Thread: Sous Vide Cooking

So a little help here gentlemen,,

My loverly bride came home the other day going on about these new Starbucks Sous Vide Egg Bites
Now being the smart gal she is, she knows I will NOT give Starbucks any money (Anti-Gun stance) so she says,

"Honey can you make these for me at home"

So after doing a bit of searching on the internet I find that a Immersion Cooker is needed,, So HELP !!!

Without breaking the bank have you guys used any of these that work well or more importantly any that are really bad ???

Seems pretty straight forward recipes once I have the Immersion Cooker plus I am seeing some other recipes that look interesting

Any guidance is welcome and appreciated....

If you would like to just dip your toe in. You can aproximate the result with an induction hotplate and some heavy duty plastic wrap.

Set the hotplate to 172°f or lower. Add a half inch of water. Then just poach the egg mix till set. In ether well greased poaching tray or baggies made from plastic wrap.

Lay a large square of heavy duty food grade plastic wrap over a small bowl. Fill the plastic wrap with the egg mix. Bring up the corners to make a sack. Gently grasp the sack above the mix twisting the top to seal the sack. Set aside and repeat until you have enough for a batch. Then poach till set.

Most of the cheap induction hotplates come with a compatable skilet, but castiron will do well also. Be cautious about the exact temp setting and increments. The usual ten increments over a large temp range makes for wide steps. So precise control may not be cheap.

If you would rather go the route of building one with a pid controller and other hardware there are many good guides.

Jonathan

Sent from my LGL44VL using Tapatalk

Glen,

Just to get you started... (I'm no fan of Sous Vide), search for "anova precision cooker" on Amazon. I'm not recommending it, nor any of the other brands that are available. However, it simply hangs on the edge of any container (bucket, stock pot etc.) and both heats and circulates the water at the temperature you have set. You will still have to package the food in some sort of waterproof container. Things like steaks are typically placed in a vacuum packed bag, or perhaps a zip lock bag (again, I don't do sous vide, don't like the idea, not interested in it even... but I have seen and read a little about it). The item I mentioned above will have some sort of maximum volume of water it can heat... so read all the specs before buying one.

If I just HAD TO cook something sous vide, I'd do it in a pot on the stove with an accurate thermometer hanging on the edge of the pot and slowly stir it to make sure the water is at an even temperature from top to bottom. Just letting it heat from the bottom will cause the temp to vary throughout the bath, which is why Sous Vide cookers circulate the water with a pump.

As for Charbucks.... over roasted coffee beans and ludicrous prices, not to mention all the crap they put in their so called espresso drinks, I've not set foot in their outlets since my first cup of coffee from them years ago.

Regards

Kaptain "Respect the coffee bean!" Zero

I have done this.

Mixed my omelet ingredients, put them in a one gallon zip lock bag, and put the bag in a large pot of boiling water. Was tasty and very easy to do.

What does the "sous vide" do?

Low temp longer cook times. From what I see if you want your meat cooked to 140'f then you put it in 140'f water and wait until it gets there.

I like crust on my food and so this hasn't appealed to me.

Originally Posted by 32t

Low temp longer cook times. From what I see if you want your meat cooked to 140'f then you put it in 140'f water and wait until it gets there.

I like crust on my food and so this hasn't appealed to me.

I watched a video about Sou Vide, and in it they cooked a stake. After they took it out of the pot, they seared it on each side real quick. When they cit it it looked very juicy on the inside.

I told my wife a few weeks a go I am getting one of those this year.

It's a classic method used by some restaurants.... Sous Vide a steak to the required temp, and keep it there until an order comes in.... say medium rare, so the cook just grabs a steak from the Sous Vide that is set to that temperature, cuts open the bag and tosses the steak on a super hot grill and just browns it up on the outside with any seasoning they choose. Bang it on a plate and out it goes, cooked to perfect internal temperature without thinking.

Shamelessly lifted from Wikipedia:

Sous-vide (/suːˈviːd/; French for ‘under vacuum’)[1] is a method of cooking in which food is sealed in a vacuum-sealed plastic pouch then placed in a water bath or in a temperature-controlled steam environment for longer than normal cooking times (usually 1 to 7 hours, up to 48 or more in some select cases) at an accurately regulated temperature much lower than normally used for cooking, typically around 55 to 60 °C (131 to 140 °F) for meat and higher for vegetables. The intent is to cook the item evenly, ensuring that the inside is properly cooked without overcooking the outside, and retain moisture.

So there you go. Not my cup of tea, but sometimes it's the only way to achieve a goal, and sometimes it's done for sheer convenience or even laziness (the latter being my personal opinion).

Regards

Kaptain "Hot water bad, fire good" Zero

Sous-vide no one can hear your food scream.

When you want to first "dip your toe", before going all-in...

I wonder if you could do something like this in a double boiler to get a more controlled temp
https://anovaculinary.com/easy-homem...ide-egg-bites/