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

[Amida0616]

You might be interested in the two YouTube videos I made this week on sous vide cooking:

Sous Vide Chuck Roast

Sous Vide Chicken Breasts

I've never made or posted a YouTube video before, so they're pretty rough. Do you think I should make more YouTube videos on sous vide cooking? If so, what topics/recipes do you think I should demonstrate?

Pretty good videos overall. I agree with the volume problem, the videos are very quiet. I would love to see more.

If you could get better close ups that would be nice as well.

I hate to encourage someone to be phony but maybe a touch more enthusiasm would help?

I agree with EAC as well. More content means a lot more people finding your videos and more people buying your book.

There are not a lot of good sous vide videos out there now so you could create a lot of interest.

Edited August 2, 2010 by Amida0616 (log)

[lesliec]

Hi Douglas. Congratulations on the videos - I think the level/tone/content was just right. As others have mentioned, they may be a little quiet, but I didn't have too much trouble hearing them. By all means make more - maybe one of the more obscure SV topics, like preparing the custard for ice cream, might be a good one.

I'm looking forward to your book being more generally available to us foreigners. I see Amazon US is now listing it, but they're not selling it directly; it comes from the SV Supreme people. Any word on when Amazon will be selling it 'properly'?

[dougal]

...

I'm looking forward to your book being more generally available to us foreigners. I see Amazon US is now listing it, but they're not selling it directly; it comes from the SV Supreme people. Any word on when Amazon will be selling it 'properly'?

... and this morning, sadly still not even available for pre-order on amazon dot co dot UK.

[DouglasBaldwin]

Thank you for your constructive criticism: I'll make sure the volume level is higher next time and that you can see what I'm doing. I'm generally a cheerful and outgoing guy, but I'm not used to being videotaped and it showed --- I'm sure the more I do, the more myself I'll be. Since I used my cousin's video equipment (who was visiting last week on vacation), I'll order a video camera and will plan to make a new video every week or two. [i still plan to do a major revision of my guide, but working in the office 60 hr/wk on my doctorate is keeping me from making much progress on it.]

As for my book's availability, I'm afraid I don't have any control over it. I'll keep sending them emails voicing your complaints and hope they make it available to you soon.

Thank you again for all your comments and support.

[Merridith]

Thank you for your constructive criticism: I'll make sure the volume level is higher next time and that you can see what I'm doing. I'm generally a cheerful and outgoing guy, but I'm not used to being videotaped and it showed --- I'm sure the more I do, the more myself I'll be. Since I used my cousin's video equipment (who was visiting last week on vacation), I'll order a video camera and will plan to make a new video every week or two. [i still plan to do a major revision of my guide, but working in the office 60 hr/wk on my doctorate is keeping me from making much progress on it.]

I enjoyed the videos and once I figured out how to turn up the volume on my own speakers, I could hear perfectly well. I would like it, though, if you would give a little more information about the basic principles of sous vide which apply to a particular lesson. Thanks for your wonderful contributions, research, etc. in this area.

[RDaneel]

Thank you for posting the videos, Doug. I really appreciate all the effort you've made in this thread and your book. To celebrate (!?!) my new Polyscience (hopefully shipping soon!), I ordered a copy of your book via Amazon, even though I was hoping to save on shipping by buying it directly. I'm sure it will be well worth the $30. Can't wait to try it out.

I look forward to more videos, I'll be very impressed if you can do one every week or two, that's a lot of work for a busy man!

Maybe one thing to do would be to make a dish from your book - showing the SV cooking and the various sauces/preparations you can do with the protein. One thing that really drew me to SV was the idea of being able to SV one meat and serve it with different finishing - allowing me to mix up the menu without having to make totally separate dishes every evening. Your book seems to help in that area, and it would be a cool thing to highlight in a video.

[nickrey]

I bought some nice looking brisket the other day and cooked it for around 30 hours at 57C.

Not sure what to do with it, I searched my cookbooks using the new eat your books library bookshelf and found that beef brisket was recommended for David Thompson's Beef Penaeng Curry. On consulting the curry recipe in the Thai Food cookbook, it is one where you cook the beef separately, cook the sauce, then add the beef to heat through.

