cookalong

Thank you! Sure thing. I use Conference pears (peeled, base trimmed, cored). I poached them in a mixture of fresh pear juice, fresh ginger juice, vanilla seeds/pods and sugar (about 4dl of pear juice, 0.5dl ginger juice and 100g sugar, and 5 pears in a large sous vide bag). I cooked the pears in the liquid for about about 5 hours at 80C (the pears were a bit unripe, usually 3 hours do the trick). Then I chilled them in the bag and refridgerated. Took them out of the fridge about 30 minutes before serving to let them come to room temperature. I can really recommend sous vide pears. Sweet and tender, but still a bit al-dente and they retain their shape perfectly. I've done it with red wine/spices too and it worked very well. Thinking about poaching them in rhubarb juice, sugar and grenadin next.

From the last days: Fillet mignion (sous vide), choucroute, beef sauce and gratin of potatoes Duck breast (sous vide), sauce gastrique with orange, brussle sprouts, pickled beetroot, celeriac puré Don't know if this belongs here since it's a dessert, but while we're on the subject, sous vide pear poached in ginger/vanilla with a lime sabayonne.

Salmon, sauce maltaise (couldn't find blood orange, so regular ones had to make due), asparagus, potatoes Toasted pistachio panna cotta, macerated strawberries, chrystalized pistachio crumble and strawberry sorbet (lots of strawberries during the short time when they're in season here).

And, equally important, the flash freezing pretty much prevents all enzyme activity, which ruins the meat pretty quickly.

Italian food was on the menu today. First a beef tagliata for lunch. Carbonara for dinner, and vanilla/coriander-pannacotta with macerated strawberries for dessert.

Thanks, although the lighting does enhance it quite a bit

Very Northern European:ish dish. Breaded flatfish, Danish-style sauce remoulade and spring potatoes.

Thank you! I cooked the aspargi(?) for a couple of minutes in the vegetable stock (a lot of flavour is lost to the cooking liquid so I figured I'd put that flavour back into the risotto by cooking the aspargus in the stock). Then I removed them and blended them to a thick green liquid. I incorporated this asparagus-mixture into the risotto at the end, hence the lovely colour I have no idea about the plural of asparagus, English isn't my native language, as you probably could tell

Haven't seen him, but I can imagin that risotto is kind of suicide in a cooking contest show, where it probably has to stand for a long time before beeing judged. Made a risotto again today with the leftover asparaguses. This time I blanched them in the cooking buillion, removed, blended, and incorporated them into the risotto base a couple of minutes before the mantecatura.

I like this style of risotto...all'onda. Do you use carnaroli rice for your risotto? Me too, love it when it's runny, as long as the rice still has some bite. Yes, I pretty much always use carnaroli.

Such beautiful creations in this thread, one is almost embarrassed to post something. Well screw dignity, here´s an asparagus risotto with poached (sous vide) salmon from last night

Why do you wrap them in cling film first? I assume it is to give them a nice round shape, and to keep that shape when vac-packing them.

I agree, rhubarb is the perfect application for SV. You don't even need a sous vide setup, I've done them in a large pan of water on the stove in a ziploc-bag, when I needed the waterbath for other dishes. One pretty good version is from the dish Crab Biscuits (The Fat Duck), where the chef poaches them in a mixture of grenadine and cointreau. 60C for about 30-45 minutes. You end up with a very tasty and tangy piece of rhubarb, and an intense red colour.

Thanks for the input! Is there any chance of the meat getting ruined? Sometimes I don't like the meat when it's been in the bath for too long. I haven't seen many loins in my SV books, except for Heston who cooks it to 52C in a 60C bath. Pasteurization is not an issue in this case (will eat it immediatly, and the meat is of great quality).

Will the long cooking time make a big difference, as opposed to just let the meat reach temperature? I assume it's for disolving collagen?

