This is part 2 of my on-going series playing with a Sous Vide Supreme. For those of you unfamiliar with sous vide, “sous vide” means “under vacuum” in French. The concept is basically that you cook your food under vacuum in a water bath at the exact temperature that your food needs to be cooked at. Since the water bath is only heated to your desired temperature, it is impossible to over cook your food*. Another appeal to sous vide is that none of the flavor is lost during the cooking process, since the food is kept in a vacuum bag during the whole cooking process. I will spend more time to talk about my experience with the advantages/disadvantages of sous vide and also maybe share some tips with those interested at the end of this series.
Ribeye: Pre-Bath
After being fairly impressed with the egg, it is time to move to something better – Ribeye. So for today, I really wanted to give the SVS (as well as the whole concept of sous vide) a test drive. According to the manual, the suggested cooking temp for medium-rare beef is 134F for approx. 2 hours (for the thickness of my steak). I left it in the bath for 5+ hours just to see if it would over cook. But before I get into that, I had to find a quick marinate.
My quick marinade
After a quick peek in the fridge, I threw some finely chopped garlic, shallots, parsley, thyme in together with just a slight dash of olive oil (really just so it’ll stick to the steak). Bagged it and sealed it with the FoodSaver** and then it’s ready for the bath!!
Bagged and Sealed...
Rub-a-dub-dub...
One of the questions that I got asked with my previous post was if I checked how close the water temp was to the digital read out…
Quick calibration test...
I am not going to lie, during the 5+ hour period, I checked the steak a few times. Personally, I felt that it was at a medium-rare state about 1.5 hour in. But I wanted to really test the “you can’t over cook this” claim…
5+ hours in a 134F bath later...
At the end of the bath, I gave the steak a nice little sear just to brown the outside. I used a smoking hot pan with some grape seed oil on one side, for the other side I used a butane torch. I personally thought that the butane worked a little better in this case because the steak was almost a little too moist to brown and I didn’t want it to cook any longer.
Med-Rare
To say that the steak merely turned out well was an understatement. Personally, I am impressed. Not only was the steak not over cooked, it was consistently med-rare throughout the whole steak, even right next to the bone… The result was one of the most tender and flavorful ribeye I’ve had – especially for a piece of steak that was previously frozen!! (Look, you don’t “try” a new cooking method on something you spend good money on ok… We gotta work our way up…)
Consistency check...
After 2 tests, I must say that I’m pretty impressed with the potential of this $450 water oven. To be able to consistently get this result time after time is… pretty amazing. Next up – carrots and other root vegetables. =)
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* This statement is not necessarily true because as some have pointed out, some foods (like fish) will start losing their texture after being kept in their desired temp for an extended amount of time.
** I’ll address the issue of cooking in vacuum bags at the end of this series.
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Looks great! My SVS should arrive today. In his book, T. Keller says you should wrap herbs in food safe plastic wrap to avoid the area touching the food being too strong with herbs. Did you notice that? Perhaps since it’s chopped, it’s equally distributed.
Thanks for the comment David. I can where TK is coming from when he said that. But yeah, like you said, since everything was finely chopped and evenly distrusted, it wasn’t an issue. What are some of the things you’re looking to try with your SVS??
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In your previous post you said that Foodsaver bags aren’t food safe but then in this post you’re actually using a Foodsaver bag. I’m assuming you found that they were food safe?
Partly I’m curious of your findings because the Foodsaver bags say you can cook foods inside them which should make them more than just storage safe.
Thanks for the comment Bill. I was going to blog about it in another post. But since you asked…
I read different things at different places. Some say FS bags are safe, and some say they’re not. So initially, I was looking for anything that is labeled “food grade”. After looking around for a day and not finding anything, I just decided to look at the FS (since I already have a FS for storage purposes.
From what I’ve read, I didn’t find any information about BPA in the bag. BPA is what makes plastic hard, and there shouldnt be any BPA in the FS bags. I also didn’t see anything about being able to cook in FS bags. The only thing I’ve read is that you can put it in the microwave. Since I figured that the cooking temp is prob gonna be higher in the microwave, I just went ahead and used it.
FWIW, I havent found anything thats “recommended for sous vide”.
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I’m using Food Saver bags in a Seal a Meal. Wworks perfectly every time.
I have a Cuisinart electric panini press. I turn it to high, and when it is ready, I take the meat out of the bath, dry it off, and toss it on the press for about 20 seconds. Gives a nice sear to both sides at once with little danger of overcooking.
You might try a hanger steak. 48 hours at 138°, quick seared and sliced across the grain. Same texture and taste as an expensive steak at a fraction of the cost.
It sounds like you’re creating problems yourself by trying to solve this issue instead of looking at why their is a problem to begin with.
First of all, I have used vacuum sealers, notably FoodSaver, and I am familiar with sous vide methods (which require a good vacuum and seal that stays sealed).
I received the SousVide Supreme Vacuum Sealer with the Demi Water Bath. Well, first of all, it does not seal well. The controls are only “seal only” and “vacuum seal” (and of course, a “cancel”).
The instructions state that you shouldn’t use liquids, however, in sealing ANY meat there is some liquid and even this tiny bit of liquid completely prevents a vacuum and seal. So you would need, one supposes, only to use frozen meat. The FoodSaver on the other hand, has a separate vacuum control that allows you to vacuum only to the degree that you want, and then you can select a “seal” separately from “vacuum” — this allows one to totally control the degree of vacuum which is highly desirable.
I have seen that FoodSaver bags are safe for sous-vide (and you use one here) and then again, not. My next test will be finding and using safe bags that are not FoodSaver and hope the vacuum/seal works well. Your thoughts on this topic would be well received by us novice sous-viders.
In the meantime, I’m sending the Unsupreme vacuum/sealer back.