Category Archives: Sous Vide

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April 25, 2017

Another sous vide adventure this evening. 

I got home just before Kevin, which is unusual as we typically leave work at about the same time, but his work is 1/2 the distance from home than mine. I took the opportunity to lay down in bed for a quick bit. Before I had the chance to nod off, Kevin got home and before I knew it, my phone had a message that the Joule had reached its set temperature. At that, my curiosity was piqued about what was on for dinner.

Upon getting dressed, gathering some laundry to throw in, I made my way downstairs to find some surprises in the sous vide - two kinds of tuna, Yellow Tail and Ahi. The Yellow Tail came from our friend, Ike, an avid deep-sea fisherman, whom we visited in Arizona in February. The Ahi came from East Anchor Seafood, just up the street.

Kevin had them in the sous vide just at about 62F to get them thawed and then raised the temperature to 122F for final cooking. Unfortunately, between catching up on the day and getting the laundry started, we lost track of the time that the fish was under the supervision of the Joule. In the meanwhile, and after some discussion about what to have for sides, Kevin got our potatoes browned (previously Joule cooled) in the skillet and broccolini ready to steam. I, on the other hand, prepared myself a Martini.

Once we deemed the fish to be done, which was pretty much arbitrary at this point, we got a pan going for searing. Both pieces of fish went in while the broccolini seamed nicely with a little chicken stock and garlic on another burner.

With a pat to dry each piece, it didn't take long to get a light sear on each, but it was quickly clear that we had the sous vide at too high of a temperature. The Yellow Tail was clearly cooked through to the point that it no longer wanted to stay together as one piece. However, it wasn't until I cut into the Ahi that the same error was evident. The meat was still red as you can see above, but it certainly wasn't the fish-equivalent of rare-to-medium-rare that I would have liked.

It was all still tasty, but not all that it could have been.

The lesson learned - lower temp on the sous vide. Or simply don't sous vide these cuts of fish. We'll try this again sometime but, I think, we'll target about 110F if we use the sous vide for this next time. Do any of you out there have any suggestions on how to make this better? Let us know in the comments if you do.

Steven

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A couple weeks ago we were up at the local Asian grocery store, Uwajimaya, and found a nice slab of pork belly (the actually called it pork side). Our first thought was "Sous Vide!"  We got about a two pound piece to bring home. This weekend, we finally got around to throwing it in the sous vide and letting the Joule take over.

We cut it into two even-ish pieces to try two different rubs: one with just salt and sugar and one that added Chinese Five Spice powder. We read on Sous Vide Life about the need to put skewers cross-wise through the meat to keep it from curling up during cooking. We did this with the Five Spice portion, not with the other. As it turned out, even with these small pieces, it made a difference. The one with the skewers was much easier to slice in even pieces. If you do a larger piece, I would certainly recommend the skewers.

The rub: equal parts of sugar and salt and about 1 Tsp Five Spice to 1 Lbs of pork.

With both rubbed-up, Saturday they went into the sous vide for 24 hours at 154F. Our plan was to have them for dinner on Sunday. But as plans often change, we ended up going out for a lovely birthday celebration. So the pork had to wait another night, which worked out perfectly.

We took the pork out of the sous vide Sunday and put in the fridge for the night.

The next evening we pulled one out. To get it back up to temp, we put it back in the sous vide at 135F for an hour. This got it loosened back up and to a good "eating" temperature. It was already fully cooked and food-safe, so just needed to be warmed up. While it was finishing up, we got the broiler going to finish it. After the hour in the sous vide, it went under the broiler for about 10 minutes to crisp. Here's the result.

Meanwhile, Kevin created a sauce by pulling nearly everything 'Asian' out of the fridge: soy sauce, fish sauce, hoisin, Taiwanese peppers, ginger, garlic, and mirin. I can't give proportions here as we didn't keep track. If you decide to do this yourself, adjust as you wish. The rice was already in the works. All that was left was to steam some broccolini.

In the end, we ended up with a fantastic tasting dish. The pork wasn't quite as tender as we had hoped, but the flavor was certainly there! If we do this again, we'll probably drop the temp a bit and/or deccrease the time.

Here's how the final dish presented. Kevin had a little more sauce, mine the lesser.

I know most of you don't have a sous vide machine - yet! But if you try this, please let us know how it turns out. If you have a different way of cooking pork belly let us know that too. 