I need some advice for pork loin, for an upcoming dinner party. In the past I've cooked an occasional loin and some pork fillets sous vide. The results has been pretty varying. Sometimes I've gotten a very pink, moist and tender piece at 60C. Sometimes I've got a white and pretty dry piece of meat at 56C. I'm very sensitive to overcooking and I hate "traditional" pork. I really want the meat to be red/very pink and moist. I think I'm able to find some really good pork from the Iberian pig this time around, instead of cheap super-market stuff. Question is, how do I cook it? Which temperature should I go for? I just got a thermometer with a thin needle probe, so cooking at a higher-than-target temperature is an option. I really want the guests to appreciate it just as much as they've would have appreciated a nice medium rare beef fillet.

Just my two cents. I don't really have any counter-arguments, but there are lots of mays and maybes. Heat does definitely produce those chemicals. Really high doses of those chemicals might be cancerogenic in rats and some other animals. Although I think several studies haven't found a connection. There might be one. Truth is, nobody knows for sure, so we have to make up our own minds, as always. And even if it's proven beyond doubt that it can cause cancer in rats, that doesn't necessarily (far from it) mean that it applies to humans. Personally, I'm (as well as most federal recommendations) a lot more worried about the risk associated with cured meat and large amounts of red meat. Not that I ever worry about it, but the high temperature-thingy is the last thing I worry about. Also, the amount of chemicals formed during browning depends on the cooking time, so just searing meat quickly is not as "bad" as a more lengthy cooking time (i.e. less HCAs/PAHs are formed).

Keith_W: Looks delicious. I can assure you that the quality of your wagyu kicked the ass of my steak

Cleared out my freezer the other night and found some stuff I had forgotten I'd put there. Sirloin steak topped with pan-seared foie gras, sauce bearnaise and asparagus. Gratin of potatoes served in separate ramekins.

Plus it's a very convenient way of preventing oxidation if you store the food for later use, and overall a very practical, non-messy and hygienic way of dealing with food. But in general, I don't think you would loose that much by just throwing the meat into a waterbath without the vacuum bag. Temperature control is way more important than the vacuum.

The longer the better. Thanks you! Even if I use a 3.35" needle for a 1" piece of meet, will the needle still stay attached to the bag? Even though only 25-30% of the needle is inside the meat? I have both probes. Both will do the job, but I find myself using the shorter one more often, as I normally don't sous-vide very thick pieces, and for thinner pieces the large one may have a too big portion outside of the bag. On the other hand, if you have the short one and you happen to want to measure a really thick piece you can do nothing... I suppose a lot of my pieces are about 1-1.5 inches thick. Is it very difficult to keep the probe in place in those cases? I suppose the foam tape will add a bit of thickness (polyscience sous vide foam tape), plus you could also insert the probe at an angle.

The longer the better. Thanks you! Even if I use a 3.35" needle for a 1" piece of meet, will the needle still stay attached to the bag? Even though only 25-30% of the needle is inside the meat?

To late to edit my last reply, but regarding the length of the probe, do you think 2 inches would suffice? Do I need to insert the probe at an angle? I don't want to end up with a probe that's too short for cylindrical shaped fillets.

http://www.thermoworks.com/products/handheld/mtc.html#ProbeTab says: The Miniature Needle Probe is a Great choice for Sous Vide cooking,as the PTFE cable and sealed junction allow you to immerse the cable and probe. The Fast Response Meat Needle Probe which attaches directly to the thermometer without cable would be difficult to use in the water bath. Thank you very much! I'll go with the Miniature Needle, 3.5 inches.

I've decided to buy a thermometer with a thin needle to use for, among other things, sous vide. I'd like to try to cook meat with a slightly higher-than-target temperature. I've settled for the basic ThermoWorks MTC Mini Handheld. What probe do you recommend? Should I buy the Fast Response Meat Needle Probe, which is 3.35", or should I go for the Miniature Needle Probe, which comes in 2" or 3.35"? Both have a thickness of 0.06 inches. I will use it with foam tape to measure the temperature of the meat while in the water bath.