valereee

Yow, and I see we've strayed way off topic, lol! So I'll show this jar of fermenting jalapenos, garlic, and onion that I'll soon turn into hot sauce and put into the fridge:

I am so going to try those! Just ordered the book from my library, thanks for the idea! I LOVE fermenting.

Oh, flabby's a good word for how this turned out! I do have a grinder attachment for my kitchenaide, but the kitchenaide itself needs to go into the shop (it only has one speed currently -- top speed.) I like the idea of browning large chunks then grinding! The problem was that cooking it conventionally, I ended up with tough meat. Great flavor, but the meat was hard. Since it's a chili grind, it makes a bigger difference than for hamburger -- I think overcooked ground meat in chili doesn't feel as obviously tough to the tooth because it's chopped so small. I think I'm going to try this -- dice the chuck into a 1" dice, brown it fast over hot heat, grind, and sous vide with a little beef stock to keep it from forming a patty. While it's sous viding, I'll make the sauce, then add the meat to it. If it turns to crap, I can make a batch conventionally to take to the party Saturday while I continue my experiments. Thanks, pbear!

The meat, started from raw, got 131F for 22 hours, then another 6 hours after the second dump, then because it was at that point quite soupy, into a preheated pan and into a 170F oven with the third dump for five hours. You mean maybe use little/none of the seasonings at all in with the meat while it cooks, just put most or all of the seasonings in the sauce on the stovetop or in the crock? That's what I'm thinking, too -- I could cook the meat just with a little salt and pepper, or possibly just mixed with a little beef broth which I'm thinking will help keep the meat from becoming a big flat burger. (With the broth and the tomato sauce added to the meat the first time, I went in a couple of times and sort of massaged it to make sure it wasn't forming large clumps of meat as it cooked.) So if I'm not looking for loooong cooking to tenderize (though it is a chili-grind, not hamburger grind) I could just sous vide the meat long enough to get it rare, then add it to the crockpot. But OTOH, if I'm not going to do a long sous vide for tenderness, why not just brown the beef on the stovetop, which will allow me to drain the fat then set the meat aside until I'm ready to add it to the sauce?

Yeah, I think the idea of slowly boiling -- or even just barely simmering -- meat for two hours is the problem, but that seems to be an almost ubiquitous instruction in competition chili recipes. Starting with raw chili-grind round roast into the sous vide didn't turn out well. The meat is definitely not tough, but the texture isn't pleasant. Sort of mushy. And the spices taste harsh. I saved some of the stovetop batch of chili and I'm tasting them side by side, and the stovetop version has the FAR superior flavor. Maybe 131 just isn't hot enough for such a spice-heavy recipe? I'm considering the following -- advice eagerly accepted: 1. brown beef, drain well, add stock and tomato sauce, bring to a bare simmer, remove from heat. 2. In a small amount of the drained grease, saute (or maybe reserve some of the stock and simply boil?) the first dump five minutes, add it to the meat, bag up, into the sous vide at 131F for 24 hours. 3. Saute (boil?) the second and third dumps separately and hold until it's time to add them. 4. Add second dump, sous vide at 131F for six hours. 5. Empty into crockpot on low with third dump. I'm hoping by browning the meat first but not boiling it for two hours, I'll get tender but not mushy meat, and by precooking the spices I'll get those flavors right. Edit: hm, just read back over rotuts' suggestion from before -- cooking the meat sous vide, the sauce separately on the stovetop/crockpot. I wonder why more chili cooks don't cook their sauce separately and add the browned meat in at the last minute? I could try one more time cooking the meat from raw in the sous vide, but cooking the sauce completely separately. But it almost seems like an unnecessarily complicated extra step -- or, wait...hm...I -could- cook half the meat from raw sous vide, half browned on the stovetop, cook the sauce separately, then see which meat process turns out best. My husband is going to get sick of chili! Val

Oooh, hold on a sec... the episode airs again at 1 this afternoon EST, according to my TiVo. YMMV depending on your own PBS station. Val

rotuts, I just happen to have pulled an oldish (two years) round roast from the freezer a couple days ago to experiment with sous vide -- I went ahead and trimmed then ground it in my fp, and I'll try a batch of chili without browning first, see how it goes. I'll leave out the water and try 24 hours @ 131F after the first dump and then check the tenderness when I open it for the second dump. This is perfect timing because I'm just getting ready to pull my 3-year-old short ribs out after 48 hours @ 140F, so maybe tomorrow night I'll have a chili report. Val

Has anyone made chili sous vide? I'm making chili for a chili cookoff party (not an official competition) and I'm experimenting with competition-style chili (no beans) which I haven't made before. I made it last night according to a competition-style recipe, which called for browning chili-grind chuck, draining the grease, adding 15 oz stock, 15 oz water, 8 oz tomato sauce, and cooking it at a low boil for 2 hours during which you make three spice dumps. It's delicious, but the meat is tough after all that boiling and I was thinking maybe of browning the meat, then putting it into a reclosable bag with just the stock and tomato sauce since no moisture will get boiled off and opening it to add the spice dumps at the appropriate points in the cooking process. Anyone done anything like this, or have pointers? It'll eventually go into a crockpot (to go to the party) which I can set as low as ~180. Would I be better off just making it in the crockpot? Edited: whoops, sorry, expanded my search to the rest of the forums and looked just at posts and found that at least Chris has -- so it looks like you browned on the stove, then stuck it into the bag and sous vided, then returned it to the stove for a couple hours. Did you use less water/stock than you normally would, or if not, did you find it was soupier than you'd been aiming for (and perhaps that's why the return to the stovetop for a couple hours?)

What a good idea! I would have probably just stuck it in the freezer for making stock, but this way you actually get all the meat. I'm going to remember this trick!

What are you cooking it with? (What recipe are you using that converts well to a pressure cooker, I mean )

Welcome! If you've not tried duck leg confit, do it now. You know, I've never even -purchased- duck for cooking. Had it in restaurants, of course, but never tried cooking it myself. I'm picking something else up at the butcher's today, though, so I'll see if they have any duck. I doubt it will be fresh, of course, but I can get fresh duck at the farmers' market next summer if it's all that. Thanks, Neil! Val

Also, note that you really need a needle probe. Here is an example. Needle probes are normally sold as a non-standard accessory for type K thermometers. A standard thickness meat thermometer probe will be more prone to leakage, even with the proper tape. More ways to spend money!

Okay, staying near UC...fortunately Cincinnati's a pretty easy city to get around, so as long as you have a car you can reach most of the best restaurants in town within a fifteen-minute drive from the UC area. What kinds of things do you like? Val

The thing about Cincinnati chili is that you have to ignore the name. It's not chili. It's a greek-inspired meat and pasta dish. And, yes, it's an acquired taste. I wouldn't recommend Skyline (or any chain.) Try the little mom-and-pop chili shops.

So I bet I'm not the first person to report cleaning out her freezer to experiment. Over the past three years I've bought two quarter-cows, and there are always cuts that end up pushed to the back of the freezer, so I've been digging around. I found a packet of short ribs that are three years old -- I've never done very well with short ribs -- and something called a "Round Wedge Roast" that is two years old. Probably pushed it to the back because I'm not sure what a "Round Wedge Roast" is. Ordinarily when I find outdated meat, I give them to a friend for her dogs, but I figure they're perfect for teaching myself to sous vide. Even if the quality has suffered from the long storage and we end up not eating them, I ought to learn something from cooking them. Val