Who doesn't love bacon? (Sorry vegetarians and the pork-adverse!)

Well, we love bacon. But we don't love cooking bacon. Granted there are worse smells you can have in you home than bacon, but it's does tend to linger and permeate the house. We've found a better way: sous vide, thanks to chefsteps.com and Joule.

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This technique may not be for all bacon lovers. It doesn't make crisp, snappy bacon. If you like softer bacon with a little more chew, more tender and some fat left in it, this may be for you.

The ingredients are simple, just 1 Lbs of bacon. It can even be from you freezer. Here in Seattle, we're able to get Hempler's Uncured Thick-cut Bacon. It's still smoked but no added nitrates*. We think it tastes a little more "natural" and not quite as "salty." You're call on the cured vs uncured. Just saying, that's what we used.

The one intangible ingredient you need is time. With the Joule set at 147F/64C, this takes as "little" as 9 all the way to 48 hours depending on how tender you want it in the end (and how long you want to wait). So some advanced planning is required here. Once the bath is up to the set temperature, just through in the whole vacuum sealed package the bacon come from the store in. And wait....or just go to bed and try to sleep in the next morning even knowing that bacon is waiting for you.

What it looks like just out of the bath:

In the morning, it couldn't be easier. Just get out your trusty cast iron skillet or carbon steel pan or any pan, really, that can get smokin' hot. Don't use a Teflon pan, it won't like this much heat. When the pan is good and hot, throw on a few strips and let them sizzle for only 30 seconds. Chef Steps suggests just doing one side. We like it better with both sides seared. Just remember it only needs 30 seconds on each side since it is technically fully cooked already. You're just crisping it up a bit. Serve immediately!

This first photo is with both sides fried. The next shows the strips fried on only one side, the fried side showing on the left and un-fried side showing on the right.

The bonus feature is that you can have bacon all week long, if you don't eat it all on the first go. It can stay in the fridge so that you can quickly fry up a slice or two in the mornings throughout the week. Bacon in just a minute. In the words of dear Ina Garten, how good is that?

* We'll leave it to you to do your own research on the nitrate situation. Apparently nitrates occur naturally in many of the vegetables that dietitians and nutritionist suggest we eat. We choose "no nitrate added" bacon just because we like the taste better. To us, it's a more "natural" flavor and not as "salty." As with all things meat, moderation is key.

Christmas Day dinner with friends began the day before with the arrival of a hefty 3-rib prime rib roast. We knew that to sous vide a roast this size would take many, many hours, so it was necessary to have it handy Christmas morning to start the sous vide process.

It's gotten to be our tradition to have Christmas dinner with our friend David (ever since Steven had foot surgery Christmas Eve a few years back). In exchange for us cooking dinner, David provides the most wonderful prime rib roasts. He gets them at Metropolitan Market in West Seattle. This year's roast is from the blade end so it has a little more marbling - perfect! See our earlier post for tips on buying your rib roasts:

We consulted two websites for information and recipes on all-things sous vide: ChefSteps and Anova Culinary. We bought the Joule sold by ChefSteps, and that gave us access to their Premium area that contains extensive resources and training videos as well as other opportunities the Joule team dreams of. Plus we just like that ChefSteps is local, located in our very own Pike Place Market.

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From a web search for sous vide prime rib recipes, we landed back at ChefSteps. Here’s the link to their  herb crusted (prime) rib roast recipe, which they say was inspired by their own traditional rib roast recipe. At this writing, we’re having difficulty accessing the link on the iPad, but it works just fine on the iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, and MacBook Air. Hey Joule Team, you might want to look into this.

From ChefSteps:

The roast ready to start in the sous vide bath:

This was probably the most delicious, tender, perfectly cooked rib roast we’ve ever cooked or had at a restaurant. Honestly, it was. We’re not kidding.

We had plenty of left overs from the four of us, and that was with a couple of people going back for seconds. Alas, my sauce didn’t last.

Accompanying our Christmas Day meal was a potato-noodle savory kugel and roasted carrots and green beans seasoned with garlic, salt, pepper and Harissa.

We can’t recommend sous vide cooking enough. Since getting our Joule a month or so ago, we’ve experimented with several meals, most turned out exceptionally well. Go get yourself one of these, it’s not just kitchen toy, it’s really very useful as an all-around tool for the home cook.