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Need help on some chicken that didn't turn out right tonight-trying to see where I went wrong. Here's what I did a week ago, where it turned out great: Bought some chicken breast bone-in/skin-on. Removed bone Salt/pepper/thyme/butter into bag and vacuum packed it. Sous vide to 140, cooked chicken for 3 or 4 hours, took out of bag, dried, seared skin side down. Tasted AMAZING. Now for the not so good recipe: Had two boneless/skinless breasts that were frozen in a foodsaver bag (I had been preparing for getting my sous vide machine and was separating things into portions for sous vide). However, in preparing, I never thought to season them. So, to counter this, I cut them out of the bag, still frozen and placed in a new foodsaver bag with salt/pepper/thyme/frozen canola oil. Vacuum packed and threw back in freezer. My thought process here was that when I cooked it all the seasonings would get ingrained in the chicken anyways, so what's the difference between seasoning the chicken whether it's frozen or thawed. Two days ago (so about 48 hours now) I took them out of the freezer to thaw. I was going to cook them last night, but didn't, so they were thawed in the bag for about 24 hours. Today, sous vide set to 140, cooked for 2-3 hours. Took out, patted dry, then pan seared them on both sides, 30 seconds/side, to brown them a bit. They still tasted moist, but the texture was off. Some parts (the thinner parts and the outside of the chicken) tasted quite rubbery and off putting. Tell me what science I hosed with that created this and how to never do it again please!
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Oct 11, 2013 01:36
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 00:31 |
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deimos posted:Chicken meat is a fickle mistress, the rubbery parts got to ~155°F. What you can do to counteract is next time SV to 140 for the required time then immediately ice bath them for a minute while in the bag (I use cheap Vodka that I keep for that purpose on the freezer, since it's mostly reusable with some patience and a funnel*). That will make them less susceptible to overcooking when pan searing. Wow...so it just got overcooked? I thought for sure my seasoning method or the fact it was thawed in extra day had something to do with it. However, maybe the skin from the first cool provided enough of a buffer since I didn't ice bath that?
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Oct 11, 2013 01:59
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deimos posted:No need to dump olive oil in the sack, if you have a lot of air on a ziplock bag just adjust the time up a little bit, it's probably not even that big a deal as long as you can keep the bag submerged on your puddle as the air will tend to go to the tippy-top of the bag. Ive been wondering-what's the reason for the bag in a vacuum seal? To me it makes sense you would do it so that none of the product remains out of the water due to it floating because of air left in the bag, thus creating a product that gets heated to the same temperature/consistency all around, but is there anything other than that? On the same note, why am I adding butter or oil to the steaks and chicken I've sous vide already, when I still add oil to the pan prior to cooking?
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Oct 15, 2013 10:28
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Chemmy posted:A vacuum sealed pouch lets you pasteurize food and then hold it cooked in the bag so you can reheat quickly and sear. Yeah, I didn't take pasteurization into account at all, so that's what I'm missing. The reheat quickly part interests me the most and is something I know I'm not taking advantage of. I cook for two people and I'll just sous vide two steaks for a few hours and then sear em and call it dinner. How would this work if I wanted to cook say, six steaks and two chicken breasts for the week? I'd hold the steaks at 130 for a minimum of an hour roughly and then raise the temp to 140 for the chicken. However, what happens after that since I won't be cooking them that same day? Do I freeze them or put them in the refrigerator? How long will they be good for in each state? Then, when I'm ready to cook, I suppose I need to put them back into the water bath at 130 to bring them back to temp before doing a quick sear, right? Just trying to get the most out of this method and want to make sure I'm not overlooking something. Thank you! Edit: This helped answer my questions. I need to read more! nwin fucked around with this message at 12:04 on Oct 15, 2013 |
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Oct 15, 2013 11:59
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Walked posted:Alright. This thread convinced me to try out the Anova. I was seriously interested when the price of entry was in the 300+ range; now that its only $200 I jumped on board. It's pretty simple, really. Take a steak, any steak. Season with salt/pepper/garlic powder. Seal it in a bag. Get the water temp to 130F, throw bag in. Let sit for at least 45 minutes up to 10-12 hours. Longer isn't better in this case unless it's a really tough piece of meat. Take meat out of bag, PAT DRY. Take cast iron pan, put a bit of oil in pan, get the oil smoking. Throw steak in for 30-45 seconds per side to get a nice sear. No need to rest-just eat it.
