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

[Anna N]

26 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

 

I did this last night.  I put hot water in my pot and waited for the temperature to go to 95 celcius.  And waited.  And waited some more.  The water was evaporating at a rapid pace while it was heating so I boiled a kettle of water and added that.  Finally it got to 95 degrees and in went the packet.  I had  largish  endives,  vacuumed packed (foodsaver) and the bag had a bit of butter, salt and sugar.   The packet floated.  I repackaged it.  It still floated so I said the h--l with it and left it.   We had dinner and I promptly forgot about it.  By the time I rescued it it had been in the hot water bath for 2 hours, not one as called for.  I chilled it and it is still in the fridge.  I'm not sure when we are actually going to eat it.

 

My suggestion, Anna, for what it's worth, is to pre-heat the pot on the stove.  You will save a lot of time.  However, if your place is suffering from dry air, heating your water using the sous vide equipment may be the way to go, long as you're not in a hurry.

I  had absolutely no difficulty getting it to 95° (I  always start with the hottest water my tap produces)  but unfortunately after about 20 minutes the Anova died!   My spare is out on loan. I dumped the endive bag contents into a small pan and continued cooking on the stove. When the endive was nearly tender I increased the heat to get some colour.  It was still quite delicious.   One of my favourite vegetables which I do not cook nearly often enough.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

3 hours ago, Anna N said:

I am about to prep some Belgian endive as per @mm84321 in the Dinner topic.

 

 

 

Great minds think alike, or almost alike.  I brought home endive yesterday with intention of assaying the @mm84321 recipe tonight.  Today was long work day and after my shower I decided to put the endive off.  Primarily because I could not decide what to serve it with.

 

At the moment I am sitting here enjoying roasted peanuts.

 

[ElsieD]

Part of my problem was likely the size of my pot.  It is a 12 litre pot but needs to be fairly tall for me to be able to secure my circular to it.  Maybe next time  i'll try a shorter pot like a Dutch oven and not secure it and see what happens.   I'm glad you were able to enjoy yours.  I remember one year my dad grew it in one of the farm equipment barns.  It had a dirt floor and he just put more dirt on it and planted away.  Once it started growing, he would cover them up and keep doing it until they were ready to eat.

[chromedome]

On 25/06/2016 at 6:20 PM, ElsieD said:

Today I bought three top sirloin roasts,  3.5 to 4 pound each, graded triple A.  I am planning to cut them in half and then cook them sous vide @132F.  I had thought to cook them up as I would a chuck roast, that is, cook  for 48 hours as I think of it as a tough cut of meat.  However, since  returning home I have done some googling and the prevailing wisdom seems to be to cook it for about 12 hours, at most 14.  Has anyone cooked this cut and if you did, how long did you cook it for?

 

Thank you.

Top sirloin is by far the tenderest of the sirloin cuts, so it doesn't need extended cooking. When cut as a steak, it's tender enough for straight-up grilling. 

 

I often opt for it instead of pricier rib or strip steaks, because I find it's more flavorful than the premium offerings and almost as tender (usually).

[rotuts]

beef nomenclature can be hard to fully understand.  Country differences , regional differences , etc

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_sirloin

 

it hard for me to visualize this cut   "  in the meat case "  

 

Ive given up and look for Sirloin Tips, but as whole flap meat  I wonder how far the STFlap is from the TopSirloin. ?

[Nauticus]

Tonight I'm going to sous vide a free range, local organic chicken that I got at a local farm. I processed the rest of the carcass, and have been simmering some home made chicken stock today that I'll use in the sauce. 

 

I'm making a seared sous vide chicken breast (skin on) with roasted veggies, braised leek, and sauteed asparagus with a herb garlic red wine sauce gelatinized with agar agar (first time trying this).

[MelissaH]

On 11/12/2016 at 6:39 PM, ElsieD said:

The packet floated.  I repackaged it.  It still floated so I said the h--l with it and left it.

This brings up a topic I've wondered about for a little while. Many vegetables will float, even if you manage to seal them without adding air. I perpetually have a problem when I do carrots, as their density is apparently not much different from water so if you trap the least bit of air in the bag, up it goes.

 

How do you all deal with things that float? I've contemplated putting my sealed food bags inside another ziplock bag, along with a few good-sized washers from the hardware store. My husband proposed adding some large teflon-coated stir-bars from the chemical supply directly to the food bag. At times I've resorted to just using a rack, a potato masher, or another utensil to wedge the bag down. I'm not happy with any of these solutions. So, vegetable bathers, what do you do?

[btbyrd]

Put some spoons in the bag.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I've suggested Teflon or glass coated stir bars before.  What I usually do is just put a rack over the bags to hold them down.

 

[Doofa]

21 hours ago, MelissaH said:

This brings up a topic I've wondered about for a little while. Many vegetables will float, even if you manage to seal them without adding air. I perpetually have a problem when I do carrots, as their density is apparently not much different from water so if you trap the least bit of air in the bag, up it goes.

 

How do you all deal with things that float? I've contemplated putting my sealed food bags inside another ziplock bag, along with a few good-sized washers from the hardware store. My husband proposed adding some large teflon-coated stir-bars from the chemical supply directly to the food bag. At times I've resorted to just using a rack, a potato masher, or another utensil to wedge the bag down. I'm not happy with any of these solutions. So, vegetable bathers, what do you do?

