What Are You Cooking Sous Vide Today? (Part 3)

[rotuts]

Id even try a few at that price

 

and I not a TL person.

[daveb]

Another day at the office.  Leg of lamb (4), butterflied open, seasoned and bagged and tagged.  24 hrs @ 141f. 

 

Then cubed and made into a goulash for the retirement center.  Super tender - my residents loved it.

 

Due to recent discussions here I thought about the seasoning as I conjured it up.  I was seasoning for the bag juices as much as I was the lamb.  I probably season stronger than most but my sauce/gravy is usually nice.  Anyone else season for the bag?

 

[rotuts]

if by seasoning you mean salt ,  

 

NaCl

 

I under seaason

 

easier to add than subtract.

[daveb]

Nah,  I was thinking since the bag juices are going to end up in the sauce, I seasoned the bag with paprika, some dried mustard, black pepper, a little salt.   My poorly worded question (I'm claiming cell phone keypads) was if anyone else intentionally seasoned the bag for flavorful bag juices?

[Anna N]

 Not cooking but re-heating. This was a rotisserie chicken thigh which I threw into the freezer week or so ago. Today I reheated it in the water bath at 55°C for 30 minutes and it came out beautifully moist.  The skin of course was flabby and I decided not to do anything about it today as I just wanted something to eat without making a big deal of it. Next time I might try reheating in the CSO (Cuisinart steam oven). 

 

 

[scubadoo97]

I have 4 loin chops chugging along at 125f.  Will finish on the grill or CI skillet while seasoned potato cubes roast in the oven

[Anna N]

1 hour ago, scubadoo97 said:

I have 4 loin chops chugging along at 125f.  Will finish on the grill or CI skillet while seasoned potato cubes roast in the oven

The loin of which beastie?

[scubadoo97]

Ah, lamb

 

Edited November 14, 2017 by scubadoo97 (log)

[Anna N]

 

 Breakfast— sous vide sweet potato and 90°C egg.  Both were cooked at 90°C. The sweet potatoes for 30 minutes and the eggs for 8 minutes.  The eggs came directly from the freezer are supermarket large. Once the sweet potatoes were ready,  I remove them and then later about water from the pan as the recommendation for these eggs is to use the small pan of water so that it recovers quickly when you introduce the fridge-cold eggs. 

 

 Eggs cooked this way might appeal much more to people who are squeamish about runny whites.  I think member @boilsover was one of the people not happy with sous vide eggs for many reasons. 

 

The downside for me was that they were a beast to peel.  Further information is available from Chef Steps as to using them for service immediately, allowing them to firm up even more at room temperature or chilling them in icewater and storing them in the refrigerator.

 

While I was very pleased with the eggs (despite the difficulty of peeling them), the sweet potatoes were a huge disappointment.  I liked the texture which was neither hard nor too mushy but despite being packaged with some salt, oil, and garlic they had zero flavour.  Whether this is the fault of the potatoes or the cooking method I will never know. I should have reserved one to cook another way and then compare. 

 

[boilsover]

4 hours ago, Anna N said:

Breakfast— sous vide sweet potato and 90°C egg.  Both were cooked at 90°C. The sweet potatoes for 30 minutes and the eggs for 8 minutes.  The eggs came directly from the freezer are supermarket large. Once the sweet potatoes were ready,  I remove them and then later about water from the pan as the recommendation for these eggs is to use the small pan of water so that it recovers quickly when you introduce the fridge-cold eggs.

 

Hi, Anna:

 

  Sorry, I'm not understanding.  The eggs were frozen?  And if the bath is 90C, wouldn't a fuller bath recover faster than a smaller one?  Have you measured the yolk temperature when you peel the eggs?

 

  I'm concluding that, in order to set the whites and leave the yolk liquid-y, you must NOT heat the center of the egg to such a bath temp (I've watched Dave Arnold's video).  Obviously, refrigeration would matter.  I'll dig out my copy of McGee and relearn what egg proteins set at what temps.  But in the end, aren't we cooking these SV eggs in... eggactly... the same way as non-SV, i.e., immersing them in hot enough water to cook the whites to firmness X and pulling them out before the yolk overcooks?    IOWs, is there no magic Mhyrvold Temperature for soft-boiled eggs, where the whole egg can remain at the same temp for some time?

