Sous-Vide method of cooking

[Badger52]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

Damn, you're making me hungry......

If anyone has the contributing sources you do; we're still waiting for "Cooking with Claymores" - a title too good to waste.

[Penn]

here is a site which is focused on Sous-Vide and everything attached to Modern Cuisine.
http://modernistcuisine.com/2012/02/...uisine+Blog%29

Click on buy for the cook books.

[PSM]

Chef Michael Mina, at the Mandalay Bay in LV, uses 120°F clarified butter:

The Stripsteak method

In the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas, Chef Michael Mina's Stripsteak has a unique technique for reaching perfection on thick steaks.

Stripsteak begins by immersing the meat in baths of clarified butter at about 120°F. Clarified butter is unsalted butter that has had the water and milk solids removed. It is also called ghee.

After about an hour the meat is an even 120°F throughout, and when an order comes in he lifts it gently from the butter, shakes a bit off, turns around, and lays it it on a screaming hot topless Santa Maria style grill burning mesquite logs.

After a few minutes and several turns, the meat comes off the grill a deep dark almost black, but never burned, and the center, as you can see, is perfect medium rare, about 130°F, with almost no color variation.

Interestingly, the butter does not penetrate much so the butter flavor is minimal. It does contribute to a deep brown nutty crust, however. The steaks are among the finest I've ever tasted. But be careful if you attempt this at home. At 120°F bacteria flourish, just not in an airless environment.

Found at Amazing Ribs

Pat

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by PSM

Chef Michael Mina, at the Mandalay Bay in LV, uses 120°F clarified butter:



Found at Amazing Ribs

Pat

Sounds more like a steak "confit" than Sous-Vide.

Clarified butter is close but is not ghee.

[alelks]

I'm definitely trying this.

Hmmmm,

I'm liking this setup: http://54deg.com/

EDIT: This one looks even better: http://www.exasperatedcalculator.com...vide-week-one/

Another controller: http://www.auberins.com/index.php?ma...roducts_id=183

[PSM]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

Sounds more like a steak "confit" than Sous-Vide.

It does. But, it's CB and not rendered fat. I guess he bastardized the two methods. Still sounds tasty, though!

Pat

[booker]

After reading up on sous vide, I've decided to bite the bullet and order one. I contemplated the cooler method, but TS made some good points on food borne illness. Will let you know how things turn out.

[PSM]

Originally Posted by booker

After reading up on sous vide, I've decided to bite the bullet and order one. I contemplated the cooler method, but TS made some good points on food borne illness. Will let you know how things turn out.

So, have you used it yet, booker?

Pat

[x SF med]

Originally Posted by Dusty

I prefer sous-Weber.

Reminds me of putting water in LRRP chill con carne and sticking the pack in the leg pocket of my field pants. Took about 2 clicks to make it edible.

Depended on the ambient temp vs weight of ruck and time to tgt... you needed to add 15% layup/cooking(time?) for the spaghetti or beef/chicken with rice...

Oh, have I mentioned you make me sound old

[Penn]

Pat, we use the supreme sous vide, its within a degree on the digital temp. The best book, imo is Kellers "Under Pressure", but you must have a cryorvac machine, and a good one, if you want the best results.

[echoes]

Originally Posted by PSM

Chef Michael Mina, at the Mandalay Bay in LV, uses 120°F clarified butter:Pat

Pat,

I worked briefly for Chef Michael Mina in his Bourbon Steak Restaurant in Scottsdale:

http://www.fairmont.com/scottsdale/dining/bourbonsteak/

I can tell you we Sous-Vide the items on the menu, and they were not confit.

A very great Chef to work with, as he was humble, not arrogant about his status, and wanting to throw it around, as some Chefs do. He demanded great product consistently, which was a pleasure to suffer under...

A great Chef.

Hope your ventures in to this form of cooking turn out well, as it seems to be evolving from its traditional nature.

Holly

[HOLLiS]

We are well pleased with ours. Like any new tool, it takes a little bit to figure it out.

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by echoes

Pat,

I worked briefly for Chef Michael Mina in his Bourbon Steak Restaurant in Scottsdale:

http://www.fairmont.com/scottsdale/dining/bourbonsteak/

I can tell you we Sous-Vide the items on the menu, and they were not confit.

A very great Chef to work with, as he was humble, not arrogant about his status, and wanting to throw it around, as some Chefs do. He demanded great product consistently, which was a pleasure to suffer under...

