Sous Vide Cooking ?

[joesxm3]

I bought some really nice grass fed beef rib eye and stew beef. I am trying to eat a healthy low carb diet. These pieces come frozen and vacuum sealed.

I don't want to ruin the meat and the prevailing thinking is that they should be cooked on a grill.

As part of my healthy eating research I came across the topic of advanced glycation end products and the idea that charing the outside of the meat was bad for you.

I see sous vide cooking and I am wondering if this might be a better way to cook. For the stew meat it seems similar to slow cooker. For the steak it seems doing things backwards with searing at the end.

Would searing at the end char less? Could I eat the meat without charring? Not that I would want to.

I could also cook chicken.

Any of you cook this way? Is it good? Or is it just some fad?

I saw a short other thread mentioning an Insta pot with sous vide built in. Is that a good item?

Thanks in advance.

 

[easysurfer]

There are plenty of videos on youtube about sous vide cooking .

I don't have access to a grill and prefer to cook sous vide meats like pork chops, steaks and burgers and then sear on a cast iron pan.

Chicken doesn't sous vide well. Doesn't end up like chicken on a grill. At least that's my experience.

 

[braumeister]

I like the sous vide method very much for steaks.
I vacuum seal them and put them in the sous vide at a degree or two below my desired temperature and they can stay there for hours if I'm busy. When I'm ready, it only takes a few minutes to sear them in a skillet and they are perfect.

Sous vide also comes in handy for several other purposes, and one of my favorites is yogurt making -- each strain has a preferred temperature so I can make it any way I like.

I've been doing this since 2011 and still enjoy having it.

 

[Souschef]

We used to sous vide quite a bit. The first thing we did was download the chart that gave times to sous vide depending on the type of meat and thickness.
We have a searing burner on our BBQ that DW nicknamed Wilma.
You can also sear the meat in a cast iron pan.
We were always happy with the results.

 

[joesxm3]

Do you pre-sear then vacuum seal and then sear again after?

The web seems to show letting the steak cool down before searing. Does the searing heat it back up enough to serve it?

Do you use some sort of oil when searing? I saw ghee mentioned. I don't want to use seed oil. I don't want to heat the oil to the point of becoming trans fat.

I do have a gas grill. Is the pan searing preferred?

 

[SALTedOut]

I've been sous vide cooking for 5+ years now. I use a Anova wand style. I mainly use it for salmon and chicken (boneless/skinless) but also an occasional steak (filet or ribeye), leg of lamb, and veggies. The salmon and chicken turn out like they were poached. My wife uses the chicken to shred onto her salads or make chicken salad but anything you can use shredded chick for this would be good.

As I began to learn methods, times, temps I used the following resources:

Sous Vide Cooking: How to Get Started

Have a new sous vide circulator? Here's an introductory guide to sous vide cooking, including what to try making first.

www.seriouseats.com

Sous Vide Steak Guide | The Food Lab

Why sous vide your steak? Because it's the most reliable way to get perfectly cooked meat every single time. This guide covers everything you need to know, from temperature guidelines to FAQs to searing and serving tips.

www.seriouseats.com

Sous Vide Salmon Recipe

A step-by-step guide to perfectly cooked sous vide salmon, every time, complete with tips on portioning the fish and perfecting multiple finishing steps.

www.seriouseats.com

The Food Lab's Guide to Sous Vide Chicken Breast

Cooking chicken breast sous vide is hands down the best way to ensure it comes out tender, juicy, and full of flavor.

www.seriouseats.com

Very in-depth: A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking

There are also several good Facebook groups including Exploring Sous Vide which I find the best.

 

[MRG]

I cook a lot of sous vide meals. Longer cooking proteins are excellent. Steaks, pork chops at 137.5°F are unreal. Pasteurized chicken breasts are awesome. I don't do fish or delicate meats.

An underrated use is reheating foods. No need to rechar last nights leftover ribeye or chops. Just put then in bag, no need to reseal, and I put them in a couple of degrees lower than I cooked it at. Reheating frozen leftovers in the freezer bag/sous vide bag is easy.

Intimidated by tempering chocolates? Not anymore, sous vide makes it easy.

I'm a frequent user of the appliance.

I sear on the grill during warm weather, cast iron on induction during the winter. I mostly use avocado oil on the seasoned cast iron 475° pan.

I generally just pull the bag from the water bath 10-15 minutes before I sear it. Juices make great pan sauce too.

 

[OldShooter]

Life is too short to obsess about searing sous vide meats. Next year there will probably be a study proving that it has positive health effects.

Most common IMO is what we do. Sous vide with some seasonings in the bag, then sear. Lately we've been searing using a very hot cast iron fry pan, but we also have a "sear station" on our pellet grill and that works fine too.

 

[Route246]

I use it mostly for making stews and soups that would otherwise be in the slow cooker or pressure cooker. I like the concept of zero evaporation. Slow cooking and pressure cooking emits smells of the food cooking. To me, that is some amount of flavor being lost in the form of steam. This method retains all of that and psychologically this is soothing. Not sure if this makes any sense or not but it just feels better.

 

[athena53]

I can't get past the idea of cooking in plastic with the possibility of the chemicals in the plastic leaching into the food as it cooks.

Nothing is 100% safe, I guess.

 

[braumeister]

I can't get past the idea of cooking in plastic with the possibility of the chemicals in the plastic leaching into the food as it cooks.

Nothing is 100% safe, I guess.

Restaurants have been using it for decades.