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Oct 22, 2013 00:44
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Choadmaster posted:Nobody minds the marbling of the meat. It's that (occasionally very thick) layer of fat a centimeter above the bone that results in mouthfuls of fat. I can't trim it without taking the meat off the bone, which as I said I'd rather not do. Though it would save me from having to try to render it off, which would require pulling it off the bone also. Question regarding this: What's the appeal of bone in or boneless when using sous vide? I cooked a t bone with a lot of fat on it and trimmed what I could because there was so much fat on it. Seemed like it might have been easier to take it off the bone while I was at it.
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Oct 25, 2013 02:16
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Chemmy posted:The bone can be nice for presentation. That's what I was figuring, just wanted to make sure.
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Oct 25, 2013 02:24
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So I roasted a chicken tonight and was thinking...what about sous vide whole chicken? Legs and breasts cooked the same temp. Only problem is it would have the texture of crock pot chicken and no crispy skin. To correct that, either a torch or dry it off and throw it under the broiler for a bit maybe? Am I completely insane here?
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Nov 12, 2013 02:56
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EAT THE EGGS RICOLA posted:You have to break it down, you need good thermal contact. Technically I guess you could just fill the bag with enough fat to heat everything, but you can't just vac seal a whole chicken and dump it in there with empty space. Makes perfect sense. Thank you!
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Nov 12, 2013 03:52
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BrosephofArimathea posted:It's pretty annoying. Not unexpected though, I guess. You can still cancel and get an anova, right? Stuff like this makes me never want to get in on a kick starter. First the nomiku and now this. I had the sansaire sponsored, but then people were talking about the anova price drop and how it worked great. So I cancelled the sansaire and had an anova within 2 weeks and it has worked flawlessly.
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Nov 18, 2013 04:48
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So loving frustrated-just had some of the most mundane, average tasting T-bone steaks ever. Tell me what I did wrong, because I've sous vizzled steak before, and it's always came out fine. 1) Bought two t-bones that were on sale about 2 months ago, immediately seasoned with salt/pepper and a pat of butter and individually vacuum sealed them. Stuck in the freezer. 2) About two weeks ago, noticed the bags weren't looking as vacuum packed-put in new bags and re-sealed. 3) Took steaks out of freezer on Sunday morning. 4) Heated water to 130F, put steak in water for 3 hours today. 5) Took steaks out, patted dry with paper towels, re-seasoned with salt/pepper. 6) Something different this time: I decided to trim the fat that is on the side of the steaks off prior to cooking. I figured that since I only sear em for 30 seconds/side, the fat doesn't have time to render anyways, so why not trim it off in advance. 7) Hot cast iron pan, small amount of canola oil, each side in for 30 seconds. The steaks were rather thin, but probably still about an inch thick, maybe slightly under. They just had zero flavor to them (perhaps not enough seasoning). Prior to freezing, I don't recall them having much marbling. The texture wasn't even that good. If I had to guess, it seemed like it was cooked way more than 130 degrees F, but that's what I had my Anova set to. It wasn't tough at all, fairly tender, just the taste completely fell flat. One thing to note is one steak got a bit more salt on it than the other one and it tasted *slightly* better, but not a drastic difference. So, my thoughts are that it was just low quality steak, but I can't think of anything else. It definitely didn't taste like freezer burn, so I'm ruling that out since the bags lost their vacuum seal at some point in the freezer. Any ideas?
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Nov 27, 2013 02:34
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Sous vide short ribs. I was planning on doing them for 48 hours total as I heard 72 hours they turned out too mushy (cooking at 143F). Well, dinner got delayed a day so that pushes all my menu items back a day. So now, I can keep them going for 72 hours and sear/eat them. Or, I could cook them for 48 hours, dump in an ice bath, and then when I'm ready for them the next day, just bring up to about 130 degrees in the water puddle machine and then sear. What do you think? Take them out after 48, wait a day in the fridge and then cook, or let em go for 72 hours?
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Dec 7, 2013 23:25
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48 hour short ribs were loving amazing. However, I'll change a few things next time. 1) Maybe go a bit longer.60-72 hours. The meat was really tender at 142F over 48 hours. However, still slightly tough and needed a knife to cut it well. Came apart, but stringy and connected a bit to the fat like a pot roast in the slow cooker. 2) Think I need to maybe buy more/meatier short ribs. The ones I cooked only had meat on one side of em. The rest was a bunch of fat I cut away prior to searing at the end. I served them atop some mashed potatoes and it was a perfect serving size, but we definitely both wanted more. I had two, the wife had one. Usually they are sold in groups of three at the store, so maybe I'll check somewhere else Also, 5.50 a pound seems pretty loving ridiculous for short ribs, but not sure on that. Definitely getting added into the rotation, but having the sous vide in use for 48+ hours sucks!
