EnriqueB

This is not very good news given that these are not, to my knowledge, available in the EU, and many people in the EU, like me, ordered the searzall. I hope as more people around here has it someone comes up with a good compatible & available model. Some comments about it are appearing in the kickstarter page, but some "official" confirmation would be wellcomed

That was just irony, given that on your first answer you seemed to disregard any discussion about the basis and safety of the profiles, claiming that they come from reputable sources. It looked like "hey, this comes from this well known people, who are you to question what they are saying?". Precisely the strength of this forum is that it is one of those places were these things ARE discussed, irrespective of the source. Of course the MC team and ChefSteps are reputable sources that have made unvaluable contributions to sous-vide cooking and other subjects, but thas does not imply that we do not analyze what they propose.

Ok, please let me restate the issue that gave origin to the discussion in this thread: On this page, the ChefSteps team is proposing very long sous-vide cooking times (48-72 hours) for short ribs at 54ºC, without any explicit mention of additional safety measures. On the comments they suggest preblancing or presearing (preciselly because some user tried one profiles and his bag showed symptons of bacterial growth) and that they are using nitrites (which prevent growth of several pathogenic bacteria), but nothing is mentioned about these in the main text. I argued that proposing those profiles without any further safety measure goes below the well established temperature threshold of 54.4ºC which has been long known as the mininum temperature for pasteurization because it is the minimum temperature that has shown to destroy the highest temperature-resistant food bacteria, Clostridium perfringens. This minimum temperature for long cooking times of meat has been thoroughly discussed in this same forum in many posts, such as: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/144706-cooking-with-modernist-cuisine-at-home-part-2/?view=findpost&p=1911109 http://forums.egullet.org/topic/144301-sous-vide-recipes-techniques-equipment-2012/?view=findpost&p=1887437 http://forums.egullet.org/topic/144300-sous-vide-recipes-techniques-equipment-2011/?view=findpost&p=1843578 http://forums.egullet.org/topic/136275-sous-vide-recipes-techniques-equipment-part-8/?view=findpost&p=1769246 So I claim that going below the 54.4ºC limit deserves a detailed explanation of the food safety issues involved and the science behind, which is something that has always been done in this forum. It is my understanding that they are playing with the growth/no-growth/destruction limits of C. Perfringens. 54.4ºC is suppossedly the temperature at which it starts to be destroyed, but at around 52ºC it stops growing. Thus, if we do not have a high enough initial population of C. Perfringens in the meat to start with, the profiles could be safe. In order to guarantee a low initial population, intensive presearing or preblanching would be a must in those recipes, as well as ensuring the meat is intact, i.e. the potential bacteria has not entered the interior of the meat (which, as btbyrd says, is generally assumed to be sterile). Beware that unknown jaccarding, marination, or a careless knife incision could have contaminated the interior, which is the reason why it is usually required that the core of the meat reaches pasteurization temperatures in less that 4 or 6 hours (depending on the source). In any case, these profiles are really pushing the limits of food safety, and in those cases the very precise calibration of the sous-vide equipment becomes critical, as nickrey has said. Even a -0.5ºC error in the temperature, easily found in home equipment, could well move us into the growth zone, and 72 hours in that zone are likely to take any C. Perfringens in the surface of the meat to dangerous levels. C. Perfringens is not to be taken lightly: it is the third pathogen contributing to domestically acquired foodborne illnesses in the US, according to CDC estimates for 2011, and also the third in strong-evidence outbreaks in the EU according to EFSA report for 2012. And an extra caution: in my conversations with food safety experts, they argue that the no-growh/growth limits (such as 52/54.4ºC) are not something that should be taken as set in stone from just one or two studies. Those numbers may well vary with factors some as type of food, pH, or the presence of given plasmids. Also, the growh and destruction dynamics around the threshold temperatures is far from clear, and may well differ form the well-established dynamics at higher or lower temperatures, respectively. All this is well analysed in the report I mentioned above, from UK Food Standards Agency: Safety of sous vide foods. What this report hightlights is that, despite the excellent work made by people such as Douglas Baldwin or the Modernist Cuisine team, several of which are now in ChefSteps, some of their values are just extrapollations based on limited research. New research comes from time to time that may challenge some of those limits, see for example Extreme Heat Resistance of Food Borne Pathogens Campylobacter jejuni, Escherichia coli, and Salmonella typhimurium on Chicken Breast Fillet during Cooking.

c oliver and weedy, of course I also consume raw meat and fish. But we are not talking about that here. We are talking about a long cooking process that has the potential of making any existing pathogens in the food grow, or at least not be destroyed to a low-enough number such the food is safe to eat.

