nathanm
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Posts posted by nathanm
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I usually do not sauce heavily - in fact I do lots of experiments with either no seasoning at all, or minimal (salt, and perhaps some oil).
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I have not noticed a metallic taste on any of my sous vide cooking - even up to 80 hours. I'm not sure what this is about...
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I decided to wait to sear the short ribs until after. I've given this some thought, as it seems that that the browning reaction might add to the flavor of the ribs during the cooking process. nathanm, the sous vide sage of sorts, does not do this pre searing, however, so I decided not to. When I do more red meat I will sear beforehand and see if it makes any difference. Naturally, I plan to sear when theyre done.
I've tried it both ways. The argument in favor of searing first is that you infuse the meat with the various products of searing (mallaird reaction, carmelization). Some chefs swear by this - I'm told that Thomas Keller of French Laundry and Per Se does pre-searing on their sous vide meats.
However, it is unclear to me how important that flavor transfer is. I've compared it before and after and I don't think that the flavor transfer is very large. Plus, if you want this effect you can also achieve it to an even higher degree by including some brown stock or demi-glace in the bag. Or, put some crispy bits of meat in the bag (such as trimmings) that are first well browned.
The argument in favor of searing after sous vide cooking is that you can make a hot crisp crust. Most of the time that is what I want, so I sear second. This gives you the appearance and texture of a grilled / sauteed / roasted meat rather than the appearance of browned but soggy meat with no crust (i.e. as you would have in a stew, osso bucco etc.). So that is the trade off - hot crisp brown versus soggy brown.
I suppose that you could sear twice - one before, and once after, but that is both more work and could over-sear the exterior.
Part of the trade off comes in how done the meat is going to be - if you are cooking to rare or medium rare, then the crisp crust is generally pretty desirable (my preference anyway). If you are cooking at higher temp (say, above 60C) then the brown soggy look might be OK.
Then again, many traditional dishes involve crisping even after long high temperature cooking - i.e. crisping the skin on duck confit, or on Mexican carnitas (essentially a pork shoulder confit).
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I'm supposed to make a sauce to go with a traditional British Christmas pudding (i.e. steamed plum pudding). Somebody else is supplying the pudding (I think from the Carved Angel) - I'll have to steam it, but I have a combi-oven so that should be easy.
I need suggestions for the sauce and/or other accompniments.
I think a brandy sauce is traditional, but I don't have a recipe. I'm open to other kinds of sauce as well. Whipped cream or Mascarpone might be worthwhile accompniments.
Please make suggestions....
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Butchers use a special tough wrap called bone guard to prevent puncturing vacuum packing bags that have meat on the bone (like rack of lamb). You can buy it from meat supply place (on the internet), but a small wad (i.e. more than one layer) of aluminum foil over the sharp parts also works pretty well, particularly for sous vide cooking because it conducts heat pretty well.
I have not cooked crab, but I would start at 113F/45C. It works for fish, shrimp and lobster, so it should work for crab.
For timing use the tables based on the thickest part of the claw, then add some time. I am not sure how much because I don't have any data for the insulating effect of the shell. I have not tried cooking crab claws.
The best approach is to use a temperature probe - directions in this thread talk about how to do that using a piece of foam weatherstripping to keep the bag sealed. Of course it is hard to get a temperature probe in a crab claw, but you certainly could drill a hole in the shell up front. That is what I would do, particulary if you plan on doing a lot of these....
Another option would be shelling them raw. This takes the traditional whacking of the claw at the table out of the experience.
Let us know how it turns out.
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On a separate note I have a sous vide questions that I haven't seen discussed yet:
How does one cook something like a duck breast sous vide? Does one have to render out the fat first, or will the sous vide cooking process provide sufficient temperatures to melt that fat away? Any suggestions?
There are as many ways to cook duck breast sous vide as there are to cook it in other ways.
The classic French approach to duck breast is to treat duck breast like the red meat that it is and cook it to medium rare.
I use a water bath at 131F/55C, I cook until the core reaches 130F/54.4C (see tables in this thread for the times). If you like you can then let it cook an additional there 20 min to 30 min for food safety.
Many French chefs serve duck breast even more rare than this - cooking only to 120F/49C. This is a matter of personal preference. A bunch of other chefs will worry about cooking it at that low temp and will cook it at 141F/61C instead, but I don't like like that hot.
You could, in principle, cook duck breast for a very long time (12 to 36 hours) at low tempertaure (I would use 131F/55C) to tenderize it similar to other kinds of red meat. Obviously this depends on the ducks as to whether the breast meat is tough or not. Given the duck that I use, I have not had to do this, but it is an interesting possibility. It would also be interesting for duck legs - traditionally one cooks them at higher temperature because the legs are tougher, but with long time cooking sous vide they might be fine this way. Something to try...
