Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment, 2011

[nickrey]

The idea is great Dcarch. If someone was to produce them food safe, I'd be one to buy them.

For the computer ones, it's too far off spec to recommend to others: the manufacturers make them safe for computer uses, not for someone to stick them into food. Even as an avowed early adopter, I wouldn't go near this.

[PedroG]

Hanger steak

My first experience with diaphragm was not bad, but not "the ultimate treat". Now the same supermarket had hanger steak (cuts of about 400g, thickness 35mm) on the self-service shelf at a price 1/6 of tenderloin or 2/3 of brisket, so I gave it another try. Marinated two days at 1°C, 48h/55.5°C (batch cooking together with three cuts of brisket), chilled quickly and 9 days later reheated 2¼h/55°C, seared in smoking hot rice bran oil, it came out fork-tender, with a nice dark crust and perfectly red inside, very tasty and succulent. A few thick tendons were not gelatinized as I experienced earlier with enzymatic tenderization. I hope I can repeat this experience in the future.

I was so excited I forgot to take a picture of the finished dish, so here are only the pictures before vacuum-sealing:

[paulpegg]

Pedro,

I have been cooking hanger steak for years. It responds very well to sous vide. There is a central sinew that runs through it that should be removed prior to cooking. This results in cutting the piece into two "ropes" that can easily serve four to six people. here is shot of a few pieces I trimmed out yesterday. The section on the right is untrimmed. My piece is not a pretty as yours. I buy wholesale and the meats are basically raw cut from the slaughter house.

I just salt and pepper them and include a few smashed garlic cloves and a sprig of rosemary (wrapped in paper towel) in the bag and cook at 55.5C for 2 hours followed with a two minute sear on all sides. This is very inexpensive meat and is delicious.

[Pilori]

I've scanned the previous pages of this thread, so hopefully I'm not repeating a question. I have access to a molecular biology lab, and can obtain new equipment-such as an immersion circulator, other than being more compact is anyone aware of any advantages the sous-vide professional has? I would think it's very similar, just marketed to the food industry.

Thank you!

I'm curious about this as well.

[pep.]

For a complete change in topic (and my first post): I've got 12 guests arriving in a few hours for a six-course meal and my internet-ordered immersion circulator hasn't arrived in time. One of the dishes is supposed to be a kind of roastbeef sous-vide and so 1,5 kg of beef tenderloin (I hope that's the right word for the cut, in Austria we call it Lungenbraten/Filet) thawing in the fridge.

My current plan is to sear it on all sides, rub it with salt and pepper and vacuum seal it with a small amount of beef stock. Then I'd fill a Pyrex bowl with hot water (barely not boiling) and put it into the oven at nominally 75 degrees centigrade. After an hour or so, I'd check the core temperature (unfortunately, I don't have an accurate thermometer, just an analogue bi-metal one). If it shows slightly over 50 degrees core temp, I know from experience that with resting, I'll get a nice red medium rare.

Any objections? Better ideas? Cooking times? I've got Under Pressure and Sous-vide for the Home Cook, but as far as I have ssen, both assume you cook at the desired core temp + 0,5, which I can't do (no accurate temp and the oven can only be set in 25 degree steps, starting at 50).

Greetings,

Peter

[mr_meanor]

Hi Peter,

Even without being able to get an accurate temperature on your oven, you can "fine tune" by wedging the door slightly open - I found this when cooking a forerib for 24 hours at 60c. with a little playing around, I managed to keep the temperature +/- a couple of degrees. The smell that filled the house stopped me sleeping that night though!

From my limited experience, I would not sear the meat first, I find I prefer to vacuum seal raw, then season and sear after the cooking, but I know other people prefer to do it as you suggest. I also wouldn't add the stock as I don't think it will need it.

Use a large pot of water as your bath, that way the thermal mass will even out any fluctuations in oven temperature, once you have got a steady temperature, you can hold then meat there almost indefinately. If you want medium rare, try to get the thermometer reading 55c (maybe edging towards 60c to allow for the method) in the water, and cook the steak for at least a couple of hours, remove and rest in the bag so it holds on to all its juices, then sear it just before serving to get a nice crust.

I am very much a novice, but have had great success with my "Heath Robinson" sous vide set up as shown below, beef is still one of my favourite things to cook this method!

The size of my pot means that I can easily cook a forerib in it, as I did for Christmas this year and it came out wonderfully! You'll have a great time when your circulator finally arrives!

[pep.]

Unfortunately, keeping the oven door open is not an option. The electrical oven is small standalone microwave/grill/convection combi gadget that stops if you open the flap. My "real" oven is a 70s or 80s gas stove monstrosity which can't be set low enough (and the stove knobs melt if you open the door long enough - I've already tried that for meringues once or twice ;-).

But yes, I could use the thermometer in the water to get a feel for the real temp in the oven. Maybe the setting "75 degrees" is actually low enough. But still, even with 60 degrees, I couldn't use the time tables for thickness, so I'll have to measure core temp at some point...

[mr_meanor]

Yes, I see your problem!