So I made up the sauce from scratch, simmered it until cooked and then added sliced, already sous vide cooked, beef brisket along with some of the bag juices to increase the beefy taste. Instead of simply reheating, I left it sitting for an hour for the flavour to infuse the beef and then reheated. The result was absolutely delicious.

Am looking forward to trying leftovers as the curry taste is likely to have further penetrated the beef.

[ScottyBoy]

When I did a 36 hour brisket I ended up slicing it and making bánh mì sandwiches!

On my never ending quest for great chicken, sous vide has taken it to the next level.

My most recent effort,

After cooking for 2 hours in butter at 60c, I pressed it to get the flat skin surface, trimmed and breaded with sumac powder, flour and salt.

Fried on the breaded skin side and basted with the chicken fat/butter from the bag.

Very good.

First post, very excited to get in on this forum. Always looking to brainstorm with other food crazy people!

Edited August 5, 2010 by ScottyBoy (log)

[nickrey]

This post continues the theme of what to do once you've cooked some meat sous vide. In this case, I used chicken breasts.

The sous-vide cooked chicken was coated with a home-made bang bang sauce and tea-smoked for around five minutes.

The resulting chicken was sliced and served on a salad.

A photo of the dish can be seen at this thread on the eGullet Dinner! thread.

[Doc-G]

Hi there,

Its been such a long time such I've been to egullet and at least a few years since I've seen this thread. I kind of lost my mojo with food writing whilst doing my Gastronomy MA. But now that I finished and had a break, my mojo is back and so am I.

So, anyway, when I first saw this thread, I got really excited and during this time, I've been able to try some lovely food cooked sous vide in some great restaurants but is was only recently when I was able to purchase an immersion circulator that I've been able to try my own. Not having seen most of this thread, for a few years, I assume that the whole egg thing is old hat here but just wanted to share my first experiment of eggs cooked for 75 minutes at 64 degrees centigrade.

As far as flavour goes, they taste like eggs. Where they came into their own however was with regards to texture. They are creamy and rich like custard and have a similar texture all the way through with a velvety, soft and unctuous mouthfeel unlike any other egg dish and quite unlike standard poached eggs.

Anyway, regards to all. Its great to see this thread still going and I'm really excited about Nathan's upcoming book. I remember being very impressed with his posts in the earlier parts of this thread and its great to see that his knowledge will be available to a much wider audience. I look forward to learning more and trying out some of the recipes and techniques from this thread.

Doc-G

'The Foodologist'

Edited August 10, 2010 by Doc-G (log)

[e_monster]

Hi Doc,

Thanks for the post. Did all of the whites come out as custardy as they look in the picture, or did you remove the more watery part. Your time/temp is one that I have used quite a bit but I always find that some of the white is too watery to serve. So, not everything that was in the shell ends up going on the plate.

[Doc-G]

Hi e_monster,

Yes, I have found what you have found too. David Chang's book, 'Momofuku' gives the recommendation to crack the eggs on to a saucer and then slide the egg on to the serving plate. He recommends poaching for 45 minutes at 60 degrees which seems short and cold but anyway I found that the plate thing helps to separate some of the watery stuff out. My concern is that cooking to temperatures too high will harden the yolk too.

What about longer cooking times at say 62 or 63 for 3 or 4 hours? Does this cook more of the white without hardening the yolk?

Regards,

G

[ScottyBoy]

I do mine at 65c for 60 minutes. Easier to handle and the thin albumin is easy to separate from the main egg. The yolk is still totally soft and running with a custardy white. I haven't tried cooking them for 3-4 hours, maybe I can try it out when I make some on thursday for a party. Here are a couple examples of the final product using japanese Jidori eggs.

Edited August 10, 2010 by ScottyBoy (log)

[e_monster]

I do mine at 65c for 60 minutes. Easier to handle and the thin albumin is easy to separate from the main egg. The yolk is still totally soft and running with a custardy white. I haven't tried cooking them for 3-4 hours, maybe I can try it out when I make some on thursday for a party. Here are a couple examples of the final product using japanese Jidori eggs.

