Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment, 2011

[CtznCane]

I have a couple of questions which may or may not have been addressed at some point, I just haven't found them.

I'm getting a SVS soon and I regularly brine my pork and chicken. Are there any precautions with brined meat? Does it change the cooking times? Is the flavor from brining magnified through cooking sous vide?

Also, I have a foodsaver vacuum presently. Will this suffice for all my needs? - THanks

[Chris Amirault]

I use a FoodSaver all the time for SV and it works perfectly. You can't compress things as you could with a chamber machine, but you can get the air out of stuff and seal it for the water bath.

Lots of people have brined SV proteins to good effect. There are several entries on the subject in the SV index I just mentioned above.

[ScottyBoy]

I've brine pork and poultry all the time, pat it dry, vacuum in a Foodsaver and cook SV with excellent results. I have found, at least in my experience, cooking times don't change and you will find plenty of cookbooks with recipes that call for brining before cooking.

You might find that after heavy use in the long term you might want to invest in one of the sealers recommended in the Vacuum sealer topic here as I have.

Have fun!

Edited January 20, 2011 by ScottyBoy (log)

[OliverB]

I found oxtails at Costco to my surprise! Now, aside of braising them or making a soup/stew, I'm wondering if these things could not be used SV, maybe cooked really long like 48 hr short ribs? Searching here and there, I come across lots of braises and the like, in beer, wine, etc, which is fine, but if somebody has an idea for doing these things SV, I'd be all ears! I'm not a big fan of five spice, so those preps are out for me, but maybe there are other interesting ways to cook these in my demi?

Thanks for any ideas!

[Caruso]

I just bought a 1 1/2 pound piece of prime tri tip and am thinking about cooking it with the Momofuko short rib marinade in the bag. In doing research on sous vide tri tip, I'm finding that some people are cooking it like a tender cut at 90 minutes, and some are cooking it more like short ribs, for 12, 24, even 48 hours. What gives? For best results, shouldn't the nature of the cut dictate that it be one or the other?

[Chris Amirault]

It's because "best results" varies from person to person and application to application, particularly in regards to texture. One of the great things about SV is that you can prepare several small bags and pull the same cut of meat out at different stages, testing to see what you like. I'd give that a try.

[e_monster]

Tri-tip is not a tender cut, but it is nowhere near as tough as short ribs or brisket. I personally find 7 to 12 hours at 133F to be just about perfect. At 24 hours, I find it a too tender -- a bit mushy in the mouth. But there are people that do it for 24 hours.

Best,

Edward

I just bought a 1 1/2 pound piece of prime tri tip and am thinking about cooking it with the Momofuko short rib marinade in the bag. In doing research on sous vide tri tip, I'm finding that some people are cooking it like a tender cut at 90 minutes, and some are cooking it more like short ribs, for 12, 24, even 48 hours. What gives? For best results, shouldn't the nature of the cut dictate that it be one or the other?

[DaveJes1979]

Egullet folks,

I just put a rather thick leg of lamb into my Sous Vide Supreme for a dinner party tomorrow, and I'm a little worried that it may have been too thick. It will be at 131 F for 24 hours. I seem to recall folks saying not to try to sous vide anything over 2.75" thick. I had to pound the leg down with a mallet, and even then it was just below 3" thick. The leg is only 3.5 lbs. in mass, but it is just rather thick. Should I be worried? Should I cook it longer than 24 hours? Should I take it out right now and try to cut the thing in half to bring the thickness down (it seems like it would do violence to the muscles to cut in this direction).

Also, I should mention that I'll be finishing the leg of lamb with Doug Baldwin's mint pesto recipe per his Sous Vide book. Any suggestions for a side dish to go with this? The pesto makes me want to whip out some spaghetti (I've gotten pretty good at copying Scott Conant's spaghetti with tomatoes and basil dish; it is still pretty good even when one is forced to substitute 1/2 canned tomatoes 1/2 mexican-grown tomatoes this time of year), but lamb and spaghetti strikes me as...strange. Will my dinner party guests think I'm strange?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[Duncan]

There was some discussion on this last year but as I recall, the advice was to do a quick dunk (30 sec) in 180 deg F water to quickly kill off any surface pathogens. I did that with some short ribs that were suspect and did end up tossing them in the trash after cooking as the smell lingered, but that was mostly my fault for keeping the meat far longer than I should have before bagging it.

Mostly now I try to bag quickly, and always do a smell test before bagging.

Keep experimenting!

Thanks stomsf, Chris and Mikels. Next time I'll definitely try a quick dunk in hot water. Thinking it over I suspect it may have been the fat I added which had been sitting in the fridge a while (I mixed the seasoning into a paste with some fat so as to avoid anything actually liquid in the bag).

We had the second ox cheek last night: this one without any worrying aromas and very nice it was too.

