Sous Vide of stuffed food.

[Alex Parker]

Hey everyone! Im doing a chicken breast Sous Vide style, however Im stuffing it with cheese, mushroom, peppers and shallots. Is it best to stuff before the sous vide process and let it all cook the same way, or Should I just cook the stuffing off separately, stuff the chicken after its cooked, and give a quick saute to brown it up. The other option of course, is sous vide the chicken, make the stuffing, and actually stuff it at the end. I would like to avoid this though, as the flavours of the stuffing, wont be able to develop within the breast.

What do you think would be the best way to do this?

Thanks!!

Alex

[Anna N]

I have done the stuffed breasts sous vide and stuffed them before putting them in the bath and it worked out just fine. I'll try to fish out the recipe I adapted.

Edit to add:

Here you go. No truffles in this house but I simply adapted and used some creminis and some cheese that Kerry Beal had smoked on her Big Green Egg.

Edited April 16, 2011 by Anna N (log)

[gfweb]

I would worry that the cheese would ooze out at SV temp and the veg would be undercooked. Never tried it though.

[cbread]

You could precook as needed the veggies and then stuff the chicken for SV.

[Alex Parker]

Thanks everyone! Anna thanks tons! I have a truffle cheese which I am using, it may work out well. Its a beautiful cheese. Im getting choked up just thinking about it

Ggweb - I was thinking the same thing, But if I do a fine enough Brunoise on the Pepper, Shallots and Mushrooms, I should be ok. I am going to bind them together with some bread crumbs and a bit of balsamic vinegar as well as oil, so It will be fairly pasty by the time Im ready to cram it all together.

Cbread - Youve given me an idea. I may just saute the whole thing off quickly just to give it a bit of colour. It may help the look of the overall product. I will get back to everyone with some pics! I just broke down the chicken, so decided to make some stock with whats left, and find a use for the chicken legs at a later date. (maybe another farce...Chicken Supreme perhaps).

Thanks so much !

Alex

[Jen Rehm]

I just did this with great results.

I sauted the filling (mushrooms, shallots, comte) and finely chopped it in a food processor with a little EVOO, pounded the chicken, and rolled it using saran wrap. I kept it in the saran wrap, sealed the edges and put that in the vac bag. 50 minutes at 149deg. the saran wrap helped the chicken keep it's shape. Seared it in a super hot buttered pan to serve.

it was really good.

[Alex Parker]

It worked!

I did a bit of everything. Fine brunoised some Peppers, Mushrooms, Green Onion. Sweat it in oil. Pounded out my chicken, coated the inside with some really nice British Beer Grainy Mustard, added filling, plus some White Truffle Cheese I have, and Sous Vide it for about 2 hours. Then I pulled it out of the bags, heated a fry pan, and coated the chicken with a combo of the grainy mustard and some maple syrup, then a coating of pepper, and grape powder and seared them off. Nice thick slices, and the results were fantastic!

Thanks everyone!

alexP

[dougal]

It worked!

I did a bit of everything. Fine brunoised some Peppers, Mushrooms, Green Onion. Sweat it in oil. Pounded out my chicken, ... added filling, ... and Sous Vide it for about 2 hours. Then I pulled it out of the bags, ... and seared them off. Nice thick slices, and the results were fantastic!

...

Sous vide is about temperature, and time.

So is ordinary cooking but you don't think about it in the same way.

The veg needs to be cooked to 80/85C.

But sv chicken would be better around 64C.

Fine chopping helps things cook faster in a frying pan. They get up to temperature much faster.

But no matter how finely chopped, veg won't cook properly at 65C, no matter how long you give it. And the fine-ness of chopping barely affects that non-cooking.

Also, beating your chicken would give you a bigger wrapper, but it shouldn't be necessary for sv cooking to destroy the meat's natural texture.

Again, conventional cooking would give you faster cooking after flattening/thinning the meat. And you might need to do that to cook/heat the stuffing before the meat wrapper is overcooked. But that overcooking risk isn't a concern with sv ... unless you try and cook the meat at veg temperature!

SV allows you to cook each component at its ideal temperature, rather than trying to physically arrange and assemble things so that sufficient heat penetrates the stuffing before the outside is burned to a cinder.

[Alex Parker]

Dougal - I had sweat the stuffing off before actually stuffing the chicken. The flavour profile for the stuffing developed within a saute pan. It was simply a matter of keeping it warm in the bath, and allowing the flavours to expand into the meat it was wrapped into.

Alex