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Dec 11, 2013 03:12
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So did anyone do Kenji's turkey porchette sous vide for Thanksgiving? I'm making it for Christmas and am soliciting for any recommendations/lessons learned that people may have.
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Dec 19, 2013 04:21
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So I've been looking into some other aspects of cooking like charcuterie, and tell me if this theory is wrong. I salt/peppered some steaks, vacuum sealed, then froze them for a few weeks. Thawed them out for a day and cooked them to 135 sous vide, quick sear in a pan. They tasted pretty bland and they didn't look like a 135 degree steak should in the middle. We came to the conclusion that they were just lovely thin steaks. Here's what I'm thinking though: Is it possible the salt cured/cooked them in a way? I ask this also because I bought a 4 pack of pork chops a few weeks ago and did the same thing as the steaks above. The first two pork chops I sous vide the day I bought them, and the color was the medium rare pinkish looking in the middle. The other two I salt/peppered/vac sealed and froze for a few weeks like the steaks above and they weren't looking the same in the middle like the ones I did prior. Am I off base here? So far I'm thinking if I need to vac seal and freeze the meat, I will not season at all prior to doing so, and will only season before the final sear perhaps. Or for a longer cook or if recommended I can always thaw/season/vac seal again and then cook.
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Dec 22, 2013 03:16
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Holy poo poo that sous vide turkey porchetta was amazing: One thing for next time is to try and spread the sage/garlic mixture out more and try to wrap it a bit better. Some bites were a flavor explosion and others were just perfectly cooked turkey. I about had a heart attack when I put the turkey into the wok though. I put the lid on it and it sounded like oil was going to go everywhere at any given second. Seriously was worried about starting a huge grease fire. I filled the wok up about 1/3, but maybe a bit more because the turkey was 80% covered in oil. Also, I could have fried It just a bit longer but it was a huge loving hit and I'm so excited about the leftovers.
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Dec 25, 2013 22:50
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Daeren posted:Successfully svizzled tonight for the family, using the Anova I got for Christmas. Cooked four ribeyes to medium-rare at 134F, and seared them in a cast iron pan with a knob of butter and its pan juices. The pan juices congealed with the butter, so I may not do that again, but... 48-72 hour short ribs or do some thick pork chops. Kenji at Serious Eats has been doing a lot of SV lately and you can go to his website for tons of awesome ideas.
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Jan 1, 2014 03:07
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I've been reading this thread since day one, but I'm at a loss for what the consensus on bone-in short ribs are. 48 or 72 hours and what temp? Got some vacuum sealed and ready to put in the bath, just need to know if I do it today or tomorrow.
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Jan 2, 2014 01:33
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Cooking newbie question, but can someone explain the best way to get really hot oil in a really hot pan? And how hot are we talking? Reason I asked is because once I tried that with an all clad pan. Got it on about 7/10 heat and let it preheat for about 3-5 minutes. Put canola oil in-instant smoke followed by fire. Now, I know that canola has a relatively low smoke point, so are you guys using rapeseed oil for steak or just not getting it as hot? Since that incident, I use a cast iron pan which takes longer to heat, and sometimes I use oil, but put it in only a minute after I've started warming the pan, so that I can see the oil just as it's beginning to smoke, so I can throw the steaks in right after. Help me not burn my house down!
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Jan 2, 2014 19:06
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What's wrong with ping pong balls? Though I would say that the cover is a much better idea.
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Jan 3, 2014 03:12
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So those short ribs I did for 72 hours at 129? I took em out today and threw em in an ice water bath because I plan on heating/searing tomorrow for dinner. I double vacuum sealed them (bag in a bag) and it looks like the inner bag has some gasses or something in it because it was causing the bag to float (I had to put a plate on it yesterday when I noticed to keep it weighed down). When I took it out of the water bath, I noticed some kind of smell coming from the bag. I thought I had read that this is normal, but I wanted to make sure. The first time I did these ribs I must have gotten a better seal because I didn't have any of these issues.
