Sous veni, sous vide, sous vizzle

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Goons with Spoons > Sous veni, sous vide, sous vizzle

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

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.

Almost all the interesting things that happen in a piece of chicken happen between about 50 and about 60 C; it's where the fraction of soluble proteins starts to take a nosedive and the fraction of soluble collagen starts to rapidly rise. In a water bath this is going to be fairly homogeneous---the temperature in one part of a piece of meat will be pretty close to the temperature in other parts---while in conventional cooking you're going to see much more variability. This is important because meat's a pretty complex system, and when you give a temperature for the denaturing of a particular protein, this might be good for that protein in isolation, but the exact temperature an individual protein in a particular piece of meat will denature in actual practice will depend on a bunch of other factors, and so any number will be more of a probabilistic approximation than a scientific law or whatever.

My point here is that a surface temperature of 155 F/68 C (or whatever) might be something that a piece of chicken can hold up to via some methods (say deep frying) and you won't necessarily see all of the bad changes that negatively effect texture and mouthfeel, but in a puddle machine you're effectively moving the entire piece closer to the `brink' of that condition, so you might have problems at say 150 F/65 C.

I usually do poultry in the puddle machine at around 57 C/135 F to deal with this without having to dance around with having to do the whole hydrotherapy thing to cool the meat---I just rest it for a couple minutes between puddle machine and sear, which also gives it time to dry off a bit, which also helps with the sear. It's something you can play around with by feel---as long as you're holding for long enough (and the hold times around 57 C are around 45 minutes, so if you're doing a several hour cook this isn't an issue) there's no food safety issue, so you're just loving around looking for the texture and mouthfeel you like. Duck and turkey can handle being vizzled at lower temperatures without getting squoogy, but if I think the general belief in low temperature chicken having a hosed up texture is largely overstated. In any event, it's something that you can certainly just experiment with until you find what satisfies your personal preference.

deimos posted:

* Bonus points: it's a lot colder than ice.

...but has a specific heat of about half that of water (2.46 J/g �C versus 4.19). And the average household freezer is calibrated for about -18 C (0 F). So if the object you're trying to cool is at 60 C (140 F), then what you're interested in is the fact that a gram of pure ethanol at -18 C will eat about 192 J, while a gram of pure water at 0 C will eat about 251 J (to get either to 60 C).

You're much better off just putting a bunch of ice cubes in water and using that as a water bath if you want to cool something off quickly.

# ¿ Oct 11, 2013 03:27

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 22:41

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

deimos posted:

The Anova is also decent enough that there won't be a huge temp dip if you add an item halfway through a lonk cook, max deviation I saw was a degree or so when I dropped some room temp chicken into my 72 hour short ribs.

It's probably worth noting that for pretty much anything you're going to be cooking at home you really don't have to be worried about temperature variations anyway. It's cool that most ICs can keep the temperature stable to plus or minus a fraction of a degree, but there really isn't any part of the cooking process that's going to be that sensitive.

You kinda get the idea that +/- a fraction of a degree C makes a big difference from things like all those sous vide egg charts you see that have pictures for every degree or whatever. But those are kinda misleading, because (as anyone who's done a shitload of eggs will tell you) there are variations between individual eggs that will result in palpably different results even when done together in the same water for the same length of time (this is particularly true of the behaviour of the white, which appears to produce noticeably different results from the same treatment depending on the age of the egg).

And that's sorta at one extreme---eggs are comparatively sensitive to temperature differences, and they're comparatively homogeneous. If you're looking at a steak or a duck breast or some short ribs or whatever, there's going to be way the gently caress more variation between individual servings and they're far less sensitive to minor temperature variations.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2013 01:11

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Choadmaster posted:

I've been looking at various things to try and lobster has caught my attention. Anyone done it before? There seems to be such a wide variety of temperatures (~120-140 F) in the recipes I've seen. I'll probably end up doing 135 for convenience sake if I'm going to throw it in with the short ribs. I'm also curious to try some crab using the same method as the lobster.

A lobster tail done to around 50 C/120 F will be barely done, and the texture will probably put most people off. A target of 55 C/130 F is going to be more firm, and will probably be the closest thing you'll get to a `rare lobster' experience. At around 60 C/140 F you'll end up with something that's about as firm as the typical lobster tail produced by traditional means.

