Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment, 2012

[vengroff]

I use a stainless steel rack to keep my bags in one place. This particular model is designed for a SousVide Supreme but it works in a variety of cooking vessels. It's very versatile; you can rotate and use it with bags of a wide variety of thicknesses.

[Toufas]

To be honest I haven't seen it yet with the sous vide kit as its on its way right now, it was just a boiling pot with some vacpacked veggies inside. Maybe the water boiling made them move up as I had it on high. I am using a 18l rubbermaid container http://www.nisbets.co.uk/Rubbermaid-Space-Saver-Container/J875/ProductDetail.raction if someone can suggest a rack. I was actually thinking to buy some marbles or use something I dont really need (like coins?) and double vac pack them in a small bag and make a small pouch of coins and put it inside the bag with the food.

Also, vengroff, whats the correct equipment to select in sous vide dash for the 1500w fresh meal solutions kit? http://freshmealssolutions.com/store/products/-SVM%7B47%7DFMM-SousVide-Combo-%252d-Free-Int.-Shipping.html

[Shalmanese]

If you get a couple of moderate strength rare earth magnets, you can easily clip them together on the outside of the bag to form a weight. They're cheap, you can adjust the weight by adding more magnets and they don't touch the food.

[Toufas]

The problem is that I cant figure out how to clip the waight on the bag.

Edited January 22, 2012 by Toufas (log)

[rotuts]

Wow

those R.E.Mags are a great idea!

Kudos!

maybe 'clip is not the correct word:

on the lower 'lip' of your bag, you put one on the 'lip' ie the plastic that does not have food in it and one on the other.

if your bags do not have enough material on the 'bottom' to do this use the top. the non-food top

then it cooks SV-UpSideDown!

Edited January 22, 2012 by rotuts (log)

[Toufas]

Wouldnt that stick to the heating element though?

[rotuts]

So More WoW

marbles. all glass. but try the REMags.

[vengroff]

Also, vengroff, whats the correct equipment to select in sous vide dash for the 1500w fresh meal solutions kit? http://freshmealssolutions.com/store/products/-SVM%7B47%7DFMM-SousVide-Combo-%252d-Free-Int.-Shipping.html

In version 2.1 there is beta support for the SVM/FMM combo.

[Toufas]

I tried today to make kellers marinated tomatoes. I had a very tough time vacpacking the bag with the tomatoes and the syrup, does anyone have any advice while sealing foods with liquid?

[pep.]

I tried today to make kellers marinated tomatoes. I had a very tough time vacpacking the bag with the tomatoes and the syrup, does anyone have any advice while sealing foods with liquid?

You mean besides getting a chamber vacuum sealer?

[PedroG]

I tried today to make kellers marinated tomatoes. I had a very tough time vacpacking the bag with the tomatoes and the syrup, does anyone have any advice while sealing foods with liquid?

See upthread, it is possible but a bit tricky using an edge sealer.

[e_monster]

I tried today to make kellers marinated tomatoes. I had a very tough time vacpacking the bag with the tomatoes and the syrup, does anyone have any advice while sealing foods with liquid?

You mean besides getting a chamber vacuum sealer?

A FoodSaver that has pulse can do this pretty well.

[Toufas]

Thank you very much. I will give it a try tomorrow. Hopefully my kit will arrive as well

Anyone has any experience cooking aubergine/eggplant in sv? I have some nice cheese (manouri) and some tomato sauce from santorini (both from greece) that I would want to use them in a vegetarian dish

[PedroG]

To be honest I haven't seen it yet with the sous vide kit as its on its way right now, it was just a boiling pot with some vacpacked veggies inside. Maybe the water boiling made them move up as I had it on high. I am using a 18l rubbermaid container http://www.nisbets.co.uk/Rubbermaid-Space-Saver-Container/J875/ProductDetail.raction if someone can suggest a rack. I was actually thinking to buy some marbles or use something I dont really need (like coins?) and double vac pack them in a small bag and make a small pouch of coins and put it inside the bag with the food.

....

Vegetables and fruits have air inclusions which will expand with rising temperature and make the bags float. Use marbles in the bag (at the bottom) and suspend the bags on a skewer to assure vertical position.

In my experience, with meat suspending is sufficient to avoid floating, I use marbles plus suspension with very fatty food like bacon or butcher's chops.

[m61376]

I cooked a cut called a "shell Block" (it's a kosher cut that I got from my butcher, highly recommended for sliced steak) for 2.75 hours at 133 degrees. It was perfectly done, but a little fibrous, for lack of a better description. Is it the cut of meat; would I be better off trying it for 4 hours or so next time or not using that cut? How does cooking time affect the fibrous texture?

Sorry for the newbie questions- trying to get a grasp on things. I have made a few fabulous things and am loving this cooking method, btw, but it is a steep learning curve.

[slkinsey]

It's kind of hard to give advice without knowing where the "shell block" comes from. This is a cut of meat I've never heard of. I suspect it comes from the shoulder, which means that it's probably not a naturally tender cut. You either have to cook it LT/LT to get steak-like tenderness, or you have to slice it very thin across the grain (which I assume is what your butcher meant when saying that it was highly recommended for sliced steak). Calling it "shell block" seems like one of those naming conventions to make you think it's shell steak (a.k.a. strip steak) when it really isn't (see: "butcher's tenderloin," which isn't actually tenderloin, etc.).

[rotuts]

I agree. if you like the flavor of the cut ask where on the animal it comes from. SV Shoulder "Chuck" is an excellent cut due to its fine flavor. I do mine at 131 for at least 48 hours.

