What's for dinner?

bu$hleaguer

bu$hleaguer

Well-Known Member
Does anyone have an immersion circulator at home?

I've done a shitload of sous vide at the restaurants and we do immersion farm fresh eggs kinda like these at both of my places now and I'm addicted to them. best egg preparation I've ever used...

image.jpg

(Just a pic off the web)

Anyway, I'm trying to choose which one I want and didn't know if any of you guys have one you'd recommend. It doesn't need to be commercial, I don't want to pay more than is necessary.

@Singlemalt @Metasynth


Edit- I'm leaning towards the Anova One:

http://anovaculinary.com/products/anova
 
Last edited:
Growan

Growan

Well-Known Member
bu$hleaguer said:
Does anyone have an immersion circulator at home?

I've done a shitload of sous vide at the restaurants and we do immersion farm fresh eggs kinda like these at both of my places now and I'm addicted to them. best egg preparation I've ever used...

View attachment 3366591

(Just a pic off the web)

Anyway, I'm trying to choose which one I want and didn't know if any of you guys have one you'd recommend. It doesn't need to be commercial, I don't want to pay more than is necessary.

@Singlemalt @Metasynth
Click to expand...
Is that a bit like stirring a pan of boiling water and fucking the egg into the middle if it?

Anyways. I can stack shit on a bed of stuff too.
IMG_20150307_180235376.jpg
AAAND serve it on a leopard print cushion.
 
Singlemalt

Singlemalt

Well-Known Member
bu$hleaguer said:
Does anyone have an immersion circulator at home?

I've done a shitload of sous vide at the restaurants and we do immersion farm fresh eggs kinda like these at both of my places now and I'm addicted to them. best egg preparation I've ever used...

View attachment 3366591

(Just a pic off the web)

Anyway, I'm trying to choose which one I want and didn't know if any of you guys have one you'd recommend. It doesn't need to be commercial, I don't want to pay more than is necessary.

@Singlemalt @Metasynth
Click to expand...
No, and have never heard of it. What does it do? Just looked it up, pretty cool. I think I want one after reading this:
"The use of temperatures much lower than for conventional cooking is an equally essential feature of sous-vide, resulting in much higher succulence: at these lower temperatures, cell walls in the food do not burst.[3] In the case of meat cooking, tough collagen in connective tissue can be hydrolysed into gelatin, without heating the meat's proteins high enough that they denature to a degree that the texture toughens and moisture is wrung out of the meat. In contrast, with the cooking of vegetables, where extreme tenderness or softness is seen as undesirably overcooked, the ability of the sous-vide technique to cook vegetables at a temperature below the boiling point of water allows vegetables to be thoroughly cooked (and pasteurized, if necessary) while maintaining a firm or somewhat crisp texture. While the cell walls are generally not burst, the de-polymerization of the pectic polysaccharides that connect the vegetable cells together and/or the gelatinisation of starch in the vegetable can be achieved without overcooking.[4]"
 
Last edited:
bu$hleaguer

bu$hleaguer

Well-Known Member
Singlemalt said:
No, and have never heard of it. What does it do?
Click to expand...

Well basically in order to cook sous vide you need two things, an immersion circulator and a vacuum sealer.

The immersion circulator does exactly what it sounds like, it circulates water and holds it at a very specific temperature, which you determine based on the item your cooking.

The whole technique of sous vide involves vacuum sealing a food item and then dropping the bag into the temp controlled water for long enough to achieve what you want, then often the food is seared in a pan to add the desired texture before serving.

By cooking at specific temp, the food never gets hotter than the water. So basically you can cook short ribs at 130F for three or four days, achieve the fall apart texture you want, and still have them be medium rare- it's truly fucking mind blowing. The very best food I've ever cooked or eaten was done sous vide.

An egg is an amazing item to cook this way because you don't need a bag- it comes enclosed in its own shell. Basically you drop the eggs into the temp controlled water for about 43 minutes and when you remove them and crack them the yolk isn't set but the whites are, meaning it is kinda like a poached egg but better. You really have to see it to believe it, it's absolutely amazing.

I could go on and on, but as far as I'm concerned it is an absolute magical technique. I've used the technique in my two restaurants for about 6 years now and I'm always trying new shit. There is almost 100% yield because due to the vacuum sealing and low temp cooking, you lose none of the product. Also, whatever you put into the bag with the food gets absorbed into the cells of the food once it's vacuumed, so you have an instant marinade basically. Once cooked in the bag, the food can stay refrigerated for months with no worry of decay, and you just open the bag and sear away and you're good.

Confits are really cool also, so is fish in olive oil, or melted butter.

It's not for the beginner, because you kinda gotta know your shit before you get into it, though, as a lot of the science is serious shit.
 
Hookabelly

Hookabelly

Well-Known Member
bu$hleaguer said:
Well basically in order to cook sous vide you need two things, an immersion circulator and a vacuum sealer.

The immersion circulator does exactly what it sounds like, it circulates water and holds it at a very specific temperature, which you determine based on the item your cooking.

The whole technique of sous vide involves vacuum sealing a food item and then dropping the bag into the temp controlled water for long enough to achieve what you want, then often the food is seared in a pan to add the desired texture before serving.

By cooking at specific temp, the food never gets hotter than the water. So basically you can cook short ribs at 130F for three or four days, achieve the fall apart texture you want, and still have them be medium rare- it's truly fucking mind blowing. The very best food I've ever cooked or eaten was done sous vide.

An egg is an amazing item to cook this way because you don't need a bag- it comes enclosed in its own shell. Basically you drop the eggs into the temp controlled water for about 43 minutes and when you remove them and crack them the yolk isn't set but the whites are, meaning it is kinda like a poached egg but better. You really have to see it to believe it, it's absolutely amazing.