Looks beautiful. So, you too are seperating off the runny part?

I have often done eggs for 8 to 12 hours at temps from 143F to 147F. Even at 147F for 10 hours, there is still some runny white. I have read that there is a component of the whites that just doesn't set at all until some temperature over 160F (don't remember the exact temp).

It is worth noting that the difference in texture of the white changes only subtly at 145F whether cooked for 80 minutes or 8 hours. But there is a quite noticeable difference in the texture of the yolk. So, yolk setting can happen at lower temps when left for a long enough time. 145F overnight is a really nice breakfast. The yolk is just barely set.

And, for me, the source of the eggs makes a big difference.

I have also dabbles with Wylie Dufresne's 158F for 17 minutes. At that temp, the difference between overcooking and undercooking the eggs is a matter of only a minute or so -- and also a matter of whether you let the eggs get to room temperature before starting. When they come out right, they are incredible, the yolk is translucent but very lightly set and has this amazingly rich texture that some call 'fudgy'. I generally do 147 for 80 minutes because the result for me is more reproducible.

[FoodMan]

I recently attempted to make pastrami sous vide figuring it might be more ideal than steaming the brisket. A pastrami is a piece of brisket that is cured, spiced and smoked for a while to develop a smoky flavor but certainly not anywhere near cooked. The meat is then finished by steaming for a few hours until tender. So what I did is instead of the last steaming part, I CSV for about 20 hours at 65C.

The result was definitly not as good as a traditionally steamed pastrami. The meat was a bit tougher than I like but not much. It was closer to a good steak in texture than a nice deli pastrami. That is easily fixable obviously. The main problem was the flavor. The smoky flavor intensified in the pouch and gave the meat a slighlty acrid taste as opposed to nicely smoky. It also did not seem as juicy as I would've hoped but that could be due to the first problem of not cooking it long enough. I took a couple of pictures but have not uploaded them yet. I can if anyone is interested.

[ScottyBoy]

Good to know, I love pastrami. After buying my setup I started making turkey for sandwiches right away. A long low salt brine then CSV produces the same texture and quality of deli turkey. The final chapter of making my favorite meal, baking the bread, making the mayo-mustard, growing the lettuce-tomato and constructing a great turkey sandwich!

[Chris Amirault]

I've got two kids who love their turkey. Can you give the recipe for this?

[DouglasBaldwin]

I've got two kids who love their turkey. Can you give the recipe for this?

I have a recipe for turkey breasts in my guide along with pasteurization times. As a special treat for yourself, remove the skin and crisp it between parchment covered sheet pans in the oven until golden brown --- yum.

[DouglasBaldwin]

As for eggs, I'll quote my cookbook:

The important temperatures and proteins when cooking an egg in its shell are:

• 143°F (61.5°C): the protein conalbumin denatures and causes the egg white to form a loose gel;
  
• 148°F (64.5°C): the protein livetin denatures and causes the egg yolk to form a tender gel;
  
• 158°F (70°C): the protein ovomucoid denatures and causes the egg white to form a firm gel (the egg yolk also coagulates around this temperature); and
  
• 184°F (84.5°C): the protein ovalbumin denatures and causes the
  egg white to become rubbery.
  

If you like your egg white firmer than it is in the “perfect” egg, heat the water bath to 167°F (75°C) and cook the egg for the time listed in Table 1 on page 162.

I may have the times from Table 1 of my book somewhere up thread, but I can't remember.

[slkinsey]

I've got two kids who love their turkey. Can you give the recipe for this?

Fairway sells gigantic turkey breasts tied up as "roasts" and we do this all the time. My general practice is simple:

(1) put various seasonings, salt and some liquid into the bag (even though my machine makes a strong vacuum, I find that adding the liquid to the bag produces better results -- don't know why)

(2) seal and cook to pasteurize at 62C

(3) chill the bag in an ice bath, chuck it in the refrigerator overnight

(4) take it out and rinse off the accumulated "bag goo"

(5) slice as needed for sandwiches, etc.

