What Are You Cooking Sous Vide Today? (Part 1)

[Kerry Beal]

My darling husband surprised me with a Sansaire for Christmas!

 

The inaugural dish will be pork belly, which is happily bathing in hour 10 of 36 at 70°C.  We're having some evaporation issues at the moment.  I'm concerned about the water level dipping too low over night.  I covered the pot with a layer of Saran Wrap as a test.

 

Anyone have any other suggestions or tips?  Thanks!

What sort of container are you using?

[scubadoo97]

Beans are potentially unsafe cooked sous vide!

Some beans contain a lectin Phytohaemagglutinin which is toxic to humans. PHA is denatured by at least half an hour at boiling but not at sub-boiling temperatures. If you're preparing beans sous vide, make sure to boil them on the stovetop for at least half an hour before cooking sous vide or in the slow cooker. (don't ask me how I know all this).

Thanks for that information. Luckily no ill effects but will not do again given the risks. There were several recipes for SV beans on the net so figured it was safe.

[tug]

What sort of container are you using?

 

I'm using a huge stainless steel pot.  A couple of sheets of plastic wrap seems to have curbed the water loss.

[Kerry Beal]

I'm using a huge stainless steel pot.  A couple of sheets of plastic wrap seems to have curbed the water loss.

Ah - you probably don't want to cut a hole in the lid!  If you could find a round lid that fits (like for a round cambro) you could do a cutout to work around the Sanaire.  

[ahpadt]

I cured some deboned, halved turkey thighs and drumsticks in salt, whole pepper, coriander seeds and star anise for 8 hours. Then cooked with duck fat at 70c for ~12-13h.

 

Don't know how it'll turn out yet, but the idea is for it to have a kinda braised texture. This is my first time cooking something sous-vide for this long.

 

It turned out quite well. The meat had a flaky texture, but was still just about firm enough so that I was able to slice the meat with a knife. Not sure if I would want to cook it much longer than this. The skin crisped up really nicely in the pan.

[tug]

Ah - you probably don't want to cut a hole in the lid!  If you could find a round lid that fits (like for a round cambro) you could do a cutout to work around the Sanaire.  

 

 

 

 

The plastic wrap seems to be doing the trick.  I'm not sure what to do with this porky goodness once I hit hour 36 LOL.  There's more than one portion in the two bags I have in the pot.  What's the best thing to do?

[Kerry Beal]

The Brisket Chronicles.

 

1mid sized brisket - the point was cooked at 80C for 12 hours.  Made fabulous sandwiches.

 

 

54.5 C for 24 hours

 

 

54.5 C for 48 hours

 

 

54.5 C for 72 hours.

 

So the 72 hour version is not quite the magic that is 72 hour short ribs - but it is still damn fine.  24 and 48 hours - not quite tender enough.  Would be fine sliced for sandwiches though.

 

 

[chris_s]

made french dip today, roasted the beef SV. It was marked as a "round roast" though I'm not sure if that means top or bottom. Looked to be a very lean cut, with some tough gristle cap on it (which I cut off before slicing but after cooking). Did it for 18 hours at 134 then turned it up to 140 for another 4 hours. Resulted in a nice medium pink, VERY tender not at all like when I've done the same recipe in a slow cooker. I didn't bother searing the beef as it had a decent color. 

Normally when I do this in slow cooker the beef is firm enough that I can slice it very thin on my mandoline. The SV'd beef was too tender, even after chilling, so I resorted to an electric carving knife. 

I can't emphasize the tenderness enough, it was like biting into a sandwich full of butter. 

 

for the dip part I combined the bag juices after cooking with 2.5 cups of water, 1/4 cup of soy sauce and half a packet of onion soup mix. Brought it to a boil for a minute. 

[nickrey]

I had some veal in the freezer and decided to do something summery with it. Cooked it at 57C for around three hours (to pasteurisation) and then quick chilled in ice bath and into the refrigerator.

 

Today I made up some tuna/mayonnaise sauce and made Vitello Tonnato. Served it with a constructed Insalata Caprese (fresh tomato, buffalo mozzarella, and basil).

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I have some 72 hour ribs anovaing at the moment, but earlier this evening I did some chicken breasts for making chicken tetrazinni for tomorrow's dinner.  Yum.

 

Sous vide chicken is the best for making chicken tetrazzini.

