Cookaholics Bulletin Board

I believe the beauty is that it's ready at the minimum time, but equally as good at the later times up to a point. Kenji said steaks are best from 1-4 hrs, but after that they get too tender.

That's what I found when I looked into it further on Serious Eats, Becca. It seems like such a great feature of SV, especially compared to having to watch meat like a hawk at the end to make sure it doesn't get overcooked (my specialty with beef). Since you're just starting out with SV, please post about your successes and any not-so-successes. My Anova was supposed to be a birthday present in November but I have a feeling it'll be coming out of the box much sooner.

Emilie

I've made fish, strip steaks, and boneless chicken breasts. All three were delicious. I'd say the fish and chicken were perfect, while the steaks were awesome, there is room for improvement. They made me wish I had a searzall. The inside was wonderful, the outside just had some fat that needed more rendering/browning. I did find that we ate less steak than usual before we were stuffed. I think it was the extra internal fat. We didn't notice it, but it helped to satiate us, I guess.

For cost I had to buy sirloin for shish kebabs for our large group on vacation. I'm feeling like they'd benefit from sous vide, but I'm not sure if it's worth it.

I just cooked a whole prime tenderloin this weekend and it turned out great. I used salt, pepper and fresh thyme at 130 degrees for 4 hours; then seared it on the grill. It was perfectly medium rare and very tender.
Edited to add: I had to cut it in half to fit in my pan and each half was in its own bag.

That sounds very yummy

Becca- cut the cubes, SV them while you do other stuff, build the kabobs. Then they just need a few minutes sear on the grill and you're done. Kabobs so often have one charred cube and one raw cube, it would be great to have them all evenly cooked.

In case you didn't happen to see this:

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2015 ... ecipe.html

I admit, I'm tempted.

I'm going to give it a try. I think I will put the post-ice bath chicken in the fridge skin side down with a weight on top to encourage the skin side to be flat when I take it out a few days later. Let me know if you try it - I am drowning in leftovers so I won't try this for at least a week.

--Lisa

I tried this tonight and was underwhelmed. I sous vide'd the thighs earlier in the week, chilled in a water bath and then put in the fridge skin-side down and put a small cutting board on it, and moved a couple of jars on top.

The thighs came out of the bag nicely flattened, and I had lots of bag juices to make pan sauce with, but even though I used medium heat, a non-stick skillet and a couple of tablespoons of canola oil, the skin stuck to the pan. I left it about 5 mins before I touched it at all but after 8 I ended up tearing it to get it up so I could check it. By the time the skin sufficiently rendered and crisped, the thighs were overdone.

It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't a home run. YMMV

--Lisa

And if anyone has any ideas why the skin stuck so badly, I'm all ears. I have never had regular raw thighs stick like that before.

Thanks!

--Lisa