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Jan 5, 2014 02:21
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deimos posted:Unless your meat is of extremely good quality and you know your butcher has a good cold chain I'd blanch any long cooks that are not going to be at higher SV temps (anything under 135ish). What do you mean by blanch? In this case would it have been boiling the ribs in the bag for a minute prior to putting in the water bath? As for these ribs, did the smell test again after being in the fridge and these are a total loss-going right in the freezer until trash day. They smell rancid. Same grocer as last time, but last time didn't get the air pocket. Only thing I can think is when the air pocket caused the bag to float, some of the meat was exposed out of water for too long and that caused it? Not really sure. Think I'll take a break from long sous vides for a while though.
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Jan 5, 2014 05:34
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I've got one of those pork tenderloins in a vacuum sealed bag with lemon/herb seasoning that's been sitting in the freezer for a bit. Any reason it wouldn't work to just thaw it out and dump it as-is in 135 degree water for a few hours? Only problem would be getting a decent sear on it without a torch. I'm thinking just hot cast iron and rotating it with tongs.
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Feb 2, 2014 19:00
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Anyone know a guide I can use to help me prevent this in the future? Here's what happened. I bought one of those pork tenderloins that are in a vacuum sealed baggies in the store with a marinade on em (this one was just cracked black pepper). It stayed in the fridge a few days and it was never frozen. I took it out, set the sous vide to 138F and let it go for 5 hours. It was about 18 oz of pork tenderloin, thickest part being maybe 2". Everything I had read online suggested between 135-140 for anywhere from 2-3 hours, so I figured I was more than good. I threw it in a cold water bath for about 5 minutes, then took it out of the package and patted it dry, added a bit of salt and seared on all sides in cast iron. Then I cut into it. It was cold in the middle and it looked completely raw. I didn't throw it in an ice water bath (just using cold tap water), so I'm trying to think of what went wrong. The only thing I can think of is that it was too thick and required longer than indicated online. To save dinner, I ended up just cutting it into medallions and pan searing everything for a few minutes-it still tasted good, but not as good as it could have.
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Feb 8, 2014 03:02
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It's an Anova, and it definitely wasn't any bigger than 2" diameter. I've been using it for the last 4months maybe? Only way I can think to test the machine itself will be checking the temp of the water with a separate thermometer and seeing if they are both equal.
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Feb 8, 2014 03:42
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I think I figured out the problem. Just tried to bring some water to 130F. Measured with the thermapen and at the top was around 130, but not as exact as I remember it being (when I first got it the temp was right on with the thermapen). Then I tried the thermometer in different areas, high in the water, low in the water, on the other end of the tank. On the other end of the tank towards the bottom it was only measuring around 100! Took it apart, and apparently the impeller wasn't spinning due to it being caught on the metal inside. No water circulation, so it has only been heating the immediate area! I only have a 12 qt cambro, but still, that would explain why the middle of the pork was raw, because it wasn't being heated effectively, right?
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Feb 8, 2014 04:37
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Hypnolobster posted:That would definitely explain it. Yeah I noticed a crazy noise the last few times I ran it, so I'm thinking that was it. It always stopped after I turned the unit on/off a few times or moved it a bit, so I didn't think much of it. However, it has a 1 year warranty- so I might reach out to them and see if I need to look at a replacement. Only thing I don't get is how it could have happened-I've never taken that metal cover off it.
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Feb 8, 2014 04:51
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Anova customer service is really excellent. I e-mailed them my problems and this morning they sent me a return label and said they would take care of it right away.
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Feb 11, 2014 03:42
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Boneless skinless chicken breasts. Yes, I know they have no flavor. However, in the interest of eating healthy, I try and have them for dinner once a week or so. It's easy to sous vide chicken breast with skin on it because you just throw em skin side down in a pan with oil for a minute and it crisps up really nice. However, with skinless chicken breast-what would you recommend doing to brown them, if anything? I might just stick to cooking them in a pan like I used to, just trying new things. I tried searing em quick but they just didn't turn out great.
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Feb 12, 2014 03:20
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Hed posted:I just dry them and sear in a hot pan with melted butter. I usually cook 6-8 on Sundays to make for our lunches during the week. Hmm. What temp do you cook them at/how long? Same for sear time. Also, do you put them in an ice bath before sear?
