Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment (Part 7)

[Guy MovingOn]

[Moderator note: The original Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment topic became too large for our servers to handle efficiently, so we've divided it up; the preceding part of this discussion is here: Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment (Part 6)]

I was confit-ing belly pork last night at 80C. Following the recipe I had cut up the belly pork into roughly 2.5cmx3cm chunks, brined for 36 hours, then dried and bagged with some fat.

I was intending to let them cook at 80C for anywhere between 12-16 hours. It was 18 hours when I realised that I hadn't taken them out of the bath yet. There is a lot of fluid from the bag. I presume it is the extra liquid taken on by the meat in the brine, plus some of its own juices.

I have read about a 3 stage cooling process to try to maximise juiciness of protein which has been cooked en sous vide. I believe that small chunks of meat (admittedly they were all in the same bag, but no more than 4cm thick at all) cooked at 80C for 18 hours should be relatively safe/sterile, so I have tried cooling them more slowly than I would normally with anything cooked at lower temperatures for shorter times.

Is this the best way to try to improve the juiciness of the meat, or is it a lost cause? Also, is it potentially dangerous? I would have thought that 80C for 18 hours is a very high temperature for a very long period of time, and that almost all bacteria would have been destroyed.

BTW, once the contents have cooled, I plan to deep fry them before serving.

Thanks for your opinions!

Edited July 24, 2013 by Mjx
Moderator note added. (log)

[Guy MovingOn]

Just to note, the contents are being refrigerated, I just wanted to cool them down slower. I guess it would have taken a couple of hours for them to cool to room temperature. I know that traditional confit can be stored at room temperature - some people say indefinitely. Also I think my temp/time combo will put me on the safe side, I just wanted to double check!

[slkinsey]

If you are going to keep the meat in the sealed bag, you want to chill it as rapidly as possible for safety reasons. Dropping the bag in an ice-water bath is the usual way.

[e_monster]

Is this the best way to try to improve the juiciness of the meat, or is it a lost cause? Also, is it potentially dangerous? I would have thought that 80C for 18 hours is a very high temperature for a very long period of time, and that almost all bacteria would have been destroyed.

BTW, once the contents haofve cooled, I plan to deep fry them before serving.

Thanks for your opinions!

The safety issue is largely the spores as they are much harder to deactivate than the bacteria. I would stick to Doug Baldwin's recommendations.

[DouglasBaldwin]

...

Is this the best way to try to improve the juiciness of the meat, or is it a lost cause? Also, is it potentially dangerous? I would have thought that 80C for 18 hours is a very high temperature for a very long period of time, and that almost all bacteria would have been destroyed.

...

The safety issue is largely the spores as they are much harder to deactivate than the bacteria. I would stick to Doug Baldwin's recommendations.

e_monster is correct. The spores of Clostridium perfringens will easily survive your 80C (175F) for 18 hours. Rapid cooling (in ice water) is the best way to prevent sporulation of C. perfringens.

[Guy MovingOn]

Thank you for the clarification on the cooling.

The process to which I was referring was Bruno Goussalt's multi stage cooling, which I read about in the NYTimes article Under Pressure (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/14/magazine/14CRYOVAC.html), when after having cooked the food en sous vide, it is then "cooled, successively, at room temperature, in cold water, then in ice water, before being reheated and served." I had read a discussion about this multi-stage cooling process earlier in this thread, and thought it was concluded that this method improves the juiciness of the protein.

Douglas could you please help my confusion! Btw, I am still going to pasteurise a chicken breast at 55C and report back to you! Sorry I haven't gotten round to doing it yet! I was a big fan of 57.5C chicken, but consider that to be almost as low a temperature as I would want!

[DouglasBaldwin]

Guy MovingOn,

The difference is in the context: Mr Goussalt is concerned with industrial sous vide cooking and we are interested in home and restaurant sous vide cooking. If you're trying to cool thousands of pounds (kilograms) of food, successively cooler baths makes a lot of sense. At our scale, it's much easier for us to drop the cooked food into an ice bath until the core's cold enough.

