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 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!

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.