If it was me, I'd still steep the lobster meat in solution of water and vinegar before sealing them in a bag with some unsalted butter to more or less reproduce the method Keller popularised. That being said, this is one of those things where I'd consider just doing it all in a pot because you're not gaining much by doing it in a puddle machine over the more traditional approach.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2013 02:59

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Genewiz posted:

I read somewhere that the butter poached method doesn't work as well if you do butter-in-bag and then in a sous vide because the butter doesn't get to circulate around the lobster meat.

It's not really a question of circulation so much as it is of immersion. Depending on how strong the pump in your vacuum sealer is and how grippy the bag is, you can end up with a section on the `top' and `bottom' where the seal with the bag prevents the liquid from reaching the meat. This really isn't a problem if you're using the ziplock-and-Archimedes method to seal the meat, and I really don't notice it with my least-common-denominator, weak-rear end Seal-a-Meal. If you have a chamber vac you might want to do something to prevent the walls of the bag from sealing too tightly against the meat if you're worried about it---e.g. by putting the meat in something like a ramekin, filling the excess space with melted butter, and then sealing that.

Genewiz posted:

Thomas Keller used to do the bagged method but apparently switched to the bath method after some issues with New York's health inspectors.

I don't know the details, but I can't imagine it being an issue. Butter will pasteurise just as readily in a bag as in a pot. Are you sure the issue wasn't the result of using butter as the sous vide medium? This is something a lot of people do---instead of sealing the stuff to be cooked in a bag and filling the reservoir with water, filling the reservoir with some other liquid (e.g. butter) and cooking the food directly in that. I could see a couple of issues there that a health inspector might object to---the IC itself not being rated as food safe, or the container not being rated for temperature (and so potentially leaching BPA or whatever, which is something you'd have to worry about if you were cooking `directly' in a cambro).

Like I said before, I'd probably just do lobster `conventionally' because I don't see much of an advantage to doing 'em in the puddle machine (as opposed to some other shellfish which are a lot easier to get just so sous vide), but I don't think there are any problems with doing it sous vide.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2013 19:49

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Choadmaster posted:

About steaks, what is the goon consensus on pre-searing? Should I do that? Or just post-sear? Or both? Ultimately I'll have to experiment and see what works for me, but for the first few steaks I'd like to start off with whatever people think works best

In terms of flavour it won't really make a difference. I kinda want to say that searing before puddling mellows out some of the flavours from a good sear, but I'd be willing to be convinced that's bullshit and I couldn't actually tell in a blind test.

The texture of the crust will be different, though, particularly if you're aggressive about searing---the crust of meat seared before going in the bag won't be as crisp as the crust on meat seared afterward. Well, maybe `crisp' isn't quite the right word---you're not making it crunchy, but you know what I mean---the crust you get from a sear has a distinctive texture, and it gets softened when you sous vide it after.

It's not really a big deal either way, but I decide on whether to sear before or after based on the overall mouthfeel and texture of the meat. So something like a steak or a pork chop or whatever I'll sear after, but short ribs I'll sear beforehand. I could just be letting my prejudices about how I'd approach the meat `traditionally' affect my decision here---you have to sear before doing a braise or stew, so I tend to sear first with things that I'd braise or stew if I wasn't doing them sous vide...but that's kinda a bullshit rationalisation.

Searing beforehand is basically just searing beforehand. Searing afterward you want to be sure to pat that motherfucking piece of meat dry. Like seriously, it's loving soaking wet from sitting in that bag and if you just throw it on a lava loving hot skillet you're just going to steam it. Just patting it dry works fine if you're careful, but I'll sometimes throw something just out of the puddle machine in a toaster oven on the lowest setting---the Cuisinart model I have has a convection setting, and it's pretty drat good at surface drying and keeping meat ~*danger zone warm*~ while I'm juggling something else.

# ¿ Oct 17, 2013 03:06

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Steve Yun posted:

I've had bags fill up with air, but it turned out that I didn't seal them well, like a corner was crumpled or something and probably let in some air while it sealed.

Most vacuum sealer bags have ridges or crosshatching or something like that on the interior, presumably to help it grip the food being sealed. I've noticed that some patterns seem to want to grab the other side of the bag, which sometimes tricks the pump mechanism into believing the bag is fully evacuated before it actually is---like if you folded a crease in the bag between where the food is and the end that the pump is pulling air from.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2013 01:50

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Choadmaster posted:

I hear you can if you put it fat-side-down, especially after it's softened up so much (hell, my pan had nearly a half-centimeter of fat in it after searing 8 ribs without even trying that). But I'd really rather not tear my ribs apart to do that.

