What Are You Cooking Sous Vide Today? (Part 2)

[Shelby]

I am also enthralled.  I've never seen this cut.

[EatingBen]

that looks astoundingly delicious! I've never heard of that cut before but I'll have to find it to try!

[kayb]

Oh,my. That looks marvelous!

 

I have been catching Wright's bacon on sale at Kroger of late, and buying 3 or 4 24-oz packages at a time. I've accumulated a fair amount of bacon (but at $4.99 a pound instead of $8.99, I'll spare that freezer room!). I am going to take a page from Kenji's Serious Eats sometime this week, and SV several packages as-is (why waste a perfectly good vacuum seal?) for a minimum of 12 hours at 145F. Allegedly this method yields cooked bacon that, after searing for a couple of minutes on one side and a few seconds on t'other, surpasses all bacon-y expectations. I will report.

 

Edited December 13, 2016 by kayb (log)

[Porthos]

Souv Vide bailed me out today, Christmas day.

 

This has been a hard year. The two toughest things were learning that my FIL has terminal cancer and then learning my surviving sister has terminal cancer. My DW and I have simply not felt in any kind of celebratory mood. No Christmas movies, never once put on a Christmas CD. We just didn't have it in us. And Crhistmas Dinner - always a special meal - no thanks. My younger daughter, her husband and their toddler live with us but we understood they would be spending the day with his mom. By this afternoon I was exhausted. Driving to Anaheim last night to take my FIL, who is in a care facility, to the Christmas Eve service at his church and then driving back today to take him out to lunch had just drained me. So my DW and I are driving home and she gets a text that my daughter and husband and child would be home for dinner. I wanted to sleep, not cook.

 

The solution was to defrost some steaks I had in the freezer, season them and pop them into a SV bath. The meat cooked and I got my nap. I cooked up some seasoned white rice and put together some steamed brocolli in cheese sauce. And of course the olives. It is not Christmas dinner without olives. A quick sear of the steaks and dinner was served. Yay for SV.

[kayb]

I cooked two racks of ribs, coated in dry rub, for 36 hours at 145 F, pulling them out and cooling them before sliding them in the oven with a glaze of sauce, for Christmas. They were the biggest, meatiest, baby back ribs I think I've ever seen, and the were GOOD. I have a meal's worth in the fridge, and another meal's worth in the freezer; we'll see those again.

 

But the real SV winner of late has been the bacon mentioned upthread. I have to be very careful cooking bacon when my daughter is at home, as the smell is a migraine trigger for her. But to SV the bacon in its store vac-sealed package, clip a corner, drain the fat and drippings, then refrigerate or freeze, and then pull out a few strips at a time to cook -- not only is it MARVELOUS bacon, but it also cooks quickly enough I can have my bacon and not bother her!

 

I have four more 24-oz packages of Wright's in the freezer that need to go in the SV. This is a life-changing process. 

[Anna N]

38 minutes ago, kayb said:

I cooked two racks of ribs, coated in dry rub, for 36 hours at 145 F, pulling them out and cooling them before sliding them in the oven with a glaze of sauce, for Christmas. They were the biggest, meatiest, baby back ribs I think I've ever seen, and the were GOOD. I have a meal's worth in the fridge, and another meal's worth in the freezer; we'll see those again.

 

But the real SV winner of late has been the bacon mentioned upthread. I have to be very careful cooking bacon when my daughter is at home, as the smell is a migraine trigger for her. But to SV the bacon in its store vac-sealed package, clip a corner, drain the fat and drippings, then refrigerate or freeze, and then pull out a few strips at a time to cook -- not only is it MARVELOUS bacon, but it also cooks quickly enough I can have my bacon and not bother her!

 

I have four more 24-oz packages of Wright's in the freezer that need to go in the SV. This is a life-changing process. 

Wow. Thanks. I was uncharacteristically dismissing this as silly. Obviously a re-think is in order and the purchase of some thick-cut bacon. Although I do have my own bacon curing in the fridge as we speak.  Perhaps I should wait for that.

[Porthos]

2 hours ago, kayb said:

But the real SV winner of late has been the bacon mentioned upthread. I have to be very careful cooking bacon when my daughter is at home, as the smell is a migraine trigger for her. But to SV the bacon in its store vac-sealed package, clip a corner, drain the fat and drippings, then refrigerate or freeze, and then pull out a few strips at a time to cook -- not only is it MARVELOUS bacon, but it also cooks quickly enough I can have my bacon and not bother her!

