You might have to put up with me on this for a while because I’m becoming more excited about this by the day. I blogged of the chicken experience the other day, first use of the Doctors Eades’ Sous-Vide Supreme (which is an engineering work of art, I think). That was the night before we left for the holiday. Upon our return on Sunday we were invited to dinner down the hall and I decided to contribute by cooking a couple of the Ultimate Grill Steaks from La Cense.
I already knew that the published cooking temperatures are way too high for pretty much all applications; this, due to liability concerns, i.e., sharks in suits euphemistically referred to as "lawyers" who hide behind platitudes of "truth & justice" in order to wreak predatory havoc on a gullible populace who believes themselves "protected" from big bad business.
…I digress.
At any rate, the meat came out way over done and lost way to much of the juices when I sliced them up for presentation & serving. Even though the published temps for medium rare are 136 and I used 130, still way to much. When I cook meats to medium rare using a temperature probe, I usually take it to 122. So, my next beef attempt is going to probably be at 120.
So, last night I did salmon.
Salmon Sous Vide
The temperature chart calls for 140F for 40 minutes. I knew that the San Francisco presentation I attended used 122 for 40 minutes and I had heard of it being done as low as 113 for 40. I chose 120 for 40. I also prepared a brine solution of 1 Qt water to 1/2 cup salt and submerged the fish for 10 minutes.
In addition to the salmon I added a healthy pat of organic butter, a pinch of dill, and not having any fresh lemon I added a couple of squirts of juice from the plastic lemon.
To serve, I simply unloaded the bag right onto the plate, juices and all, and added a small pinch of sea salt. Notice how the butter is yellow, still. That’s because near as I can tell, every drop of moisture is still packed into the meat. Again, it’s difficult to describe because it’s so unlike any salmon I’ve ever had. It’s not flakey, which, I think is because so much juice get’s lost. It’s more like a firm pie filling. So moist & tender. Bea said it was the best salmon she’s ever had, "truly."
While I haven’t delved into it, I did come across this work in progress, A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking.
I believe that tonight I’m going to try my hand at an egg concoction or two.
Let me ask you two questions about Sous Vide cooking. It looks and sounds great, but I’m a health nut, and I have concerns about cooking anything in plastic.
Are you at all concerned with the quality of the plastic you are cooking the food in?
Does the food at all take on the taste of the plastic?
Thanks!
Suzan:
I addressed this question on the chicken entry that’s linked. In a nutshell, I have two things:
1) it’s an 80/20 rule thing for me. The temps are extremely, off the scale low compared to conventional cooking, so the potentially carcinogenic stuff from cooking high heat is completely eliminated.
2) The Eades had the bags tested by a lab and the amount of whatever it is (can’t remember) came out below the detection threshold of 1 ppm.
It’s good enough for me. Just get the food grade bags that are specifically appropriate for “simmering,” i.e., not the ones specifically for refrigeration or freezer.
Thanks! (I must have missed the chicken post!)
Looks great, Richard. A couple of comments. First, your brine was a little stout. We use an 8 percent brine, which is roughly 5 tablespoons per quart of water. Ten minutes is the perfect time to brine for salmon.
We cook ours at 118F for 40 minutes, and it’s terrific. Probably the best thing to do is experiment with the temp to find the one between 113F and 122F that tastes best to you.
As to the medium rare beef…we use 134F. You’ve got to be careful with times, though. If the meat you use is a high quality, tender cut, say, a rib eye, then you want to not overcook it in the bath. We go for about an hour. Another way you can get it too done is during the post-bath searing process. Put a skillet on the burner set at its highest setting to about 10 minutes. Add some clarified butter (ghee), which will sizzle like crazy. The sear the steak briefly – maybe 20 seconds per side – flipping it back and forth a time or two, then you’re ready to go.
Thanks Mike. Yea, I looked all over for some chart for brine concentrations. I’ll try that next.
Very possible that I overdid it in the searing process which was a combo of seconds in the cast iron and then the broiler. But experimenting is fun too.
Hi Richard,
I’m right behind you with the SVS experiments. First up: boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cooked with salt and butter at 146F. Good tasting and fairly moist, but that temp should have been lower and I’ve got to try the 8% brine next time.
Next up, pork loin cut into 1″ thick slices. Marinated them for a bit, then cooked that at 140F, I still feel the temp was too high. So the lesson seems to be: brave the lower temps!
Salmon was next on my list, but I also feel like an egg diversion. I saw an article recently (where, oh where?) that talked about the egg preparation differences at temps, varying one degree F. It looks like 62C-64C would be fun to experiement with.