No fat will render at any of these temperatures, so you have two choices - serve the breast without the skin, or crisp the skin by searing under intense heat (broiler, blowtorch, griddle). Any method of cooking which renders the fat will ruin the meat under the skin. If you really want duck skin that is thin and crispy without a fat layer, you have to remove it from the meat and cook it separately.
Or you can overcook the duck breast, if you prefer (can you detect my point of view
), by cooking it at higher temperature. As an example, you can make duck breast confit by cooking it at 180F/82C - there is a whole thread on duck confit that discusses sous vide approaches. These approaches work for the breast too. Traditionally one uses legs because they were not useful for other dishes (too tough) so they were cooked as confit to make them tender and also preserve them.Note that even cooked at confit temperatures for 8-12 hours, the skin will not render all of its fat, and will still need to be crisped or seared.
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I have bought lots of items on ebay, and they almost always work. One water bath died after being used for a while, but it is hard to blame the seller because it worked for many months. There are risks in ebay, but that is also why things are cheap.
There are used laboratory equipment dealers that offer somewhat more in the way of checking that things work, but they are also more expensive.
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For NYC, Tarallucci e Vino (First Ave @ 10th St.) is my favorite.
I was in NYC recently and tried this place. I was not impressed. It may be the best in NYC, and it isn't terrible. It is a clear step above Starbucks, but only a small step. It does not seem to be a bastion of fine espresso like some of the others on the list.
Which begs the question of whether there is any decent espresso in NYC. I have never had any that was great....
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I have done lobster sous vide several times. You need to get the lobster out of teh shell and there are two approaches to this. One is to kill the lobster and cut it up, removing flesh from shell. The other approach is to briefly pour hot (but not boiling) water over it, then proceed to cut it up. This is what Keller, and several other chefs, suggests. The hot water is just poured over the lobster, then poured off, so is only on the lobster for seconds. The advantage to the hot water method is that it loosens the flesh from the shell, claws etc.
Once you have the lobster meat separated (claw or tail) put into a sous vide bag - I ususally include some butter, and potentially some seasoning depending on teh recipe. I cook it at 45C/113F until cooked through (depends on thickness - see the fish time tables in this thread).
Lobster comes out wonderfully sous vide - it is tender and perfectly cooked.
I do shrimp and prawns at 45C/113F also.
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Do you sear your ribs before or after sous vide braising, Nathan?
I sear afterwards, because I like the sear crust to be crispy, and it isn't if you sear first.
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water baths typically have a pump and an inlet and outlet. This is used to circulate water through various tanks or scientific intstuments. You typically just connect input to outlet with a short tube.
Nathan
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Nathan, 55C for 24 hours? Weren't they rather tough yet?
They are fine - not tough at all. They get more tender as you go -all the way out to 72 hours which is the longest i have done. But for these short ribs (bonless, from Costco in a big pack) they are plenty good to eat at 24 hours.
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You have many choices. Ducasse does the ribs as described above.
I personally like them medium rare, so I do short ribs in a 131F/55C water bath for 24 hours. Past 24 hours the flavor isn't as intense. I had some today, as matter of fact.
However, you asked about Daniel Boulud - he does his short ribs in the style of a convential braise so the temp is higher. He does them at 66C for 24 hours.
Nathan
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I didn't see it, but I did ask him....I do not have the details, but I think you could experiment pretty easily if you have a smoker. I have one and may fire it up this weekend to test, but I may not have time...
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Roca puts a pan of oil in a smoker to make his smoke infused oil, which he then uses for cooking salmon in a sous vide bag.
This is NOT the same as liquid smoke, which is VERY concentrated, whereas what Roca uses is very mild. You would need to experiment with the amount.
You might be able to simulate it by putting a TINY drop of liquid smoke in a neutral vegetable oil, but I think you would need to dilute it a LOT.
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Asking the appeal for sous vide is like asking the appeal for roasting, frying, sauteing, steaming or other cooking methods. Each has some strengths and weaknesses for particular applications, because it can either achieve a result you can't get another way (or you can more easily get).
There isn't any one way to cook.
It's unfortunate you haven't liked sous vide food you've had so far, but of course any technique can be done badly. Just how many sous vide preparations have you had?
The comments about restaurants charging a lot for sous vide frankly sounds bizarre - compared to what? I'm not aware of restaurants having a sous vide supplimentary charge. Where did you see this?
There is a huge sous vide thread on eGullet which covers what it is good (and not good) for. Start there to learn how it is done and why to do it.