 

I can't seem to find where this is mentioned and I am VERY interested.

[weedy]

https://www.google.com/amp/www.seriouseats.com/amp/recipes/2016/11/overnight-sous-vide-bacon-recipe.html?client=safari

[ElsieD]

I tried this following the instructions per Serious Eats.  I left it in it's original packaging and stuck it in the fridge.  Several days later I went to cook it up, opened the package and was rewarded with bacon strips literally glued to each other with bacon fat.  When I tried to separate the bacon slices with my greasy little fingers the slices fell apart.   I was not impressed.  The answer may be as mentioned by Kayb above and that is to clip a corner and drain the fat off before putting it in the fridge/freezer.  

[Porthos]

@weedy  Thanks for the link. I am going to try this with a slight variation. I am going to try the crisping in a 450 F oven.

 

My interest in this is for the breakfasts my DW and I prepare for the Northern California Renaissance Faire in the fall.

 

I no longer have access to an oven at the Southern California Renaisaance Pleasure Faire we do in the spring so I would have to finish them on a griddle.

 

@kayb Yes, I will be draining off the fat and saving it.

Edited December 26, 2016 by Porthos (log)

[chefmd]

Pre warming filet mignon to be flash seared in cast iron pan.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

While reading about xanthan and pasta I came upon this post...

https://forums.egullet.org/topic/136959-cooking-with-modernist-cuisine-part-1/?do=findComment&comment=1793241

 

...which suggests 58 deg C. for ribeye in order to properly melt the fat.

 

Dinner last night was rather thick ribeye 58 deg C. for two hours and fifteen minutes, seared thirty seconds on a side.  I slice my rib steaks on an angle for serving:

 

 

 

This successfully demonstrates some deckle with associated fat.  (Please ignore green beans and potato.)

 

[kayb]

4 hours ago, Porthos said:

@weedy  Thanks for the link. I am going to try this with a slight variation. I am going to try the crisping in a 450 F oven.

 

My interest in this is for the breakfasts my DW and I prepare for the Northern California Renaissance Faire in the fall.

 

I no longer have access to an oven at the Southern California Renaisaance Pleasure Faire we do in the spring so I would have to finish them on a griddle.

 

@kayb Yes, I will be draining off the fat and saving it.

 

For what it's worth...I find it works well for me to sear for about a minute on either side, vs. the Kenji suggested method of two minutes on one side and 10 seconds on the others. Damn fine bacon. But mostly, the quick cook is wonderful.

[rustwood]

I tried sous vide bacon last night/this morning.  The difference vs just frying was not immediately obvious to me.  I guess it cooked up faster, but I usually start bacon first and have it going while I am doing other things so the time savings isn't a big factor for me.  I did 147 for ~12 hours and used a heavily cured/smoked country bacon.  Perhaps it would make more of a difference with supermarket bacon.  I probably won't do it again unless I decide to do a direct comparison - or if I am going to be cooking breakfast for a large group.

[MelissaH]

How was the mess factor? One of the things that appeals to me about the idea of SV bacon is that most of the fat is rendered off in a closed system, so when you fry, you don't wind up with aerosolized grease everywhere.

[blue_dolphin]

I did a small comparison between the sous vide method and my usual in-the-oven-on-a-rack method using thick slices of supermarket bacon. Edited to add:  I did the sous vide step @ 145 deg F for ~ 24 hrs.  That's my only experience, so I'm no expert. I liked the sous vide method enough  to want to try it again but I'm pretty sure the oven method will remain my go-to for cook-ahead bacon.

3 hours ago, MelissaH said:

How was the mess factor?

You still get some grease splattering when you sear off the sous vide bacon but it's significantly less than when pan cooking raw slices.  The slices remained flat and did not curl or bubble up even though I didn't use a press or anything like that. 

 

3 hours ago, MelissaH said:

One of the things that appeals to me about the idea of SV bacon is that most of the fat is rendered off in a closed system

Here is the liquid that I drained from the bag after sous vide and before pan cooking the bacon.  This is from 5 or 6 thick slices of bacon.  I was surprised that most of the liquid was not fat.  

However, I suspect that removing this aqueous liquid helped to minimize the amount of popping and splattering that occurred during the pan cook.

I accidentally poured the fat from the pan into a jar of grease without measuring the volume but I can say that significantly more fat rendered off the bacon during the pan sear than during the sous vide step.

