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Sous Vide Beef for 24hrs @ 56c

I discovered Douglas E. Baldwin today. I also found this pdf, which is useful. I'll buy the book eventually of course, I love cookbooks!
I set out with the idea that I'd cook a small joint of Topside beef for later consumption, maybe as a lunch item. I ended up cooking it for 12hrs, which is obviously too long! I think maybe 6hrs would be plenty, you'd probably get away with 4. 
Mr Baldwin has a handy chart for cooking roast beef. He suggests that the cut should not be thicker than 7cm, so if you have a large joint, carve it up and bag it. Then cook it for 24hrs @ 55c. I have to disagree with the esteemed scientist. I found that the Topside cut of beef is quite lean, and therefore, as with the Rabbit saddle in the previous post, became quite grainy after a 24hr stint in the bath. It was still moist and tasty, but had that dusty grain of slightly over done sous vide meat.

Sous Vide Christmas Turkey

The Christmas Turkey is always a worrying prospect for me. Putting the massive bird in the oven for 3hrs, making sure it's cooked all the way through, is it going to be dry? Probably. Do you stuff it? How do you roast the potatoes while the massive thing is in there?

All these problems can be eradicated by using Sous Vide to cook the bird. Not only that, but you also get a huge improvement on texture, flavour and juiciness!

Objective; Christmas diner: 25th December @ 2pm. All prep done by 24th December @ 4pm.

Method; Take 1 Turkey. If it's frozen it'll need 72hrs/3days to defrost in the fridge. Therefore you need to buy it on or before the 21st December.

Butcher the Turkey to remove the breasts and legs from the carcass. 
Make a stuffing for the legs. Take 

Take the legs, bone them and remove the sinewy bits in the drumstick. Butterfly the leg meat so that it is uniform thickness. Stuff the leg with minced pheasant breast. If not they can be cooked as a whole. Roll them in cling film, bag, vac pack. The leg meat will need to be cooked @ 78c for 8-betweem 8 and 12hrs. I've put it in @ 5pm on 24th December so it needs to come out first thing on christmas day morning, just before the breasts go in.

Chop the carcass up into 2 or 4 bits, roast with veg to make stock, reduce further to make gravy. 

@ 9am, 25th December; Take the breast, brine them and put them in the fridge. For the Brine; 2L water, 100g sugar & 150g salt. Leave in the brine for 45mins. 
Take them out of the brine, rinse, pat dry, season and vac pack. The breasts will need around 4hrs @ 64c. Seeing as I'll take the legs out at around 8am, 25th December, that's when the breasts will go in.

Sous Vide Sausages 4hrs @ 64c

My favorite sausages are Turkey sausages made by the butcher. He charges quite a bit, but they're very good sausages. They work out at around 66p per sausage. They're quite big. I think it was £18 for 5lbs/2.2kg.
Anyway, I used to buy in bulk, stick em in the oven, then freeze half and eat the rest. The oven always gave variable results, no there would always be a few over cooked ones on the outside. 
So I thought I'd give sous vide ing them a go. One negative I thought there may be was that there would be no Maillard reaction and the sausages might have a different flavor as a result.
I bagged the sausages and vacced them. If you give them max vac in the bag, they'll all squish together. Better to only half vac them so that they stay sausage shaped.
I gave them 4 hours. They wouldn't benefit from longer cooking as the meat is already minced.
The result, I think, is lovely. They come out perfectly uniform for a start. The skin is a bit tough as it hasn't had the high temps, but I think it's tough anyway. The inside meat is like a pate or a German sausage. Thoroughly recommend this method! 

Gammon Joint Sous Vide 48hrs @ 64c

A bought a gammon joint from the local butchers. It was already vac packed in a bag so I just dropped it into the Sousvide supreme. I was cooking ribs again and there was space in the bath.
The result was awesome again. I don't think you can go wrong with pork in the water bath. It responds well to slow, long cooking. It also retains most of it's moisture.