That multi-stage cooling improves juiciness hasn't been shown to my satisfaction. First, I'd only consider it when doing braises (i.e., at 70C/160F and higher). In the small scale experiment I did for myself a couple years ago, there was a small difference but it was within my expected error. I've never gotten around to doing a larger scale experiment to see if there is a statistically significant difference. Personally, I usually let my braised pork sit on the counter for about 15 minutes before placing them in my ice bath --- but this is mainly to cool the pouches enough so they're not painful to handle.

Edit: Typo

Edited March 29, 2010 by DouglasBaldwin (log)

[Andrew Chalk]

Do you crumble the crispy skin or just lay a sheet from the salmon on each fillet?

[Guy MovingOn]

Guy MovingOn,

The difference is in the context: Mr Goussalt is concerned with industrial sous vide cooking and we are interested in home and restaurant sous vide cooking. If you're trying to cool thousands of pounds (kilograms) of food, successively cooler baths makes a lot of sense. At our scale, it's much easier for us to drop the cooked food into an ice bath until the core's cold enough.

That multi-stage cooling improves juiciness hasn't been shown to my satisfaction. First, I'd only consider it when doing braises (i.e., at 70C/160F and higher). In the small scale experiment I did for myself a couple years ago, there was a small difference but it was within my expected error. I've never gotten around to doing a larger scale experiment to see if there is a statistically significant difference. Personally, I usually let my braised pork sit on the counter for about 15 minutes before placing them in my ice bath --- but this is mainly to cool the pouches enough so they're not painful to handle.

Edit: Typo

I believe that it is not only in industrial applications where he has recommended this process. He obviously consults to several restaurants, and I believe that it was earlier in this thread that lecture notes or photgraphs from these seminars were posted.

However, having reread this thread, I have come across posts from several people, including NathanM, who have stated that the three stage process should not be used.

I suppose then, that traditional confit is safe to store at room temperature indefinitely, but sous vide confit must be refrigerated?

[nickrey]

Do you crumble the crispy skin or just lay a sheet from the salmon on each fillet?

I cut square shapes, place a small cut in the salmon and the place it like a little sail in each fillet.

Otherwise you could just lay it on the fillet.

The skin is eaten like a little piece of pork crackling.

I haven't tried it crumbled.

[jk1002]

@ emonster

The fat in wagyu melts like butter. It will actually melt based on your body temperature so that is why I didn't SV mine. There is another thread around here how to prep it.

That said, I had both the japanese (with noseprint of the cattle) and the american. The american I did pan sear because the marbling wasn't that crazy and I was sort of unprepared.

The japanese, well see below:

I guess I would make the call upon seeing what you get in the mail.

I did salmon over the weekend. I had farmed and wild. Huge difference in texture, farmed was mushy and soft, the wild one was nice and firm yet moist. Both were done at 60.5 for a 70 minutes.

P.s. For those interested, I got Jose Garces Latin Evolution. He has a few Sous Vide Recipes in there.

[millions]

I made some of the best short rib chili I've ever had over the weekend. I browned about 1/4 pound of ground chuck just for a little beef fat and flavor, to which I added garlic, onions, bell and chipotles, the chili powder and cumin. After adding some canned tomatoes and red wine, I let this cook down for about a half hour before letting it cool. I then cubed 2 pounds of boneless short ribs, added them to the other ingredients and then bagged.

36 hours in a 135 degree bath, and I then enjoyed some of the most incredibly tender and flavorful chili ever. I plan to make bigger batches of this for bagging and freezing of individual-sized portions as rainy-day meals.

[Phaz]

I decided to finally try some short ribs, I did a lot of research and cooking them and settled on going with just salt and pepper in the bag then cooking at 141f(60.5c) for 72 hours. I know then to take them out and sear them on the sides with a little bit of oil. What I'm unsure of is what kind of sauce to serve with them. From what I can gather people use the juice in the bag to create a sauce, but I haven't yet found any recipes or what to mix it with (other than some amount of red wine). Does anyone any relatively simple recipes/tricks for a sauce?