At your own risk. What you say is true, but how do you guarantee the total absence of pathogens to start with? I suggest reading UK Food Standards Agengy Safety of sous vide foods report. An excellent analysis without the nonsense of many official agencies recommendations (where times are not mentioned, etc.)

I have always made (and seen my mother make) mayo with an inmersion blender. For sure you can use EVOO for mayo, but not all EVOOs are born equal. It is true that strong EVOOs, like those from Picual olives, are too strong, but with a softer-taste EVOO, such as those from Arbequina olives, it works. My favorite mayo uses 50% refined sunflower oil and 50% arbequina EVOO. If a single hen egg makes too much mayo for what you usually consume, an excellent idea is to use a quail egg, a small tall glass, and a milk frother as the inmersion blender, as is proposed here: http://www.umami-madrid.com/2009/12/23/un-truquito-para-hacer-mayonesa-para-una-sola-comida/

I'm talking about science here, not about anybody's merits. You wanna risk your health at the popularity of some cooks, go ahead. But I don't want to see such a profile here in a public forum where people can follow it without any further justification for what clearly is a food safety risk. I know perfectly well who ChefSteps are, I follow them since they started. I was likely the first person to receive and read the MC volumes in Spain. I teach sous-vide classes, and food safety is a key issue for me. 54ºC for 72 hours without any additional safety measures is not guaranteed to be safe for what we know from Baldwin and MC, so it deserves furher justification. Period. And I am also surprised that ChefSteps put that profile without any additional comment about safety in that page. I will later ask directly in their page.

Shocked at that profile. 54,5ºC is considered the minimum temperature for long cooking periods, and then to get it you usually apply a water temperature at least 0,5ºC higher. At 54ºC Clostridium perfringens is not guaranteed to die (see Douglas Baldwin's guide). I also see in the comments for that page that they are using nitrites, which may justify using that temperature as it provides extra safety (I don't know whether it takes care of perfringens but given that it takes care of other Clostridium like botulinum, it may do), but most people following that profile will not, and that is not a good idea.

Fair point, I agree. The actual argument of it being a good tool (I didn't say "ideal") for at least some beginners is what I exposed in the previous comment --removing uncertainty.

For pasta, TMX recipes will instruct you to use the times in the box. But "aldente" is also used for vegetables (what I was thinking about when writting). And, instead of what can be a vague definition for a beginner, the machine recipes will give you an exact time and temperature in a controlled environment for a given vegetable. Which may not produce the optimal texture in all cases but removes ambiguity, which is good for new people daring to cook something new.

I've prepared the dish with both real ox tail (no bull, that is hard to get, usually goes only to restaurants) and with veal tail. Same profile (100 h at 60ºC) worked pretty well with both. Likely with veal tail I could have used a bit shorter time (24 h), but still it was very good.

And, by the way, there are very few professional kitchens here in Spain that do not have at least one Thermomix, ranging from "tapas bars" to michelin-starred restaurants. That's the best evidence.

Many of the comments seem to ignore what for me is the BIGGEST advantage of Thermomix for beginners: that it removes many of the UNCERTAINTY sources from the cooking process. When facing new recipes, some of which you may have never even tasted, the biggest problem is uncertainty. What should it look like? What does it mean "medium-high heat"? What is Julienne? What does it mean "cook until aldente"? Most of these issues dissapear with a Thermomix. Because the cooking vessel, temperatures, speeeds, and weights are standardized in their recipes, many of the degrees of freedom of general recipes are controlled. This makes it orders of magnitude easier for a beginner to face a new recipe or group of meals. From that point on, the route depends on the person. Most people just benefit from the easier way to execute the recipes and never advance. Others, as I did, use it as a learning point: understand why the recipe is done that way in the Thermomix, play with the temperatures and speeds, then decide whether Thermomix is the best tool for that recipe or it can be done better by hand, on the stove, or mixer. I started cooking seriously about 5 years ago and the Thermomix (actually a clone of it called MyCook) helped a lot. Nowadays I only use it for what it is more effective at (blending, and dishes that benefit from simultaneous controlled-heating and stirring or blending, mainly some sauces and desserts).

If I am not glazing it I usually finish it by frying the sections, and serving with some vegetables on the side. I have some pictures here but they are pretty bad. I often break it into little pieces by hand, discard the bone, and glaze it with a heavily reduced beef stock. Serve over Heston Blumenthal's potato puree, like in this picture I posted on twitter. Or over rice, as shown in this other picture from my blog, which shows that it is far from dry even after 100 hours in the bath.

