Anyone who follows my Reader shares has seen multiple items related to sous vide cooking lately. I've known about using a water bath at a low temperature to cook and hold food at an exact temperature for a long time, but the closest I thing I had tried to it was poaching chicken in our electric skillet.
Several posts on Serious Eats about sous vide (which is actually the vacuum sealing bit rather than the water bath bit) techniques got piqued my interest, especially when they investigated using coolers and Ziploc bags instead of the $450 Sous Vide Supreme. It worked for them so I figured I'd give it a shot (this is where the eye rolling begins).
My first target food was chicken. I really like grilled chicken, but it seems like I have the easiest time messing it up. I normally end up with charred skin by the time the meat is cooked even when I use indirect heat. If the chicken is already cooked before it goes on the grill it should just be a matter of browning the skin.
For this experiment I placed four seasoned chicken thighs in individual zip top sandwich bags along with a little olive oil, rosemary, thyme and garlic. Using the electric kettle and my invaluable probe thermometer I filled a cooler with water that was slightly above 140 degrees
Yes, yes, I know, salmonella. There's a chart somewhere from the USDA that shows the safe level of harmful bacteria left after a certain amount of time at different temperatures. Chicken is safe if held at 140 for 30 minutes or more. My target was 40 minutes so we were good.Back to the action. Leaving each bag partially open I lowered them slowly into the cooler. This pushed the air out and was a good enough replacement for the vacuum seal.
Unfortunately I got worried about flare ups charring the skin instead of browning it so I pulled the chicken a little early. I was looking for a better browning, but the chicken overall was great. Extremely juicy and tender.
Attempt number two involved rib eye steaks. Rib eyes are my favorite steak, especially the bit around the side that is really marbled and incredibly flavorful. For the steaks my target temperature was 130 (medium-rare, the only real way to eat steak). Given the mass of the steaks (three this time) I employed a second cooler for one of the hunks o' meat. Starting the water at about 135 to allow for a slight drop I seasoned the steaks with salt and pepper (nothing else needed) and put them in the bags.
After about an hour they were ready to go on a rocket hot griddle for a quick browning. The fat had just started to render and the proteins were starting to set. I rubbed the steaks with a little canola oil and put them on the griddle. Instant sizzle was music to my ears. What wasn't so pleasant was when I flipped the first one after a minute some fat splashed back on my hand. The fat rendered so fast since it was already warm that there was quite a bit on the griddle by the time it came to flip. The scars are forming nicely as I type this.
Once the steaks had gotten browned on the second side (took about a minute each side) I pulled them off and we were ready to go. No resting necessary since the steaks hadn't been assaulted by high heat for more than a minute or two. The results were about as good as I could have wanted:
In the end I definitely would use this technique again, especially if I'm planning a multi-course dinner where timing gets tricky. Being able to start the main course protein ahead and then quickly finish it would eliminate a lot of obstacles to more complex preparations. This probably isn't an everyday thing, but definitely worth having in my culinary bag of tricks.