A great Chef.

Hope your ventures in to this form of cooking turn out well, as it seems to be evolving from its traditional nature.

Holly

Sorry Holly but you've no idea what you're talking about in reference to sous vide. The technique that I discussed before and the way Chef Michael Mina prepares his steaks has nothing to do with sous vide.

Confit = Meat (usually goose, duck, or pork) that has been gently cooked and preserved in its own fat. If you leave out the preserved part then Chef Michael Mina is actually employing a sort of confit method of preparing his steak.

Slow poached in butter, is the method Chef Michael Mina is employing and it even states it on his own website, the very one you posted.

When talking meats Sous vide is a dry cooking method that employs "vacuum sealing", gentle cooking over a "long" period of time to break down collagen. There is nothing chef Michael Mina is doing that even closely resembles sous vide.
Sous vide cooking is a technique that if not done right can produce food borne illnesses. Chef Michael Mina is warming the meat to the proper internal temperature and then grilling it all within an hour. The meats he talks about cooking here is not sous vide. His cooking method would not produce the food borne illnesses associated with improper sous vide cooking as it's all done within the hour.

Please feel free to define confit and sous vide. And once you've read Chef Thomas Kellers book, "Under Pressure" come back and tell me chef Michael Mina is doing sous vide.

TS

[echoes]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

Sorry Holly but you've no idea what you're talking about in reference to sous vide. The technique that I discussed before and the way Chef Michael Mina prepares his steaks has nothing to do with sous vide.

Confit = Meat (usually goose, duck, or pork) that has been gently cooked and preserved in its own fat. If you leave out the preserved part then Chef Michael Mina is actually employing a sort of confit method of preparing his steak.

Slow poached in butter, is the method Chef Michael Mina is employing and it even states it on his own website, the very one you posted.

When talking meats Sous vide is a dry cooking method that employs "vacuum sealing", gentle cooking over a "long" period of time to break down collagen. There is nothing chef Michael Mina is doing that even closely resembles sous vide.
Sous vide cooking is a technique that if not done right can produce food borne illnesses. Chef Michael Mina is warming the meat to the proper internal temperature and then grilling it all within an hour. The meats he talks about cooking here is not sous vide. His cooking method would not produce the food borne illnesses associated with improper sous vide cooking as it's all done within the hour.

Please feel free to define confit and sous vide. And once you've read Chef Thomas Kellers book, "Under Pressure" come back and tell me chef Michael Mina is doing sous vide.

TS

You are absolutely right TS, I do not know what I am talking about, only what I have learned from the Chef's I have worked with, thus far. Sorry. :-(

In Mina's kitchen, it does say on the menu, slow poached in butter. In the kitchen, we used the Sous Vide machine on individual portions of vegetables, (at my station,) that included butter and herbs. They were then put in to a re-hydration machine at time of servie, for fresh presentation.

Using this machine during my time working in His kitchen led me to my conclusion that we Sous Vide. If this is in any way in-correct information that I was disseminating, my sincerest appologies.

Like many, I am always trying to learn when I am in the kitchen cooking something, or preparing it with a certain cooking method.

Thanky you for pointing out my mistake, and I will try in the future not to make any. And thank you for the recomendation of Under Pressure, I had not heard of it, but will start my research.

To put it more clearly, I was wrong!!! We Sous Vide Vegetables only, not meat, not anything having to do with meat, I was wrong! I know that TS knows what he is talking about when it comes to Culinary, and I was wrong to state anything contradictory to what he stated.

Holly

[Team Sergeant]

This thread was a discussion of sous vide. I pointed out the method PSM posted in post #18 was not a sous vide technique. It is in fact what Chef Michael Mina calls "butter poaching". And I would highly recommend that method for home cooks. Making the clarified butter might be the most difficult for first timers. Also keeping the butter at the correct temp while poaching would be another difficult task. I'd also make sure you pat dry the steak before throwing it on the grill....
I'm sure Chef Michael Mina sous vides his veggies, an absolutely outstanding method of cooking veggies, but that not what we were discussing.

No chef has taught me to cook using the sous vide method, I read Thomas Keller's book "Under Pressure" again and again until I understood what he was doing, how he was doing it and why.

Another great resource is a book called "The Science of Good Food" by Joachim and Schloss with A. Philip Handel, Ph.D
This book explains in great detail what happens to foods as they are being prepared. It also goes into detail about cooking methods. I highly recommend it to all cooks.

TS