It should be noted that I was going for fairly crisp bacon so I may have cooked out more fat than you would if you wanted softer bacon.

 

I also tried doing the post-sous vide cook in the oven rather than on the stove top.  I didn't like that result.  Perhaps because of the amount of water that came out during the sous vide step, the oven cooked bacon got hard and chewy rather than crispy.

 

 

Edited December 29, 2016 by blue_dolphin (log)

[MelissaH]

I'm now a little curious if SV parcooked bacon might work well for a version that could be quickly finished in a hotel microwave, on a plate covered with a paper towel. I may give that a shot this weekend!

[rustwood]

@blue_dolphin, I am really surprised by the amount of liquid that you rendered.  I also had 6 thick-ish slices in my bag, but I basically had no liquid at all after 12 hours.  It is a fairly dry and lean country style bacon though.  It did stay almost perfectly flat in the pan though and it didn't splatter as much.  I think I am going to have to try it for 24 hours just to see what happens.  Maybe I will get to it next week.

[Nauticus]

Tonight, I'm doing chicken thighs sous vide for 4 hours at 165. It'll be served with roasted potatoes and carrots, garlic lemon sauteed spinach, and a few grape tomatoes with a garlic chicken white wine sauce. 

Edited December 30, 2016 by Nauticus (log)

[haresfur]

Bought a post-Christmas small half-price turkey. Small in Australia is only slightly larger than a roasting chook.

 

 

Marinaded the dark meat in skim milk, apple juice concentrate and about 1% salt (the turkey was pre-brined) and cooked in the sous vide at 64 C for about 11 hours. The thighs and wings went into mole. I reheated the legs on the barbie while I cooked the breasts with indirect heat.

 

I think it turned out really well as did the white meat.

 

[paulraphael]

I made a sous-vide bearnaise-ish sauce in the manner of the Modernist Cuisine recipe over the holidays. It had a rough start ... the sauce broke, but then when I blended in some additional softened butter at high speed it emulsified beautifully, and stayed the right consistency overnight. We served it straight from the stick blender (no NO2 siphon). 

 

I think with some tweaks this will be my standard hollandaise recipe. It takes longer than traditional versions, but the blender makes a more stable emulsion, and it's a huge bonus that you can pasteurize the yolks.

[rarerollingobject]

Did the SeriousEats/J. Kenji Lopez-Alt porchetta.

 

Rolled in garlic and rosemary, cooked SV at 68.3C for 36 hours, and deep fried. Was a winner.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

9 hours ago, paulraphael said:

I made a sous-vide bearnaise-ish sauce in the manner of the Modernist Cuisine recipe over the holidays. It had a rough start ... the sauce broke, but then when I blended in some additional softened butter at high speed it emulsified beautifully, and stayed the right consistency overnight. We served it straight from the stick blender (no NO2 siphon). 

 

I think with some tweaks this will be my standard hollandaise recipe. It takes longer than traditional versions, but the blender makes a more stable emulsion, and it's a huge bonus that you can pasteurize the yolks.

 

I make the traditional version of béarnaise with whisked yolks over direct heat.  Though seriously the traditional version of bearnaise works quite fine with just a single yolk.  One yolk will emulsify an awful lot.  No problem using pasteurized yolks either.  I pasteurize eggs in shell, two hours at 55 deg C.

 

Once the egg(s) are pasteurized, the butter melted, and the herbs and vinegar are reduced au sec and strained the sauce comes together in seconds.

 

[daveb]

I'm helping cater an event 2morrow evening where steak and pesto bruschetta is among the  heavy hors d'oeuvres.  Chef has let me SV the ribeyes we'll be using.  (His first time with SV)  Did a blister sear on the flat top 2day then bagged and tagged them.  In the bath 2 hrs @ 128F.  He sliced one open and it was exactly what he wanted.  May have created a convert.

[quiet1]

1 hour ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

I make the traditional version of béarnaise with whisked yolks over direct heat.  Though seriously the traditional version of bearnaise works quite fine with just a single yolk.  One yolk will emulsify an awful lot.  No problem using pasteurized yolks either.  I pasteurize eggs in shell, two hours at 55 deg C.

 

Once the egg(s) are pasteurized, the butter melted, and the herbs and vinegar are reduced au sec and strained the sauce comes together in seconds.

 

 

Do you just plunk the eggs in the water bath loose in shell and let the circulator do it's thing?