Sous Vide, Update #1
Nov. 29th, 2009 07:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coraaSo I decided to go with the beets with balsamic and brown sugar, and the lamb.
I first googled "sous vide beets" and found someone who had, by experiment, determined that 182F for at least an hour was optimal (though, like most things in the sous vide, they can hold for much longer).
So I filled the sous vide supreme with water and set it to heat to 182F.
I chucked the beets, a couple spoons of brown sugar, and a healthy slug of balsamic into the bag, then sealed it and used the handivac to suck the air out. Once the water was up to temperature, I put the vacuum-sealed beets in the rack and lowered it into the water. (The rack, it turns out, is actually not just aesthetic but necessary, as it holds ingredients which would otherwise want to float underwater.)
That cooked for an hour. I took a lovely bath.
The lamb, on the other hand, needed to cook in 134F water. I could let the beets stay in with it -- having cooked to 182F, they would hold warm in the sous vide for up to 8 hours without losing any quality -- but I needed to drop the water temperature. So I took the top off and added cold water, scooping off hot water to make room, until the temperature dropped to 134F.
I put three lamb chops in a bowl, rubbed them all over with the "New Zealand Lamb Rub" that came with the sous vide (I don't usually buy pre-made spice rubs, but I don't object to using them if they come my way), and then put them in a vacuum-seal bag. I sucked the air out of it and added it to the water.
Sous vide cooking, for meat, is dependent on thickness -- it takes a tender cut of lamb or beef one hour to cook an inch-thick piece of meat, but four hours to cook a two-inch thick piece of meat, etc. So my two-inch-thick lamb chops will cook four hours in a constant 134F waterbath. (Yes, we're eating late. We ate lunch late.)
Hopefully -- hopefully -- the beets, already cooked at a higher temperature, will hold warm nicely, and the lamb chops will be a lovely medium-rare all through when I pull it out. If that's the case, I'll pull them out, pat them dry (reserving the juice), sear them briefly in hot butter (just so they get a nice crust, instead of the boiled-meat look), and serve with the seasoned juice, either straight as a jus or quickly cooked with the fond in the pan to make a sauce.
I will update further as to how it goes!
I first googled "sous vide beets" and found someone who had, by experiment, determined that 182F for at least an hour was optimal (though, like most things in the sous vide, they can hold for much longer).
So I filled the sous vide supreme with water and set it to heat to 182F.
I chucked the beets, a couple spoons of brown sugar, and a healthy slug of balsamic into the bag, then sealed it and used the handivac to suck the air out. Once the water was up to temperature, I put the vacuum-sealed beets in the rack and lowered it into the water. (The rack, it turns out, is actually not just aesthetic but necessary, as it holds ingredients which would otherwise want to float underwater.)
That cooked for an hour. I took a lovely bath.
The lamb, on the other hand, needed to cook in 134F water. I could let the beets stay in with it -- having cooked to 182F, they would hold warm in the sous vide for up to 8 hours without losing any quality -- but I needed to drop the water temperature. So I took the top off and added cold water, scooping off hot water to make room, until the temperature dropped to 134F.
I put three lamb chops in a bowl, rubbed them all over with the "New Zealand Lamb Rub" that came with the sous vide (I don't usually buy pre-made spice rubs, but I don't object to using them if they come my way), and then put them in a vacuum-seal bag. I sucked the air out of it and added it to the water.
Sous vide cooking, for meat, is dependent on thickness -- it takes a tender cut of lamb or beef one hour to cook an inch-thick piece of meat, but four hours to cook a two-inch thick piece of meat, etc. So my two-inch-thick lamb chops will cook four hours in a constant 134F waterbath. (Yes, we're eating late. We ate lunch late.)
Hopefully -- hopefully -- the beets, already cooked at a higher temperature, will hold warm nicely, and the lamb chops will be a lovely medium-rare all through when I pull it out. If that's the case, I'll pull them out, pat them dry (reserving the juice), sear them briefly in hot butter (just so they get a nice crust, instead of the boiled-meat look), and serve with the seasoned juice, either straight as a jus or quickly cooked with the fond in the pan to make a sauce.
I will update further as to how it goes!
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Date: 2009-12-01 11:15 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-12-01 11:41 pm (UTC)