(allow me to apologize in advance for the pictures and plating.. I was kind of in a rush!)

Conclusion?

Well there wasn’t much of a difference in texture between steak #1 (45mins) and steak #4 (4 hours).  I would definitely like to try it for times longer than 4 hours to see when exactly an increase of toughness or breakdown of muscle begins.. as for the hanger steak?  Must’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere!

Thomas Keller states in his book “Under Pressure”:

“In sous vide cooking, however, once the food reaches the desired internal temperature, it stays there, even when left in the water.  And there is no carryover cooking when the food is removed from the water.

This does not mean, however, that the window of time for perfectly cooked food is unlimited.  If the meat spends too long in the heat, the color won’t change, but the texture and feel will–so it may look beautifully rare but the taste and texture will not be what you expect.  It is meat that is rare yet overcooked.”

But is it true?  And does it happen so quickly?  Or did I somehow mess something up along the way? Hanger steak cooked at 136 degrees F for 45 minutes turned out beautifully but left in for just another 2 hours and 16 minutes resulted in a tough, unsavory piece of meat..

That’s what we are here to find out today.  I was unable to find more hanger steak at Whole Foods but was able to procure some ribeye at a market nearby.  I’ve portioned the steaks to uniform sizes and will be using Douglas Baldwin’s time/temperature table for accuracy (table 2.3 on his website).

I have four portions of the steak, each will be cooked for a different duration, 45mins, 1 hour and 30 minutes, 3 hours and finally 4 hours @ 131 degrees F.  After each steak is cooked I will be cooling them under cold running water for 10 minutes (as recommended by Jean-François who credits Bruno Goussault for this method), chill them in an ice bath then store them in the refrigerator until all the steaks are ready to be seared.

This experiment is an attempt to determine…

A.  Can meat left cooking too long in sous vide really overcook or does the meat breakdown so much that it is just not desirable to the palate?

B.  If A. is true, then when does the overcooking or breakdown occur?  Or when is it the worst?  At 25mm, how long are we able to keep an item in sous vide for ease of cooking or service?

Pics to follow..

The first bag was cooked for 45 mins and was perfect.  I left the second bag in for 3 hours and the meat turned out tough and overcooked although the color was a near-perfect medium-rare.   I guess Keller was right–you can overcook with sous vide.

An’s “Famous” Garlic Noodles

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp, unsalted butter
• 1 tbsp +1 tsp finely minced garlic (and i mean fine)
• 2 tsp, kraft parmesan cheese (You know that generic stuff mom used to put on your spaghetti when you were a kid? Yeah, that’s it.)
• 3 tsp, thai fish sauce
• 1 tsp, light brown sugar
• 6 oz, pasta (spaghetti works)

Method:

• Reheat your noodles in a pot of simmering water
• Melt butter in a saute pan over medium heat
• Add garlic, saute until translucent
• Add brown sugar and fish sauce, mix to incorporate
• Add noodles to pan
• Stir in parmesan cheese

*Please note, depending on how much pasta you use, you may need to adjust the amount of garlic, fish sauce and parmesan cheese you use.  Also, I used store bought fettucini in the pics below and they turned out great!

• A smoker..  I prefer a gas smoker over a charcoal smoker because I can set the temperature and walk away, only needing to refill the wood chunks once after about an hour or two.
• A digital thermometer for meat temp and smoker temp.
• Foil, some apple juice for spritzing, ribs & a good rub or mop (bbq sauce) if you prefer.
• Wood chips (I use a combination of pecan and walnut)
• And finally, 5 or 6 hours of time.

Method:

• Prepare your baby backs the night before by removing the membrane on the back of the ribs.  Here’s a short video on how to do that.
• Using a small brush, brush yellow mustard on both sides of the ribs then rub your favorite rub over the ribs, front & back.  Wrap in plastic and refrigerate overnight.
• The next day, turn on your smoker, fill it with wood chips and water and bring it up to temp.  The ideal temperature for cooking ribs is 225 degrees F.  I find it helpful to heat the smoker to 250 degrees F because of the temperature drop when you add your ribs to the smoker.
• Once your smoker is up to temp, unwrap your ribs and place them meat side up in the smoker.  Shut the door and let them go for about 2 hours or until you start seeing some pullback, about 1/4″ from the bone.
• Once you start to see the meat pull back from the bone or once 2 hours have gone by, remove the ribs, shut the smoker door & wrap the ribs in foil with a splash or two of apple juice.  Seal them up and put them back into the smoker for an additional 2 hours.  This portion of the cooking is to allow steaming or braising of the ribs.
• After two hours have gone by, remove the ribs from foil and place them back into the smoker meat side up for an additional hour.  Spritz them with apple juice every time you need to open the smoker or every half hour. (You can skip the spritzing and use a mop of your favorite bbq sauce instead if you like).
• You will know when the ribs are ready when you pick them up from the center and they bend at a 45 degree angle.

