New cooking methods ... sous vide
 

So I took the plunge (pun not intended) and purchased a personal sous vide machine.

I've made a wonderful roasted garlic and herb compound butter and I'm about to put a couple of thick cut KC strips in the bath, set it for 134 degrees and in a couple hours I should have perfectly medium rare steak to throw in a screaming hot skillet to sear. Then it's eatin' time.

Will post pics.

Anyone worked with sous vide before? Any tips, tasty things to try?

That's a big plunge! Sounds cool and I'd love to be able to try your steak!

I just read about it because I'd never heard of it before. I'll be interested to hear about your experience.

I've prepared tuna and salmon that way, sealing in aromatics and herbs with the fish before a flash sear on a screaching hot grill. Excellent.

No, I pretty much stick to fire.

Steaks are swimming now.

[QUOTE=Fire Me Boy!;7518885]Steaks are swimming now.[/QUO

I am really interested to see how this turns out!

How much did you spend on the unit?
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$300

http://www.amazon.com/SousVide-Supre...186545&sr=8-12

I've really been wanting to experiment with one of these for a long time, and I finally gave in. Got the wife's blessing and bought it.

How much does your wife love your cooking? Does she cook?

She loves my cooking. It's something I've done for a long time, and our second date was at my house with me cooking dinner for her.

Mrs. FMB! doesn't cook. She screws up box dinners, bless her heart. She bakes like a champ, though, which I guess works out well. I ****ing hate baking.

I'm the same way I love to cook but for some reason I can't stand baking.

Thanks!
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Not sure about you, but it's too scientific. I hate measuring. You can just throw stuff together and make an incredible meal, but if you just "throw together" a cake it's gonna suck ass.

Sounds better to me, honestly.

The theory is that you use the water bath to slowly bring the entire hunk of meat to the exact temperature you want it - 130-140 for medium rare. Once it's done, you take it out and sear it over fire or in a screaming hot skillet. You still get the crust and the tastiness from the maillard reaction, but instead of having a ring of over-done meat and a perfect center that occurs otherwise, you have a perfectly cooked steak.

We'll see soon.

So you're just basically simmering a vacuum packed steak in water? Why do you need a $300 machine to do that? Seems to me that you could do it in a pot (cast iron, of course) on the stove.

In order to do it properly, you have to have very precise control of the water temperature. And most stoves, even on the lowest setting, won't keep a pot of water at only 130 degrees.

By my random measures of the water over the past hour, the sous vide has been within .8 degrees (according to my Thermapen) every time.

Temperature has to be too precisely controlled to do on a stove.

OMG

Ah, I see. I've never even heard of this before. I suppose a crock pot runs much higher than that as well.

Crock pots are definitely NOT precise.

Lol.
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Well yeah, that too. Most kitchen appliances other than an oven aren't thermostatically controlled, and I'm sure those vary quite a bit as well.

Some of them have a 'keep warm' setting on them, although I have no idea what temp that is but it's lower than the cooking temps.

Agreed

Sounds interesting. It's the exact same concept we use in semen processing, we use a waterbath to bring the semen extender to an exact temp of 102 degrees and then add the boar core and it keeps the sperm cells from being shocked. Then we slowly bring it down to 64 degrees for storage. The only difference is we don't sear it on both sides and then consume it. Well , there was that one time Frazod showed up for a kegger but I'm gonna keep that to myself .

I enjoy both cooking and baking. Yes, they are definitely different. As a cook, I don't measure anything and as a baker, I measure everything precisely. I am a cook first, but a lot of meals require a combination techniques, such as pizza, pot pies, and biscuits and gravy. I also take pride in doing the whole meal, including dessert. Plus fresh baked goods are delicious. So I bake and cook.

PID

Maybe this is why I like it with my chemical engineering background

I can do it well, I just hate it. There are times I'll go all out and make everything.

I have done some sous vide with mixed results.
I may be a purest but to me the texture is different.
I am still playing with it.

Ang

This feels a lot like cheating to me.

Laplace Transform

You just describe my house. Although I taught my wife to bake.

Ang

Sounds like a lot of effort to me. Season...fire grill...maybe 2 or 3 minutes on each side. Good.