I could go on and on, but as far as I'm concerned it is an absolute magical technique. I've used the technique in my two restaurants for about 6 years now and I'm always trying new shit. There is almost 100% yield because due to the vacuum sealing and low temp cooking, you lose none of the product. Also, whatever you put into the bag with the food gets absorbed into the cells of the food once it's vacuumed, so you have an instant marinade basically. Once cooked in the bag, the food can stay refrigerated for months with no worry of decay, and you just open the bag and sear away and you're good.

Confits are really cool also, so is fish in olive oil, or melted butter.

It's not for the beginner, because you kinda gotta know your shit before you get into it, though, as a lot of the science is serious shit.
Click to expand...
I was just watching a show on the newest trend in cooking (now baked and can't' remember the term LOL) but they chefs were doing exactly that @bu$hleaguer . They made a fish dish and soft cooked egg using the gizmo you describe. Also made all these sauces that were in a sort of suspension… Looked like mercury drips, but the ideas was to keep sauce suspended until you bite into it. They were doing all sorts of cool shit with textures and flavors.
 
Unclebaldrick

Unclebaldrick

Well-Known Member
The wife and I are having dinner out for the first time this year. We are looking forward to it. Especially my wife, she plans on having oysters as she hasn't had any since getting pregnant. And last summer, I had several dozen in front of her in Boston and SF.
lahadaextranjera said:
I've been buying meat and fish from the market. I had grilled tuna last night and fillet steak the night before.

View attachment 3367196 View attachment 3367197 View attachment 3367201
Click to expand...
Daaaamn. That's even more beautiful than a nice grow room.
 
Last edited:
Unclebaldrick

Unclebaldrick

Well-Known Member
So @bu$hleaguer , we've seen this technique being used for a while, but I am curious about the searing part. If you cook short ribs to the proper tenderness, how can you sear them without them falling apart?

I would really like to try the sous-vide though. Our enamelled cast iron Dutch ovens have been getting a lot of use lately, but thy are about to take most of the summer off.
 
bu$hleaguer

bu$hleaguer

Well-Known Member
Unclebaldrick said:
So @bu$hleaguer If you cook short ribs to the proper tenderness, how can you sear them without them falling apart?
Click to expand...

Very delicately!! And just because the low temp cooking you'll actually have short ribs that eat kinda like a steak. Can't describe it to ya unless you try it. I included a link on the bottom of this ramble for you.

I don't really know how else to describe it, really. There's sous vide forums out there and I suggest if you decide to go with it that you use me for info and search religiously for proper cook temps. I always keep a notebook (kinda like when you learned to grow) for your time/temp info.

One thing to keep in mind is that you need to pasteurize many food items for safety reasons, and cooking at a very low temp like you will be doing is a dangerous thing sometimes because things can harbor bacteria still.

So sometimes you do two temps, like 70C for 2 hours (to pasteurize) and then 32 hours at 58C.

Short ribs:
62C / 48 hours

Perfect egg:
63.2 C for 1 hour


One weird thing about a lot of sous vide equipment is that temps in Celsius can be fractionalized and accurate to .01 degree but Fahrenheit cannot, so most chefs cook at Celsius to allow for more exact temps. Prob because it was invented in France.

Anyway, search around, there's an incredible amount of shit out there on it since it's not a strange technology like it was 10 years ago.

You'll love this as a good example of how time & temp affect the texture of meat:
http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/short-ribs-time-and-temp
 
Last edited:
Hookabelly

Hookabelly

Well-Known Member
bu$hleaguer said:
Very delicately!! And just because the low temp cooking you'll actually have short ribs that eat kinda like a steak. Can't describe it to ya unless you try it. I included a link on the bottom of this ramble for you.

I don't really know how else to describe it, really. There's sous vide forums out there and I suggest if you decide to go with it that you use me for info and search religiously for proper cook temps. I always keep a notebook (kinda like when you learned to grow) for your time/temp info.

One thing to keep in mind is that you need to pasteurize many food items for safety reasons, and cooking at a very low temp like you will be doing is a dangerous thing sometimes because things can harbor bacteria still.

So sometimes you do two temps, like 70C for 2 hours (to pasteurize) and then 32 hours at 58C.

Short ribs:
62C / 48 hours

Perfect egg:
63.2 C for 1 hour


One weird thing about a lot of sous vide equipment is that temps in Celsius can be fractionalized and accurate to .01 degree but Fahrenheit cannot, so most chefs cook at Celsius to allow for more exact temps. Prob because it was invented in France.

Anyway, search around, there's an incredible amount of shit out there on it since it's not a strange technology like it was 10 years ago.

You'll love this as a good example of how time & temp affect the texture of meat:
http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/short-ribs-time-and-temp
Click to expand...
But what's the point of cooking an egg for an hour?
 
Metasynth

Metasynth

Well-Known Member
My gf thinks I'm crZy cause I am taking pictures of root vegetables on the short ten minute car ride home from the market, but fuck! Look at the size of these parsnips!!!! I fucking LOVE parsnips!!

 
Yessica...

Yessica...

Well-Known Member
dannyboy602 said:
Ive heard of an immersion blender...is that the same thing?
Click to expand...
I don't think so - but I've never used either!

I'm sleepy, high, and lazy as fuck tonight.

THIS is what I'm having for dinner:

Swiss-Chalet-Main.jpg images.jpeg swiss-chalet-1.jpg swiss-chalet.jpg

Probably only one of those. And NOT the "Festive Special" - because it isn't Festivus...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top