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

[JoNorvelleWalker]

59 minutes ago, quiet1 said:

 

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

 

No.  I put each egg in a sandwich bag, twist the bag, and tie the bag in a knot.  That way if an egg breaks it does not make egg drop soup.  I then put the bagged eggs in a thingy I bought after reading about it on eGullet.  Sorry I cannot find the link.  Anyhow it looks a bit like a plastic octopus.  This keeps the eggs from knocking together in the bath.

[quiet1]

43 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

No.  I put each egg in a sandwich bag, twist the bag, and tie the bag in a knot.  That way if an egg breaks it does not make egg drop soup.  I then put the bagged eggs in a thingy I bought after reading about it on eGullet.  Sorry I cannot find the link.  Anyhow it looks a bit like a plastic octopus.  This keeps the eggs from knocking together in the bath.

 

Thanks. My mom is immune compromised so pasturizing eggs for her would be a nice thing to do and I haven't played with my Anova nearly enough.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

11 hours ago, quiet1 said:

 

Thanks. My mom is immune compromised so pasturizing eggs for her would be a nice thing to do and I haven't played with my Anova nearly enough.

 

Here is the thingy:

 

https://forums.egullet.org/topic/112354-whats-new-in-kitchen-gadgets/?do=findComment&comment=1956455

 

 

I'm about to go pasteurize some eggs for dinner.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

While my eggs are anovaing here is the link to the Pasteurizing Eggs Sous Vide topic:

https://forums.egullet.org/topic/141694-pasteurizing-eggs-sous-vide/

 

And a link to the Pasteurized Eggs topic:

https://forums.egullet.org/topic/143786-pasteurized-eggs/

[scubadoo97]

Today I did a low temp SV prep on a thick tuna steak.   105f X 45 min. then seared with my magic browning powder for a minute or two prior to chilling down for later use.  Slathered in mayo and reheated in a hot pan and coated with black and white sesame seeds just before slicing.   The look of raw tuna with a touch more texture  and nice flavor 

[Shelby]

8 hours ago, scubadoo97 said:

Today I did a low temp SV prep on a thick tuna steak.   105f X 45 min. then seared with my magic browning powder for a minute or two prior to chilling down for later use.  Slathered in mayo and reheated in a hot pan and coated with black and white sesame seeds just before slicing.   The look of raw tuna with a touch more texture  and nice flavor 

I have several really nice tuna steaks in the freezer.  Thank you for posting your method!  I've been googling for a while and it seemed like they way people SV it is all over the board.

[kayb]

4 minutes ago, Shelby said:

I have several really nice tuna steaks in the freezer.  Thank you for posting your method!  I've been googling for a while and it seemed like they way people SV it is all over the board.

Shelby, try tuna poke. I love it. The recipe I use is here.

[paulraphael]

On 12/31/2016 at 0:36 AM, quiet1 said:

 

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

 

One way to do it is to push the eggs into the middle of the wire whisk attachment from a mixer. The whisk stays on the bottom, and holds the eggs in place. Kind of like a shark cage. It's not quite as mess-proof as plastic bags, but I think people have found it reliable. It's quick and doesn't use anything disposable.

 

If you had a non-circulating bath (like an s.v. supreme) I'd imagine it's ok to just throw the eggs in. But most of the circulators make strong currents in the water, and could bang the eggs around too much without some kind of containment.

[paulraphael]

Here are the guidelines for pasteurizing eggs I compiled from Cooking Issues and Modernist Cuisine:

 

Standard method: 55C / 131F x 2 hours 

Fast method: : 57C / 135 F  x 75 minutes 

(appearance not as good but otherwise ok)

With both methods, whites may be more difficult to whip but properties are otherwise unchanged

 

[scubadoo97]

4 hours ago, Shelby said:

I have several really nice tuna steaks in the freezer.  Thank you for posting your method!  I've been googling for a while and it seemed like they way people SV it is all over the board.

I did a quick brine the day before in saki, salt and sugar.   Rinsed and dried it off and stashed it in the fridge.    Just prior to SV I did another short brine but just salt and sugar then rinsed it off and patted dry before bagging using the zip bag water displacement method so as to not compress the fish.  My fish was about and inch and a half thick 

 

the fish was very pink, not purple yet very rare not raw in texture.   It was perfect to my taste and as far as the other guest's comments a home run 

 

I think I looked at a Serious Eats article to get the method

[weedy]

6 hours ago, paulraphael said:

 

... But most of the circulators make strong currents in the water, and could bang the eggs around too much without some kind of containment.

 

Not if you point the stream towards the back of the bin, away from the eggs. 

[Nauticus]

Tonight I'm doing pork tenderloin sous vide at medium rare, with flash sauteed spinach, marinated and roast Greek potatoes, and grilled leeks. First time doing pork sous vide, so I look forward to sampling the results!

[Shelby]

12 hours ago, Nauticus said:

Tonight I'm doing pork tenderloin sous vide at medium rare, with flash sauteed spinach, marinated and roast Greek potatoes, and grilled leeks. First time doing pork sous vide, so I look forward to sampling the results!

