Okay - I like my lamb med rare.. but that is ridiculous. It looks absolutely raw with that raw white fat all through it.... SHUDDER!!!!!

DC - some of your sous vide stuff looks okay - but this is a swing and a miss.

Alexa

Looks great! And good timing - After our last exchange I decided to take the puppy food off the dedicated sous vide cooler that makes its home on my kitchen floor, start googling and go about my own experimentation. While I've got some ideas of my own that I want to try, I think that to form overall impressions I should rely on T&T recipes from experts (whether popularly recognized or self-proclaimed) in order to minimize the variable of my own judgement.

Stay tuned for a separate post within the next few weeks. I hope you weigh in. [If only because if you don't, it'll likely be a lonely conversation. LOL!!!]

Anyway, again, your lamb looks great. I'm sure you enjoyed.

I don't like lamb in any form, so won't conjecture on the proper cooking of it. (grin)

I have only had sous vide cooked meat once, Elery got a pork chop at Vinology in Ann Arbor and I tasted it. I didn't care for the texture, I thought it was too spongy, but I think pork is kind of mushy anyway sometimes.

I'd definitely try it again but there is no way I'm going to give up any of my limited kitchen space to another cooking device, it'll have to be somewhere when we eat "out". Actually, I think that seafood might be a better choice, things like clams and mussels, maybe squid, might be able to retain a more firm texture.

And you know how I am about texture, I can't eat anything mushy/slimy/gelatinous. I have eaten lamb several times because Elery loves it and so we have it occasionally. Doesn't matter how it's cooked, I just don't care for it.

So, I'll be watching FOAS and see what he thinks, opinions regarding lamb in general aside, LOL.

Annie

Posted by annie1992 "I don't like lamb in any form, so won't conjecture on the proper cooking of it. (grin) ----"
Annie, I didn't use to like lamb at all, until they start charging a lot of money. Expensive = taste good ? LOL

FOAS, thank you. I look forward to seeing more of your sous vide creations.

Alexa, at the risk of being accused of anti Occam's Razor law, let's take a little time to chew the fat.

First, the pictures might be a little misleading. I take food pictures using only the auto setting on my camera to save time. Depending on if the light is from the window (day) or from the CFL (night) or if the shot is wide-angle or close-up and the predominant color of the food item, the camera's built-in software takes charge and determines the red/white/blue balance for each picture. The colors on the first two are closer to the real thing.

Rack of lamb, very expensive. If you take away the fat, and the bones, and shrinkage, it probably comes to $60.00 a pound here in NYC. Meat, bones and fat have different thermal conductivities, adding to it, the small size and the shape of a rack of lamb, it makes it very difficult to cook it perfectly unless you prefer the whole thing well-done. It is challenging to find a way to maximize perfection to every tiny morsel of this wondrous victual.

At the temperature I set at 135F, it is too low to render the fat. Since I don�t eat the fat, it does not bother me just to scrape the fat off while I eat. But if I were to serve others who are not followers of the Paleolithic diet, I probably BBQ the fat a little longer and that will make the issue go away. No, you cannot make Schmaltz using a sous vide cooker.

I think it needs to be emphasized that sous vide is merely a particular way of cooking with a special appliance. There is really no recipes for sous vide, no more than recipes for microwave, or cast iron frying pan, etc.

It is unfortunate that the French word "sous vide" gives this concept a lot of unjustified mystique; the fact that top chefs and upscale restaurant use it makes it appearing un-approachable. It makes it seem like practitioners of this way of cooking belong to some religious cult.

The truth is this: sous vide is just a water oven that can keep constant temperatures. If I were to name this appliance, I would call it "Cookware For Making Perfect Meats For Dummies"

If you show a 10-year-old kid how to set the temperature, the kid can cook the meat sous vide just like a top chef. A sous vide cooker simply will not allow you to overcook or undercook, it makes no difference if your piece of meat is frozen on one half and the other half at room-temperature, thick on one end and thin on the other end.