[jk1002]

For a quick sauce, I sometimes take a little demi glace and mix it with port wine or madeira, little cream done. Not making demi glace from scratch but using "More then Gourmet".

[skinnye]

One thing that my new SVM has done is made me plan way in advance, it is Monday and I am thinking about Easter dinner already. I'm going to SV a boneless leg of lamb in an attempt to outdo my wife's family recipe. So what about it gang, want to help me out? I'm planning 55C for 24hr, give me some seasoning ideas...no need to worry about tradition (obviously).

[lesliec]

Can't go wrong with rosemary and garlic, in moderation. Some traditions are good.

[Guy MovingOn]

One thing that my new SVM has done is made me plan way in advance, it is Monday and I am thinking about Easter dinner already. I'm going to SV a boneless leg of lamb in an attempt to outdo my wife's family recipe. So what about it gang, want to help me out? I'm planning 55C for 24hr, give me some seasoning ideas...no need to worry about tradition (obviously).

I love port and redcurrant jelly with roast rack of lamb, and often used that jelly with extra port and stock to make a gravy. Perhaps it might not go so well inside the bag, but you could think of it as some sort of condiment.

Another tradition is minted lamb.

[Guy MovingOn]

I made the deep fried pork belly confit. I have to say it was delicious! I imagine pork from a better source than the supermarket would be so much better still. I'm not sure if my deep frying technique was good enough, I would have hoped for the skin to be even crispier - that's probably a fault of my own.

I was going to serve it with some salad tossed in a simple vinaigrette of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, but it was late at night and we didn't have any salad. The Charcuterie book suggested serving it with a crusty loaf, so instead I made some toast, spread some duck fat on the toast, then added the cubes of deep fried porky goodness, and then drizzled on a sauce I had made with the cooking juices, plus some honey and mustard.

It was quite delicious, but as I say, my deep frying technique probably let it down, and the serving accompaniments could have been better

The pork was marinaded with lots of salt, pepper, thyme, cinnamon, garam masala, nutmeg, and white wine for 36 hours, then bagged with some duck fat, goose fat, and olive oil.

Intended to cook at 80C for 12-16 hours, but ended up being 18 hours.

Edited March 30, 2010 by Guy MovingOn (log)

[BadRabbit]

I am pretty new to sous vide having just built an immersion circulator a couple of weeks ago. Since then I have noticed that there really is a dearth of sous vide recipes available on the web and I'm having a little trouble getting the seasoning of dishes right. I have read this entire thread and have picked up some tips with regards to cooking times and safety but still have a few questions regarding seasoning and conversion of traditional recipes.

Is there a general conversion anyone is using with herbs, salt, etc... to compensate for the increased flavor potency of SVed items? For example, would one cut the amount of fresh rosemary in half when cooking chicken sous vide? Do you salt in the same proportions?

There is nothing worse than waiting HOURS for something only to find that it is so bland as to require lots of post SV seasoning or so herby and salty to make it nearly inedible. I have been very successful with a few dishes but others have not fared so well. Anybody done any experimenting with some good rules of thumb for seasoning?

Edited March 31, 2010 by BadRabbit (log)

[Phaz]

Well I'm sold on the short ribs. 72 hrs at 141 was perfect. Someone actually made a comment about getting up to get a knife then realizing they didn't need one at all.

A couple interesting notes, I did them 3 different ways. One bag had a teriyaki sauce, another had a sweet bbq sauce and the third was just salt and pepper. The teriyaki and bbq sauce obviously had very different tastes, and I could certainly smell the difference in the bag. However, once I got them out of the bag and seared them they were hard to tell apart. The plate got turned around and I forgot which was which. Both tasted sweet but neither had a strong bbq or teriyaki flavor. It was quite good.

The only thing I'd do differently next time is get some leaner short ribs and trim them really well before hand. They were just slightly too greasy (but the meat was incredibly easy to separate from the fat).

[e_monster]

@ emonster

The fat in wagyu melts like butter. It will actually melt based on your body temperature so that is why I didn't SV mine. There is another thread around here how to prep it.