Sous vide is a new technique for most chefs, particularly in the US. As such it is is starting to go from an exotic thing that only a few chefs to something that is being more widely used. You'll probably see it occur more frequently, and also be mentioned in the press and on menus. Because it is a new technique, and because it lets you do things that are difficult to achieve in other methods, there is a lot of excitement about it. It isn't all that often that a brand new method of cooking is developed - most traditional techniques are very old.
The trendy or fashion aspect of sous vide is amplified by being mentioned on the menu. But to be fair menus frequently name the cooking method - roasted monkfish, fried potatoes, seared foie gras, poached salmon, duck confit. Listing "sous vide X" is no different.
Many patrons won't know what it is at first but those aware of food trends will. This is no different than a term like "confit" or "carmelized" that started out a a narrow technique and now you find on menus everywhere applied to all kinds of food.
And, as Shalimanese says, you can avoid pig bladders!
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Acutally there are several ways to do this.
You can make fractional distillation at any scale, and it is not that costly. It is complex, but that is another matter. The typical lab glassware set up is for small volume but it is not that bad to scale up. Plus the total amount of volitiles is actually pretty small.
But you don't really need to do fractional distillation if you do a two stage process. Or another way to say this is that fractional distillation is a one step process where you want to have two condensates - the water and the volitile fraction. If you do this as a two step process it is much simpler.
So, suppose you want to do a reduction of a liquid (stock, watermelon juice, whatever).
First you do one reduction where you vacuum reduce at low temp. The best way is to use a rotary evaporator which has a condensor column (a cold finger is one design, but there are many kinds of condensor designs). However you could also rig one up another way. The first stage reduces the water, and anything more volitile than water.
Then you take the condensate (which is water, plus volitles) and in a second step you vacuum distill just the condensate in the rotary evaporator. This time you adjust the heat and vacuum so that you are above the boiling point of water and you only get the volitile fraction. Which you can then add back into the reduction.
It is unclear to me how important this is - i.e. how much of the "high notes" volitile fraction can you really taste in the final dish. Most highly aromatic compounds in food seem to be in sufficient concentration that this is not an issue. So while it is true that food that smells great as it cooks is losing something, it's not like the food is tasteless afterwards. Quantitatively it true that you are losing something, but I am not sure if qualitatively you will be able to tell using taste as the metric.
I wonder whether capturing the volitiles in this manner is really going to result in a big perceptual difference? I bet there are cases where it would, but I also bet than it most cases it won't....
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Thats another thing I have been experimenting with is, trying to capture what I call the top notes (flavour compounds that have a boiling point below 100C and are, thus driven off by boiling).
This is a very important point. Any food that smells really good while cooking is losing the very compounds that smell so good! That's why you can smell them - they are being evaporated off into the air.
A system to capture those volitile compounds could be very interesting.
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The first part of this article talks about watermelon Thomas Keller style. The rest of the article might explain some of the concepts of sous vide cooking more clearly. I work in a restaurant that Mr. Goussault has been consulting at for more than a year. This is as much science as it is culinary artistry.
It is a good article for summarizing some of the history of sous vide. There are a lot of inaccurate things about the article - it is discussed in the big eGullet sous vide thread.
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After a series of experiments I settled on sous vide turkey thighs (about 16 oz each), 24hrs @ 165°F (actually 23hrs @ 165°F and 1hr @ 153°F, see below). They were cooked bone-in, trimmed, skin on, seasoned with only salt, pepper and a (very) little garlic. When they come out you can just pull the bone out and lift the skin off. They are so tender it is a good idea to use an electric knife to cut them up into chunks. They were a big hit.
I also did turkey tenderloins seasoned with salt, white pepper, a little butter, and a pinch of poultry seasoning. They were about an inch thick in the bag so I cooked them at 153°F for 60 min.
These temperatures are quite high, but if you like the result, then great.
The thighs are cooked very similar to the manner in which you'd cook a duck confit. You might want to try making it even closer to duck confit - see the duck confit thread. Basically, you salt the thighs/legs and let them sit (brining also works). Then cook with several tablespoons of buttor or oil in the bag. I'd try 170F to 180F for 8 to 10 hours.
You can also try lower temp on the breast tenderloins - I do them at 140F - but again it is up to you.
I think I am going to try doing a sous vide turkey in the combi.Does anybody have a starting point? Time, temp, humidity? Brown it first? Or at the end? Or let it cool off a little and then brown it just before serving? Or brown it first, go wet, low, and slow, then dry it out and crisp it up at the end?
Cooking sous vide in a combi-oven is the same as cooking in a water bath. Use the steam setting and use the same temperture as you would do for a water bath. Steam transfers heat to food much better than dry air, which is why you must use the steam setting.
There is no agreement on whether you should brown sous vide food before you bag it, or do it after you un-bag it the end. Both work. The difference is that if you brown first you will not get a crispy / crusty exterior because it will get soggy in the bag. You can do a three stage approach where you brown, bag, then re-brown - that would work too - but I'm not sure what the advantage would be, and it is an extra step.