Oh, here’s the link that mentioned Sous Vide eggs:
http://cookingissues.wordpress.com/2009/05/12/sous-vide-intensive/
Thanks Richard for more food porn (I prefer to think of it as ‘food burlesque’) and Dr. Eades for the cooking clarifications.
John, this morning I tried the eggs referenced in your link (and from SVS site), cooking them for 1 hr at 63C and they turned out like custard, as described. I might prefer them a bit firmer, but it was really tasty and amazingly easy. This morning I put the eggs in before taking our son to school and they were ready by the time I cooked sausage patties. I love being able to get food started and leave the house without fearing it will burn (the food or the house).
Do you have a machine (I know Dr. Eades allowed a pre-order for $50 off, but I still don’t have enough money yet!).
I thought of buying the probe and using my nearly-discarded rice cooker as a makeshift unit, but that is still about $150!
Yep, I got one on the pre-order deal.
I’d encourage you to save your pocket change and anything else you can scrounge together and wait to get the real deal. The machine is very well built and the only moving parts are the buttons to turn on/off, set temp & timer, etc. Hopefully those stay well intact indefinitely.
I built my own Sous Vide cooker (and bought a Foodsaver). Total cost was around $280. You could do it for cheaper if you just use ziploc bags.
Very large rice cooker: $40
Controller: $140
Foodsaver: $100
http://chadzilla.typepad.com/chadzilla/2008/04/altering-the-ho.html
I use the same rice cooker pictured there and bought the controller from Auber Instruments (auberins.com).
I’ve been very pleased with how it all works my only wish is that the cooker was bigger. I can get a roast in it but sometimes I have to cut really big ones in half.
Thank you for the information Zute.
I have the old rice cooker and the foodsaver, just need to cough up the dough for the controller.
I bet for the large roast you could find a deal on one of those large crockpots from a garage sale or Craigslist.
Excellent setup.
Hey, I bought that exact same Foodsaver unit yesterday at Target as I just found the hand vac very unreliable.
what kind of salmon was it richard? coho, sockeye?
I forget. Wild caught for sure.
I tried a couple of temps for Salmon, I wrote about it on my blog. I started at 53°C then 50°C and settled for 47°C that’s how I like it. I usually remove the skin before placing it in a pouch and crisp it up and serve it as a chip with the fish, nice and crunchy.
By the way, come and vote on my blog. I’m having a survey about Sous vide equipement. At the moment Sous Vide Magic is ahead.
Cheers
N.
Ha, I didn’t get a chance to check out your blog and vote on the SV equipment until just this morning. Then I saw your top entry on scallops. Well, go check out my top entry right now. What a coincidence.
Sous Vide in a Beer Cooler
http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/04/cook-your-meat-in-a-beer-cooler-the-worlds-best-sous-vide-hack.html?ref=se-bb4
I’ve tried this twice and it works great. Cost me nothing as I already had everything. I used Glad 1 Gallon Freezer bags, rated best by America’ Test Kitchen for their sealability, I used a small Igloo Maxcold cooler that can hold 24 cans. I used a temp gauge that has a probe at the end of a wire. You measure the temp of the water, not the meat.
I cooked thin porkchops in about 4 gallons at 14o degrees for an hour and they were medium, slightly pink. Temp ended at 138. Ate them with avocado, half an apple, and some fresh salsa. Great combo. Very, very pleased with my first effort.
I then cooked skirt steak in only 2 gallons of water that started at 131 and cooled down to 126 over the next hour. Before sealing it in the bag, I coated one side with minced garlic and the other with pepper. I should have waited until it was room temp, but I was getting hungry. When I put the bag in the 131 degree water, the temp went down to 128 pretty quickly. I just added a little boiling water to bring the temp back up to 131. I closed the lid and one hour later, I pulled it out of the bag and saved the juices. I heated ghee to a high temp and browned the skirt on both sides for about 45 seconds. I salted it while it rested and some juice came out. Might or might not be better to wait before salting. All the juice went back in the pan. I added a tablespoon of butter and deglazed the pan. Poured the sauce into a small bowl for dipping. Fantastic. Perfect rareness everywhere. Skirt is very thin, but it is not uniformly thick. The thin part of the meat was cooked exactly the same as the thick. Killer. Super tender and luscious.
that’s great Alan. I think I’m going to do a “poor man’ sous vide deal using a cooler very soon camping. You don’t need to sound a lot of money to do this. Only if you want a bit more simplicity and ease.
Good for you.
I forgot to mention that when you close the bag, suck out all the air so it will submerge.