 

  Your result looks like something I'd want.  Yum.

 

Boilsover     

Edited November 15, 2017 by boilsover (log)

[Anna N]

2 minutes ago, boilsover said:

 

Hi, Anna:

 

  Sorry, I'm not understanding.  The eggs were frozen?  And if the bath is 90C, wouldn't a fuller bath recover faster than a smaller one?  Have you measured the yolk temperature when you peel the eggs?

 

  I'm concluding that, in order to set the whites and leave the yolk liquid-y, you must NOT heat the center of the egg to such a bath temp (I've watched Dave Arnold's video).  Obviously, refrigeration would matter.  I'll dig out my copy of McGee and relearn what egg proteins set at what temps.  But in the end, aren't we cooking these SV eggs in... eggactly... the same way as non-SV, i.e., immersing them in hot enough water to cook the whites to firmness X and pulling them out before the yolk overcooks?    IOWs, is there no magic Mhyrvold Temperature for soft-boiled eggs, where the whole egg can remain at the same temp for some time?

 

  Your result looks like something I'd want.  Yum.

 

Boilsover     

 

Duh. I meant fridge.  See if you can find the information on Chef Steps. I have to go now but if I have time when I get back I will find a link for you.

[boilsover]

9 hours ago, Anna N said:

Duh. I meant fridge.  See if you can find the information on Chef Steps. I have to go now but if I have time when I get back I will find a link for you.

 

No problem.  I find SV soft-boiled eggs a giant waste of time, but I'm trying to use this area to better understand the concepts of time-at-temperature and doneness.  I think there's a common misconception that SV allows the cook to hold (or precook and then store) foods for long periods without overcooking or other degradation.

 

I'm also finding that post-SV finishing (e.g., searing a steak afterward) throws off final results in ways that challenge the putative precision and certainty of SV.  For instance, the steaks I've done to some theoretical "rareness" end up more done fairly deep into the cut.  Maybe I need to hustle the sear harder, but at some point, it becomes analogous to the SB egg--why not just stop screwing around and cook a little thicker steak the old-fashioned way?  Likewise SV fish--I find the Canadian Rule more useful than some time/temp/thickness table.

 

Sorry, don't mean to be crabby.  Just underwhelmed with SV so far.

[Anna N]

5 hours ago, boilsover said:

Sorry, don't mean to be crabby.  Just underwhelmed with SV so far.

  No worries. I have never thought that everything is right for everybody or that SV  is going to be everyone’s cup of tea so to speak. I do find it offers me an alternative way to accomplish something and on occasion provides me with results that I could not get any other way. 

 

 I think short ribs cooked sous vide to steak pinkness and tenderness is revolutionary. I found the 90° eggs to have a degree of doneness  that I thoroughly enjoyed with a firm white and creamy yolk which I doubt is achievable using any other method. 

 

 But I still cook many things conventionally and try to fit them into my life according to various contingencies. 

 

I hope for your sake you won’t give up completely on SV  but will try to see it as something that could work for you for certain things and on certain occasions.  But life is far too short to get hung up on it if it’s just not your style. 

 

 

 

 

[Martin Fisher]

FWIW:

"Perfect" rapid sous vide egg.

 

[Anna N]

56 minutes ago, DiggingDogFarm said:

FWIW:

"Perfect" rapid sous vide egg.

 Very interesting. I’m up for any such experiments. Thank you for posting. I actually thought that app. was dead and I’m having difficulty logging onto it. Obviously I’m doing something wrong. I will pour myself another coffee and see if that helps. 

[Martin Fisher]

54 minutes ago, Anna N said:

I actually thought that app. was dead

 

That app is still alive but it was never/hasn't been brought to Android—a serious misstep!!! 

[Anna N]

4 minutes ago, DiggingDogFarm said:

 

That app is still alive but it was never/hasn't been brought to Android—a serious misstep!!! 

 Yabbut   I don’t have an android. 

 

 

So my first experiment was not particularly successful.   The white is still slimy and the yoke is too runny. There are certain things that I cannot confirm about the egg I began with. I was not about to take its internal temperature although at the moment I have enough eggs to sacrifice one.

