I’ve had a sous vide cooker for a few years now, but I’ve really only used it to cook steaks. (Which come out delicious, BTW.)
Anyone got a sous vide recipe they really love?
What brand do you have? Some of them have pretty developed cook books, possibly in app form.
I have minimal experience, though I just learned that you can make a crème brûlée with one. Sounds intriguing.
I have an Anova Precision Cooker. I cook lots of different stuff with it but the thing I cook most often is eggs. I used to do 63° eggs that took an hour but now I prefer the texture of 75° eggs cooked for 13 minutes. I usually do half a dozen at a time. I add them to lots of dishes - salads, pasta, rice dishes or just have one on toast.
My most frequent use is skinless boneless chicken breasts. I just salt them and put a dab of butter in the bag, sometimes a pinch of thyme. I make big batches and keep some frozen to have on hand for risotto and other stuff (just a soak in hot tap water to bring them back to temperature – no microwaving). Throwing them on the grill for a minute or so to give grill marks got the comment “This is best chicken I have ever had.” from a neighbor who takes his grillin’ very seriously.
What I think is the best I’ve made is the Sous Vide Barbecue Pork Ribs Recipe from Serious Eats. It’s a three day process (but very little actual ‘hands on’ time, mostly just waiting time) and I play a bit fast and loose with their rub and sauce – but wow, really serious eats. There are never any leftovers.
Can you clarify this? What temp and time do you cook 'em? Do you individually bag them and freeze? To thaw, are you soaking the whole bag in hot water?
As somebody who likes to use chicken breasts but hates actually handling them, this is extremely interesting.
Salmon (I do 125 F) Sous Vide Salmon Recipe
Faux-carnitas Sous Vide Carnitas for Tacos (Crispy Mexican-Style Pulled Pork) Recipe
Carrots (I do 186 F to get al dente carrots — insulate your container or be prepared to add boiling water occasionally, that’s a hard temp to maintain. Also have a solution to floating bags, carrots float) Sous Vide Glazed Carrots Recipe
It’s the best way to cook fish fillets. I just put some frozen fish fillets in a vacuum seal bag along with a little bit of butter and a pinch of salt, and sous vide for an hour or so (no need to thaw the fish first). Around 125-130F seems to work well. I usually use white fish like cod, snapper, or flounder. Salmon is good too.
You can sear it afterwards, but I often don’t bother.
Actually, this may be a “me” problem, since I tend to do my sous viding outside:smack:
Sous vide works very well for pork chops. I cook mine at 130F for two hours, after which I brown them in a cast iron pan. They come out tender and juicy, a result that’s hard to achieve with any other cooking method on today’s super-lean pork. I should warn you that, at this cooking temperature, the chops will be pink. It’s completely safe, but some people have an aversion to pork that has any color left in it.
Turkey breast also works very well. I do mine at 145F for three hours, although it’s possible to do it at lower temperatures. I usually cook a half breast with the bone in. I don’t bother with browning. I just seal the turkey in a Food Saver bag with some flavorings such as rosemary, garlic, etc. Sometimes I add a little butter.
A few pounds of salmon for 1-2 hours at 55 Celsius. I let it cool, put it in the fridge then eat it cold. No more prep than that. You’d think cold fish would be disgusting but it’s surprisingly good.
This is my favorite technique for finishing sous vide steaks: Trim all possible fat off the steaks. Insert two metal skewers through each steak from one edge to the opposite edge (so if the steaks are set flat on a cutting board the skewers are parallel with the board). On a charcoal grill, fill a chimney half way with charcoal and light it. When the top coals are covered with ash, leaving the coals in the chimney, set a steak on top of the chimney supported by the skewers. Cook until well browned, about 60 seconds. Flip the steak over and repeat on the other side. This produces an awesome char. The only downside is it seems a little wasteful to burn that much charcoal just for the char.
I’m in the middle of my first attempt at sous vide rib roast. 24 hours of resting with a salt rub, then 24 hours of cooking sous vide. I hope it’s as good as it sounds.
185 or so is pretty much the go-to temperature for any sort of reasonably firm vegetable. My Anova doesn’t have any problem with it, but as you note, I’m an inside cook.
Couple things to keep in mind, though, are that plastic containers not meant for heat can sometimes start softening as low as about 150, and that 185 is HOT, and pretty much any container is going to get to and hold that temp, so don’t put it where you/kids/pets will touch it. I’ve gotten used to snagging (bagged) meats and such out of 130-140 water quickly with my hands–don’t want to do that by 185.
Although I didn’t think I’d need it when I started, getting a sous vide container specifically made for my device (and high heat – the one I’ve got can go all the way to boiling) turned out to be my best purchase after the device itself.
Did a 10 pound standing rib roast over the holidays. Used a 2 1/2 gal ziplock bag and a fairly large ice chest that was allowed to heat up overnight to 132 degrees. (Don’t know how long it actually took to come to temp, left it overnight as a convenience)
10 hours followed by 10 minutes in a 500 degree oven and it was one of the best I’ve ever done. It was a $5/lb on sale hunk of meat so it not like I started with prime.
I cook them in individual bags at 146F for a little over an hour; just be sure to leave them in long enough to be pasteurized, somewhat longer won’t overcook them.
After cooking I chill the ones I’m not using immediately in an ice water bath and stick in the fridge or freezer. They will keep for three to four weeks in the fridge because they are pasteurized – several months in the freezer.
My home tap water is 140F so soaking the still sealed bag(s) will bring the meat up to a good serving temperature. If your tap isn’t that hot you may want to use some other method of hot water but you don’t want to expose the chicken to high temperature like boiling water or a microwave or it will become overcooked. Maybe just a big pot of 140 to 150F degree water, reheating carefully as needed or set up your sous vide equipment (which is what I am trying to avoid by simply using my hot tap water).
Once the chicken gets up to 135 or 140 I just cut it up and toss it into the finished risotto. For other dishes I personally am not much for grilling but do sometimes toss them whole onto the grill just to get some nice grill marks. I’ve dabbled with a torch and with a very hot frying pan; that works but I’m too lazy to bother. Mostly I am more likely to not be concerned with putting a finishing brown on them but rather cover them with some sort of quick pan sauce using the very flavorful liquid in the bag as a base.
And, of course, they make a great chicken sandwich or salad straight out of the bag with no reheating.
Pasteurization time and temperature charts and an overload of many things sous vide:
A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking by Douglas E. Baldwin (PDF)