That works if the fat is in a convenient layer all together, which it really shouldn't be in shortribs. This works with something like e.g. a duck breast because a lot of the fat in duck (and in most poultry) is in a layer between the meat and the skin. Most beef, especially the parts you want to eat the most, isn't like this and has fat marbled throughout, unless you're cutting your own portions off a primal or something.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2013 02:14

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Choadmaster posted:

http://sassyspoon.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/short-ribs-raw.jpg

There is often a fairly thick layer of fat running through short ribs just above the bone. The front three in that photo show it off quite well.

Then trim them. You still don't want to try to sear it off. Sear a duck breast skin side down and you'll render off a lot of the fat---because most of the fat is between the skin and the meat---and you'll still get good flavour from the browning of the skin itself. Try searing a knob of fat on a piece of beef that's already done (because it's been through the puddle machine) and you're either going to not get enough browning or you'll end up overcooking the surrounding meat rendering down the knob of fat. And you're still not meaningfully rendering the fat out of the short rib, because---and that photo you linked shows this---the meat is marbled. So if you're getting texture problems from the consistency of the fat in the meat, whatever you're doing to any surface fat isn't going to change the consistency of the rest of the fat, which is most of it.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2013 23:25

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Womens Jeans posted:

I'm moving to a country without safe drinking water. Do I need to use bottled water in my sous vide machine, or can I just use the unsafe tap water (and if so, should I boil it first?)?

When you cook in a puddle machine the food is never in contact with the cooking medium (the water); the food is in a bag, and if your bag isn't watertight you're going to have other problems. There are a couple of special cases where you might have the food directly in contact with the cooking medium---as discussed earlier you can do lobsters in butter with an IC---but then you're generally not using water anyway.

And that all aside, if you're cooking long enough to pasteurise the food (and you should), then you're also going to be pasteurising the water. Of course this won't help if your water contamination problems involve heavy metals or arsenic or something like that, but hopefully you're talking about moving to a place like India that uses a lot of groundwater with biological contamination rather than a superfund site, alien planet, or something like that.

# ¿ Nov 26, 2013 08:07

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Scott Bakula posted:

Using a torch to make sure its completely dry then using cast iron to sear it seems the best way

Yeah. If you find yourself having trouble getting a good sear using a pan or skillet, you're probably better off working on getting the surface of the meat drier than on pursuing alternate heat sources.

And that's true, for what it's worth, in general and not just with meat that's coming out of a puddle machine.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2013 06:58

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

mod sassinator posted:

How long do people think thick steaks should be cooked sous vide? These are thick prime grade ribeye steaks, about 1.5" thick and maybe 8-10oz each. I'm thinking of cooking at 130 F for about 2 hours. Any concerns?

That's fine. The according-to-Hoyle numbers for steaks are around an hour per inch at 55C/131F as a minimum. If you're searing after you could almost certainly get away with a shorter time (assuming the steak hasn't been jaccarded) since you're really worrying about surface contamination, but you didn't hear that from me.

# ¿ Dec 24, 2013 00:03

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

geetee posted:

Nope, zero reason. Get the Anova. Smaller foot print yet higher capacity, circulates water, won't corrode.

Eh. If I was buying one today I'd probably check out an Anova just because of the price and the fact that there's more flexibility in being able to use different sized cooking vessels. But `smaller foot print'? The Anova doesn't have a footprint---whatever cooking vessel you use does, and it may or may not have a bigger footprint than a SVS.

The fact that it circulates water is really a non-starter. Like in principle it allows for finer temperature regulation but it's not like the SVS has trouble with managing temperature---even if there's some theoretical difference in their abilities, it's something that will result in literally indistinguishable results. Just like a DIY thing with an old rice cooker---cooking in a puddle machine is just insanely forgiving. That being said, an IC---any IC, not just Anova's---has moving parts, which a SVS does not. I don't know what the expected service life is for the heating element in the SVS is, but my guess is that a pump (again, pretty much any IC pump, not just the Anova one) has a MTBF that's lower than a heating element (which is a part all puddle machines will have regardless of design).

And the base plate corrosion thing, well, while it's bad design---they should've just anodised the loving things---but it's not like the fact that the finish is all hosed up actually affects operation.