Sous Vide White fish 30mins @ 60c

I've used those "frozen fish in a pouch" products, that you shove in the oven. I quite like them, but they have too much butter, or what I think is butter, in them. When I thought of doing sous vide fish it was along similar lines. The reality, as I'm discovering more the more I use it, is different using the water bath.
I took some frozen white fish portions and bagged them with some butter. I allowed them to defrost in the fridge for 24hrs.
I looked up a temperature that others had used and decided that around 56°c was good, for around 30mins. When I took them out of the bag it was possible to pick them up with my fingers, they seemed quite cool. There was a lot of liquid in the bag, which I suppose was ice, together with the butter.
The fish seemed quite raw as some parts of it were still quite transparent. This would be ok if the fish was fresh, but I was a bit dubious of the frozen stuff. It tasted fine though.
I did another batch a few days later, this time I did them without butter, at 60°c for around 30mins.
These were whiter, the proteins had firmed, and the flesh was flakeyer. I preferred this texture for this fish, but I'd probably do fresh fish lower and then maybe finish in butter in a pan.

Roast Potatoes

For roast potatoes you need 2 ingredients;
1, Good, tasty potatoes - I use spuds from the local farm shop, Bradshaws. They grow and sell Wilja and another type of spud that escapes me now, but they're both very nice spuds.
2, Fat - animal fat is best, mostly because it has a high smoke/burn point. Other oils are fine for purpose but obviously there's less flavour with processed oils. If you don't know what a high smoke point is have a look here. I also like to use butter coz it's nice.
Peel the spuds.
Cut them into roast potato size pieces (this is up to you but the smaller you cut them, the less fluffy potato you'll have) and put in a pan with water and put on the heat. 
You'll want to simmer until tender, around 30 mins. 
Put the oven on and put a suitable tray in there with the high smoke point fat in it.
Drain the spuds in a colander and toss them to fluff them up a bit. 
Carefully put them in the hot fat and make sure they get turned in the fat. Take a few slices of butter and put it on top of the potatoes. Put them in the oven at 180c for around 45mins. After 45mins take them out and turn them and stick em back in for 30mins. 
They will then be tastetastically crispy and lovely.

Sous Vide Eggs

Ironic that eggs are apparently the 'entry' dish into sous vide cooking! I think that cheap beef should take that title as it's such a successful dish for me!
Anyway, I say ironic because eggs are not a good sous vide ingredient. Also, eggs come in their own perfect cooking vessel, but you need to vac pack these in case they crack in the Sous Vide bath. Worse if you have a circulator!
I always thought that egg whites cooked at a lower temp than the yolks, but the opposite is true. 
So if you cook the eggs at around 64c, the yolk will be soft and lovely. The whites however, will be like snot, as the 2 proteins in the whites don't solidify until around 80c, at which point the yolk is grey and ruined! That's why eggs are perfect for traditional boiling.

Sous Vide Confit Duck Leg 12 hours @ 75c

Bought a couple of cheap ducks from Co-op so had to do something with them!
Skinned, took the breasts off, took the legs off but left the skin on, took the wings off and cut the carcass in half.
I roasted the carcass with some onions and made a stock with it.
Put the skin in a pan and rendered the fat on a medium heat. After it had rendered I took the scissors to the skin and chopped it into scratchings. Continue cooking in the fat until crispy.
I bagged up the breasts and saved them.
I made a rub for the legs and wings with salt, fresh oregano and bay leaves. Coated the legs with the mix and put them in the fridge overnight. The fat was also setting during this time.
Next day, wash the legs, pat them dry on kitchen towel, bag up with a spoonful of fat for each leg. Do the same for the wings. Cook at 75c for 12 hours.
Never had better confit du cannard! Absolutely melt in the mouth fantastic! Even the wings were awesome.
One negative was that I spilt a glass of red over the vacuum sealer, and broke it! Bugger!