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Feb 12, 2014 04:11
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SubG posted:That really depends on what you're searing. For poo poo that's shaped irregularly (like a shank or rib or something) using more fat and doing the arroser thing helps. But for your generic slab of protein---a steak, pork chop, that kind of thing---you get better crust if you use as little oil as you can get away with. You can just use your tongs (or turner or whatever the gently caress) to help insure good contact. This is something I don't think I ever get right. With a steak, I'll dry it off from the sous vide, salt it, and then crack a cast iron pan up on the oven, usually about 8/10 on the electric stovetop. Eventually, it will start to smoke and my infrared thermometer reads around 5-600 degrees. If I put oil (best I have is canola) in it, it immediately smokes and I've heard that's bad (one time it caught fire when I was using a stainless pan). So...people say a screaming hot cast iron, but really how hot do I want it? Do I need to buy some rapeseed oil or something (I think that would even be too low a smokepoint).
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Mar 12, 2014 01:49
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SubG posted:If you're having trouble with your oil, put the oil in a cold pan and then heat it until it starts smoking, then throw your protein in then regardless of what the thermometer reads. If you don't get the kind of crust you want out of that, get an oil with a higher smokepoint. I had thought about doing this before...but somewhere I thought I had read you should always heat the pan first, then oil...but I don't think this would make any loving difference. edit: Serious Eats to the rescue. nwin fucked around with this message at 02:15 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 02:12
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turing_test posted:Has anyone tried contacting Anova support? My Anova's touch screen stopped responding, so I called Anova and they said that they'd send me a FedEx label to ship it back to get repaired. This was Monday and I still haven't received anything (I sent a few follow-up e-mails). I'm annoyed but if their support has been great for other people I'll cut them some slack. Zero problems and fast response here. I emailed them about something and the next day had an apology email and a return label emailed to me.
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Mar 15, 2014 04:43
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Drive By posted:Cold to hot takes 10 minutes, hot to cold takes 2 hours or more, room temperature to cold takes an hour or so. The major benefit is keeping food safe while you're away fromthe kitchen, but the more we play with it, the more we find out you can do some funky things when you have full control of the temperature spectrum. So if I'm doing something that I would cook at 183-190, but won't get home until later so I want to chill them under 40, is the machine going to be capable of keeping items out of the danger zone? I'd imagine there has to be a limit to the amount of food you can put in to the machine so there's enough water circulating to allow adequate cooling times. nwin fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Apr 22, 2014 |
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Apr 22, 2014 16:29
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Good point. Just trying to think of an example where you would need to go from hot to cold as it seems the main limit would be cooling things quickly.
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Apr 22, 2014 17:22
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Drive By posted:Sorry nwin, I thought that was the case you were originally referring to. I can't recommend you do cook-chill with our thing, for most foods the core temperature won't decrease fast enough to guarantee safety. Yeah, thinking more about it I can't think of a situation where you would want to chill AFTER cooking anyways. By the way, what would happen if I just took a chicken breast and cooked it for 8 hours instead of the normal 1-3 hours?
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Apr 22, 2014 18:08
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Holy gently caress best burgers ever. Had some sirloin stew meat and some short ribs in the freezer. Ground up the meat from both and made burgers with them. Sous vide @ 130 for 30 minutes then a quick sear in the cast iron. loving amazing.
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May 1, 2014 00:17
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Choadmaster posted:How'd you season them? Salt and pepper just before searing or something else? I ground the meat in my kitchenaid grinder attachment, then added salt/pepper/garlic powder, made the patties about 6 oz each, 1" thick and 4-5" in diameter. I then sealed them in sandwich bags by using the water sealing method opposed to an actual vacuum sealer since the vacuum sealer would have flattened out the patties too much. I also *lightly* salted them after I took them out of the sandwich bags and dried them off. These made some huge burgers. Next time I'll probably use 4 oz/patty instead or maybe make them 3/4" thick.
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May 1, 2014 16:13
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Hypnolobster posted:Mixing or grinding salt into beef also gives it a terribly gross sausage texture instead of nice loose burger. /Shrug my burgers were not 'terribly gross sausage texture'-they were loving amazing. I'll try seasoning on the exterior only next time, though. Edit: I wonder if cooking sous vide had to do with that? One thing I've noticed is the amount of juices that you get in your sous vide bag? Perhaps the juices extracted some of the salt out of the burger? Because mine looked/tasted way more like the 'exterior salted' burger than the other one on the serious eats link. nwin fucked around with this message at 11:04 on May 2, 2014 |
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May 2, 2014 10:59
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 00:31 |
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If I didn't have an anova already, I'd be all over that kick starter. I just can't justify having two machines since I only cook for two people.
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May 6, 2014 16:04
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