I mean by all means buy an Anova or any other IC if you want. But I think pretty much any of the commercial sous vide products will do anything the majority of home cooks want to do, and they'll do it just about the same. The real basis for comparison that I'd care about is service life, and the Anovas just started shipping in, what, November? So there's not exactly a lot of data out there on them yet.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2014 03:59

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Chemmy posted:

In terms of the corrosion it's eating the bath away. It's only a matter of time until it springs a leak, so I'd say the function is compromised.

What do you mean? The SVS Demi has a nonreactive interior---is there some variant that has a non-stainless bare metal interior, or is the coating on yours just damaged?

# ¿ Feb 7, 2014 04:21

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Chemmy posted:

The coating on the inside of the bath is also eaten away by the corrosion. The inside of the bath, as well as the heat spreader plate, is corroded.

Do you have any photos of it? Because I can't imagine how it would corrode except from having the interior coating being scratched or otherwise physically damaged.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2014 05:01

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

nwin posted:

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".

Temperature problem with your puddle machine? A 50mm thick pork tenderloin coming out of a 4C/40F fridge will be pasteurised after around 3 hours at 59C/138F.

MrEnigma posted:

Edit2: 3.5" is 7:14. Basically these numbers are all to core, meaning temp at center hits your bath temp.

3.5" is a fuckoff huge pork tenderloin.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2014 03:34

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

ShadowCatboy posted:

Enjoying a sous vide ribeye done at 132.5* for 3 hours. I know most people don't think it should go that long, but I like mine done a bit more so all the collagen has gotten all nice and melty.

Who's this `most people'? Three hours at 55C/131F is just over what you'd figure as the minimum pasteurisation time for a ribeye, without getting out your callipers. And it's not going to get appreciably more `done' if you leave it in longer. Or denature meaningful amounts of collagen into gelatin---you're right at the bare-rear end minimum temperature for it to start happening in any appreciable way at all, and for it to happen enough to affect mouthfeel is something you're usually looking at 24-48 hours for, even in a piece of meat that has more collagen to convert in the first place.

I mean I'm not criticising your 3 hours@132F cook. You just seem to be suggesting that that's a long time to sous vide a ribeye, and it really isn't.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2014 11:26

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

ShadowCatboy posted:

Actually for the given time and temp I've specified I generally get very good results on softening up the connective tissues. Instead of tough fibrous bands of muscular fascia I've got muscular fascia that's edible, just a little bit chewy.

No offence, but I don't believe you. At 132F you're just not going to be denaturing appreciable amounts of collagen. You're barely going to be rendering fat, and it'll start and go faster than denaturing the collagen will. So, you know, take that steak out after it's been in the puddle machine for however long, and notice that you've still got bands of fat (which you will). Unless some mystery of science has happened, that tells you that most of your collagen is still there as well. Has to be.

I mean it can still be a good steak. Not like a ribeye's exactly a tough cut of beef to start out with.

Anyway. As far as pasteurising goes, yeah. I'm not saying you have to pasteurise your steaks. What I'm saying that is that if you throw a steak in for 45 minutes at 131 or whatever you're not even pasteurising it, because that isn't happening until around the 3-4 hour mark, and just hitting pasteurisation isn't exactly lol overcooked as far as s-v goes.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2014 08:52

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

ShadowCatboy posted:

I'd urge you to try it sometime then, SubG. It's true that very little of the fat renders out, but the connective tissue is definitely softer. I've done this a dozen times or so and I've always found that the 3-hour mark is when the CT becomes edible.

I do and have. And what you're observing in a 3 hours@131 ribeye is the fact that a ribeye is already a pretty loving tender piece of meat and it'll stay tender if you're not overcooking it (like if you put a cold ribeye into a hot pan and cook it until it's medium or something).

As I said, it really doesn't have a lot of connective tissue that needs to be broken down by the heat, and if it did that length of time at that temperature wouldn't do it. At low temperatures like that you'll get some denaturing of collagen, but below 60C/140F the thing that contributes most to tenderisation (as in 24-48 hour short ribs) is the activity of the enzyme collagenase rather than thermal breakdown, and the generally-accepted (and empirically derived) low end time for collagenase to do its poo poo is about 6 hours. Like, sure you'll get some effect in 3 hours, but it's rounding error.

If you've really got it into your head that something magical is going on, go get yourself some tough-rear end chuck or shank or something and put it in the puddle for 3 hours@131 and try it.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2014 22:10

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

ShadowCatboy posted:

No, I realize that ribeye has very little collagen in the meat itself. I'm referring to the fascia layer that separates the inner eye from the outer skirt. THAT gets significantly and noticeably softer after 3 hours in the puddle machine.