Here are some pics of what I did today with recipes below:

Ingredients:

• Baby Back Ribs
• Yellow Mustard
• Apple Juice for spritzing
• Dry Rub (recipe below)
• BBQ sauce for dipping or mopping

Rub Recipe:

• 1 Cup Dark Brown Sugar
• 1/2 Cup Paprika
• 2 TBS Course (Salad Grind) Black Pepper
• 1-1/2 tsp Chili Powder
• 1 tsp Cumin
• 1-1/2 TBS Garlic Powder
• 1-1/2 TBS Onion Powder
• 1 tsp Cayenne
• 2 TBS Kosher Salt

Conclusion?

Loved them.  I do however recommend doing them for a bit longer than 48 hours.  They seem to be more tender that way and skip the whole ice bath deal if you plan to serve them immediately.

Ribeye is my favorite cut of meat.  I enjoy the crispy bits of fat on the ends and sides of a good ribeye steak when grilled or seared.  I love the texture and taste of a good ribeye.   Don’t even try giving me a filet, I’d much rather eat oatmeal.  I wanted to see if I could achieve that same exterior texture with sous vide without overcooking the meat…

“Positive effects of sous vide when cooking meat:

1.  Even cooking from end to end + no risk of overcooking.

2.  No loss of moisture.”

Experimentation:

I brought home a ribeye and cooked it in sous vide at 140 degrees F for 45mins, shocked it in an ice bath and stored it in the refrigerator.  Brought it back to temp in a 131 degree water bath (120-130 degrees F is the optimal temperature for serving meat) for 45 minutes, seared both sides in a cast iron pan and allowed it to rest for a few minutes.

Here are the results:

Conclusion:

The overall doneness of the steak was amazing, cooked medium through and through.  It looked good and tasted good.  However, it wasn’t the same (to me at least) as cooking a ribeye on a blazing hot grill.

I’d like to try this on a professional range/grill (I ended up doing this at home), perhaps I could get a better char that way or maybe use a blowtorch next time.

For this post we’re testing out Momofuku’s 48 hour braised short rib (I’m not a big fan of the traditional kalbi marinade so I’m doing my recipe for short ribs, subbing the oven with sous vide).

If you’ve read Momofuku’s new cookbook then you’d know that David Chang does his short ribs for 48 hours with an immersion circulator such as the one from Addelice which is pretty reasonably priced at about $643 US dollars (shipping is free worldwide).  However, I can’t afford such a luxury so am using an $89 soup warmer from my friends at Chef’s Toys in Fountain Valley, a $140 PID controller from Auber Instruments and your basic run of the mill fish tank pump for about $10.  This is an example of what a lot of people are calling “ghetto sous vide” with alternatives such as a rice cooker instead of a soup warmer.

Some methods I’ve seen and done in professional kitchens are blanching pots with digital thermometers or running tap water, a lexan and a thermometer.  Both methods work pretty well but the temperature control is not very precise which is why I prefer to use a PID controller.  A PID controller’s accuracy is +/- 1 degree C between 10 to 100 degrees C (immersion circulators are +/- .05 degrees C).  I cannot stress how important the difference between 1 degree is when cooking sous vide.  Take an egg cooked sous vide for example, cook one at 63 degrees C and another at 64 degrees C and you will get two completely different eggs in terms of texture and appearance.

*I will compile a list of sous vide equipment at the bottom of the page.

*For those of you who wish to know more about sous vide cooking, I recommend you look up Douglas Baldwin’s site, he goes into detailed explanation of how the process works and the safe ways to do it along with cooking and pasteurization times.

I hope to have more pictures up soon (40 hours to go!).

*************

Sous Vide equipment:

Soup warmer, Auberins PID controller (+/- 1 C temp. accuracy between 10 -100 degrees C) & fish tank pump combo:  $239.00

Soup warmer, SousVideMagic PID controller (+/- 1 C temp. accuracy) & fish tank pump combo:  $259.00

Immersion Circulator (Addelice): $643.00

Immersion Circulator (Polyscience): $935.00

Immersion Circulator (Julabo): $999.00

Thermal Bath (Polyscience): $1035.00

Sous Vide Supreme Water Oven: $449.95

*Let’s not forget, everything you sous vide needs to be vacuum packed so here’s a list of alternatives:

FoodSaver: $159.99

FoodSaver bags: $39.99

Ziplock Bags and Pump: $39.99