You can also cook turkey at low temperature in a combi oven without using a sous vide bag - either a whole bird or parts. It is difficult to do a whole bird sous vide because of size - a turkey won't fit in most vacuum packers. In addition, the interior cavity of the bird means there will not be great heat applied there. Whole sous vide squab and quail work well - even some small chickens. But if you want to do a whole turkey it is better to do it as follows.
There are an infinite number of combinations for how to program time and temperature. Here is a simple approach is to put the combi-oven on steam mode at the same temperature you'd use for sous vide. Use the time from the tables for the thickest part of the bird, and or use the thermometer probe. Here is an example, which I have done in my combi-oven.
1. Prep bird normally - truss, salt & pepper etc. Run your hand UNDER the skin, loosening the skin from the body - do this for breast legs and back. If you want you can season under the skin with flavored butter or oil. Poke some holes in the skin in any areas where fluid may be trapped under the skin when the bird cooks. The reason to loosen and perforate the skin is to make it brown better in the last step below. Also, the very tips of the wings may get too dark in the browning step so it may be better to cut them off.
2. Preheat the combi-oven to 145F in steam mode.
3. Place the bird wire rack in the combi-oven , NOT in a roasting pan. If you want to catch drippings, put a pan under the bird, one rung lower than the bird. You want air to circulate all around the bird. There will not be a lot of drippings in this method. Steam in combi-oven at 145F - until probe registers 140F in thickest part of the bird.
4. Continue steaming at 145F for another 30 minutes AFTER the core temp is reached. This is for food safety concerns - simply coming to temperature is NOT enough - you need to sit at tempertature for a while. Also, this gives you some saftey factor in case the probe was not in the thickest part.
5. Remove bird from oven - dry with paper towels, and rub skin with oil or butter. At this point the bird is done but won't be browned. Let the bird sit while the oven is preheating - it's not necessary to cover it. If you used a dripping pan to catch drippings remove it now - you dont' want it in for the next step.
5. Turn combi-oven up to the highest setting - generally 500F (or potentially even higher) and 0% humidity. Let it reach that temperature BEFORE you put the bird in.
6. Return the bird to the oven (again, on a wire rack) to brown the skin. Watch it carefully so it does not over brown.
7. Remove from oven. Use a blowtorch to add final touches for browning parts that did not get quite brown enough.
This produces a very nice roasted bird with an interior texture similar to sous vide.
Nathan
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Yes, this is exactly the point of doing it. I have not specifically tried watermelon juice but this is exactly the point - you can concentrate delicate juices without heating them.
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nathanm could you tell me more about your vacuum flask for reduction? I've always wanted to try vacuum reduction. How fast does it reduce? How do you think the taste differs from normal reduction? Are there any things you can do with it that you can't do using normal reduction? I've always wanted to try reducing various fruit juices using vacuum reduction. I imagine you could come up with some pretty intense sauces this way.
It's really very simple - you need a vacuum pump that can take moist air, and a filter flask - which has a vacuum port, a stopper and some tubing.
The simplest vacuum pump is an aspirator - fits on a faucet and you run tap water through it to create a vacuum. There are more complicated vacuum pumps, but you don't need a high vacuum for this.
Depending on how hard a vacuum you pump, sauces or stocks will boil at room temperature. It is exactly like normal boiling EXCEPT the temperature is lower. Just like normal boiling it can be a rolling boil, or a simmer. You can heat the flask to speed the boiling up but that tends to remove the reason you're doing this in the first place...
Taste difference comes in only through temperature. If you want to reduce something without heating it, this is the way. It works great.
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I've experimented with making chicken stock by running all the meat, bones and vegetables through a commercial grinder and then cooking it all substantially below the simmer (at around 80C) overnight.
All the bones? Even the leg and thigh and back? Must be a large mouthed grinder...
Do you do this before roasting or after roasting? I could see a reason for either way...
I don't have a grinder, but I guess I could get a grinder attachment for my 20 quart hobart mixer.... I worry a bit about big chicken bones, but maybe it could take it...
My version of this is that when I make meat jus, I slice the meat very thin with my meat slicer - then brown them in the oven - then simmer. Browns more surface area that way...
A Winter Sous Vide Odyssey
in Cooking
Posted
No common bacteria can grow above 125F. Unless you put seawater from an undersea volcanic vent int the bag, I think we can rule out bacteria as the cause.
In theory you could get some bacteria growing in the center of the meat if it takes a long time to reach 125F (say in a very thick piece) but that is extremely unlikely - the center of most muscle meats is sterile.
Try cooking without any seasoning but salt and see how that goes...