The two ways to do it would be

A: Wait until the core temp is correct in a hotter than required water bath - this would be like a slow version of conventional cooking, so you would still see some gradient across the meat

B: If you can maintain a satisfactory water temp, leave the meat in there for long enough that the whole piece reaches the same temperature and is done throughout as you would like

I think what you are trying to achieve is "B" - Maybe the best bet is to turn your oven on now, put the water bath in, and see what actual temperature you can maintain in it. If its close then you are good to go, if it gets too high, then perhaps you could "surf" between the 50c and 75c settings on your oven to maintain something between the two? If you leave the meat in long enough, the core temp will match that of the water, give or take a degree...

[PedroG]

I guess your tenderloin is near cylindrical, so use this table to determine heating time. If you can keep your water bath temperature between 51-55°C, you should be fine. Post-sear the whole roast and/or sear each individual steak to give more crust.

Enjoy!

[blackp]

Why attempt such a risky method to serve 12 dinner guests?

There are many excellent ways to cook fillet steak conventionally.

The whole deal about sous vide is accurate temperature control. Without that you have hit and miss. You may cook a great meal for your dinner party or you could just as easily make a mess of it - with no particular explanation as to why given the degree of control you have over the cooking temperature.

My recommendation is to find a conventional recipe for your fillet and purchase a suitable sous vide device to enable you to experience things cooked to precise temperatures.

I've made excellent Beef Wellington using eye fillet after cooking it at 50C for 2 hours and then coating it with liverwurst, mushrooms and finally wrapping it in pastry and baking it. Using conventional methods it is very hard to get the meat cooked sufficiently without overcooking the pastry, but given that my meat was already properly cooked to rare it did not over cook and I took it from the oven once the pastry was done to my satisfaction.

I use a Sous Vide Magic with a large rice cooker and have had hundreds of excellent meals from that set up.

Cheers,

Peter.

[pep.]

Why attempt such a risky method to serve 12 dinner guests?

There are many excellent ways to cook fillet steak conventionally.

The whole deal about sous vide is accurate temperature control. Without that you have hit and miss. You may cook a great meal for your dinner party or you could just as easily make a mess of it - with no particular explanation as to why given the degree of control you have over the cooking temperature.

My recommendation is to find a conventional recipe for your fillet and purchase a suitable sous vide device to enable you to experience things cooked to precise temperatures.

If you reread my original post carefully, you will notice that I have purchased an immersion circulator already, it just hasn't been delivered in time.

Also, the roastbeef is not the main course and I'd like to use low temperature cooking as to not overdo it (so we omit the sous-vide label you seem to object to). Unfortunately, I haven't seen any cooking time tables for cooking at a higher temp then the target temp (but still low) anywhere.

[LoftyNotions]

Do you have any stovetop / hotplate options that would get you in to the correct temperature range?

[PedroG]

...

Unfortunately, I haven't seen any cooking time tables for cooking at a higher temp then the target temp (but still low) anywhere.

Nathan's table is here, but if you do not have precise temperature control, I would rely on the equilibrium temperature method where you have only one critical parameter (temperature) and time is not critical. Temperature swings in the water bath will be attenuated within the meat by the limited heat conductivity of the meat, so if your water bath oscillates ±2°C or so around your desired core temperature, you will achieve your desired doneness.

[dcarch]

Food is expensive.

I don't know where you are located. I would run out to the supermarket and get a digital probe thermometer. You can get one for less than $20.00.

dcarch

[nathanm]

Pedro is right - hotter than core cooking requires more precision in timing, for little in the way of benefit.

[vengroff]

Peter,

It may be too late at this point, but based on your description of your approach, here is my best approximation of what will happen, subject to the water staying at 75°C, which is obviously a big assumption.

The key point here, as Pedro and Nathan indicated, is that timing becomes very critical with overly hot baths. At the time the core reaches 50°C it will still be rising at 0.8°Ç/minute, so getting the timing right is critical. Note also that this is for a 60mm diameter filet. If I change it to 61mm, then the time goes from 44:01 to 45:20. So at a high temperature like this even something as simple and getting the diameter slightly wrong makes a big difference.

Given the option, cooking 0.5-1.0°C above your target makes way more sense than cooking at 25°C as in this example. But I think you already knew that at are in a pinch. Hope this analysis helps.

[pep.]

Dinner's over, all the guests have left (we met for cocktails at 15:30 local time to be "parent friendly", the actual meal started around 17:00). The beef turned out very well, using my crude low temperature/pseudo sous-vide method. I'll post pictures tomorrow.

Obviously timing was critical, but as the water most likely did not actually reach 75 degrees (even though I filled the vessel with near-boiling water, the cold meat must have dropped the temperature much faster than the oven could heat it up), color and texture where great and very uniform. The meat was roughly cylindrical with a diameter of approximately 8 cm (I didn't have a caliper so it could be 5 mm up or down). Since I "navigated" using my old analogue meat thermometer (which I will replace soon, but supermarkets do not carry digital thermometers here, inexpensive or otherwise), I can't say what the cooking time was exactly. It was more like "OK, still a few degrees missing, check again in 10 minutes" thing, but I guess total time was around 1 hour 40 minutes (plus 5 minutes resting time).