Well I suppose you might luck out and find a ribeye that has only small amounts of fat between the spinalis dorsi (the ribeye cap) and the longissimus dorsi (the main muscle in a ribeye). But if there's a bunch of collagen, worse, elastin in there you just ain't gonna do much to it in 3 hours at 131 F. I mean if it makes you feel better, more power to ya. But there's a reason why 48 hour shortribs are 48 hour shortribs and not 3 hour shortribs, and that's because in 3 hours you're not accomplishing much of anything in terms of denaturing collagen. At least not at that temperature.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2014 06:51

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

geetee posted:

Regarding pan searing, here's some good advice than can make or break your experience. Use plenty of oil. I skimped for far too long, and you just don't get enough contact that way.

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.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2014 01:33

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

nwin posted:

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).

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.

Although if your hob is putting out enough heat that you're smoking whatever oil you're using, you could just try searing them dry. Like seriously make sure your steaks are dry on the surface, don't use any oil on your cast iron, throw it down, it'll release when it's ready, done. If your seasoning isn't righteous, if the cooking surface isn't lava loving hot, or if your steaks are still damp on the outside this'll be a bloody goddamn mess, but if you've got your ducks in line it'll work fine.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2014 02:00

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

geetee posted:

I think we're just going need to disagree, or my definition of plenty of oil is similar to your definition of as little oil as possible. I tried minimizing for a while and always ended up with an uneven sear. Depending on the pan, 2 or 3 tablespoons gives me just enough depth to ensure even heat transfer. I'm getting beautiful crusts, so I'll just keep sticking with what works for me.

Whatever works for you works for you, so don't let me talk you out of it. But if you're working with a nice flat piece of protein you probably just need a hotter surface or to get in there more with your tongs to ensure good contact.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2014 01:37

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

EAT THE EGGS RICOLA posted:

Filet is a silly meat to use for your first time, because it is super lean and all you need to do is get it up to temp. It does not provide a significant benefit sous vide over a grill or pan. I would do shortrib or ribeye. Lamb shoulder or Turkey would both be better demonstrations of sous-vide.

Beef shortribs are one of the go-to showcase applications for sous vide because of Keller, but really I think duck breast is way up on the holy-poo poo-dig-that scale. And really eggs, but I don't think they're quite the kind of crowd pleaser you want if you're trying to justify to your spouse the couple hundred bucks you just dropped on a dildo that makes water lukewarm. Nah, honey, this Hollandaise was way the gently caress easier to make than usual. poo poo's tight, yo.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2014 21:55

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Safety Dance posted:

Yes, vizzling is literally on par with whipping up some fugu after watching a couple of videos on youtube.

Food saftey.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2014 01:48

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

ShadowCatboy posted:

I'll be honest, eggs benedict isn't as tasty as I'd hoped but it was still quite nice. Used salmon instead of cured pork product.

If you don't want to be disappointed, don't take out the thing that has the most assertive flavour in the dish. I mean I'm not what you would call a culinary purist, but when you're looking at a dish that's got like four moving parts in it and you change one of them, you're looking at a different dish.

That being said, if you're serving poached eggs over smoked salmon the traditional addition to the Hollandaise is dill. It adds some zing that you'll be missing otherwise---the other flavour components (egg, butter, toasted bread, fish) are pretty muted.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2014 04:52

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

ScienceAndMusic posted:

-Take chicken breasts and thoroughly coat them in Tony's creole seasoning.
-Vac bag and put in water bath at 141 degrees for 3 hours.
-Take out, and sear in pan with olive oil on high heat about 45 seconds each side.

Not a big loving deal, but you're probably better off either with a neutral oil (like canola) or using chicken or duck fat. The cool volatile compounds that give olive oil its unique flavour break down at fairly low temperatures, and you'll end up with either a bland oil (in which case you're better off using a cheaper neutral oil to start out with) or, worse, a bitter mess (this is something that's more likely to happen with a high quality extra virgin olive oil, but can happen even with refined olive oils, if they're real olive oil and not a flavoured generic vegetable oil).