That said, I had both the japanese (with noseprint of the cattle) and the american. The american I did pan sear because the marbling wasn't that crazy and I was sort of unprepared.

The japanese, well see below:

I have never cooked Japanese Wagyu, but I have cooked plenty of American Wagyu from the same purveyor that the French Laundry uses. I have never found the fat to actually render at temps like 135F and below (which are the only temps that I have used with it). The fat cap definitely did not render at all--though it was nice and soft. I have seen the claim about Wagyu beef fat having a melting point less than 100F but must admit that it strikes me as hard to imagine -- since steer have an average body temperature of 101F. It is my understanding that mammalian body fat is not liquid at a mammal's normal body temperature. Perhaps, I am mistaking.

It seems that the percentage of monosaturated fats (which do render at temps less than 100F) in Wagyu fat is higher than that of standard beef. That is also true of grass-fed beef that isn't wagyu. The monosaturated fats however aren't "free". They are mixed with the saturated fats and so don't behave as if they were in isolation.

Perhaps I am mistaken, but I think that if you took that Japanese Wagyu and cooked it sous-vide at 129F for 1/2 hour or an hour and then did a very quick sear in a very hot pan (no more than 30 to 45 seconds per side) that it would turn out well.

[Phaz]

Does anyone here follow Kenji Lopez-Alt's posts on Serious Eats (The Food Lab)? He's done some SV related stuff in the past. Today he has how to do a perfect rack of lamb (Link to article).

He goes through a few methods, but finishes with an interesting one. He decides that cooking SV for about an hour is his goal, however his methods are quite different. Rather than using his SVS he takes a more simple approach. He removes the air from the bag by simply dipping it into a water bath and squeezing out the bubbles. Not a perfect method but he says good enough to get the bubbles out so it will stay under water and cook evenly. Then, instead of a fancy setup, he places 130f tap water into a Thermos cooler. He checks back an hour later and the water has only dropped to 127.4f and the lamb was a perfect 125f. Even after 3 hours the water was still 124f.

That method obviously won't work for short ribs and things that take a long time, and it's certainly not as accurate as the big setups, but I can see it as being a nice, simple, cheap alternative for people for 'good enough' results when the cooking time is on the lower end, which I find is the case for most of what I cook (Steaks, burgers, fish, etc).

What do you guys think?

[e_monster]

Just ate a skirt steak cooked for 29 hours at 132F with a little liquid smoke and a couple of tablespoons of 5% brine then seared with an Iwatani blow torch. This might be my favorite cut of beef now. More flavorful than a ribeye and as tender as a filet. And it was nice and juicy. This wasn't even prime beef and it was one of the most flavorful steaks I have eaten.

[jk1002]

I can see that. I did flank steak twice at 55c and it was awesome. Like you did I would advise for a bit longer then 24 hours, the first one I did was incredible, the second one had a tiny bit of toughness left. I would probably do 26 or more hours next time just to be sure.

[Phaz]

I need some help. I've never been able to do poultry. I can do beef, fish, pork, everything else.

I tried duck confit today using a Hudson Valley moulard breast cut in 1/2s. I followed Douglas' method and brined it for just over 3 hours in a 7% solution that also had some herbs and a little bit of orange juice (no orange slices but I figured that would work). I forgot to wash the breasts after (that might be my mistake). I put them in a bag with a couple slabs of duck fat and threw it in at 80c for 10 hours. At first the bag looked fine, lots of fat and duck. After a few hours I began to see red juice in it. I took them out, let them rest 5 minutes or so, and seared them and had them with some mushroom risotto (first time doing that as well, and it turned out amazing. I was worried since I've never even had risotto before but according to my friend that tried it the texture was almost dead on).

They were pretty darn tasty, but dry. A few bites took some trouble to swallow properly. What did I do wrong? The same thing happened when I tried chicken. I feel like poultry should be the easy thing to cook but I can never get it moist, even when the juices are sealed in the bag with the meat.

Is there a solution to prevent the moisture from leaking out or to put it back into the meat when it spills over into the bag?

Edited April 12, 2010 by Phaz (log)