No doubt, sous vide is going to go thru similar fade as the microwave oven did. First microwave oven was scosting like $5,000 and there were many myths and fears surrounding these bizarre new electronic "radar ranges." By the seventies, more and more people were finding the benefits of microwave cooking to outweigh the supposedly risks, and none of them were dying of radiation poisoning, going blind, becoming sterile, or impotent. As fears ebbed, acceptance began pouring into the kitchens.

dcarch

And perhaps, as with the microwave, people will discover that it is not the answer to all kind of cooking but only suitable to certain foods.

dcarch, I'll agree with you there, lamb is expensive. Although it doesn't approach $60 a pound, you could easily spend $20 a pound for a boneless leg of lamb or a rack of lamb. Makes me darned glad I don't like the stuff.

As you pointed out, I often like the expensive stuff. AT least I don't care for lamb or truffles, and the $35 per pound morels can go to someone else too.

Truthfully, I think I could just about become a vegetarian, except for fish and seafood, which I love. I've mostly lost my taste for meat and prefer eggs, peanut butter and beans.

Gotta have that occasionaly lake perch or walleye dinner, though, and at least once a year, a good chili cheese dog! I don't suppose you could sous vide chili.....LOL.

Annie

We've had quite a lot of sous vide fish in restaurants (we dine out a lot), but the two best dishes we have come across in San Francisco were Michael Mina's lobster pot pies and Prospect's chicken breast roulades. With both dishes, the smooth soft texture is delightful, almost creamy. And I don't normally like the white meat of chicken, so that was impressive.

We were just at a Texas BBQ class (not a success, unfortunately) up in Sonoma, and the chef reaffirmed what I've heard before. Most restaurants use extra pork fat, especially when adding the much-vaunted 'juiciness' to hamburgers and artisanal sausages of all types, because poultry fat melts at too low a temp and beef/lamb fat takes too high a temp to melt. For slow cooking methods, pork fat renders gradually but completely. Sous vide is a great method for not needing to add any fat for basting, or any liquid that would dilute flavor.

Posted by lindac "And perhaps, as with the microwave, people will discover that it is not the answer to all kind of cooking but only suitable to certain foods."

Let me see, I have failed big time with my sous vide set up to make: French fries, pizza, pan cakes, bread, fry bacon, pasta, lasagna, Peking duck, smoke salmon, cheese cake -------- I am throwing my system out. :-).

Posted by annie1992 "---------, and the $35 per pound morels can go to someone else too. --------- Annie"

Annie, I am done with you. We are not friends anymore.

The day you posted on WFD that lovely morel you found in your garden, was the day of arrival of my order of one pound of morel mushroom. As you can see, they were completely rotten.

I HATE YOU! lol

Morel mushroom now are going for $80.00 a pound in NYC.

dcarch

{{gwi:1527567}}

Posted by jkom51 "We've had quite a lot of sous vide fish in restaurants (we dine out a lot), but the two best dishes we have come across in San Francisco were Michael Mina's lobster pot pies and Prospect's chicken breast roulades. With both dishes, the smooth soft texture is delightful, almost creamy. And I don't normally like the white meat of chicken, so that was impressive. ------
------------. Sous vide is a great method for not needing to add any fat for basting, or any liquid that would dilute flavor."

Yes. I am totally amazed by the difference of not cooking lobsters and chicken at boiling temperature.

Your last statement is also very interesting. When you cook food the normal way, the whole house is filled with wonderful delicious aroma. With sous vide cooking, you smell nothing. Everything, and all the flavors stay in the bag.

dcarch

Morels are $80 a pound? I'm appalled. Something I can pluck out of my back yard and that Dad used to find and pick by the grocery bag full. I have a picture somewhere of Dad and Grandpa with four big brown paper grocery bags full of morels that they had picked around the farm. Of course, they knew what they were doing, I read in the local paper that 16 people in Michigan have already been hospitalized from eating the false morels. Makes me glad I don't like morels and even more glad that Dad and Grandpa taught me the difference! (It's easy, really. Morels all come in one piece and false morels have a cap and a stem)

I understand that the reason they aren't grown commercially for fresh sale is that they are so fragile. I sent some to Lars once that I had dehydrated, and I think that's probably the only way I'd be comfortable mailing them to someone.

That picture, though, that's just a shame and illustrates nicely my theory that some things are just meant to be grown and enjoyed locally and in season. Figs are another, Nancy tried to send me fresh figs and the box came two days later, sodden and smelling somewhat.....fermented. Morels seem to be similar.

We'd still be good friends, though, dcarch, just think, you could have all the lamb AND all the morels!

Annie