You will love it.  I literally could not stop saying how good it was the first time I had it.  

[Anna N]

Bacon. Because? Well I'm skeptical. 

[Shelby]

1 minute ago, Anna N said:

Bacon. Because? Well I'm skeptical. 

I have that Serious Eats on bacon up on my screen right now.  I want to try it also.

[Anna N]

Just now, Shelby said:

I have that Serious Eats on bacon up on my screen right now.  I want to try it also.

 I have a package of supermarket bacon in there and a package of my home cured bacon. We shall see.

[Dave the Cook]

2 hours ago, Anna N said:

 I have a package of supermarket bacon in there and a package of my home cured bacon. We shall see.

 

We were not blown away by sous-vide bacon. It didn't seem to save much time, and we didn't experience the combination of simultaneous-crispy-and-chewy that the technique implies.

 

However --

 

 

-- this stuff is awesome -- not the fat, but the gelatinous liquid. It's kind of Extract of Bacon, and It's almost worth giving bacon the sous-vide treatment just to get it. We use it in dishes where the bacon flavor is welcome but the additional fat is not.

[ElsieD]

16 minutes ago, Dave the Cook said:

 

We were not blown away by sous-vide bacon. It didn't seem to save much time, and we didn't experience the combination of simultaneous-crispy-and-chewy that the technique implies.

 

However --

 

 

-- this stuff is awesome -- not the fat, but the gelatinous liquid. It's kind of Extract of Bacon, and It's almost worth giving bacon the sous-vide treatment just to get it. We use it in dishes where the bacon flavor is welcome but the additional fat is not.

 

This may be a dumb question but did you  snip a corner of the package and drain the fat immediately upon taking the bacon from the bath?  I did not have good results with this method but it might be worth doing again for that liquid (and fat).

[Anna N]

 I saw that. Interesting.   I can definitely see where some bacon flavour would be welcome in soup without additional fat. Might also be able to use it in a salad dressing I would think.  Hope I remember not to toss it out.   Thank you for the reminder.

[Dave the Cook]

6 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

 

This may be a dumb question but did you  snip a corner of the package and drain the fat immediately upon taking the bacon from the bath?  I did not have good results with this method but it might be worth doing again for that liquid (and fat).

 

Not a dumb question at all. That is exactly what we did.

 

A warning: part of the appeal of this method is that you can just take bacon out of your grocery bag and toss it in the bath without a second thought: it's a low-effort/high reward proposition. And again, that's exactly what we did with our package of Wright's. But if you're cooking bacon that comes in a peel-open package (Oscar-Meyer comes to mind), be aware that the glue that holds those sorts of envelopes together could let go after a few hours in hot water. 

[Anna N]

8 minutes ago, Dave the Cook said:

 

Not a dumb question at all. That is exactly what we did.

 

A warning: part of the appeal of this method is that you can just take bacon out of your grocery bag and toss it in the bath without a second thought: it's a low-effort/high reward proposition. And again, that's exactly what we did with our package of Wright's. But if you're cooking bacon that comes in a peel-open package (Oscar-Meyer comes to mind), be aware that the glue that holds those sorts of envelopes together could let go after a few hours in hot water. 

 I decided not to take any chances and transferred my bacon to a food saver bag and sealed it.   Debating whether to let it go 12 or 24 hours.  Any thoughts on that?

[Dave the Cook]

Bad me; I didn't take notes. But I recall that we weren't particularly formal about it. We probably let it swim at around 8 p.m. and took it out about 3 p.m. the next day. So . . . 17 hours or so? I think ChefSteps said "overnight," and that was overnight for us during that pair of days.

[paulraphael]

1 hour ago, Dave the Cook said:

But if you're cooking bacon that comes in a peel-open package (Oscar-Meyer comes to mind), be aware that the glue that holds those sorts of envelopes together could let go after a few hours in hot water. 

 

I haven't tried bacon, but I often s.v. chicken thighs that come vacuum packed like this, and they pose the same challenge. I put the package inside a big ziploc bag, just for insurance. The ziploc stays clean unless the inner bag leaks, so you can reuse it. It's relatively quick and unmessy to bag an already sealed package.

[Dave the Cook]

We ran into a related issue a while back, when deciding to s-v some loin lamb chops. I noticed that they were vacuum sealed, and dropped them in the bath, marveling at my own cleverness and well-developed sense of thrift.

 

The sealing survived, but all the paper labeling on the outside (price tags and such) disintegrated. It wasn't bad enough to choke up the circulator, but it wasn't pretty. paulraphael's outer-bag method would have prevented quite a mess (and a bit of embarrassment). 

[rarerollingobject]

I'm going to try a giant octopus tentacle today. I've never SV'd octopus before, and most recipes I can find suggest between 75C and 82C for between 5 and 8 hours, but then, most recipes are for whole octopus, baby octopus or smaller tentacles.

 

This, to me, is a pretty big one - about 50 cm end to end and 5 cm thick at its thickest point. I thought I'd try 77C for 5 hours, chill and then brush with Korean gochujang chilli paste and honey, and char grill. Any thoughts/advice on those cooking times/temps?