BTW, I must say that I'm pretty impressed with the Sous Vide Magic. Now that I've calibrated it against the slow cooker I'm using it seems to be able to hold the temperature to about +/- 0.2C

[DouglasBaldwin]

...I just put a rather thick leg of lamb into my Sous Vide Supreme for a dinner party tomorrow, and I'm a little worried that it may have been too thick. It will be at 131 F for 24 hours. I seem to recall folks saying not to try to sous vide anything over 2.75" thick....

Welcome to eGullet Dave!

I'm the one who started the 2.75"-thick thing in my guide and it's overly cautious for two reasons: First, the 2.75"-thick restriction was assuming the slowest heat shape -- an infinite slab -- and a leg of lamb is somewhere between a cylinder and a sphere and so heats much faster and so can be thicker than 2.75". Second, when I wrote that section I conflated the importance of rapid cooling with rapid heating as well; the food safety literature seems to indicate that heating time isn't a critical control point (just rapid cooling) so long as the cooking time is sufficient to reduce the increase in pathogens caused by the slow heating (and 24 hrs at 130F is sufficient). [At some point, toxin formation and spoilage microorganisms may become a problem with extremely slow heating -- for instance, when rapid aging (see previous posts) for a day or more before increasing the temp to 130F or above -- but I haven't investigated this yet.]

[tomdarch]

Speaking of the "vide" (vacuum) part of "sous vide": how much vacuum does a chamber vac pull? In other words, to do flash pickling or some of the compression techniques in Keller's "Under Pressure," how strong of a vacuum is needed? (Being used to US units, inches of mercury would be ideal, but if you know it in another units system, I'll convert!)

[PedroG]

Speaking of the "vide" (vacuum) part of "sous vide": how much vacuum does a chamber vac pull? In other words, to do flash pickling or some of the compression techniques in Keller's "Under Pressure," how strong of a vacuum is needed? (Being used to US units, inches of mercury would be ideal, but if you know it in another units system, I'll convert!)

See the discussion in the old SV-topic. A chamber vac may pull 99.9% or better, whereas most clamp type machines pull 80% (some more expensive ones pull 90% like the Lava V300). See also Flash Pickles (Cool Stuff to do with a Vacuum-Sealer, Pt. 1) and Flash pickle with sous vide by casquette.

Vacuum infusion can be done in a rigid vacuum container (with a clamp type or a chamber machine), the effect may be enhanced by going through several cycles of applying and releasing the vacuum.

Vacuum compression is done by sealing a bag under vacuum (in a chamber machine) and then applying atmospheric pressure by releasing the vacuum.

[Merridith]

Egullet folks,

I just put a rather thick leg of lamb into my Sous Vide Supreme for a dinner party tomorrow, and I'm a little worried that it may have been too thick. It will be at 131 F for 24 hours. I seem to recall folks saying not to try to sous vide anything over 2.75" thick. I had to pound the leg down with a mallet, and even then it was just below 3" thick. The leg is only 3.5 lbs. in mass, but it is just rather thick. Should I be worried? Should I cook it longer than 24 hours? Should I take it out right now and try to cut the thing in half to bring the thickness down (it seems like it would do violence to the muscles to cut in this direction).

Also, I should mention that I'll be finishing the leg of lamb with Doug Baldwin's mint pesto recipe per his Sous Vide book. Any suggestions for a side dish to go with this? The pesto makes me want to whip out some spaghetti (I've gotten pretty good at copying Scott Conant's spaghetti with tomatoes and basil dish; it is still pretty good even when one is forced to substitute 1/2 canned tomatoes 1/2 mexican-grown tomatoes this time of year), but lamb and spaghetti strikes me as...strange. Will my dinner party guests think I'm strange?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

I took Doug's advice(131 for 24hr)for boneless leg of lamb which I made for a holiday meal. It was PERFECT. Tender, plenty rare, with practically no sinew left in the meat. People said it tasted like lamb prime rib! Why should a bone in leg be much different from a boneless? Also, my understanding is that since it is cylindrical, the thickness of a leg roast (with or without bone??) is less important.

[DaveJes1979]

Thanks for the follow-up, Douglas. Yes, our thick leg of lamb came out perfect at 131 F for 24 hrs. It was a huge hit with everyone. Marvelous.

[paulpegg]

My club is planning to prepare Beef Wellington for our Valentines Event. I have researched many recipes and wonder if it makes sense to sous vide the beef ahead of time, perhaps to 43.3C (110F) for a few hours prior to searing and coating with the puff pastry etc. We will purchase Prime Beef Filet from Restaurant Depot.

We will be preparing this for 40 people and have a good commercial convection oven to finish the dish.

Any thoughts?

Edited January 24, 2011 by paulpegg (log)

[lesliec]

Hi Paul.