 

[aja8888]

I can't get past the idea of cooking in plastic with the possibility of the chemicals in the plastic leaching into the food as it cooks.

Nothing is 100% safe, I guess.

Food grade petrochemical plastics are designed to last centuries before decomposition. The oceans and landfills are chock full of them.

 

[easysurfer]

I can't get past the idea of cooking in plastic with the possibility of the chemicals in the plastic leaching into the food as it cooks.

Nothing is 100% safe, I guess.

I'd be more concerned about eating the tasty BBQ meats from a grill than any sous vide cooking with plastic.

 

[Lorenzo]

I was into sous vide, mostly steaks, for a while, but more recently I have gone back to cooking steaks on a barbecue grill in the traditional manner. The attraction of sous vide to me was the ability to achieve an even medium-rare from edge to edge, without the traditional red interior to pink middle to gray exterior gradient. But I think I actually prefer a steak with a bit of a doneness gradient. I actually enjoy the combination of charred exterior, toothsome middle, and the juicy red center. A steak cooked perfectly pink from edge to edge felt ... monotonous.

That said, I recently made a sous vide lamb shoulder, finished quickly on a blazing hot barbecue grill with wood smoke, and I felt it was great. With lamb, I didn't mind at all that it was medium-rare and tender throughout. Tough lamb is no fun in a pita sandwich.

Sous vide chicken comes out juicy and tender, which sounds perfect. But to me, the texture can be a little TOO tender, bordering on mushy (though of course the texture depends on time and temperature combination selected). I guess I'm just used to chicken having a certain texture. Maybe in my mind chicken breast is supposed to be a little tough. For flavor, I prefer chicken thighs.

As for health benefits, okay, I can see if one wants to cook food without the carcinogens from charring over a fire, sous vide would be an option. For me, forgoing the char takes all the joy out of meat. Searing in cast iron is a compromise, but I rarely do that. I believe I eat plenty of non-meat meals to balance out the occasional indulgence of a hunk of red meat cooked over live fire. Who knows. There are carcinogens everywhere, even vegetables (nitrates). Life is short. I'm here to enjoy the time I have. So I try to balance the considerations.

 

[audreyh1]

I don’t char my steaks. I just get a nice Mallard Reaction and avoid black marks and flare-ups. Beyond that I don’t worry about it as I get older.

I expect cooking with smoke is also frowned upon health-wise although in many of these cases it’s cooking too low temp to caramelize proteins.

 

[braumeister]

 

[easysurfer]

My problem is sous vide is with that way of cooking, now I like my burgers pink in the inside instead of medium well like more traditional cooking. I try to limit to no more than once a month as don't want to take too many chances with red meat.

 

[joesxm3]

With sous vide can you make the whole range from rare to medium by picking the temperature?

You are not limited to the more cooked levels are you?

Can I start out with only the heating stick and clamp it on to a big pasta kettle?

 

[braumeister]

With sous vide can you make the whole range from rare to medium by picking the temperature?
You are not limited to the more cooked levels are you?
Can I start out with only the heating stick and clamp it on to a big pasta kettle?

You haven't done any research at all on this, have you?
It's hardly complicated.

A Beginner's Guide to Sous Vide Cooking​

 

[OldShooter]

Can I start out with only the heating stick and clamp it on to a big pasta kettle?

We use one of DW's Instant Pots for the water bath container. For long cooks, we float a layer of bubble wrap on the water surface to reduce heat loss and, more importantly, evaporation and the need for topping up.

 

[joesxm3]

You haven't done any research at all on this, have you?
It's hardly complicated.

A Beginner's Guide to Sous Vide Cooking​

Thanks. I may have read that or one similar.

I asked the question because one post about not doing sous vide because wanting pink inside burgers made me wonder if I as missing something.

One article mentioned pre-existing and then searing after. Do any of you do that?

 

[joesxm3]

I've been sous vide cooking for 5+ years now. I use a Anova wand style. I mainly use it for salmon and chicken (boneless/skinless) but also an occasional steak (filet or ribeye), leg of lamb, and veggies. The salmon and chicken turn out like they were poached. My wife uses the chicken to shred onto her salads or make chicken salad but anything you can use shredded chick for this would be good.

Very in-depth: A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking

Thanks for all the links.

That in depth one really made my brain smoke. But it did allow me to geek out on the details. The discussion on killing pathogens was very interesting.

I smell another hobby brewing.

 

[joesxm3]

Here we go down the rabbit hole. I just ordered the Douglas Baldwin book.

 

[CRLLS]

I have done some cheap steaks in a make-shift sous-vide cooker. I have a digital temperature controller bought off Amazon. I plug a crock pot into it. using a zip-lock bag, I expel the air in the crock pot as I submerge the bag. I cook at 137 deg for a couple of hours, depending on the cut. I finish it off on a hot gas grill. I find it easier to control the medium rare that I really prefer.

 

[EastWest Gal]

I have been cooking with sous vide for years, thanks to a thread on this forum. I use an Anova wand and a polycarbonate box with a steel rack to keep the steaks/chops off the bottom and apart from one another. It is my go to method for cooking steak. I pan sear or sear on the grill afterward. I also pasteurize eggs using sous vide so I can make my own mayonnaise safely. You can use it to make yogurt and hollandaise sauce as well. And the water is at the perfect temperature to wash dishes afterward!

The temperature determines the doneness, more than the time.

I use Douglas Baldwin's online resource all the time. It helps me know what temperature and time is safe for different proteins.