Sous Vide Pheasant

Bought a whole Pheasant from the butchers. De-boned it. 
Bagged the legs and cooked at 75c for 8hrs.
Bagged the breast and cooked at 64c for 60mins. The reason I cooked it at this temp was that I was also cooking a Rabbit saddle that I thought needed this a higher temp. 
It was good but would be better at a lower temp. 
Next time I'd cook the Rabbit at 60c for 45mins.
The Pheasant probably only needs 55c. 
I'll keep an eye out online for others ideas.
Afterwards I realised that I'd got the bags of leg and breast mixed up! The breast was dry and over cooked but the leg was very good!  

Sous Vide Rabbit

Bought a whole Rabbit from the butchers. De-boned it with the help of youtube.
Bagged the legs and cooked at 75c for 12hrs.
Bagged the saddle and cooked at 64c for 60mins. The rabbit was good but maybe the temp was a little high? It seemed a little grainy, which I guess Rabbit is. Next time maybe 60c for 45mins.
The legs were lovely. The best rabbit I've ever had. I'm thinking that the saddle is the same as game breast and therefore should be no higher than 57c. 
The rabbit legs would make an amazing pate or terrine. It's definitely going to be a Christmas dish!

Sous Vide Lamb Half Shoulder

Bought a Half Shoulder of lamb from the butchers. 
It looked very good and I was looking forward to eating it. I vac packed it on the day I bought it, think it was Saturday, then started cooking it on the Wednesday @ 57°c for 72hrs. I took it out and chilled it in ice water then it was in the fridge for 24hrs. I took it round to a friends house to have with some Greek salads and dips. I put the oven on at 200°c, cut the bag open and was hit with a really strong smell of parmesan cheese! I told everyone that it was smelly but they didn't seem to be concerned so I carried on. 30 mins in the oven later and out came the lamb. The smell had dissipated but not gone. I tasted the meat and it was obviously ok but it was tainted with that smell! I was gutted as the texture was awesome. Another few lessons learned here. 
1, don't leave meat too long in the fridge before cooking. 
2, trim fat where possible
3, Roast in the oven for longer, min 40mins
4, 12-24hrs is enough. Lamb benefits from long cooking but 72hrs is overkill. 
The wife commented that the meat needed a bit of flavour going through it. I think this is due to the length of time it was cooked as the fat has pretty much gone after this length of time.


Did a second half shoulder today (17/12/2011). This time I did it for 12hrs @ 56c. Took it round to the in-laws with the Beef Topside! This time the lamb was a triumph! No cheese smell! It was quite rare around the bone. I think some were suspicious of the rareness, maybe thinking it wasn't cooked. Maybe crank the heat up to 62-64c next time? 

Sous Vide Venison joint

I bought a Venison joint from the butchers. I've found an instructable that says cook @ 54°c for around 12 hrs. This sounds perfect, I'm looking forward to it already!  
I took this around to the in-laws for sunday dinner.
After the rest of the meal was prepared and the roast potatoes were 30mins away, I put the venison in a hot roasting tray and roasted it for around 20mins.
The texture and taste of the meat was close to liver! It was better than if I'd just roasted it, but if I did it again I think it only needs an hour or 3 in the bath at around 57c, then 30-40mins in a 200c oven. That would be enough cooking for it. A haunch might be different?

Sous Vide brasing steak @ 57°c for 48hrs

I thought that maybe, by sous viding a brasing steak I might get fillet steak results. I was wrong, but it was a good steak, good enough to serve at a diner party as long as you have the posh steak trimmings! I went for a classic mushroom & green peppercorn sauce, broccoli and of course, chips.

I bagged the steak with seasoning, vacced it and put it in the bath @ 57°c for 48hrs. After the 48hrs I opened the bag, poured the juice into the sauce, and seared the steak in a hot pan for around 30 secs to a minute each side.

For the sauce I put a pan on a medium heat and dry fried a tablespoon of green peppercorns. Then chuck them in a grinder. You just want to break them into a few pieces each, so don't over grind them. Next, add little olive oil to the pan. Add the finely diced shallot and gently fry. After a minute add the sliced mushrooms and a bit of butter. Fry for another min then add shot of brandy and reduce on a high heat. Add the meat juices and pepper and reduce for another few mins. Put in a few spoons of reduced beef stock for a boost, then add the cream. As the cream heats and the sauce reduces it'll thicken quite a bit so don't over-do the boiling at this stage. If you've got a lemon knocking about you can finish this sauce with a sqeeze, but not too much.