Next time, I'll have my new Polyscience circulator, so the whole process should be much easier. Anyway, thanks for the link to Nathan's table (even if I could not directly use them) and for the general support.

PS @blackp: Regarding Beef Wellington, why use liverwurst? Maybe you have got better liverwurst, but I'd rather make the duxelles for Wellington without any liver than use a pork or veal sausage. But then again I have a somewhat irrational dislike for commercial forcemeat sausages – probably some repressed childhood trauma ;-)

I've never used actual pâté de foie in my Wellingtons, but when I substitute for this ingredient, I use chicken liver sauteed with some shallots and white wine (blended of course).

[mr_meanor]

Glad to hear it was a success! I always like "skin of your teeth" cooking!

[blackp]

PS @blackp: Regarding Beef Wellington, why use liverwurst? Maybe you have got better liverwurst, but I'd rather make the duxelles for Wellington without any liver than use a pork or veal sausage. But then again I have a somewhat irrational dislike for commercial forcemeat sausages – probably some repressed childhood trauma ;-)

I've never used actual pâté de foie in my Wellingtons, but when I substitute for this ingredient, I use chicken liver sauteed with some shallots and white wine (blended of course).

I'm glad your dinner was a success - I guess I was just pointing out (not very clearly) the difficulty in cooking in an uncontrolled water bath which is probably more difficult than conventional cooking which we have learned a feel for over the years.

As for the Wellington - the use of liverwurst comes from my mother's recipe. I've made it with home made chicken liver parfait which I also like, but as a child Mum would make beef wellington for special occasions and it is the memory of that which still works for me.

Of course she never had sous vide to help her and relied on the correct level of cooking during the sear to get the final dish to the table done perfectly. It's much easier for me to get it right than it was for her.

Cheers,

Peter.

[pep.]

So here a the promised pics.

Part of the tenderloin on the cutting board (not a good color combo on the photo ;-):

The plated dish:

A slice of roastbeef with a light "salad" of garden cress with olive oil (I wanted to use lime-infused olive oil to give it some acidity, but forgot in the hurry). In real life, the meat was slightly more red than it appears on my monitor.

[Chris Amirault]

I've scanned the previous pages of this thread, so hopefully I'm not repeating a question. I have access to a molecular biology lab, and can obtain new equipment-such as an immersion circulator, other than being more compact is anyone aware of any advantages the sous-vide professional has? I would think it's very similar, just marketed to the food industry.

I'm curious about this as well.

Pilori and prospectbake, there was a lot of discussion about this question in the first SV topic, the index for which is here. This equipment index, in particular, will help you out.

Here's a quick summary of what I think you'll find in there. Yes, many of the immersion circulators you'll find repackaged or remodeled for kitchen use are simply versions of those found in labs, but the features vary quite a bit depending on intended use. If you go to the two different PolyScience IC websites -- one for science labs and one for kitchens -- you can pick up the differences quite quickly. The SVP, for example, contains the heating coils within the casing and is built to clamp onto a stock pot, unlike the lab circulators.

So the question is, how will you be using it at your house?

[PedroG]

....

I "navigated" using my old analogue meat thermometer (which I will replace soon, but supermarkets do not carry digital thermometers here, inexpensive or otherwise)

....

Hi Peter,

before buying a digital thermometer, you might tread this. To my knowledge one of the least expensive precision thermometers is the Greisinger GTH 175/PT (resolution 0.1°C, accuracy ±0.25°C). You get it at www.conrad.at, you might prefer the version GTH-175PT-K which you can use as a core temperature meter in the oven (up to 250°C) as well as for calibrating your SV-rig.

Beware cheap "junk" thermometers, they may be miscalibrated by several degrees.

[JBailey]

Just the other day, my Thermapen died and I ordered another. ThermoWorkis is based in Utah, I believe. They carry a wide range of products if this digital thermometer is not what you seek. I do believe the Thermapen was originally a product in the UK so it may have different brand names around the world.

[dougal]

Just the other day, my Thermapen died and I ordered another. ThermoWorkis is based in Utah, I believe. They carry a wide range of products if this digital thermometer is not what you seek. I do believe the Thermapen was originally a product in the UK so it may have different brand names around the world.

Thermapen _is_ a British product.

It is distributed in the USA by Thermoworks.

The manufacturer (ETI) has various other international distributors. http://thermometer.co.uk/content/4-distributor-list-1

The 'new' splashproof Superfast Thermapen is a great kitchen gadget, and while not as accurate as Pedro's suggestion, it is formally calibrated and so good enough as a "sanity check" for your sv controller, and perhaps it might be more generally useful.

[JBailey]

Dougal

I was not trying to take the Thermapen away from the British domain! Maybe the country of origin is why it works so well! Thank you for the correction, I was fairly certain Thermoworks was a distributor and I did not know the name other than the US presence.