen content), so that's what I used and recommend.

There's definitely a mellowing process with some dishes, especially spicy ones, but I think the environmental factor mentioned here is generally the larger factor. In fact, someting along these lines is what I came into the thread to post.

Bill Christopher, in an article written a few years ago, confessed to using Chinese garlic in those products using prepared garlic. He said that he could buy Chinese garlic cheaper than he could grow it himself. Here's the link. What the article says is that "his company uses imports in some prepared products, such as sauces." I was talking about their peeled garlic, which the packaging states is grown in California. For that matter, what I care about is the quality, not the provenance. I only mentioned the latter because it had been raised by others.

ISTM that David Whitehouse, though not an ogre, is arguing for an overly aggressive interpretation of copyright. Doubtless he is right that copyright protects an author from cutting-and-pasting an entire recipe. He acknowledges, though, as he must, that American copyright law doesn't cover formulas, i.e., the ingredients list. Where Whitehouse goes sideways, IMHO, is in asserting that a rewrite of a recipe infringes copyright unless it uses a different method. No, that would be a patent issue. No one reasonably claims recipes can be patented. Copyright protects the expression, i.e., the words, not the idea. A recipe rewritten in new words does not infringe copyright, though one can quibble over whether the new words are "new" enough. Further, even if Whitehouse's standard were correct, andiesenji says the Thermomix recipes have been converted to a different process. If so, Whitehouse is asserting in this case a protection in copyright that neither he nor Lepard can possibly possess.

Another vote for peeled garlic. What I buy is Christopher Ranch, grown in the US fwiw. Consistently good quality and very easy to use (all one needs to do is trim the ends). I like to freeze it, both because it holds indefinitely that way and is easier to mince with a chef's knife when thawed.

I've been pretty happy using a sturdy butter curler for the job. You crack open the nut and scrape out the meat until you reach the brown skin. You can make it a little easier by alternatingly scoring the coconut and scraping, but I generally just rely on the scraping. OTOH, I'm not generally doing three coconuts at one sitting.

I've done pork shoulder many times and have settled on 150ºF as my preferred temp. IMHO, it's done in about 18 hours, but that's still with some bite. Another six hours is pretty-much-but-not-quite falling apart tender. Can't imagine wanting to cook more than 48 hours total.

The other thing for which a grill pan is handy is baking (oven roasting) things like sausage and bell peppers that you want elevated above the pan surface. Now, that would be a single-burner than two-burner grill pan, but the cleaning question remains. Not that hard, really. Let soak a few minutes, then clean with a nylon brush, running it back-and-forth with the grooves. Non-stick is easiest, but wears out and has maximum heat issues as you mention. After that, I find naturally-cured cast iron easier to clean than enameled, assuming of course the former is properly seasoned.

Clarification. When I say I always cook the meat and sauce separately, I don't mean that I never SV in the sauce. On the contrary, I often do that, in whole or in part. But, when I do, I always have fully cooked the sauce separately first.

valeree, a few thoughts. 1. If you heat the dish above your SV temp, you pretty much negate any advantage of using the technique. You'd have gotten the same thing if you had braised conventionally at the higher temp. FWIW, I generally do meat braises at 150ºF, as I find the texture cooked at 131ºF to be too flabby. 2. Depending on the cut, braising ground beef serves a purpose. Although the fibers have been cut very short, there's still collagen in there (especially with chuck) which will convert to gelatin with braising. Ground beef doesn't take anything like two hours, though. Half an hour to one hour at a conventional braising temp is plenty. Don't know what the SV time would be. At a guess, eight to twelve hours at 150ºF (won't even hazard a guess as to a lower temp). BTW, I find that browning the meat before grinding is easier and more effective than browning afterwards, and pretty much essential if you're cooking SV (see point one). Also, if you do much of this I'd strongly recommend getting a proper grinder. Can be used, of course, for making sausage as well. 3. When doing SV, I always cook the sauce and and meat separately. Partly this is because I'm used to doing things that way (pressure canning simmer sauces for the pantry is one of my hobbies). Also, I've seen almost nothing on how to cook sauces at low temp. Your chili could be adapted as a stand alone sauce pretty easily, simmered about an hour conventionally. There's a learning curve, obviously but, once you learn the trick, you can apply it to almost any braise. If that seems too much like work, maybe you'd be better off cooking this one conventionally.

