2ManyDiversions lept in with both feet during her kitchen remodel. There's a lot of great information in these threads:

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/5364489/dont-like-sous-vide (My originating post)

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/5365846/sous-vide-thoughts-about-when-people-dont-like-it (This was a repost of the above, which had gotten swallowed, but there are some good responses, too.)

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/5397897/sous-vide-contd-a-newbies-experiences-please-share-tips-and-recipes (2Many's follow up post with lots of food porn)

It's also perfect for making cottage cheese:

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/5718604/the-blintzes-were-not-made-sous-vide-but-the-cheese-was-circulated

I bought an Anova sous vide after borrowing one and using it several times. Now, I cook almost all of our meat and chicken sous vide. I found that the high heat required for the sear made a lot of grease in the kitchen, so I either do this outside on an induction burner with a grill pan, or simply coat the meat with a bit of flour and olive oil and put it under the boiler for a couple of minutes, browning on one side only. The Anova website has lots of tips and a users forum.

I have found this site the most helpful alongside the Anova one.

https://www.chefsteps.com/gallery?generator=chefsteps&published_status=published&difficulty=any&sort=newest&premium=everything

I would suggest you keep a record of everything you cook as it's very much suck it and see. Success depends on the cuts of meat, the thickness, how you like your veggies......

Custard based dishes are marvellous. You have a whole new world of cooking ahead of you!

If you like lean pork, not a bad place to start. Not expensive and usually dry, cooked traditionally.

It has been a while but I was expecting a learning curve. So I picked up a big package of thick boneless pork chops at Costco. Used recommended time and temp in the above link...dry of bag juices with p-towel then spice rub and pan sear...excellent.

So I now season, package, then SousVide multiple packages together, then freeze.

Quick meals.

In addition to the Anova website and ChefSteps, both of which I rely on, Simply Recipes has good sous vide information and recipes. And here is a link to Serious Eats How to Get Started with Sous Vide Cooking by Kenji Lopez-Alt. From that article, you can wander away to many recipes and techniques. (I love Kenji. My family gets so tired of hearing me say, “Kenji says....”)

Like filmoe, I dislike the searing part. We meet a couple on a cruise last year. He uses a Searzall. Here is a video of the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen testing one. I don’t have one, but after watching that video, I may get one. $75-ish at Amazon.

Here is a chuck roast cooked sous vide at 135 degrees for 24 hours. I would have liked it rarer, but DH doesn’t care for it. With a tiny bit of effort, I was able to cut it with a fork. Notice it is the same degree of doneness edge to edge!

Also there is a post somewhere giving me advice on cooking steaks to different degrees of doneness at the same time. Basically, set your temperature for the more cooked steak. Cook it for the required time. Then lower the temp to whatever you want for the less done steak (you can throw some ice in the water bath to lower the temp quickly). Put both bags in the water. Cook for the time required to get the raw steak to the correct doneness. The cooked steak will not cook more at the lower temperature and it will stay hot while the second steak is cooking. Works like a charm!

This reminds me to use mine more!

Thick pork chops is my most frequent use. I keep wanting to branch out beyond proteins but haven’t gotten around to it yet. I’ll look at sites mentioned above for inspiration.

With the proper set up for sous vide, you can do some impossible cookings.

When turkeys are cheap, almost free ($0.39 a lb), I always get a big one and sous vide the entire bird directly from frozen. 100% perfect meat for sandwiches packaged in the freezer.

I have a whole leg of lamb ($3.99 a lb) being sous vide'd for a dinner party tonight. It will be perfectly done.

All you need is a big ice chest and sous vide bags that you make from a roll.

dcarch

Pasteurizing eggs for everything mayonnaise to marzipan is awesome!

Dcarch, where do you get bags wider than 12” for whole turkeys?

It's difficult to find bags or rolls that are wider than 12".

For turkeys, you can use oven bags, for a whole leg of lamb, you can use standard sous vide plastic that comes in a roll.

I use rolls spliced and "weld" the seams together to make very large bags. Some day I may have time to make a video to show how that is done.

dcarch

Dcarch, do you double the oven bags or trust that 1 will not burst? I would be very interested in the splice and weld instructions or video

Groceries have big brine bags. And the cavity can be filled with stock to weigh it down so it doesn't float, but, most of us have a stick like my Anova. Not designed to hold temps easily with more than a 5 gallon bath. Maybe a 10lb bird. (?) Probably not..

Best is to do the leg-thighs, even a day or two ahead, then the breast at a lower temp day of. No overdone breast meat. The leg/thighs can go in the bath to re-heat with the breast.

I looked into it only because I had extra legs but ended up not needing them and they are in the freezer now. (all ready to SV)

The nice thing about SousVide is it has a compact design without much fuss for a single person up to a dinner party for many. No mess. Ready when you need it, or prepping ahead for the freezer.

Someone running late, or just not ready to sit down yet?...your meal is sitting in its bath just waiting at your perfect chosen temp. And frees up your oven for other things.

Tempering chocolate, and yes, pasteurizing eggs.

Ah, another good one I'm just trying out. I smoked ribs for a bbq last September. Low and slow. I took a rack off early (when it was still very firm on the bone). Then froze in small 4 rib portions. Found recently in the freezer. Labeled '9.2019 finish SV'

...need to do that soon.