We do similar "lunchmeat" preparations (albeit at different temperatures depending on the protein) with thick seared "London broil" steaks, pork loins, chicken breasts, leg of lamb, etc.

[ScottyBoy]

I've got two kids who love their turkey. Can you give the recipe for this?

I never write anything down as an exact recipe, even when making a brine I just go by taste. i know it's foolish, I really need to start writing everything down. The brine I use salt, sugar, honey, cinnamon stick, clove, bay leaf and star anise. Brined overnight, rinsed and CSV at 155 for 2 hours.

How about I do another batch this week and I'll scribble everything down.

On a side note, the hits just keep coming with my setup, dry curing under vacuum has cut my bacon making time from 7 days to 4.

[e_monster]

Doug,

I have been meaning to ask, in the pictures in the egg table of A Practical Guide to Sous-Vide Cooking, is there watery egg-white (or water) from the shell on the plates that is hard to see in the picture? The reason that I ask is that I cook my eggs in the 145F to 148F range and my whites don't seem to set as much as these whites seem to be set.

Thanks,

Edward

As for eggs, I'll quote my cookbook:

The important temperatures and proteins when cooking an egg in its shell are:

• 143°F (61.5°C): the protein conalbumin denatures and causes the egg white to form a loose gel;
  
• 148°F (64.5°C): the protein livetin denatures and causes the egg yolk to form a tender gel;
  
• 158°F (70°C): the protein ovomucoid denatures and causes the egg white to form a firm gel (the egg yolk also coagulates around this temperature); and
  
• 184°F (84.5°C): the protein ovalbumin denatures and causes the
  egg white to become rubbery.
  

If you like your egg white firmer than it is in the “perfect” egg, heat the water bath to 167°F (75°C) and cook the egg for the time listed in Table 1 on page 162.

I may have the times from Table 1 of my book somewhere up thread, but I can't remember.

[Edward Dekker]

I've got two kids who love their turkey. Can you give the recipe for this?

Sous Vide Turkey Breast is one of my favorites.

I buy Turkeys around Thanksgiving, when they are cheap. Last November I processed 8 Turkeys which will last the year. I will process more Turkeys in November.

I bone the bird and make stock from the bones. I use the oven method. I brown the bones in a 350 F oven, place the bones, onions, and vegetables in my stock pot, add water and put the stock pot in the oven which I reset to 200F. I will add vegetables depending what I have including carrots, bell pepper, hot peppers, and celery. I let the stock simmer in the oven for 12 to 20 hours and strain it. It is great for gravy, stuffing and soup. The stock is frozen in 3 cup packages.

I bag the breast (boneless, skin on with a couple tablespoons of turkey (or duck) fat, Bells Poultry Seasoning, Meat Magic and a couple tablespoons of turkey stock and freeze until I am ready to cook it. I cook at 136F or 141F (using Douglas Baldwin's time table). (The thickness will depend on the size of the bird.) When it comes out of the bag I slightly brown the skin with a propane torch. I find that browning the skin on the breast improves the flavor of the meat. The bag juices are used to make the gravy, supplemented with some stock.

Some of the Turkey Thighs will be bagged in the same way as the breasts, but most are used for ground Turkey. I use the ground turkey for many things including Turkey meatloaf, and Ma Po Bean Curd made with Ground Turkey in place of Ground Pork.

[Paul Kierstead]

I have a small 'roast' of wild boar in my freezer. Ideas on time/temp, seasonings, etc?

[DouglasBaldwin]

Yes indeedy. That's why I give an alternative method using a higher temperature (167°F/75°C) for a precise time that I calculate from egg circumference (based on empirical measurements I made) to set the white so it isn't watery.

Doug,

I have been meaning to ask, in the pictures in the egg table of A Practical Guide to Sous-Vide Cooking, is there watery egg-white (or water) from the shell on the plates that is hard to see in the picture? The reason that I ask is that I cook my eggs in the 145F to 148F range and my whites don't seem to set as much as these whites seem to be set.

Thanks,

Edward