The broccoli doesn't need explaining does it?

The chips were just oven chips which went in the oven for half an hour, but I'll be sure to post a fantastic chip recipe!

Pork Ribs with Honey Sauce & Roast Potatoes and Courgettes

Ingredients;
Half rack of Pork Ribs with the skin left on
Potatoes
Courgettes
Red Onions
For the sauce;
Juice from the pork
Honey
Soy Sauce
Vinegar


I cooked the Pork Ribs Sous Vide @ 64c for 72hrs. You can roast it if you want, but I'd recommend that you get a Sous Vide machine as they're ace! Before you roast it, remove the skin. You'll probably want to roast it slow and low; around 160c for 2 or 3hrs. 
To do the roasties, put the skin in a tray and put in the oven. 160c will be ok. Peel the spuds, cut into roast potato size pieces and put in a pan with water and put on the heat. You'll want to simmer until tender, around 30 mins. By which time the Pork skin will have rendered and crisped up and you'll have plenty of pork fat in the pan.
Drain the spuds in a colander and toss them to fluff them up a bit. Carefully put them in the pork fat and make sure they get turned in the fat. Put them in the oven at 180c for around 45mins. After 45mins take them out and turn them and stick em back in for 30mins. They will then be tastetastically crispy and lovely.
Slice the courgettes and red onion quite thickly and stick them in the potato tray when you turn the spuds and put them back in for 30mins. 
For the sauce, put the juices from the pork into a pan. If you're roasting you'll need to deglaze the pan with something like cider or vinegar, then use a little stock, preferably pork. Then add the honey, vinegar and soy sauce and reduce until sticky.
Slice the ribs up, stick it on a plate with the rest of the food and pour over the sauce. Oh yes!

  

Sous Vide Pork Ribs @ 64c for 72hrs

Another attempt at the lovely Pork Ribs from (Allan Bennett Ltd, Codsall) the butchers. This time I'll do them for 72hrs @ 64c rather than 48hrs as I did last time. The other difference to last time is that I asked the butcher to leave the fat on. I intend to cut this off and roast it rendering the fat for cooking roast potatoes. May do a honey glaze for the meat.
I thought that the meat on the ribs was a little too 'fall off the bone' tender. It was difficult to cut it and put it on the plate without it falling apart! Emma said it was the best she'd had, although she couldn't remember the last one, so not a great objective review from her! It was very much like bbq pulled pork, american style, which I enjoyed when I had it. I chopped the ribs up and put them in a dish ready for the sauce.
I did a honey sauce this time, inspired by this recipe. I put the juices from the bag in a pan, on a high heat, added a couple of spoons of honey, one of soy sauce, a dash of Worcestershire and a couple of bay leaves. Fennel seeds could have worked here too. I reduced it down then poured it over the ribs. I'll limit using superlatives this time, needless to say it was bitchin'.

Sous Vide Brisket @ 64°c for 72hrs

I figured that this cut must be similar in structure to the short ribs that I blogged about a few days ago, but reading further online it seems this cut is much tougher. The advice seems to be to cook it at a higher temperature than other cuts of beef, but reading of others experiences it seems like time is a greater factor in breaking down those tough fibres and turning them into jelly.
On a recent trip to the states I loved the American version of corned beef, and I'm hoping that the brisket turns out like that. 
Well, it didn't turn out like American corned beef. I think it would have been fairly close if I'd have cooked it at around 57c, as the meat was beautifully, meltingly tender. I treated it like a roast dinner and made a gravy, roast potatoes, roast carrots and leeks in a mustard and cream sauce. I cooked for Emma and my Mum, who always says my food is nice even if it's average! Emma was impressed even though she cut all the fat off. The best thing about the brisket was that the whole thing was edible, with no chewy gristle. I suppose this is testament to my excellent butcher (Allan Bennett Ltd, Codsall) 
I've read that brisket is a rubbish joint to sous vide as the quality is so low. That's where I read 
that it's best to cook the joint at 64c so as to break down the tougher fibres in the meat. I'm pretty 
sure that with good quality brisket, like the joint that I had, one could cook it at 57c for 3 days and 
get a firmer, juicier result. Having said that, the joint turned out nearly as good as the short ribs. 
Massively tasty, juicy and soft. A right result, as we say in this part of the world. 
P.s, I'll have to blog the roast spuds too as they were awesome. Also, appologies for no pictures.

