Sous Vide

[jack_christie]

Be careful with the low temperatures.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...-blancs-lambs-liver-risked-lives-8313310.html

 

[ahpadt]

That's a load of bs. Also, Modernist Cuisine talks about every aspect of food safety. You can go lower than 60c but then you gotta pasturise the meat for several hours after the core temp has been hit.

For an aim of about 60c core temp you only need to hold it there for about 20-30min.



If you have to cook a liver at 70c for 2 min you should just not bother and eat something else instead. It'll be like cardboard.

 

[SchumacherM]

So ITT, what we are essentialy saying is that Hammond was very much spot on, when JC asked him if he could cook Sunday lunch. Yeah, you'd boil the meat or whatever...

Because this is the point as far as I see it. You slowly boil the meat.

 

[bone]

Re: Sous Vide

Except the meat is contained in a vaccuum bag. I wouldn't do it to a steak, but for chicken or sth it must be great!

 

[ahpadt]

It's okay for steak but it needs to be quite thick. With thicker cut meat you're able to get a much better coloring on it after the bath, without damaging the centre.

It requires a lot of practice though. You're not likely to get every sous-vide attempt right the first time. I'm thinking about doing a test chicken breast before I chuck in 2 whole turkey breasts and potentially ruin our Christmas dinner.

 

[ahpadt]

I got to open my Christmas presents early, so I popped my sous vide virginity ( ) with a couple of eggs and a chicken breast.

The chicken was a rushed thing, we took it from the freezer and vacpacked it still semifrozen (and cut in 2, just to make sure), but it still turned out AMAZING. It had a texture like butter. I bagged it just with some butter and finished it in the pan with some butter and crushed garlic.

Egg @ 62c for 1h15min:

I've had eggs done the exact way many times at my favourite restaurant Pollen Street Social. These turned out the exact same.


Chicken breast @ 62c for ~ 2 hours (left it in there for a long time cos I was scared of the frozen core):

Can't wait for the Christmas eve turkey now. Gonna be using a high quality turkey that I'll brine for a couple of hours and bring it up to room temp before I bag and cook it.

 

[ahpadt]

Turkey time!

Breasts were brined in a brine with 7% salt, 3% sugar, cloves, star anise, coriander seeds, pepper corns and thyme for about 7 hours, then rinsed and vacpacked with butter and fresh thyme;

Thighs were de-boned, legs left whole, and cured in some salt, pepper corns, sugar, coriander seeds and thyme for 6-7 hours, then rinsed and vacpacked with duck fat;

All the leg meat is in the bath at 71c atm. Gonna leave them in there for about 8 hours.

Breasts will be done at 60c for about 4 hours tomorrow.

 

[ahpadt]

Mission Moist Turkey: Complete.

The deboned thighs:

Breast:

All served with boiled potatoes, jerusalem artichocke pur?e, sprouts w/ bacon and a sauce made with my first attempt at a tripple chicken/turkey stock, Escoffi?r style.

 

[jack_christie]

Heston's at Home book has alot SV in it.

 

[rickhamilton620]

Mission Moist Turkey: Complete.

The deboned thighs:

Breast:

All served with boiled potatoes, jerusalem artichocke pur?e, sprouts w/ bacon and a sauce made with my first attempt at a tripple chicken/turkey stock, Escoffi?r style.

Fuck that looks delicious....

 

[ahpadt]

It was delicious too...


Next SV project will be duck breasts, in a couple of days time.

 

[ahpadt]

My last sous vide 'experiment' for a little while; duck breasts.

59c for about 1 hour. 58c core temp, following Modernist Cuisine at Home. Completely forgot to remove the sinew at the bottom of the breasts. Didn't realise untill they were cooked.

Browned the fat side in the pan. No oil, to get the natural fat to render out.

Nice and browned.

Carved and plattered. Completely forgot to use kitchen roll for the blood, so the platter looked like a mess, but hey. It was just for serving it. We got no blood on our actual plates.