[Justin Uy]

Hey all, I wanted to ask for some advice on approaching a recipe.

If memory serves, my first exposure to the concept of sous vide was years ago on an episode of the Japanese Iron Chef where the challenger for whom sous vide was a specialty. One of the dishes he made that always stuck out in my mind was a surf and turf dish in which he hollowed out the middle of a filet mignon and filled the void with a big diver scallop which he cooked in the water bath.

Unfortunately for me, the last time I saw this episode was probably 10 years ago, and at the time I never figured I'd be attempting any sort of sous vide cooking for myself, so I'm somewhat lacking on the details, but I'd love to try to reconstruct this dish. If anyone's attempted something like this before, I'd love to hear your advice so that I don't go messing up good ingredients.

What I have in mind is:

-For examples sake for this post, I'm going to assume the steak and scallops are about 3-3.5cm in thickness, so that the numbers I'm quoting make sense.

-I've done filet and scallops each individually before, and I've liked them both at a core temp of 50C, so I think it should be a good match in terms of the final done-ness

-Use Activa RM to bond the scallop to the steak.

So my thoughts about possible issues with the process are these:

-Doing the scallops individually from the fridge to 50C only takes about 20 minutes, where doing the filet takes about 80 minutes (times from experience, and tables in Modernist Cuisine). Will the scallop be done to death by the time the filet gets where it needs to be? Or can I count on the filet being wrapped around the scallop to provide some "insulation"?

-If I do go with the ~80 minute cook time, I'm troubled because the originating dish from Iron Chef, by their rules, was done in under 60 minutes, so I'm not sure what to make of that. Steak/scallop was cooked very rare? Steak started from room temp instead of fridge? Bath at temp higher than final core?

-Best way to cut a scallop sized hole in the center of a filet? EDIT: Another thought I just had...instead of doing this with a filet, perhaps I can find some ribeyes with a big knob of fat between the cap and the eye, and replace that with a scallop? hmmm.

-Any thoughts on what sauces/accompaniments would go well with both steak and scallop?

Thanks a lot in advance!

EDIT:

So through the miracle of the internet, I found these videos that show the dish being prepared. The chef was Senji Osada in a Scallop Battle with Hiroyuki Sakai. He says that he's going to cook them to 55C, but he doesn't drop them until about halfway through the challenge, so they couldn't have been in there for more than 25 minutes O_o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGgXxmVTIBA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkaXK7aTfqw

Edited January 24, 2012 by Justin Uy (log)

[nickrey]

The vapour coming off that water when he puts the scallops in suggests to me that the water bath is much hotter than 55 degrees. I suspect what he's done is used a higher cooking temperature and uses his probe thermometer measuring actual meat temperature to choose when to take the meat out. Also looking at the colour grading of the beef when he cuts it, it is much better cooked on the outer layer than in the middle. This again says cooked in a higher temperature bath.

Edited January 24, 2012 by nickrey (log)

[lesliec]

Hi Justin. I like the sound of that.

A possibility you may not have considered is to bag and cook the steak until nearly done then chill it, remove the bag and insert the scallop. You could cut the hole either at this stage or right at the beginning - I'm thinking I'd do it after the initial cook but I can't think of a really compelling reason either way! I don't have personal experience with Activa; would it still bond to a partly-cooked steak? Anyway, after the scallop's in its meaty nest, re-seal the steak and finish cooking (not necessarily immediately - I'd think you could hold it in the fridge for a while if you wanted to).

I don't think the meat would provide much/any insulation for the scallop since presumably at least one side is in contact with the bag, so cooking the whole thing for 80 minutes doesn't sound like a good idea.

And to cut the hole something like these guys should work.

Let us know how it turns out. We expect photos ...

[Shalmanese]

Do scallops become overcooked at 50C for 80 minutes? Also, if you're geting your scallops frozen, what if you try room temp steak and frozen scallop? That will even out the cooking time a lot.

[Shalmanese]

Also, if you're willing to live with it, you could cut each fillet and scallop in half crosswise so that they're thinner. This should decrease the cook time of the steak by 3/4 but not really affect the cook time of the scallop which means they'll be done at the same time. I would be more worried about how you would handle the post-SV sear.

[NoviceModernistCook]

Just my two sense, i have never cooked scallops in sous vide. But, with steaks, once they reach thier desired temperature, you can keep them there for quite awhile over the suggested time. So, if scallops work the same, and the temp is the same for the steak and scallops, time should not really matter in this case.

[nickrey]

I'm with Shalmanese. If the proposed process overcooks the scallops, try freezing the scallops and putting them in a room temperature steak before bagging and cooking sous vide. Make sure that the hole you cut in the steak is the size of the thawed rather than the frozen scallops, otherwise it will fall out as it shrinks with cooking.

[e_monster]

Just my two sense, i have never cooked scallops in sous vide. But, with steaks, once they reach thier desired temperature, you can keep them there for quite awhile over the suggested time. So, if scallops work the same, and the temp is the same for the steak and scallops, time should not really matter in this case.

With tender steak, keeping them at temperature too long degrades the texture in my experience. For example a filet left in the bath for four hours can taste mushy. Egg yolks also can change texture significantly. The only way to know with scallop is to try.

If you cut a hole in the steak, you will need to sterilize the steak (with a torch or a quick dunk in boiling water) before you cut the hole unless you ate planning on cooking to pasteurization).