I've done MC's oxtails 100 hours at 60ºC many times and love the result, which as expected is very different from a traditional stew.

Using the technique explained by PedroG here and in video here, I regularly vac pack with (low amounts) of liquids without any problem.

Holding at 50ºC is unsafe unless it is done only for a very short period and consumed inmediately. Generally considered safe would be to hold at a minimum of 54,5ºC (which, considering potential measure errors and the like, should be increased to water at 55,5 or 56ºC)

In sausage, tenderness of hard meat cuts is achieved by the grinding step, not by long cooking. So, whereas I would cook a pork shoulder sous-vide for at least 24 hours at 60ºC, I would never do that with a sausage made with pork shoulder: sausages cook like tender cuts. For hogs casings (about 2,5 cm diameter) I use 1:20 hours at 60ºC, which should both cook and pasteurize the sausages, then grill or fast chill and refrigerate/freeze until consumption.

Uhmmmmm.... Much as I love all your creations, and with all my respect, this time I must say that looks like a really wonderful rice, but not like an actual great paella. Paellas which are absolutely crowded with ingredients, up to a point when you cannot even see the rice, are not considered good paellas at its origin places (Valencia and Alicante areas in Spain), but rather "paellas for tourists". In an actual paella the rice is the king, and it must be shown. Meats, fishes, seafood or vegetables on top should be secondary items. A good paella should look like more like this picture. That said, I would love to eat that great rice

I generally prefer the former, so the differences likely just boiled down to my individual preference and the different quality of the ingredients I used in the tests. The sides of bodies of the mussels were a bit harder to remove from the shells, but I don't know if this happens in general or was specific to my batch. In any case both were good if you are interested in using the pure juice (which I served on the side, in a small glass with just some drops of lime juice) and perfect barely cooked bodies. Otherwise it's too much work.

Modernist Cuisine approach to sous-vide mussels and clams consists of bagging them, hot steam them for a minute for easier opening (I increase this to 1 1/2 or 2 minutes), open bag, collect all bag juices, open the shells (I do this with an oyster knife) on a bowl, collect the juices that fell on the bowl while opening, then re-bag the bodies with the juices and cook them at a low temperature. I always though this was too much work to be worthwhile, but then I tried and the result is pretty good. I specially like the pure clam juice that you get. Very different from what you get when opening on a pan, much fresher. There has been no evaporation, no mixing with the oil or the little water you put in the pan. Wonderful taste, and the clams cooked to perfection. Not for everyday but an interesting technique for some dishes. I like this more with clams than with mussels.

paulraphael, whereas I completelly agree with you in general, and agree in the case of risotto, I cannot agree in this specific case. I'm not a fundamentalist of paella (and there are quite a few around here), but rather I am defining paella in terms of its unique features, and these are: a completelly dry rice using short-grain rice whose grains do not join but feel separated, in a very thin layer in such a way that the bottom layer produces an intense maillard reaction (called "socarrat") and a kind of "oily" and very tasty top layer is formed. The rice must cook uniformly (and that's why a very thin layer is required), and each grain should have a slightly hard cender ("aldente"). Realize many paellas even here in Spain do not fit this definition, but it is what constitutes a real and good quality paella. Getting these unique identifying features seems very hard without a pan that is quite wide and without a very controlled stock evaporation. In fact getting these results requires being extremelly careful with the rice/stock ratio and the heat control, which must be very strong during the first part of the cooking, then reduced, then increased again. Good paellas are one of the hardest recipes I know to get properly done. Traditional paellas were cooked on fire on woods (called "sarmientos") which would also give smoke flavour to the rice. Modern paellas can be cooked on a variety of wide pans with differnt heat control, but other tools such as a pressure cooker or a rice cooker simply do not produce a cooking environment that can produce the characteristic features of paella. I am really open to new techniques and developments, but have not seen at the moment any tool or technique that can reproduce these identifying features.

Sorry rotuts, but you cannot call "paella" to something that goes out of a rice cooker. Paella is a specific pan and it is necessary to provide the unique characteristic features of paella rice, i.e. a completelly dry rice in a very thin layer, that cannot be obtained with a rice cooker. It may produce a wonderful rice with similar aromatics but it will never be paella.

I've double checked a few time-to-temperature profiles of SousVideDash with needle probes in my food and they are pretty accurate. I don't use any other tool now. I teach sous-vide courses and it is what I always recommend.

Why can't you dip the already vacuum packed meat into the boiling water? Is it because those bags aren't rated for 100ºC?