I generally prefer using an animal fat, just because a comparatively mild poultry like chicken can use it, but I dunno if you're eating chicken breasts because of some diet thing or what.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2014 11:37

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

EAT THE EGGS RICOLA posted:

like i get that you mention cooking them in a pan but like

by the time this is seared in a pan it's done already

Not really, unless you're doing your burgers until they're well done. On a slab of beef like a steak when you give it a sear you've almost certainly taken care of any potential foodborne pathogens (unless it's jaccarded or something). But that's not going to be true of something like ground beef, where any surface contamination is going to get blended throughout the meat.

I mean you might not care about this if you're really confident about your ground beef, if you're doing your own grinding, or something like that.

Food safety aside, if you like a thicker burger you get all the traditional sous vide benefits out of doing burgers in a puddle machine. You do absolutely need to give them a sear afterward, so yeah it's not really a labour-saving thing. It's a pretty good approach to the classic diner-style burger at home though; the whole smash burger is really more of an upscale fast food burger approach---if that's what you're going for, doing it s-v isn't going to get you much because it's a different final product.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2014 00:44

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

WhiteHowler posted:

The meat was pretty solidly Medium - I may try 135F next time. Also, I think I'll season it a bit more. The inside was juicy and full of flavor, but I like a salty/peppery taste on the outside. For those who do steaks often, do you typically season before puddling, before searing, or right before serving? Or all three?

Salt, seal, puddle at 131 F/55 C, unbag, dry, sear one side, flip, couple turns of pepper on the just-seared side, wait for the other side to sear, done.

# ¿ May 2, 2014 02:37

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

mls posted:

I only tried it because another goon raved about it on this thread. Have you tried a brisket at a lower temperature like 135? I was very impressed with how the corned beef turned up at the lower temperature. I might have to buy a brisket and try it both at 135 and at 177.

Temperature is only part of the equation. But 135F/57C is pretty low. You don't really start to see meaningful action in the denaturing of beef collagen proteins until about 140F/60C. The process is very slow at that temperature, and much more brisk around the sweet spot of about 160F/70C.

So something like 140F for like 48-72 hours, like you see in sous vide, works. And traditional braising at around 160F for a few hours works. But you wouldn't want to vizzle a brisket or short ribs or whatever for 48 hours at 160, and you wouldn't want to braise them at 140F for a couple hours either.

# ¿ May 20, 2014 22:51

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

dotster posted:

Chicken is the most different for me between sous vide and traditional cooking, super tender and juicy. I have started just buying a few whole chickens at a time and deboneing and making a white and dark meat bag seasoned and ready to go and freezing them for easy meals. I have had good luck with nomnompaleo.com's chicken thighs.

Cooking sous vide, just like our paleolithic ancestors.

I mean I'm not making GBS threads on the recipe, which looks fine. I just find it adorable that a paleo diet website has a section on sous vide cooking.

# ¿ May 31, 2014 01:32

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

No Wave posted:

Both frameworks make sense to me, which I guess is why it's always sort of odd to me how GWS often points out how "ridiculous" the diet is when it works out quite well for most people who do it - meaning that we're apparently using some metric other than "results in the real world" to evaluate the goodness or badness of an approach.

The owner of the blog conveniently provides a comic (complete with serenely informative self-insert and dumb and so goddamn crazy strawman) explaining their viewpoint, which is that people should eat `real' foods. Instead of things that `wreck our metabolic, digestive, and immune systems'. Like rice.

It's pseudoscientific crap. The fact that there are some people who believe in the pseudoscientific crap somewhat less ardently or less stridently than others doesn't mean that it's not pseudoscientific crap.

Like I said the recipe actually looks fine. I mean if you didn't already know about it you wouldn't even know it was a paleo recipe. Almost as if paleo itself is completely irrelevant to good cooking.

# ¿ May 31, 2014 03:09

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

No Wave posted:

Paleo itself is just a heuristic, and eating it generally makes you feel really great almost all the time. You don't need science to verify the fact that[...].

No, you actually do need science for that. If engaging in a particular dietary ritual makes you feel better, that's just peachy. But that doesn't mean paleo isn't nonsense, any more than the reports of purely subjective positive effects derived from faith healing or feng shui mean that they're not nonsense.

Eating is a very personal experience, and pure aesthetics is a large part of that experience. That's cool. That's one of the things that makes food and cooking interesting. So if anyone wants to claim that they personally prefer to eat the way they speculate cavemen used to eat, fine. I mean I happen to think that's pretty loving goofy, but whatever. Lots of people have eating habits I think are pretty loving goofy. But moving from `I happen to like to eat this way' to `real food blah blah grains destroy your immune system blah blah dietary science is totally made up man' moves it from no-accounting-for-taste territory and deep into completely-loving-barmy land.

