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?