[Anna N]

Ribeye steak and a boneless short rib. I will do the steak at 56°C for two hours then up the temperature to 62°C and cook the rib for 24 hours.

[scubadoo97]

Ribeye steak and a boneless short rib. I will do the steak at 56°C for two hours then up the temperature to 62°C and cook the rib for 24 hours.

making good use of a hot bath

[JoNorvelleWalker]

For dinner I had pork baby back ribs.  The ribs were marinated 24 hours in a 70:30 brine, rinsed, dried, and rubbed with MC@H chili powder (p 138).  No salt was added to the rub.  The ribs were bagged and anovaed 24 hours at 68.5 deg C.

 

The bags were then quickly chilled in an ice bath.  There was almost no liquid in the bags at the end of cooking.  One chilled bag was opened and the ribs were patted dry and thrown into a 550 deg F oven for 10 minutes to heat though and brown.  After which a commercial barbeque sauce was applied to the top of the meat.

 

Everything was wonderful except that the ribs were far too salty.  I'm sure the sauce has some salt, however I can enjoy the sauce straight, so I'm pretty sure the sauce was not the problem.  As I mentioned I make the rub without salt.  (MC lists salt as an optional ingredient.)

 

I carefully weighed the salt and sugar for the brine, and measured the water also.

 

Where did I go wrong?

[btbyrd]

When you say "70:30 brine," what do you mean exactly? My first thought upon reading that was that your ribs were going to turn out incredibly salty, but I'm not sure what your ratio is indicating.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

When you say "70:30 brine," what do you mean exactly? My first thought upon reading that was that your ribs were going to turn out incredibly salty, but I'm not sure what your ratio is indicating.

[Kerry Beal]

Couple of nice meaty lamb shanks have been Anovaing for 24 hours at 80 C.

[ElsieD]

Couple of nice meaty lamb shanks have been Anovaing for 24 hours at 80 C.

How long do you leave them in? I have been using the pressure cooker to do mine which works well but I do it that way because I am not sure how long to cook them sous vide.

[btbyrd]

70 grams of salt and 30 grams of sucrose per liter of water.

 

Hmm... that doesn't seem to be over the top. Since this is the main salt addition in your recipe, you might try scaling the salt in the brine back a couple of percent and see what happens. Or maybe soak it in a few changes of water over the course of an hour to drive out excess salt before you bag it.

[Kerry Beal]

How long do you leave them in? I have been using the pressure cooker to do mine which works well but I do it that way because I am not sure how long to cook them sous vide.

24 hours

[TylerK]

70 grams of salt and 30 grams of sucrose per liter of water.

 

That's a 7% salt solution which seems excessive to me if you're brining for 24hrs as you indicated, especially for something as thin as pork back ribs.  I'd either cut back the brining time to 3-4  hours, or cut back the salt concentration to around 4%.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

That's a 7% salt solution which seems excessive to me if you're brining for 24hrs as you indicated, especially for something as thin as pork back ribs.  I'd either cut back the brining time to 3-4  hours, or cut back the salt concentration to around 4%.

 

The meat was far too salty, I can't argue with that, but the brining and cooking is Douglas Baldwin's recipe:

 

http://www.douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html

[TylerK]

The meat was far too salty, I can't argue with that, but the brining and cooking is Douglas Baldwin's recipe:

 

http://www.douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html

 

Not sure what to say then.  Given the thinness of pork ribs, 24hours probably isn't that far off what would be required to brine to equilibrium, so unless the amount of brine you're using is very small you're putting a lot of salt into the meat.   The recipe doesn't look like it specifies how much brine you should use.    I don't think it would make a huge difference, but you're also using a slightly different cut of meat than he specified (spare ribs vs. back ribs).

[daveb]

Among BBQ folks brine rations are typically 1 Gal water,  0.5 to 1.0 C of salt, .0.5 C of sugar.  Other flavoring and seasoning to taste..  The brine is usually rinsed off the product and the product is air dried in the fridge before rubbing and cooking.

 

I've used some different "modern"  based brines prior to SV and have always found the final product salty.  I've had much better results wearing my BBQ hat through the brine process and then go into a SV mode.

[scubadoo97]

What's your salt daveb? Diamond kosher?

[daveb]

Big flakes.   Most often now I use a coarse sea salt, (Allessi), though I still have some of the tradional Morton Coarse Kosher around.  Got to use Kosher salt for those pork bellies you know