My approach to stuff like this is to dispense with the bags and, instead, pack the product in 1 liter canning jars. Of course, strictly speaking, this is no longer sous vide, but you get the same advantage of long cook times at low temp. Takes about two hours for the jars to heat through, but this isn't important with long cook times. And you could easily remove the jars from the bath as necessary to stir in spices, then return them for further cooking. I will mention that it seems to me the recipe you describe is poorly crafted. It's the slow boil which is making the meat tough. Even cooking conventionally, you should be using no more than a simmer. Folks sometimes ignore this rule when cooking ground beef, but it's just as true for that as any meat.

Given this, I will respectfully disagree with the other posters. They're giving you good advice on how to coordinate two different objectives as to texture (MR vs. M), when what your wife cares about is color. Frankly, I don't think she would like a steak SVed to 140 degrees then browned. It'll be pinker in the middle than she likes. That's the nature of SV. To see this, look at the pictures for Keller & Co.'s sirloin recipe in Under Pressure. They SV to 139.1 degrees, then sear. I'm guessing that's too pink for her. Instead, I would go with your original alternate idea of SVing both steaks to 131 degrees, then browning hers a little longer. Won't take 5 to 7 minutes - more like 3 to 4 - though it'll take a few batches to get the timing right. Nor will this lose all, or even most, of the advantage of SV. Instead of cooking the steak from chilled, you'll have a big head start on target temp. So, a little more of a gradient, but not much. And the color, I think, will be rather more to her liking. Just my $0.02's worth.

For moderating heat to the pan, I prefer the two-layer type, often sold under the trade name “Flame Master.” Much better than disk-type diffusers for this purpose. Often can found in the housewares department of hardware stores (not so much in cookware stores). Also available from Fantes (scroll down) and Amazon. Have been using for years and recommend highly.

FWIW, my experiences with cooking beef (mostly brisket and chuck) are similar to those related by e_monster in Posts #3270 and #3271. I'm generally working at 136 degrees F, but that shouldn't make a difference for these purposes. Notably, according to Douglas's prior post quoted in Post #3268 "pure palmitic acid melts at 145F/62.8C and pure stearic acid melts at 157F/69.6C." How Douglas then concludes in Post #3269 that "This is why Roy Kim found that his 72-hour brisket at 135F 'rendered the fat wonderfully'" is unclear to me. Plainly that temp and time are adequate to convert collagen to gelatin, thus enabling rendered fat to escape. But if the temp isn't high enough to melt the fat (as opposed to merely softening it), I don't see how the conclusion follows. Rather, as I said in Post #3267, it seems to me much more likely that RK cooked a lean cut (probably a well-trimmed flat) and simply didn't need rendering. Am I missing something?

If it's any consolation, you're not doing anything wrong. It's just the nature of low temp cooking. Apparently, based on multiple posts earlier in the thread, fat doesn't render below 170 degrees or so. And I can confirm from personal experience that it doesn't render at 140 degrees or below. So you should expect to see what you're seeing. The solution is either to trim after cooking or use care in selecting what cuts to cook. For example, I don't think the brisket you liked rendered its fat; rather, it was relatively lean to begin with. That's without being there, but I'm pretty sure.

Hello all. I've been lurking on eGullet for years and remember reading about four years ago the thread in which Nathan's charts first appeared (I gather there has since been a consolidation of threads). At the time, I decided to pass on sous vide because I had neither the space nor the money for a laboratory circulator, vacuum machine, etc. About a year ago, someone told be about the Auber PID controller and I've been dabbling with the technique ever since, mostly using a 6 qt crock-pot (without bubbler) and the immerse-ziploc-in-water method for bagging. Recently, I decided to take the plunge, get serious and acquire the Sous Vide Supreme. I chose this over a circulator mainly because it's more compact and more appropriately shaped for the sorts of things I want to try, e.g., low temp cooking in canning jars rather than bags (first few attempts looking promising, btw). All of which has brought me back to the eGullet thread. Between Nathan's famous charts (which I copied during my first visit) and Douglas's famous Practical Guide, I've been doing reasonably well. Yet, I felt I was missing something for not having read the whole thread. I finally completed that task a couple days ago, which reminded me a lot of a cross-country bicycle trip I did several years ago (serendipiously, the number of posts and the number of miles were about the same.) And, really, this thread is similar, in that it is a record of sous vide's journey from obscure technique with no recipes or guidelines to almost mainstream. As my first contribution to the thread, I would mention to Infernooo that, back in Post #631 (page 22), UnConundrum diagnosed his off-flavor problem with long-cooked meats as being due to using extra virgin olive oil. Don't know whether you did the same, but thought I'd mention it.