Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Kickstarting a New Way for Me to Cook

I have kickstarted.... kickstartered....used kickstarter several times in the past, usually for little fun things like a game, or something bigger and more personal like helping a friend get a album recorded.  A while back I was looking and Anova was crowd funding... looking for seed money to make their home sous vide machines better.  So I thought "what the heck" and I joined in the madness as I thought this would be cool to see a more affordable home version.  Little did I know that the rest of the world wanted to see this as well as $1,811,321.00 of a $100,000.00 goal was pledged.

For those of you that don't what "sous vide" cooking is, it is placing an airtight bag containing your food you wish to cook into a container of temperature controlled circulation water.  You want a mid-rare steak? set the temperature to 129 degrees and place your bags of meat in the water bath for 45 minutes up to as many hours as you like(at some point the meat will begin to break down) but the beauty is you can't overcook the meat you are preparing it in the a way that it never gets above what temperature you are shooting for.  The second biggest part is that it cooks the meat evenly. instead of more done to the out side and rarer until the middle temps reach what you like, the food is even all the way through. Last clean up is a breeze, throw away the bag you used to cook and clean a pot and the cooker itself.

So, with that, here is my first adventure into a new way of home cooking:

One button cooking

 The simplicity of their design allows this cooker to attach to just about any sized cooking vessel.  I just went with a larger stock pot.  Scrolled the wheel to 56.5C (it wasn't until later that I talked to a friend on how to change the display to F, I seem to have misplaced my instruction book).  Picking a temp is as easy as using a mouse wheel and pushing a start button >....a nice beep sound indicates that it is active.  Quiet running, nothing more than a little hum and a bubbling brook sound.  To bring the water up to temp really did not seem to take too long.  I think I only had a couple of minutes left after preparing the meat in airtight bags.

new vacuum sealer
There really isn't a need to have a vacuum sealer, as there is a technique of using a zip lock baggie.  What you do is place you food in the baggie and seal it 90% of the way, and as you slowly lower it into the water you let the air work its way out of the bag.  Just before the top reaches the water level you seal the baggie the rest of the way.  This method is particularly helpful if you want to sous vide somethign like hamburgers.  The reason this sealing method is so effective for burgers is that the vacuum pump could smash the burger completely flat, where this way it just forms the baggie around the meat holding its shape. I know what you are thinking, "my grill does a great job."  and I am sure it does.  But there is something nice knowing that you are cooking the exact perfect temperature and all that remains is to sear off the product once it is cooked.

sealed and ready for a warm bath
But for me being a new toy kind of guy I ventured up to Khol's and wanted a home sealer.  I ended up spending a little more than I wanted but this one seals not only bags that you can cut to size, but pre-sized bags, wet-zip locking vacuum bags as well as sealing vacuum containers.  I am going to just seal so much stuff...  On a side note the Kohl's up the street from us is a two story monstrosity, it is truly unnecessarily  large, but they had what I wanted so bonus. 


The sealer is super easy to use...cut the bag to 4 inches more that you need.  Poke the "sealer" button and insert the bag.  Once the red light goes off the bottom of the bag is sealed.  now insert your food and without poking a button insert the open end.  This begins the vacuum process. Once the pump is done wait again for the light to turn off and there you have it. an airtight sealed bag ready for cooking. 


after searing off on the grill
This model is a wet/dry sealer, which is part of the reason it cost a little more.  It has a nice wet catch tray on the bottom of the sealer and won't suck until all the liquid is out, which again is a bonus.  We went for a per-marinated soy ginger steak from whole foods.  Both were really nice looking cuts. As they usually are there.


 Once you are happy that your meat has reached the desired temperature, if you so choose, you can sear it off to give is a little better color and make it presentable.  I used my grill, but you can certainly pan sear it if you so choose.  Other than making it look nice, and giving it a little bit a bark, this last step is certainly not required.  But I think the results speak for themselves!  I guess if you have any questions, or requests on items to try leave them in the comments below.
Can't ask for much better than that!

11 comments:

  1. I know nothing about SV cooking, but I know about vacuum sealing food. I know it's the best! One of the best kitchen accessory items we've purchased. We have more than paid for the cost of the machine by reducing food loss. If I had known how much we'd like it, we probably would have spent the extra $$ to get the one that seals containers. Let me know if you end up liking that feature. -Cas

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    1. how about this, you can play with it when you are down in a month and make the decision for yourself if an upgrade is in your future.

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  2. How does seasoning the meat work? Do you put it in the cooking bag with the meat, or do you marinate, then put it in the cooking bag?
    -Dani

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    1. there is no wrong way. if you want a wet vacuum seal though you do need a better pump and sealing option, I believe they are called chamber sealers. Mine will do "wet" but I don't think I would try to seal lets say soup in a bag or something like that. the only thing that I have come to learn is that if you add butter with your dry spices and thing it will make it better it actually tends to pull the flavor into the butter and not the meat(which would could easily reduce into a sacue). What I am finding is "load it up and see what happens", one thing is for sure .. your meat will be cooked perfectly. you like that non-answer answer?

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  3. Very interesting...but for now, we don't really have the space for any more gadgets but that does look good.
    For steaks, I have been doing the reverse sear (cook in a low oven, rest, then sear outside) for a while and it makes a really tasty steak that is pretty darn simple. I would recommend it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZ4xl7XJM08). I also like that I can serve the steak piping hot.

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    1. The one nice thing on Space is that it really will fit in about any cabinet or drawer unlike the counter top cookers, which eat up a tremendous amount of real estate... It is really amazing the number of different techniques there are for food preparation...

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  4. I though the purpose of searing beef was to "lock" the juices in. With that in mind, shouldn't you sear the cut first and then bag it for the SV cooking process?

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    1. I agree with what Mike says below... Also, there is nothing that says you can't sear first, some people say to that you might impart more flavor in the SV process, but the more I read on the subject is that you really can't tell a difference and the sear at the end makes it look nice, and better texture on the bite. "Conclusion: Don't bother with the pre-sear—you develop plenty of flavor with just the single, post-water bath sear."
      http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/03/how-to-sous-vide-steak.html

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  5. More and more, I am seeing chefs say that "searing to lock in the juices" was passed down for years from all the old time chefs; however, science and experimentation now say that this isn't the case...especially if you cook it low and slow. You will still want to sear if cooking at higher temps (from what I understand) because that will make the juices flow out.

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  6. How was the tooth?

    I'm trying to picture vacuum sealing a soup...try it...go on...

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    1. Murph I would either have to hold my sealer vertical with someone holding the bag, or get a chamber sealer that seals vertically already with a piston so you can control how much to suck before sealing the bag. The chamber sealer are hella expensive compared to what I got at Kohl's, and probably not appropriate for my home use. Now if I ever became a kept man and cooked every day, that is a different story :)

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I welcome your thoughts and feedback!