sometimewoodworker
Established Member
Don’t you consider cooking as work?
The kitchen is the workshop of the cooks, so how doesn’t it fit?
Sous Vide Recipes. What are your best/favourite/proven uses? All suggestions welcome.
- Thread starter Bm101
- Start date
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The kitchen is the workshop of the cooks, so how doesn’t it fit?
and the buffalo is pretty dire
guineafowl21
Established Member
Yes, perhaps a bad choice of words on my part, if you equate ‘properly cooked’ with ‘microbially safe’. But a blue steak, which is raw in the middle, is properly cooked to some,
Meat turns brown long after it’s cooked to a safe temperature, and I think it’s that colour change that well-done enthusiasts are looking for.
I had to Google that but could be an interesting addition to the fire pit I am converting the old.bbq into.
stuartpaul
Established Member
Thanks Chris, I am an exceedingly unadventurous eater well set in my ways and pretty much incapable (unwilling?!) of change. My wife will cheerfully testify to this. She still laughs out loud at the memory of watching me eat street food in Vietnam.No criticism here Stuart. Eat your meat how you want of course. Eat at my house and I will cook your steak as you want it. Even if it makes me inwardly shudder.
And if you want to add coca-cola to an Islay single malt that's up to you too. (Just don't ask for one at my house. I do draw the line at that sort of malarky).
We are all different thankfully.
I'm not sure what criticism you have encountered of course, but maybe it's just people being enthusiastic about sharing their love of the benefits of eating a more tender and flavoursome (really trying not seem critical here!) version of what you like with the misguided view that you can't make up your own mind about what you quite rightly enjoy. Bit like ex-smokers trying to help out smokers by trying to convince them they can quit too. It's well meant but unwelcome advice.
I promise, never to try to convince you, in this thread on sous vide cookery, to cook your meat other than how you want to... *fingerguns*
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I just get a little peed off when people tell me how I should eat my food when I know how I like my food. And I really don't care if it will supposedly taste better if cooked differently. I have left restaurants when chefs have refused to cook meat how I want it.
That's in no way a dig against anybody who chooses to eat their food how they like it.
I agree with you entirely about coke and single islay, - surely it has to be fanta?!
I remember years ago a chap known to be rather full of his own importance came into the bar with a young lady and ordered two double Hennessy X.O.s ............. with two bottles of Canada Dry. I remember the barmaid laughing at him.
First class Cognacs, Armagnacs and malt whiskies with lemonade, ginger or coke with loads of ice are common drinks of choice amongst the Chinese.
First class Cognacs, Armagnacs and malt whiskies with lemonade, ginger or coke with loads of ice are common drinks of choice amongst the Chinese.
Droogs
Not the Sharpest Moderator in the box
For the ultimate roast beef try the following:
Place your joint in the bag along with 1/2 cup of stewed earl grey tea with 1 x teaspoon of mixed steak seasoning, 1/8 tspn garlic powder, 1/2 tspn white pepper.
cook as per machine instructions for meat weight
when ready take out and sear outside 3 minutes per side
leave 5 mins to rest slice and serve
Place your joint in the bag along with 1/2 cup of stewed earl grey tea with 1 x teaspoon of mixed steak seasoning, 1/8 tspn garlic powder, 1/2 tspn white pepper.
cook as per machine instructions for meat weight
when ready take out and sear outside 3 minutes per side
leave 5 mins to rest slice and serve
sometimewoodworker
Established Member
You will get a better sear if you drop the sealed sous vide bags into an iced water bath for a short time after cooking, this allows you to get a better sear in a shorter time (3 minutes per side is rather long) while not changing the core significantly.
This method or allowing the bags sealed in the fridge where they will keep for quite a long time, then searing from cold allowing the sear to heat the meat, is another variation. This is good for chicken breasts and thinner cuts.
Terry - Somerset
Established Member
A I understand it, from a food safety perspective:
When travelling, if locals are eating and apparently enjoying a particular food, I will give it a go, however unappetising it may seem to my Brit born and bred sensitivities!
- bacteria start to get killed off at ~75C and at 100C are dead
- chicken, turkey, pork etc needs cooking so the juices run clear - not pink
- bacteria inhabit only the surface of beef. Rare steaks are fine so long as the outside is fully cooked (seared)
- burgers etc need to be cooked fully as the process of mincing means any bacteria on the outside of the meat will be dispersed.