A orange sauce I made for it. Shallots, fresh orange juice, cognac and chicken stock.


It tasted pretty good, but looking back it would've been better if I had seasoned the exposed flesh with some 5 spice, salt and pepper. Just seasoning the breasts in the pan wasn't enough.

The turkey was my favourite out of my projects so far.

 

[jack_christie]

^What temp would lose the red.

Couldn't eat that, to me red meat is not cooked

Was in a restaurant once and a friend asked for the duck well done and not red. Was served, red raw....

 

[ahpadt]

^What temp would lose the red.

Couldn't eat that, to me red meat is not cooked

Was in a restaurant once and a friend asked for the duck well done and not red. Was served, red raw....

Duck is purple when raw. You really need to cook the living life out of it, to make it go brown. Something like 70c or thereabouts. 70c is how high you'd take legs and thighs, to make the meat come off the bone.

 

[NecroJoe]

To me, duck is either too raw, or overdone...and the fat/skin is usually too rubbery for my taste. Put it in a nice sauce in a steamed bun from Fang in San Francisco, though, but I'm in.

 

[ahpadt]

General core temperature guidelines (set water 1c above this):

Boneless chicken/turkey breasts: 60c for 1h+. Brine for extra juicyness.
Chicken/turkey legs: Atleast 65c+ to get rid of the pink in the bones, altho it's still safe to eat with pink bones, given that you've pasturised the core. 70c for 6+ hours gives nice tenderness.
Boneless duck breasts: 56c for mid-rare, 58c for medium, ~65c for well done.
Duck legs: Same procedure as chicken/turkey. If you want to make it confit-style, then salt the legs for a couple of hours, rinse, then bag with some duck fat.
Steak: ~56-57c for mid-rare, ~59-60c for pink, ~65c for well done.
Lean cuts of pork: 60c for 1h+ for very moist but slightly pink, ~63c+ for no pink
Fatty cuts of pork, like belly: 80c for 8-10 hours, gives very flaky meat.

Egullet.com has loads of info on sous vide for those who are interested. If you don't have a water bath and vacuum packer, then you can just use zip-lock bags and a pan of water on the stove with a termometer inside.

 

[ahpadt]

Got to do some chicken breasts...

1 hour in a 3% sugar and 6% salt brine, then bagged with butter and cooked at 60c for 1h 15min.

An issue I fast saw developing when bagging the breasts was that they were still pretty wet from the brine. This caused the packer not to seal properly (it left a hole open and all the air didnt get sucked out).
I already knew that the stuff that you want to bag needs to be really dry, but somehow forgot in the rush. Lesson: pat the meat/veg/fish dry very well before you bag it, altho this isnt really as important if you have a chamber sealer like Richy Rich Wooflepoof, where you can bag liquids.

I solved it just by making several seals further down the bag. Got the bag closed eventually, despite there still being some air inside. It's not a big issue to have air inside the bag if you're doing a quick cook (1-2 hours). You only have to be worried about that if you're gonna cook it for a very long time. To ensure the bags wouldn't float, I just plonked a metal rail on top of the bags.

Then after 1h 15min, a quick sear in the pan:

Super moist, lightly coloured chicken breasts:

Tasted amazing.

 

[Buktu]

You're getting me convinced. I got a deep fryer for Christmas that would probably work well for this purpose. Once I've got the money for it it's definitely something I want to try

 

[ahpadt]

You're getting me convinced. I got a deep fryer for Christmas that would probably work well for this purpose. Once I've got the money for it it's definitely something I want to try

Happy to inspire you. Sous vide is quite interesting. Once you get really into it you can alter the temperatures very slightly and really change the texture of the meat or fish. It's really worth doing your own research into it.

 

[ahpadt]

Tried some pieces of salmon today. 50c for 15min (using the recipe in Heston at Home).

Turned out it was still pretty rare in the middle after that. I think a piece of salmon needs more like 25-30min to become mid-rare (as most like it) in the centre...