A new era in cooking for me...

[Shadowrider]

Yes I season before they go into the bag.

I haven't done it yet because all my meat was already frozen when I bought my Anova but you can season, vacuum pack and then freeze it. Then go straight from the freezer to the sous vide, just add a little bit of time. Pretty convenient for busy working folks.

 

[tRidiot]

I did salt the meat before I put it in the bag. However, it only sat overnight before cooking. I will say that the sous vide does somewhat dilute some of your seasoning and flavoring. This is due to the juice sort of steaming or basting the meat, and then you're discarding the juice, unless you use it to make a base for some kind of gravy or something. This is why I didn't put butter in like I had originally planned. After doing more research, I read opinions to this effect, which does make sense to me. The steaks were unbelievably tender and perfectly evenly cooked, however they didn't have as much of the flavor I would have expected considering I did go fairly heavy on the salt & pepper. Also the rosemary wasn't as powerful a flavor as I expected, which I'm actually happy about, I decided I don't care for rosemary on steak.

Overall, it was a success, but things went to hell in a handbasket and we didn't actually end up eating until like 9:30PM. The igniter on my Traeger went out, so I spent the better part of an hour trying to figure out how to get it lit. I tried several different versions of starter cubes in the fireport, neither of which worked worth a damn.

Pellets can be caught on fire, but it takes a good bit of heat, and as soon as you turn on the blower to get the pellets burning hot, you put out your starter cube. UGH! Eventually I hit on the idea of using a pair of tongs to pull a burning coal out of my charcoal grill and depositing it in the pellet pot, then when I turned on the blower, it made the coal burn even hotter and the pellets finally ignited.

Because of this, I was way WAY behind getting the pig shots on the smoker, and subsequently the steaks. I eventually ended up finishing the pig shots in the oven, along with my "grilled" potatoes which were overcooked and were hell to try to do on the grill. Then, the steaks took a lot longer to get to 115* than I expected, a little over an hour, all told.

Eventually, we got to eat, but it was very late. Most everyone raved over the steaks, but as usual, I am harder on my own cooking than anyone else is, and I can see a few areas to improve.

The corn was interesting... I've never used or eaten tarragon to my knowledge and it was a very different flavor. I couldn't find any fresh tarragon, so I had to buy a bottle of dried, but oh well. The smell right off the bat was kind of anise, almost licorice, I felt like. However, once roasting the corn with the tarragon butter, when we ate it, we all agreed that it was distinctly sweet and almost cinnamon-y, with the combination of flavors on the grilled corn on the cob being strongly reminiscent of the holidays, like Thanksgiving. Almost pumpking pie-ish or something. It was a little disconcerting at first but it did grow on me. I just had some for dinner that The Wife cut off the cob and stuck in my dinner box for work tonight and I enjoyed it. If you've never tried this method, I would recommend it as something to experience, just to see how you like it.

So that's it for now... time to go to Amazon and order a new igniter!

 

[BuckFuller]

I love sous vide (Definition: relating to or denoting a method of cooking food slowly in a vacuum-sealed pouch at a low temperature)

Here is a Tri Tip I did a while back...
Before:

And After:

And some swordfish, little potatoes and green beans...
Before:

And After:

 

[kroberts2131]

Next time you do Pig Shots......cream cheese, your favorite BBQ Rub, and some shredded cheese go perfect in them. I put the ingredients in a bowl, mix it all up, then use a ziploc bag like an iciing thing....cut the corner off, and fill away. Don't be shy with the rub either!

 

[tRidiot]

Next time you do Pig Shots......cream cheese, your favorite BBQ Rub, and some shredded cheese go perfect in them. I put the ingredients in a bowl, mix it all up, then use a ziploc bag like an iciing thing....cut the corner off, and fill away. Don't be shy with the rub either!

That was the original recipe I copied from. I've done the cream cheese thing a lot in 'dillo eggs and such and it really kills the heat I was going for, so I decided against it. It would be good, but I went for the sweet on the other ones.

 

[Annie]

I've been following along intently. Found a book on the bargain bin in B&N last week and took a look at it. I swear there is more -- and better info in this thread. Think I might have to give this a try. I'm having a blast with my new convection oven (I know, I know, cheapskates tend to stay behind the curve LOL) but I'm always looking for a new adventures in the kitchen. And other places ... but that would kinda derail this thread ...

 

[tRidiot]

Haha!

Well, I did some more sous vide steaks yesterday, the rest of the batch in the pictures above. They were good, but I just don't care for the rosemary, so I wasn't too happy. My guests liked them, but I really REALLY underdid my wife's steak. I did hers at 143*F, thinking I had done the previous one at 145....turns out looking at my history the previous one was 150*. DOH. I also was a bit rushed for time and hers only got about 80 mins at 143 before I dropped the temp to 132 for the MR steaks.

Turns out this was too low, too short. Hers was pretty MR, really, not even a true medium. So I had to apologize, though I told her to nuke it a bit to bring it up to temp, but she was ok with it, and she ate it.

I'm really thinking about getting a 2nd Joule next time I see them on a decent sale, so's I can more easily handle cooking multiple steaks at different temps without taking all freaking day to do it.

I also didn't chill the steaks in-between this time, as I was a little short on time and my smoker is still down until my new igniter comes in, so I wasn't planning on smoking them up to temp. Thus, they were still at their sous vide temp when they went on the grill. I DID see a tiny zone of brown on the edges under the crust, not pure MR edge to edge, and I am next to 100% certain this is why. It wasn't enough to cause a problem, for sure.

But I'm done with rosemary on steaks, I just did not enjoy it AT ALL. The steaks were good, but I don't care for that flavor with the beef.

I may try some with butter next time, in the bags, just because, even though I expect it will not come out super strong.

Overall, it's an interesting method of cooking I am looking forward to trying some more.

And for those who don't want to drop $150-200 on a sous vide cooker, remember, I did my first batch last summer with just a couple pots on the stove and monitored things with my own thermometer. I got it to stabilize fairly well even on an electric stove that turns the burner off and on. A gas stove would be even easier.

 

[tRidiot]

I also need to start marking the bags for doneness before I put them in the water - something like MW, M, MR on the outside with a grease pen or Sharpie. Sometimes it gets a little tough to tell which is which when trying to pull them out of the bags.

 

[okie362]

Totally with you on the rosemary. I d not like that flavor at all.

I use butter and garlic.

 

[dennishoddy]

Another negative on rosemary. Wife used some on a roasted pork loin. It wasn't good. We threw the left overs away.