Somewhere in the old SV topic - no earlier than last year, I think - there's brief discussion of 'sous vide Beef Wellington' (I've just tried to find it with no success, but I'm sure that's where it was). The technique, which I've followed with great results, is first to sear the meat, then (when cool enough) SV at pretty much a 'normal' temperature - say 53°C - for a couple of hours. Rapid cool it and keep in the fridge until you're ready for the next step, which is to dry it, season it, wrap it in pastry (and other things - pate, for example) and cook it in a hot oven until the pastry is browned. Essentially, you're avoiding the need to worry if the meat is done enough, and concentrating on getting the pastry just right.

Now, the question is: does this give a better result than just brown/wrap/cook with no SV step? In my experience, it did ... but I haven't done it recently, so I may be missing something from my description of the process. If you can, try an experiment with a small piece of the type of meat you're planning to use. Nobody should need an excuse to make another Beef Wellington!

If the original poster of the SV Beef Wellington post is still with us, please join in. I remember, in response to a 'why would you bother' question, you said you'd SV toast if you could!

Edited to add: I found the original post and I had missed a few things.

Edited January 25, 2011 by lesliec (log)

[nickrey]

I did Beef Wellington last night and it turned out perfectly. The meat was cooked for a few hours at 54C, chilled and put in the fridge. I didn't sear it and don't think it really lost anything. Followed Gordon Ramsay's recipe and did a mushroom pate around the meat, wrapped in prosciutto. Because the meat just had to heat through, I cranked up the heat on the stove to around 240C instead of the recommended 200C. Removed the Wellington when the pastry was appropriately browned. The meat was uniformly coloured and looked and tasted magnificent.

Edited January 25, 2011 by nickrey (log)

[paulpegg]

I did Beef Wellington last night and it turned out perfectly. The meat was cooked for a few hours at 54C, chilled and put in the fridge. I didn't sear it and don't think it really lost anything. Followed Gordon Ramsay's recipe and did a mushroom pate around the meat, wrapped in prosciutto. Because the meat just had to heat through, I cranked up the heat on the stove to around 240C instead of the recommended 200C. Removed the Wellington when the pastry was appropriately browned. The meat was uniformly coloured and looked and tasted magnificent.

Thanks, that is what I thought would be the benefit. The convection oven will cook the pastry pretty quickly and we would not have to worry about the meat.

[ScottyBoy]

NY strip, 131 for 3 hours, shocked held for 3 hours before searing for dinner. Very tasty, a good hot sear on all sides then resting in foil was enough to bring up the internal temperature to a nice warm mouth feel.

Edited January 28, 2011 by ScottyBoy (log)

[JBailey]

Has anyone tried to do veal hearts or lamb hearts sous vide? Any recommendations or ideas as to how to prepare and how long to cook? Braising seems to be the conventional way and given the leaness, I might imagine sous vide would be an even better choice.

[Mirdad]

Haven't tried. Keller mentions calf's heart. His offal cooking and braising seems more accurate than others so you might like to try this one. I am curious myself.

Calf's heart is brined for 24h, packed with duck fat, braised sous-vide at 79.4 °C for 24h; then fat is poured off and heated to 82°C, heart is sliced, warmed in the fat, drained and served.

...

I am looking for infographics showing average percentages of collagen content in various beef muscle. Can someone point to scientific research or web articles?

[ScottyBoy]

Was looking forward to using some of my baby yukon golds SV when they came in. Got it perfect at 183 for 30 minutes vacuumed with butter and salt. These little puppies are creamy all the way through and still retain the skin well enough to cook, shock, hold for service then get nice and browned in oil. I sliced this one in half but I love serving these whole. For some reason potatoes were a major interest for me CSV, Win!

Edited January 31, 2011 by ScottyBoy (log)

[Caruso]

A couple weeks ago I made sous vide tri tip cooked in the bag with the Momofuku short rib marinade and it was incredible. A week later I made filet mignon with a simplified version of the marinade made with primarily just the pantry ingredients - soy sauce, sugar, mirin, sesame oil, apple juice. Still delicious. The best part of this was how easy the meat was to quickly brown afterwards without setting off the smoke alarm. Guess that was the sugar helping out.

So now I'm on a quest to find more marinades to put in the vacuum bag that will help with post-sv browning. Any suggestions?

[DaveJes1979]

What do you folks who work at restaurants do when a customer asks for a "doggy bag" of their sous vide meat dish? I assume restaurants must be put into the awkward position of refusing to let their diners leave with their dishes in a box due to the fact that for safety they would have to rapidly chill their food for storing in the fridge and consuming later. And I assume this also rules out running regular takeout/takeaway restaurant service with sous vide food.

[Paul Kierstead]

How would that be specific to sous-vide?