When travelling, if locals are eating and apparently enjoying a particular food, I will give it a go, however unappetising it may seem to my Brit born and bred sensitivities!
sometimewoodworker
Established Member
I agree on the colour change being an indicator to many. SWMBO will not touch the pork I cook because it’s still pink.
and properly cooked is usually a bit more that pasteurised, as the ‘microbially safe’ temperature for pork and almost all meat is minimum 55C but that would be not nearly enough for me.
Before the exact temperature of sous vide colour was available the only reasonably safe indicator was colour so I can understand her thoughts on this.
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sometimewoodworker
Established Member
You have the temperatures too high, they are in my post above.
The temp. at which pork ceases to be pink is higher than than the temp. at which it is actually cooked. It can be pink and cooked properly.
Steaks and mince are fine undercooked or raw so long as they are from the inside of a joint and not the outer, which can be contaminated especially if hung for a long time. Steak Tartare, anyone?
The main reason historically for insisting pork was (over)cooked was nothing bacterial, it was the risk of parasitic infection, which basically is long gone. As a matter of interest, Sir Hugh Pennington said years ago after a major outbreak of food poisoning (a butcher's in Scotland, iirc) caused by burgers that there had never been a major outbreak caused by lack of hand washing, they were without exception causes by bad storage.
I remember about twenty years ago an outbreak of salmonella - they looked into meat and seafoods then found it was caused by Spanish farmers in a drought watering their salad crops with raw sewage. This is a reason why there's little use of salad crops in Chinese cookery - the historic use of "night soil" to fertilise crops.
Steaks and mince are fine undercooked or raw so long as they are from the inside of a joint and not the outer, which can be contaminated especially if hung for a long time. Steak Tartare, anyone?
The main reason historically for insisting pork was (over)cooked was nothing bacterial, it was the risk of parasitic infection, which basically is long gone. As a matter of interest, Sir Hugh Pennington said years ago after a major outbreak of food poisoning (a butcher's in Scotland, iirc) caused by burgers that there had never been a major outbreak caused by lack of hand washing, they were without exception causes by bad storage.
I remember about twenty years ago an outbreak of salmonella - they looked into meat and seafoods then found it was caused by Spanish farmers in a drought watering their salad crops with raw sewage. This is a reason why there's little use of salad crops in Chinese cookery - the historic use of "night soil" to fertilise crops.
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It's a mistake to go by temperature alone. The temperature at which food is "safe" is the temp at which the bacteria are killed instantly. But long exposure to lower temperatures will also kill bacteria. That is the fundamental principle of Sous vide, you are pasteurising the meat by cooking for a long time at a low temperature which both kills bacteria but also maintains the texture.
I cook my chicken at well below 75C when I am sous viding, but it is held at pasteurisation temps for long enough to make it safe even though the juices are still very much pink.
I cook my chicken at well below 75C when I am sous viding, but it is held at pasteurisation temps for long enough to make it safe even though the juices are still very much pink.
Yes and no, see my above post for why you are not quite correct, at least when referring to Sous vide.
AJB Temple
Finely figured
For my sins, briefly I used to be CEO of a logistics company that delivered food for airlines, mainly in America. The business had kitchens that produced all sorts of stuff from sandwiches to so called in-flight fine dining. I remember getting lectured by a hygiene guy (as a major outbreak of food poisoning in a plane is a big deal). It was years ago but his pet list as I recall went far beyond bacteria on the surface of food. He has this detector thing and I was present for a check on a customer's development kitchen. His hit list (leaving aside cooking temperature) was bacterial transference caused by:
It made me a bit obsessive in my own kitchen actually, having seen the spread of bacteria with my own eyes under his infra red detector or whatever it was.
- Hands not washed well enough or at all
- Dirty clothes
- Dirty knives, boards and work surfaces
- Poor fridge hygiene and absence of separation (eg cooked v fresh or meat v veg)
- Dirty wipe down cloths
- Insufficient use of antibacterial sprays in kitchen generally
- Washing up in the sink is a waste of time - use a HOT dishwasher
- Poor food storage and separation
- Leaving cooked food out too long
- Dirty plates, flatware and cutlery
- Not getting food from suppliers with top notch hygiene standards
- Bugs in the ventilation systems (blowing buggy air everywhere)
- And finally....again, hands boards and knives not washed well enough.
Indeed. The filthiest things in many households are dishcloths, teatowels and face flannels.
If I spend too long in my workshop without eating, I start to feel feint.
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