As mentioned, write down each SV cook time/temp so if it is how you like it, you have the recorded success or failure.

Here it is....

I could see doing this with a whole chicken as well. Backbone goes on a back burner stockpot with other bones and veg, (I roast mine in the oven 45 min 350)...stock going, Chicken parts SV for dinner, breast meat for salads. Some into the freezer.

Kitchen clean, dishwasher running, prep a veg or any sides. At my leisure.

I would finish in the oven with a miso or bbq style glaze to roast the skin.

I don't buy whole chickens often. Usually just thighs. But same principle mentioned that steaks can be cooked medium, med-rare, rare, by starting some earlier at a higher temp, then lowering the heat for med-rare, again for rare...

I do need to branch out and try more veg. I only SV asparagus, 180º 8 minutes. Thighs in the oven for a roasting, raise SV heat to 180º,...asparagus into the pool, into an ice bath.

For the first year or so I just used a stockpot but now have a 12 quart (3 gallon) square commercial. Use it right next to my sink like the video above.

Does not interfere with my two cutting board prep zones. Small kitchen but nice tight cooking triangle and pretty to keep clean.

You do not need this at all...but good to put on the wish list...

I don't buy cheap meat and we don't eat a big meat diet anyway so it balances out. Less quantity but better quality from local farms. (Big parties Costco. Good enough.)

Another cooking forum is trying rump roasts and lesser costly cuts with pretty good success.

One fella left his rump in for 48 hours because he forgot about it, lol. The consensus seems to be about 14-20. Heavy spice rub with avocado oil oven seared 400º, turn, turn, 20-30 minutes. Then into the SV pool. Looks good!. Sandwich, French dip, Pho, noodle bowl...might try that later in the early Spring...we are a bit over holiday meats.

I brought a taller container and what looks like ping pong balls and the lid with the hole for the Anova stick. I have done a whole chicken using the Tupelo Honey Sweet Tea brine, then finishing in oven to brown. Very nice. I should use it more often. but not eating huge meals so easier to do nice meat and salad dinner 3 or so times a week.

Dcarch, thanks. I didn't even think of cutting them open and welding. I can do that. When the butcher got me an 18 lb. chuck roast, rather than 18 lbs. of chuck roast, I whacked it into four pieces with my scimitar in order to fit in the 12" roll bags and didn't worry about beauty. That's probably better just for thickness anyway. As it is, it was a three day cook. :)

Louise, to reinforce something Sleevendog alluded to, you can do miraculous things to cheap, tough cuts sous vide. It's the ultimate of the low and slow necessary to break down the connective tissue without it getting dry or petrified or overcooked.

Veggies are a revelation. All the flavour stays in the bag. Sliced potatoes for really quick gratin dauphinois, carotty carrots, all cooked just right, no mush....endive halves with a little slice of ginger, or a slice of orange,great to have cooked veg waiting for you on a busy night.

I think sous vide is the ultimate in fast food. A freezer full of cooked meat and veggies.....lovely.

And eggs based....custards, ice cream, crème brûlée, caramel.......yum.

So, here it is, sous vide'd a whole leg of lamb.

Perfectly done. But no compliments to the chef (me). No cooking skill involved here.

Complements to the computer software programmer for making it possible.

After sous vide, the lamb was frozen, then cut on my table saw into sections(10 seconds). repacked and freeze again for future use.

dcarch

do you have a special blade or table saw just for food?

@dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m I’ve been curious about Sous vide cooking of certain cuts. I thought I read somewhere that there was a maximum thickness for meats, something that would be way less than a whole leg of lamb. I’ve wanted to cook a whole tenderloin but I was afraid to. Can you expound on cooking large cuts of meat, please. Thanks!

First try at leftovers from the freezer the other day, a pork loin roast, worked perfectly. Nice to have hot leftovers without overcooking.

Less success, again, with steaks. Figured I’d try it on my kids without them knowing anything. 1.25” strips, a bit of salt, bit of avocado oil. 132° for about an hour, pan seared. As opposed to my typical pan sear, rest, oven. My daughter immediately picked up on something being different. “The juice doesn’t taste right.” I asked my son if his was ok. “Not as good as normal but it’s fine.” That was as much descriptive as I got from them.

Add them to the list, as my wife never likes it either, complains about the texture. Can’t say SV steak is idiot-proof because this idiot has yet to nail it.

Susan Tencza , I use a simple carbide blade. First I cut a piece of plain wood to clean the teeth of the blade of any rust or dirt, then the lamb. Bones are not a problem. I do this all the time with other meats, like pork shoulder, etc.

bbstx , I don't see why thicker meat is an issue, as long as you have done your food-safe temperature research correctly. As I have said, I have done a whole turkey from frozen. (assuming you don't mind having giblets cooked inside the turkey inside that paper sack.)

dcarch

thanks Dcarch for the details. I have always wondered about that potential.

Sunday, cooked a cured slice of pork leg, in the bag with orange juice, sugar and Madeira wine, 58°C for 8 hours.....succulent and tasty. It was quite thick.....don't over think the process. Just be sure to keep a record of everything you cook so you can repeat/improve.