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I followed the instructions from @daveb and left the chicken on a rack in the fridge, but I didn't leave it long enough. I expected the jellied stuff to melt as the chickens came to temperature and they didn't. I had to push the gelatin away and dry the pieces, The grapeseed oil was quite hot when I put these in. I have lost my fat-screen, so my kitchen is a mess today. These took about 8 minutes. Much better results this time. Thanks for your help.

@Josh71, I had baked beans (mine are spicy and not as sweet as "usual") and crispy salad.

They went in again @ 140F for 24 hours. Pasted on some of the remaining dipping sauce and put them in the oven at 550F for ~10 minutes. I think it was a bit too long. They would have been better if I had had a bit of sauce left to paste onto them after they came out of the oven. There's a sliver or two left for somebody's lunch, so 1.9 lbs including fat and bone was plenty for 5 meals.

Here is the photo of the chicken thigh recipe I followed but omitted (forgot) a few items. I boned 8 chicken thighs, pressed flat but not pounded. Sealed in 3 SV bags and cooked @ 150F for 90 minutes. Iced for 20 minutes. Put 3 bags on baking sheet, topped with another baking sheet, in fridge for 24 hours with water filled pot (10 US quarts). My large burner is 15K BTU (where halfway is mark 7). In cast iron pan, used 2 Tablespoons grapeseed oil and 2 T butter. I set to about 4 because I didn't want butter to burn. Sautéed for 10 minutes. Here is my result: The thighs did not rest absolutely flat in the pan. The meat tasted fine but the chicken skin (where not browned) was flabby and unpleasant. As you can see, my thighs were nothing like the recipe photo. My husband thinks I did not have the oil hot enough. And maybe needed a bacon press. Is he right? I still have 2 more SV packets of thighs. I'm thinking next to fry thighs in 1/4" oil.

What's in the rub, @IndyRob? I just bought some beef short ribs.

Wonderful @rotuts, never thought of that!

What I'm most curious about is the idea of drying off the sous-vide-cooked item and then putting on a rub. It isn't going to sit in the oven for a couple of hours. Does one cook this "rub" in a dry sauté pan? With a little olive oil? Or does one use a flame and "toast" the spices? Curious minds want to know. Sorry I wasn't very clear with my questions. Here is what I did in this case.

I did not have a desirable outcome. Here's what I did: Bag dipped in boiling water for one minute Cooked for approximately 12 hours at 135F to 138F. I used D Baldwin's guide for pork back ribs, i.e. 8-12 hours @130F for med-rare to 140F for Medium. Cast iron frying pan heated to midway on large burner. Lean side of meat (held down by heavy bacon press) cooked for 30 secs, browned nicely. Fatty side of meat not even enough to flatten. Bacon press didn't help. Very little browning after one minute. (In retrospect, this should have been longer). This is a view of the lean side: Made dipping sauce by throwing together some stuff. Here's what I thought it was: 1 1/2 Tablespoons toasted sesame oil 2 Tablespoons soy sauce 2 Tablespoons mirin, sweeted rice wine 2 teaspoons Five Spice 2 teaspoons boiled cider concentrate (from King Arthur Flour) 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper Put in pyrex jar. To reduce liquid and meld flavours, nuke for about 3 minutes, but in 30 second spurts. Here's what dinner looked with salad and sous vide baked beans: Here's what it looked like inside: While it looked okay, it was way too chewy. Inner fatty parts and connective tissue quite solid. Getting right sized portions might be tough. The two pieces weighed 1.9 lbs,. approximately 15 oz each. My leftover waste and bone was 2.9 oz with the leftover (upper right) at 3.3 oz, so I ate about 9 oz and my husband about 8 oz. What to do next time? Cook longer. I think I'll try 30 hours. Find a way to broil the fatty side longer. Maybe take a torch to it.

@Anna N, I don't mean to put into the sous vide with the rub on, but to put the rub on when the sous vide is complete. Dry off the meat and roll it in the rub. Then I guess one would need to sauté or broil the meat for less than a minute. Sound reasonable or no?

Is it possible to put a rub on a sous vide item? I'm cooking pig wings here and I'm trying to figure how to finish them. This looks good but would require a rub.