 

I find glass marbles very good for this. Cheap, reliable and easy to clean. For greater weight I have packed several marbles in vac bags and I attach as many as needed to vac bags with small forceps or safety pins on outer side of vac bag seam. I like the idea of stir bars though. D

[scubadoo97]

I did the same thing with marbles and whisky stones.  Well they were worthless as whisky stones but made a good weight for SV.  I vacuumed bagged them and then added them to the vacuumed bag of whatever would float but a couple of spoons is as good a method as any 

[daveb]

Most of my floaters are vegs and they're close to being at least neutral.  I figure the air boundary between the water bath and the lid is going to be real close to the temp of the water so I just let it float.  Usually set a timer to rotate the product once or twice while in the bath.  Never had a problem with product not being eveningly cooked.

 

Guess I could make it more complicated but....

[haresfur]

put a brick on top of the bag

 

eta I usually do what daveb does

Edited December 3, 2016 by haresfur (log)

[Topham]

I just started Sous Vide cooking, my first test was with Eggs. They came out as expected, so I tried my hand at Prime Rib. 

 

I may have botched the carving, but it tasted delicious. 133f for ~10hrs.

 

[Anna N]

 

 Had an opportunity to replenish my meat supply yesterday. Bought these six lamb loin chops. Packaged them two to a bag and will cook them for two hours at 55°C. Chill down and throw into the freezer to keep me happy over the holidays.

[Anna N]

 

Two strip loins. Halved each of them, bagged each piece separately. Three went into the sous vide at 54.5 C x 2 hrs  and one went directly into the freezer as I have plans for it.   Currently three are being chilled and will be also frozen. Each was about 400g (whole). 

[rotuts]

beauties  they are 

 

[btbyrd]

I just want to plug for the ChefSteps SV turkey recipes, which I did for my family this year (and have done in years past). The most hardcore is the dark meat roulade, where you bone out the thighs and legs, pull out the tendons, bind them with Activa, roll'em up and pop them in the bath. A quick deep fry at the end crisps up the skin evenly all the way around. I did that two years ago with great results, but will add that pulling the tendons out is a huge pain in the ass. CS lists this as an "optional" step, but I'd still strongly recommend it (even if it's not much fun). 

 

 

The new recipes for this year are fantastic and simple... break the bird down, pre-sear both the light and dark meat, and pop them in a bag with some salgar, herbs, and oil. Cook the dark meat for 12 hours, drop the temp, and add the white meat for another 12 hours. When it's time to go, give everything a final sear and go! I had a totally painless turkey-day experience this year because of it. I actually want to keep turkey breasts on hand now because they're super-delicious and easy to prepare this way. I'm seeing some legendary sandwiches and probably a Hot Brown in my future... Anyway, here's a video on the new "EASY TO DO WITH JOULE!" technique.

 

 

 

And a link to the light meat and dark meat recipes.

[Anna N]

45 minutes ago, rotuts said:

beauties  they are 

 

 Not bad for supermarket steaks, are they? 

[Heartsurgeon]

Sous Viding homemade pastrami...

 

dry cured some Painted HIlls brisket and some boneless short rib for 14 days.

soaked 3 hours in water (changed three times)

coated with pepper and coriander

smoked at 150 degrees for 7 hours (applewood)

final step sous vide at 150 degrees for 48 hours.

 

i tried 12, 24, and 48 hours. 48 hours was winner.

 

once i have my cure perfected, i will post it.

 

so far, great pastrami...aiming for absolute best!

 

 

[Okanagancook]

Berkshire loin chops; 3/4 inch thick; in at 132F for 45 minutes; seared under a bacon press for excellent contact with the hot pan; no magic browning powder.  Pretty much perfect.

[nonkeyman]

On 12/1/2016 at 8:58 AM, Doofa said:

 

I find glass marbles very good for this. Cheap, reliable and easy to clean. For greater weight I have packed several marbles in vac bags and I attach as many as needed to vac bags with small forceps or safety pins on outer side of vac bag seam. I like the idea of stir bars though. D

Vacing a bunch of marbles in a bag for weight is genius!

[EatingBen]

Tonight I had chicken thigh 90 minutes, 74c, Kenji advises that the meat will have a steak like texture and he was right. Super juicy, did carrots, asparagus and polenta all sous vide and made a pan sauce with the juices from the chicken with a touch of dijon mustard. Super amazingly delicious all round and no real effort. 

 

Reading this threads I need to do some stuff chicken breast and I've a massive steak in the freezer ready to go sous vide tomorrow but will the about 3 hours to cook, so much I want to do sous vide and so little time to do it all

[Auro]

I cooked Cupim this week.

Cupim is a brazilian cut of meat found in Zebu Ox .

 

 

It's a nicely render fat meat and wonderfull taste, but if cooked in a pan or fast in high temperature, the meat becomes very hard.

The brazilian way to cook cupim is in barbecue grill for several hours envolved in cellophane paper.

I tried in sous vide for the first time and the results was very good.

 

 

 

Cleaning the silver skin and excess fat.

 

 

Front side of the  Cupim have a nice render fat in the meat and the back side is less faty.

 

 

Look the nice fat meat.

 

 

I seasoned with salt, pownder garlic an pownder onion.

 

 

85 celsius degree for 24 hours. I believe that is too much. I want to try 80 degrees for 24 hours.

 

 

After sous vide 250 degrees in the oven. And done.

 

 

 

Served with Farofa de Banana, a tapioca roasted powder with banana, onion, celery, and fried potatoes.  And grilled vegetables in olive oil and salt.

 

 

The result was a melt in mouth meat.

 

http://vid31.photobucket.com/albums/c395/aurote/cupim12_zpsdpewl5fq.mp4

Edited December 12, 2016 by Auro (log)

[Anna N]

Fascinating!  Thank you.