Sous vide Chinese long beans

[TdeV]

Sarah James Essential Sous Vide has a recipe for slow-braised green beans which takes 3 hours at 183F. She also has a recipe for green beans which takes 1 hour at 183F.

 

Has anyone done Chinese long beans sous vide? How long?

 

Also, when eating out at Chinese restaurants, one dish I always ordered was long beans with red pepper. What is the relationship between how much heat one puts into the bag vs. what comes out? E.g. for many things, one needs less spice for sous vide cooking.

[Lisa Shock]

Most vegetables don't really benefit from sous vide. I tried many things about a decade ago. My guess is that this particular recipe is for people who like southern (US) style green beans that are cooked for a very, very long time -usually with some pork.

 

I am not aware of any Chinese recipes where green beans would be cooked for hours, but, I have just a very rudimentary knowledge of the cuisines of China.

[liuzhou]

17 minutes ago, Lisa Shock said:

I am not aware of any Chinese recipes where green beans would be cooked for hours

 

Indeed, I'm sure there are none. Long beans are given a quick stir fry.

[IEATRIO]

I have had mixed success with sous vide Chinese dishes.  I have had great success with char siu, Hoi Nam/Hainanese/white cut chicken -- dishes that I make almost exclusively sous vide now because of the superior results -- and various braised pork belly dishes.

 

I've had much less success with vegetable dishes, and have had some really inedible disasters -- I wasted some beautiful spring bamboo shoots a few weeks ago which would have been much better poached or steamed but wound up horribly bitter (maybe from cyanide which won't flash off or dilute like in a wok or boiling water).  For beans and greens there is even less reason, as these things cook so quickly.  For beans, I "break the rawness" by throwing them in boiling water for a minute or so -- in a restaurant they might do that in hot oil -- before stir frying them.  Since you want your beans crisp, I don't see how sous vide could improve the texture of the final dish in any way.  If the idea is to do the whole dish sous vide, with the spices and other ingredients in the bag, I don't think there is any way that could work for several reasons, including that the spices would behave in unpredictable ways that are not likely to be good, and also that you would wind up with a watery, unreduced, and unthickened sauce.  I'm a big fan of sous vide, and use it also for western simple vegetables (i.e., carrots, potatoes (packed with butter at 90C is a sure winner)) but for Chinese vegetables nothing is easier or better than a wok.

 

 

      

Edited August 7, 2017 by IEATRIO (log)