I forgot to ask. When you Sous Vide chicken breast, do you take the skin off? Handle differently for thighs?

@rotuts, what is the iP?

@rotuts, are you cooking the chicken breast first, then cut, flavour and re-heat? Or cut raw chicken breast, flavour and freeze?

I use the controllers with the slow cookers (no water bath) and am able to make whole meals that way . . . but it's still an issue finding "whole meal" food that cooks at the same temperature.

Yes! The truth is that i'm really interested in using Sous Vide to cook a whole meal. So tell me about that, if you please. If you should happen to casually drop the number of devices you have, well and good. Just to fess up, I have two slow cookers with two controllers. Bought because I really wanted to be able to cook two things. I'm thinking, however, of adding an inexpensive immersion cooker, because I want to be able to Sous Vide salmon and my two slow cookers don't have any water swirling action. So, that would put me up to three devices.

@Anna N, I never use Sous Vide as a way of cooking a whole meal. This is a very interesting idea! For me I usually Sous Vide the meat portion (between 132F and 165F, depending on cut). Douglas Baldwin says dried beans, for example, should be done at 185F, though my recent experience would suggest 202F for 10+ hours. (Fresh dried beans, bought last summer from the Farmers' Market). How many Sous Vide devices do you have?

it seems that most pork I do SV is at 131F, with pork shoulder at 135F.

I also was bitterly disappointed with Thomas Keller's Under Pressure. I too frequently refer to Douglas Baldwin's Sous Vide for the Home Cook. Mostly to check temperature and times. Can't say that I frequent his recipes. The biggest problem is that I can't stand his index. I'm having an interesting time converting Paula Wolfert's recipes so I cook the beans and veg in the tagine (with home-made lamb stock ice cubes) and the lamb itself in the sous vide. Of course, I can't stand her index either. I've also just bought your recommended The Complete Sous Vide Cookbook by Chris McDonald, so I'll let you know how that goes.

@Anna N, what do you think of this book? How does it compare to Douglas Baldwin's book?

Wikipedia defines pork wings as: a pork product made from the fibula of a pig's shank - a single bone surrounded by lean, tender meat. Images from the internet look like a finger-size bit of meat around a bone. Mine, however, look more like the meat (lots) which surrounds a bone. My butcher called this cut pork wings. You can see on the right that there's a small amount of bone. My butcher said he regularly ate SEVERAL of these. But this one measures 15 oz (425g). He also said it had to be cooked slowly. So, if I cook these sous vide, what temp and for how long?

The globe tea strainer that I have doesn't seem fine enough for the powdery black salt. Tonight, I used a spoon. Carefully. One interesting factoid I discovered is that a tiny, tiny sprinkling of salt doesn't taste like much.

It's very very finely ground already. No further grinding required. Just a smidge of that fine-ness gives a superb flavour. I want to be able to "dust" the top of food. Delivery by an ordinary spoon requires care and precision and one is likely to end up with too much. Oooh. Maybe I need a tiny, tiny spoon. I have a measuring spoon which is 1/64th of a teaspoon. Maybe something like that. And the pig. @KennethT, know where I can find a very fine strainer?

I bought some very fine black salt at King Arthur Flour's suggestion and carefully dusted the top of chocolate cookies. According to the main recipient of the cookies, they were the finest chocolate chip cookies he had ever eaten. My husband has decided to remove salt from his diet and this has me missing that tang. I'd like to put some of the black salt on the table, but I can't think of an easy way to dispense it. When I did the chocolate chip cookies I practised several times and then concentrated carefully, but even then, dusted some cookies overmuch. Can you think of some vehicle which will deliver a fine layer of powder?

@Kenneth, this sounds great. I'll plan on having another duck soon so I can try this!

@gfweb, this was reminiscent of the flavour of Pork Skins Chips and I don't much like their taste. Wonder if there's any way to fix that? BTW, I really like nice crisp duck skin when it's on the duck. Not so much on the next day's leftovers. (Makes me eat up all the visible duck skin the night of the duck feast!) Doesn't help what to do with the duck skin when it's been removed from the bird though.