This probably isn't the thread to arbitrate this however. There's a pseudoscience thread in SAL that's just full of people who would no doubt love to hear all about it though.

# ¿ May 31, 2014 12:25

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

MeKeV posted:

Wrong time or wrong temp? Or just not a meat cut where sous vide gets the best out of it?

I do this all the loving time and it's fine. Just use a generous amount of oil in a lava loving hot wok, and just bounce the meat around in there long enough for it to brown, which should be literally just a few seconds, and then reserve, do the veg or whatever the gently caress else, and toss everything together at the end right before plating.

It's actually a great approach, you can get super loving tender nicely rare stir-fry, which is not at all traditional but is nevertheless awesome. There's no reason it has to come out overcooked any more than any other goddamn thing done in the puddle machine and then seared is, which is to say not at all unless you need to work on your technique.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2014 11:13

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Kalista posted:

The short version - sous vide the baby backs for 4 hours at 167, then dust with rub and smoke/grill for 3-4 hours at 176 (if you have an electric smoker) or as low as you can get if it's charcoal.

That's cool and all, but you pretty much might as well just finish them in the oven if you're going to puddle before smoking---you're not going to get much smoke ring formation after the meat hits about 60 C/140 F. You'll get some condensation of smoke on the surface of the meat, so it'll smell smokey and that contributes to the overall experience or whatever, but if you really want to sous vide smoked ribs you're better off smoking until the meat hits like 140 and then finish in the puddle machine.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2014 21:26

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Most of the studies I've seen suggest that the major C. botulinum risk associated with sous vide cooking is not during the cooking itself but rather in vacuum sealed foods refrigerated improperly after cooking (e.g. stored at temperatures over 4 C) for prolonged periods. I'd be interested in seeing data demonstrating germination and growth at sous vide temperatures over typical sous vide timescales (e.g. a couple hours to 72 hours or so at the outside).

# ¿ Jul 23, 2014 00:10

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Chemmy posted:

Under Pressure is a cool book but I agree that ultimately it's not terribly useful as a first SV book.

If feel the same way about Myhrvold. There's this tendency to concentrate on fiddly showcase poo poo instead of the straightforward nuts and bolts stuff like you see in e.g. Baldwin's book. I mean the recipes in a book by Keller or Myhrvold or say Blumenthal are way the gently caress more impressive but you're better of learning the basic drill before you wade into the glossy photo, coffee table book poo poo.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2014 00:16

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Samizdata posted:

Sorry, copyrighted. I'mma calling !

You can't copyright a recipe, only the specific text presenting it. So as long as you don't type it up word for word, there's no violation.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2014 23:56

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

.Z. posted:

I have a Demi and I'll eventually get an Anova or a similar circulator. It's not that the Demi is bad, it's just that the circulators are almost always better. Only reason I have a Demi is because at the time the cheapest comparable circulator was like $250 more. More reasons for circulator over Demi:

1. Demi isn't really that small, it takes up about as much space as my stand mixer.
2. Possible corrosion issue of the bottom removable grill (Though I have yet to encounter this)
3. The circulators, at least the Anova, are much more consistent in their temperature control. Anova is +/- 0.01, Demi is -2.4.

Leaving aside the corrosion issues some people seem to encounter, I see the major drawback to the SVS over an IC is that you're stuck with a single reservoir size. While an IC might have better temperature stability, I seriously doubt anyone buying babby's first puddle machine is going to be doing anything where the difference will matter.

The main advantage that I can see to the SVS design is that it has no moving parts. I don't know where the different IC manufacturers are sourcing their pumps, but in a commercial application a fluid pump is one of those things that you expect to go tits up before any other part of the device (mod gaskets and so on). And I don't think any of the new low end ICs have been out there long enough to know what their service life is going to look like.

# ¿ Aug 27, 2014 23:56

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Chemmy posted:

Do you mean Atlantic oysters? There's tons of oysters here.

And honestly I'd expect to find Bluepoints and Bausoleils and whatever pretty much anywhere people'll pay for them.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2014 05:02

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 22:41

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Choadmaster posted:

Anyone have a favorite pork chop temp/recipe?

Salt, puddle machine at 55C/131F for a couple hours, sear both sides, a little pepper, done.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2014 00:25

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Goons with Spoons > Sous veni, sous vide, sous vizzle

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