Sous Vide diced beef @ 64ºc for 48hrs

This is frozen cubed beef of dubious origins. Sainsburys claims that this is British and I have to take their word for it. I made a curry paste from roasting some spices (cumin, black onion seeds, mustard seeds, cardamom  cloves, cinnamon, star anise, bay leaves and probably others) and mixed it in with the frozen beef before putting in the bag to marinade for a couple of days. Cooking at 64 for 2 reasons. 1, I think this meat will benefit from the slightly higher temps because it's a bit ropey, 2, I've got the brisket in at the same time and I want to cook the brisket at 64.
I made a curry sauce and tried to fry the beef to add some flavour. The frying didn't work as the marinade made it too wet and the beef was too flaky to hold together. So I just put it in the curry. The beef wasn't bad, there weren't many really chewy bits, and it was juicier than the slow cook method. I think the biggest lesson here is that the cheap frozen beef from Sainsburys is rubbish. I'll try some chuck steak from the butchers in the same way.

Sous Vide Salmon @ 50c for 28mins

It's difficult to get your head round the science of cooking sometimes. When I suggested to Emma that we could do fish in the Sous Vide machine she was surprised. I was even more confused when I first heard of sous vide. I understood the vac packing part, as I'd studied hygiene, but the temperature vs time aspect confused me. I was once asked what I thought of a machine that could not only cook perfect poached or boiled eggs, but could also hold them at the perfect temperature for hours through a service! 'Sounds dodgy' I said, but I didn't know why.
After the success of the tougher cuts of meat I was a little apprehensive about fish, even though I understand temperature vs time much better after having used it in a much more controlled way. I decided to go quite cool, 50c for 28mins. I found this formula on fiftysixdegrees.com, although the author wanted to go lower. He was talking about how he wanted it to look translucent, almost raw.
After cooking I thought that it did look quite raw, maybe too raw? It was very fragile too. It didn't really flake like normal salmon.
It tasted fantastic though, much smoother than usual cooked salmon, almost smoked salmon texture.
I think that maybe the fiftysixdegrees.com dude was right, you could go lower, maintain a firmer consistency and maybe flash it in a hot pan to add some colour and flavour? Next time I'll do 45c for 30mins then blast it in a hot pan for a few seconds.

Chicken breast pieces @ 68c for 48 mins

This is a standard larder item that I always have knocking around. Chicken breast pieces, lightly seasoned and gently cooked so that I can create whatever sauces I like and throw in some chicken for the protein hit. So simply chop the chicken up, season it, bag it, cook for 48 mins @ 68c. I've seen that you can cook chicken at much lower temps, but I'm using the cheapest, frozen stuff that Sainsburys offers. The only thing I insist on is that it's British. Mind you, this probably means it's been processed in Britain, and it's probably some dirty Polish muck! Still, it tastes ok.
I did loads of bags so I tried spicing one of them with Bay seasoning. I don't think I'll do this again, the seasoning overpowered the meat and tasted a bit raw.
The chicken was transformed by the sous vide as far as texture goes. Traditional methods are very tricky. Even gentle cooking produces quite a dry stringy texture from the chicken. Also you get the leaching of the brine into the sauce or water or pan. The other bonus is that the bags will keep it fresh in the fridge for around 5 days, so nearly doubling the recommended usual time. I'll stick the rest in the freezer.