I don't get it. What is the advantage over the oven or stove top or grill?

It is spoken see-Vee-chay.

dB/dec

This.

And this.

Additionally, since the proteins don't seize up with high heat, supposedly there's less moisture lost (juicier) and all meat is more tender. As angelo described, there are supposedly also texture differences, but I can't vouch for that yet. And being able to hold it at perfect temp, theoretically means you can keep it at that temp for hours without risking dry, overcooked food.

It's not intended to be an alternative to grilling, at least not for me. I'll never give that up. But I do like the idea of expanding my skills and adding something to my meal repertoire.

Pole.

Chebyshev

It's for people who don't know when to take the steak off.

Frequency peaking

Side lobes

For some [1/2 drunken reason], I'm reminded of this

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/_2d3d76RGes" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Wrong. You're talking out of your ass, Phil.

Why does it have to be one or the other? Can you not acknowledge that there's more than one way to cook a steak, and each way yields different results.

Have you ever had sous vide? Why are you dumping on something of which you have little knowledge and have never tried? This is nothing more than another preparation method.

And you know me. I know when to take a steak off the grill.

I would speculate that there is a strong inverse correlation between a board where there are regular threads on "which 9mm for CCW?" and boards where there are >1 posters well versed in this methodology.

What if I used my sous vide machine while I was loading my Springfield XD .45 ACP?

If you use a protein, it shall become the colour of a`corpse.

Heh.

pole

repost

or ringing?

Well, the first sous vide machines for the home chefs didn't come out until just a couple of years ago. I would speculate that very few boards would have many posters well versed in the methodology.

You'd be practising unsafe firearm handling, I'd have thought.

I know, but this board never ceases to amaze, so I thought I'd give it a shot, and if not, then I'd share my experiences.

slew rate?

Lol. Have you read the thread? There's been one poster who claimed to know anything at that was Phobia who was trolling anyway.

Heh. I figured I'd hook somebody. I just didn't expect it to be you.

I hear you. I'm looking forward to hearing about your experience with the home version.


Speaking of giving it a shot, I might start a thread on Thai curry. Thai is my next area of culinary expansion, and I'll be looking for all the helpful input I can get.

Which one? Lordy - that's a wide open area there.

Nyquist frequency

Ah. I guess I just don't get trolling. Seems like a waste of time when you could actually join the conversation and add something useful.

:shrug:

Yes, I've read the thread. I knew a (very) little about Sous Vide from cooking shows and a trip to Europe, but I don't know anything about the home version, which is what Fire Me Boy! is talking about. I was saying that I suspect that's about par for the course on any board that's not specifically oriented to cooking, since it's something that's new to the home.

e^2*2pi*f0*n*j*t

It's a last resort. I didn't have anything useful so I trolled.

I'm probably going to start with a Massaman.

Again, it isn't clear whether you've cooked up a batch of meth in the thing which has impaired your judgement, but the likelihood that you were going to get any hits on this method here were...slim to none, and slim just left town.

There are people on here that still kill their own food.

And what point do you suppose I was making?

Do you read or am I writing sentences like kcnut?

Great. It will be just you and your experiences then, along with some token "sounds great!" comments, as no one else knows dick all about it, and you're unhappy with the trolling.

Feel free to GTFO then. No one's keeping you here.

You were relating the number of people who'd know to the CCW, slick. My point is that your correlation there is a poor one, given how relatively few people in the U.S., on any thread, are going to no about this stuff.

I'd speculate that, on this board, you could find people who have knowledge about many of world's cuisines. Not everyone here is going to be confined to possum and squirrel.

Best Massaman I've ever had was with seafood and a departure from tradition with avacado wedges.

Thai/Mexican fusion, or just a general twist on the basic idea?

I don't think you know what "correlation" actually means.

May I suggest a roulade of venison, wild garlic, and rice?

Ok...when do we get pics of the finished product? I've always been fascinated with this method of cooking since I began watching Top Chef.

I'm sure that I do. However, since you seem intent on just trolling, I'll bid you good luck and good night.

Nice, man. Passingly interested in sous vide, as I see it on the shows and know that it's the big trend. Not sure I want to take that plunge, but I'm impressed that you did. Keep us updated on how you like it.