The other issue is the given diameter of the egg is 44 mm. This required  advanced math on my part (anything more complex than 2+2 is considered advanced in my mind).  I knew the circumference of my egg and was able to google the long forgotten formula for calculating from that its diameter. Turns out the diameter of my eggs hovers around 41.38 mm which is somewhat smaller than the one called for. But this would not account for the discrepancy in the final results since this egg should’ve cooked further being smaller.  Perhaps my egg started out much colder so I may have to sacrifice an egg (or find another use for an egg with a punctured shell).

 

 Also my chosen sous vide rig is the Joule which is not one of those offered in this app. I could break out and ANOVA ...

 Will depend on how far I’m prepared to pursue this and what time (and how many eggs) I have available 

 

 Yeah I know this is a hell of a way to get breakfast but at the moment I have the time for it and I can find joy in some very silly things sometimes. (To be continued)

 

 

[daveb]

1 hour ago, Anna N said:

 .... I will pour myself another coffee and see if that helps. 

 

Certainly can't hurt....

[Anna N]

27 minutes ago, daveb said:

 

Certainly can't hurt....

Didn’t hurt a bit and I re-downloaded the app. 

[boilsover]

On 11/16/2017 at 1:15 AM, Anna N said:

I hope for your sake you won’t give up completely on SV  but will try to see it as something that could work for you for certain things and on certain occasions.

 

Oh, no, not giving up.  Just playing with it.  I really can see the slow-n-low meat applications, especially larger joints.  My S-I-L did an amazing SV lamb prep.

[boilsover]

On 11/16/2017 at 2:31 AM, DiggingDogFarm said:

FWIW:

"Perfect" rapid sous vide egg.

 

 

 

This is useful, thanks.  I'll try it.

 

Thinking ahead, if removal from the bath at the end is critical, isn't immediately shelling also critical for preventing carryover?  If so, how would you do, say, a batch of 6 eggs?

[Anna N]

37 minutes ago, boilsover said:

 

 

This is useful, thanks.  I'll try it.

 

Thinking ahead, if removal from the bath at the end is critical, isn't immediately shelling also critical for preventing carryover?  If so, how would you do, say, a batch of 6 eggs?

There’s no app for that. Six sous chefs? They are a beast to peel and they don’t slip out the way the other less-cooked eggs do so you more or less have to peel them!  

[boilsover]

1 hour ago, boilsover said:

 

 

This is useful, thanks.  I'll try it.

 

Thinking ahead, if removal from the bath at the end is critical, isn't immediately shelling also critical for preventing carryover?  If so, how would you do, say, a batch of 6 eggs?

 

Fail again.  I only had Jumbo eggs, and I did two in a large cooler bath set to 77C for just over the allotted 14 minutes.  The whites were only set 3-4mm in from the shell, the rest were semi-clear, clotty gel.  Strangely, though, the yolks were too firm--like room-temp butter.  Nothing like the result shown at the end of the YouTube video.  Sigh.

 

 

[boilsover]

1 hour ago, Anna N said:

They are a beast to peel and they don’t slip out the way the other less-cooked eggs do so you more or less have to peel them!  

 

Oh, I've already given up on the peeling.  I open the small end with a "clacker", and shake/pour them out.  You still must scoop out the shells to get all the firmest white.

Edited November 17, 2017 by boilsover (log)

[Anna N]

41 minutes ago, boilsover said:

 

Fail again.  I only had Jumbo eggs, and I did two in a large cooler bath set to 77C for just over the allotted 14 minutes.  The whites were only set 3-4mm in from the shell, the rest were semi-clear, clotty gel.  Strangely, though, the yolks were too firm--like room-temp butter.  Nothing like the result shown at the end of the YouTube video.  Sigh.

 

 

I am wondering how much is dependent upon the sous vide rig you are using. Since the app is designed to account for different rigs which I’m assuming heat at different Rates although they all reach the same final destination, Is the time and temperature different for Anova vs a Joule.  Although I think you have the ANOVA. Did you download the app or are you on an android?Did you download the app or are you on an android?