Beef short ribs @ 56c for 48hrs

After the success of the Pork ribs, I offered to cook for my friends, Marcus and Louise. It was Macas 39th birthday so I thought I'd put a bit of work into a dish that I've cooked in the oven before with great results. Beef short ribs with mash, greens, roasted pumpkin and gravy. When cooked at 150c for a couple of hours in the oven they become quite dark, sticky and quite flakey. The meat is tender but relies quite heavily on the sauce and the fat to juice it up.
The ribs were bought from (Allan Bennett Ltd, Codsall) the butchers again. They're around £2 each and look fantastic, so thick and meaty looking! So I seasoned the ribs before individually bagging them for their long hot bath. Into the Sous Vide Supreme (I'm not sponsored by them btw!). I noticed that the machine smelt a little electrical if you know what I mean?
Meanwhile I'd made a beef stock from marrow bones (also from the butchers) and reduced it so it was starting to get thick. I reduced some port with shallots, added some stock and strained it. Made some mash the traditional way and took it all to our friends house. There I opened the bags and browned the beef on a griddle pan. They browned surprisingly quickly and were ready to serve in minutes, the rest just needed to be re-heated and there was the complete meal.
It was a little ambitious to try this method on our friends with no practice, but the results were superb. The beef was much better than I'd hoped. It was medium rare pink, but the collagen had broken down so it was as soft as fillet. It had retained most of it's moisture too so couldn't have been better. That's definitely a keeper.  

Pork Ribs @ 64c for 48hrs

One of mine and Emma's (the wife) favourite foods is pork ribs. I love em with szechuan pepper, salt and chilli, straight on the bbq, yummy! But they do get a bit dry and you have to pick bits out of your teeth for several hours. 
So I thought I'd Sous Vide it at 64c for 48hrs, as it was a recommendation that I'd seen online (I forget where now).
So I went to the butchers (Allan Bennett Ltd, Codsall) and bought a beautiful rack of ribs for around £9. They're a very good butcher with lovely produce. I forgot to season it or prep it in anyway in my haste to get it in the bag! I was very impressed with the Andrew James vac packer. It worked really well at removing nearly all of the air from the pork ribs bag. 
I filled the water bath with hot water from the hot tap, turned on the machine, set the temp, set the timer for 48hrs and pressed start. Then I went to walk the dogs while the machine reached temperature.
One thing I noticed about the Sous Vide Supreme is that the lid is not insulated. There is a mat that looks like a yoga mat for a meerkat, but this is not a sufficient insulator in my eyes. I might try to fashion my own in the future.
Back from the walk I stuck the ribs in and waited. Not an easy thing to do! 
2 days later I tried to light the BBQ with apple wood, which I won't bore you with, but was a disaster! So I thought I'd just grill it (that's 'broil it' for any Americans reading this!) with this BBQ sauce that I found on about.com;
BBQ sauce http://bbq.about.com/od/barbecuesaucerecipes/r/blb00114.htm
I made a quick handmade slaw and microwaved a tatty from the local farmshop (Bradshaws 

Wrottesley Park Road, West Midlands, Wolverhampton WV6 7HL01902 844064). When you read about Sous Vide you hear people use all sorts of superlatives to describe the results. So let me say that I've never eaten better ribs. They were soft but not mushy. 

They'd retained a remarkable amount of moisture and there was a great flavour to them that was 

meaty but not unusual in any way. The pork didn't stick between the teeth as ribs usually do. I think if 

I'd have been able to start the BBQ I'd have eaten the best ribs I'd ever eaten, by some way.

First impressions of the SousVide Supreme

I used to be a chef and have seen Sous Vide working in restaurants, so I knew what to expect. When I got the SousVide Supreme it looked like a big deep fat fryer. I was pretty disappointed as I'd spent £400 on it and the Andrew James vacuum sealer! 


A lot of people on the web were saying that they'd converted a rice cooker etc for £10 so I was starting to think I'd send it back and try the cheap method! 
Maybe I'd send it back after I'd tested it?
It came with some strange metal bits inside that look like a toast rack and a bottom tray and another bit that I'm not sure of the purpose?