sous vide steak
Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2016 1:40 pm
For various reason, a big one of which was some issues with my teeth, its been more than six months since I have eaten a steak. The teeth issue is now mostly resolved so I did a steak today. I cooked it by a fairly new method that seems to be known as sous vide. I highly recommend it although the precision water bath device required is not inexpensive. The steak was perfect for the cut used.
I believe the term "sous vide" technically means sealed in plastic and does not fully explain the method of cooking, so I will try to explain that here. The steak was sealed in plastic by placing it inside a slider bag. That's a ziplock bag that has a slider device that makes sure it is tightly closed. The final step of sealing was done with most of the bag pressed under water so that all the air was squeezed out. The next step is cooking in a hot water bath at a precise temperature. I set the temperature to 136 degrees F. which is about a degree warmer than the recommended temperature for medium. Next time I will use the recommended temperature. The bag of steak was placed completely submerged in the water bath. The precision device keeps the temperature within about half a degree of the setting at all times. I cooked the steak in this way for two hours. They say up to four hours would make no discernable difference - the point is to raise the internal meat temperature to that of the water.
After two hours, the bag was removed from the water bath and opened. At this point the steak was medium throughout but did not have the charred crust one normally expects with a steak, so there is one more step. A half hour before the water bath step was done I lit a wood fire in the Studio wood-cooking pit, so it would be quite hot when the water bath procedure finished. The water-bath cooked steak was then brought outside and placed on a grill just above the flames. It was seared on one side for two minutes and then two more on the other side. At that point I ate it. Highly recommended - I will have the second steak tomorrow.
I believe the term "sous vide" technically means sealed in plastic and does not fully explain the method of cooking, so I will try to explain that here. The steak was sealed in plastic by placing it inside a slider bag. That's a ziplock bag that has a slider device that makes sure it is tightly closed. The final step of sealing was done with most of the bag pressed under water so that all the air was squeezed out. The next step is cooking in a hot water bath at a precise temperature. I set the temperature to 136 degrees F. which is about a degree warmer than the recommended temperature for medium. Next time I will use the recommended temperature. The bag of steak was placed completely submerged in the water bath. The precision device keeps the temperature within about half a degree of the setting at all times. I cooked the steak in this way for two hours. They say up to four hours would make no discernable difference - the point is to raise the internal meat temperature to that of the water.
After two hours, the bag was removed from the water bath and opened. At this point the steak was medium throughout but did not have the charred crust one normally expects with a steak, so there is one more step. A half hour before the water bath step was done I lit a wood fire in the Studio wood-cooking pit, so it would be quite hot when the water bath procedure finished. The water-bath cooked steak was then brought outside and placed on a grill just above the flames. It was seared on one side for two minutes and then two more on the other side. At that point I ate it. Highly recommended - I will have the second steak tomorrow.
